Thread: [XonX-Users] xmaxima and Mac OS X/XonX
Brought to you by:
torrey
From: Justin C. W. <ju...@ma...> - 2002-04-11 16:51:32
|
Hi, Maxima is a public domain version of the old Macsyma symbolic math package from MIT. It's supported from sourceforge. I have it running, using clisp (also on sourceforge) on Mac OS X. I have an odd problem when running 'xmaxima', the X-based version. It complains on startup that an expected executable is not present, which is true. After a bit, I get a second alert claiming timeout waiting for that non-existent executable. When I tell it to stop waiting, it exits *along with* the whole desktop. It appears that the whole login environment is being blown away. CrashReporter is running, and I've enabled crash logs, but I don't get anything (core dump or log) when this happens. Anyone know enough about XonX to know what could be happening, how to track it down, or how to work around this? Thanks. Regards, Justin -- Justin C. Walker, Curmudgeon-At-Large * Institute for General Semantics | It's not whether you win or lose... | It's whether *I* win or lose. *--------------------------------------*-------------------------------* |
From: Torrey T. L. <to...@mr...> - 2002-04-11 18:53:08
|
At 9:51 AM -0700 4/11/02, Justin C. Walker wrote: >Hi, > >Maxima is a public domain version of the old Macsyma symbolic math >package from MIT. It's supported from sourceforge. I have it >running, using clisp (also on sourceforge) on Mac OS X. > >I have an odd problem when running 'xmaxima', the X-based version. >It complains on startup that an expected executable is not present, >which is true. After a bit, I get a second alert claiming timeout >waiting for that non-existent executable. When I tell it to stop >waiting, it exits *along with* the whole desktop. It appears that >the whole login environment is being blown away. CrashReporter is >running, and I've enabled crash logs, but I don't get anything (core >dump or log) when this happens. > >Anyone know enough about XonX to know what could be happening, how >to track it down, or how to work around this? I wish I could provide more than anecdotes, but I believe this is an example of XDarwin or xmaxima exploiting an underlying bug in Mac OS X. Two of my local users have reported the same experience with MS Word. (Ie. the entire desktop quits without warning and the users find themselves back at the login prompt.) Unfortunately, neither user was able to repeat this bug. If you've found a repeatable way to do this with XDarwin/xmaxima, we should be well on the way to finding a cure. One suggestion on how to debug this would be to login remotely to the machine you are running XDarwin on. You can build XFree86 yourself and put host.def in xc/config/cf with the following line: #define DefaultCDebugFlags -g This will cause XFree86 to be build debuggable and you can start XDarwin from your remote connection with: gdb /Applications/XDarwin.app/Contents/MacOS/XDarwin Hopefully when the Core Graphics window server bombs out XDarwin will crash but you will be able to make some sense of what XDarwin is doing with the debugger. Since XDarwin is running from a remote login context it shouldn't automatically quit when everything else does. --Torrey |
From: Justin C. W. <ju...@ma...> - 2002-04-11 23:07:59
|
On Thursday, April 11, 2002, at 11:46 AM, Torrey T. Lyons wrote: > At 9:51 AM -0700 4/11/02, Justin C. Walker wrote: >> Hi, >> >> Maxima is a public domain version of the old Macsyma symbolic math >> package from MIT. It's supported from sourceforge. I have it >> running, using clisp (also on sourceforge) on Mac OS X. >> >> I have an odd problem when running 'xmaxima', the X-based version. It >> complains on startup that an expected executable is not present, which >> is true. After a bit, I get a second alert claiming timeout waiting >> for that non-existent executable. When I tell it to stop waiting, it >> exits *along with* the whole desktop. It appears that the whole login >> environment is being blown away. CrashReporter is running, and I've >> enabled crash logs, but I don't get anything (core dump or log) when >> this happens. >> >> Anyone know enough about XonX to know what could be happening, how to >> track it down, or how to work around this? > > I wish I could provide more than anecdotes, but I believe this is an > example of XDarwin or xmaxima exploiting an underlying bug in Mac OS X. > Two of my local users have reported the same experience with MS Word. > (Ie. the entire desktop quits without warning and the users find > themselves back at the login prompt.) Unfortunately, neither user was > able to repeat this bug. If you've found a repeatable way to do this > with XDarwin/xmaxima, we should be well on the way to finding a cure. This one is like clockwork: bring up xmaxima, wait a bit; get a dialog about something timing out; say 'don't wait', and blammo. When I have time, I'll try out your suggestions for debugging. In the meantime, if someone else has cycles, I am using clisp and maxima, as downloaded from the sourceforge site. The maxima drop has a 'pre59' subdirectory which seems to be the one that's built. Cheers, Justin -- Justin C. Walker, Curmudgeon-At-Large * Institute for General Semantics | If you're not confused, | You're not paying attention *--------------------------------------*-------------------------------* |