{"id":778,"date":"2012-08-31T16:29:45","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T16:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.avatarplanet.com\/?p=778"},"modified":"2012-08-31T16:29:45","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T16:29:45","slug":"exploring-alternatives-to-second-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.avatarplanet.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/31\/exploring-alternatives-to-second-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring alternatives to Second Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With <a href=\"http:\/\/www.secondlife.com\/\">Second Life<\/a>\u00ae undergoing profound changes, many of us who love it have been left wondering how we should react to the changes.\u00a0 Some people have been exploring other virtual worlds and a few of us have been experimenting with building our own.\u00a0 In future posts, I\u2019ll be writing about both.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, I\u2019ll be sharing my own experiences in creating my own little virtual world, which is still in very early stages of development.\u00a0 I need to state up front that I am neither a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Linux\">Linux<\/a> expert nor an <a href=\"http:\/\/opensimulator.org\/\">OpenSim<\/a> expert.\u00a0 I\u2019m learning both as I go.\u00a0 My intention in this blog is to share my experiences from time to time with you, in the hopes that it will help you start and run your own world.<br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-7037687646021923\";\n\/* baner 468x60 *\/\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"5806720043\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 468;\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/-->\n<\/script><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p>My little virtual world currently consists of 8 sims hosted on my own <a href=\"http:\/\/www.opensuse.org\/en\/\">OpenSUSE<\/a> server that I built and configured myself, running on my home dsl.\u00a0 It\u2019s still under development.\u00a0 Time pressures have kept me from resolving some issues that I want to take care of before inviting more people into it.<\/p>\n<p>I started by creating a test world using <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wampserver.com\/en\/\">WAMP<\/a> with Windows, and the Diva distro.\u00a0 Diva is great \u2013 you can read about setting it up in an excellent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hypergridbusiness.com\/2010\/07\/how-to-set-up-a-mini-grid\/\">Hypergrid Business explanation<\/a>.\u00a0 It allows you to get a basic four sim world up and running quickly, and a WAMP server is fairly easy to set up.\u00a0 The problem is that WAMP is not very secure.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great way to start getting server and OpenSim experience, but if you choose to try it, <strong><em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">don\u2019t do it on your regular computer, or on any computer containing personal or confidential data!<\/span><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Because I build my own computers, I had a spare lying around on which I could run WAMP without taking any great risks.\u00a0 WAMP is a great way to do development on Windows, but it should not be used on a regular basis for an OpenSim grid that\u2019s open to the public.<\/p>\n<p>After getting a good introduction to OpenSim using WAMP and Diva, I built my own OpenSUSE Linux server and created an entirely new world with full OpenSim rather than Diva.<\/p>\n<p>Why didn\u2019t I stick with Diva?\u00a0 I was impressed with Diva.\u00a0 It\u2019s fairly easy to set up and works well. \u00a0Diva does require a fair amount of technical skill, but much less than regular OpenSim.\u00a0 For most people, Diva is the better way to go.<\/p>\n<p>However I\u2019m someone who enjoys tackling technical challenges and although I didn\u2019t have much prior Linux experience, I am technically proficient &#8211; I\u2019m a former software engineer and I\u2019ve been building my own computers for 20 years &#8211; so I decided to plunge into regular OpenSim.<\/p>\n<p>In future posts I\u2019ll be writing about some of the challenges I\u2019ve faced, solutions I\u2019ve found, and useful resources.<\/p>\n<p>I still love Second Life and although I&#8217;ve scaled back on my land ownership there, I have no intention of leaving. However the universe of virtual worlds is growing and in the future, we&#8217;ll probably be active in more than one.\u00a0 For me, the prospect of being able to create my own world is even more exciting.\u00a0 Not long ago it would have been an impossible dream, but with alternatives such as <a title=\"Cloud Party\" href=\"http:\/\/its.cloudpartytime.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">CloudParty<\/a>, <a title=\"Kitely\" href=\"http:\/\/kitely.com\" target=\"_blank\">Kitely<\/a>, Diva, and OpenSim emerging, it&#8217;s becoming a possibility even for those without technical skills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With Second Life\u00ae undergoing profound changes, many of us who love it have been left wondering how we should react to the changes.\u00a0 Some people have been exploring other virtual worlds and a few of us have been experimenting with building our own.\u00a0 In future posts, I\u2019ll be writing about both. In particular, I\u2019ll be &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avatarplanet.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/31\/exploring-alternatives-to-second-life\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Exploring alternatives to Second Life&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,49],"tags":[73,110,148],"class_list":["post-778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opensim","category-report","tag-diva","tag-opensim","tag-wamp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avatarplanet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avatarplanet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avatarplanet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avatarplanet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avatarplanet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.avatarplanet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avatarplanet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avatarplanet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avatarplanet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}