RE: [Plplot-devel] dev tk problems with SuSe 7.2

[Geoffrey F. <fu...@ga...>]

Alan W. Irwin writes:
 > Geoffrey, your good build report below for PLplot 5.1.0 on SuSe 7.2 may have
 > given us a false sense of security about how well plplot actually runs
 > on SuSe 7.2.
 > 
 > I have a report from Olof Svensson <sve...@es...> (who is part of the
 > team working on the pyqt widget and the windows port) that he cannot get the
 > tk device to work on his SuSe 7.2 system with plplot-5.1.0.  (He was trying
 > to verify what tcl/tk results would look like on Linux before trying to get
 > them to work on Windows.)
 > 
 > The configure and make seem to work fine for him, but if he runs
 > 
 > ./x01c -dev tk
 > 
 > (or any other tcl or tk example) he gets absolutely no widget results (and
 > no error messages).  Apparently, -dev xwin works fine for him.
 > 
 > I checked his
 > 
 > ./configure --with-double
 > 
 > and his make results and can find nothing obviously wrong, and in fact I
 > tried that same ./configure --with-double myself before building a fresh
 > plplot-5.1.0, and I get good-looking widget results from ./x01c -dev tk on
 > Debian woody. So it is not a general plplot problem but probably just
 > something specific to SuSe 7.2.
 > 
 > I think the next step is to try and verify the problem. Geoffrey, can you do
 > this on the SuSe 7.2 system available to you?  I assume from your message
 > below that everything built okay on that system, but you didn't actually try
 > a -dev tk test.  It would be most interesting to see if such a test works
 > for you or not with the usual tcl/tk rpm's from SuSe.

I switched my Lightspeed desktop from SuSE to Red Hat 7.1 a month or
so ago, because I just couldn't take SuSE anymore.  So now all my
personal work is done on Red Hat 7.1.  I'll probably upgrade to 7.2
one of these days...

Anyway, the "problem", is almost surely an issue with xauth.  Our
sysops got xauth working here, so I was never plagued by xauth-itis
while I was running SuSE on our network.  But if xauth isn't set up
right, you'll have to either straighten that out (a Herculean task if
you ask me), or circumvent it entirely (my standard course of action
when I have to deal with this issue) by setting TK_NO_SECURITY in your
Tk makefile and recompiling.

I also never use the system packaged Tcl/Tk stuff.  I always download
my own Tcl/Tk/Itcl tarballs, install to a private prefix, and
configure/make/install PLplot against this private prefix.  

There is no way to make PLplot automatically xauth imune.  If you're
using xauth on your system, you just have to figure it out, or
disable Tk's sensitivity to it (which can only be done by recompiling
Tk from source).

-- 
Geoffrey Furnish         fu...@ga...