AppImage general questions and error

[dhudach]

Great, thanks again.

[dhudach]

What is the ETA for 3.9 AppImage on the download page? I've downloaded the 3.9 data files. I don't know the turnaround time for the creation of a new AppImage file so if I'm rushing the question, apologies in advance.

Thanks,
Dave

[wkitty42]

the commit went in yesterday... it should be ready already unless there's been some defect that stopped production... it is all done automatically by Jenkins jobs and updates to the repos trigger new builds...

you might have to get it directly from the SF pages (https://sourceforge.net/projects/flightgear/files/release-2020.3/) instead of a manually updated link on the FG web site... looking at that link, i don't see the 3.9 appimage yet...

from what i can see here, http://build.flightgear.org:8080/job/Linux-nightly/lastBuild/, it should be ready to go... the log here, http://build.flightgear.org:8080/job/Linux-nightly/lastBuild/console, and here, (http://build.flightgear.org:8080/job/Linux-release/lastSuccessfulBuild/console), would seem to confirm the appimage for 2020.3.9 completed successfully... so the question is why hasn't it appeared on the release-2020.3 download page. yet... it does appear to be ready on the Jenkins build system here, http://build.flightgear.org:8080/job/Linux-release/, but i don't know if it is a good idea to pull from there or not... it should be ok but i don't know about traffic usage limits that may be applied...

[dhudach]

Ok, thanks. I'll keep checking. I've been checking the sf release-2020.3/ link because it's where I downloaded the 3.9 data files. On a side note, what is the difference between 3.x-data.txz and 3.x-update-data.txz files. If I've downloaded 3.9-data.txz to be used with 3.9 AppImage, do I need 3.9-update-data.txz? Possibly, this will become obvious when I extract the data, but in general, what's the concept here?

Thanks again,
Dave

[enrogue]

The new build hasn't kicked off yet - seeing as it's a change to fgmeta (the build system) rather than flightgear/simgear/fgdata I'm not sure how the build system handles it.

As I understand it the *update-data.txz files are the difference from the previous version (so 2020.3.9-update-data.txz is the difference between fgdata in 2020.3.8 & 2020.3.9)

As a test you can try my AppImage build of 2020.3.9 (not quite the same as the system built one as I build my own OpenSceneGraph & it's built on devtoolset-8)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/iqwwiu9pu8eq3 ... Image?dl=0

[dhudach]

I'll give your build a try later in the day. I appreciate all of your efforts. And this is another side question, and I'll take the scenic route to get to it In the linux world, installing FG using the existing package management essentially means getting an outdated install. So about two years ago I tinkered with the download_and_compile script. My intention was to get the latest and compile on my machine. I got it to work, but it took a few iterations to resolve some issues. But I got it working. Is there a difference between an AppImage and a D&C compile? I've used appimage in other apps (kdenlive, openscad, inkscape) and it's a really nice way to get app instances without going through linux package management systems or building from source. Basically, if I run FG AppImage, am I getting all I need? I know it's probably a simple question, but I guess I'm wondering if I'm using AppImage, what do I gain by switching over to download and compile (ie, building myself)?

Thanks again,
Dave

[wkitty42]

Basically, if I run FG AppImage, am I getting all I need?

yes...

I know it's probably a simple question, but I guess I'm wondering if I'm using AppImage, what do I gain by switching over to download and compile (ie, building myself)?

what do you gain? one thing is that the binaries are built for your specific system instead of generic builds that will run on multiple systems... other than that, access to the sources for possible modification for your use case(s) may be a benefit if you do any coding...

i use DNC just because it allows me to stay on the bleeding edge without having to rely on anything else other than the repositories being updated... eg: when i see commits posted to the commit-log mailing list, i can immediately run DNC and have that code in operation as long as it compiles cleanly... this allow me to report compile problems really fast when they happen... it also allows me to report on the changes made... sometimes they don't work as desired... sometimes they do... so getting the reports back on the mailing list quickly helps things to move along and provides data points for comparison and analysis in development...

[enrogue]

So there are many ways of getting FlightGear on Linux in order of importance (I think):

1. AppImage - official build, built on Centos 7.8 with devtoolset-9. This has very good compatibility. We try and test on multiple Linux distributions. It doesn't include FGData (yet) but you can get that either by grabbing the data.txz files or cloning the fgdata git repository. FG has usually needed some patches to OpenSceneGraph, and this always includes the patched version of OSG. I chose AppImage over Snap or Flatpak because it was easier to understand & really distribution agnostic from the start.

