FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

I just got a hold of Minetest and I also have the other and a server running for the other. I have had a Minetest Server up for a few days trying to figure out the setup and mods for it. I am kinda lost in a few things like privs and some of the mods crash the server on startup. I am running it on Xubuntu 64bit 13.04. I have a G5 DL 360 with 12Gb of ram. I am actually liking Minetest more than the other. for one it's not Java and does not have a lot of overhead. Also it's free and I can get anyone that want to play a link and they can play with out putting out $30.00. If any one is interested in giving me some advice and help on learning this I would appreciate it. I am also tired of the other every time they do an update it breaks every plugin that i am using on the server. I want something That works and this appears to be it.

Server information, including a link for the priviliges: http://wiki.minetest.net/Server

Modding problems: https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?id=6450

Welcome to minetest!

It would be nice if you pasted the debug.txt here. The file is located in the "~/.minetest/bin/"

Here is the debug.txt http://pastebin.com/tZ1Qbwmt

I get a few mods that error from the start so they are disabled.

Here is the World.mt file anything that is false fails on start: http://pastebin.com/B6MxV4dy .

Just noticed the missing textures. The textures folder is empty.

As for privs that page does not elaborate enough to give anyone an idea about how they work and how they should be setup.

A brief explanation of how they work/interact would be really helpful. I have the server up and running, but that does not mean it is right or secure.

Mods, 2 things I noticed in your debug.txt:

- Some mods need their dependencies installed to (completely) work. Dependencies are nothing more or less than other mods (which also can need dependencies).
---- streetsmod
---- habitat
---- and more need also to be installed.

- Some mods need to be renamed. Lately, because of the use of Github, most of the time the '-master' part needs to be removed. Look for the right names in the mods topic description or in the init.lua.


Privs:
You mean this link is not giving enough information? :
http://wiki.minetest.net/Privileges
- Could you write down more precisely which privs are not clear or about what part you would like to have more information?

There are also mods that are very useful for administrators of servers. They expand the amount of possible privs. Look for privs* in combination with a checked modding general and mod releases in advanced search on this forum.

You can also look at the servers in the server topic of this forum to get ideas and ask the administrators which mods to install and what settings to use.


Edit: more info and less errors.
P.s. with mods I would advice you to create a test or dummy world and enable the mods one by one, to systematic see what dependencies you need and to solve other errors.
P.s.2 With terrain changing/ore generating mods I advice you after installing them on your test/dummy world to teleport or walk about 1000 nodes (I thought 32 nodes with 2 active chunks standard, but not sure at all) further, otherwise they won't generate.

Thank you Tpywo, you are very helpful in this situation. I noticed the dependancies and tried finding them. Some of them go to 404 errors, or at least did for me. I looked for Habitat. I turned the streets stuff off. I also was wondering to activate a mod do you have to start the gui to add them or does the server on start up add them to world.mt ? I noticed the - in the names causing mod errors so i renamed them. There are a few that still crash like awards, weather, random messages, which crash upon execution. The other crash upon server startup like areas, minetest tweaks, ServerExtended, & no_guests. Do textures need to be in the textures folder or the mod folder in their own textures folder?

freejack wrote:Thank you Tpywo, you are very helpful in this situation. I noticed the dependancies and tried finding them. Some of them go to 404 errors, or at least did for me. I looked for Habitat. I turned the streets stuff off. I also was wondering to activate a mod do you have to start the gui to add them or does the server on start up add them to world.mt ? I noticed the - in the names causing mod errors so i renamed them. There are a few that still crash like awards, weather, random messages, which crash upon execution. The other crash upon server startup like areas, minetest tweaks, ServerExtended, & no_guests. Do textures need to be in the textures folder or the mod folder in their own textures folder?

The mods have their own textures folder. minetest/textures is for texture packs.

Trying to figure out why textures are missing and I think I see why with depends on other mods. I am also noticing that some of these mods require mods that are no longer available due to the site they were on is gone.

I also found out why there are so many iisues with mods in Linux. When you give an absolute path in linux you Can NOT give it in lower case and then Cap the file names.

If you do this we have issues. Ok so some of the mods have started working.......

I think I have figured this out with all this help. I appreciate it and hopefully will be going live as soon as I am sure it is going to run like I expect it too. Again thanks.

freejack wrote:I also found out why there are so many iisues with mods in Linux. When you give an absolute path in linux you Can NOT give it in lower case and then Cap the file names.

Any path is case-sensitive on UNIX-like systems (GNU/Linux, OS X, *BSD...).

Calinou wrote:

freejack wrote:I also found out why there are so many iisues with mods in Linux. When you give an absolute path in linux you Can NOT give it in lower case and then Cap the file names.

Any path is case-sensitive on UNIX-like systems (GNU/Linux, OS X, *BSD...).

I know that I was just pointing tha out to the mod creators.........

I just started getting this error for wheat......

ERROR[ServerThread]: Map::setNode(): Not allowing to place CONTENT_IGNORE while trying to replace "farming:wheat" at (-195,2,40) (block (-13,0,2))

This is getting crazy did a reboot and now my trees have unknown textures. didn't change any mods that deal with any plants or trees.

freejack wrote:This is getting crazy did a reboot and now my trees have unknown textures. didn't change any mods that deal with any plants or trees.

If you didn't disable a mod, the only thing I can think of at this moment is that one of the mods, that uses an ABM, added/set nodes that don't have textures (or something wrong with the naming).

Did the CONTENT_IGNORE error crash the game, or was it just a message? I think this error pops up when a mod is trying to add or set a node in an unloaded (or not yet loaded) part of the map.

I think you're very ambitious installing a lot of mods at the same time. That's good, but it makes it a bit more difficult finding out which mods are causing troubles. Especially because it's probably not one, but more mods causing it.

Some advice based on my own experience:
- Choose the latest Github version of minetest. It will allow most mods to function.
- Of course you can still start with a lot of mods, but start with the more reliable ones. In general those are in Mod releases and have a big amount of views (also because they are being maintained).
- Use 'dummy' or 'test' worlds to try out less known mods and those under modding general (although that section also has some good and reliable mods)
- Be careful with mods that make use of entities (mostly mobs, but also some others).

If I read it well, you want to start a server. My advice is to also take a look at some popular servers for what mods they use.

When you want to download a mod (sometimes because you need a dependency) and the download is no longer possible, look in the posts under it or make a new post under that mod to ask if someone still has a copy.

There is also the IRC, where helpful people can help you sometimes quicker: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#minetest


Edit: Some typo's

Made entirely new server with same mods and everything is showing up for except one ID and it removed that.
So not sure what caused it.