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<!-- Title information -->
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<Title>Information for Solaris</Title>
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<FirstName>David Holland, modified by Marc Aurele La France</FirstName>
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<PubDate>2004 August 18
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<!-- Table of contents -->
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<!-- Begin the document -->
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<Title>The VT-switching sub-system in Solaris x86</Title>
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The virtual terminal sub-system is a undocumented, and unsupported feature of
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Solaris x86 releases 2.1 through 7. It is no longer present in Solaris 8 and
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Therefore if you use virtual terminals, you do so at <Emphasis remap="bf">YOUR OWN RISK</Emphasis>.
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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 as
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most other SVR4 VT sub-systems.
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However, there are a number of limitations documented below.
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First, if you are running a Solaris 2.4 x86 system, and you want VT's, you will
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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
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immediately 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
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<Literal remap="tt">inittab</Literal> to enable logins on them.
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(<Emphasis remap="bf">Note</Emphasis>, do <Emphasis remap="bf">NOT</Emphasis> make a mistake here, you could lock yourself
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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 '<Literal remap="tt">init q</Literal>' to immediately enable the virtual
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The keys used for VT switching are as follows:
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<Literal remap="tt">Alt-SysReq-F1</Literal> through <Literal remap="tt">Alt-SysReq-F7</Literal>
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enable VT screens 1-7 respectively
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(if the VT is active).
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<Literal remap="tt">Alt-SysReq-n</Literal> enables the next active VT screen.
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<Literal remap="tt">Alt-SysReq-p</Literal> enables the previous active VT screen.
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<Literal remap="tt">Alt-SysReq-h</Literal> returns to the console.
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If you are using virtual terminals, you must leave at least one free for use by
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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 the
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If you have all 8 allocated, and you attempt to allocate a additional VT you
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will panic the system.
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(This bug is worked around in the Solaris X11R&relvers; 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,
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however a number of <Literal remap="tt">ioctl()</Literal> calls are broken.
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<Title>Notes for building X11R&relvers; on Solaris</Title>
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Both GCC, and the Sun Studio compilers are supported by X11R&relvers;.
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The minimum recommended GCC release is 2.7.2.
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Some earlier GCC's are known to not work and should be avoided.
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You should also make certain your version of GCC predefines `sun'.
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If needed edit <Literal remap="tt">/usr/local/lib/gcc-lib/*/*/specs</Literal>, and modify the
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<Literal remap="tt">*predefines:</Literal> line.
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On SPARCs, regardless of the compiler you use, ensure it generates 32-bit
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At this time, 64-bit binaries will probably not work.
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Also on SPARCs, you may be able to build the old deprecated Xsun* servers for
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older cg* graphics devices by adding "#define XsunServer YES" or "#define
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Xsun24Server YES" or "#define XsunMonoServer YES" to xc/config/cf/host.def.
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These servers are no longer maintained nor supported and may not build in
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A Threaded Xlib compiled with GCC has subtle problems.
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It'll work 98% of the time, however clients will occasionally exhibit
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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 <Literal remap="tt">˜xc/config/cf/host.def</Literal> to
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NO, if you are using GCC.
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Sun's compilers do not have this problem.
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Whether this behaviour still exists with newer GCC's has not been verified.
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To build X11R&relvers; with GCC you need gcc and (optionally) c++filt from GNU
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Don't install gas or ld from GNU binutils, use the one provided by Sun.
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You might need to setup a /opt/SUNWspro/bin directory containing symbolic links
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named <Literal remap="tt">cc</Literal>, <Literal remap="tt">CC</Literal>, and <Literal remap="tt">c++filt</Literal> pointing respectively to the actual
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<Literal remap="tt">gcc</Literal>, <Literal remap="tt">g++</Literal> and <Literal remap="tt">c++filt</Literal> commands.
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If you are using Sun compilers to compile the X11R&relvers; distribution, you need to
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modify your PATH appropriately so the Sun compiler tools are available.
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Normally, they should be in <Literal remap="tt">/opt/SUNWspro/bin</Literal>
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You <Emphasis remap="bf">MUST</Emphasis> put <Literal remap="tt">/usr/ccs/bin</Literal> at the front of your PATH.
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There are known problems with some GNU replacements for the utilities found
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So the <Literal remap="tt">/usr/ccs/bin</Literal> versions of these programs must be found before
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any possible GNU versions.
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(Most notably GNU '<Literal remap="tt">ar</Literal>' does not work during the build).
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<Title>Notes for running Xorg on Solaris</Title>
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Depending on the release or architecture of Solaris you are running, you might
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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 (<Literal remap="tt">/dev/xsvc</Literal>)
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that provides this functionality.
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It will be detected automatically by the server, so you don't need to install
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For older Solaris x86 and for Solaris SPARC releases, the source for this
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driver is included in
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<Literal remap="tt">xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/etc/apSolaris.shar</Literal> of the source
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This file can usually also be found in the <Literal remap="tt">/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/etc</Literal>
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directory when Xorg is installed.
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Building, and installing the driver is relatively straight forward. Please read
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its accompanying README file.
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If you have not made the Virtual Terminal devices, you will need to specify the
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terminal device to run the Xserver on.
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The correct device is vt00 so your <Literal remap="tt">xinit</Literal> command would look like
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If you have made the virtual terminal devices you do not need to specify the VT
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to run the Xserver on.
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For old releases of Solaris you will probably want to set your LD_LIBRARY_PATH to
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<Literal remap="tt">/usr/X11R6/lib:/usr/openwin/lib:/usr/dt/lib</Literal>.
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Including <Literal remap="tt">/usr/X11R6/lib</Literal> in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH is probably not
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necessary, however it doesn't hurt. :)
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Including <Literal remap="tt">/usr/openwin/lib</Literal> in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH is recommended
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on older releases because some Sun supplied binaries were not compiled with LD_RUN_PATH set
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properly at compile time.
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Motif and CDE applications may require <Literal remap="tt">/usr/dt/lib</Literal> in your
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LD_LIBRARY_PATH too.
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Xqueue is <Emphasis remap="bf">NOT</Emphasis> supported under Solaris.
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The includes necessary for Xqueue are available, however the driver does not
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seem to be in the kernel.
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If you want to use xdm with Solaris, extract the files from the shar file in
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<Literal remap="tt">/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/etc/XdmConf.svr4</Literal> into a temporary directory.
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The <Literal remap="tt">README</Literal> 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 that you
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<Title>Known bugs, and work arounds with Solaris</Title>
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The Solaris 2.1 for x86 OpenWindows filemgr does not work against a X11R5
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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 an
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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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The SPARC port is still quite new, so instability is to be expected (and
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It might even have broken some aspects of the x86 port.
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<Title>Bug Notification</Title>
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Bug reports should be reported at bugs.freedesktop.org using the
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xorg product or sent to <EMAIL
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>xorg@lists.freedesktop.org</EMAIL
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