More problems building grass5.0beta3 on IRIX :-(

GRASS GRASS user
1

Good afternoon all,
I am still having a few problems getting Grass5.0beta3 to build properly
on an SGIx with Irix6.5.2.
Some of the problems are unexpected.
I cannot get NVIZ, or SG3d (either the CERL or the GMSL versions) to
build. The errors I am getting are listed in the attached text file.
Whilst I can get Grass5 to run, I cannot start an graphics window (X
driver) from the Tcltk Gui, and have only had success by starting it at
the command line, then starting Tcltkgrass. After that the Gui commands
seem to control the window OK and it can be shut down from the gui.
Another mystery is the use of XDRIVER24. Whilst I think this was built,
there is nothing that shows that it is working. Should I expect to have
to do anything other than ensure xo, x1 etc are connected to fifos. I
certainly cannot see anything in the displays thus far which would
indicate we have progressed very far.
If there are Grass5 users out there who have built beta3 on an SGI box,
preferably with Irix 6.5.x, and have all these things sorted out, please
let me know.

Cheers,

--
Terry Duell, Senior Mobility Engineer
Army Engineering Agency
Maribyrnong, Victoria, Australia
ph:61-3-93195837 fax:61-3-93195830

(attachments)

errors.text (1.09 KB)

2

Hi Terry

On Sep 23, 2:17pm, Terry Duell wrote:

I cannot get NVIZ, or SG3d (either the CERL or the GMSL versions) to
build. The errors I am getting are listed in the attached text file.
Whilst I can get Grass5 to run, I cannot start an graphics window (X
driver) from the Tcltk Gui, and have only had success by starting it at
the command line, then starting Tcltkgrass. After that the Gui commands
seem to control the window OK and it can be shut down from the gui.
Another mystery is the use of XDRIVER24. Whilst I think this was built,
there is nothing that shows that it is working. Should I expect to have
to do anything other than ensure xo, x1 etc are connected to fifos. I
certainly cannot see anything in the displays thus far which would
indicate we have progressed very far.
If there are Grass5 users out there who have built beta3 on an SGI box,
preferably with Irix 6.5.x, and have all these things sorted out, please
let me know.

I didn't get beta 3 installed, but I did manage to get beta2 installed on our
Origin 2000 with IRIX 6.5.3m. However, I didn't try to compile NVIZ or SG3d.
You may be able to fix the error for these by casting the faulty variable to
the approriate type, but you will have to check to be sure the cast makes
sense.

As for the X problem, I didn't experience any problems starting the graphics
monitors. However, if you are worried about the 24 bit color usage, then you
have to make sure the X server is running in 24 bit mode. Remember that the X
server is on the client. What you need to do on SGI machines is change the file
/var/X11/xdm/Xservers. This file contains the command line that starts the X
server. You need to add the option -depth 24 to the command line. Also, if you
see the option -pseudomap 4sight on the command line then delete it. I found it
somehow overrides the 24 bit depth specification. Finally you might want to add
-class TrueColor if you want. I'm not sure if it does anything but it doesn't
seem to hurt. The line in my version of the file is as follows:

:0 secure /usr/bin/X11/X -class TrueColor -depth 24 -bs -nobitscale -c
-solidroot sgilightblue -cursorFG red -cursorBG white

To reset the display console so that this change takes effect, you should be
able to use the following key sequence holding down all the keys at the same
time (like the 3 finger salute - Ctrl-Alt-Del - of Microsoft Windows)

Left-Ctrl Left-Shift F12 /-key-on-the-keypad (above the 8 key)

Note that this command logs you out of the console so make sure you log out
before you try it.

To check whether your display is actually 24 bit you can use the command
xwininfo or xdpyinfo. They basically report the same type of information but
xdpyinfo displays more.

I don't know if this will solve your problem. I had already installed beta2
before I made this change and like I said, we didn't have problems with the
displays. But you never know.

One last note. I wouldn't put a lot of faith on beta3 unless you carefully test
the programs you want to use. We found at least 3 programs that didn't work
properly, so we don't use Grass 5 yet.

Hope this helps.

--
Sincerely,

Jazzman (a.k.a. Justin Hickey) e-mail: jhickey@hpcc.nectec.or.th
High Performance Computing Center
National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC)
Bangkok, Thailand

People who think they know everything are very irritating to those
of us who do. ---Anonymous

Jazz and Trek Rule!!!

3

Justin Hickey wrote:

I didn't get beta 3 installed, but I did manage to get beta2 installed on our
Origin 2000 with IRIX 6.5.3m. However, I didn't try to compile NVIZ or SG3d.

