The Datafile PD-CD 4/DATAFILE_PDCD4.iso/unix/riscbsd/1_1_beta/faq_txt

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RiscBSD FAQ
===========

This FAQ is copyright (c) Mark Brinicombe 1995, all rights reserved.
Permission is granted to copy this document as a whole or in part provided
that this copyright message is included in all copies.

RiscBSD X Window FAQ
====================
Sections 10 and 11 of the RiscBSD FAQ make up the RiscBSD X Window FAQ.
This FAQ is copyright (c) Rob Black 1995, all rights reserved. Permission is
granted to copy this document as a whole or in part provided that this
copyright message is included in all copies.

The authors of this document provides no warranty, express or implied, as
to the accuracy of the information contained here although all the
information is supplied in good faith.


$Id: FAQ.txt,v 1.6 1996/02/08 22:43:54 mark Exp $

$Log: FAQ.txt,v $
Revision 1.6  1996/02/08 22:43:54  mark
Question 3.2 updated.
Question 3.3 updated.
Question 3.4 extended to cover latest information
Added question 6.5 "What is the long term multiprocessor goal"
Spelling correction to question 8.1

Revision 1.5  1996/02/05 05:14:40  mark
Updated question 2.9
Updated question 3.2
Updated question 3.3
Updated question 4.2
Added question 4.5 "How do I configure a custon kernel"
Updated question 5.7
Extended question 8.1 to add send-pr info
Updated question 8.4
Updaed swap size recommendation in question 10.1

Revision 1.4  1996/02/02 05:23:01  mark
Misc changes

Revision 1.3  1996/01/30 22:57:07  mark
Answer to question 3.2 updated
Question 3.3 renumbered to 3.4
Added question 3.3 "What sizes are the current packages"
Question 5.2 updated
Question 5.3 updated
Question 5.4 spelling updated
Question 5.5 updated
Question 6.4 updated
Question 7.2 updated

Revision 1.2  1996/01/29 03:25:23  mark
Added Section 9 "How do I do ..."
Added Question 9.1 "How do I add users to my system"
Modified question 2.4
Modified question 3.3

Revision 1.1  1996/01/28 22:46:46  mark
Initial revision



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contents:

1. Basics of RiscBSD
Q 1.1: What is RiscBSD
Q 1.2: What type of machine is supported
Q 1.3: What are the hardware requirements
Q 1.4: What is the state of the A7000 port

2. Availability and Information
Q 2.1: When is the beta release going to be available
Q 2.2: How is RiscBSD available
Q 2.3: Is there an FTP site for RiscBSD
Q 2.4: Are there any FTP mirrors
Q 2.5: How much does the CDROM cost
Q 2.6: Where can I get more information on RiscBSD
Q 2.7: Are there any mailing lists
Q 2.8: How do I contact the kernel team?
Q 2.9: Where do I get the sources

3. The RiscBSD distribution
Q 3.1: I have the Alpha-2 release: will I need to reinstall everything?
Q 3.2: What packages are currently available?
Q 3.3: What sizes are the current packages
Q 3.4: Why are you still using GCC 2.6.3?

4. Kernel matters
Q 4.1: Why is floating point so slow?
Q 4.2: Is there a new FPE?
Q 4.3: How big is the kernel
Q 4.4: What processors does the kernel support
Q 4.5: How do I configure a custom kernel ?

5. Device drivers
Q 5.1: What device drivers are available for standard RPC hardwareSoftware
Q 5.2: What SCSI cards are supported
Q 5.3: What ethernet cards are supported
Q 5.4: Will there be 16bit sound support?
Q 5.5: Are there any other drivers under development/planned
Q 5.6: Are there any cards which are unlikely to be supported in the near
future?
Q 5.7: What about ATAPI CDROM support ?

