[GRASS5] Known Solaris 7 issues with beta 11

[B. Byars]

Known Solaris 7 issues

I've prepared this short document to list
some of the known issues I have found that
are relevant to compiling GRASS 5.0 on
Solaris 7 (US) and Solaris 7 Intel edition
(US). So these notes are only applicable
to the 32-bit US (11/99 stable) Solaris
unless noted.

I haven't had a chane to work with Solaris
8 yet, but I assume some similar issues.
As sonn as I get it running, I'll let everone
know.

Test Platform Specs:

- Sun Ultra 10, Solaris 7 (11/99 US ed.),
  rec. patch set, 256mb RAM, gcc 2.95.1

- Necessary software from www.sunfreeware.com
  in the form of packages.  Steve Christiansen
  does excellent packaging work.  I recommend
  getting ALL Solaris updated packages from
  his site.

Package:

- GRASS 5.0 beta 11

New Issues with beta 11 not seen previously:

- Configure does NOT like to run as anyone
  other than root on Solaris 7 now.  I try
  to run as any other user and get lot's of
  errors, mostly related to permissions.
  I'm compiling in the csh.

- Configure bombs as a result of zlibs.
  Fix is to get zlib 1.3.1 package from
  www.sunfreeware.com.  The precompiled
  binaries are perfect (pkgadd -d package).

- Sun lex is a no-go as well.  Fix is
  flex 2.5.4 from www.sunfreeware.com

- tcl 8.2.0 and tk 8.2.0 work fine.  One
  thing I have seen is that you may need
  to softlink 'wish8.2' to 'wish'.  Same
  for tclsh.  No problems with packages
  from sunfreeware.

- All other Sun X libs and system libs are
  fine.  No errors.

- There is no real Sun equivalent to Motif
  (no, the dt stuff doesn't cut it).  But
  this is not a hinderance unless someone
  still wants xgrass.

- 64-bit operation does not hamper the
  configure script.  I can produce identical
  errors so 64-bit compiling is not an
  issue under Sol 7.  Previous versions
  of GRASS (up to 5.0 beta 10) will compile
  easily under 64-bit Solaris.  So far I've
  done some benchmarking and can't really
  see any performance difference between
  specific programs (mapcalc, watershed,
  and poly were my 3 tests).  I recommend
  staying with 32-bit compiling because
  64-bit is not downward compatable.

- Intel 7 is much more stable.  Sun lex
  actually works here?  No fix needed.
  However, I can't get 64-bit Intel to
  configure.  Since I haven't spent as much
  time with it, I don't have a solution
  yet.  Previous GRASS versions see the
  same thing.

- Configure with Solaris 7 for some unknown
  reason will not let me specify any different
  installation directories.  I've not really
  looked into this in much detail.  No fix.

- The main configure bomb that I see is
  with permissions.  Lot's of "can't create"
  errors.

- While Sun OpenGL is nice, I still recommend
  going with mesa.  Sun's GL does not have
  very good support for (and the error is,
  "unknown widget type" (haha)) the current
  nviz.  I can't get OpenGL to work with it.
  However, IF you have mesa installed, I
  highly recommend setting the environment to
  only see mesa libs.  OpenGL will have some
  conflicts (I've seen in previous GRASS versions).

If anyone's got any other Solaris errors or you've
got a work-around you like, let me know.

Bruce



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