oolite 1.9.1.* will not start on Ubuntu 23.10

[jpwgarrison]

I've seen this on a few clients, new installs and upgrades:

The Release Oolite 1.90 works as expected.

The pre-release installers - e.g https://github.com/OoliteProject/oolite/releases/tag/1.91.0.7572-231209-a8da8cf fail to start:

./oolite.app/oolite: error while loading shared libraries: libgnustep-base.so.1.28: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Full compile from source fails a bit later:

./oolite.app/oolite: symbol lookup error: /lib/libgnustep-base.so.1.29: undefined symbol: gnutls_x509_crt_get_issuer_dn3, version GNUTLS_3_4

Let me know if I missed something obvious.

$ uname -a
Linux dell-sff-proto-00 6.5.0-14-generic #14-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue Nov 14 14:59:49 UTC 2023 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 23.10
Release:	23.10
Codename:	mantic

[HiranChaudhuri]

Looks like Ubuntu Mantic comes with libgnustep 1.29 - therefore the dependency cannot be resolved.
And as you show it, with that one does not compile cleanly.

https://packages.ubuntu.com/mantic/allpackages

[OoMrFlibble]

Same on LinuxMint 22 beta (based on Ubuntu 24.04), libgnustep-base1.29 is available, but not the 1.28.

Checking, I see that the errant library is "almost" bundled...

~/GNUstep/Applications/Oolite/oolite-deps/lib/libgnustep-base.so.1.20

I pushed a copy of libgnustep-base-so.1.28 across from a working LinuxMint 21.3 setup, to replace the 1.20.

The subsequently discovered chain of libraries required by Oolite was this:

libobjc.so.2
libicui18n.so.70
llibicuuc.so.70
libicudata.so.70

I copied all those libraries across, then, Oolite 1.91 current was running, with this console ouput:-

Unable to create time zone for name: 'Europe/London'
(source '(null)').

You can override the timezone name by setting the 'Local Time Zone'
NSUserDefault via the 'defaults' command line utility, a Preferences
application, or some other utility.
eg "defaults write NSGlobalDomain 'Local Time Zone' 'Africa/Nairobi'"
See '(null)'
for the standard timezones such as 'GB-Eire' or 'America/Chicago'.
AL lib: (WW) alc_initconfig: Failed to initialize backend "pulse"
MESA: error: ZINK: failed to choose pdev
glx: failed to create drisw screen
AL lib: (WW) FreeDevice: (0x59d118402d00) Deleting 2 Buffer(s)

The GL errors are expected, as this is on a qemu/kvm VM over spice. The timezone stuff, perhaps due to missing GNUstep support files, and the pulse issue is I think covered in a different ticket. Nothing sticks out in the Latest.log. I did not pursue audio at this point. I'll do that when I install Mint 22 to real metal.

Might it be that the bundled libraries had been sufficient for 1.90 to work on new systems, but got forgotten in the transition to 1.91, which would work on 'current' distros similar to that on which it was built? A refresh of bundled library versions in the appimage/installer may prevent problems for older, newer, or weirder distros.

Distro version specific packages (deb/rpm/apk etc.) avoid such dependency bloat, so are potentially less resource hungry, though of course that's a whole other world of pain.

[mcarans]

The title of this issue should be changed to "oolite 1.9.1.* will not start on current Linux distros". Hopefully the flatpak PR will mean that there is a version that works on current Linux distros: #516

[OoMrFlibble]

With the right libraries bundled, it does work on all distros from the build host and onward.

If i get time in the next few days I'll update my fork and do a PR of linux-deps, (or ask someone with better github skills to copy in my version manually). It doesn't take long to establish what libraries are needed to make it work on 'other' hosts. I just haven't touched it since March or thereabouts when github last ditched an Ubuntu version, so I ought to update it anyway. The last pre-release build of my fork works fine on all newer distros AFAIK.

The idea is, that building on the oldest distro supported by Github actions, and bundling all the libraries it uses, removes the need to install extra stuff to get Oolite working, plus, such a build will work fine on newer distros than the build host, as we see with 1.90. Building on the newest distro actually makes it very hard (if not impossible) to get it working on older distros.

The Linux deps have been left to go stale. They work fine for the 1.90 build, which happened when those libs were current on the build host. Every time github actions forces us up a distro, the static library bundle needs re-assessing. IIRC there is/was a script that did some of that, but it too has got a bit lost. Doing it manually every couple of years is not that onerous.

Bundling libraries that are no longer relevant, is as far as I have tested, relatively easy to fix.

Flatpak will be a great solution for many. Fixing the linux-deps will fix it for the rest, as long as they use 'still supported' mainstream distros, or anything newer than the build host.

Nobody should need to manually install anything extra in either case.

[mcarans]

@OoMrFlibble Your fork started on my Kubuntu 25.04 system, but there was no sound. I followed the steps in the README to use system audio libraries instead of the ones in the package (libSDL-1.2.so.0, libopenal.so.1). It started with sound but speech stuff was greyed out, so I also tried my system's libespeak.so.1. I've moved details here: OoMrFlibble#5 as per reply below.

[OoMrFlibble]

@mcarans
Thanks for letting me know. It might have made more sense to report this on my fork rather than here.
I've not checked or altered the readme.
I'll have a go in a kubuntu 25.04 VM and get back to you. I suspect the answer will be simpler than what you tried.