6. Multiprocessor card (Simtec Hydra)
Q 6.1: What is the current status of multiprocessor card support?
Q 6.2: Will the card be used for running custom accelerators or full MP?
Q 6.3: Will it be possible to run RiscBSD on a slave processor in a RiscOS
window?
Q 6.4: Can the 486 card be used from within RiscBSD?
Q 6.5: What is the long term multiprocessor goal

7. Ported Software
Q 7.1: What software is available?
Q 7.2: Can I compile C++ under RiscBSD?
Q 7.3: What networking software is available?
Q 7.4: Is MudOS available?

8. Bugs and Errors
Q 8.1: Who do I report bugs to?
Q 8.2: savecore reports an error during multiuser startup.
Q 8.3: What does proc size mismatch error mean ?
Q 8.4: Global constructors in c++ code are not working

9. How do I do ....
Q 9.1: How do I add users the my system ?


10. The X Window System
Q 10.1: What is the minimum specification of machine to run X?
Q 10.2: What is the current state of X?
Q 10.3: Who do I report bugs to?
Q 10.4: What are the known problems and features of X under RiscBSD?
Q 10.5: Where is libXpm / xpm.h ?
Q 10.6: Is Motif available?
Q 10.7: Are programs compiled with Motif available?
Q 10.8: How do I set up xdm?

11. Troubleshooting X
Q 11.1: I get error messages about missing devices.
Q 11.2: Everything works if I'm root, but not otherwise.
Q 11.3: X is really slow to start up and so are some X apps.
Q 11.4: I get error messages about invalid keycodes.



Subject: 1. Basics of RiscBSD

Q 1.1: What is RiscBSD
A: RiscBSD is a port of NetBSD to the arm6+ family or processors running in
32bit data, 32bit address mode. The official NetBSD port name is NetBSD/arm32
RiscBSD is not just NetBSD/arm32 but builds on it adding packages like
X11R6 and hosts of other software to form a much more complete system.


Q 1.2: What type of machine is supported
A: A RiscPC 600 or RiscPC700. Currently a bit of work is still needed before
it can be run on the A7000 or other ARM7500 platforms. Currently VRAM is also
needed.


Q 1.3: What are the hardware requirements
A: The latest release of RiscBSD including X11R6 requires a ARM6+ RISCPC
with a minimum of 1MB VRAM, 8MB DRAM and 400MB if disk space.
This answer is rather short and not very informative. I will extend it
shortly.


Q 1.4: What is the state of the A7000 port
A: RiscBSD is almost ready to run on a A7000. The only part of the kernel
that does not support the A7000 is the video memory and VIDC code. The
kernel bootstrap needs to be extended (half done already) to reserved
a chunk of DRAM for video memory on non-VRAM machine. In these cases
the VIDC20 must be programmed slightly differently to deal with DRAM
instead of VRAM.



Subject: 2. Availability

Q 2.1: When is the beta release going to be available
A: Now. The beta release is on the ftp site. Currently there may be a few
sets that were present in the alpha2 that are not in the beta yet. These
will be added as they are updated.


Q 2.2: How is RiscBSD available?
A: Currently RiscBSD is available in binary form by FTP. Some source code
may also be found on the ftp site but the core binary and kernel source code
can be found on any NetBSD mirror site. In addition a CDROM release is
RiscBSD is also being prepared.


Q 2.3: Is there an FTP site for RiscBSD
A: The official release site for RiscBSD is ftp.ph.kcl.ac.uk:/pub/acorn/RiscBSD
This site will contain the latest release of RiscBSD along with user
contributed software and various upgrades.


Q 2.4: Are there any FTP mirrors
A: Currently the only mirror site is mortimer.cc.ic.ac.uk:/pub/
A mirror has been set up in Australia and it's address will be added to
this FAQ as soon as permission has been obtained from the mirror maintainer.


Q 2.5: How much does the CDROM cost?
A: It costs 25UKP + VAT on CDROM from Plingboot (no credit cards).


