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Hello, Captains!, I know many of you have been patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for the Saab 340A release. It's been a few days since our last update, so here's a new one for you... First and foremost, get ready! We are 48 hours or less from release. It could be in one hour, it could be in five, it could be in 48. This means as soon as our installers are compiled, tested, uploaded, and the product page is ready to go, the product will be online. We have finished creating all manuals and fixing bugs found along the way. The documentation for this product is very comprehensive, as it should be. The systems manual is 200+ pages of reading material for you to learn and understand how the Saab 340A works both in sim an in the real world. Of course, if you're not the person to want to read and you just want to get in and fly, the auto start feature on this aircraft was made just for you, so don't feel left out! Here's a few highlights to expect with this product: Liveries The Saab 340A comes with 32 liveries spread across three variants. These liveries are included with your Saab 340A purchase at no additional charge. The list of liveries is as follows... Passenger Variant Air New Zealand LinkContinental ConnectionCrossairDelta ConnectionEstonian - Hockey Bird LiveryFlybe Logan AirFuerza Aerea ArgentineaJapan Air LinesKenya AirwaysLeading Edge Simulations House LiveryNextJetNokairNorthwest AirlinkNorthwest Airlink - Route Map LiveryPacific CoastalPenAirPrivate/Corporate LiveryREXREX - City of Wagga Wagga LiveryREX - Shark Diving LiverySaab House Factory ColorsSilverSkywaysTrans World ExpressUnited Express (Tulip)US Airways Express Cargo Variant Adria CargoAloha Air CargoBridgesDHL AEW Variant Swedish Air ForceRoyal Thai Air Force 3D Sound Engine We've touched on this a bit before, but I'll elaborate a bit more now. The Saab 340A comes with a brand new sound engine called soundXtreme. It was built to do what we wanted and how we wanted rather than having to rely on third party solutions or default sounds. The sound engine allows for sound files to play from certain places in 3D space, recognizes where the sound should be directed, and whether the sound being played is for interior or exterior. This is a very light description of this sound engine (it's very advanced), but there's no need to get too technical in this post over it. I'll say this: It rocks! The actual sounds came from a real Saab 340A. We partnered with Turbine Sound Studios on an all-new HD pack (not their currently released MSFS offering) for the interior and exterior engine sounds. The prop, turbine, and every other sound are separated from one another so that our sound engine has full control of every aspect of each sound. You guys will pick up on this right way as you move your condition levers around the various ranges...it's chilling how good it sounds! The internal cockpit warning and cabin sounds came from our own real recordings in a Saab 340A. Each sound you hear will be authentic to the aircraft! All in all, the aircraft comes with more than 130 unique samples of sound. Installation The Saab 340A installation program will take a departure from our traditional installers and fetch only the files you really want. We do this for a variety of reasons, with the first being the fact that some of you will not want every variant or livery we have made. Within the installer you will be able to select which variants (passenger variant mandatory) and liveries you want installed. Based on your selection, the installer will fetch the appropriate files and install them for you. During the install process we also analyze your system to provide you the best experience in sim. You'll be asked what video card you have, and based on this selection we will auto-install the necessary texture sizes for your video card. Rest assured, we have gone through great lengths to make sure the aircraft textures look good, so let the installer do it's thing and be truthful in your selection of hardware. The size of install will vary depending on selections of hardware and liveries, but the max install (all options selected) will run at about a 1.4GB download and just about 1.9GB installed. Livery Manager We will be including a livery manager program. In short, this program will allow you to install liveries you previously did not install in the installation process without having to go through the entire install process again. This is pretty self explanatory from here, so no need to further elaborate. Documentation Documentation will include the following manuals: Introduction and settings, Charts, Company Manual (Systems), Quick/Autostart Manual, and a flight tutorial. Okay, so that's where we stand right now. Hopefully this little update is well received and gets you prepared for what's to come and what to expect. We'll be seeing you soon!

