FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Hi all,

Which distro would you recommend?

I'm not too bothered about overhead, that's mostly about what eye candy and such you keep running, and this will be a headless server.

But good repo's that update tout-swiet do matter, I'd hate to get stuck on an older version because the distro decides it's not in a hurry...

Anyone run a server on Ubuntu? Ubunto would be ok-ish, because other people around here know that one, and I need sleep occasionally... ;-)

if you have experiens Gentoo and Arch
for newbie manjaro or Sabayon
for server is good red hat or censt os

its smels like holywar :D

You could give Fedora Server a try, if you want recent software but still a relatively robust distribution. (Disclaimer: I've never actually used it, but I've heard good things about it.)

Well, I'm mainly interested in how often they would update, so how long I'd be waiting for the latest server build. :) Last time I looked at Ubuntu, the latest server version was woefully out of date... (Minetest server)

Any common distro, I can harden, no problem. :)

KzoneDD wrote:Well, I'm mainly interested in how often they would update, so how long I'd be waiting for the latest server build. :) Last time I looked at Ubuntu, the latest server version was woefully out of date... (Minetest server)

Any common distro, I can harden, no problem. :)

You probably shouldn't use the packages supplied by your distribution for games (including Minetest), since they're often out of date; I suggest compiling from source or perhaps using a PPA.

You can use this script for compiling Minetest Git on Debian/Ubuntu.

I love Debian.
For Work: Debian Stable
For Private and Gaming: Debian Unstable.

In Unstable is a very actual Minetest from Debian self. And there are Mesecons, Mobf, Moreblocks, Moreores Nether, Pipeworks and WorldEdit as Debianpackages included.

I myself build minetest every week. That works too, without problems.

Wy do I love Debian?

All Software I need is included and supported.
Unstable has very actual Software and its more stable as the name let you think.
Stable has older Software, but is very simple to support to other users and requiring very little maintenance.

Without getting up on a soapbox. I vote for Debian server if going headless. There are a TON of people keeping it stable and secure and it just works. That's all I need.

I don't know if you're going to be on a VPS with a few images as options or not. But a minimal Debian install is all you need to run a Minetest server. Pretty much all the "Server Distros" will give you a full stack of typically needed applications and tools for webservers. You can avoid a bunch of bloat starting with minimal.

Oh this kind of title always opens up the can of worms :-)

I'll put my bias here, I use Ubuntu as server for this kind of thing - specifically because of PPAs and because that gets updated frequently, and I don't have to do the compiling every time.

The use of a PPA allows you to always get the latest version of minetest, whatever the (officially supported) version of Ubuntu you're running, as long as the minetest dev team are interested in publishing to a PPA.

I did put together a script that would do the install [1] ; known to work on Ubuntu 15.10 and 16.04, and will likely work on 16.10 once the PPA for 16.10 is opened up. Depending on how code support on the PPA works (which is more for the devs to answer), you may be best served by tracking the 6-month cycle rather than the Long Term Support cycle...

To use it:



You should there have a working minetest server.

I also have some extensive notes [2] on installing a server, adding mods, and configuring settings etc, and the TL;DR version [3]

Hope something there is of use to you.

[1] https://github.com/taikedz/mt-manage/blob/master/bin/install-minetest
[2] https://github.com/taikedz/mt-manage/tree/master/install_guide/extended_guide.md
[3] https://github.com/taikedz/mt-manage/tree/master/install_guide

Taikedz: wow, good info. Thx. :)

I went with ubuntu 16.04. Easier to pawn off to underli... valued staff ;) later.

Any tips on getting 0.4.14 server running? I've been googling, but info is confusing...

I just made a VM running Ubuntu 16.04 on XenServer 7 so I this is how i installed it.

First I did a clean install of Ubuntu Server 16.04, I just selected ssh server from that installation.

I used this page as my guide: http://dev.minetest.net/Compiling_Minetest

1. sudo su, then enter the password.

