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Information for Solaris
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David Holland, modified by Marc Aurele La France
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XFree86 is a port of X11R6.5.1 that supports several versions of Unix. It is
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derived from X386 1.2 which was the X server distributed with X11R5. This
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release consists of many new features and performance improvements as well as
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many bug fixes. The release is available as a source code distribution, as
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well as binary distributions for many architectures.
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The sources for XFree86 are available by anonymous ftp from:
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ftp://ftp.XFree86.org/pub/XFree86/current
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Solaris binaries for XFree86 are available for anonymous ftp at the same
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address. Currently, two binary distributions are available: one for Solaris
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8 x86, the other for previous Solaris x86 releases. They are not inter-
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changeable. No binary distribution is available for Solaris/SPARC as it is
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still under development.
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2. The VT-switching sub-system in Solaris x86
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The virtual terminal sub-system is a undocumented, and unsupported feature of
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Solaris x86. Therefore if you use virtual terminals, you do so at YOUR OWN
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Virtual terminals are not available in Solaris SPARC, and their availability
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has been removed in Solaris8 x86.
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When available, the virtual terminals of Solaris work basically the same way
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as most other SVR4 VT sub-systems. However, there are a number of limita-
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tions documented below.
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First, if you are running a Solaris 2.4 x86 system, and you want VT's, you
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will have to create the necessary devices first, so become root.
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Verify the chanmux device driver's major number is 100:
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# grep -i chanmux /etc/name_to_major
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If the number after 'chanmux' is anything but 100, I would suggest you imme-
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diately abort your attempt to create virtual terminals, and learn to live
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However, if it is 100, then as root type the following commands to create the
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maximum allowable number of virtual terminals.
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There is no need for a reconfiguration boot.
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Secondly, for both 2.1, and 2.4 x86 systems, add a few lines to the inittab
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to enable logins on them.
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(Note, do NOT make a mistake here, you could lock yourself out of the system)
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--------------------->Snip Snip<-----------------------------------------------
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v1:234:respawn:/usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h -p "`uname -n` VT01 login: " -T AT386 -d /dev/vt01 -l console
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v2:234:respawn:/usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h -p "`uname -n` VT02 login: " -T AT386 -d /dev/vt02 -l console
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v3:234:respawn:/usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h -p "`uname -n` VT03 login: " -T AT386 -d /dev/vt03 -l console
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v4:234:respawn:/usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h -p "`uname -n` VT04 login: " -T AT386 -d /dev/vt04 -l console
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---------------------->End Here<-----------------------------------------------
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These four lines enable four VT's on Alt-SysReq-F1 through Alt-SysReq-F4.
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Then execute the command 'init q' to immediately enable the virtual termi-
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The keys used for VT switching are as follows:
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Alt-SysReq-F1 through Alt-SysReq-F7 enable VT screens 1-7 respec-
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tively (if the VT is active).
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Alt-SysReq-n enables the next active VT screen.
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Alt-SysReq-p enables the previous active VT screen.
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Alt-SysReq-h returns to the console.
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If you are using virtual terminals, you must leave at least one free for use
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Limitations of the virtual terminal sub-system under Solaris x86:
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There are only a total of 8 available VT's (7 normal VT's + 1 console) not
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the usual 15. If you have all 8 allocated, and you attempt to allocate a
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additional VT you will panic the system. (This bug is worked around in the
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Solaris XFree86 Xserver.)
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From a programming stand point, they work pretty much as documented in the
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AT&T Unix System V/386 Release 4 Integrated Software Development Guide, how-
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ever a number of ioctl() calls are broken.
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3. Notes for building XFree86 on Solaris
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1. Both GCC, and ProWorks are supported by XFree86. The minimum recom-
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mended GCC release is 2.7.2. Some earlier GCC's are known to not work
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and should be avoided.
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You should also make certain your version of GCC predefines `sun'. If
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needed edit /usr/local/lib/gcc-lib/*/*/specs, and modify the *prede-
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On SPARCs, regardless of the compiler you use, ensure it generates
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32-bit binaries. At this time, 64-bit binaries will probably not work.
