20010727: McIDAS-X display error on Linux 7.1

>From: Wayne Bresky <address@hidden>
>Organization: Cornell
>Keywords: 200107261641.f6QGft109510 McIDAS f2c display

Wayne,

>I tried two configurations to correct the problem (I am using KDE by the way).
>First, I tried 16-bit mode (at resolution 1024x768) and got the following:
>
>mcimage:    number of colors plus image colors cannot be more than 62.
>mcimage:    attempting to guess a good value

This is typical.

>The result is only a text window.

This is _not_ typical.

>Then I tried 24-bit mode (at 1024x768) and got a different error:
>
>mcimage:    Using slow processing for Z-32 images

This is not an error.  McIDAS is telling you that it will be using
a different mode for processing true color images.  The "slow procesing"
comment made sense when machines were a lot slower, but is misleading
on the current (and at least one past) generation of PCs.

>Still only a text window is showing up.  Any ideas?

Someone at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology reported a similar
problem when running under KDE.  Could you run a quick test to verify
that the problem goes away when you run under Gnome?  - hopefully, your
Linux install included Gnome in addition to KDE -.  Like I say, I run
in 24-bit mode under Gnome all of the time.  I just started McIDAS on
one of the machines we will be using for our workshops yesterday (733
Mhz Dell with Nvidia TNT2 (16 MB) graphics on board), and it worked
under Gnome as well.  I havn't tried KDE for quite a while (at least
two years), so I can't comment on what should happen.  I will, however,
try this out tonight on my home machine and will attempt to get a test
in on a workshop machine when I get into work.

>BTW, the video card appears to be 16MB.  This is what shows
>up when I run Xconfigurator.

This is the same as the machines we are using for our training workshops.
McIDAS runs really nicely there, but, again, I have only tried Gnome
so far.

Tom

>From address@hidden Fri Jul 27 08:56:18 2001
>Subject: Re: 20010727: McIDAS-X display error on Linux 7.1

Tom,

Switching to Gnome eliminates the problem.  Weird!

Wayne