6 Following is a reproduction of the XEmacs PROBLEMS file, preserved for
7 posterity. Many of the problems mentioned below have been fixed in
8 SXEmacs (and in XEmacs).
10 Note: Some irrelevant stuff purged (mostly windows rubbish) 2010-04-01
12 This file describes various problems that have been encountered
13 in compiling, installing and running XEmacs. It has been updated for
16 This file is rather large, but we have tried to sort the entries by
17 their respective relevance for XEmacs, but may have not succeeded
18 completely in that task. The file is divided into four parts:
20 - Problems with building XEmacs
21 - Problems with running XEmacs
22 - Compatibility problems
25 Use `C-c C-f' to move to the next equal level of outline, and
26 `C-c C-b' to move to previous equal level. `C-h m' will give more
27 info about the Outline mode.
29 Also, Try finding the things you need using one of the search commands
30 XEmacs provides (e.g. `C-s').
34 WATCH OUT for your init file! (~/.xemacs/init.el or ~/.emacs) If
35 you observe strange problems, invoke XEmacs with the `-vanilla'
36 option and see if you can repeat the problem.
38 Note that most of the problems described here manifest at RUN
39 time, even those described as BUILD problems. It is quite unusual
40 for a released XEmacs to fail to build. So a "build problem"
41 requires you to tweak the build environment, then rebuild XEmacs.
42 A "runtime problem" is one that can be fixed by proper
43 configuration of the existing build. Compatibility problems and
44 Mule issues are generally runtime problems, but are treated
45 separately for convenience.
48 * Problems with building XEmacs
49 ===============================
53 Much general information is in INSTALL. If it's covered in
54 INSTALL, we don't repeat it here.
56 *** How do I configure to get the buffer tabs/progress bars?
58 These features depend on support for "native widgets". Use the
59 --with-widgets option to configure. Configuration of widgets is
60 automatic for "modern" toolkits (MS Windows, GTK, and Motif), but if
61 you are using Xt and the Athena widgets, you will probably want to
62 specify a "3d" widget set. See configure --usage, and don't forget to
63 install the corresponding development libraries.
65 *** I know I have libfoo installed, but configure doesn't find it.
67 Typical of Linux systems with package managers. To link with a shared
68 library, you only need the shared library. To compile objects that
69 link with it, you need the headers---and distros don't provide them with
70 the libraries. You need the additional "development" package, too.
72 *** When using gcc, you get the error message "undefined symbol __fixunsdfsi".
73 When using gcc, you get the error message "undefined symbol __main".
75 This means that you need to link with the gcc library. It may be called
76 "gcc-gnulib" or "libgcc.a"; figure out where it is, and define LIB_GCC in
77 config.h to point to it.
79 It may also work to use the GCC version of `ld' instead of the standard one.
81 *** src/Makefile and lib-src/Makefile are truncated--most of the file missing.
83 This can happen if configure uses GNU sed version 2.03. That version
84 had a bug. GNU sed version 2.05 works properly.
88 Motif is the X11 version of the Gnus torture test: if there's a way to
89 crash, Motif will find it. With the open source release of Motif, it
90 seems like a good idea to collect all Motif-related issues in one
93 You should also look in your OS's section, as it may not be Motif's
96 *** XEmacs visibly repaints itty-bitty rectangles very slowly.
98 This should only be visible on a slow X connection (ISDN, maybe T1).
100 At least some versions of Motif apparently do not implement
101 XtExposeCompressMaximal properly, so it is disabled. If you wish to
102 experiment, you can remove the #ifdef LWLIB_NEEDS_MOTIF at line 238
103 (or so) of src/EmacsFrame.c, leaving only the line
105 /* compress_exposure */ XtExposeCompressMaximal | XtExposeNoRegion,
107 and recompile. This enables exposure compression, giving a 10:1 or
108 better speedup for some users. However, on some Motif platforms (Red
109 Hat Linux 9.0 and Solaris 2.8, at least), this causes XEmacs to hang
110 while displaying the progress bar (eg, in font-lock). A workaround
111 for that problem is to setq `progress-feedback-use-echo-area' to `t'.
113 *** XEmacs crashes on exit (#1).
115 The backtrace is something like:
118 #0 0xfeb9a480 in _libc_kill () from /usr/lib/libc.so.1
119 #1 0x000b0388 in fatal_error_signal ()
120 #2 <signal handler called>
121 #3 YowIter (ht=0xb, id=0x0, v=0x74682074, client=0x47e3c0)
123 #4 0xff26cc5c in _LTHashTableForEachItem (ht=0x4725e8,
124 iter=0xff26dda0 <YowIter>, ClientData=0x47e3c0) at Hash.c:671
125 #5 0xff2a4664 in destroy (w=0x496550) at Screen.c:352
126 #6 0xfef92118 in Phase2Destroy () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
127 #7 0xfef91940 in Recursive () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
128 #8 0xfef91e44 in XtPhase2Destroy () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
129 #9 0xfef91ae8 in _XtDoPhase2Destroy () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
130 #10 0xfef918cc in XtDestroyWidget () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
131 #11 0xfef91438 in CloseDisplay () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
132 #12 0xfef91394 in XtCloseDisplay () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
133 #13 0x0025b8b0 in x_delete_device ()
134 #14 0x000940b0 in delete_device_internal ()
135 #15 0x000806a0 in delete_console_internal ()
137 This is known to happen with Lesstif version 0.93.36. Similar
138 backtraces have also been observed on HP/UX and Solaris. There is a
139 patch for Lesstif. (This is not a solution; it just stops the crash.
140 It may or may not be harmless, but "it works for the author".)
142 Note that this backtrace looks a lot like the one in the next item.
143 However, this one is invulnerable to the Solaris patches mentioned there.
145 Frank McIngvale <frankm@hiwaay.net> says:
147 Ok, 0.93.34 works, and I tracked down the crash to a section
148 marked "experimental" in 0.93.36. Patch attached, "works for me".
150 diff -u -r lesstif-0.93.36/lib/Xm/ImageCache.c lesstif-0.93.36-mod/lib/Xm/ImageCache.c
151 --- lesstif-0.93.36/lib/Xm/ImageCache.c 2002-08-05 14:53:24.000000000 -0500
152 +++ lesstif-0.93.36-mod/lib/Xm/ImageCache.c 2002-11-11 11:13:12.000000000 -0600
153 @@ -1166,5 +1166,4 @@
154 DEBUGOUT(_LtDebug0(__FILE__, NULL, "_LtImageCacheScreenDestroy (XmGetPixmapByDepth) %p\n",
157 - (void) _LTHashTableForEachItem(PixmapCache, YowIter, (XtPointer)s);
160 *** XEmacs crashes on exit (#2)
162 Especially frequent with multiple frames. Crashes that produce C
163 backtraces like this:
165 #0 0xfec9a118 in _libc_kill () from /usr/lib/libc.so.1
166 #1 0x77f48 in fatal_error_signal (sig=11)
167 at /codes/rpluim/xemacs-21.4/src/emacs.c:539
168 #2 <signal handler called>
169 #3 0xfee929f4 in XFindContext () from /usr/openwin/lib/libX11.so.4
170 #4 0xfee92930 in XFindContext () from /usr/openwin/lib/libX11.so.4
171 #5 0xff297e54 in DisplayDestroy () from /usr/dt/lib/libXm.so.4
172 #6 0xfefbece0 in XtCallCallbackList () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
173 #7 0xfefc486c in XtPhase2Destroy () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
174 #8 0xfefc45d0 in _XtDoPhase2Destroy () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
175 #9 0xfefc43b4 in XtDestroyWidget () from /usr/openwin/lib/libXt.so.4
176 #10 0x15cf9c in x_delete_device (d=0x523f00)
178 are caused by buggy Motif libraries. Installing the following patches
179 has been reported to solve the problem on Solaris 2.7:
183 For information (although they have not been confirmed to work), the
184 equivalent patches for Solaris 2.8 are:
188 *** On HP-UX 11.0 XEmacs causes excessive X11 errors when running.
189 (also appears on AIX as reported in comp.emacs.xemacs)
191 Marcus Thiessel <marcus@xemacs.org>
193 Unfortunately, XEmacs releases prior to 21.0 don't work with
194 Motif2.1. It will compile but you will get excessive X11 errors like
196 xemacs: X Error of failed request: BadGC (invalid GC parameter)
198 and finally XEmacs gets killed. A workaround is to use the
199 Motif1.2_R6 libraries. You can the following line to your call to
202 --x-libraries="/usr/lib/Motif1.2_R6 -L/usr/lib/X11R6"
204 Make sure /usr/lib/Motif1.2_R6/libXm.sl is a link to
205 /usr/lib/Motif1.2_R6/libXm.3.
207 *** On HP-UX 11.0: Object "" does not have windowed ancestor
209 Marcus Thiessel <marcus@xemacs.org>
211 XEmacs dies without core file and reports:
213 Error: Object "" does not have windowed ancestor.
215 This is a bug. Please apply the patch PHSS_19964 (check if
216 superseded). The other alternative is to link with Motif1.2_R6 (see
219 *** Motif dialog boxes lose on Irix.
221 Larry Auton <lda@control.att.com> writes:
222 Beware of not specifying
224 --with-dialogs=athena
226 if it builds with the motif dialogs [boom!] you're a dead man.
230 *** IBM compiler fails: "The character # is not a valid C source character."
232 Most recently observed in 21.5.9, due to USE_KKCC ifdefs (they just
233 happen to tickle the implementation).
235 Valdis Kletnieks says:
237 The problem is that IBM defines a *MACRO* called 'memcpy', and we
238 have stuck a #ifdef/#endif inside the macro call. As a workaround,
239 try adding '-U__STR__' to your CFLAGS - this will cause string.h to
240 not do a #define for strcpy() to __strcpy() - it uses this for
241 automatic inlining support.
