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Installing Second Life Takes Seconds In Linux

What a refreshing concept. Installing a software package from a third-party developer who doesn’t have anything sitting in a repository or pre-made installable package makes it stupid easy to install. Download from here: http://secondlife.com/community/linux-alpha.php After that file is downloaded, open up the tar.bz2 file by double clicking on it. Press the Extract button, then Extract […]

What a refreshing concept. Installing a software package from a third-party developer who doesn’t have anything sitting in a repository or pre-made installable package makes it stupid easy to install.

Download from here: http://secondlife.com/community/linux-alpha.php

After that file is downloaded, open up the tar.bz2 file by double clicking on it.

tar_file.jpg
Press the Extract button, then Extract (again) down at the bottom of the window that pops up.

archive_opened.jpg

When it’s done, you should have a folder where the original file was downloaded.

extracted_folder.jpg
Open up that folder and double click on the secondlife icon:

second_life_icon.jpg

Then click run.

run_it.jpg

The game opens up, and everything here would be fairly intuitive for an experienced Windows user who is using Linux, since it’s so close to what would happen when installing a program from a zip file on Windows.

Color me impressed! What does NOT impress me is the fact that it takes just as many steps to get an ICON in the Gnome deskbar. Watch.

Drag and drop the secondlife icon to the deskbar.

drag_n_drop_icon.jpg

Type in the name of the app.

type_in_second_life.jpg

Click the spring, which is not very intuitive!

spring.jpg

Click Browse.

click_browse.jpg

Find the folder you were just working in, and press Open on that folder that may or may not be what you are looking for, since you can’t really see anything in the dialog box.

browse_for_extracted_folder.jpg

Now we get to select the icon:

select_the_icon.jpg

Press OK, and everything should look like this:

everything_should_look_like_this.jpg

Press OK again, and check to make sure you have an icon:

got_an_icon_yay.jpg

Yay, we have an icon!

Can anyone tell me why this is so difficult, and why there can’t be some usability improvements made into creating an icon? If an alpha version of a video game “installs” easier than actually creating an icon for it, there is something VERY WRONG with the way Gnome does things like this.

/Rant off

15 replies on “Installing Second Life Takes Seconds In Linux”

Is it really the way GIMP does stuff? Shouldn’t it be on the installer to do this? It would be a quick check to see if it’s running GIMP or KDE, and then install the icon. Plenty of programs do it just fine. For example, nomachine. Not only is the install easy, it already has the icon when you’re done. It’s an oversight of the programmer, if you ask me. I tried second life, and thought it was lame anyway.

Hi. Thanks for your article. I have just a problem in SL in Ubuntu 7.10. I couldn’t use my microphone and talk to others in SL ,but I test my mic and it works in ubuntu. Do you have any idea?? I had the same problem with SL in Ubuntu 7.04.
Please if you have any clue let me know.
Thanks
“I use ubuntu 7.10 on Dell Inspiron 6000”

UI did everything your guide says, running ubuntu 7.10 and all, but When I open the program, it opens to the log on screen, and then promptly crashes and go to the log-on screen of ubuntu. I don’t know whats going on at all. help!

I’m having the same problem as Amin. My headset works perfectly in everything BUT Second Life. SL just can’t seem to find it in the devices, and there aren’t any helpful articles to fix this. I’ve been googling like crazy.

Hey, just switched from windows to Ubuntu 7.10, and well, when it comes to running the SL app after unpacking it, Ubuntu does nothing… window pops-up, I click run, window goes away… and NOTHING! can anyone help with this issue?

For setting the icon in gnome, you can shorten the time and number of steps by simply dragging the icon to the springboard in the Create Launcher dialog!

I dont have this second life “exe” i know there is no exes in linux ๐Ÿ˜€ … but i dont have it what i have to put on deskbar

I can not do the drag & drop … I didn’t find the diamond SL icon, only paper icon, but when I click it, there’s “run” come up. I click it and log in into SL ๐Ÿ™‚
Still can not do the drag drop…so the SL icon hasn’t been created.

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