http://www.povray.org/download/

is woefully out of date and pretty sparse on installation details.

https://www.povray.org/download/linux.php

doesn't really work for me.

This worked flawlessly:
http://news.povray.org/povray.binaries.images/message/%3C5d2d8c2a%241%40news.povray.org%3E/#%3C5d2d8c2a%241%40news.povr
ay.org%3E

I think that it would be helpful, especially since we are seeing new users
appear, to update the downloads and installation pages, and provide some
information about the directory structure (where the binary resides, etc)

A link to the github page
how to install from that .zip file

and perhaps some links to experimental versions such a hgpovray38, W. Pokorny's
branch(es), the newly resurrected pov modeler, etc.

Having a way to install and update POV-Ray with apt-get, yum, or any other
package manager would be great.   Perhaps even some .deb packages.

from:  http://www.povray.org/download/
"...it is expected that many Unix-like systems that have package managers or a
ports system will provide a single-line means of installing a binary or
fetching/building from source"

Just an observation.

Post a reply to this message

On 11/19/19 5:37 PM, Bald Eagle wrote:
> 
> 
> http://www.povray.org/download/
> 
> is woefully out of date and pretty sparse on installation details.
> 
> https://www.povray.org/download/linux.php
> 
> doesn't really work for me.
> 
> This worked flawlessly:
>
http://news.povray.org/povray.binaries.images/message/%3C5d2d8c2a%241%40news.povray.org%3E/#%3C5d2d8c2a%241%40news.povr
> ay.org%3E
> 
> I think that it would be helpful, especially since we are seeing new users
> appear, to update the downloads and installation pages, and provide some
> information about the directory structure (where the binary resides, etc)
> 
> A link to the github page
> how to install from that .zip file
> 
> and perhaps some links to experimental versions such a hgpovray38, W. Pokorny's
> branch(es), the newly resurrected pov modeler, etc.
> 
> Having a way to install and update POV-Ray with apt-get, yum, or any other
> package manager would be great.   Perhaps even some .deb packages.
> 
> from:  http://www.povray.org/download/
> "...it is expected that many Unix-like systems that have package managers or a
> ports system will provide a single-line means of installing a binary or
> fetching/building from source"
> 
> Just an observation.
> 
> 
On this last bit, povray is available for debian and many debian derived 
linux versions. On my Ubuntu system:

   apt-cache search povray

gives me:

gdis - molecular and crystal model viewer
goxel - 3D voxel editor
gpsprune - visualize, edit, convert and prune GPS data
povray - Persistence of vision raytracer (3D renderer)
povray-doc - Persistence of vision raytracer (3D renderer) documentation
povray-examples - Persistence of vision raytracer (3D renderer) sample files
povray-includes - Persistence of vision raytracer (3D renderer) include 
files

Further, vim/gvim, ships with all linux versions - I believe - along 
with syntax highlighting for POV-Ray.

Expect most linux users are getting povray this way whether they are 
installing it themselves - or perhaps as part of system images created 
by others if working at some institution, company or whatever where the 
sys-admins have included the package.

That said... I didn't install the v3.7 package. If you can compile a 
version yourself for each *nix machine running povray, you'll get better 
performance. The reason is the generic debian packages are compiled to a 
generic and old architecture so users of those compiles miss out on many 
specific things newer CPUs can do.

---
As to your other comments about the web site, I agree. What I know is 
those maintaining the web site have been buried with real life for a 
long time and can only occasionally do minor things we see. This is 
partly because they've continued doing many of the ongoing, invisible 
maintenance things for the web site in the little hobby time they've got.

I would say the wiki is a possibility for some of us to step in with 
alternative pages to which we could point new users. Except! For a long 
time I've not been able to create links (months since checking, fixed?). 
I find it awkward to use though maybe with more practice that gets 
better. Lastly, the trouble with user supported wiki's is they also 
become outdated if the users don't continue support - it's the state of 
our user wiki today.