243 (For the record, the same issue affects a number of other functions
244 defined in string.h - basically anything the compiler knows how to
247 *** On AIX 4.3, you must specify --with-dialogs=athena with configure
249 *** The libXt shipped with AIX 4.3 up to 4.3.2 is broken. This causes
250 xemacs -nw to fail in various ways. The official APAR is this:
252 APAR NUMBER: <IX89470> RESOLVED AS: PROGRAM ERROR
255 <IX89470>: LIBXT.A INCORRECT HANDLING OF EXCEPTIONS IN XTAPPADDINPUT
257 The solution is to install X11.base.lib at version >=4.3.2.5.
259 *** On AIX, you get this compiler error message:
261 Processing include file ./XMenuInt.h
262 1501-106: (S) Include file X11/Xlib.h not found.
264 This means your system was installed with only the X11 runtime i.d
265 libraries. You have to find your sipo (bootable tape) and install
268 *** On AIX 4.1.2, linker error messages such as
269 ld: 0711-212 SEVERE ERROR: Symbol .__quous, found in the global symbol table
270 of archive /usr/lib/libIM.a, was not defined in archive member shr.o.
272 This is a problem in libIM.a. You can work around it by executing
273 these shell commands in the src subdirectory of the directory where
276 cp /usr/lib/libIM.a .
280 Then change -lIM to ./libIM.a in the command to link temacs (in
283 *** Excessive optimization on AIX 4.2 can lead to compiler failure.
285 Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu writes:
286 At least at the b34 level, and the latest-and-greatest IBM xlc
287 (3.1.4.4), there are problems with -O3. I haven't investigated
292 *** Dumping error when using GNU binutils / GNU ld on a Sun.
294 Errors similar to the following:
296 Dumping under the name xemacs unexec():
297 dldump(/space/rpluim/xemacs-obj/src/xemacs): ld.so.1: ./temacs:
298 fatal: /space/rpluim/xemacs-obj/src/xemacs: unknown dynamic entry:
301 are caused by using GNU ld. There are several workarounds available:
303 In XEmacs 21.2 or later, configure using the new portable dumper
306 Alternatively, you can link using the Sun version of ld, which is
307 normally held in /usr/ccs/bin. This can be done by one of:
309 - building gcc with these configure flags:
310 configure --with-ld=/usr/ccs/bin/ld --with-as=/usr/ccs/bin/as
312 - adding -B/usr/ccs/bin/ to CFLAGS used to configure XEmacs
313 (Note: The trailing '/' there is significant.)
315 - uninstalling GNU ld.
317 The Solaris2 FAQ claims:
319 When you install gcc, don't make the mistake of installing
320 GNU binutils or GNU libc, they are not as capable as their
321 counterparts you get with Solaris 2.x.
323 *** Link failure when using acc on a Sun.
325 To use acc, you need additional options just before the libraries, such as
327 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1/values-Xt.o -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1/cg87 -L/usr/lang/SC2.0.1
329 and you need to add -lansi just before -lc.
331 The precise file names depend on the compiler version, so we
332 cannot easily arrange to supply them.
334 *** Problems finding X11 libraries on Solaris with Openwindows
336 Some users have reported problems in this area. The reported solution
337 is to define the environment variable OPENWINHOME, even if you must set
338 it to `/usr/openwin'.
340 *** Sed problems on Solaris 2.5
342 There have been reports of Sun sed truncating very lines in the
343 Makefile during configuration. The workaround is to use GNU sed or,
344 even better, think of a better way to generate Makefile, and send us a
347 *** On Solaris 2 I get undefined symbols from libcurses.a.
349 You probably have /usr/ucblib/ on your LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Do the link with
350 LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset. Generally, avoid using any ucb* stuff when
353 *** On Solaris 2 I cannot make alloc.o, glyphs.o or process.o.
355 The SparcWorks C compiler may have difficulty building those modules
356 with optimization level -xO4. Try using only "-fast" optimization
357 for just those modules. (Or use gcc).
359 *** Solaris 2.3 /bin/sh coredumps during configuration.
361 This only occurs if you have LANG != C. This is a known bug with
362 /bin/sh fixed by installing Patch-ID# 101613-01. Or, you can use
363 bash by setting the environment variable CONFIG_SHELL to /bin/bash
365 *** Solaris 2.x configure/Makefile syntax "errors"
367 This is a known bug with /bin/sh and /bin/test, i.e. they do not
368 support the XPG4 standard. You can use bash as a workaround or an
369 XPG4-compliant Bourne shell such as the Sun-supplied /usr/xpg4/bin/sh
370 by setting the environment variable CONFIG_SHELL to /usr/xpg4/bin/sh
372 *** On SunOS, you get linker errors
374 _get_wmShellWidgetClass
375 _get_applicationShellWidgetClass
377 The fix to this is to install patch 100573 for OpenWindows 3.0
378 or link libXmu statically.
380 *** On Sunos 4, you get the error ld: Undefined symbol __lib_version.
382 This is the result of using cc or gcc with the shared library meant
383 for acc (the Sunpro compiler). Check your LD_LIBRARY_PATH and delete
384 /usr/lang/SC2.0.1 or some similar directory.
386 *** Undefined symbols when linking on Sunos 4.1.
388 If you get the undefined symbols _atowc _wcslen, _iswprint, _iswspace,
389 _iswcntrl, _wcscpy, and _wcsncpy, then you need to add -lXwchar after
390 -lXaw in the command that links temacs.
392 This problem seems to arise only when the international language
393 extensions to X11R5 are installed.
395 *** On a Sun running SunOS 4.1.1, you get this error message from GNU ld:
397 /lib/libc.a(_Q_sub.o): Undefined symbol __Q_get_rp_rd referenced from text segment
399 The problem is in the Sun shared C library, not in GNU ld.
401 The solution is to install Patch-ID# 100267-03 from Sun.
403 *** SunOS 4.1.2: undefined symbol _get_wmShellWidgetClass
405 Apparently the version of libXmu.so.a that Sun ships is hosed: it's missing
406 some stuff that is in libXmu.a (the static version). Sun has a patch for
407 this, but a workaround is to use the static version of libXmu, by changing
408 the link command from "-lXmu" to "-Bstatic -lXmu -Bdynamic". If you have
409 OpenWindows 3.0, ask Sun for these patches:
410 100512-02 4.1.x OpenWindows 3.0 libXt Jumbo patch
411 100573-03 4.1.x OpenWindows 3.0 undefined symbols with shared libXmu
413 *** Random other SunOS 4.1.[12] link errors.
415 The X headers and libraries that Sun ships in /usr/{include,lib}/X11 are
416 broken. Use the ones in /usr/openwin/{include,lib} instead.
420 See also Intel Architecture General, above.
422 *** Under Linux, you get "too many arguments to function `getpgrp'".
424 You have probably installed LessTiff under `/usr/local' and `libXm.so'
425 could not be found when linking `getpgrp()' test program, making XEmacs
426 think that `getpgrp()' takes an argument. Try adding `/usr/local/lib'
427 in `/etc/ld.so.conf' and run `ldconfig'. Then run XEmacs's `configure'
428 again. As with all problems of this type, reading the config.log file
429 generated from configure and seeing the log of how the test failed can
432 *** `Error: No ExtNode to pop!' on Linux systems with Lesstif.
434 This error message has been observed with lesstif-0.75a. It does not
435 appear to cause any harm.
439 *** More coredumping in Irix (6.5 known to be vulnerable)
441 No fix is known yet. Here's the best information we have:
443 Valdis Kletnieks <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu> writes:
445 Were xemacs and [any 3rd party, locally-compiled] libraries [you use]
446 all compiled with the same ABI ( -o32, -n32, -64) and
447 mips2/mips3/mips4 flags, and are they appropriate for the machine in
448 question? I know the IP30 implies an Octane, so it should be an R10K
449 chipset and above such nonsense, but I've seen the most astoundingly
450 bizzare crashes when somebody managed to compile with -mips4 and get
451 it to run on an R4400 or R5K system. ;)
453 Also, since you're using gcc, try re-running fixincludes and *then*
454 rebuilding xemacs and [any] libraries - mismatched headers can do that
455 sort of thing to you with little or no clue what's wrong (often you
456 get screwed when one routine does an malloc(sizeof(foo_struct)) and
457 passes the result to something that things foo_struct is a bit bigger,
460 Here's typical crash backtrace. With --pdump, this occurs usually at
461 startup under X windows and xemacs -nw at least starts, while without
462 --pdump a similar crash is observed during build.
464 #0 0x0fa460b8 in kill () at regcomp.c:637
465 637 regcomp.c: No such file or directory.
468 #0 0x0fa460b8 in kill () at regcomp.c:637
469 #1 0x10087f34 in fatal_error_signal ()
472 This is confusing because there is no such file in the XEmacs
473 distribution. This is seen on (at least) the following configurations:
475 uname -a: IRIX64 oct202 6.5 01091821 IP30
476 XEmacs 21.4.9 "Informed Management" configured for `mips-sgi-irix6.5'.
477 XEmacs 21.5-b9 "brussels sprouts" configured for `mips-sgi-irix6.5'.
479 *** On Irix 6.5, the MIPSpro compiler gets an internal compiler error
481 The MIPSpro Compiler (at least version 7.2.1) can't seem to handle the
482 union type properly, and fails to compile src/glyphs.c. To avoid this
483 problem, always build ---use-union-type=no (but that's the default, so
484 you should only see this problem if you're an XEmacs maintainer).
486 *** Linking with -rpath on IRIX.
488 Darrell Kindred <dkindred@cmu.edu> writes:
489 There are a couple of problems [with use of -rpath with Irix ld], though:
491 1. The ld in IRIX 5.3 ignores all but the last -rpath
492 spec, so the patched configure spits out a warning
493 if --x-libraries or --site-runtime-libraries are
494 specified under irix 5.x, and it only adds -rpath
495 entries for the --site-runtime-libraries. This bug was
496 fixed sometime between 5.3 and 6.2.
