DEC Alpha Specific Problems and Workarounds

Release 2.0

• On Digital UNIX 4.0, midas fails to startup with the following error message:

  /usr/local/midas/bin/midas: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: object libDECStereo.so from liblist in /usr/local/midas/bin/midas has version "", which does not match the found object: /usr/shlib/libDECStereo.so (with version "1.0")

  The workaround is to set the _RLD_ARGS environment variable to be "-ignore_version libDECStereo.so"
• On Digitial UNIX 4.0, picking breaks if you use the cde window manager and its default configuration because the default configuration upsurps the Alt + Left-Mouse-Button combination. There are several workarounds:
  • Use mwm instead.
  • Edit the cwm (?) configuration file (where?) to not upsurp the picking key combination.
  • Edit /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Midas to use a different key combination for picking. For instance, change "Mod1<Btn1Down>,Mod1<Btn1Up>:" to "Mod1<Btn2Down>,Mod1<Btn2Up>:" which would use the middle mouse button instead.
• MidasPlus generates many error messages on start-up, all of which can be ignored.
• With certain graphics boards (such as the PXG family), MidasPlus may be excruciatingly slow when displaying surfaces with anti-aliasing on (which is the default). This can be corrected by putting the command "devopt smooth off" in the system start-up file for Midas (see section 2.3, ``MIDAS Start-Up'' for more information about Midas start-up files).
• On certain (all?) graphics boards (ZLXp-L1 for example), if either of the command or control panels obscure any part of the graphics window, then the graphics drawing slows down by an order of magnitude or more. The workaround is to not obscure the graphics window.
• Neon fails when asked to display tube types '1' (smooth) and '2' (bent); It works with types '0' and '3'. If you need this first functionality, send e-mail to midas-bugs@cgl.ucsf.edu to request a fixed version of neon.
• unset text doesn't. This will be fixed in the next release. The workaround is to close the command window with the mouse.