Information for Solaris
David Holland, modified by Marc Aurele La France
2001 October 01
1. What is XFree86
XFree86 is a port of X11R6.5.1 that supports several versions of Unix. It is
derived from X386 1.2 which was the X server distributed with X11R5. This
release consists of many new features and performance improvements as well as
many bug fixes. The release is available as a source code distribution, as
well as binary distributions for many architectures.
The sources for XFree86 are available by anonymous ftp from:
ftp://ftp.XFree86.org/pub/XFree86/current
Solaris binaries for XFree86 are available for anonymous ftp at the same
address. Currently, two binary distributions are available: one for Solaris
8 x86, the other for previous Solaris x86 releases. They are not inter-
changeable. No binary distribution is available for Solaris/SPARC as it is
still under development.
2. The VT-switching sub-system in Solaris x86
The virtual terminal sub-system is a undocumented, and unsupported feature of
Solaris x86. Therefore if you use virtual terminals, you do so at YOUR OWN
RISK.
Virtual terminals are not available in Solaris SPARC, and their availability
has been removed in Solaris8 x86.
When available, the virtual terminals of Solaris work basically the same way
as most other SVR4 VT sub-systems. However, there are a number of limita-
tions documented below.
First, if you are running a Solaris 2.4 x86 system, and you want VT's, you
will have to create the necessary devices first, so become root.
Verify the chanmux device driver's major number is 100:
# grep -i chanmux /etc/name_to_major
chanmux 100
#
If the number after 'chanmux' is anything but 100, I would suggest you imme-
diately abort your attempt to create virtual terminals, and learn to live
without them.
However, if it is 100, then as root type the following commands to create the
maximum allowable number of virtual terminals.
# cd /dev
# mknod vt01 c 100 1
# mknod vt02 c 100 2
# mknod vt03 c 100 3
# mknod vt04 c 100 4
# mknod vt05 c 100 5
# mknod vt06 c 100 6
# mknod vt07 c 100 7
There is no need for a reconfiguration boot.
Secondly, for both 2.1, and 2.4 x86 systems, add a few lines to the inittab
to enable logins on them.
(Note, do NOT make a mistake here, you could lock yourself out of the system)
--------------------->Snip Snip<-----------------------------------------------
v1:234:respawn:/usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h -p "`uname -n` VT01 login: " -T AT386 -d /dev/vt01 -l console
v2:234:respawn:/usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h -p "`uname -n` VT02 login: " -T AT386 -d /dev/vt02 -l console
v3:234:respawn:/usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h -p "`uname -n` VT03 login: " -T AT386 -d /dev/vt03 -l console
v4:234:respawn:/usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h -p "`uname -n` VT04 login: " -T AT386 -d /dev/vt04 -l console
---------------------->End Here<-----------------------------------------------
These four lines enable four VT's on Alt-SysReq-F1 through Alt-SysReq-F4.
Then execute the command 'init q' to immediately enable the virtual termi-
nals.
The keys used for VT switching are as follows:
Alt-SysReq-F1 through Alt-SysReq-F7 enable VT screens 1-7 respec-
tively (if the VT is active).
Alt-SysReq-n enables the next active VT screen.
Alt-SysReq-p enables the previous active VT screen.
Alt-SysReq-h returns to the console.
If you are using virtual terminals, you must leave at least one free for use
by the Xserver.
Limitations of the virtual terminal sub-system under Solaris x86:
There are only a total of 8 available VT's (7 normal VT's + 1 console) not
the usual 15. If you have all 8 allocated, and you attempt to allocate a
additional VT you will panic the system. (This bug is worked around in the
Solaris XFree86 Xserver.)
From a programming stand point, they work pretty much as documented in the
AT&T Unix System V/386 Release 4 Integrated Software Development Guide, how-
ever a number of ioctl() calls are broken.
3. Notes for building XFree86 on Solaris
1. Both GCC, and ProWorks are supported by XFree86. The minimum recom-
mended GCC release is 2.7.2. Some earlier GCC's are known to not work
and should be avoided.
