Gnuplot doesn't recognize X11 as a terminal
Wilson Cheung
problem. Now, I tried to install on another Macintosh and after a couple of
hours of debugging it refuses to plot any points. It appears that the
problem might be some things not being set up right in the X11 program for
OS X. One major thing I notice is that on the Mac where gnuplot works well
if you type "set terminal" you will see that X11 is on the list of valid
terminals. If you type the same thing on the Mac where gnuplot doesn't work
well you see that X11 is not defined. I figure that somewhere during the
installation process some environment variables just did not get defined and
so the X11 terminal is not defined even though I invoke gnuplot from an X11
terminal.
I've been able to use Matlab on OSX which uses the X11 terminal to plot
graphs without any problem, but there is something not quite right about how
this particular Mac was configured. Re-installing the entire OS is not an
option, as there's a lot of data invested already. Figuring out which
environment variables to define is the what I want to do.
Any advice?
--
Hans-Bernhard Broeker
[...]
> One major thing I notice is that on the Mac where gnuplot works well
> if you type "set terminal" you will see that X11 is on the list of valid
> terminals.
Well, then no, you won't get X11 display on that Mac, obviously.
> If you type the same thing on the Mac where gnuplot doesn't work
> well you see that X11 is not defined. I figure that somewhere
> during the installation process some environment variables just did
> not get defined and so the X11 terminal is not defined even though I
> invoke gnuplot from an X11 terminal.
Environment variables almost certainly aren't the problem. Presence
of X11 development packages on the target machine usually is. I don't
use Macs, so I can't be any more specific than this: inspect the
config.log file --- it'll tell you what exactly it tried to do, and
why it failed.
--
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (bro...@physik.rwth-aachen.de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.
Kevin Horton
> Wilson Cheung <Wilson...@wakundama.com> wrote: [...]
>
>> If you type the same thing on the Mac where gnuplot doesn't work well
>> you see that X11 is not defined. I figure that somewhere during the
>> installation process some environment variables just did not get
>> defined and so the X11 terminal is not defined even though I invoke
>> gnuplot from an X11 terminal.
>
> Environment variables almost certainly aren't the problem. Presence of
> X11 development packages on the target machine usually is. I don't use
> Macs, so I can't be any more specific than this: inspect the config.log
> file --- it'll tell you what exactly it tried to do, and why it failed.
Did you install the X11SDK? Even if you install XCode, the X11SDK is not
installed by default. It has to be installed either with a custom Xcode
install, or by clicking on the X11SDK pkg in the Packages folder of the
XCode CD.
I've also seen several reports on the Apple Installer not installing every
file that it is supposed to. Martin Costabel wrote a script that checks
to see if all the files were installed by Apple's Installer. Martin said:
"I have written a little shell script "bomcheck" to check this. It is
available here
<http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/*checkout*/fink/experimental/costabel/bomcheck?rev=1.1If>
you run it as "sh bomcheck X11SDK", it tells you whether the installation
of that package is complete."
If the installer failed to install all files, then running it again (and
again, if necessary) may solve the problem.
--
Kevin Horton
Ottawa
e-mail: khorton02(_at_)rogers(_dot_)com
Wilson Cheung
"Kevin Horton" <ju...@junk.junk> wrote:
I tried to get to the above URL but got the following error:
An Exception Has Occurred
Python Traceback
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/viewcvs-pre-1.0-sf.net/lib/viewcvs.py", line 2709, in
main
request.run_viewcvs()
File "/usr/local/viewcvs-pre-1.0-sf.net/lib/viewcvs.py", line 348, in
run_viewcvs
self.view_func(self)
File "/usr/local/viewcvs-pre-1.0-sf.net/lib/viewcvs.py", line 1801, in
view_checkout
fp, revision = request.repos.openfile(request.path_parts, rev)
File "/usr/local/viewcvs-pre-1.0-sf.net/lib/vclib/bincvs/__init__.py",
line 100, in openfile
filename, revision = _parse_co_header(fp)
File "/usr/local/viewcvs-pre-1.0-sf.net/lib/vclib/bincvs/__init__.py",
line 464, in _parse_co_header
raise vclib.Error(
Error: Second line of co output is not the revision.