Q 2.6: Where can I get more information on RiscBSD
A: Information on RiscBSD can be obtained from the official RiscBSD WWW site
http://www.ph.kcl.ac.uk/~amb/riscbsd/


Q 2.7: Are there any mailing lists
A: Yes. Currently there is a mailing list of RiscBSD users. Due to the
increasing size of this list, in the early in 96 a rfd will be circulating
proposing a riscbsd usenet group.


Q 2.8: How do I contact the kernel team?
A: The kernel team can be contacted either individually by email or by
sending an email kernel team mailing [e-mail]
Alternatively there are email forms on the WWW pages.

Q 2.9: Where do I get the sources
A: The sources to the kernel and the core binaries can be obtained from any
NetBSD mirror site. Failing that they can be obtained from the master NetBSD
FTP site at ftp.netbsd.org. Mirrors of this site can be found at
ftp.demon.co.uk and src.doc.ic.ac.uk
Other sources may be found on the RiscBSD FTP site in the directory
/pub/acorn/RiscBSD/sources
Certain patches may be require to the standard NetBSD source tree and these
can be obtained from the directory /pub/acorn/RiscBSD/sources/patches on
the RiscBSD FTP site.
We would like to hold all the sources on the RiscBSD FTP site but are
restricted by lack of disk space.



Subject: 3. The RiscBSD distribution

Q 3.1: I have the Alpha-2 release: will I need to reinstall everything?
A: Yes, but not necessarily in one go. One of the main changes was
the execution address of binaries due to moving the start of user processes
address space from 4MB to 4KB. Current kernels support binaries compiled for
both address but in the future support will be dropped for binaries running
at 4MB. There are no changes to partition structures (as there were with the
alpha -> alpha2 upgrade) so re-partitioning etc. is not required.


Q 3.2: What packages are currently available?
A: The list of available sets for RiscBSD changes frequently as new sets are
added. The current list is as follows:

as252    - OPT - Binutils 2.5.2 as and ld
base    - REQ - base distribution set
bash    - REC - bash shell. (sh with added features e.g. line editing)
bison    - OPT - GNU bison set
cc263    - OPT - GCC 2.6.3
comp    - OPT - compiler related distribution set
config    - REC - experimental configuration scripts
cvs    - OPT - Concurrent versions system (source code management)
dip    - OPT - Dialup Internet Protocol distribution set
etc    - REQ - /etc distribution set
games    - OPT - text console based games
gmake    - OPT - GNU make 3.74 set
gs    - OPT - Ghostscript, postscript previewer set
gsfonts    - OPT - Ghostscript extra fonts set
httpd    - OPT - NCSA HTTPD set
joe    - OPT - Text editor set
kern    - REQ - kernel distribution set
local    - REC - local binaries and scripts
man    - OPT - manual pages set
misc    - REQ - miscellaneous distribution set
perl    - OPT - Practical Extraction and Report Language
shells    - OPT - Extra shells set (tcsh, bash, zsh) (superceeded by new sets)
tcl    - OPT - Tcl
tcsh    - REC - tcsh shell. (csh with added features e.g. line editing)
text    - OPT - text distribution set
zsh    - OPT - zsh shell.

x11r6    - OPT - X11R6 base distribution
x11r6man- OPT - X11R6 manual distribution
xarm15    - OPT - Xarm 8bpp Xserver
xarm15m    - OPT - Xarm 1bpp Xserver
xarchie    - OPT - X11 interface to archie
xcontrib- OPT - X11 contrib programs
xpaint    - OPT - X11 paint package
xpixmap    - OPT - Xpm editor
xpm    - OPT - Xpm library for X11
xrn    - OPT - X11 news reader
axe    - OPT - X11 text editor
chimera    - OPT - X11 WWW browser
gview    - OPT - Ghostview, X11 postscript previwer
fvwm    - OPT - FVWM window manager for X11R6
knews    - OPT - X11 Threaded news reader

The following sets have not yet been upgraded to a beta state

texbin    - OPT - TeX binaries
texlib    - OPT - TeX library stuff
xemacs    - OPT - XEmacs

REQ - Required set
OPT - Optional set
REC - Recommended set

Note: The shell set has been superceeded by three separate sets bash, tcsh
and zsh.