498 2. IRIX gcc 2.7.2 doesn't accept -rpath directly, so
499 it would have to be prefixed by -Xlinker or "-Wl,".
500 This would be fine, except that configure compiles with
501 ${CC-cc} $CFLAGS $LDFLAGS ...
502 rather than quoting $LDFLAGS with prefix-args, like
503 src/Makefile does. So if you specify --x-libraries
504 or --site-runtime-libraries, you must use --use-gcc=no,
505 or configure will fail.
507 *** On Irix 6.3, the SGI ld quits with segmentation fault when linking temacs
509 This occurs if you use the SGI linker version 7.1. Installing the
510 patch SG0001872 fixes this problem.
512 *** On Irix 6.0, make tries (and fails) to build a program named unexelfsgi
514 A compiler bug inserts spaces into the string "unexelfsgi . o"
515 in src/Makefile. Edit src/Makefile, after configure is run,
516 find that string, and take out the spaces.
518 Compiler fixes in Irix 6.0.1 should eliminate this problem.
520 *** On Irix 5.2, unexelfsgi.c can't find cmplrs/stsupport.h.
522 The file cmplrs/stsupport.h was included in the wrong file set in the
523 Irix 5.2 distribution. You can find it in the optional fileset
524 compiler_dev, or copy it from some other Irix 5.2 system. A kludgy
525 workaround is to change unexelfsgi.c to include sym.h instead of
528 *** Coredumping in Irix 6.2
530 Pete Forman <gsez020@compo.bedford.waii.com> writes:
531 A problem noted by myself and others (I've lost the references) was
532 that XEmacs coredumped when the cut or copy toolbar buttons were
533 pressed. This has been fixed by loading the SGI patchset (Feb 98)
534 without having to recompile XEmacs.
536 My versions are XEmacs 20.3 (problem first noted in 19.15) and IRIX
537 6.2, compiled using -n32. I'd guess that the relevant individual
538 patch was "SG0002580: multiple fixes for X libraries". SGI recommends
539 that the complete patch set be installed rather than parts of it.
541 ** Digital UNIX/OSF/VMS
542 *** On Digital UNIX, the DEC C compiler might have a problem compiling
545 In particular, src/extents.c and src/faces.c might cause the DEC C
546 compiler to abort. When this happens: cd src, compile the files by
547 hand, cd .., and redo the "make" command. When recompiling the files by
548 hand, use the old C compiler for the following versions of Digital UNIX:
549 - V3.n: Remove "-migrate" from the compile command.
550 - V4.n: Add "-oldc" to the compile command.
552 A related compiler bug has been fixed by the DEC compiler team. The
553 new versions of the compiler should run fine.
555 *** Under some versions of OSF XEmacs runs fine if built without
556 optimization but will crash randomly if built with optimization.
558 Using 'cc -g' is not sufficient to eliminate all optimization. Try
561 *** Compilation errors on VMS.
563 Sorry, XEmacs does not work under VMS. You might consider working on
564 the port if you really want to have XEmacs work under VMS.
567 *** On HPUX, the HP C compiler might have a problem compiling some files
570 Richard Cognot <cognot@ensg.u-nancy.fr> writes:
572 Had to drop once again to level 2 optimization, at least to
573 compile lstream.c. Otherwise, I get a "variable is void: \if"
574 problem while dumping (this is a problem I already reported
575 with vanilla hpux 10.01 and 9.07, which went away after
576 applying patches for the C compiler). Trouble is I still
577 haven't found the same patch for hpux 10.10, and I don't
578 remember the patch numbers. I think potential XEmacs builders
579 on HP should be warned about this.
581 *** I don't have `xmkmf' and `imake' on my HP.
583 You can get these standard X tools by anonymous FTP to
584 hpcvaaz.cv.hp.com. Essentially all X programs need these.
586 *** On HP-UX, problems with make
588 Marcus Thiessel <marcus@xemacs.org>
590 Some releases of XEmacs (e.g. 20.4) require GNU make to build
591 successfully. You don't need GNU make when building 21.x.
593 *** On HP-UX 9.05 XEmacs won't compile or coredump during the build.
595 Marcus Thiessel <marcus@xemacs.org>
597 This might be a sed problem. For your own safety make sure to use
598 GNU sed while dumping XEmacs.
602 *** Native cc on SCO OpenServer 5 is now OK. Icc may still throw you
603 a curve. Here is what Robert Lipe <robertl@arnet.com> says:
605 Unlike XEmacs 19.13, building with the native cc on SCO OpenServer 5
606 now produces a functional binary. I will typically build this
607 configuration for COFF with:
609 /path_to_xemacs_source/configure --with-gcc=no \
610 --site-includes=/usr/local/include --site-libraries=/usr/local/lib \
611 --with-xpm --with-xface --with-sound=nas
613 This version now supports ELF builds. I highly recommend this to
614 reduce the in-core footprint of XEmacs. This is now how I compile
615 all my test releases. Build it like this:
617 /path_to_XEmacs_source/configure --with-gcc=no \
618 --site-includes=/usr/local/include --site-libraries=/usr/local/lib \
619 --with-xpm --with-xface --with-sound=nas --dynamic
621 The compiler known as icc [ supplied with the OpenServer 5 Development
622 System ] generates a working binary, but it takes forever to generate
623 XEmacs. ICC also whines more about the code than /bin/cc does. I do
624 believe all its whining is legitimate, however. Note that you do
625 have to 'cd src ; make LD=icc' to avoid linker errors.
627 The way I handle the build procedure is:
629 /path_to_XEmacs_source/configure --with-gcc=no \
630 --site-includes=/usr/local/include --site-libraries=/usr/local/lib \
631 --with-xpm --with-xface --with-sound=nas --dynamic --compiler="icc"
633 NOTE I have the xpm, xface, and audio libraries and includes in
634 /usr/local/lib, /usr/local/include. If you don't have these,
635 don't include the "--with-*" arguments in any of my examples.
637 In previous versions of XEmacs, you had to override the defaults while
638 compiling font-lock.o and extents.o when building with icc. This seems
639 to no longer be true, but I'm including this old information in case it
640 resurfaces. The process I used was:
643 [ procure pizza, beer, repeat ]
645 make CC="icc -W0,-mP1COPT_max_tree_size=3000" font-lock.o extents.o
648 If you want sound support, get the tls566 supplement from
649 ftp.sco.com:/TLS or any of its mirrors. It works just groovy
652 The M-x manual-entry is known not to work. If you know Lisp and would
653 like help in making it work, e-mail me at <robertl@dgii.com>.
654 (UNCHECKED for 19.15 -- it might work).
656 In earlier releases, gnuserv/gnuclient/gnudoit would open a frame
657 just fine, but the client would lock up and the server would
658 terminate when you used C-x # to close the frame. This is now
661 In etc/ there are two files of note. emacskeys.sco and emacsstrs.sco.
662 The comments at the top of emacskeys.sco describe its function, and
663 the emacstrs.sco is a suitable candidate for /usr/lib/keyboard/strings
664 to take advantage of the keyboard map in emacskeys.sco.
666 Note: Much of the above entry is probably not valid for XEmacs 21.0
669 * Problems with running XEmacs
670 ==============================
673 *** XEmacs consistently crashes in a particular strange place.
675 One known case is on Red Hat Linux, compiled with GCC, attempting to
676 render PNG images. The problem is that XEmacs code is not compliant
677 with ANSI rules about aliasing. Adding -fno-strict-aliasing to CFLAGS
678 may help (or the equivalent for your compiler). (Some versions of
679 XEmacs may already do this automatically, but if you specify CFLAGS or
680 --cflags yourself, you will have to add this flag by hand.)
682 If you diagnose this bug for some other symptoms or systems, please
683 let us know (if you can send mail from the affected system, use M-x
684 report-xemacs-bug) so we can update this entry.
686 *** Changes made to .el files do not take effect.
688 You may have forgotten to recompile them into .elc files. Then the
689 old .elc files will be loaded, and your changes will not be seen. To
690 fix this, do `M-x byte-recompile-directory' and specify the directory
691 that contains the Lisp files.
693 Note that you will get a warning when loading a .elc file that is
694 older than the corresponding .el file.
696 *** VM appears to hang in large folders.
698 This is normal (trust us) when upgrading to VM-6.22 from earlier
699 versions. Let VM finish what it is doing and all will be well.
701 *** Starting with 21.4.x, killing text is absurdly slow.
703 See FAQ Q3.10.6. Should be available on the web near
704 http://www.xemacs.org/faq/xemacs-faq.html#SEC160.
706 *** Whenever I try to retrieve a remote file, I have problems.
708 A typical error: FTP Error: USER request failed; 500 AUTH not understood.
709 Thanks to giacomo boffi <giacomo.boffi@polimi.it> on comp.emacs.xemacs:
711 tell your ftp client to not attempt AUTH authentication (or do not
712 use FTP servers that don't understand AUTH)
714 and notes that you need to add an element (often "-u") to
715 `efs-ftp-program-args'. Use M-x customize-variable, and verify the
716 needed flag with `man ftp' or other local documentation.
718 *** gnuserv is running, some clients can connect, but others cannot.
720 The code in gnuslib.c respects the value of TMPDIR. If the server and
721 the client have different values in their environment, you lose.
722 One program known to set TMPDIR and manifest this problem is exmh.
723 You can defeat the use of TMPDIR by unsetting USE_TMPDIR at the top of
724 gnuserv.h at build time.
728 *** You type Control-H (Backspace) expecting to delete characters.
730 Emacs has traditionally used Control-H for help; unfortunately this
731 interferes with its use as Backspace on TTY's. As of XEmacs 21,
732 XEmacs looks at the "erase" setting of TTY structures and maps C-h to
733 backspace when erase is set to C-h. This is sort of a special hack,
734 but it makes it possible for you to use the standard:
738 to get your backspace key to erase characters. The erase setting is
739 recorded in the Lisp variable `tty-erase-char', which you can use to
740 tune the settings in your .emacs.
