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20000211: McIDAS-X on Linux at MSFC (cont.)

>From: Paul Meyer <address@hidden>
>Organization: NASA/MSFC
>Keywords: 200002101928.MAA23536 McIDAS-X Linux

Paul,

>Redhat 6.0 is the version.

OK, so the only thing "special" about RH distributions 6.x is the need
to use versions of f2c, f2c.h, and libf2c.a that are compatible with the
libc changes that were implemented in these distributions.

>I have a Mandrake 6.1.1 (effectively
>redhat disk I've considered installing).  I did put the Linux files in
>place that you had said.  I suspect that I did not ensure a few
>variables were set properly in a few places. I set some, but may have
>missed details.

OK.

>Also had been looking at both SSEC and your
>release/bug notes, so may have gotten things crossed.

I recommend only looking at mine :-)

>Perhaps the
>confusion was that I did  ./configures in netcdf and tcl/tk instead of
>letting mcidas do this.

OK, this is why you ran into problems with Tcl/Tk.  What I would do is:

o define the environment variables needed for the netCDF build as per
  my Notes and Warnings page
o do a 'make clobber' in the ~mcidas/mcidas7.6/src directory
o do a 'make all' in the ~mcidas/mcidas7.6/src directory

'configure' in tcl/unix and tk/unix directories is run with certain flags
passed to it.
 
>Also, I believe you refer to a mcinstall
>script (in src there is a mcinst.sh script)

I give my users a simple shell script, mcinstall, that does nothing more than
create needed output directories and unpack the distribution compressed tar
file.  All that mcinstall needs to run is the compressed tar file of the
distribution (mine is named mcidasx760.tar.Z), and for the user to have
set the McINST_ROOT environment variable.  One quick word about McINST_ROOT:
if you are unfamiliar with McIDAS installations, then this environemnt
variable is one to watch out for.  Whatever you do, do NOT define it to
be ~mcidas/mcidas7.6.  It is most typically defined to be ~mcidas.

>It may also be possible
>that I did not have the McINST_ROOT set early on.  I did that perhaps
>too late.

That would be a killer as it is used in the build process.  It is also
used to "burn in" the location of the Tcl/Tk stuff after it gets installed.
The errors you saw with the Tcl/Tk stuff now all make sense to me.

>Unfortunately, also, I've got people in and out of the office all day
>long, so I "forget" where I had been sometimes after dealing with their
>problems.  I think I have to agree with you, that even though I got it
>to compile, I need to start fresh, because now install is complaining
>about puting the tcl/tk libs in /usr/lib   when being run as mcidas -
>permission problems of course.

A rebuild will take care of those Tcl/Tk problems.  If your machine is
fast enough (and newer PCs are typically very fast), this will take
very little time.

As far as the permission problems for 'mcidas':  SSEC puts a check in
the McIDAS startup script, mcidas, that traps invocations by the user
'mcidas'.  Since I disagree with this approach, I change the startup
script for my distribution.  If you want to do the same, then all you have
to do is:

<login as 'mcidas'>
cd mcidas7.6/src
<edit mcidas.sh and change the lines:

       echo "ERROR: cannot execute as user 'mcidas'"
       exit 1

to:

        echo ^M"WARNING: only run as the user 'mcidas' for supervisory 
tasks"^G^M

The ^M is a line feed and the ^G is the bell.  I do this for an audible
warning that one must be careful when running McIDAS as the user 'mcidas'.
I admonish my users to treat the 'mcidas' account as if it were 'root'
for MxIDAS-X activities.

>Thanks, Paul

Sounds like you should be able to do a 'make clober' and be on your way
quickly.

Tom

>From address@hidden  Fri Feb 11 08:37:52 2000

Thanks Tom,

    I've decided to start from scratch.  I'm in the process of
    installing Mandrake 6.1.1 (redhat effectively)  One other concern I
had was that I downloaded newer gcc stuff and may have screwed up
something there.  I thought perhaps I would need g77.  I have now
learned that McIDAS uses f2c.   So, part of the Mandrake is to fix
network security issues and part to clear up any compiler issues etc.

    I'm trying all this on an old Pentium 120 with 48 MB memory and a
    2.5 GB disk which we were about to excess. Hey if it can run there,
then we should be able to run it anywhere.

Thanks again for your help.

Paul