Q 3.3: What sizes are the current packages
A: The list of available sets for RiscBSD changes frequently as new sets are
added. The current list is as follows:

Package        Compresses size Uncompressed size
as252           226702       552960
axe          1405776      3184640
base         19882724     45260800
bash           307400       788480
bison           123244       368640
cc263          2172029      5253120
chimera           604974      1464320
comp          2832589     10547200
config            12052        81920
cvs           349009       849920
dip           111448       276480
etc            60054       337920
fvwm          2000309      4577280
games          4763364     10813440
gmake           234611       665600
gs           786962      1925120
gsfonts          1714119      3409920
gview           533531      1198080
httpd           392081      1095680
joe           532992      1239040
knews           499240      1116160
local           200177       460800
man           827888      3287040
misc          1887975      6563840
perl          1501396      4833280
sup           303780       675840
tcl           394772      1648640
tcsh           273662       645120
text          1278299      3942400
tk          1315495      4341760
x11r6         18836638     49858560
x11r6man       715160      1300480
x11xv           970872      2334720
xarchie           597348      1382400
xarm15           829722      2170880
xarm15m          1054148      2775040
xcontrib      3880086      8724480
xdm             2778        20480
xemacs         10613054     38768640    ** Alpha2 set **
xftp           649660      1546240
xpaint           679017      1679360
xpixmap           581883      1351680
xpm           400376       911360
xrn           583260      1310720
zsh           224000       532480

Total         88114617    236072960

NOTE: The uncompresses size is the size for the uncompressed binaries and
data files. It does not include filesystem overheads and block rounding.


Q 3.4: Why are you still using GCC 2.6.3?
A: Put simply, because it works and the latest version doesn't. Tests with
2.7.0, 2.7.1 and 2.7.2 have all shown up what are considered serious bugs
e.g. csh compiling to a binary that SEGV's when ever it is run, awk generating
unreliable results and incorrect branch destinations in the kernel. GCC 2.6.3
despite having several bugs that can be found when compiling certain bits code
does compile all the core RiscBSD code correctly (or at least it appears to).
We will move to a newer version of GCC as soon as we can debug it. Currently
not all these problems have been passed back to the maintainer of the arm
port of GCC as we (the kernel team) have not had time to characterise the
bug and provide a simple example of the bugs.
The latest investigation of this problem has indicated that the bug appears
to lie in the arm.md file. A version of 2.7.2 has been built using the md
file from 2.6.3 and this version of GCC appears to work correctly. If the
md file is replaced with the one from 2.7.2 then the bug reappears. Work
is underway (slowly) to identify all the changes in the arm.md file between
2.6.3 and 2.7.2 and to check each change individually.


Subject: 4. Kernel matters

Q 4.1: Why is floating point so slow?
A: Current floating point is handled by a simple 32 bit precision FPE which
is a mixture of assembly and C.


Q 4.2: Is there a new FPE?
A: There is a new FPE, based on the ARM Ltd FPE source, which is being
worked on at the moment. It should increase floating point performance
significantly over the existing single precision FPE. It also should produce
correct results, unlike the current FPE which sometimes gets it wrong due
to limited precision.


Q 4.3: How big is the kernel
A: Typical RiscBSD kernels are somewhere around 1MB. The kernel running on
the machine this FAQ is being written on is 1.1MB This has all the basic
drivers, SCSI support, full TCPIP and NFS (PHARM & VOYAGER configurations).
If networking is not required kernels as small as 600K can be built. So far
the largest kernel that has been built was 1450K (GENERIC configuration)


Q 4.4: What processors does the kernel support
A: Currently the kernel supports ARM610, ARM700 & ARM710.
The ARM7500 processor core is supported but currently VIDC20 with no DRAM is
not.