742 A major drawback of this is that when C-h becomes backspace, it no
743 longer invokes help. In that case, you need to use f1 for help, or
744 bind another key. An example of the latter is the following code,
745 which moves help to Meta-? (ESC ?):
747 (global-set-key "\M-?" 'help-command)
749 *** At startup I get a warning on stderr about missing charsets:
751 Warning: Missing charsets in String to FontSet conversion
753 You need to specify appropriate charsets for your locale (usually the
754 value of the LANG environment variable) in .Xresources. See
755 etc/Emacs.ad for the relevant resources (mostly menubar fonts and
756 fontsets). Do not edit this file, it's purely informative.
758 If you have no satisfactory fonts for iso-8859-1, XEmacs will crash.
760 It looks like XFree86 4.x (the usual server on Linux and *BSD) has
761 some braindamage where .UTF-8 locales will always generate this
762 message, because the XFree86 (font)server doesn't know that UTF-8 will
763 use the ISO10646-1 font registry (or a Cmap or something).
765 If you are not using a .UTF-8 locale and see this warning for a
766 character set not listed in the default in Emacs.ad, please let
767 xemacs-beta@xemacs.org know about it, so we can add fonts to the
768 appropriate fontsets and stifle this warning. (Unfortunately it's
769 buried in Xlib, so we can't easily get rid of it otherwise.)
771 *** Mail agents (VM, Gnus, rmail) cannot get new mail
773 rmail and VM get new mail from /usr/spool/mail/$USER using a program
774 called `movemail'. This program interlocks with /bin/mail using the
775 protocol defined by /bin/mail.
777 There are two different protocols in general use. One of them uses
778 the `flock' system call. The other involves creating a lock file;
779 `movemail' must be able to write in /usr/spool/mail in order to do
780 this. You control which one is used by defining, or not defining, the
781 macro MAIL_USE_FLOCK in config.h or the m- or s- file it includes. IF
782 YOU DON'T USE THE FORM OF INTERLOCKING THAT IS NORMAL ON YOUR SYSTEM,
785 If your system uses the lock file protocol, and fascist restrictions
786 prevent ordinary users from writing the lock files in /usr/spool/mail,
787 you may need to make `movemail' setgid to a suitable group such as
788 `mail'. To do this, use the following commands (as root) after doing
794 Installation normally copies movemail from the build directory to an
795 installation directory which is usually under /usr/local/lib. The
796 installed copy of movemail is usually in the directory
797 /usr/local/lib/emacs/VERSION/TARGET. You must change the group and
798 mode of the installed copy; changing the group and mode of the build
799 directory copy is ineffective.
801 *** Things which should be bold or italic (such as the initial
802 copyright notice) are not.
804 The fonts of the "bold" and "italic" faces are generated from the font
805 of the "default" face; in this way, your bold and italic fonts will
806 have the appropriate size and family. However, emacs can only be
807 clever in this way if you have specified the default font using the
808 XLFD (X Logical Font Description) format, which looks like
810 *-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*
812 if you use any of the other, less strict font name formats, some of
815 lucidasanstypewriter-12
819 then emacs won't be able to guess the names of the "bold" and "italic"
820 versions. All X fonts can be referred to via XLFD-style names, so you
821 should use those forms. See the man pages for X(1), xlsfonts(1), and
824 *** The dumped Emacs crashes when run, trying to write pure data.
826 Two causes have been seen for such problems.
828 1) On a system where getpagesize is not a system call, it is defined
829 as a macro. If the definition (in both unexec.c and malloc.c) is wrong,
830 it can cause problems like this. You might be able to find the correct
831 value in the man page for a.out (5).
833 2) Some systems allocate variables declared static among the
834 initialized variables. Emacs makes all initialized variables in most
835 of its files pure after dumping, but the variables declared static and
836 not initialized are not supposed to be pure. On these systems you
837 may need to add "#define static" to the m- or the s- file.
839 *** Reading and writing files is very very slow.
841 Try evaluating the form (setq lock-directory nil) and see if that helps.
842 There is a problem with file-locking on some systems (possibly related
843 to NFS) that I don't understand. Please send mail to the address
844 xemacs-beta@xemacs.org if you figure this one out.
846 *** When emacs starts up, I get lots of warnings about unknown keysyms.
848 If you are running the prebuilt binaries, the Motif library expects to find
849 certain thing in the XKeysymDB file. This file is normally in /usr/lib/X11/
850 or in /usr/openwin/lib/. If you keep yours in a different place, set the
851 environment variable $XKEYSYMDB to point to it before starting emacs. If
852 you still have the problem after doing that, perhaps your version of X is
853 too old. There is a copy of the MIT X11R5 XKeysymDB file in the emacs `etc'
854 directory. Try using that one.
856 *** My X resources used to work, and now some of them are being ignored.
858 Check the resources in .../etc/Emacs.ad (which is the same as the file
859 sample.Xresources). Perhaps some of the default resources built in to
860 emacs are now overriding your existing resources. Copy and edit the
861 resources in Emacs.ad as necessary.
863 *** I have focus problems when I use `M-o' to switch to another screen
864 without using the mouse.
866 The focus issues with a program like XEmacs, which has multiple
867 homogeneous top-level windows, are very complicated, and as a result,
868 most window managers don't implement them correctly.
870 The R4/R5 version of twm (and all of its descendants) had buggy focus
871 handling. Sufficiently recent versions of tvtwm have been fixed. In
872 addition, if you're using twm, make sure you have not specified
873 "NoTitleFocus" in your .tvtwmrc file. The very nature of this option
874 makes twm do some illegal focus tricks, even with the patch.
876 It is known that olwm and olvwm are buggy, and in different ways. If
877 you're using click-to-type mode, try using point-to-type, or vice
880 In older versions of NCDwm, one could not even type at XEmacs windows.
881 This has been fixed in newer versions (2.4.3, and possibly earlier).
883 (Many people suggest that XEmacs should warp the mouse when focusing
884 on another screen in point-to-type mode. This is not ICCCM-compliant
885 behavior. Implementing such policy is the responsibility of the
886 window manager itself, it is not legal for a client to do this.)
888 *** Emacs spontaneously displays "I-search: " at the bottom of the screen.
890 This means that Control-S/Control-Q (XON/XOFF) "flow control" is being
891 used. C-s/C-q flow control is bad for Emacs editors because it takes
892 away C-s and C-q as user commands. Since editors do not output long
893 streams of text without user commands, there is no need for a
894 user-issuable "stop output" command in an editor; therefore, a
895 properly designed flow control mechanism would transmit all possible
896 input characters without interference. Designing such a mechanism is
897 easy, for a person with at least half a brain.
899 There are three possible reasons why flow control could be taking place:
901 1) Terminal has not been told to disable flow control
902 2) Insufficient padding for the terminal in use
903 3) Some sort of terminal concentrator or line switch is responsible
905 First of all, many terminals have a set-up mode which controls whether
906 they generate XON/XOFF flow control characters. This must be set to
907 "no XON/XOFF" in order for Emacs to work. Sometimes there is an
908 escape sequence that the computer can send to turn flow control off
909 and on. If so, perhaps the termcap `ti' string should turn flow
910 control off, and the `te' string should turn it on.
912 Once the terminal has been told "no flow control", you may find it
913 needs more padding. The amount of padding Emacs sends is controlled
914 by the termcap entry for the terminal in use, and by the output baud
915 rate as known by the kernel. The shell command `stty' will print
916 your output baud rate; `stty' with suitable arguments will set it if
917 it is wrong. Setting to a higher speed causes increased padding. If
918 the results are wrong for the correct speed, there is probably a
919 problem in the termcap entry. You must speak to a local Unix wizard
920 to fix this. Perhaps you are just using the wrong terminal type.
922 For terminals that lack a "no flow control" mode, sometimes just
923 giving lots of padding will prevent actual generation of flow control
924 codes. You might as well try it.
926 If you are really unlucky, your terminal is connected to the computer
927 through a concentrator which sends XON/XOFF flow control to the
928 computer, or it insists on sending flow control itself no matter how
929 much padding you give it. Unless you can figure out how to turn flow
930 control off on this concentrator (again, refer to your local wizard),
931 you are screwed! You should have the terminal or concentrator
932 replaced with a properly designed one. In the mean time, some drastic
933 measures can make Emacs semi-work.
935 You can make Emacs ignore C-s and C-q and let the operating system
936 handle them. To do this on a per-session basis, just type M-x
937 enable-flow-control RET. You will see a message that C-\ and C-^ are
938 now translated to C-s and C-q. (Use the same command M-x
939 enable-flow-control to turn *off* this special mode. It toggles flow
942 If C-\ and C-^ are inconvenient for you (for example, if one of them
943 is the escape character of your terminal concentrator), you can choose
944 other characters by setting the variables flow-control-c-s-replacement
945 and flow-control-c-q-replacement. But choose carefully, since all
946 other control characters are already used by emacs.
948 IMPORTANT: if you type C-s by accident while flow control is enabled,
949 Emacs output will freeze, and you will have to remember to type C-q in
952 If you work in an environment where a majority of terminals of a
953 certain type are flow control hobbled, you can use the function
954 `enable-flow-control-on' to turn on this flow control avoidance scheme
955 automatically. Here is an example:
957 (enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
959 If this isn't quite correct (e.g. you have a mixture of flow-control hobbled
960 and good vt200 terminals), you can still run enable-flow-control
963 I have no intention of ever redesigning the Emacs command set for the
964 assumption that terminals use C-s/C-q flow control. XON/XOFF flow
965 control technique is a bad design, and terminals that need it are bad
966 merchandise and should not be purchased. Now that X is becoming
967 widespread, XON/XOFF seems to be on the way out. If you can get some
968 use out of GNU Emacs on inferior terminals, more power to you, but I
969 will not make Emacs worse for properly designed systems for the sake
972 *** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely.
