ellis@unix.SRI.COM (Michael Ellis) (04/07/89)
Is it even possible to install X on a Sun4 running "Sys4-3.2", or am I beating my head against the wall? Is it wiser to throw in the towel and tell my users they're stuck with SunWindows until a stable version of 4.0 is available? (Sys4-3.2 is the only non-4.0 SunOS that will run on a Sun4; I believe it is a version of 3.2 with 3.5 and 4.0 enhancements, and I was planning to upgrade when 4.0.3 comes out.) Never having had any experience with X installation, I must admit that its sheer bulk and complexity are truly appalling (to this novice, anyway). Critical installation instructions are hidden deep in random leaves of X's gigantic tree structure. Worst of all, trial-and-error in setting critical configuration parameters yields a 3-8 hour turnaround each trial cycle: failed `make World's seem to require total restoration of virgin X software: 1 hour for the `make World', 1 hour for the rm -r, 1 hour for the tar, 1-3 hours editing trial parameters in scattered configuration files, the slack time spent gnashing teeth and clenching fists while angstfully scanning thru megabytes of imakefiles and "helpful" user documentation in hopes of attaining true X enlightenment. X installation is *hell* for this novice. Help! Thanks Michael Ellis [ellis@sri-unix]
jim@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Jim Fulton) (04/07/89)
> [problems installing R3 on an ancient operating system (SunOS Sys4-3.2 :-)]
Yup, there are a few places where Sys4-3.2 has the same problems as SunOS 4.0
(I'm not sure if the SunOS 4.0 support was only tested on the Sun4 or not; if
it was, then many of the places that look for OSMajorVersion >= 4 are really
SparcArchitecture bugs). You'll need to look for workarounds for SunOS 4.0 in
the various Imakefiles and patch them to also deal with the sparc. I'd
recommend doing this by adding the following lines to
util/imake.includes/Sun.macros:
#ifdef sparc
#undef sparc
#define SparcArchitecture
#endif
and then fixing the various Imakefiles that have links like
#if defined(SunArchitecture) && SunOSPlatform && OSMajorVersion >= 4
to look more like
#if defined(SunArchitecture) && SunOSPlatform && defined(SparcArchitecture)
and then send context diffs to xbugs@expo.lcs.mit.edu.lm@snafu.Sun.COM (Larry McVoy) (04/08/89)
In article <29388@sri-unix.SRI.COM> ellis@unix.sri.com (Michael Ellis) writes: >Is it even possible to install X on a Sun4 running "Sys4-3.2", or am I >beating my head against the wall? Is it wiser to throw in the towel and tell my >users they're stuck with SunWindows until a stable version of 4.0 is available? Not only is it possible, but it has been done. I did it myself in about 4-5 days (that includeded bringing up all the applications, core + contrib). I run it daily - the only thing that's a drag is that the X libs haven't been made into shared libs so binaries are mondo big. I think the only prob I had was with something in some library (xt?) that worked when I used cc but not when I used cc -O. If you have to know what it was I could find out. Larry McVoy, Lachman Associates. ...!sun!lm or lm@sun.com