Q 4.5: How do I configure a custom kernel ?
A: A kernel configuration guide (config_guide.txt) can be found in the docs
directory on the RiscBSD ftp site or one of its mirrors. This explains the
proceedure for installing the kernel sources, patching them as require,
creating your own kernel configuration file and compiling the kernel.



Subject: 5. Device drivers

Q 5.1: What device drivers are available for standard RPC hardware
A: Device drivers have been written for the following devices. floppy, ide,
serial, parallel, keyboard, quadmouse, virtual consoles, simple beep (non
16 bit sound machines)
There is an alpha stage driver for ATAPI CDROM drives.


Q 5.2: What SCSI cards are supported
A: Currently there are alpha stage polling drivers for Cumana SCSI II and
Powertec SCSI II cards. An alpha Oak SCSI I driver has been be compeleted.
There is also an Acorn SCSI I driver at the alpha stage but there are some
known bugs in this code. Other SCSI drivers planned (but not limited to)
are Morley, Oak and VTI


Q 5.3: What ethernet cards are supported
A: Currently there are drivers for ether1, ether3 and etherB interfaces.
A driver for etherH interfaces has just been completed and is available in
kernels on the FTP site but problems have been reported with some cards.


Q 5.4: Will there be 16bit sound support?
A: Very soon. A driver is under development at the moment. Note machines
with 16 bit sound do not support the simple beep device as the beep device
uses 8 bit log sound which requires software emulation on the 16bit
hardware.


Q 5.5: Are there any other drivers under development/planned
A: Yes. Drivers for the simtec multiprocessor card, and vidcaudio are under
development.
Drivers are planned or under development for a number of SCSI and ethernet
cards (see 4.2 and 4.3). Drivers are also planned for the ISAadapter,
486 coproc, dual serial cards and several image digitisers.


Q 5.6: Are there any cards which are unlikely to be supported in the near
future?
A: Not sure.. The Yellowstone RapIDE card was unlikely to be supported because
they wish to charge for the information required to support the RapIDE card.
We have plenty of hardware vendors who are being very helpful with information
and card loans so we will be concentrating on their hardware for the moment
as we have not money to pay for information or hardware.
Recent talks with Yellowstone suggest that the required technical
information may be made available to for free but possibly under NDA. Since
this (as far as RiscBSD users are concerned) is a minority card (i.e. there
are no special circumstances) we will be working on drivers for those cards
whose information is not under NDA first.


Q 5.7: What about ATAPI CDROM support ?
A: Kernels have been built in the past with an alpha ATAPI CDROM driver.
However development of that driver has halted pending delivery on the
NetBSD/i386 ATAPI CDROM driver. When this is available it will be ported
to NetBSD/arm32. Anyone wanting to you the existing ATAPI driver should
mail mark for the source code as this is not yet part of the released
source tree.



Subject: 6. Multiprocessor card (Simtec Hydra)

Q 6.1: What is the current status of multiprocessor card support?
A: There are some hardware problems with the first prototype multiprocessor
card. We have a syscall which loads user code onto a slave processor and
runs it but the code eventually crashes (believed to be hardware related).


Q 6.2: Will the card be used for running custom accelerators or full MP?
A: We plan to have full multiprocessing capabilities within RiscBSD
(probably by the time that Simtec start selling the cards). An accelerated MP
FPE will probably be written for internal testing purposes but this is
unlikely to appear in a released kernel. Other interesting custom accelerators
would involve nearly as much work as making RiscBSD fully MP so there is no
intention to implement them at present.


Q 6.3: Will it be possible to run RiscBSD on a slave processor in a RiscOS
window?
A: We (the core team) have enough on our plate for the moment so we will not
be implementing it within the next six months. There has been a lot of
interest in it so I would guess that it will get done eventually (someone
has even volunteered to write bits of it, but he will need to wait until
the multiprocessor board is on sale). Another point to note is that it is
likely to run *very* slowly.


