[SPARCbook] Netscape 4.73 under Solaris 2.6 final results (sort of...) --FINAL--

[David Hansen]

On Thu, 15 Jun 2000 sparcbook-request at sunhelp.org wrote:
> Thanks for the pointer - when I tried "conventional" search engines, every
> link I found pointed to a "dynamic" patch library, where older revs are
> replaced!


 Not sure what you claim to be "conventional" but upon my first attempt at
a "conventional" web search engine for the string "105284-31", the first
return is a match.
	www.topclick.com	#"105284-31" for a search field.

	http://solaris.license.virginia.edu/os_product_patches/patches/5.6/105284-31/
				#this is the very first match

> 
> 
> As for the idea that this may be a problem with the Weitek 9100 framebuffer,
> I don't think so, but I am willing to be found wrong - it is just a feeling.
> The driver
> for the Weitek came from Tadpole, and they were selling it to clients that
> wanted
> their machines to work "right." The patch from Sun has a history of breaking
> and
> then fixing things (that's how you get up to Rev 34!). If it was Rev 3 or 4
> that
> caused the problem, and the patch didn't have a histroy of failures, I be
> more
> open minded about this I suppose. Besides, it is not that scrolling didn't
> work,
> it was that using the arrow keys that failed - PageUp and PageDown, scroll
> arrows all worked fine.


 You don't seem very openminded. You have been going on about a
function within a precompiled program not working when you not only change
the operating system it was compiled against, but you also change the
libraries for its GUI environment (i.e.- libXm.so.3) as well as changing
the version of the GUI environment.

 I'm assuming that you are the one who installed Netscape Communicator
v4.73 onto your machine. This application has the following filename...
communicator-v473-us.sparc-sun-solaris2.5.1.tar.gz. This file is also,
precompiled (you don't have the source, you didn't compile it). This means
that it was compiled under Solaris 2.5.1 and Motif 1.2.3 (you've chnaged
quite a few dependencies here). (Also, this clarification was made in
response to an earlier email which asked if anyone knew which
OS version this program was compiled against.)

 If you cared to read the history of the 105284 patch (or any patch), then
you would be able to realize that it did not take 34 times to get the
patch right. But rather, these are mainly responses to bug reports related
to the Motif environment as well as a correction for one bad patch and a
handful of tweaks for prior patches that had side effects along the range
of memory leaks and resizing problems. A far cry from your slanders that
Sun first breaks the libraries and then fixes them in some form of
incredibly insane loop.

 Let's think about this, 3 main possibilities of regions to blame:
Tadpole, Sun, Netscape. (according to you)

	1: Could it be Tadpole? Doubtful, this behaviour has been seen
		outside of the sparcbook area. (try a simple newsgroup
		search if you do not have a sparc handy to field-test)
	2: Could it be Netscape? Doubtful, Netscape supplies a precompiled
		version of their platform for Solaris Sparc 2.5.1 and it 
		works just fine on that platform.
	3: Could it be Sun? According to you it must be. Because if you
		muck around with the OS,X,Motif, versions and all of the
		relevant libraries then Netscape breaks...so that must be
		Sun's fault. Nice logic.

 Let's add some to this. Solaris 2.6, in itself probably isn't at fault
based on reports of this behaviour not being present in earlier revisions
of the 105284 patch. That leaves X, Motif and the patchset under
suspicion. I'll save you some time and tell you that X isn't at fault in
this case. So let's go actually _read_ those pesky little files that come
with patches. (namely pkginfo)

105284-31 pkginfo contents:
PKG=SUNWmfrun
SUNW_PKGTYPE=usr
NAME=Motif RunTime Kit
PRODNAME=Motif RunTime Kit
VERSION=1.2.7,REV=10.97.07.02
PRODVERS=1.2.7
CATEGORY=system
DESC=Motif 1.2.3 libraries, headers, xmbind and bindings
BASEDIR=/usr
VENDOR=SunSoft, Inc.
HOTLINE=Please contact your local service provider
EMAIL=
MAXINST=1000
CLASSES=none
RESPONSE=Y
MOTIFRUNTIME=0
PSTAMP=pasta970702140402
ARCH=sparc
SUNW_PATCHID=105284-31

and the pkginfo contents from 105284-34:
PKG=SUNWmfrun
SUNW_PKGTYPE=usr
NAME=Motif RunTime Kit
PRODNAME=Motif RunTime Kit
VERSION=1.2.7,REV=10.97.07.02
PRODVERS=1.2.7
CATEGORY=system
DESC=Motif 1.2.5 libraries, headers, xmbind and bindings
BASEDIR=/usr
VENDOR=SunSoft, Inc.
HOTLINE=Please contact your local service provider
EMAIL=
MAXINST=1000
CLASSES=none
RESPONSE=Y
MOTIFRUNTIME=0
PSTAMP=pasta970716173826
ARCH=sparc
SUNW_PATCHID=105284-34


Hmm, look at that... There seem to have been new versions of the libraries
added in this patch for The OpenGroup's Motif. 105284-31 put v1.2.3 of the
Motif libraries etc... whereas 105284-34 was using v1.2.5. This is most
likely your culprit. Just for kicks let's see if 105284-34 was the patch
to introduce the newer version of the libraries for the Motif Runtime Kit
v1.2.7.

pkginfo contents for 105284-33:
PKG=SUNWmfrun
SUNW_PKGTYPE=usr
NAME=Motif RunTime Kit
PRODNAME=Motif RunTime Kit
VERSION=1.2.7,REV=10.97.07.02
PRODVERS=1.2.7
CATEGORY=system
DESC=Motif 1.2.5 libraries, headers, xmbind and bindings
BASEDIR=/usr
VENDOR=SunSoft, Inc.
HOTLINE=Please contact your local service provider
EMAIL=
MAXINST=1000
CLASSES=none
RESPONSE=Y
MOTIFRUNTIME=0
PSTAMP=pasta970716173826
ARCH=sparc
SUNW_PATCHID=105284-33


 Welp, looks like 105284-33 was the first introduction of the v1.2.5
libraries for the v1.2.7 Motif Runtime Kit. 

 But you want to blame someone for breaking your arrow keys while using
Netscape Communicator. I would suggest blaming yourself for using a
precompiled application in an environment that it wasn't built in and
against libraries that differ from those that the application was
dynamically linked against and therefore has dependencies for. 
 
 I don't think it would be fair to blame The OpenGroup for updating their
programs, Sun for updating theirs _and_ for providing patches to help out
with 3rd party applications that Sun didn't write, nor Netscape for not
providing you with a precompile of every version of their browser
under every possible version of every possible combination of every
possible environment.

 But if you want to know who to go to for a fix then I would either
suggest that you downgrade your Motif libraries to v1.2.3 (ala 105284-31)
and be mindful of what other programs you may break in the process of
doing this. Or go to Netscape and ask for a precompile for your new
environment. Or grab Mozilla and compile it yourself, or switch to another
browser that does work with your environment.


 > 
> I'll try the back-rev patch and report back, but things look OK without the
> patch

 I would suggest that you try doing some research first, before you start
changing your system environment around without understanding what you are
even looking for. One day it may not result in a harmless change.


> Thanks for all your help,


 	you are welcome.

 -david

p.s.- it took _much_ longer to compose this email than the five minutes of
research that it took to solve your problem that has persisted for 2
weeks.