[GRASSLIST:7498] Re: Newbie having trouble starting GRASS...

[Hamish]

> I'm having some trouble getting GRASS fired up. I am new to Linux and
> GRASS, so I appreciate your patience with my efforts to get GRASS
> running successfully.
> 
> I'm running Debian Sarge, and I've installed GRASS 6.0.0.

(from the debian package I assume)

Lots of people are using this setup (including me) without problems.

 
> I followed the direction in the GRASS tutorials, and set up the
> following folder to hold my GRASS Databases/Data:
> 
> /home/linuxuser/GRASS/GRASSDATA
> 
> When I start GRASS, I enter the following information in the
> "Database:" text box of the dialog:
> 
> /home/linuxuser/GRASS/GRASSDATA
> 
> I then click the "Create Location From ESPG", and enter the
> appropriate ESPG code.
> 
> GRASS then automatically shutsdown.
> 
> When I restart GRASS, I select the following information in the
> dialog:
> 
> Location: New Location
> Map Set: PERMANENT

(best to make a working mapset rather than using PERMANENT)

 
> I then click the "Enter GRASS" button.
> 
> When I do so the splash screen displays, and after waiting a few
> seconds I see "done" in the top right corner of the splash screen.
> However, the splash screen disappears and nothing else happens.
> Alt-Tab does not bring up any minimized or hidden windows.
> 
> What am I doing wrong?

Hard to say. 

Start grass from a terminal window (just type grass at the prompt) and
see what happens that way. If it still fails try starting in text mode
by typing 'grass -text' at the terminal prompt. If GRASS starts, type
"d.m &" at the prompt to start up the GUI. Starting up this way should
give you some clues as to what went wrong. Restart GRASS with 
'grass -gui' to get it to start in GUI mode again. If it still doesn't
work, file a bug against the Debian package.


Alt-tab won't do anything unless you've gone into the key bindings
config and set up Gnome/KDE/whatever to respect that.

 
> Am I supposed to see something after the splash screen displays.

The GIS manager window should show up as well as a terminal window.


--

Folks: the tcl/tk 8.3 vs 8.4 issue only has to do with NVIZ, and then
mostly only seen on Debian. The d.m GIS manager stuff should be fine.
NVIZ will crash with a segfault on startup if *built* with the Debian
tcl/tk 8.4 development packages. You *can* have TclTk 8.4 installed and
actually *run* GRASS, d.m, and even NVIZ using the Tk 8.4 version of
'wish' without any problems. The restriction is just that it has to be
compiled by the Debian packager using the 8.3 development packages.
(I think it's a threading issue.)




Hamish