The only open source tooling I see not suffering major stalls are those 
with core development somehow funded/supported over the long term. I 
mean the core, day to day, boring parts of developing - not paying yyy 
to implement feature zzz. Though, that latter part often follows having 
the base support. I don't know whether such a setup is even possible 
with POV-Ray. Expect such a core funded model has its downsides too.

One of the things I like about POV-Ray is it's a relatively tranquil 
place compared to the screaming noise that is most of the internet / 
modern life. Were the web site to get major updates, my hope would be 
for a kinda boring, clean correctness so as not to attract too much 
attention... :-)

Bill P.

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apt-cache search povray

gives me:

airstrike-common - 2d dogfight game - data files
gdis - molecular and crystal model viewer
gpsprune - visualize, edit, convert and prune GPS data
povray - Persistence of vision raytracer (3D renderer)
povray-examples - Persistence of vision raytracer (3D renderer) sample files
povray-includes - Persistance of vision raytracer (3D renderer) include files
qtpovray - Qt IDE for POV-Ray (a 3D renderer)
qtpovray-extras - Help, samples, and example data files for qtpovray.
qtpovray-includes - POV-Ray include files for qtpovray.

So I'm assuming that I can just do

sudo apt-get install povray

and the next time I do "upgrade", it will update anything...?

I don't know how the packages work and how it's different from installing from
source.   But mentioning the apt-get method on the download/installlation page
would be small but significant change.

> As to your other comments about the web site, I agree. What I know is
> those maintaining the web site have been buried with real life for a
> long time and can only occasionally do minor things we see. This is
> partly because they've continued doing many of the ongoing, invisible
> maintenance things for the web site in the little hobby time they've got.

I'm not sure how the folks who are in charge of that acquire the position, but
perhaps some redundancy - having 3 people assigned the same job and access -
might be a good idea, since it would open up some bottlenecks.

> I would say the wiki is a possibility for some of us to step in with
> alternative pages to which we could point new users. Except! For a long
> time I've not been able to create links (months since checking, fixed?).
> I find it awkward to use though maybe with more practice that gets
> better. Lastly, the trouble with user supported wiki's is they also
> become outdated if the users don't continue support - it's the state of
> our user wiki today.

Perhaps there's a 3rd party system we can take advantage of - or something on
the news.povray server that could run in parallel.
People I know run a forum using Simple Machines (and I don't think they're
advanced tech people, so it ought to be easy...)
FUDforum looks like it supports Thunderbird, which i know people here use a lot.

> The only open source tooling I see not suffering major stalls are those
> with core development somehow funded/supported over the long term.

Sure.  That makes sense.
AFAIK, there are a lot of STEM people using POV-Ray professionally - for things
like illustrations for science and math articles, physics, dissertations,
journal covers, data visualization, etc.
I don't know how things behind the scenes work, but perhaps a small ad in C&E
News, or elsewhere asking for small donations from research grants, etc might
bring in enough to accomplish some goals and bring things that much closer to v
4.0.


> One of the things I like about POV-Ray is it's a relatively tranquil
> place compared to the screaming noise that is most of the internet /
> modern life.

Indeed.   We have our fun, and at the same time most of the folks seem to
exercise some level of tact and restraint.  There are plenty of other places to
click over to if you want to have a flame war, engage in wild insanity, be an
ideological zealot on your soapbox, or attack the other side in the highly
polarized world of politics.   All while getting more than your fair share of
cat pictures, memes, selfies, and misinfo/disinfo.

> Were the web site to get major updates, my hope would be
> for a kinda boring, clean correctness so as not to attract too much
> attention... :-)

I don't necessarily think that much needs to be done in terms of drastic
changes.
Most of what I'd like to see is updated information and minor improvements in
ease-of-use.   Allowing attachments in all of the sections of the forum would be
great, and maybe some mechanism for allowing larger uploads.