Diamond DA-40 Over Sydney Harbour from this weekend: Sky Textures and Clouds: Pre-release version of SkyMAXX Pro.

It's been about 2 years since I last flew in X-Plane. With life moving in the fast lane, college classes begining, and starting multiple of my own businesses I unfortunately had lost my time to use X-Plane. Luckily, I decided to find the time to start flying again! Here's a screenshot from tonight's flight! Flew from KMIA to TNCM in an Air France Airbus A319.

1. If Valve aren't making any headway with Steam as it is, how can we be expected to believe that there's any return to be made here? Linux users argue that there is a large untapped market of Linux gamers that are just dying to buy our stuff as soon as it's out. Marketplace evidences shows this is not true even if you have: - A well established library of excellent AAA quality, internationally known titles. (Titles people are very likely to be playing via some work around. (multi boot, vm, wine, whatever..)) - A huge advertising budget. - A very healthy company with enough resources to burn on Linux that you'll create your own platform. They have built the bridge, I am simply checking out the view. 2. Gizmo is being built and tested by me on Ubuntu 64bit LTS. I'm currently using 12.04. If it works for you, great. If you're using Mint / ____ and it doesn't work, too bad. The plugin is made available free of charge so it will be possible to test without purchasing a product.

Attention Linux users: New poll running here: http://forums.x-pilot.com/topic/5712-gizmo-development-focus/ Vote.

HOME ...........STRETCH ........

It's Friday and I have to go to work .. I'll REALLY be concentrating on the task at hand today ...not! Thanks Cameron

؟

The vapor is condensed and the first drop is about to fall!

It's completely irrelevant what the rest of the Linux experience is like, or what it could be like. We're talking about what it's like to support the Linux customer base, NOW. We're talking about what it's like for an average dev looking to add support using a VM... TODAY. It's a complete pain in the ass. ...and I already know Linux really well.

I made it sound like a transcription of what happened. Yesterday.

They're joking. The Saab will be payware. The GPS is an integrated feature.

Here is an early look at SkyMAXX Pro: Enjoy... John

Is that Comic Sans?

Your efforts are welcome ! I hope you'll not get into trouble. Cameron is really upset about the Linux sales.

Yes, but this was not the only reason (they even told me to prepare and get myself a windows installation .... just in case). The Linux porting efforts helped them a lot in the long run with their mobile porting .... so it payed off quite well (even if indirectly). And by the way, the Linux porting was mostly done by an "external" guy ... Oh, and just as another side note (yes, this is very very special and nothing which one could use for generalization ...) ... the kind of scenery work I do (with many open source tools, scripting etc.) fits really really well in the Linux environment (I think, many of the things might have been a bit more cumbersome on Windows).

Congratulations with the result of your hard work, congratulations with taking the time you need to create a plane that raises the bar, congratulations for your perseverance to withstand all the demands, critics, false statements and finally congratulations with your courage to extend the releaseperiod to bring us the most perfect plane.

Do not Tease me!