974 For some reason, your system is using brain-damaged C-s/C-q flow
975 control despite Emacs's attempts to turn it off. Perhaps your
976 terminal is connected to the computer through a concentrator
977 that wants to use flow control.
979 You should first try to tell the concentrator not to use flow control.
980 If you succeed in this, try making the terminal work without
981 flow control, as described in the preceding section.
983 If that line of approach is not successful, map some other characters
984 into C-s and C-q using keyboard-translate-table. The example above
985 shows how to do this with C-^ and C-\.
987 *** Control-S and Control-Q commands are ignored completely on a net
990 Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow
991 control characters to the remote system to which they connect.
992 On such systems, emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow
993 control on the local system.
995 One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host
996 (the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the
997 stty command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems,
998 `stty start u stop u' will do this.
1000 Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
1001 around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and
1002 issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
1004 If none of these methods work, the best solution is to type
1005 `M-x enable-flow-control' at the beginning of your emacs session, or
1006 if you expect the problem to continue, add a line such as the
1007 following to your .emacs (on the host running rlogind):
1009 (enable-flow-control-on "vt200" "vt300" "vt101" "vt131")
1011 See the entry about spontaneous display of I-search (above) for more
1014 *** TTY redisplay is slow.
1016 XEmacs has fairly new TTY redisplay support (beginning from 19.12),
1017 which doesn't include some basic TTY optimizations -- like using
1018 scrolling regions to move around blocks of text. This is why
1019 redisplay on the traditional terminals, or over slow lines can be very
1022 If you are interested in fixing this, please let us know at
1023 <xemacs-beta@xemacs.org>.
1025 *** Screen is updated wrong, but only on one kind of terminal.
1027 This could mean that the termcap entry you are using for that terminal
1028 is wrong, or it could mean that Emacs has a bug handing the
1029 combination of features specified for that terminal.
1031 The first step in tracking this down is to record what characters
1032 Emacs is sending to the terminal. Execute the Lisp expression
1033 (open-termscript "./emacs-script") to make Emacs write all terminal
1034 output into the file ~/emacs-script as well; then do what makes the
1035 screen update wrong, and look at the file and decode the characters
1036 using the manual for the terminal. There are several possibilities:
1038 1) The characters sent are correct, according to the terminal manual.
1040 In this case, there is no obvious bug in Emacs, and most likely you
1041 need more padding, or possibly the terminal manual is wrong.
1043 2) The characters sent are incorrect, due to an obscure aspect of the
1044 terminal behavior not described in an obvious way by termcap.
1046 This case is hard. It will be necessary to think of a way for Emacs
1047 to distinguish between terminals with this kind of behavior and other
1048 terminals that behave subtly differently but are classified the same
1049 by termcap; or else find an algorithm for Emacs to use that avoids the
1050 difference. Such changes must be tested on many kinds of terminals.
1052 3) The termcap entry is wrong.
1054 See the file etc/TERMS for information on changes that are known to be
1055 needed in commonly used termcap entries for certain terminals.
1057 4) The characters sent are incorrect, and clearly cannot be right for
1058 any terminal with the termcap entry you were using.
1060 This is unambiguously an Emacs bug, and can probably be fixed in
1061 termcap.c, terminfo.c, tparam.c, cm.c, redisplay-tty.c,
1062 redisplay-output.c, or redisplay.c.
1064 *** My buffers are full of \000 characters or otherwise corrupt.
1066 Some compilers have trouble with gmalloc.c and ralloc.c; try recompiling
1067 without optimization. If that doesn't work, try recompiling with
1068 SYSTEM_MALLOC defined, and/or with REL_ALLOC undefined.
1070 *** A position you specified in .Xresources is ignored, using twm.
1072 twm normally ignores "program-specified" positions.
1073 You can tell it to obey them with this command in your `.twmrc' file:
1075 UsePPosition "on" #allow clents to request a position
1077 *** With M-x enable-flow-control, you need to type C-\ twice to do
1078 incremental search--a single C-\ gets no response.
1080 This has been traced to communicating with your machine via kermit,
1081 with C-\ as the kermit escape character. One solution is to use
1082 another escape character in kermit. One user did
1084 set escape-character 17
1086 in his .kermrc file, to make C-q the kermit escape character.
1088 *** The Motif version of Emacs paints the screen a solid color.
1090 This has been observed to result from the following X resource:
1092 Emacs*default.attributeFont: -*-courier-medium-r-*-*-*-140-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*
1094 That the resource has this effect indicates a bug in something, but we
1095 do not yet know what. If it is an Emacs bug, we hope someone can
1096 explain what the bug is so we can fix it. In the mean time, removing
1097 the resource prevents the problem.
1099 *** After running emacs once, subsequent invocations crash.
1101 Some versions of SVR4 have a serious bug in the implementation of the
1102 mmap () system call in the kernel; this causes emacs to run correctly
1103 the first time, and then crash when run a second time.
1105 Contact your vendor and ask for the mmap bug fix; in the mean time,
1106 you may be able to work around the problem by adding a line to your
1107 operating system description file (whose name is reported by the
1108 configure script) that reads:
1109 #define SYSTEM_MALLOC
1110 This makes Emacs use memory less efficiently, but seems to work around
1113 *** Inability to send an Alt-modified key, when Emacs is communicating
1114 directly with an X server.
1116 If you have tried to bind an Alt-modified key as a command, and it
1117 does not work to type the command, the first thing you should check is
1118 whether the key is getting through to Emacs. To do this, type C-h c
1119 followed by the Alt-modified key. C-h c should say what kind of event
1120 it read. If it says it read an Alt-modified key, then make sure you
1121 have made the key binding correctly.
1123 If C-h c reports an event that doesn't have the Alt modifier, it may
1124 be because your X server has no key for the Alt modifier. The X
1125 server that comes from MIT does not set up the Alt modifier by
1128 If your keyboard has keys named Alt, you can enable them as follows:
1130 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_L'
1131 xmodmap -e 'add mod2 = Alt_R'
1133 If the keyboard has just one key named Alt, then only one of those
1134 commands is needed. The modifier `mod2' is a reasonable choice if you
1135 are using an unmodified MIT version of X. Otherwise, choose any
1136 modifier bit not otherwise used.
1138 If your keyboard does not have keys named Alt, you can use some other
1139 keys. Use the keysym command in xmodmap to turn a function key (or
1140 some other 'spare' key) into Alt_L or into Alt_R, and then use the
1141 commands show above to make them modifier keys.
1143 Note that if you have Alt keys but no Meta keys, Emacs translates Alt
1144 into Meta. This is because of the great importance of Meta in Emacs.
1146 *** In Shell mode, you get a ^M at the end of every line.
1148 This happens to people who use tcsh, because it is trying to be too
1149 smart. It sees that the Shell uses terminal type `unknown' and turns
1150 on the flag to output ^M at the end of each line. You can fix the
1151 problem by adding this to your .cshrc file:
1154 if ($EMACS == "t") then
1156 stty -icrnl -onlcr -echo susp ^Z
1160 *** An error message such as `X protocol error: BadMatch (invalid
1161 parameter attributes) on protocol request 93'.
1163 This comes from having an invalid X resource, such as
1165 (which is invalid because it specifies a color name for something
1166 that isn't a color.)
1168 The fix is to correct your X resources.
1170 *** Once you pull down a menu from the menubar, it won't go away.
1172 It has been claimed that this is caused by a bug in certain very old
1173 (1990?) versions of the twm window manager. It doesn't happen with
1174 recent vintages, or with other window managers.
1176 *** Emacs ignores the "help" key when running OLWM.
1178 OLWM grabs the help key, and retransmits it to the appropriate client
1179 using XSendEvent. Allowing emacs to react to synthetic events is a
1180 security hole, so this is turned off by default. You can enable it by
1181 setting the variable x-allow-sendevents to t. You can also cause fix
1182 this by telling OLWM to not grab the help key, with the null binding
1183 "OpenWindows.KeyboardCommand.Help:".
1185 *** Programs running under terminal emulator do not recognize `emacs'
1188 The cause of this is a shell startup file that sets the TERMCAP
1189 environment variable. The terminal emulator uses that variable to
1190 provide the information on the special terminal type that Emacs
1193 Rewrite your shell startup file so that it does not change TERMCAP
1194 in such a case. You could use the following conditional which sets
1195 it only if it is undefined.
1197 if ( ! ${?TERMCAP} ) setenv TERMCAP ~/my-termcap-file
1199 Or you could set TERMCAP only when you set TERM--which should not
1200 happen in a non-login shell.
1202 *** The popup menu appears at the bottom/right of my screen.
1204 You probably have something like the following in your ~/.Xresources
1206 Emacs.geometry: 81x56--9--1
1208 Use the following instead
1210 Emacs*EmacsFrame.geometry: 81x56--9--1
1212 *** When I try to use the PostgreSQL functions, I get a message about
1215 The only known case in which this happens is if you are using gcc, you
1216 configured with --error-checking=all and --with-modules, and you
1217 compiled with no optimization. If you encounter this problem in any
1218 other situation, please inform xemacs-beta@xemacs.org.
1220 This problem stems from a gcc bug. With no optimization, functions
1221 declared `extern inline' sometimes are not completely compiled away. An
1222 undefined symbol with the function's name is put into the resulting
1223 object file. In this case, when the postgresql module is loaded, the
1224 linker is unable to resolve that symbol, so the module load fails. The
1225 workaround is to recompile the module with optimization turned on. Any
1226 optimization level, including -Os, appears to work.
1228 *** C-z just refreshes the screen instead of suspending Emacs.
1230 You are probably using a shell that doesn't support job control, even
1231 though the system itself is capable of it. Try using a different
1235 *** XEmacs crashes on MacOS within font-lock, or when dealing
1236 with large compilation buffers, or in other regex applications.
1238 The default stack size under MacOS/X is rather small (512k as opposed
1239 to Solaris 8M), hosing the regexp code, which uses alloca()
1240 extensively, overflowing the stack when complex regexps are used.
