[daip] Odd TV problem after AIPS recompile on AMD64

[Eric Greisen]

Samuel Conner writes:

 >    I am running 31DEC04 AIPS on an AMD64 machine. I'm aware that this imposes a limit
 > on the data size I can process but this is not a problem for the observations I am processing at the moment. Migration to 31DEC05 will take a while as I have many custom features in my '04 installation. 


Wait now maybe for 31DEC06

 >    But I have an unexpected consequence. Below is the transcript of the beginning of an AIPS session. Toward the bottom there is an error message from the TV server that it cannot find something called "TrueColor" it needs to launch the TV. I also don't have tape IO but that does not trouble me. The XAS executable did get created during the install process.

 > XASERVERS: Start XAS on localhost, DISPLAY :0
 > XAS: ***********************************
 > XAS: **  No TrueColor found
 > XAS: **  Resorting to PseudoColor
 > XAS: ***********************************
 > XAS: No pseudocolor visual - No suitable visual: No such file or directory

This is addressed in the AIPS Manager FAQ on the web page.  You have
installed your system and not corrected the files that select what
sort of XAS visual is ussed.  By default all Linux boxes use a 16-bit
TrueColor visual which is useless for science.  XAS supports either a
24/32 bit TrueColor or an 8 bit PseudoColor.



  AIPS works, tekserver works, but the TV doesn't come up

      This is seen most often on Linux systems.  Almost certainly your X
      Windows configuration is set to use a 16-bit display.  The AIPS TV
      can only support 8 and 24 bit displays (32 and 24 should be
      equivalent).  Type "xdpyinfo | more" and if you see this:
      
        default visual id:  0x20
        visual:
          visual id:    0x20
          class:    TrueColor
          depth:    16 planes

      ... then this is the problem.  If it says 8 or 24, then the TV
      should work.  If it says 16, then you should alter your X
      configuration to allow either 8 or 24 bit display.  You should use
      the supplied tools, e.g. <code>XConfigurator</code> under Red Hat
      Linux, to do this; only edit the <code>XF86Config</code> file
      directly <em>if you know exactly what you're doing!</em></p>     


Eric Greisen