Re: [Update REQ 5205]: crash

["Daeron Meyer" <daeron>]

> 
> Date: Mon, 23 Jan 95 17:12:12 EST
> From: peter at ishtar.anu.edu.au (Peter J Sobey)
> Message-Id: <9501230612.AA01334 at ishtar.anu.edu.au>
> To: software@geom
> Subject: crash
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I just downloaded the Sun/X binaries and ran install. It had a few errors
> writing the install.log file (I dont know why - I was in su mode).
> After rehashing I ran from my home directory but it couldnt find
> ---/---/---/bin/sun4/geomblah.gvx
> When I typed geomview in the Geomview directory the machine crashed!
> 
> The install seemed to work alright and I only had to hit return for every 
> question. The Geomview directory is on a filesystem that is nfs mounted and
> resides on an Apollo system but I cant see how that can affect it.
> 
> I would be gratful for any help,
> 
> Ciao,
> 	Peter
> 
> 
> 

Hi Peter,

  When you say the machine crashed, did you perhaps mean just the X window
server crashed? There is a known bug in the OpenWindows X server on the
Sun. The problem is that Openwindows will crash when one tries to allocate
shared memory. Since geomview requires shared memory in order to display
3D images at a reasonable frame rate, it causes OpenWindows to bomb out.
Unfortunately, there is no work-around that we know of, short of
replacing your OpenWindows X server with the MIT X11R5 or X11R6 server.
A lot of sites have already done this because OpenWindows is so
notoriously buggy.

Daeron Meyer
daeron at geom.umn.edu

P.S. Here is a list of places you can obtain X11R6 via ftp:

Location                    Address               Directory
--------                    -------               ---------

Cambridge, MA               ftp.crl.research.digital.com
Digital Equipment Corp.     [192.58.206.2]        /pub/X11/R6
Cambridge Research Laboratory                     /pub/X11/contrib

Cambridge, MA               ftp.x.org             /pub/R6
X Consortium                [198.112.44.100]      /contrib
(crl.dec.com is a faster site for FTP)

Lowell, MA                  x11r6.uml.edu         /pub/R6
UMass-Lowell                [129.63.32.4]         /contrib

New York City, NY           ftp.cs.columbia.edu   /archives/X11R6/R6
Columbia University         [128.59.26.5]         /archives/X11R6/contrib
Computer Science Dept

Buffalo New York            ftp.acsu.buffalo.edu  /pub/R6
University at Buffalo       [128.205.7.9]         /pub/R6