20001113: RedHat Linux used as an X-server

>From:  Rick Kohrs <address@hidden>
>Organization:  SSEC
>Keywords:  200011131714.eADHErO04776 McIDAS-X Linux XFree86

Rick,

>       We have a new site coming on and they are primarily a linux house. 
>They had planned on using some of their linux boxes as xterms (among
>other things) and are having some problems.  Below is a snipit from John
>Benson:
>
>#     Turns out, Linux uses Xfree86 as its x-server, and it doesn't
>#export an 8-bit visual.  That's not much of a problem if McIDAS
>#is running on the same machine as the display, but if the display 
>#is done remotely, the results are intolerable.
>
>Have you seen anything like this?

No, I have not seen this problem. Then again, I typically use an AIX
box as my X window machine and run sessions from others back to it.  I
can test the setup you suggest, however, by running a McIDAS-X session
on a variety of other machines with display back to a Linux box.  I
will give this a quick try and let you know what happens.

<later>

I ran the following test:

o login onto the system console of a machine running RedHat Linux 6.2
o from there, rlogin to a machine running Solaris x86 2.8
o set DISPLAY back to Linux box
o ran Unidata McIDAS-X 7.7x (includes 7.701 fasttrack)

I saw no weirdness at all running in this mode.  Is it possible that
the user was running a pre-7.7x version of McIDAS?  7.6x's poor
handling of 24-bit visuals would explain Benson's comment "the results
are intolerable".  

For the record, what exactly was intolerable? What version of Linux did
John do the test on?

Tom

>From address@hidden Mon Nov 13 13:21:43 2000
>Subject: Re: 20001113: RedHat Linux used as an X-server

Ooops.  John was running 7.603.  This was before Rod's 24-bit changes. 
Sorry for the false alarm.  We still need to know what the differences
between our config and our new site's config, so the issue may not be
dead.

RIck