2. apt-get install build-essential cmake git libirrlicht-dev libbz2-dev libgettextpo-dev libfreetype6-dev libpng12-dev libjpeg8-dev libxxf86vm-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libsqlite3-dev
libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libopenal-dev libhiredis-dev libcurl3-dev

3. cd ~ I just installed it in my home directory

4. git clone https://github.com/minetest/minetest.git

5. cd minetest

7. cd games/

8. git clone https://github.com/minetest/minetest_game.git

9. cd ..

10. cmake . -DENABLE_GETTEXT=1 -DENABLE_FREETYPE=1 -DENABLE_LEVELDB=1 -DENABLE_REDIS=1 -DBUILD_SERVER=1 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

11. make -j$(grep -c processor /proc/cpuinfo)

Then it's time to make it autostart with systemd
I found this page: viewtopic.php?id=8867 about setting it up

I created a file /lib/systemd/system/minetestserver.service

With this content
[Unit]
Description=Minetest server
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=sten
ExecStart=/home/sten/minetest/bin/minetestserver

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Yes, sten is the user name I used on the ubuntu server.
The enable the service: systemctl enable minetestserver.service

Reboot and it should be running...

I have not yet learned how to configure worlds etc. But it's playable as it is.

Best regards
Sten Arild Hvidsten

WOW! You/this forum is helpful as f...!!! Trying now, thanks!!!

You can post back on any problems.

On the Best linux... I enjoy using debian, ubuntu and fedora... Debian and Ubuntu for VM's running a lot of different stuff. Fedora for having fun..

Well, I followed the steps, there's 'minetest' and 'minetestserver'in bin/ but I get is currently not installed...

If you are in /bin
Then do ./minetestserver
What is the output?

Seems to me "make install" is missing from the instructions after make -j$(grep -c processor /proc/cpuinfo)
It's not a "run in place" setup.

make install did pleasing things... thax. Right now I'm starting with a fresh install of ubuntu. Seems like a good idea after all the screwing around I did. Keep you posted. :)

Funny, I don't think I did a make install. Just a make as in step #11. I shall do it once more in a fresh VM

But if you got a minetest & mineserver in /bin it's build. Just test it with "file mintestserver" and you will see that's it binary file

emmm


next make a server config in ~/.minetest
add same mod if you want, you shoud use wihte ip adress
min 1gb ram for 10 player
and. . . start

Gentoo, Arch is best and simple 4ever

And... let the war begin :D

:)) ,i like the both actualy and debian and ubuntu and arch all and distro while windows try update all forcibly on ten


StenArildHvidsten

why do you do init daemon by hand? it paced whith instalation arent it?

Let's all agree Windows is malware, and keep it at that. ;-)

OP, Arch Linux is very nice, but you have to keep the system up to date regularly. Some people install Arch and do not update for months, then run into difficulties when they finally run pacman -Syu. So better update at least once every week.

I suppose on a server it would also make sense to use the linux-lts kernel so you don't have to reboot so frequently.

ARCHLINUX wrote:StenArildHvidsten

why do you do init daemon by hand? it paced whith instalation arent it?

No, I don't think so. After I built it on Ubuntu it did not start as a daemon. I had to log in and go to /bin and do a ./minetestserver to launch it.

So I just made it start with systemd.

Well... I have it running. AND the mods are working... Thanks, all!

HI KzoneDD

Dunno if you tried my script and ended up with something not working - if you did I'd be more than happy to take requests/bug-reports as this is exactly the kind of use case I am trying to make easy as heck for anyone in the future :-)

Nope, worked like a charm, but it needed the make install :)

Now, I'm only pretty confused by all the minetest.confs ... not sure which one(s) are read... :-P

If the compiled minetest is like the packaged one, the real conf is in

/etc/minetest/minetest.conf

What does the compiled one have? Are you trying to run bleeding edge? :)

No such folder. As far as I can see I have ~/.minetest/ and /home/username/minetest/

Should it be the latter?

Now, feel free to call me stupid (I have) but I never noticced there was a settings menu in the gui. Fired that one up, tested which file received the changes, and it's the one in ~/.minetest/