If I remember correctly, this error message also occurs on Windows systems from time to time, and is then related to some video driver issues. I don't think this is Linux related. On the general topic: This very entertaining thread mixes up many different things and takes some examples for general: 1. Valve's opinion on Linux for the gaming market 2. The support or non-support X-Aviation has or has not for Linux. 3. Laminar's support for Linux. 4. The way how on particular Linux distributions software is found and installed (Software Center, Package managers ...) Comments: 1. Valve has a special take on Linux, because they want Steam to be successful there, even if that requires them to develop their own console. For flight simulation in general, and X-Plane in particular, at the current date, their statement has no relevance. 2. If supporting Linux is not feasable for X-Aviation, because there are just a handful of Linux users who would buy X-A products, then this is totally understandable. It's not just about having a compiled Gizmo version. You have to test it on dozens of distributions. Linux is not restricted to Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distributions, so if you say "Linux support", you have to support all of them. 3. alpilotx' statement that between XP8 and XP9 Laminar has not removed XP support, because alpilotx is developing on Linux shows how bad the situation for Linux users really seems to be. Obviously even at Laminar, the continuation of Linux support was questioned a long time ago, and I doubt that it hasn't been or will not be questioned again since then. 4. MdMax wrote: Which Software Center should this be? Ubuntu's? Linux Mint's? Another distribution's? In which software center should Laminar put a copy of X-Plane, so that a user of these distributions was able to find X-Plane by default (i.e. WITHOUT adding third-party-repositories)? Should they support only Ubuntu-based distributions? What about .rpm based distributions like Fedora? And given you got XP via a Software Center or package manager: You are then very restricted on installing addons in the classic way (i.e. by simply moving them to the Aircraft or Custom Scenery folder), because you would then interfere with the package manager's database on installed products. Not good. The only decent way of providing a Linux version for Laminar is exactly how they are doing it -- in the "put this folder anywhere you like"-way, because this gives users the most control. But, and here I agree with what you later said, they really could improve the documentation on the install process, esp. on required libraries. I am writing this post, by the way, from my Ubuntu machine which actually was a MacOS machine (Mac Mini) some weeks ago. So I'm quite pro-Linux. (Although one could say that Ubuntu is the Windows among the Linuxes...)

Funny thing: all the complains about Linux here are because of the software by Laminar Research, not the OS. Installing software on Linux is very very simple: 1) You go to the Software Center (or package manager) 2) You select the solftware you want to install 3) You click install 4) When there's an update, you get a notification or an automatic update. This is not the case in Windows or Mac OS. These operating systems are almost empty, no programs and tools inside. Some of them don't even have an office suite or a PDF reader. You have to find everything on the net or in shops, and install everything with separate installers and updaters just like in the past century. This is the part where new users (not IT experts), install spyware & malware & bloatware instead of a descent reader. Back to X-Plane: I couldn't find X-Plane in my Software Center (nor X-Aviation add-ons). This is why most Linux users don't even know there's a Linux version for X-Plane. When they know the name "X-Plane", they continue to think it's a small mobile app for Android and iOS. If you go to gaming/simulation in the Software Center, you'll find FlightGear, not X-Plane. You can also find payware apps, the Software Center is not only for Free Open-Source Software. This is also the place where I'm informed when a new Indi Bundle is available, or Steam. Let's Google how to install X-Plane on Linux ("install x-plane linux"). 1st match is this: http://wiki.x-plane.com/Linux_Installation_Walkthrough ??? For someone who is not an IT expert (or a Linux user who is not used to complicated procedures), does this explain something ? I don't know. But I think this page could be improved with useful information: the names of the needed libraries you have to install so a user only has to copy & paste the names in his Software Center or package manager. You also need the proprietary driver for your GPU. I never saw X-Plane 10 running on open-source drivers. It should be written somewhere. There's a link to the X-Plane.org Linux forum, but you may have to read several pinned topics before you find the information you need. Conclusion: if you don't have a distribution where all the needed libraries are already installed, you'll need to find answers and they are not easy to find for someone who is used to install software with a simple click. I only hope Austin Meyer will not think the same way about economics and how returns should be, because then, he would not only drop the Linux version but also the Mac & Windows versions, returns are a lot better on the iOS market (mobile X-Plane, Xavion, etc...).

Re: Point 6. If you think that's bad, you should try Windows!

1. Download, unzip, run. 2. Download X-Plane for your OS by clicking "Continue" approx 5 times in a row. 3. "Start X-Plane Now." Sincerely, Your Windows or Mac OS There is no debate here.