If you can get them working you will find them very nice tools for visualising
your data.

You may be able to fix the error for these by casting the faulty variable to
the approriate type, but you will have to check to be sure the cast makes
sense.

I really am not sure enough about what I am doing to muck around with the source
like that.
What I find amazing is that both these tools were developed for the SGI box, yet
in this release they don't build.

As for the X problem, I didn't experience any problems starting the graphics
monitors. However, if you are worried about the 24 bit color usage, then you
have to make sure the X server is running in 24 bit mode. Remember that the X
server is on the client. What you need to do on SGI machines is change the file
/var/X11/xdm/Xservers. This file contains the command line that starts the X
server. You need to add the option -depth 24 to the command line. Also, if you
see the option -pseudomap 4sight on the command line then delete it. I found it
somehow overrides the 24 bit depth specification. Finally you might want to add
-class TrueColor if you want. I'm not sure if it does anything but it doesn't
seem to hurt. The line in my version of the file is as follows:

:0 secure /usr/bin/X11/X -class TrueColor -depth 24 -bs -nobitscale -c
-solidroot sgilightblue -cursorFG red -cursorBG white

Done that, doen't seem to make much difference on the console or X-terms
I noticed that there is also a file Xservers.3key which is very similar. Do you
know what it affects?
We are really looking for the 24 bit display on X-terms, as that is where most of
us do our work.
We would usually use the 'iris' monitor when running from the console, but with
5beta3 the iris monitor and the tcltkgrass gui don't seem to mix.

To reset the display console so that this change takes effect, you should be
able to use the following key sequence holding down all the keys at the same
time (like the 3 finger salute - Ctrl-Alt-Del - of Microsoft Windows)

Left-Ctrl Left-Shift F12 /-key-on-the-keypad (above the 8 key)

Note that this command logs you out of the console so make sure you log out
before you try it.

To check whether your display is actually 24 bit you can use the command
xwininfo or xdpyinfo. They basically report the same type of information but
xdpyinfo displays more.

I tried this on an X-term and it report a depth of 8 planes only. Nowhere in the
report did it mention depths other than 1 and 8.
The report from xdpyinfo on the console says it supports depths up to 30 planes.
Perhaps the problem is at the X-term end, and the depth support provided by the
server is modified by what the client can support.
I need to look into this a bit more.

I would appreciate hearing from you if you do try to get 5beta3 up and running,
and have some success with NVIZ and SG3d.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers,

--
Terry Duell, Senior Mobility Engineer
Army Engineering Agency
Maribyrnong, Victoria, Australia
ph:61-3-93195837 fax:61-3-93195830

4

Hello Terry

On Sep 24, 4:53pm, Terry Duell wrote:

Justin Hickey wrote

> I didn't try to compile NVIZ or SG3d.

If you can get them working you will find them very nice tools for

visualising

your data.

We had SG3d working with earlier versions but we just don't have time to
compile these new ones right now though.

What I find amazing is that both these tools were developed for the SGI box,
yet in this release they don't build.

You have to remember that these versions have changed drastically to make them
portable to other platforms other than SGI. That's probably why you are getting
errors.

I noticed that there is also a file Xservers.3key which is very similar. Do
you know what it affects?

Sorry, I can't help you with that one. That file does not appear on our
machine.

We are really looking for the 24 bit display on X-terms, as that is where

most

of us do our work.

< snip stuff about xdyinfo >

I tried this on an X-term and it report a depth of 8 planes only. Nowhere in
the report did it mention depths other than 1 and 8.
The report from xdpyinfo on the console says it supports depths up to 30
planes.

This indicates that the X-terms will not be able to do 24 bit color. The
displays just don't support it. However, the console should have no problem.

Perhaps the problem is at the X-term end, and the depth support provided by
the server is modified by what the client can support.

This is the key point. There are two servers that we are talking about here,
the GRASS server which runs on your main machine, and the X server which runs
on your X-terms. As you indicate above, the X-terms do not support 24 bit color
so setting the X servers for that depth will not work. Unfortunately none of
this helps you get your Grass graphics monitors working.

As for compiling NVIZ and SG3d, if we have time to do it we will but I don't
see that happening in the near future, sorry.

Good luck, and sorry I wasn't much help.

--
Sincerely,

Jazzman (a.k.a. Justin Hickey) e-mail: jhickey@hpcc.nectec.or.th
High Performance Computing Center
National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC)
Bangkok, Thailand

People who think they know everything are very irritating to those
of us who do. ---Anonymous

Jazz and Trek Rule!!!