20000329: McIDAS-X on RedHat 6.1 Linux issues (cont.)

>From: Erick Lorenz <address@hidden>
>Organization: UC Davis
>Keywords: 200003282041.NAA08482 McIDAS-X RedHat Linux libc f2c build

Erick,

>I just completed building and testing McIDAS on this test machine running
>Linux 6.1. It passed all the standard tests suggested in the web page
>install guide.

Excellent.  This means that a good bit of McIDAS been tested and has passed.

>I even started the F-Keys menu and was pleased to notice that
>it did not make the color scheme go crazy in Gnome.

Very good.  Are you running your X server in 8-bit mode, or are you running
in a multi-byte mode (16-bit, 24-bit, or 32-bit)?  I am guessing that
you are not running in 8-bit mode, since you should run out of colors
by the time you start McIDAS given that Gnome uses lots of them.

>At this point I am wondering if I really need to complete the installation
>and continue to test under "real" conditions.  We don't plan to run McIDAS
>on this machine.  We just wanted to see if we could get it to run under
>Linux 6.1 before we upgraded all our classroom machines to that version.

I would say that you have pretty well determined that McIDAS will run
in this environment (RedHat 6.x Linux, that is).  If you are not running
X in 8-bit mode, then there are some things that you will run into.
Here is a list of the things that I can remember:

o when McIDAS first comes up, you will need to do an 'EG I' for frame
  1.  You can check to see if you need to do this by examining the
  contents of frame one immediately after startup.  In my experience,
  if you are running X with greater than 8 bit depth you will _not_
  see the yellow '1' in the left hand corner of the frame.  If you
  don't see the yellow '1', then you definitely need to do the 'EG I'.

o the EB command will not work correctly when running X with greater than
  8-bit depth.

o the image and graphics toggles on the MCGUI will get out of sequence
  when X is running in greater than 8-bit depths.  What I mean by this
  can be illustrated by doing the following:

  o bring up a McIDAS-X session by running:

    o mcidas config

    o select autostart of the GUI (radio buttons near the bottom of the
      startup GUI)

    o open up the McIDAS-X GUI Console by clicking the left mouse button
      on the keyboard icon in the first row of buttons on the MCGUI

      move the McIDAS-X GUI Console away from the image window

    o do an EG I from the McIDAS-X GUI Console; you should see the
      yellow '1' appear in the left bottom corner of the image window

    o load an image into frame 1; draw a map on top of the image

    o try toggling graphics and/or image off using the check buttons
      in the MCGUI labeled "Graphics" and "Image", respectively

  you will see that the toggle gets out of phase with the graphic and
  image display.  This is a known bug in X running in greater than
  8-bit mode

>Does the success of the preinstall tests demonstrate that McIDAS 7.6 can
>run under 6.1 or are there other issues such as data handling that
>also need to be tested?

Some of the issues are listed above.  I think that these are the major ones,
but there could be a couple of more that are not as obvious.

>Thanks

Later...

Tom