1243 1) Increase your stack size, using `ulimit -s 8192' or a (t)csh
1246 2) Recompile regex.c with REGEX_MALLOC defined.
1249 *** Your Delete key sends a Backspace to the terminal, using an AIXterm.
1251 The solution is to include in your .Xresources the lines:
1253 *aixterm.Translations: #override <Key>BackSpace: string(0x7f)
1254 aixterm*ttyModes: erase ^?
1256 This makes your Backspace key send DEL (ASCII 127).
1258 *** On AIX 4, some programs fail when run in a Shell buffer
1259 with an error message like No terminfo entry for "unknown".
1261 On AIX, many terminal type definitions are not installed by default.
1262 `unknown' is one of them. Install the "Special Generic Terminal
1263 Definitions" to make them defined.
1265 *** On AIX, you get this message when running Emacs:
1267 Could not load program emacs
1268 Symbol smtcheckinit in csh is undefined
1269 Error was: Exec format error
1273 Could not load program .emacs
1274 Symbol _system_con in csh is undefined
1275 Symbol _fp_trapsta in csh is undefined
1276 Error was: Exec format error
1278 These can happen when you try to run on AIX 3.2.5 a program that was
1279 compiled with 3.2.4. The fix is to recompile.
1281 *** Trouble using ptys on AIX.
1283 People often install the pty devices on AIX incorrectly.
1284 Use `smit pty' to reinstall them properly.
1288 *** The Emacs window disappears when you type M-q.
1290 Some versions of the Open Look window manager interpret M-q as a quit
1291 command for whatever window you are typing at. If you want to use
1292 Emacs with that window manager, you should try to configure the window
1293 manager to use some other command. You can disable the
1294 shortcut keys entirely by adding this line to ~/.OWdefaults:
1296 OpenWindows.WindowMenuAccelerators: False
1298 *** When Emacs tries to ring the bell, you get an error like
1300 audio: sst_open: SETQSIZE" Invalid argument
1301 audio: sst_close: SETREG MMR2, Invalid argument
1303 you have probably compiled using an ANSI C compiler, but with non-ANSI
1304 include files. In particular, on Suns, the file
1305 /usr/include/sun/audioio.h uses the _IOW macro to define the constant
1306 AUDIOSETQSIZE. _IOW in turn uses a K&R preprocessor feature that is
1307 now explicitly forbidden in ANSI preprocessors, namely substitution
1308 inside character constants. All ANSI C compilers must provide a
1309 workaround for this problem. Lucid's C compiler is shipped with a new
1310 set of system include files. If you are using GCC, there is a script
1311 called fixincludes that creates new versions of some system include
1312 files that use this obsolete feature.
1314 *** On Solaris 2.6, XEmacs dumps core when exiting.
1316 This happens if you're XEmacs is running on the same machine as the X
1317 server, and the optimized memory transport has been turned on by
1318 setting the environment variable XSUNTRANSPORT. The crash occurs
1319 during the call to XCloseDisplay.
1321 If this describes your situation, you need to undefine the
1322 XSUNTRANSPORT environment variable.
1324 *** On Solaris, C-x doesn't get through to Emacs when you use the console.
1326 This is a Solaris feature (at least on Intel x86 cpus). Type C-r
1327 C-r C-t, to toggle whether C-x gets through to Emacs.
1329 *** On Solaris 2.4, Dired hangs and C-g does not work. Or Emacs hangs
1330 forever waiting for termination of a subprocess that is a zombie.
1332 casper@fwi.uva.nl says the problem is in X11R6. Rebuild libX11.so
1333 after changing the file xc/config/cf/sunLib.tmpl. Change the lines
1336 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
1341 #if OSMinorVersion < 4
1343 #define SharedX11Reqs -lthread
1347 Be sure also to edit x/config/cf/sun.cf so that OSMinorVersion is 4
1348 (as it should be for Solaris 2.4). The file has three definitions for
1349 OSMinorVersion: the first is for x86, the second for SPARC under
1350 Solaris, and the third for SunOS 4. Make sure to update the
1351 definition for your type of machine and system.
1353 Then do `make Everything' in the top directory of X11R6, to rebuild
1354 the makefiles and rebuild X. The X built this way work only on
1355 Solaris 2.4, not on 2.3.
1357 For multithreaded X to work it necessary to install patch
1358 101925-02 to fix problems in header files [2.4]. You need
1359 to reinstall gcc or re-run just-fixinc after installing that
1362 However, Frank Rust <frust@iti.cs.tu-bs.de> used a simpler solution:
1364 #define ThreadedX YES
1366 #define ThreadedX NO
1367 in sun.cf and did `make World' to rebuild X11R6. Removing all
1368 `-DXTHREAD*' flags and `-lthread' entries from lib/X11/Makefile and
1369 typing 'make install' in that directory also seemed to work.
1371 *** On SunOS 4.1.3, Emacs unpredictably crashes in _yp_dobind_soft.
1373 This happens if you configure Emacs specifying just `sparc-sun-sunos4'
1374 on a system that is version 4.1.3. You must specify the precise
1375 version number (or let configure figure out the configuration, which
1376 it can do perfectly well for SunOS).
1378 *** Mail is lost when sent to local aliases.
1380 Many emacs mail user agents (VM and rmail, for instance) use the
1381 sendmail.el library. This library can arrange for mail to be
1382 delivered by passing messages to the /usr/lib/sendmail (usually)
1383 program . In doing so, it passes the '-t' flag to sendmail, which
1384 means that the name of the recipient of the message is not on the
1385 command line and, therefore, that sendmail must parse the message to
1386 obtain the destination address.
1388 There is a bug in the SunOS4.1.1 and SunOS4.1.3 versions of sendmail.
1389 In short, when given the -t flag, the SunOS sendmail won't recognize
1390 non-local (i.e. NIS) aliases. It has been reported that the Solaris
1391 2.x versions of sendmail do not have this bug. For those using SunOS
1392 4.1, the best fix is to install sendmail V8 or IDA sendmail (which
1393 have other advantages over the regular sendmail as well). At the time
1394 of this writing, these official versions are available:
1396 Sendmail V8 on ftp.cs.berkeley.edu in /ucb/sendmail:
1397 sendmail.8.6.9.base.tar.Z (the base system source & documentation)
1398 sendmail.8.6.9.cf.tar.Z (configuration files)
1399 sendmail.8.6.9.misc.tar.Z (miscellaneous support programs)
1400 sendmail.8.6.9.xdoc.tar.Z (extended documentation, with postscript)
1402 IDA sendmail on vixen.cso.uiuc.edu in /pub:
1403 sendmail-5.67b+IDA-1.5.tar.gz
1405 *** Emacs fails to understand most Internet host names, even though
1406 the names work properly with other programs on the same system.
1407 Emacs won't work with X-windows if the value of DISPLAY is HOSTNAME:0.
1408 Gnus can't make contact with the specified host for nntp.
1410 This typically happens on Suns and other systems that use shared
1411 libraries. The cause is that the site has installed a version of the
1412 shared library which uses a name server--but has not installed a
1413 similar version of the unshared library which Emacs uses.
1415 The result is that most programs, using the shared library, work with
1416 the nameserver, but Emacs does not.
1418 The fix is to install an unshared library that corresponds to what you
1419 installed in the shared library, and then relink Emacs.
1421 On SunOS 4.1, simply define HAVE_RES_INIT.
1423 If you have already installed the name resolver in the file libresolv.a,
1424 then you need to compile Emacs to use that library. The easiest way to
1425 do this is to add to config.h a definition of LIBS_SYSTEM, LIBS_MACHINE
1426 or LIB_STANDARD which uses -lresolv. Watch out! If you redefine a macro
1427 that is already in use in your configuration to supply some other libraries,
1428 be careful not to lose the others.
1430 Thus, you could start by adding this to config.h:
1432 #define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv
1434 Then if this gives you an error for redefining a macro, and you see that
1435 the s- file defines LIBS_SYSTEM as -lfoo -lbar, you could change config.h
1438 #define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv -lfoo -lbar
1440 *** With process-connection-type set to t, each line of subprocess
1441 output is terminated with a ^M, making ange-ftp and GNUS not work.
1443 On SunOS systems, this problem has been seen to be a result of an
1444 incomplete installation of gcc 2.2 which allowed some non-ANSI
1445 compatible include files into the compilation. In particular this
1446 affected virtually all ioctl() calls.
1450 *** XEmacs crashes on startup, in make-frame.
1452 Typically the Lisp backtrace includes
1454 make-frame(nil #<x-device on ":0.0" 0x2558>)
1456 somewhere near the top. The problem is due to an improvement in GNU
1457 ld that sorts the ELF reloc sections in the executable, giving
1458 dramatic speedups in startup for large executables. It also confuses
1459 the traditional unexec code in XEmacs, leading to the core dump. The
1460 solution is to use the --pdump or --ldflags='-z nocombreloc' options
1461 to configure. Recent 21.4 and 12.5 autodetect this in configure.
1463 Red Hat and SuSE (at least) distributed a prerelease version of ld
1464 (versions around 2.11.90.x.y) where autodetection is impossible. The
1465 recommended procedure is to upgrade to binutils >= 2.12 and rerun
1466 configure. Otherwise you must apply the flags by hand. --pdump is
1469 *** I want XEmacs to use the Alt key, not the XXX key, for Meta commands
1471 For historical reasons, XEmacs looks for a Meta key, then an Alt key.
1472 It binds Meta commands to the X11 modifier bit attached to the first
1473 of these it finds. On PCs, the Windows key is often assigned the Meta
1474 bit, but many desktop environments go to great lengths to get all apps
1475 to use the Alt key, and reserve the Windows key to (sensibly enough)
1478 One correct way to implement this was suggested on comp.emacs.xemacs
1479 (by Kilian Foth and in more detail by Michael Piotrowski): unmap the
1480 Meta modifier using xmodmap or xkb, and then map the Meta/Windows key
1481 to the Super or Hyper keysym and an appropriate mod bit. XEmacs will
1482 not find the Meta keysym, and default to using the Alt key for Meta
1483 keybindings. Typically few applications use the (X11) Meta modifier;
1484 it is tedious but not too much so to teach the ones you need to use
1485 Super instead of Meta. There may be further useful hints in the
1486 discussion of keymapping on non-Linux platforms.
