My apologies for the late summary. I had time only now to put it together (and
not yet to look at all suggestions).
I had 4 questions about the upgrade from DU 3.2 to Tru64 5.0 which I'm
*evaluating* for my 3 systems, using as guinea pig a 5.0 system of a colleague
(which i do *not* administer, nor he does :-)).
First the easy one, I asked
> Q4) can one find anywhere on line the release notes for 5.0 [and 4.x]
Butcher, Steve; Colin Walters; Frank Wortner replied indicating
http://tru64unix.compaq.com/faqs/publications/pub_page/doc_list.html
Selden E Ball Jr added that " The 5.0A kit includes a complete documentation
CD which includes ... You need to speak with whoever gave you the CDs to get
the rest of the kit."
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Next the bunch about
> - the postscript previewer "dxvdoc"
> - the text editor "dxnotepad"
> Q1) Are they really gone ? Or can they be found in some obscure setld subset
William H. Magill says they were "retired as of 4.x Those that still exist
should reside in the optional set. OSFOLDDECW425 Old Additional DECwindows
Applications(Windows Applications)"
Selden E Ball Jr adds "They are no longer supported. mwm and dxmail have also
gone away. The old utilities aren't deleted if you do an upgrade from 4.x, but
they aren't available on the 5.0 CDs."
(Incidentally I do not care a thing for dxmail, never used it, I use pine.
May care for mwm, I did use it and configure it as I like since Ultrix times,
I guess I'll have to spend some time with CDE (I did helping a colleague when
they moved SunOS to Solaris and am not so enthusiast about it).
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Then a specific question about the dxvdoc postscript previewer.
> Q2) I tried copying the dxvdoc executable [and libraries with
> LD_LIBRARY_PATH] but then it complains about
> Warning: I18NOpenFile: Could not open file dxvdoc.uid - MrmNOT_FOUND
Nikola Milutinovic notes that ' i18n is "internationalization" module.'
which means I won't have it. I avoid "internationalization" stuff like
plague. Don't know why the person who assisted my colleague installed it.
Anyhow my specific question was "can I solve this installing the uid file,
which I vaguely know what it is, somewhere and where ?". Unfortunately this
question seems superseded by some answers :
> Can this be overcome without being root ?
> Can this be overcome as root (copying into system area, where ?)
> Is this unfeasible ?
Frank Wortner said "Dxvdoc (if I remember correctly) required a special X
server containing a Display PostScript interpreter to work correctly. I don't
think there is any way to get that program to work under 5.0. Ghostscript is a
reasonable substitute"
Selden E Ball Jr said "Unfortunately, dxvdoc requires postscript support in
the X server. mwm included that. CDE does not. dxvdoc will no longer work. You
need to install ghostscript and the associated utilities."
(does not make much sense to me that Display Postscript is in mwm, should be
in the X server. About CDE, can one not stay with old xdm ? I guess I'd study
the release notes)
alan_at_nabeth.cxo.dec.com said "dxvdoc is dead and gone because the V5 X servers
don't have Display Postscript in them anymore. I've heard that the GNU
Postscript display program is a suitable replacement."
This business of missing continued support to Display Postscript is a pity, I
found dxvdoc a quite robust Postscript previewer, which never had problems
with any of my ps files (both MS-word and homegrown), while I heard that
Ghostscript is quite picky (also from colleagues to whom I sent some of my
MS-Word generated ps) ... which apparently is not the case for gsview under
Win NT. But the rendition of the fonts look poorer.
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Finally a specific question about the "default window editor"
> Q3) what about dxnotepad ? I used it as almost the only editor. I find
> dtpad is more primitive (has no split screen, no revert, no top and
> bottom navigation, no change in selected area), and also I do not like
> its "server" concept.
Nikola Milutinovic comments '"dxnotepad" was buggy and it was replaced by
"dtpad". Well, I use vi :-) There is also xemacs, just type emacs and you'll
get it.'
Colin Walters adds "The GNU EMACS editor is shipped in the kit."
Frank Wortner adds "there are literally hundreds of editors available."
An editor flame war is of course Off Topic here (if you want to know my
opinions about editors look into
http://www.ifctr.mi.cnr.it/~lucio/WWW/Opinions/editor.html).
Of course I could use pico or THE (and I will surely check in the "old
unsupported subset" and/or 4.x).
My comment is mainly for Compaq, and is "why retire programs which were either
excellent like dxvdoc or anyhow rather functional like dxnotepad".
In particular about the latter I note that any Unix supplies a "window
editor" (DEC had dxnotepad, Sun had textedit). I do not regard dxnotepad as
particularly "buggy" (apart from occasional hangups, perhaps memory leaks,
easily solved exiting and restarting), while I feel that "dtpad" (at least the
implementation on Tru64 5.0, I have no time to check the one under
Solaris) has more limited functionalities.
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Lucio Chiappetti - IFCTR/CNR - via Bassini 15 - I-20133 Milano (Italy)
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"This land .. is my land .. e no xe una portaerei"
[English in the original] [and is not an aircraft carrier]
M.Paolini - I cani del gas - Bestiario italiano
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For more info :
http://www.ifctr.mi.cnr.it/~lucio/personal.html
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Received on Wed Sep 20 2000 - 13:08:26 NZST