Get your *own* grid! Thomtrance O'Toole provides step-by-step instructions for OpenSim + binary executable

I like to think that everything we publish on this blog is significant and valuable information, but what I am going to share with you here, today, has the potential to be transformative, and for some, will be on par with a religious experience.

ThomTrance O'Toole is a deceptively easy-going, self-proclaimed mad Celt Goa King and the owner of Happy Clam Island, the home of Organica. There - together with his busy clan of 'Happy Clams' - he blissfully DJs vintage Goa trance tracks and promotes global sustainability and Permaculture. Make no mistake... this man is no light-weight. In fact, he is profound, and I am deeply honored to call him a friend.



Several weeks ago, ThomTrance O'Toole IM'ed me in the most excited tones to say that he had pursued a thread of an earlier conversation we'd had regarding OpenSim. I entreated him to share his findings with me via notecard so that I could distribute said information to the rest of the NPIRLers. ThomTrance is always teasing me gently, and this time was no exception. Here are the contents of that notecard:

Today, I blamed Bettina Tizzy for ruining my life.

On the boundary of the phase transition from a two dimensional NET, to a 3D Metaverse, the bleeding edge is where life begins, where we take small steps into the new Metaverse... being able to create a region of your own, a sim of your own, beyond the boundaries of Second Life, is one of these steps.

OpenSim, an open source project is now in Alpha release 0.4, and I am here to report that yes, Second Life is possible outside of Second Life.

Today, at Bettina's prompting, I tracked them down, downloaded the source, and built the alpha release. Running the executable in stand alone mode, on my desktop, I quickly, and easily established a server.

And it is a *piece of cake* to set up and log in. (Download file - about 18MB - to login = 10 minutes!!!). Note that I have the source code and have built the code into a binary... an .exe, which I will give you via the NPIRL blog.

Now here is the interesting part: I used my Second Life client (1.18.2) to connect to this server, and logged in with the user I created when I originally started the server. Connecting to "ThomSim" , I was presented with a raw island, and a Ruth avatar. (Don't mess with the estate.XML until ye know what ye are doing thom, he said, after needing to reinstall it after doing exactly that).

But this space, this sim, even though I could build on it, and terrain it, and change my av, existed in my desktop, outside the grid of Linden Labs! My head is still spinning, as I realize that this opens up our Metaverse to new grids, all accessible through the SL client . Like the Web in 93, with just a few small servers out there serving up primitive HTML pages, I can see this as a turning point for our Metaverse, a freeing event that will allow us ALL to host and build regions and creations in an ever expanding Metaverse.

Granted, this is an alpha release, not everything works, plenty to still work on, but to login to SL......MY own SL running on my desktop, was a thrill I have not experienced in years.

In the coming week I will prepare some detailed instructions for the non-coders among us, and Bettina will have a link soon to a binary executable from her wonderful blog. A sim of your own coming to a desktop near you.

Until then, Love and light,
thomTrance

P.S. I can see me completely immersed in this project now, so thank you Bettina - for "ruining" my life!!

We haven't seen much of ThomTrance these past few weeks...

But ZOMG, look, look, look at the AMAZING information ThomTrance has created for us! Follow this link to find his gift: step-by-step, easy-to-follow instructions that even non-coders can use on how to get your own grid PLUS a binary executable.

I just hope we don't lose you forever! Please report back to me periodically, would you?

... and ThomTrance spoke yesterday of creating the Not Possible IRL grid. I'm pinching myself. Blessings, ThomTrance. <3