1488 *** The color-gcc wrapper
1490 This wrapper colorizes the error messages from gcc. By default XEmacs
1491 does not interpret the escape sequences used to generate colors,
1492 resulting in a cluttered, hard-to-read buffer. You can remove the
1493 wrapper, or defeat the wrapper colorization in Emacs process buffers
1494 by editing the "nocolor" attribute in /etc/colorgccrc:
1496 $ diff -u /etc/colorgccrc.old /etc/colorgccrc
1497 --- /etc/colorgccrc.old Tue Dec 26 02:17:46 2000
1498 +++ /etc/colorgccrc Tue Dec 26 02:15:48 2000
1501 +nocolor: dumb emacs
1503 If you want colorization in your Emacs buffers, you may get good
1504 results from the ansi-color.el library:
1506 http://www.geocities.com/kensanata/color-emacs.html#ansicolors
1508 This is written for the mainline GNU Emacs but the author has made
1509 efforts to adapt it to XEmacs. YMMV.
1511 *** Slow startup on Linux.
1513 People using systems based on the Linux kernel sometimes report that
1514 startup takes 10 to 15 seconds longer than `usual'. There are two
1515 problems, one older, one newer.
1517 **** Old problem: IPv4 host lookup
1519 On older systems, this is because Emacs looks up the host name when it
1520 starts. Normally, this takes negligible time; the extra delay is due
1521 to improper system configuration. (Recent Linux distros usually have
1522 this configuration correct "out of the box".) This problem can occur
1523 for both networked and non-networked machines.
1525 Here is how to fix the configuration. It requires being root.
1527 ***** Networked Case
1529 First, make sure the files `/etc/hosts' and `/etc/host.conf' both
1530 exist. The first line in the `/etc/hosts' file should look like this
1531 (replace HOSTNAME with your host name):
1533 127.0.0.1 localhost HOSTNAME
1535 Also make sure that the `/etc/host.conf' files contains the following
1541 Any changes, permanent and temporary, to the host name should be
1542 indicated in the `/etc/hosts' file, since it acts a limited local
1543 database of addresses and names (e.g., some SLIP connections
1544 dynamically allocate ip addresses).
1546 ***** Non-Networked Case
1548 The solution described in the networked case applies here as well.
1549 However, if you never intend to network your machine, you can use a
1550 simpler solution: create an empty `/etc/host.conf' file. The command
1551 `touch /etc/host.conf' suffices to create the file. The `/etc/hosts'
1552 file is not necessary with this approach.
1554 **** New problem: IPv6 CNAME lookup
1556 A newer problem is due to XEmacs changing to use the modern
1557 getaddrinfo() interface from the older gethostbyname() interface. The
1558 solution above is insufficient, because getaddrinfo() by default tries
1559 to get IPv6 information for localhost. This always involves a dns
1560 lookup to get the CNAME, and the strategies above don't work. It then
1561 falls back to IPv4 behavior. This is good[tm] according the people at
1562 WIDE who know about IPv6.
1564 ***** Robust network case
1566 Configure your network so that there are no nameservers configured
1567 until the network is actually running. getaddrinfo() will not try to
1568 access a nameserver that isn't configured.
1570 ***** Flaky network case
1572 If you have a flaky modem or DSL connection that can be relied on only
1573 to go down whenever you want to bring XEmacs up, you need to force
1574 IPv4 behavior. Explicitly setting DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:0.0 (or whatever
1575 is appropriate) works in most cases.
1577 If you cannot or do not want to do that, you can hard code IPv4
1578 behavior in src/process-unix.c. This is bad[tm], on your own head be
1579 it. Use the configure option `--with-ipv6-cname=no'.
1583 The Mandrake Linux distribution is attempting to comprehensively
1584 update the user interface, and make it consistent across
1585 applications. This is very difficult, and will occasionally cause
1586 conflicts with applications like Emacs with their own long-established
1587 interfaces. Known issues specific to Mandrake or especially common:
1589 Some versions of XEmacs (21.1.9 is known) distributed with Mandrake
1590 were patched to make the Meta and Alt keysyms synonymous. These
1591 normally work as expected in the Mandrake environment. However,
1592 custom-built XEmacsen (including all 21.2 betas) will "inexplicably"
1593 not respect the "Alt-invokes-Meta-commands" convention. See "I want
1594 XEmacs to use the Alt key" below.
1596 The color-gcc wrapper (see below) is in common use on the Mandrake
1599 *** You get crashes in a non-C locale with Linux GNU Libc 2.0.
1601 Internationalization was not the top priority for GNU Libc 2.0.
1602 As of this writing (1998-12-28) you may get crashes while running
1603 XEmacs in a non-C locale. For example, `LC_ALL=en_US xemacs' crashes
1604 while `LC_ALL=C xemacs' runs fine. This happens for example with GNU
1605 libc 2.0.7. Installing libintl.a and libintl.h built from gettext
1606 0.10.35 and re-building XEmacs solves the crashes. Presumably soon
1607 everyone will upgrade to GNU Libc 2.1 and this problem will go away.
1609 *** `C-z', or `M-x suspend-emacs' hangs instead of suspending.
1611 If you build with `gpm' support on Linux, you cannot suspend XEmacs
1612 because gpm installs a buggy SIGTSTP handler. Either compile with
1613 `--with-gpm=no', or don't suspend XEmacs on the Linux console until
1616 *** With certain fonts, when the cursor appears on a character, the
1617 character doesn't appear--you get a solid box instead.
1619 One user on a Linux system reported that this problem went away with
1620 installation of a new X server. The failing server was XFree86 3.1.1.
1621 XFree86 3.1.2 works.
1624 *** On Irix, I don't see the toolbar icons and I'm getting lots of
1625 entries in the warnings buffer.
1627 SGI ships a really old Xpm library in /usr/lib which does not work at
1628 all well with XEmacs. The solution is to install your own copy of the
1629 latest version of Xpm somewhere and then use the --site-includes and
1630 --site-libraries flags to tell configure where to find it.
1632 *** Trouble using ptys on IRIX, or running out of ptys.
1634 The program mkpts (which may be in `/usr/adm' or `/usr/sbin') needs to
1635 be set-UID to root, or non-root programs like Emacs will not be able
1636 to allocate ptys reliably.
1638 *** Beware of the default image & graphics library on Irix
1640 Richard Cognot <cognot@ensg.u-nancy.fr> writes:
1642 You *have* to compile your own jpeg lib. The one delivered with SGI
1643 systems is a C++ lib, which apparently XEmacs cannot cope with.
1646 ** Digital UNIX/OSF/VMS/Ultrix
1647 *** XEmacs crashes on Digital Unix within font-lock, or when dealing
1648 with large compilation buffers, or in other regex applications.
1650 The default stack size under Digital Unix is rather small (2M as
1651 opposed to Solaris 8M), hosing the regexp code, which uses alloca()
1652 extensively, overflowing the stack when complex regexps are used.
1655 1) Increase your stack size, using `ulimit -s 8192' or a (t)csh
1658 2) Recompile regex.c with REGEX_MALLOC defined.
1660 *** The `Alt' key doesn't behave as `Meta' when running DECwindows.
1662 The default DEC keyboard mapping has the Alt keys set up to generate the
1663 keysym `Multi_key', which has a meaning to xemacs which is distinct from that
1664 of the `Meta_L' and `Meta-R' keysyms. A second problem is that certain keys
1665 have the Mod2 modifier attached to them for no adequately explored reason.
1666 The correct fix is to pass this file to xmodmap upon starting X:
1669 keysym Multi_key = Alt_L
1673 *** The Compose key on a DEC keyboard does not work as Meta key.
1675 This shell command should fix it:
1677 xmodmap -e 'keycode 0xb1 = Meta_L'
1679 *** `expand-file-name' fails to work on any but the machine you dumped
1682 On Ultrix, if you use any of the functions which look up information
1683 in the passwd database before dumping Emacs (say, by using
1684 expand-file-name in site-init.el), then those functions will not work
1685 in the dumped Emacs on any host but the one Emacs was dumped on.
1687 The solution? Don't use expand-file-name in site-init.el, or in
1688 anything it loads. Yuck - some solution.
1690 I'm not sure why this happens; if you can find out exactly what is
1691 going on, and perhaps find a fix or a workaround, please let us know.
1692 Perhaps the YP functions cache some information, the cache is included
1693 in the dumped Emacs, and is then inaccurate on any other host.
1697 *** I get complaints about the mapping of my HP keyboard at startup,
1698 but I haven't changed anything.
1700 The default HP keymap is set up to have Mod1 assigned to two different keys:
1701 Meta_L and Mode_switch (even though there is not actually a Mode_switch key on
1702 the keyboard -- it uses an "imaginary" keycode.) There actually is a reason
1703 for this, but it's not a good one. The correct fix is to execute this command
1706 xmodmap -e 'remove mod1 = Mode_switch'
1708 *** On HP-UX, you get "poll: Interrupted system call" message in the
1709 window where XEmacs was launched.
1711 Richard Cognot <cognot@ensg.u-nancy.fr> writes:
1713 I get a very strange problem when linking libc.a dynamically: every
1714 event (mouse, keyboard, expose...) results in a "poll: Interrupted
1715 system call" message in the window where XEmacs was
1716 launched. Forcing a static link of libc.a alone by adding
1717 /usr/lib/libc.a at the end of the link line solves this. Note that
1718 my 9.07 build of 19.14b17 and my (old) build of 19.13 both exhibit
1719 the same behavior. I've tried various hpux patches to no avail. If
1720 this problem cannot be solved before the release date, binary kits
1721 for HP *must* be linked statically against libc, otherwise this
1722 problem will show up. (This is directed at whoever will volunteer
1723 for this kit, as I won't be available to do it, unless 19.14 gets
1724 delayed until mid-june ;-). I think this problem will be an FAQ soon
1725 after the release otherwise.
