PilotEdge Forums

I'm getting ready to build a custom PC for flight simming and I would love to put Linux on it instead of Windoze since I'm a Unix geek. I've got a test setup with Ubuntu 14.04 and I've managed to get X-Plane running like a dream. My question is this: what is the current status of Linux support for the PilotEdge plugin? From my limited testing so far, I've found that it doesn't appear after dropping it into the plugins/ directory if I'm running XP in x86_64. I haven't been able to try i386 yet due to the fact that Ubuntu dropped multiarch support several versions ago and I haven't actually managed to trick XP into running in 32-bit yet. Will the upcoming 64-bit Mac version also remedy this, or am I going to be chasing my tail here?

-Drew

This may not be much help but here's my experience with Ubuntu Linux. Tons of problems getting the 64 bit to work while the 32 bit version was straight forward by comparison.

Working Nvidia drivers were painless to find.

Looking online for "other" Lunix plugins such as Saitek or Goflight seemed much better for 32 verses 64 bit.

In the end this was my thought process:
[*]Doing things in Linux does have a steeper curve from the get go. Limited device support makes this harder.
[*]In the end, I wondered how much difference the 64 bit might make on a dedicated Sim PC. Especially since Linux is so small by comparison leaving most of the 32 bit memory space available for the Sim.

After running several test of X-plane on Ubuntu 32 bit I decided to shelf the test. At the time my reasons were:
[*]I'm not a Linux geek. I can do Linux but it comes hard to me.
[*]I still like to fly the Jet Stream 41 on FSX.
[*]I wasn't prepared to dedicate my Sim to X-plane.
[*]I found about a 10% improvement in frame rate over Windows 7 64 bit. To me, this didn't make a compelling case vs what I would be giving up.

I'm doing more in X-plane and I'm beginning to get a handle on the differences between the two Sims. I've been able to get the Saitek yoke, throttle quadrant, and radio stack to work on X-plane so I'm happy for now. Windows is giving an acceptable frame rate.

In all honesty in the future when I'm ready to stick exclusively to X-plane, it may be the push needed to re-tackle the Linux version. At that time I would love to know your experience with the 64 bit verses 32 bit question.

Hope this doesn't hi-jack your thread since I haven't really answered your questions.

Good luck.

Well for me I'm simply ruling out further use of Windoze. It will be 64-bit Linux, or it will be a Mac when the 64-bit plugin is ready next month. I've been using Win as a crutch for the moment to get by while waiting on PilotEdge support for better platforms. With the 64-bit Mac plugin coming soon, I'm definitely saying good bye to Windoze. I would really, really like this to be a Linux build though. That way I can strip it down to just what I need, with the goal of flight sim being the exclusive use of this hardware. Linux just makes the most sense for such a specialized use case. Other platforms are just going to bog me down with junkware like web browsers and word processors and calculators.

64-bit support is really the kicker here though. I'm not willing to compromise on that. With the amount of custom scenery I have, and the detailed planes I like to fly, with the weather I like to fly in, 4GB of RAM will never be enough. If I have to, I'll make it a Hackintosh, just so I can load it up with ungodly amounts of hardware.

I would really love to hear from someone on the PE team about what the current nature of support for Linux is, and what's on the radar for the future. As soon as I get a machine tuned just right, I'd love to post a tutorial or maybe even image the system so that other PE users can benefit as well.

-Drew

We had a 32-build for linux that wasn't formally supported (it was distributed upon request), for use only by people who were very experienced with linux and could work out which libraries to put in place, fix dependencies, etc.

I haven't made a 64-bit build, but I suspect it would not be hard to do.

Ping me after the Jun 10 release and we can revisit this. You are only the 4th person out of thousands of people who have tried the system to ask for a linux build, so as you can see, it's not a platform that makes sense for us to allocate large quantities of development/support to. This is coming from someone who has been using linux since 1992, btw, so you don't have to sell me on the virtues of the platform The majority of our servers are linux-based, too.

I certainly realize I'm in a minority here. I'd offer my help on the dev side of things, but since you've been using it since I was 2 years old, I'm sure my powers pale in comparison. (Not to date you. ) I'll put it on my calendar to ask later next month. In the meantime, I'll see if I can throw together any haxx. Thanks Keith!

-Drew

Count me into that minority missing a 64 bit Linux plugin as well, assuming I'm not already. I prefer Linux over Windows, and I see the same performance increase under it. The only thing I've been missing is ATC. What with Wade and Ben not having time to dedicate to XSBX, I doubt a 64 bit Linux XSBX plugin is coming any time soon.

I'm running E18 under Gentoo, so I'd like to think I'm proficient enough to deal with any dependency issues.If it keeps me from having to go back to Windows, I'd gladly hop on the PE bandwagon. I do dual boot, but I like that performance gain under Linux, and I've got E18 working the way I want it to.

Just built the 32-bit linux version of the plugin, have sent it to one user who was already using the previous release. I'm trying to make it so the TS3 lib doesn't need to be installed in /usr/local/lib (or any other external path).

I've actually updated the main xplane plugin download to include the 32-bit linux plugin, so if anyone wants to try it (you have to know how to check dependencies), give it a whirl.

Here's the output from ldd:

linux-gate.so.1 => (0xb779c000)
libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGL.so.1 (0xb76c2000)
libGLU.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGLU.so.1 (0xb763f000)
libpng12.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 (0xb761b000)
libts3client_linux_x86.so => Resources/plugins/PilotEdge/32/libts3client_linux_x86.so (0xb713f000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0xb7058000)
libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0xb704a000)
libXxf86vm.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXxf86vm.so.1 (0xb7045000)
libXdamage.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXdamage.so.1 (0xb7041000)
libXfixes.so.3 => /usr/lib/libXfixes.so.3 (0xb703c000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libm.so.6 (0xb7017000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0 (0xb6fff000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libdl.so.2 (0xb6ffb000)
libdrm.so.2 => /usr/lib/libdrm.so.2 (0xb6ff1000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0xb6ea1000)
libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 (0xb6dae000)
libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0xb6da3000)
libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0xb6d8e000)
librt.so.1 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/librt.so.1 (0xb6d85000)
libxcb-xlib.so.0 => /usr/lib/libxcb-xlib.so.0 (0xb6d82000)
libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/libxcb.so.1 (0xb6d6a000)
libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0xb6d67000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb779d000)
libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0xb6d62000)

Note the libts3client path. If you run the ldd on the lin.xpl file directly (ie, with current working dir set to the path where the lin.xpl file lives, $XPLANE_ROOT/Resources/plugins/PilotEdge/32) then it's not going to find the library, because the RPATH on the library actually is "Resources/plugins/PilotEdge/32", so if you want to see if it's likely to find the library, then run this from your X-Plane root:

ldd Resources/plugins/PilotEdge/32/lin.xpl

and then see what comes back. The TS3 library should be found as in my example above.

There was a nissing symbol in the last build for linux, should be fixed now. If anyone tried it yesterday and didn't have any luck because of 'PlaneInfo" being missing, give it another shot. I can't test unfortunately, I don't have a linux box with X up and running (long story).

Awesome! It'll be a couple of days before I can test it out. I've got 4 days of 10 hour shifts starting tonight but I'll fit it in when I can. Looking forward to playing with it!

-Drew

there is a case mismatch on the lear60 mapping in the csl files, otherwise I'm told it works well for 32bit.

you need to fix the case problem by hand, either fixing the filename or the name in the config file.

I will fix the build this weekend, about to get on plane to head home, but the current build does work if you fix filename on the lear60