(If this is too complex for any of you... wait a week or so, and I'll have an SFS file out which bundles all of these things into one package. Cheers. )
For you Linux newbies, first I'll say a word or two about installing programs in Linux. It's a lot harder! With Microsoft Windows, usually you just have to click a program named "Setup" - and then a wizard leads you through the process of installation. People who make software for Linux oftentimes will incorporate many other people's work into their own, and so not only do you have to download the software they wrote - but also, you have to download software from their five friends. You have to install every bit of that software if you want things to work.
Blender is a program with which you can make realistic computer generated art, Pixar-style animated films, and even 3d video games. However, you'll see that the language on the buttons is all very arcane abbreviations, and the program isn't even laid out like you'd expect modern programs to be. The menus are scattered all over the place, and you can create new workspaces, and change the layout around. You'll find it a VERY steep learning curve. It's a program for those of you with way too much time on your hands.
There are some textual tutorials here. There are some video tutorials here.
My favorite tutorial is here: Blender noob to pro, a wikibook.
To install Blender on Puppy, you'll need to install no less than SIX dot pets.
- First you'll need to install Xorg's "Direct Rendering Infrastructure" - this allows Blender (and video games, and all other graphics intensive programs) to communicate clearly and quickly with your computer's graphic card. After you install this first dot pet - please restart X by logging out, and typing "xwin" at the command line to get back into Puppy.
- Next, you'll need to install the "Open Dynamics Engine" - which is software that figures out how to make characters and objects move, and walk, and fall, and such things.
- Thirdly, you'll need to install "OpenAL" - which is a tool which figures out how to make sound sources move around in 3 dimensional space in respect to a listener.
- Fourth, you'll have to install "Simple Directmedia Layer" - which allows quick and efficient communication between keyboards, joysticks, mice and your gaming hardware.
- Fifth, you'll need to install Python - this is a popular computer scripting language which is used extensively in Blender. This version of blender was made to work with version 2.5.1. But you should be able to use any 2.5.x version of Python you'd like. You should not use Python version 2.4, 2.6, or 3. *****
- Finally, you can install Blender, itself.
Please be certain to secure your computer in case of calamity before starting this project. Have your pup_save file or your puppy partition archived so that you can restore things if necessary. The one scary thing that I encountered when testing this, was when I tried to install xorg_xorg_full_dri-7.3.pet on an SD flash card installation of puppy 4.0.0. When I logged out, I couldn't log back into puppy, and Puppy was effectively broken. This happened, even though that pet package is an official one which has been approved by Barry Kauler, himself.
If you want more information about this software which you are installing you can find it at these links:
First of all, this is where I learned about all the extra software which Blender needs.
- Direct Rendering Infrastructure
- Open Dynamics Engine
- OpenAL
- Blender
- Simple Directmedia Layer
- The Python scripting language
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***** For those who already have Python installed: Listen up. This version of Blender requires python 2.5.x. If you already have 2.5.x on Puppy, and your libraries aren't installed at /usr/local/lib/python2.5, then after you install this Blender pet, you will have to open up /opt/blender/runblenderonpuppy, and change the information which will be stamped on the PYTHONPATH and PYTHONHOME environment tokens).