Q 6.4: Can the 486 card be used from within RiscBSD?
A: No. 3rd parties are welcome to try. There may be a driver written in the
future to aid communication with the 486 co-proc. Currently the information
on ARM<->486 communications is NDA thus making it difficult for 3rd parties.


Q 6.5: What is the long term multiprocessor goal

A: The eventual aim is to be able to thread user processes onto all the
processors on the multiprocessor board. This is a fairly major piece of work
and is likely to take a long time to complete. There is some SMP work
proceeding for the the Sparc 20 port of NetBSD and we hope that we may be
able to join forces with some of that development in order to speed the
development up.



Subject: 7. Ported Software

Q 7.1: What software is available?
A: Lots. A list of some of the more interesting (??) software currently
ported is: gcc 2.6.3, GNU binutils, top, X11R6, fvwm, joe, xemacs, aXe, TeX,
LaTeX, xdvi, xv, xpaint, xanim, mpeg_play, knews, chimera, Mosaic.
See Q3.2 for a list of compiled packages


Q 7.2: Can I compile C++ under RiscBSD?
A: The cc263 set contains both a c and c++ compiler. Problems with the c++
compiler have been reported but not confirmed yet.


Q 7.3: What networking software is available?
A: Most of the standard UNIX networking: telnet, nfs, news, www, ftp,
email, SLIP, PLIP, etc. RiscBSD can act as client, server or both in most
cases.


Q 7.4: Is MudOS available?
A: The MudOS source triggers a bug in the gcc 2.6.3 ARM-610 back-end.
This causes the code to either fail to compile or compile incorrectly
leading to strange errors when it runs.



Subject: 8. Bugs and Errors

Q 8.1: Who do I report bugs to?
A: There are a number of places to report bugs to :
1. The mailing list. Reporting bugs to the mailing will bring them to the
attention of the kernel team and other users who may have encountered the
problem or who may encounter it.
2. The WWW bug report form. The bug report form should also be used to
report bugs. Reports sent via the form are sent to the kernel team member
responcible for that particular part of the kernel.
3. The core team. Bug reports can be sent to the core kernel team's mailing
list but normally the two above methods should be used.
4. Use send-pr (see the man page for more details). Problems with RiscBSD
or NetBSD/arm32 should use the port-arm32 category.

Q 8.2: savecore reports an error during multiuser startup.
A: This error can occur if the kernel you booted RiscBSD from is not the
same as the kernel /netbsd. NetBSD uses the kernel image in the file /netbsd
to lookup symbols names in order to read kernel variables via /dev/kmem. If
the /netbsd does not match the booted kernel then variables can be read from
the wrong locations. The first indication is normally savecore which makes
use of /netbsd to lookup the major and minor of the dump device.


Q 8.3: What does proc size mismatch error mean ?
A: There are two possible causes of this error. Q8.2 explains one possible
reason. The other is that that the proc structure in the kernel has changed
and this effects libkvm. Any binaries that use libkvm (ps, top vmstat etc.)
will need to be updated. If changes are made to the proc structure that will
effect libkvm then a kvm upgrade set/patch will be made available.


Q 8.4: Global constructors in c++ code are not working
A: A bug in the beta cc263 set meant that the gcc collect2 binary was
not installed. This binary is required by the the current linker (GNU
binutils 2.5.2) to handle global constructors and destructors in c++ code
As of 01/02/96 the beta cc263 set has been fixed to cure this problem.
If you are running a version of cc263 installed prior to 01/02/96 you should
re-install the set.



Subject: 9. How do  ...

Q 9.1: How do I add users to my system ?
A: There are a number of ways of adding users to your system. They are :
1) Edit the master.passwd file adding an entry for a new user. Then
   run pwd_mkdb master.passwd to rebuild the passwd database.
2) Use the command vipw. This allows you to edit the passwd file in vi
   and will automatically rebuild the passwd database when you exit
3) Install the config set (Any version after 29/01/96).
   Run the command /usr/local/sbin/rcm to invoke the RiscBSD configuration
   Manager. There will be a menu option to add users. After selecting
   this you will be prompted for details about the account you want to
   create. The user will be added to the passwd file and the passwd database
   will automatically be rebuilt.