You should also make certain your version of GCC predefines `sun'. If
needed edit /usr/local/lib/gcc-lib/*/*/specs, and modify the *prede-
fines: line.
On SPARCs, regardless of the compiler you use, ensure it generates
32-bit binaries. At this time, 64-bit binaries will probably not work.
2. Also on SPARCs, you will need to set BuildXFree86OnSparcSunOS to YES in
~xc/config/cf/host.def. Otherwise, you can only build the old depre-
cated Xsun* servers.
3. A Threaded Xlib compiled with GCC has subtle problems. It'll work 98%
of the time, however clients will occasionally exhibit strange hangs.
Most notably image viewers such as xv-3.10 exhibit this problem.
It is recommended that you set ThreadedX in ~xc/config/cf/host.def to
NO, if you are using GCC. ProWorks does not have this problem.
Whether this behaviour still exists with newer GCC's has not been veri-
fied.
4. To build XFree86 with GCC you need gcc and (optionally) c++filt from
GNU binutils. Don't install gas or ld from GNU binutils, use the one
provided by Sun.
You might need to setup a /opt/SUNWspro/bin directory containing sym-
bolic links named cc, CC, and c++filt pointing respectively to the
actual gcc, g++ and c++filt commands.
5. If you are using ProWorks to compile the XFree86 distribution, you need
to modify your PATH appropriately so the ProWorks tools are available.
Normally, they should be in /opt/SUNWspro/bin
6. You MUST put /usr/ccs/bin at the front of your PATH. There are known
problems with some GNU replacements for the utilities found there. So
the /usr/ccs/bin versions of these programs must be found before any
possible GNU versions. (Most notably GNU 'ar' does not work during the
build).
4. Notes for running XFree86 on Solaris
1. Depending on the release or architecture of Solaris you are running,
you might need to install an OS driver for an aperture device.
Under Solaris x86 2.5 and later, there's a system driver (/dev/xsvc)
that provides this functionality. It will be detected automatically by
the server, so you don't need to install the aperture driver.
For older Solaris x86 and for any SPARC release, the source for this
driver is included in xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/etc/apSolaris.shar
of the source distribution. This file can usually also be found in the
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/etc directory when XFree86 is installed. Building,
and installing the driver is relatively straight forward. Please read
its accompanying README file.
2. If you have not made the Virtual Terminal devices, you will need to
specify the terminal device to run the Xserver on. The correct device
is vt00 so your xinit command would look like so:
xinit -- vt00
If you have made the virtual terminal devices you do not need to spec-
ify the VT to run the Xserver on.
3. For Solaris you will probably want to set your LD_LIBRARY_PATH to
/usr/X11R6/lib:/usr/openwin/lib:/usr/dt/lib. Including /usr/X11R6/lib
in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH is probably not necessary, however it doesn't
hurt. :)
Including /usr/openwin/lib in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH is recommended
because some Sun supplied binaries were not compiled with LD_RUN_PATH
set properly at compile time.
Motif and CDE applications may require /usr/dt/lib in your
LD_LIBRARY_PATH too.
4. Xqueue is NOT supported under Solaris. The includes necessary for
Xqueue are available, however the driver does not seem to be in the
kernel. (Go figure)
5. If you want to use xdm with Solaris, extract the files from the shar
file in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/etc/XdmConf.svr4 into a temporary directory.
The README file tells where the individual files need to be installed.
Be sure to read through each file and make any site-specific changes
that you need.
5. Known bugs, and work arounds with Solaris
1. The Solaris 2.1 for x86 OpenWindows filemgr does not work against a
X11R5 Xserver, it probably will also not work against a X11R6 Xserver.
Attempting to 'Drag and Drop' a file causes the filemgr to abort with
an 'X error'
Solaris x86 2.4 does not have this problem.
There is no known work around.
2. The SPARC port is still quite new, so instability is to be expected
(and reported!). It might even have broken some aspects of the x86
port.
3. On SPARC, xload should be updated to deal with both 32-bit and 64-bit
SunOS kernels. It currently is compiled as a 32-bit binary and cannot
handle a 64-bit kernel.
6. Bug Notification
Bug reports should be sent to <XFree86@XFree86.org>.
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