2. Distribution Packages/builds - this is really multiple options depending on distribution - always built with distribution versions of OSG & other libraries:
- Official distrubtion packages (debian/ubuntu): not very up to date
- PPA (ubuntu): https://launchpad.net/~saiarcot895/+arc ... flightgear - usually up to date with a delay (includes later version of OSG)
- Snap: https://snapcraft.io/install/flightgear/ubuntu - seems up to date but really didn't work very well that last time I tested it
- Flatpak: https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.fl ... FlightGear - currently up to date, but has been very out of date in the past, never tested it.

3. Self build - depends on which distribution you are using
- download_and_compile.sh: designed for Debian/Ubuntu & derivatives, I use this all the time to test.
- Manjaro/Arch have a build script that sometimes works
- Same with Gentoo last I looked
- build_release_linux.sh - what's used to build the official builds, designed for a build environment on Centos 7 with a later gcc installed via devtoolset
- No idea about any others (I use Ubuntu myself)

I haven't tested download_and_compile.sh on Ubuntu 16.04 in a while - I'm not the maintainer. With it you can get your own build & even build a patched version of OSG - it's just time & disk space over using the AppImage really

[dhudach]

Again, thanks for all of the helpful information. I think I want to take advantage of two tracks. The first is where I want to return to my Arduino devices and code. For that, AppImage is the way to go. I can then focus on implementing my external components. At that point, I'm fine chasing around Arduino code and issues. I just want FG running. The other track is where I might like to dabble in canvas or fgpanel. For that, I'm sure dnc or some variation of build it myself is what I'll be doing. So as far as external cockpit implementation, those are the two areas of interest.

Thanks again,
D

[dhudach]

A quick followup. I downloaded AppImage from enrogue's dropbox, installed fgdata and fgdata-update and got it running. I will work with it later, but it appears things will be fine.

I thank you again for all of your assistance.

Dave

[dhudach]

It's been a while and I should probably know this, but some initial assistance here would be helpful. I have AppImage 3.9 installed. I removed my old .fgfs directory. I've downloaded and installed FlightGear-2020.3.9-data.txz and FlightGear-2020.3.9-update-data.txz into a a dedicated folder. I allowed the update file to replace the data files. I started Flight Gear, entered the fgdata directory. After initialization, when I choose 'fly' the Cessna 172 is the default plane with BIKF as the default location. However, when things load, the plane is sitting 'nowhere' as if it's sitting in water. I think I've seen this in other posts, I've looked around but could not locate the post. And I'm seeing the following in the output:

20.93 [WARN]:navaid readStringProperty: unknown:apt.dat files
20.93 [WARN]:navaid NavCache: rebuild required for apt.dat files (no file in cache, but 2 such files found in scenery paths)

Many lines like this:

fgdata/3.9/fgdata/Airports/apt.dat.gz:1223378: skipping invalid 25 kHz Frequency 135690 for YLIL

And these BIKF entries:

29.49 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 02 ILS-cat-I
29.50 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 02 ILS-cat-I
29.50 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 11 ILS-cat-II
29.51 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 11 ILS-cat-II
29.51 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 20 ILS-cat-II
29.52 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 20 ILS-cat-II
29.52 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 29 ILS-cat-I
29.54 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 29 ILS-cat-I
29.95 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 02 GS
29.96 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 02 GS
29.96 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 11 GS
29.98 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 11 GS
29.98 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 20 GS
29.99 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 20 GS
29.99 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 29 GS
30.00 [WARN]:navaid findAirportRunway: unknown airport/runway:BIKF 29 GS

In the fgdata/Scenery directory I can see NavData and SceneryPack.BIKF folders. Under the BIKF directory I can see Airports, Models, Objects, Terrain and the contain the location folders and files.

What am I missing? I'm sure it's something simple ...

Thanks,
Dave

[Patrickt]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the detailed description, I encountered the last two set of error (related to frequency and BIKF) messages too when testing recently. I have been assured and have concluded that the simulator is functional despite those errors.

I also encountered the lack of scenery when loading. My solution was to go to the Settings tab and in the "Downloads" section enable "Download scenery automatically".

I hope this helps!

Clear skies,

Patrick T.

[dhudach]

Thanks Patrick, I'll enable Downloads and report back.

Thanks again,
Dave

[dhudach]

Awesome, I think I'm in business!!!! Oddly I thought of that, but then when I could see the Scenery directories and files, I decided not to.

Thanks again,
Dave

[wkitty42]

What am I missing? I'm sure it's something simple ...

you are not missing anything... that's a defect in the scenery definition...