March 9, 2004
Antonello Piemonte
email (remove the pig noise): apiemont at SNORT googlemail dot com
A good description of the default Solaris 8 window manager was found here, and since I cannot put it in better word, I repeat it here:
"By default, Solaris uses CDE, the Common Desktop Environment. It's the result of millions of dollars of development by IBM, HP, and Sun. It's also a bloated nightmare and riddled with bugs. You can do some nice things with it, but nothing you can't do in another environment. Most importantly, all of the nifty CDE functionality requires a slew of RPC-based support services (tooltalk, cmsd, etc.) which are the source of a neverending series of remote exploits. I would recommend choosing a different window manager if possible."
I am quite happy with Fluxbox, simple, fast, lean and neat :-) First of all get the source here, then, to install, prooced with the usual mantra:
$ cd $ gtar -C src/ xvzf fluxbox-x-y-z.tar.gz $ cd src/fluxbox-x-y-z $ ./configure --prefix=$HOME; make; make installnow we have all the bin/ doc/ man/ etc/ under our home directory. Then create (executable)
.xinitrc with this line:
eval `/usr/bin/ssh-agent` exec /home/apiemont/bin/fluxboxNote that you need GNU C++ library to build, and also to run export this variable to your shell
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/vlt/OCT2001/gnu/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
Then also read how to install and get fixed artwiz fonts
here
(not done yet on Solaris) and
get some nice themes here.
Additionally installed fbdesk, wich in turn requires zlib and libpng, so here is the rollout. First we build the static zlib libraries:
$ cd src/zlib-1.2.1 $ ./configure $ make test $ make install prefix=$HOMEthen we continue building libpng libraries:
$ cd ../libpng-1.2.5 $ cp scripts/makefile.solaris makefile $ vi makefile ..... prefix=/home/apiemont ZLIBLIB=//home/apiemont/lib ZLIBINC=/home/apiemont/include ..... $ make; make installfinally we build fbdesk:
$ cd ../fbdesk-1.1.5 $ ./configure --prefix=$HOME --enable-xft=no --enable-png=no $ make; make installFIXME: errors when building with png support, try to build shared zlib (use
./configure -s).
~/opera for example, update your $PATH
and off you go, or better said, off you fly!
Update Opera 7.21 for Solaris 8 (SPARC) is available it rocks! The good folks at Opera Software now have the same code base for Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris, meaning that releases will be done in sync on all those platforms, kudos to them! To install, untar the file, then run the installation script (example)
$ install.sh --prefix $HOME/opera721and then create this simlink
~/lib/libXm.so.2 -> /usr/lib/libXm.so*
otherwise chaos with motif wrapper will ensue.
As for Java, Flash and others plague-in, I have not bothered yet to configure them. I know you can configure Opera to use the Netscape plugins, and for Java you can work out the setup as explained in the Opera FAQ, provided you have a decent Java VM somewhere on your box.
As a complement I also use the excellent links text browser. Get the tarball and compile it as usual:
$ ./configure --prefix=$HOME; make; make install
I had to change keyboard layout because the Caps Lock and Control keys are swapped. So I created this file ~/.xmodmaprc.
! ! Swap Caps_Lock and Control_L ! remove Lock = Caps_Lock remove Control = Control_L keysym Control_L = Caps_Lock keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L add Lock = Caps_Lock add Control = Control_Lthen you can temporarily enable the modification with
$ xmodmap ~/.xmodmaprcor make it permanent place the xmodmap command into your personal ~/.dt/sessions/sessionetc script (for logins into CDE only; this file does not exist by default, create it, make it executable, and put the xmodmap command somewhere), or by putting it into ~/.xinitrc (for logins into OpenWindows, if this file does not exist, copy it from /usr/local/adm/users/lib/skel/.xinitrc).
| This page last modified March 9, 2004 |
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