Seeing that there was no quick solution to the problem of NN (not) running under SuSE 6.4 (it worked fine under 6.2), I decided to grab the latest sources I could find (labelled "6.5.6") and build it again. Now; it's been about 8 years since I last built nn, it was a bit of deja vu. But there were a few "funnies" encountered with the build under 6.4. 1) The linker failed when it was looking for libtermcap. I had one of them, but the linker failed to identify libtermcap.so.2* until I added a "libtermcap.so" symlink. Some sort of problem with 'ld' I guess. 2) The inews configuration called for a /var/spool/news/out.going/tmp to exist; posting failed until one was created with suitable permissions; chown news.news ; chmod ug+w,a+rx (keep the sticky group bit!) I'm using leafnode to fetch and post news. nn now works a treat. Minor problem with use on an xterm because the screen clears the final status message as the program exits. Works fine on the virtual consoles. -- Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning Perth, Western Australia -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/
* bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au (bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au) [20000529 08:33]:
1) The linker failed when it was looking for libtermcap. I had one of them, but the linker failed to identify libtermcap.so.2* until I added a "libtermcap.so" symlink.
This is perfectly OK, as the linker always searches for lib<name>.so. But
you should link to ncurses, i.e. change -ltermcap to -lncurses in the
Makefile. If for nothing else than that all SuSE packages are linked to
ncurses.
Philipp
--
Philipp Thomas
Philipp Thomas tapped away at the keyboard with:
* bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au (bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au) [20000529 08:33]:
1) The linker failed when it was looking for libtermcap. I had one of them, but the linker failed to identify libtermcap.so.2* until I added a "libtermcap.so" symlink.
This is perfectly OK, as the linker always searches for lib<name>.so. But you should link to ncurses, i.e. change -ltermcap to -lncurses in the Makefile. If for nothing else than that all SuSE packages are linked to ncurses.
Thanks for the hint. Oh... so I guess the NN s-linux.h is a bit out of date from 1995. :-) I'll see if it builds "better" with -lncurses later today. BTW: I've noticed a number of libncurses* floating around in /usr/lib and /lib versions 1.9.7a 4.2 and 5.0 (as well as a ++ - presumably for C++) not to mention half a dozen symlinks. Are they there for backward compatability? -- Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning Perth, Western Australia -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/
bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au tapped away at the keyboard with:
Philipp Thomas tapped away at the keyboard with:
* bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au (bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au) [20000529 08:33]:
1) The linker failed when it was looking for libtermcap. I had one of them, but the linker failed to identify libtermcap.so.2* until I added a "libtermcap.so" symlink.
This is perfectly OK, as the linker always searches for lib<name>.so. But you should link to ncurses, i.e. change -ltermcap to -lncurses in the Makefile. If for nothing else than that all SuSE packages are linked to ncurses.
Thanks for the hint.
Oh... so I guess the NN s-linux.h is a bit out of date from 1995. :-) I'll see if it builds "better" with -lncurses later today.
Not much later... looks like some incompatability here: /usr/i486-suse-linux/bin/ld: Warning: size of symbol `ospeed' changed from 2 to 4 in /usr/lib/libncurses.so Runs OK during initial tests. NN's closing status message still "blanks out" on an xterm. I don't remember enough detail about nn and curses to fix it right now... not critical. -- Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning Perth, Western Australia -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/
* bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au (bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au) [20000530 03:32]:
Not much later... looks like some incompatability here: /usr/i486-suse-linux/bin/ld: Warning: size of symbol `ospeed' changed from 2 to 4 in /usr/lib/libncurses.so
Ooops. This usually means that the declarations for ospeed differ between nn and ncurses. Try and check if and where ospeed is declared (possibly in one of the included headers).
NN's closing status message still "blanks out" on an xterm.
Care to be specific? Maybe I could give you a hint on how to fix this.
Philipp
--
Philipp Thomas
Philipp Thomas tapped away at the keyboard with:
* bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au (bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au) [20000530 03:32]:
Not much later... looks like some incompatability here: /usr/i486-suse-linux/bin/ld: Warning: size of symbol `ospeed' changed from 2 to 4 in /usr/lib/libncurses.so
Ooops. This usually means that the declarations for ospeed differ between nn and ncurses. Try and check if and where ospeed is declared (possibly in one of the included headers).
NN's closing status message still "blanks out" on an xterm.
Care to be specific? Maybe I could give you a hint on how to fix this.
When nn terminates, it produces a message stating the number of articles in groups which are still unread - or announces proudly that "No news is good news." Those messages appear immediately after a screen clear (visible on a virtual console or the "Linux console" emulation under KDE kconsole/kvt) and are followed by the shell prompt. eg There are still 7 unread articles in 6 groups ! $ On an xterm (or kdeconsole in default setting), that message is lost and the shell prompt appears immediately after the initial NNTP connection messages that nn produces before clearing the screen and presenting the first newsgroup article menu. The initial NNTP connection stuff is of course wiped out on the virual console and the emulation thereof. I have a sneaking suspicion that it has to do with the way in which screen clears are implemented on xterms. But my memory is too vague to recall termcap/curses details and how they relate to xterms. BTW: I tried the "Enable curses emulation" in an xterm; no change. Tested with bash and ksh. I can send you the config.h I used for building 'nn' in case you want to try to reproduce the problem... Michael T Pins is putting together an alpha version 7 of nn; but that doesn't mean that even a beta will be available by the end of the year. -- Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning Perth, Western Australia -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/
Philipp Thomas tapped away at the keyboard with:
* bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au (bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au) [20000530 03:32]:
Not much later... looks like some incompatability here: /usr/i486-suse-linux/bin/ld: Warning: size of symbol `ospeed' changed from 2 to 4 in /usr/lib/libncurses.so
Ooops. This usually means that the declarations for ospeed differ between nn and ncurses. Try and check if and where ospeed is declared (possibly in one of the included headers).
It's defined as a 'short' in nn's term.c. Used to save an sgtty struct element sg_ospeed. Defining the variable to be 'static' (i.e. local to the source file) fixes the link warning. Do I get a banana? :-) -- Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning Perth, Western Australia -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/
* bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au (bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au) [20000530 03:20]:
BTW: I've noticed a number of libncurses* floating around in /usr/lib and /lib versions 1.9.7a 4.2 and 5.0 (as well as a ++ - presumably for C++) not to mention half a dozen symlinks.
Are they there for backward compatability?
5.0 is the current ncurses lib and /usr/lib/libncurses.so should point to
this one. The others are older versions only there for backward
compatibility (as you guessed :).
Philipp
--
Philipp Thomas
participants (2)
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bernie@innovative.iinet.net.au
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pthomas@suse.de