I have got so close to installing OpenStep on my SparcStation 5.
After setting my .xinitrc file to the one provide in openstep/lib, the Openstep Window manager appears (from the 'openwin' command). Problem is I cannot get it to display the dock nor can I run any of the OpenStep applications provided since openstep is reporting an error message saying I need to run the window manager resolution at 72x72 dpi, however xdpyinfo is saying I am running at 90x90 dpi.
Any _easy_ way to forcing the dpi perhaps via the openwin startup?
Thanks,
Martin
I had similar troubles getting "regular" Openstep to run on a SPARC box (Solaris 10), so I started using "LuBu Openmagic" instead. Cheap way out, I know, but it works great.
http://alge.anart.no/projects/openmagic/
Quote from: "itomato"I had similar troubles getting "regular" Openstep to run on a SPARC box (Solaris 10), so I started using "LuBu Openmagic" instead. Cheap way out, I know, but it works great.
http://alge.anart.no/projects/openmagic/
Hi thanks for that, I'll investigate this stuff.
In the meantime, looking at his install instructions
http://alge.anart.no/projects/openmagic/INSTALL.txtA valuable clue has allowed me to get the 'original' NeXTstep code (from this site) working.
Specifically:
>Make sure the following line is present in /etc/dt/config/Xservers:
>:0 Local local_uid@console root /usr/openwin/bin/Xsun :0 -nobanner -dpi 72
Since I do not have the directory in /etc/dt/config, I thought I'd try
fixing the 'Xservers' file in /usr/dt/config and restarting the dtlogin process. This works a treat! I now have openstep running on my Sparcstation. :D
Regards,
Martin
I installed that years ago on Solaris 8. It was pretty cool using having the NeXT GUI running on Solaris. But, I eventually just loaded OPENSTEP 4.2 on the system instead. It's been running that way every since. :-D
Quote from: "kb7sqi"I installed that years ago on Solaris 8. It was pretty cool using having the NeXT GUI running on Solaris. But, I eventually just loaded OPENSTEP 4.2 on the system instead. It's been running that way every since. :-D
Now you're just trying to make me jealous aren't you? :wink:
Martin
Quote from: "martinws"Quote from: "kb7sqi"I installed that years ago on Solaris 8. It was pretty cool using having the NeXT GUI running on Solaris. But, I eventually just loaded OPENSTEP 4.2 on the system instead. It's been running that way every since. :-D
Now you're just trying to make me jealous aren't you? :wink:
Martin
Running OPENSTEP 4.2 is a great choice for an older Sparc 5, 10, or 20. But if you're running a newer system, it's obvious you can't run OPENSTEP 4.2 on them. So OPENSTEP for Solaris is a good choice. ;-) The one Sparc I wish OPENSTEP ran on is the old LX's/SparcClassic's. The old lunch box systems. Blazing 50mhz, but they're small compact systems. Take care.
Quote from: "kb7sqi"Quote from: "martinws"Quote from: "kb7sqi"I installed that years ago on Solaris 8. It was pretty cool using having the NeXT GUI running on Solaris. But, I eventually just loaded OPENSTEP 4.2 on the system instead. It's been running that way every since. :-D
Now you're just trying to make me jealous aren't you? :wink:
Martin
Running OPENSTEP 4.2 is a great choice for an older Sparc 5, 10, or 20. But if you're running a newer system, it's obvious you can't run OPENSTEP 4.2 on them. So OPENSTEP for Solaris is a good choice. ;-) The one Sparc I wish OPENSTEP ran on is the old LX's/SparcClassic's. The old lunch box systems. Blazing 50mhz, but they're small compact systems. Take care.
Is OPENSTEP 4.2 freely available? If so where?
The openstep 1.0 I've downloaded from this site has really peaked my interest.
Martin
Hi guys,
Reading all this made me curious... Wish I'd known about this back in 97! So, after getting OpenStep1.1 for Solaris off some ftp server, I installed it on my Ultra1/170 in SunOS5.9. I fixed the DPI thing, and then logged in via the failsafe session from dtlogin, CDE's attempt at a login server. Launching oswm + openstep doesn't exactly do much, the iconbar on the right appears but is just grey, no icons or anything. I've got the feeling that what I downloaded was pretty basic. So... questions:
1. How do you get dtlogin to add a session option for OpenStep ?
2. Should I be doing any extra config steps?
http://docs.sun.com keeps refering to an OpenStep Solaris Installation Guide which of course no longer exists. Really useful :P.