Subject: 10. The X Window System

Q 10.1: What is the minimum specification of machine to run X?
A: In addition to the minimum specifications to run RiscBSD, X requires quite
a bit of memory. It is recommended that you have at least 8Mb of RAM and at
least 24Mb of swap. You will also need over 60Mb of disk space to install X.


Q 10.2: What is the current state of X?
A: X for RiscBSD is version 11, release 6 of the MIT X Window System. All the
libraries of the base distribution have been ported and an X-server (the bit
which controls the display hardware) is in the process of being written.
Snapshots of the current X-server are released periodically. The X-server is
usually referred to as Xarm-<snapshot number>. If you upgrade to a new X-server
it should be installed as /usr/X11R6/bin/Xarm. The only way to find out the
version number of an installed Xarm is to run it. It prints out its version
on the text console as it starts up.


Q 10.3: Who do I report bugs to?
A: Bugs should be reported to [e-mail] and the RiscBSD mailing list
([e-mail]). Alternatively the bug report form on the WWW site can be
used.


Q 10.4: What are the known problems and features of X under RiscBSD?
A: Here is a list of features of Xarm extra to RiscBSD:

* Numeric keypad acts as a mouse

* Virtual terminal switching - X is on ALT-F9

* xpm displayed on startup (/usr/X11R6/include/X11/pixmaps/Xserver.xpm)
this must use numeric respresentation for colours. xv usually produces
suitable pixmaps.

Here is a list of features not supported fully by Xarm:

* Autorepeat is fixed rate and cannot be switched off.

* No screensaver.

* Mouse acceleration is not configurable.

* Only 8bpp modes are supported by the standard Xarm. A specific mono Xarm
is available on request but it doesn't work with most kernels.

* The only working lock key is Caps Lock.

The following are known bugs:

* Autorepeat sometimes inserts three characters instead of one.

* Virtual terminal switching does not work properly on many combinations of
Xarm and RiscBSD kernel versions. The workaround is to waggle the mouse after
attempting to switch back into X with ALT-F9. Then press ALT again and release
it so that X gets a key-up event.


Q 10.5: Where is libXpm / xpm.h ?
A: libXpm is not part of the standard X11R6 distribution. It is a separate
package so you need to download it separately.


Q 10.6: Is Motif available?
A: No. Motif is a commercial package and we can't afford a source license to
port it. At some time in the future Lesstif will be used instead but for the
moment Lesstif does not support much of the functionality required. You are
likely to be able to compile things 'out of the box' using Lesstif instead of
Motif by Q4 1996.


Q 10.7: Are programs compiled with Motif available?
A: There are no license problems with distributing binaries which are
statically linked using the Motif runtime executive provided that the
person who linked them has either a Motif source or library license
(in practice this means a source license).


Q 10.8:  How do I set up xdm?
A: You need to do a lot of reading of the manual pages. At some time in the
future I will stick together some sample configuration scripts. The samples
supplied with X11R6 as standard do not work properly with RiscBSD.



Subject: 11. Troubleshooting X

Q 11.1: I get error messages about missing devices.
A: This means that either Xarm is incompatible with your kernel or you are
missing some files from the /dev directory. To create device files cd to /dev
and type './MAKEDEV all' (as root).


Q 11.2: Everything works if I'm root, but not otherwise.
A: This means that the permissions on Xarm are wrong. Type the following:
'cd /usr/X11R6/bin; chown root Xarm; chmod u+sx Xarm'


Q 11.3: X is really slow to start up and so are some X apps.
A: The floating point emulator under RiscBSD is less than optimal. Font
handling uses a lot of floating point maths. The fonts are converted into
bitmaps when various applications start up.


Q 11.4: I get error messages about invalid keycodes.
A: You are using a pre-beta Xarm with an beta kernel. Upgrade Xarm to #14