[Feature] Ubuntu (or Linux) version

[kaseki]

Thanks for the compliment. I suggest though that almost all the cleverness involved (exclusive of all the cleverness in Marine Aquarium itself) should be attributed to the persons who spent a good part of their lives developing Linux, Ubuntu, Mint, Wine, and CrossOver to their present maturities, along with those who developed the many software products to use with them.

Lest this exercise be deemed confirmation of jleslie's view of Linux' unsuitability for general use presented earlier in this topic, my effort was to make a software program do something it wasn't intended to do. For most common personal computer tasks, Ubuntu and Mint are perfectly suitable operating systems, and require less installation time, less daily "maintenance" time, and particularly less malware countermeasure time than I had to expend when I used Windows.

But enough OS religious rant and back to the result. Once I obtained the new keycode, I turned on more fishes and showed my wife what the product looked like. She was amazed and became an instant fan in spite of hating computers.

Now to wait for an affordable 1000-gal tank proportioned high-resolution OLED monitor to allow a light weight, no spill, no work marine aquarium.

Thank you Jim for this magnificent art.

kas

[kaseki]

Having obtained for spousal entertainment a 55-inch LG OLED TV, I had to build a home theater personal computer (HTPC) to source Marine Aquarium video. TV selection, part selection, part availability, and assembly has taken a lot of time since my last input here, but the result (still in stress testing and without any overclocking) is operating and demonstrating Marine Aquarium as I write this on a nearby PC. Fish count is maximum, frame rate is 60 Hz, IPS Monitor resolution is 1920 x 1200. Video card is only slightly warm.

Salient particulars are:
Linux Mint 18.1 64-bit MATE
Kernel 4.10.0-20
nVidia driver 381.09

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X
Asus Crosshair VI Hero motherboard
Asus ROG Strix OC GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
(for more detail, see my build on www.overclock.net forums)

Additional time will pass before this build is considered ready to drive the TV, but results so far are promising.

[kaseki]

With HTPC connected to the 4k TV and some experimentation to get the TV into functioning PC mode, I observed that the result of running MA was a black screen. Today I got around to reinstalling MA, this time without enabling screensaver mode.* The menu appeared, no fish. I forgot about the process, described at Codeweavers Crossover forum, and I think above, of adding the /s to the launcher command.

With that fixed, windowed and full screen fishies are abundantly doing their thing. Overkill (for running MA) GPU isn't even running its fans. 30 fishes are in use, along with bubbles, panning, etc.

Again, thank you Jim for this safely dry but otherwise exquisite display.

------
* With the 2k monitor I used when building the HTPC, the screensaver box was checked during installation. This had two effects. In windowed mode, the window couldn't be moved. In full screen mode, MA seemed to hold off the actual Mint screen saver, though without providing any of the login capability. It also after a few hours killed the upper and lower trays (perhaps in concert with the Mint screensaver trying to run), so more sophisticated means of restarting were sometimes required.

[Jim Sachs]

Glad to hear you got it working.

[kaseki]

I guess it is worth noting that close up at 4K resolution, one can see some pixelation in certain elements of the scene. (We may have discussed this in some other thread.) The elkhorn coral is one example. Certain fishes seem to be more finely rendered than the coral. The scorpion fish needs some teeth when it opens its rather cavernous mouth facing the viewer (or do they gum their prey?).

The difference in size between a fish near the front glass and the same fish behind the plane of the coral is appropriate for a close observer with a smaller monitor (aquarium). When the screen diagonal is 55 inches and is observed from 8 feet away, the perspective is like viewing a portrait taken with a wide angle lens from up close.

Page 11 of your Readme.txt alludes to an an eyepoint that has a default value, but no method of changing it is obvious. Is it in some .ini file or registry entry that I can find in my pseudo C drive? I'm guessing that if the -20 were changed to a larger negative number, the difference in front-to-back fish scaling (unavoidable pun, sorry) would be reduced.

If this parameter is accessible, perhaps it would help if you clarified the inherent coordinate frame.

Thanks

kas

[Jim Sachs]

The eye point cannot be changed, because it would make visible a lot of behind-the-scenes ugliness in the background. The 3D objects are just 'Hollywood sets' which only look realistic from a very limited angle.

Lionfish have no teeth

[kaseki]

Thanks for the clarification. I guess I can live with the perspective.

[Mondane]

Latest version, 18912.3.3.6341 works properly on Ubuntu 18.04 with Wine 4.0 except for sounds.

How to start:

wine ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/MarineAquarium3.scr /s

There's also an entry in the AppDb: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManag...ation&iId=4892

[kaseki]

I may have addressed this here earlier in this thread, and at the Crossover Linux write-up on Marine Aquarium 3.3. Assuming that Wine operates similarly to Crossover Linux which is derived from Wine, then the container needs to include DirectMusic, which will likely require DirectX. I don't know how to include it in Wine, but Crossover makes it easy.

Marine Aquarium operates for me in various Mint MATE 64-bit builds, including 17.3 and 18.3.

[strombrg]

I'm another Linux user who is willing to pay for good software.

FWIW, the Humble Indie Bundle folks found a lot of pent up demand for for-profit video games on Linux; I imagine it'd be similar for really nice screensavers.

I have a license (somewhere) for Serene Screen for Mac - but I don't use a Mac anymore. I pretty much only use Windows when coerced.

Please?

[kaseki]

I haven't had a reason to investigate this myself, but I think Crossover for Linux has a Mac to Linux mode similar to its Win to Linux mode. If so, then you may be able to experimentally verify if your Mac version of Serene Screen will play on Linux.

[IanD]

Another successful user of MA 3 on Linux Mint 18.3 with Wine here.