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2. Also on SPARCs, you will need to set BuildXFree86OnSparcSunOS to YES in
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~xc/config/cf/host.def. Otherwise, you can only build the old depre-
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3. A Threaded Xlib compiled with GCC has subtle problems. It'll work 98%
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of the time, however clients will occasionally exhibit strange hangs.
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Most notably image viewers such as xv-3.10 exhibit this problem.
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It is recommended that you set ThreadedX in ~xc/config/cf/host.def to
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NO, if you are using GCC. ProWorks does not have this problem.
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Whether this behaviour still exists with newer GCC's has not been veri-
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4. To build XFree86 with GCC you need gcc and (optionally) c++filt from
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GNU binutils. Don't install gas or ld from GNU binutils, use the one
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You might need to setup a /opt/SUNWspro/bin directory containing sym-
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bolic links named cc, CC, and c++filt pointing respectively to the
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actual gcc, g++ and c++filt commands.
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5. If you are using ProWorks to compile the XFree86 distribution, you need
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to modify your PATH appropriately so the ProWorks tools are available.
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Normally, they should be in /opt/SUNWspro/bin
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6. You MUST put /usr/ccs/bin at the front of your PATH. There are known
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problems with some GNU replacements for the utilities found there. So
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the /usr/ccs/bin versions of these programs must be found before any
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possible GNU versions. (Most notably GNU 'ar' does not work during the
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4. Notes for running XFree86 on Solaris
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1. Depending on the release or architecture of Solaris you are running,
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you might need to install an OS driver for an aperture device.
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Under Solaris x86 2.5 and later, there's a system driver (/dev/xsvc)
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that provides this functionality. It will be detected automatically by
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the server, so you don't need to install the aperture driver.
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For older Solaris x86 and for Solaris SPARC releases, the source for
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this driver is included in xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/etc/apSo-
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laris.shar of the source distribution. This file can usually also be
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found in the /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/etc directory when XFree86 is
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installed. Building, and installing the driver is relatively straight
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forward. Please read its accompanying README file.
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2. If you have not made the Virtual Terminal devices, you will need to
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specify the terminal device to run the Xserver on. The correct device
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is vt00 so your xinit command would look like so:
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If you have made the virtual terminal devices you do not need to spec-
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ify the VT to run the Xserver on.
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3. For Solaris you will probably want to set your LD_LIBRARY_PATH to
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/usr/X11R6/lib:/usr/openwin/lib:/usr/dt/lib. Including /usr/X11R6/lib
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in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH is probably not necessary, however it doesn't
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Including /usr/openwin/lib in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH is recommended
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because some Sun supplied binaries were not compiled with LD_RUN_PATH
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set properly at compile time.
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Motif and CDE applications may require /usr/dt/lib in your
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4. Xqueue is NOT supported under Solaris. The includes necessary for
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Xqueue are available, however the driver does not seem to be in the
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5. If you want to use xdm with Solaris, extract the files from the shar
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file in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/etc/XdmConf.svr4 into a temporary directory.
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The README file tells where the individual files need to be installed.
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Be sure to read through each file and make any site-specific changes
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5. Known bugs, and work arounds with Solaris
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1. The Solaris 2.1 for x86 OpenWindows filemgr does not work against a
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X11R5 Xserver, it probably will also not work against a X11R6 Xserver.
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Attempting to 'Drag and Drop' a file causes the filemgr to abort with
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Solaris x86 2.4 does not have this problem.
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There is no known work around.
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2. The SPARC port is still quite new, so instability is to be expected
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(and reported!). It might even have broken some aspects of the x86
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Bug reports should be sent to <XFree86@XFree86.org>.
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Generated from XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/sgml/Solaris.sgml,v 1.4 2003/01/04 04:20:23 dawes Exp $
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$XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/README.Solaris,v 1.4 2003/01/04 04:28:27 dawes Exp $