20010509: gempak and color depth

Eric,

There are no immediate plans for using True color visuals since they
use 3 times the amount of memory as 8 bit visuals. That becomes a
problem when running long loop displays with the GUI interfaces.

The GEMPAK requirement is that the default visual is 8 bits. You can
have other visuals for different software, but the default visual id is
what GEMPAK is looking for. 

The Xfree86 X server that most linux systems have does not allow for 
multiple visuals. That is a limitation of that server. Instead, you can
run more than 1 X server and use a hotkey to change between the screens.

McIDAS X can use 8 bit or 24 bit displays.

Steve Chiswell
Unidata User Support




>From: Eric Pani <address@hidden>
>Organization: University of Louisiana at Monroe
>Keywords: 200105092047.f49Kl6p08548

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>We have been trying to set up gempak on our new Linux machine and ran
>into a problem.  Off hand I don't recall the exact message but
>investigation of the gempak email archives revealed that other Linux
>users had the same problem.  It turned out that gempak needed to run on
>a system using 8-bit color.  We also want to use wxp and mcidas.  Dan
>Vietor tells me that wxp is looking for either 24 or 32 bit color.  I'm
>not sure about mcidas-x.
>
>Is gempak still 8-bit?  If so, any plans for changing this?
>
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