I decided that it was time I updated my development environment so that I can produce Freeciv 2.1.0-beta 3 with the latest dependency libraries. I even gave it a go to compile the SDL client.

The SDL client is very promising in that if it works, Freeciv can then run w/o needing X11. But, even though I was able to compile under Tiger, I cannot get it to run.

As far as the X11-based client, I am having isolating the various dependency libraries for GTK+ and Pango.

Work is on-going, but slowly. So stay tuned....

More people continue to have issues launching Freeciv, even as of 2.0.9.

In trying to get it to work, some people went as far as installing MacPorts (formerly known as DarwinPorts), thinking that it is needed. This is simply not the case. While my Freeciv distributions are built using MacPorts, it does not need anything else except Tiger and X11 to run.

I tend to think that most issues have to do with the installation of X11.app. But since I only have access to the one Mac OS X installation that I perform the builds on, so I cannot say for certain.

If you are having issues launching Freeciv 2.0.9, give the following a try:

1. Run the Aqua launcher at least once.
2. Assuming X11 is launched, you should see that it has opened a window with the words xterm in its title bar.
3. Click on this window to focus input on it, type and execute the command

   cd ~/Library/Application Support/Freeciv/2.0.9

4. Type and execute the command ls. On my machine, executing the command shows the following:
   

   fonts           gtk-2.0         pango           run-freeciv.py
   

5. The entry we are interested in run-freeciv.py. Assuming it exists on your machine, type and execute the command

   python run-freeciv.py

Now Freeciv is supposed to launch. Well, at least it does on mine.

If this workaround doesn't work for you, please let me know.

Freeciv 2.0.9 is out. Head on over to here to download it.

In related news, 2.1.0 beta 3 has been released. I will free up time to work on it soon.

If you are interested in trying out the Freeland tileset in different sizes, here's how.

First, quit Freeciv, download this disk image, and mount it in the Finder.

Next, assuming you have Freeciv 2.1.0 Beta 2 installed in /Applications, press Cmd-Shift-G while in the Finder, and type in the following path to navigate to that folder:

/Application/Freeciv 2.1.0 Beta 2/Freeciv.app/
Contents/Resources/freeciv-x.y.z/share/freeciv

Lastly, select the following items from the disk image and copy them into the above folder:

• (file) freeland.tilespec
• (file) freeland-med.tilespec
• (file) freeland-big.tilespec
• (folder) freeland

That's it! Now start Freeciv, and you should be able to select medium and large sizes of the Freeland tileset from the UI.

The Mac OS X Tiger (PowerPC) package of Freeciv 2.1.0 Beta 2 is out.

With this release, I modified the launcher application to dynamically scan for tile sets at startup, as well as incorporated the standardized icon for Freeciv. In addition, I've also included the "normal" size of the Freeland 2.0.0 tile set.

Furthermore, a small bug in the launcher is fixed such that the game client will no longer launch the wrong version of civserver process that is accessible via the PATH environment variable.

The dynamic scanning of tile sets means that you are now able to experiment with the various tile sets. All published Freeciv tile sets can be found here.

I will make another post later with instructions on how to add tile sets to your 2.1.0 beta 2 copy of Freeciv.

Enjoy!