Re: [mh] running mh as a normal user? -> rgb.txt not working breaks TK

[Marc M. <ma...@me...>]

On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 11:00:32PM -0800, David Norwood wrote:
> It looks like you are running two X instances.  One as root on the console,
> and a vnc instance as merlin.  I'm assuming you are starting misterhouse on
> the console and this is a permissions problem.  You either need to login to
> the console as merlin, or run "xhost +" as root before you start misterhouse
> as merlin.  That command will allow non root users to display windows on
> root's X instance.  Tk should have a better error message.

Sorry, I gave way too little info.
I was running within the vnc instance of that server with proper display
permissions.

I can run xclock just fine in that shell, but if I try to run mh with tk, it
blows up. Problem is that if I run mhl as myself within vnc (headless
server), even though my DISPLAY is set just fine, tk won't start.

I was able to debug this further:
gargamel:/var/local/src/misterhouse/mh/bin$ wish
Application initialization failed: unknown color name "Black"
% gargamel:/var/local/src/misterhouse/mh/bin$

A backtrace shows:
a589180 is not a hash at /usr/lib/perl5/Tk/MainWindow.pm line 55.
 at /usr/lib/perl5/Tk/MainWindow.pm line 55
        eval {...} called at /usr/lib/perl5/Tk/MainWindow.pm line 55
        Tk::MainWindow::new('MainWindow') called at mh line 6394
        main::tk_setup_windows called at mh line 1074
        main::setup called at mh line 7484
Aborted

I couldn't whip up a good patch to catch this exception in Perl TK, but how
about this output:
 - setting up main window. If this fails, please try to run 'wish' from command line and get this working first
a178710 is not a hash at /usr/lib/perl5/Tk/MainWindow.pm line 55.
Aborted

the user would then run:
gargamel:/var/local/src/misterhouse/mh-svn/bin$ wish
Application initialization failed: unknown color name "Black"

and hopefully fix it

--- mh-svn.old/bin/mh   2009-01-11 09:56:09.000000000 -0800
+++ mh-svn/bin/mh       2009-02-20 10:21:53.000000000 -0800
@@ -6390,8 +6390,14 @@
 
 sub tk_setup_windows {
                                 # See perl/bin/widget.bat for lots of examples
-    print " - setting up main window\n";
-    $MW = MainWindow->new;
+    print " - setting up main window. If this fails, please try to run 'wish' from command line and get this working first\n";
+    use Error qw(:try);
+    try { 
+       $MW = MainWindow->new; 
+    }
+    catch Error with {  # I wish this worked, but it does not
+        die "Could not create TK window, try running 'wish' from the command line to debug"
+    };
     $MW->withdraw;              # Hide the window until we are all set up
                                # doesn't quite work on XP :(


If you have no better idea than the catch error which does not catch the 
error for me, can you just change the
+    print " - setting up main window. If this fails, please try to run 'wish' from command line and get this working first\n"; 


By the way, my Xrealvnc was busted, despite:
> merlin    7351  0.9  1.1  16472 11832 ?        S    Jan13 503:19 Xrealvnc :1 -desktop X -httpd /usr/share/vnc-java -auth /home/merlin/.Xauthority -geometry 1152x900 -depth 16 -pixelformat rgb565 -rfbwait 120000 -rfbauth /home/merlin/.vnc/passwd -rfbport 5901 -fp /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled,/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi,/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType -co /etc/X11/rgb.txt
> gargamel:~$ l /etc/X11/rgb.txt
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17371 2002-10-16 13:20 /etc/X11/rgb.txt
> gargamel:~$ grep -i Black /etc/X11/rgb.txt
>   0   0   0             black
> gargamel:/usr/X11R6/lib/X11# strings /usr/bin/Xrealvnc | grep rgb
> /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb
> gargamel:/usr/X11R6/lib/X11# grep -i black /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt
>   0   0   0             black

It just would not work.

I even upgraded to a recent vnc4server, and still, the vnc log shows:
Xvnc Free Edition 4.1.1 - built Jan 30 2009 19:39:5
Couldn't open RGB_DB '/etc/X11/rgb.txt'
which of course I have, can read as myself, and Xorg can read and use just
fine.

I'll need to debug this further, but it's not an mh problem anymore :)

Thanks,
Marc
-- 
"A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
Microsoft is to operating systems & security ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/