Hello,
after quite a long break from FreeSpace I wondered about the current state and tried to update my installation (3.7 based) to the current version.
Since Knossos is now the recommended installer/launcher I thought I give it a try and stumbled into various issues...
I'm using macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 on a dated MacPro (3,1) with a Nvidia GTX 680... (therefore, I can't update the OS anymore: bad/no Nvidia support etc.)
First try:
I created a new directory for Knossos to be used for the FSO files and started it.
I tried to point the "first run" wizard to my existing FSO installation to get the "retail files". This didn't give any error, but later on I discovered that it didn't do anything to copy the required files.
I installed some mods (MediaVPs, FSPort) and tried to run it.
When launching the FSO binaries (nightly, 3.8 as well as 19.0) I got an application error, "status: -6".
I opened a shell and tried to start the binaries manually and discovered that they have a strange external dependency: They are compiled to use a freetype library at /usr/local/opt/freetype/lib/libfreetype.6.dylib
I think that is strange not only because it doesn't have this dependency bundled, but also because of that path: I'm used to either use /usr/local or /opt, not having both in the pathname...
Ok, MacPorts nowadays uses /opt/local, but that has some more logic in it...
I installed freetype via MacPorts and linked the library files to the path that these binaries expected.
When trying to launch FSO, I now got an error message about the missing retail files...
Second try:
I deleted the configuration files in ~/Library/Preferences and in ~/Library/Application Support as well as the FSO directory for Knossos and started again.
This time, I pointed the "first run" wizard to the installer from GOG. The "Install Retail" window opened and an error dialog appeared during "Extracting InnoExtract...": "Unpacking the GOG installer failed for unknown reasons! ..."
Closing the dialog and the "Install Retail" got me back to the wizard page and I tried to point the wizard to a Freespace 2 installation in a Parallels VM. That didn't seem to work, so I started all over again.
Third try:
I deleted the configuration files and data files again and started Knossos again.
This time, I pointed the "first run" wizard to the installation directory of Freespace 2 in my Parallels VM. Again, just like with the "first try" it happily claimed to be busy doing it's stuff, but after that, the retail files still can't be found in the FSO directory...
So...
...can I do something, to debug that further? Does it write a log file somewhere? I couldn't find one, but I didn't dive into the system area tp look out for it, either...
Where should the retail files go? The movie files seem quite obvious ("./FS2/data/movies") -- but what about the VPs?
Btw: I also tried 0.14, but that just shows a black content area of the window after initialization, so even less usable for me right now.
Kind regards,
webbasan