1727 Note: The above entry is probably not valid for XEmacs 21.0 and
1730 *** The right Alt key works wrong on German HP keyboards (and perhaps
1731 other non-English HP keyboards too).
1733 This is because HP-UX defines the modifiers wrong in X. Here is a
1734 shell script to fix the problem; be sure that it is run after VUE
1735 configures the X server.
1737 xmodmap 2> /dev/null - << EOF
1738 keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
1739 keysym Alt_R = Meta_R
1744 keysym Mode_switch = NoSymbol
1746 keysym Meta_R = Mode_switch
1747 add mod2 = Mode_switch
1751 *** XEmacs dumps core at startup when native audio is used. Native
1752 audio does not work with recent versions of HP-UX.
1754 Under HP-UX 10.20 and later (e.g., HP-UX 11.XX), with native audio
1755 enabled, the dumped XEmacs binary ("xemacs") core dumps at startup if
1756 recent versions of the libAlib.sl audio shared library is used. Note
1757 that "temacs" will run, but "xemacs" will dump core. This, of course,
1758 causes the XEmacs build to fail. If GNU malloc is enabled, a stack
1759 trace will show XEmacs to have crashed in the "first" call to malloc().
1761 This bug currently exists in all versions of XEmacs, when the undump
1762 mechanism is used. It is not known if using the experimental portable
1763 dumper will allow native audio to work.
1767 Recent versions of the HP-UX 10.20 (and later) audio shared library (in
1768 /opt/audio/lib), pulls in the libdce shared library, which pulls in a
1769 thread (libcma) library. This prevents the HP-UX undump() routine (in
1770 unexhp9k800.c) from properly working. What's happening is that some
1771 initialization routines are being called in the libcma library, *BEFORE*
1772 main() is called, and these initialization routines are calling
1773 malloc(). Unfortunately, in order for the undumper to work, XEmacs must
1774 adjust (move upwards) the sbrk() value *BEFORE* the first call to
1775 malloc(); if malloc() is called before XEmacs has properly adjusted sbrk
1776 (which is what is happening), dumped memory that is being used by
1777 XEmacs, is improperly re-allocated for use by malloc() and the dumped
1778 memory is corrupted. This causes XEmacs to die an horrible death.
1780 It is believed that versions of the audio library past December 1998
1781 will trigger this problem. Under HP-UX 10.20, you probably have to
1782 install audio library patches to encounter this. It's probable that
1783 recent "fresh, out-of-the-box" HP-UX 11.XX workstations also have this
1784 problem. For HP-UX 10.20, it's believed that audio patch PHSS_17121 (or
1785 a superceeding one, like PHSS_17554, PHSS_17971, PHSS_18777, PHSS_21481,
1786 or PHSS_21662, etc.) will trigger this.
1788 To check if your audio library will cause problems for XEmacs, run
1789 "chatr /opt/audio/lib/libAlib.sl". If "libdce" appears in the displayed
1790 shared library list, XEmacs will probably encounter problems if audio is
1795 Don't enable native audio. Re-run configure without native audio
1798 If your site supports it, try using NAS (Network Audio Support).
1800 Try using the experimental portable dumper. It may work, or it may
1804 *** `Pid xxx killed due to text modification or page I/O error'
1806 On HP-UX, you can get that error when the Emacs executable is on an NFS
1807 file system. HP-UX responds this way if it tries to swap in a page and
1808 does not get a response from the server within a timeout whose default
1809 value is just ten seconds.
1811 If this happens to you, extend the timeout period.
1813 *** Shell mode on HP-UX gives the message, "`tty`: Ambiguous".
1815 christos@theory.tn.cornell.edu says:
1817 The problem is that in your .cshrc you have something that tries to
1818 execute `tty`. If you are not running the shell on a real tty then tty
1819 will print "not a tty". Csh expects one word in some places, but tty
1820 is giving it back 3.
1822 The solution is to add a pair of quotes around `tty` to make it a
1825 if (`tty` == "/dev/console")
1827 should be changed to:
1829 if ("`tty`" == "/dev/console")
1831 Even better, move things that set up terminal sections out of .cshrc
1836 *** Regular expressions matching bugs on SCO systems.
1838 On SCO, there are problems in regexp matching when Emacs is compiled
1839 with the system compiler. The compiler version is "Microsoft C
1840 version 6", SCO 4.2.0h Dev Sys Maintenance Supplement 01/06/93; Quick
1841 C Compiler Version 1.00.46 (Beta). The solution is to compile with
1845 * Compatibility problems (with Emacs 18, GNU Emacs, or previous XEmacs/lemacs)
1846 ==============================================================================
1848 *** "Symbol's value as variable is void: unread-command-char".
1849 "Wrong type argument: arrayp, #<keymap 143 entries>"
1850 "Wrong type argument: stringp, [#<keypress-event return>]"
1852 There are a few incompatible changes in XEmacs, and these are the
1853 symptoms. Some of the emacs-lisp code you are running needs to be
1854 updated to be compatible with XEmacs.
1856 The code should not treat keymaps as arrays (use `define-key', etc.),
1857 should not use obsolete variables like `unread-command-char' (use
1858 `unread-command-events'). Many (most) of the new ways of doing things
1859 are compatible in GNU Emacs and XEmacs.
1861 Modern Emacs packages (Gnus, VM, W3, efs, etc) are written to support
1862 GNU Emacs and XEmacs. We have provided modified versions of several
1863 popular emacs packages (dired, etc) which are compatible with this
1864 version of emacs. Check to make sure you have not set your load-path
1865 so that your private copies of these packages are being found before
1866 the versions in the lisp directory.
1868 Make sure that your load-path and your $EMACSLOADPATH environment
1869 variable are not pointing at an Emacs18 lisp directory. This will
1872 ** Some packages that worked before now cause the error
1873 Wrong type argument: arrayp, #<face ... >
1875 Code which uses the `face' accessor functions must be recompiled with
1876 xemacs 19.9 or later. The functions whose callers must be recompiled
1877 are: face-font, face-foreground, face-background,
1878 face-background-pixmap, and face-underline-p. The .elc files
1879 generated by version 19.9 will work in 19.6 and 19.8, but older .elc
1880 files which contain calls to these functions will not work in 19.9.
1882 ** Signaling: (error "Byte code stack underflow (byte compiler bug), pc 38")
1884 This error is given when XEmacs 20 is compiled without MULE support
1885 but is attempting to load a .elc which requires MULE support. The fix
1886 is to rebytecompile the offending file.
1888 ** Signaling: (wrong-type-argument ...) when loading mail-abbrevs
1890 The is seen when installing the Insidious Big Brother Data Base (bbdb)
1891 which includes an outdated copy of mail-abbrevs.el. Remove the copy
1892 that comes with bbdb and use the one that comes with XEmacs.
1898 ** A reminder: XEmacs/Mule work does not currently receive *any*
1899 funding, and all work is done by volunteers. If you think you can
1900 help, please contact the XEmacs maintainers.
1902 ** XEmacs/Mule doesn't support TTY's satisfactorily.
1904 This is a major problem, which we plan to address in a future release
1905 of XEmacs. Basically, XEmacs should have primitives to be told
1906 whether the terminal can handle international output, and which
1907 locale. Also, it should be able to do approximations of characters to
1908 the nearest supported by the locale.
1910 ** Internationalized (Asian) Isearch doesn't work.
1912 Currently, Isearch doesn't directly support any of the input methods
1913 that are not XIM based (like egg, canna and quail) (and there are
1914 potential problems with XIM version too...). If you're using egg
1915 there is a workaround. Hitting <RET> right after C-s to invoke
1916 Isearch will put Isearch in string mode, where a complete string can
1917 be typed into the minibuffer and then processed by Isearch afterwards.
1918 Since egg is now supported in the minibuffer using string mode you can
1919 now use egg to input your Japanese, Korean or Chinese string, then hit
1920 return to send that to Isearch and then use standard Isearch commands
1923 ** Using egg and mousing around while in 'fence' mode screws up my
1926 Don't do this. The fence modes of egg and canna are currently very
1927 modal, and messing with where they expect point to be and what they
1928 think is the current buffer is just asking for trouble. If you're
1929 lucky they will realize that something is awry, and simply delete the
1930 fence, but worst case can trash other buffers too. We've tried to
1931 protect against this where we can, but there still are many ways to
1932 shoot yourself in the foot. So just finish what you are typing into
1933 the fence before reaching for the mouse.
1935 ** Not all languages in Quail are supported like Devanagari and Indian
1936 languages, Lao and Tibetan.
1938 Quail requires more work and testing. Although it has been ported to
1939 XEmacs, it works really well for Japanese and for the European
1942 ** Right-to-left mode is not yet implemented, so languages like
1943 Arabic, Hebrew and Thai don't work.
1945 Getting this right requires more work. It may be implemented in a
1946 future XEmacs version, but don't hold your breath. If you know
1947 someone who is ready to implement this, please let us know.
1949 ** We need more developers and native language testers. It's extremely
1950 difficult (and not particularly productive) to address languages that
1951 nobody is using and testing.
1953 ** The kWnn and cWnn support for Chinese and Korean needs developers
1954 and testers. It probably doesn't work.
1956 ** There are no `native XEmacs' TUTORIALs for any Asian languages,
1957 including Japanese. FSF Emacs and XEmacs tutorials are quite similar,
1958 so it should be sufficient to skim through the differences and apply
1959 them to the Japanese version.
1961 ** We only have localized menus translated for Japanese, and the
1962 Japanese menus are developing bitrot (the Mule menu appears in
1965 ** XIM is untested for any language other than Japanese.