Any ideas much appreciated!
Noth
Forgive me for these noob questions, but I'm totally new to Solaris and can't figure out how to get OpenStep to run.
I have a Ultra 5 with Solaris 2.5.1 and I've installed OpenStep 1.0.
I don't have a /usr/dt/config folder or a /etc/dt folder (or even a graphical login screen) so what do I need to do next to get OpenStep to run?
Quote from: "protocol7"Forgive me for these noob questions, but I'm totally new to Solaris and can't figure out how to get OpenStep to run.
I have a Ultra 5 with Solaris 2.5.1 and I've installed OpenStep 1.0.
I don't have a /usr/dt/config folder or a /etc/dt folder (or even a graphical login screen) so what do I need to do next to get OpenStep to run?
install OPENSTEP 4.2 instead... unless you really want to run OpenStep on top of Solaris :wink:
OPENSTEP 4.2 won't run on a Ultra 5, so I really do want to run OpenStep on top of Solaris ;)
Did the afore-mentioned Installation Guide ever surface?
Quote from: "protocol7"OPENSTEP 4.2 won't run on a Ultra 5, so I really do want to run OpenStep on top of Solaris ;)
Did the afore-mentioned Installation Guide ever surface?
Oh... Ultra 5... thought you meant Sparcstation 5... doh! Sorry... can't help ya. I've opted to run OpenStep Enterprise on top of my Windows XP... same thing but different machine.
Well, I have a Sparc 5 as well, but I want to get OpenStep for Solaris running on this box anyway.
Just struck it lucky on archive.org. Found the old OpenStep for Solaris page (
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/19970228021831/http://www.eu.sun.com/solaris/products/openstep/) with the link to the installation guide (
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/19970228021831/http://www.eu.sun.com/solaris/products/openstep/sol-openstep-install/index.html) :)
Finding the installation guide was the key. It's up and running now and looking fairly crumby in 8-bit colour (
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/6193/solarisopenstep.png) ;). Gotta get a better graphics card for this some day.
Anyway, I packed up the Installation Guide for anyone who'd like to keep a local copy. Get it here (
http://www.multiupload.com/PGS2SA2LVY).
Congratulations on getting OpenSTEP on SUN up and running. I have never seen it running in real life, but it looks pretty cool.
I'm curious if anyone around here knows the inside story as to why SUN spent all that time and money implementing OpenSTEP, not just the spec, but also the UI, only to drop it a year or two later for Java. SUN was once a great company. Sorry about the troll. Just curious.
I used a SUN for a while in the military- it was slow but it worked. I don't remember the model number, or which version of Solaris it was running, the UI (CDE) was butt ugly though. If I knew at the time about OpenSTEP on Solaris, I would have installed it as I had root access and it was basically my SUN.
The one thing I liked about SUN was the Control key was where the Caps lock is on a PC or Mac. Very good for Emacs. I swap those keys on any computer I use.
Brian
Thanks :). Yeah it's pretty cool to see it running atop Solaris. Butt-ugly doesn't even begin to describe how CDE looks. I tended to stick to OpenWindows. It's still not pretty but it's minimal enough to not bother me.
I don't know why Sun dropped OpenStep either. I guess they just figured Java was the way to go. Maybe there was some licencing costs involved or maybe they just wanted to go their own way. I read an article a little while back when it talked about how Sun had almost bought Apple (
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/How-Apple-Dodged-a-Sun-Buyout-Former-CEOs-McNealy-Zander-Tell-All-251679/).
I found an article here (
http://talblog.info/archives/2007/01/sundown.html) from an ex-Sun employee that seems to explain what went wrong with OpenStep at Sun.
Something I noticed while looking through the setup instructions was that there was an AnswerBook for Solaris OpenStep, but this package hasn't been included with either of the 1.0 or 1.1 distributions circulating. I'm guessing it was on the CD-ROM (which I've never seen).