Just getting the Official X-Plane installer to run on modern Linux is a joke. 1. Download, unzip, run. 2. "/bin/bash: File not found." or something very similar and utterly useless. 3. Google. 4. Oh, right, the sim is 64 bit by default but the installer isn't yet. http://forum.avsim.net/topic/365129-in-ubuntu-i-cant-install-x-plane-10/?p=2287026 Time to install "ia32libs"... with modern Ubuntu's crap package manager that's too smart and too "app store", makes it hard to find anything except an exact match. (I'm looking to do this as cheaply as possible, I'm not interested in learning how good their new process is, I've been using debian on and off since about 1998.) 5. Stuff around figuring out that it's NOT ia32libs, it's ia32-libs. 6. Ubuntu is out of date since you installed it and needs a 400 mb update. 7. The X-Plane installer now runs, but promptly tells you, via secret command line only note, that Gallium display drivers are not supported. 8. Download the "demo installer" for Mac, download a copy of X-Plane Linux using my Mac. 9. Transfer demo over to VM host. 10. Oh, that testing you did for X-Plane a few months back using a Virtual Machine, yeah, we killed that feature. 11. Wait until Ben Supnik is online to query how to start the sim even though we know the drivers suck. ...and that's just to get a test copy of X-Plane running.... so bad that it's just funny.

I don't blame you, but I blame your flawed philosophy on the matter in the context of this thread. Your personal support was appreciated and you may have done your part, but as you know, a business cannot rely on few sales to sustain life. There has to be a return. The business goes under if overhead is higher than profit. To put this really, really simple: if there was real money to be made in the Linux market, we wouldn't be out of it. You don't know till you try...and we tried.

Cameron, you're the vendor, we are your customers. You can't just ask your paying Linux customers "to get in a row and back their platform with sales". We already purchased your available products, we already published flight reports and screen shots in several forums. Do you realize that this helped your Mac & Windows sales ? You don't see any communication problem ? Another example: during years, there was a "Linux soon" label for some of your products and it became this (and this is not IXEG): As I said, it's your freedom not to support a platform, but communication is very important for a business. If you think "Linux users all are extremely vocal", maybe it's because they don't get the same support for the same price, and because of your past statements, or false labels, they expected something. So there's nothing strange about the bad sales. X-Plane is a niche market, and Linux users are a minority in this market. I just say, your Linux sales could have been closer to the real Linux "market share" with another kind of communication & support.

the plane is free but the GPS will be payware

Gunship day. MD-902 Combat Explorer BK117 Gunship

It's just that one posting before your question it was made clear that no price information will be given at this time. I can assure you that this place here is much more open to questions, free speech and opinions than ... some other place.

It's a rough road, but we're getting very close!

Hello, All! It's time we post another progress shot batch, so we hope you enjoy these! The Saab 340A project is really coming along nicely. The 3D, texturing, and programming of this product is stunning, and again, we can't re-iterate enough how excited we are to get this out to you! You'll note a few fun things in these screenshots, including the 3D prop at all angles (X-Plane traditionally renders this as flat from the side) thanks to some programming, as well as the various systems at different stages of flight. We've even thrown in a shot to give a glimpse of the ground vehicles, cones, etc. that will ship with this product. As usual, this is all work in progress and some things are prone to change or improvement as we work towards the end of the production phase. Want to see past previews? Click here, here, here, here, and here! Enjoy!

Some interior cockpit shots of the Saab 340! We'll write up a systems update again soon to help you learn what everything in this cockpit is about, but for now enjoy some more screenshots to ease the pain of waiting! As always, these are work in progress previews.

While putting the Saab 340 through some testing, Theo captured this screenshot climbing to 20 000 feet. It's definitely getting there!

Hi, Phil, You are certainly welcome to do so! After all, X-Plane is a hobby and all about fun for majority of our customers. If you find a Saab elsewhere that you like, buy it, support it, and enjoy it! We are squarely focused on making a study sim and doing it right. We understand, for some people like yourself, this philosophy may not work. The CRJ was three years in the making, and the reception was huge. With this in mind, I have faith in our reputation and where it will lead. Cheers!