For the particular rule in your example, use the HashLife algorithm rather than QuickLife. QuickLife saves temporary patterns in .rle files whereas HashLife saves .mc files which are typically much smaller and faster to write.Sylvani wrote: December 1st, 2025, 1:34 pm Golly really likes to save 50+MB temporary pattern files whenever I run an infinite growth simulation for long enough. Is there a way to prevent this from happening so I don't get slowdowns?
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./golly: error while loading shared libraries: libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Sorry, but it seems very difficult (impossible?) to create a binary that will run on all flavors of Linux. You'll have to download the source code and follow the instructions in docs/Build.html. EDIT: Or maybe just install that missing library.b-engine wrote: December 3rd, 2025, 12:44 am I get this error whenever I try to open Golly 5.0, even on Xorg. ...
In v4.3, it sometimes happens while attempting to open the rule dialog.Andrew wrote: September 30th, 2025, 11:31 pmI'm pretty sure this is a bug in macOS. I've seen the same issue happen occasionally in Terminal.app. Never seen it happen in Golly so far. Let me know if you manage to find steps to reproduce the problem in Golly.LaundryPizza03 wrote: September 5th, 2025, 3:22 pm On macOS 15.6.1 with Apple M2, Golly occasionally freezes while opening the menu bar.
What is macOS 26?LaundryPizza03 wrote: January 7th, 2026, 1:34 am EDIT: Also v 5.0 under similar circumstances. Is macOS 26 known to experience this issue?
The newest version of macOS, and Apple changed the version to sync with the year.
Sorry, but we dropped support for X11 many years ago (too many bugs and limitations in the wxWidgets X11 libs). Golly 1.4 was the last release that had an X11 build (available on sourceforge if you wanted to try it).Mr. T wrote: January 18th, 2026, 12:38 pm Linux-User here. I want suggest, that Golly only in X11 works (on my computer).
The Problem lies at NixOS, I think. I tried COSMIC and KDE Plasma in its Wayland-form. Both fail! Only Plasma X11 works. Problem: NixOS has Wayland as default. To smuggle X11 in, you have to define the X-Server in detail. In one of its X11-options NixOS must present the correct gtk-library. Nor gtk as package nor Xwayland work.Andrew wrote: January 18th, 2026, 4:34 pmSorry, but we dropped support for X11 many years ago (too many bugs and limitations in the wxWidgets X11 libs). Golly 1.4 was the last release that had an X11 build (available on sourceforge if you wanted to try it).Mr. T wrote: January 18th, 2026, 12:38 pm Linux-User here. I want suggest, that Golly only in X11 works (on my computer).
To run (or build) Golly on Linux you need GTK2 installed. I suspect to get it running on NixOS you'll need to download the source tar ball and follow the instructions in docs/Build.html.
Is there any plan to support GTK3? I believe that a lot of GNU+Linux distributions use GTK3 instead of GTK2 these days.Andrew wrote: January 18th, 2026, 4:34 pm To run (or build) Golly on Linux you need GTK2 installed. I suspect to get it running on NixOS you'll need to download the source tar ball and follow the instructions in docs/Build.html.
It should be possible to build a GTK3 version of Golly using the current source code, but I wasn't able to get it working for some reason. I first installed the GTK3 headers and libraries via "sudo apt install libgtk-3-dev". Then I rebuilt the wxWidgets libs using these commands:
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cd ~/Downloads/wxWidgets-3.2.9
mkdir build-gtk
cd build-gtk
../configure --with-gtk=3 --disable-shared --enable-unicode --with-opengl
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
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@RULE OneD4stateAdjustableRakesBugDemo
This is a 4-state 1D rule having adjustable rakes using 3 on states in a sea of off states
It may be possible to modify the rule to make it more interesting without changing the number of states
state 0 - black - off
state 1 - yellow - still life
state 2 - red - left moving photon
state 3 - green - right moving photon
@TABLE
n_states:4
neighborhood:oneDimensional
symmetries:none
var any,0={0}
any,0,0,2,2
0,1,2,3
0,2,2,3
0,3,0,3
0,3,1,3
0,3,2,1
1,2,0,0
1,0,3,0
1,0,1,2
1,1,0,3
1,3,0,3
2,0,0,0
2,0,3,0
2,0,1,3
2,2,0,1
2,2,2,0
2,3,0,3
3,0,0,0
3,1,1,2
3,2,0,1
3,3,0,0
3,0,1,2
3,0,2,0
3,0,3,1
@NAMES
0 empty
1 dot
2 left photon
3 right photon
@COLORS
0 0 0 0
1 255 255 0
2 255 0 0
3 0 255 0
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x = 1, y = 1, rule = OneD4stateAdjustableRakesBugDemo
A!
I've fixed that particular bug for the next release, and improved the error reporting. It's still possible to make syntax errors that won't be detected but I'm reluctant to make too many changes to the parsing code (not written by me). Thanks for the report.qqd wrote: March 1st, 2026, 2:26 pm While experimenting with rule files, I stumbled upon this minor but weird bug when defining a variable with a comma ...
I think this is just how any rule table works if it has a B0 transition, they're not really supported very well.qqd wrote: March 1st, 2026, 2:26 pm The rule defined above uses a oneDimensional neighborhood. Yet it explodes in both the horizontal and vertical directions. Moreover, the rate at which it explodes increases in an exponential manner.
Since this has only occurred in the rule mentioned above, it might not be a very concerning bug, but it is worth investigating.
No legitimate rule should have the bounding box increase more than linearly (per direction) or quadratically (total). Exponential growth sounds like a HashLife error.SuperSupermario24 wrote: March 14th, 2026, 7:01 amI think this is just how any rule table works if it has a B0 transition, they're not really supported very well.qqd wrote: March 1st, 2026, 2:26 pm The rule defined above uses a oneDimensional neighborhood. Yet it explodes in both the horizontal and vertical directions. Moreover, the rate at which it explodes increases in an exponential manner.
Since this has only occurred in the rule mentioned above, it might not be a very concerning bug, but it is worth investigating.
Crossposted from Discord.Headerless extended RLEs (like of the form 9.3A2.$9.3A2.$8.4A2.$A7.B5A$A6.A2CBA2.$7.AC3A2.$6.3A.2A2.$6.BADBA3.$8.A5.!) do not get pasted properly, instead treated like a 1-dimensional bitmap with dots as 0s and everything else as 1.
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x = 0, y = 0, rule = test
!
@RULE test
@TABLE
n_states:2
neighborhood:Moore
symmetries:permute
var var={0,1}
var,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1Code: Select all
x = 0, y = 0, rule = test
!
@RULE test
@TABLE
n_states:2
neighborhood:Moore
symmetries:permute
var a={0,1}
a,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1Thanks for the report.Sylvani wrote: March 28th, 2026, 12:26 am The rule "R1,C3,S2-5,B6,8,NW111101111,110" and similar rules are completely broken, acting as if they were somehow B0 Generations rules.
So I try to use the Windows version on my phone, and it failed 
Since Android is a version of Linux, maybe running the Linux version will be smoother.aengmore wrote: June 29th, 2026, 10:12 pm *snip*
Android Golly lacks so many functions compared with the desktop version
*snip*