20000214: questions about Linux X server

>From: John Benson <address@hidden>
>Organization: SSEC
>Keywords: 200002141511.IAA10677 McIDAS-X Linux

John,

>     Hey.  Thanks for a quick reply.
>
>     When TomW said I was "done" with a McIDAS port to LINUX,
>he was exagerating somewhat.  I got it to build.  It's
>far from tested yet.

I have been supporting McIDAS-X on Linux since December of 1996.  I
have been providing the code patches needed for Linux support to
several SSEC MUG sites since then, and they are up and running fine.

>     As far as duplicating your effort,

It amazes me that SSEC routinely ignores development advances by their
own users and spends money (MUG money?) to redo work that has already
been done AND tested in the most rigorous circumstances, at multiple
users sites some of which are running operationally.

Is this a wise expenditure of monies?  I think not.  

>so far all I've needed to do is change details in 8 little files:

>         mcmkhelp.c
>         mccomp.sh
>         tcl/generic/tclPosixStr.c
>         decoder.cp
>         sends_.c
>         mcimagem.cp
>         mcserv.cp
>         netcdf/configure
>
>     If you know things which should change beyond the scope
>of this little bunch, I'd be happy to take your guidance
>rather than re-discovering them.

The list of files that I change for Linux support are:

mcar.sh
mccomp.sh
tclcomp.sh
mct_ebuf.c
decoder.cp
mcimagem.c
mcserv.cp
sends_.c
ncgen/ncgentab.c
ncgen/ncgenyy.c
generic/tclPosixStr.c

The mod to mct_ebuf.c supports Linux versions RedHat 5.x (and others)
where the '-' in ps options were deprecated (e.g., a warning would be
spit out if one ran 'ps -u' instead of 'ps u'.  This behavior went away
in RedHat 6.x.

The mod I made to mcimagem.c for DEC OSF/1 also took care of the problem
on Linux.

The module sends_.c is part of libmcold.a.  The libmcold.a routines
should have been dropped from the distribution a couple of releases ago
as they are have not been used by any core routines for some years
(modulo a couple by XCD, but those routines should be moved back
into the regular library).

The ncgen mods were to bring the netCDF version distributed with SSEC
McIDAS up to rev with that provided by the UPC (the versions of these
files provided with SSEC McIDAS-X 7.60 were 3.4 beta; the versions
I updated to are from the actual 3.4 release).

I was recently made aware of small problems in netcdf/configure (by
MSFC).  There was a typo in the f2cFortran flag (a -Ff2cFortran instead
of a -Df2cFortran).  My users did not run into problems with this
since I had instructed them to set some environment variables for
the netCDF build (CC, CPPFLAGS, CFLAGS, FC, FFLAGS, and CXX).

>     Thanks again.
>    --address@hidden

Tom Yoksas