[comp.windows.x] X tools for SparcStations

jst@wucs1.wustl.edu (Jon Turner) (12/01/89)

I'm trying to set up a workable X environment on our Sun network that
includes several SparcStations. I've been having trouble with several
of the tools that I've obtained and am hoping that someone out there
has solved these problems so I won't have to. Any assistance will be
much appreciated.

	Magic. This is the biggie. We use the Berkeley Magic tools for
	VLSI design. I've built a new version of Magic using the changes
	done by Marco Papa at USC. Magic comes up and sort of runs, but
	the outlines of cells are drawn as dotted lines, some outlines
	are missing altogether, outlines for vias are missing and some
	of the crosses on other vias are partly or completely missing.
	If this is a known bug and there is a know fix, please let me know.
	Also, Magic runs noticeably slower under X than under Sunview.
	Is this inherent? If not, is anyone working to make it faster?

	Xperfmon. I've built it and it executes but bombs with the message
	``vmstat: Disk init info not in namelist.'' I'm guessing there
	are enough machine-dependencies in this program that it won't
	run on a SparcStation without some modifications. Has anyone
	gotten this running on a SparcStation and if so, how?

	Mail tool. Is there a mail tool similar to the sunview one that
	runs under Xwindows? Yes, I know about xmh, but mh seems to be
	such a behemoth that I'd rather not install it if I don't have to.

	Tex previewers. I have both texx and xdvi but I can't get either
	running. In the case of texx it fails with a message about an
	X-protocol error. In particular it says ``BadMatch, invalid
	parameter attributes'' then goes on to give major and minor
	opcodes of the failed request and some other stuff. If anyone has
	this working, I'd appreciate it. Xdvi fails for lack of .pxl
	files. We use .gf here and I'd rather not resort to creating
	the .pxl files just for xdvi if I can help it. Does anyone have
	texx working on a SparcStation? Any opinions on the relative
	merits of texx and xdvi? Are there other TeX previewers out there
	that I should be looking at?

That's it. Please send replies to

	jst@wucs1.wustl.edu

and thanks for your support.