Line was: co: /cvsroot/fink/experimental/costabel/bomcheck,v: Symbolic name
`1If' is undefined.
fname="/cvsroot/fink/experimental/costabel/bomcheck".
Kevin Horton
I think the problem was that the URL got chopped into two lines, and you
didn't reassemble it. At least I get the same error message if I use a
partial URL. But, there is some other problem too, as even the fully
assembled URL doesn't work today, but the error message is different. I
checked that it was working before I posted my response, but something has
happened since.
The script is also available at:
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/costabel/bomcheck
Wilson Cheung
installed, but still no luck getting gnuplot to work. Gnuplot does not
recognize X11 as a valid terminal.
I believe the problem centers more on figuring out how to get X11 configured
correctly on Mac OS X. For example there seems to be no way of setting the
$PATH environment variable at startup. The X11 terminal ignores the .login,
.profile, and .bash_profile files. Normal Mac OS X terminal windows
recognize these files. I suspect that there is some global configuration
file in the /etc folder that is telling Mac OS X to ignore these files. I
just don't know which file this is.
I'd try to post X11 specific questions a newsgroup, but there are none for
the Mac. So I am posting here so at least I get some help to get gnuplot to
work.
Wilson Cheung
On 8/11/2004 9:07 PM, in article pan.2004.08.12....@junk.junk,
Ethan Merritt
Wilson Cheung <Wilson...@wakundama.com> wrote:
>I've now installed the X11 SDK and verified that it was successfully
>installed, but still no luck getting gnuplot to work. Gnuplot does not
>recognize X11 as a valid terminal.
You need to look much earlier in the process. Clearly the configuration
script itself has failed to find the necessary pieces of your X11 installation.
Everything after that is just a consequence of the initial failure.
Have you actually looked at the output from configure to see where it failed?
>I believe the problem centers more on figuring out how to get X11 configured
>correctly on Mac OS X. For example there seems to be no way of setting the
>$PATH environment variable at startup. The X11 terminal ignores the .login,
>.profile, and .bash_profile files.
Assuming you mean "xterm", try "xterm -ls" or "xterm -e".
But see also the man page for xterm. If you want a particular shell
(tcsh/bash/sh) you may have to set the "loginShell" X resource.
>I suspect that there is some global configuration
>file in the /etc folder that is telling Mac OS X to ignore these files.
Nope.
>I'd try to post X11 specific questions a newsgroup, but there are none for
>the Mac. So I am posting here so at least I get some help to get gnuplot to
>work.
Your problems do not sound like anything to do with gnuplot.
--
Ethan A Merritt
Kevin Horton
> I've now installed the X11 SDK and verified that it was successfully
> installed, but still no luck getting gnuplot to work. Gnuplot does not
> recognize X11 as a valid terminal.
>
> I believe the problem centers more on figuring out how to get X11
> configured correctly on Mac OS X. For example there seems to be no way of
> setting the $PATH environment variable at startup. The X11 terminal
> ignores the .login, .profile, and .bash_profile files. Normal Mac OS X
> terminal windows recognize these files. I suspect that there is some
> global configuration file in the /etc folder that is telling Mac OS X to
> ignore these files. I just don't know which file this is.
>
> I'd try to post X11 specific questions a newsgroup, but there are none for
> the Mac. So I am posting here so at least I get some help to get gnuplot
> to work.
>
> Wilson Cheung
Not a newsgroup, but you can get some knowledgeable Mac X11 help at the
MacOSXHints X11 forum:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/forumdisplay.php?f=29
If you are a Unix newbie, you might want to take a look at the Fink
project:
The Fink project provides a turn-key way to install X11 and a large number
of Unix apps, including gnuplot. There is good support via e-mail lists.
It isn't perfect, but it is the best solution available, IMHO.
The Fink project has a binary distribution of "stable" packages, and a
source distribution of "stable" and "unstable" packages. The term
"unstable" is a bit unfortunate, and tends to scare people off, but it
really means "latest version, not yet well tested". The "unstable"
distribution is actually the best way to go, as you get relatively current
versions of software, and any problems are addressed quite quickly.
Per Persson
> I'd try to post X11 specific questions a newsgroup, but there are none
> for the Mac.
Apple provides a number of mailing lists,
see http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo
You'd probably wan't to look into:
X11-users:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/x11-users
Unix-porting:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/unix-porting
HTH,
Per