And removal of that vertical line artifact in the logo at the top right.   ;)

Post a reply to this message

On 11/20/19 1:47 PM, Bald Eagle wrote:
> 
> 
> apt-cache search povray
> 
> gives me:
> 
> airstrike-common - 2d dogfight game - data files
> gdis - molecular and crystal model viewer
> gpsprune - visualize, edit, convert and prune GPS data
> povray - Persistence of vision raytracer (3D renderer)
> povray-examples - Persistence of vision raytracer (3D renderer) sample files
> povray-includes - Persistance of vision raytracer (3D renderer) include files
> qtpovray - Qt IDE for POV-Ray (a 3D renderer)
> qtpovray-extras - Help, samples, and example data files for qtpovray.
> qtpovray-includes - POV-Ray include files for qtpovray.
> 
> So I'm assuming that I can just do
> 
> sudo apt-get install povray
> 
> and the next time I do "upgrade", it will update anything...?

Yes(1). Though we've already installed from compiles ourselves so I 
admit to being unsure what might happen if we now did such an install.

(1) - What version gets installed and maintained for particular linux 
distributions changes. After an official v3.8 release what you'd get, as 
povray, in any given linux distribution would over time change to v3.8 
but the timing is controlled by those putting together the linux 
distributions and their package/application repositories.

> Perhaps there's a 3rd party system we can take advantage of - or something on
> the news.povray server that could run in parallel.
> People I know run a forum using Simple Machines (and I don't think they're
> advanced tech people, so it ought to be easy...)
> FUDforum looks like it supports Thunderbird, which i know people here use a lot.
> 

Perhaps. You and others understand web infrastructure stuff much better 
than me.

Got to say, though, I'm with Le Forgeron on leaning hard toward much 
simpler linux point tools and methods over more tangled solutions for 
reasons of support and stability. Other stuff has been tried and over 
the long haul it all breaks and degrades without an adequate core of 
continual support. I think we should be looking for ways to trim - to go 
lean.

> 
> I don't necessarily think that much needs to be done in terms of drastic
> changes.
> Most of what I'd like to see is updated information and minor improvements in
> ease-of-use.   Allowing attachments in all of the sections of the forum would be
> great, and maybe some mechanism for allowing larger uploads.

 From Thunderbird you can add attachments to groups today though how 
this shows up on the web newsgroup interface - or not - varies. It's the 
case too that not all groups are listed on the web interface.

Related to larger uploads. As far as I know there is just one server and 
it's old (10 years+ ?).

> 
> And removal of that vertical line artifact in the logo at the top right.   ;)
> 

Hmm. Do you mean the lack of anti-aliasing (or a bad scale up) in the 
logo?  I don't see a vertical line - but my vision isn't what it used to 
be! :-)

Bill P.

Post a reply to this message

Op 21/11/2019 om 13:52 schreef William F Pokorny:
> On 11/20/19 1:47 PM, Bald Eagle wrote:
>> And removal of that vertical line artifact in the logo at the top 
>> right.   ;)
>>
> 
> Hmm. Do you mean the lack of anti-aliasing (or a bad scale up) in the 
> logo?  I don't see a vertical line - but my vision isn't what it used to 
> be! :-)
> 

Neither do I see any line. lack of anti-aliasing (or equivalent) yes.

-- 
Thomas

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there should be a portable.zip, like megapov.
dont need no stinking installation file, what for?

AND just the exe files and their specific help file.
who does the thinking around here, heh

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so I uninstalled,
ran pov, said missing a registry entry, nothing specific that I recall.
then it ran anyway. next run said nothing. cant find anything not working with
pov,

"open with" association, missing from right click menu on *.pov
says, restore previous version, instead.

uninstall doesnt remove everything.

Post a reply to this message

3.6.0 exe leaves install.log and unwise.exe - ton of registry entries.

3.6.2 msi had is own uninstall program,
windows could not uninstall it.
3.6.2 https://www.povray.org/download/index-3.6.php

harder to find, 3.6.0 +
http://www.povray.org/ftp/pub/povray/Old-Versions/Official-3.6/

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