I couldn't find the package but I did find a pre-installed copy online so after many failed attempts to create an installable package, here it is (
http://www.multiupload.com/FGR18R332Y) in a plain ole zip file. Unpack it, place the SUNWOabos folder in /opt and make sure you've set the path to it as detailed in the Installation Guide.
Might as well paste in the .profile file I'm using to boot OpenStep:
#
# @(#)local.profile 1.4 93/09/15 SMI
#
stty istrip
PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/openstep/bin/:usr/ucb:/etc:.
MANPATH=$MANPATH:/usr/openstep/man
XINITRC=/usr/openstep/etc/Xinitrc
AB_CARDCATALOG=$AB_CARDCATALOG:\
/opt/SUNWOabos/ab_cardcatalog
export PATH
export MANPATH
export XINITRC
export AB_CARDCATALOG
if [ `tty` = "/dev/console" ] ; then
if [ "$TERM" = "sun" -o "$TERM" = "AT386" ] ; then
if [ ${OPENWINHOME:-""} = "" ] ; then
OPENWINHOME=/usr/openwin
export OPENWINHOME
fi
$OPENWINHOME/bin/openwin -dpi 72
clear
exit
fi
fi
It was good to see a screen shot of that. I also stuck with OpenWindows during my Sun workstation days, and wasn't using workstations anymore by the time CDE was available (which I think was mostly similar to Motif in appearance and that I didn't really like).
I noticed that the fonts used were more like those used in OpenWindows instead of those in the native m68k OPENSTEP installations.
Thanks for the links. It looks like NeXT didn't license their IDE to SUN and SUN had difficulty coming up with their own. Maybe NeXT was thinking they would be able to sell development tools for OpenSTEP on SUN in the same way they sold Enterprise Objects for WinNT. But I agree with the article, without SUN having a modern OpenSTEP IDE, the project was probably doomed. Then when Java came along, it wasn't a priority for SUN to build an OpenSTEP IDE from scratch.
Brian
I went ahead and upgraded the OpenStep install to 1.1 (by installing the JavaPlan package found here (ftp://caramba.cs.tu-berlin.de/pub/NeXT/developer/apps/commercial/JavaPlan_3.0.s.S.tar.Z)) and noticed some changes. The main visual one (
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/4457/solarisopenstep11.png) is that tiles are now flat grey. While they look kinda cheap now, I guess it does make the GUI more consistent.
If you drag a regular Solaris binary to a dock tile, it's name is now displayed in the top left of the tile.
Also, the severe colour flashing I was getting while running MAE with a 8-bit colour depth is gone.
Quote from: "protocol7"I went ahead and upgraded the OpenStep install to 1.1 (by installing the JavaPlan package found here (ftp://caramba.cs.tu-berlin.de/pub/NeXT/developer/apps/commercial/JavaPlan_3.0.s.S.tar.Z)) and noticed some changes. The main visual one (http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/4457/solarisopenstep11.png) is that tiles are now flat grey. While they look kinda cheap now, I guess it does make the GUI more consistent.
If you drag a regular Solaris binary to a dock tile, it's name is now displayed in the top left of the tile.
Also, the severe colour flashing I was getting while running MAE with a 8-bit colour depth is gone.
In your opinion... what do you prefer to use:
1) Sparcstation 20 with OPENSTEP 4.2 for Sparc
2) Ultra5 running Solaris with OpenStep 1.1 on Solaris
And a quick question... does OpenStep 1.1 include development package?
It's early days yet, but for me Solaris OpenStep is little more than an alternative (but welcome) window manager for Solaris.
The dev tools were called Workshop OpenStep but I haven't been able to find a copy anywhere.
I have a S24 card coming for my SS5 so I'll put OS4.2 and Solaris OpenStep on that when it arrives and see how both look in proper 24-bit colour. Haven't managed to find a 8MB VSIMM for my SS20 for a good price yet.
The main thing I like about running Solaris OpenStep is that I can use my Ultra 5 which is faster, has more RAM, and doesn't have a pair of noisy SCSI hard disks. It would be great if I could find a way to partition up a 9GB disk to dual-boot OS4.2 and Solaris but I don't know if that's possible.
