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Re: Executor w/Caldera



Clifford T. Matthews wrote:
> 
> >>>>> "Al" == CompExpr  <compexpr@aol.com> writes:
> In article <4r7nll$ehd@newsbf02.news.aol.com> compexpr@aol.com (CompExpr) writes:
> 
>     Al> I tried to install Executor Beta 1 with Caldera Network
>     Al> Desktop.  Caldera uses Accelerated X as it's X Desktop. When I
>     Al> tried to run Executor, it crashed.
> 
> Not good.  Did X-Windows give any error messages?  We tried Executor
> with Caldera Network Desktop Preview I and it worked, although that
> was a while ago and there have been many changes to CND and Executor
> in that time.

Executor Beta 1 runs just fine with CND 1.0 (or just about any other
Linux) and Accelerated-X, to the best of our knowledge.  We've run
Executor in demo mode in 8bpp, 16bpp and 24bpp with a range of graphics
boards.  Accelerated-X is an X Server, not a desktop metaphor (the
desktop included in CND is Visix' Looking Glass).  In general, error
messages that you'd see after running Executor would be on the xterm
from which you started it, and usually the messages are from the X libs. 

Server errors usually fall into one of these classes:

1/	an extension required for the application is not present in the
Server.  You get an X(extension) library error message or something
nicely formatted if your application developer is more careful.  Usually
the message will indicate the extension that was required, and that it
seems to be missing.

2/	drawing errors - some kind of line or text is curdled, perhaps only
in one resolution, on one graphics board, at one color depth, with a
particular line or font.  The application starts and runs, but something
might be misdrawn, either repeatedly or just when a specific set of
conditions is reached.

3/	fatal errors - the server dies or hangs the machine.  If our Server
dies, it usually writes a panic log file that you can email to us.  When
we see enough of the same symptom, we can track down the cause and kill
the problem.  Depending upon the X Server, OS, graphics board,
application and phase of the moon, the problem is either repeatable or
happens rarely and perhaps irreproducibly.

4/	memory leaks - the Server grows each time you do the same operation.
Almost every single customer problem report about memory leaks, is
caused by an application error (programmers can allocate resources in
the Server and then forget to free them).  This doesn't usually cause an
immediate problem, but over a period of days running the same
application, the Server can exhaust swap space (so can the client
application, since the error is usually a failure to free all resources
common to some exception condition).

There's also two application errors that some users will perceive as a
Server error.  Both of these are non-fatal to the Server, but one will
lead to the application failing to start, and the other will result in
bad colors being displayed.

The Server can be configured for a color depth that the application does
not recognise.  This leads to complaints of "it used to work with this
other Server and doesn't work with yours"... This is quite common with
applications ported from Workstations and being run at 15bpp and
sometimes at 16bpp (Netscape's Java in Navigator 2.0 fails quite
horribly in these cases, for example, and Caldera's WordPerfect silently
won't start in 15bpp).  There's nothing that the Server can do about an
application programers' oversight of a particular color depth; the
source of this problem really is the application developer and the
applications' QA department.

The other related problem is that many Workstation developers know the
order of representation of color bits in 16bpp or 24bpp and they
hardcode these bitmasks, instead of using the X Window System functions
that return the Server specific color mask.  If those apps are ported to
Linux or are remotely displayed to a Linux system, then the colors will
be incorrect on the Linux X display - but the failure is in the
Workstation developers code, and again there's nothing obvious that can
be done in the X Server to correct this programming problem (e.g. we
could mangle the color mask to look like that on a Workstation, but then
properly written applications would get incorrect colors).

If you can take an exact note of the server configuration (the
/etc/Xaccel.ini Server configuration file is a good start) and of the
Executor error message, I'd be willing to look at the problem.  Executor
is relatively new to our QA area, so there may be odd things that it
does that we're not aware of.  It's much more likely that you had a bad
FTP download!  This is the most common cause of failures with our
Anon-FTP downloadable demo version of the Server, especially when people
download via DOS or Windows and then transfer the files to Linux.

Jeremy Chatfield
--
X Inside Inc, +1 303 298-7478, FAX +1 303 298-1406,
Internet http://www.xinside.com ftp://ftp.xinside.com


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