[McIDAS #AMA-903084]: error running McIDAS-X on windows

Hi Heather,

re:
> I'm a doctoral student with NOAA-CREST at City College.  I've been
> trying to install McIDAS-X on windows XP, and my most recent error is:
> 
> Warning: Cannot convert string "10x20" to type FontStruct
> 
> mcimagem: ERROR fork()ing Warning: Cannot convert string "10x20" to type
> FontStruct
> 
> mcimagem: ERROR fork()ing
> 
> Can you suggest any way to fix this?

The error reported seems to indicate that a font that is expected
can not be found.  This seems pretty unusual for Windows XP.

Question:

- is it imperative that you run under Windows XP?

I ask because the preferred OS for McIDAS-X is *nix
(Unix, Linux or a variant thereof).

Further questions:

- have you tried to install under Windows before?
- do you know that you need to be running Microsoft's
  Services for Unix
- do you know that you will also need to load an
  X-Window system (e.g., Hummingbird, etc.)

Comment:

I routinely run McIDAS-X in a VMware virtual machine on
my Windows XP netbook.  I have successfully run (and done
code development) in:

Ubuntu
OpenSUSE 10.3
Fedora 7, 8, 9, 10

Question:

- the overhead incurred in loading the various packages
  to get McIDAS running in "native" mode in Windows XP
  is of similar complexity to:

  - loading VMware Player (free)
  - downloading a VMware virtual machine like Fedora

  There is, of course, the added overhead of having to
  do some adminstration tasks in the virtual machine.

Please forgive the questions above.  I am trying to develop
a representative mental model for what would be the easiest
way for you to get up and running McIDAS under Windows.

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: AMA-903084
Department: Support McIDAS
Priority: Normal
Status: Open