Well, my S24 card arrived, but I can't get it to work. The light on my monitor just flashes green/orange and the display never kicks in.
If I put in the old TurboXGX card and connect the monitor to that, the screen kicks in, but stays black. If I remove the S24 and just have the TurboXGX card in, everything works fine as before.
Any ideas? Is the card faulty or am I missing a step? Not finding anything helpful online so far.
Quote from: "protocol7"Well, my S24 card arrived, but I can't get it to work. The light on my monitor just flashes green/orange and the display never kicks in.
If I put in the old TurboXGX card and connect the monitor to that, the screen kicks in, but stays black. If I remove the S24 and just have the TurboXGX card in, everything works fine as before.
Any ideas? Is the card faulty or am I missing a step? Not finding anything helpful online so far.
I didn't have to do anything special when I replaced my SS5 video card - the S24 "just worked" ;)
The only thing I can think of is that you might have it installed in the "wrong" slot. Mine is the top card above the sound input/output connectors.
Quote from: "iDork"I didn't have to do anything special when I replaced my SS5 video card - the S24 "just worked" ;)
The only thing I can think of is that you might have it installed in the "wrong" slot. Mine is the top card above the sound input/output connectors.
The S24 uses the AFX slot and there's only one in a SS5.
The monitor is a VGA one connected via a VGA adapter cable. It works fine with the old card so I'm assuming it should also work with the S24. But maybe this isn't the case?
What's puzzling me is how I cant get any output from the old card if I have the S24 also installed (I've tried setting the sbus slot with the old card first in the sbus-probe-list so in theory it should find that first and initialise the display). If I could do that I could at least see if the S24 is showing up OK.
Upon closer inspection, I'm pretty sure the SS5 isn't posting with both cards installed. The hard disk doesn't start booting Solaris and I can't enter anything on the keyboard (like "power-off" or "reset"). With just the S24 I can enter keyboard commands, but the hard disk still doesn't kick in. Does this sound like a faulty card?
I'm no expert in sparc-based hardware, but I'd try connecting via serial terminal before declaring the card officially dead. Maybe the firmware got confused after swapping the cards and redirected the input/output.
Quote from: "iDork"I'm no expert in sparc-based hardware, but I'd try connecting via serial terminal before declaring the card officially dead. Maybe the firmware got confused after swapping the cards and redirected the input/output.
I've tried connecting over serial with my Ultra 5 (using this (
http://sun.3113.com/2007/07/13/how-can-i-establish-a-serial-connection-aka-tip-hardwire-session-from-one-sun-machine-to-another/) guide) but it just doesn't seem to work. I can't get any output or input (even when I'm booting the Sparc 5 normally with the old TurboXGX card). Perhaps my cables aren't wired up correctly, but they're the only two I have.
As for the card messing up the outputs, I've ran "set-defaults" a few times so I'm assuming everything is factory-fresh on that score.
Seems the card was faulty, so getting back on track...
I tried to install OpenStep 1.0 on Solaris 2.6 but the terminal app wouldn't open a window (some error about ospd). Installing 1.1 fixed this so I think Solaris 2.5.1 is as high as you can go with OpenStep 1.0.
The easiest way to get 1.0 installed is to have CDE installed first. Then you just have to install a package that adds the OpenStep Desktop to the CDE login screen. If you need to download CDE you can find it here (
http://ftp.funet.fi/index/unix/Solaris/cde/). Once you've unbundled and installed OpenStep 1.0 you need to install the CDE Login package (this isn't installed by the script). Assuming you're still in the solaris_openstep folder, type:
pkgadd -d . SUNWOosUy
Then when you go back to the CDE login window you'll have the option to pick OpenStep Desktop as a session.
Necrobump!
I've been messing around with SunOS/Solaris lately in QEMU and took the opportunity to finally got Solaris OpenStep running in 24-bit colour.
It looks much better now compared to the old pics I posted here (which are now dead, thnx imageshack...).
Here it is on my flickr (
https://www.flickr.com/photos/96579068@N05/53375430254/) (the old pics are there in the NeXT album).