As mentioned before, sound requires DirectMusic to operate and I achieved this by using Winetricks to install the required library files.


I no longer run a Windows machine, so it was great to be able to get this amazing application to run under Linux.


In the thread about Linux, it is mentioned that there is no interest in creating a version of MA for Linux because of the perceived lack of interest in Linux users paying for software. However there is another post mentioning that Roku have ported MA to their 4K devices, which are basicly Linux machines, so obviously work has been done in porting to Linux. Perhaps what was meant was that MA has been ported to Linux running on ARM and similar CPU (as has been done with Android which is also an ARM based Linux-like system AFAIK) but has not been ported to i386 based CPU running Linux.


Maybe someone can clarify the actual situation.


I have been hoping I can get MA 3 running on a tiny computer as a fixed function virtual marine aquarium on a large screen TV, such as one of the cheap ARM computer sticks, but it's a work in progress. The Windows compute sticks would likely work better for this application, but they are still quite expensive.


Without checking through all the posts on the Forum, I get the impression that the music that was included in earlier versions of MA Windows is either no longer supported or else not supported in non-Windows operating systems. I would appreciate if someone could clarify the situation with the background music as well.

[Jim Sachs]

I'm impressed by your perseverance in getting it to work on Linux. Sales of all versions are nil, so there's no way a special Linux version would be created. My only income is from the licensing deal with Roku. I provided them with the Android code, which was done by a Japanese developer from the Mac code, which was done by Jim O'Connor from my DirectX code. So with so many generations losing a little refinement each time, the final result is simply not as good as the Windows version.

I wrote and embedded the music in the Windows version, using Direct Music, as you say. I don't think the music routines ever made it to the translations.

[IanD]

Originally posted by Jim Sachs:

I'm impressed by your perseverance in getting it to work on Linux.  

MA is such a remarkable and beautiful artwork, I was compelled to find a way to display it, once I no longer had Windows machines. However I followed the work of others on this forum and elsewhere to get MA operational under Linux but did not develop anything myself.

Sales of all versions are nil, so there's no way a special Linux version would be created.

That's so sad you are no longer able to receive income from your original creation. Do you think transitioning to a donation format might be useful? If I hadn't already purchased your Windows version, I would have donated as I found your creation so amazing and I am sure there would be many others. Would crowd-funding of a special Linux version be a possibility? Do your techniques lend themselves to the creation of other dynamic artworks? It would be a shame for the principle to end with MA, especially in an era of pandemic awareness, where greater isolation at home begs for solutions to bring the world and forms of entertainment to the home in a virtual sense. Maybe something like flowers blooming in a garden over time but changing dynamically. I have dabbled with creating a video of a pan of a static photo with some background sound, to give it a bit of life and make it more interesting as I doubt I will ever see the object of that photo in real life, however that was an extremely basic thing and not dynamic and ever evolving like MA.

I wrote and embedded the music in the Windows version, using Direct Music, as you say. I don't think the music routines ever made it to the translations.

Thanks for that clarification: I have not seen any mention of background music in the Android version of MA, only the bubble column sound.

[Jim Sachs]

The original plan was to have 5 SereneScreen programs: The saltwater tank, a freshwater tank, a butterfly habitat, a terrarium, and an aviary. Because the saltwater tank did so incredibly well for the first 5 years, I used the money to start building my castle and never got around to creating the other programs. Then the recession of 2008 wiped out sales, so I had to fire the crew that was working on my house and work on it alone for the past 12 years. Now I'm too old to start programming again, so I'm trying to start my real career -- making movies.

[IanD]

It would be great to see all 5 SereneScreen programs come to fruition.

Can you think of a way this could happen: perhaps by handing over to enthusiasts to develop further and maybe selling all 5 apps already installed on a cheap ARM stick, like the Tronsmart, with a simple remote for navigation and free updates provided as additional files, added via the micro-sd slot (with all the other Tronsmart capabilities available if required) and all for display on a large screen TV?

Good luck with the new career in any case.

[Jim Sachs]

I'm not sure what you mean by "handing it over" to someone. Any software developers are free to create any programs they want.

[IanD]

Originally posted by Jim Sachs:

I'm not sure what you mean by "handing it over" to someone. Any software developers are free to create any programs they want.  

You have done all the groundwork in creating the concept, structure and program architecture: any software developer would have to re-invent the wheel, as it were, if you are unable to hand over documentation of the app.

I think this issue belongs in the Source Code thread.

As a matter of interest, MA Android runs well on a cheap Tronsmart MK808B+ compute stick at 1920x1080p60, so you don't need a full-blown PC to display the aquarium on a large screen TV. It isn't quite as good as the Windows version but it's close enough to enjoy.

[Dbophxlip2017]

Originally posted by ukstevef:

I believe that people will pay the price for the quality screensaver that this is.

I can run the aquarium on my linux ubuntu 14.04 desktop under WINE flawlessly.
If there was a linux version I would happily pay for additional license key.  

did this work out of box, or did you have to tweak anything? I get sound but just a black screen.

[Dbophxlip2017]

Originally posted by kaseki:

Found a solution to the issue of the missing bubble sound and guitar music. The solution was to install DirectMusic into the same bottle using CrossOver's installer. This process also seems to install DirectX9.

Now to send money.  

I can get it to work under WINE w/dsound, directmusic on one monitor only, but it does not play with multi monitors well and stutters, but has sound, PlayonLinux works flawlessly with dsound, directmusic installed and on multi monitors but has no sound. With playonlinux i can use the max 30 fish...which surprising because on Windows 10 i can do 20 at most before it starts stuttering.