[Paraview] Minimal X Window System config

[Paul McIntosh]

An update... I have a solution :)

I think that twm hangs because it expects user interaction (i.e. a mouse
click) before creating the window. Debugging pvserver shows that it is
sitting waiting for XGetWindowAttributes and never gets them.

So I tried another tack and just ran pvserver without twm (or any window
manager) and used xinit to invoke the X Server. The following commands work
and will probably be useful for someone else...

1) Run a single instance (X Server shuts down when complete)
xinit <fullpath>/pvserver 

2) Run multiple instances (X Server shuts down when complete)
xinit <fullpath>/mpirun -np 16 ./pvserver

3) Run multiple instances across multiple GPUs (X Server shuts down when
complete)
xinit <fullpath>/mpirun -bynode -np 8 ./pvserver -display :0.0 : -np 8
./pvserver -display :0.1

Cheers,

Paul


-----Original Message-----
From: Paul McIntosh [mailto:paul.mcintosh at internetscooter.com] 
Sent: Friday, 14 May 2010 12:36 PM
To: 'paraview at paraview.org'
Subject: Minimal X Window System config

Hi All,

Does any one have information they can share on a minimal X Window System
config (Centos 5.5 cluster nodes) for pvserver remote rendering to work?

I can install a very minimal system consisting of things like fonts,
xorg-x11-twm, glx-utils, xorg-x11-server-Xorg, xorg-x11-twm, xorg-x11-xinit,
xorg-x11-server-Xorg and xorg-x11-xauth.

If I run Specviewperf, glxgears or glxinfo the output is as expected.
However pvserver just hangs when I connect to it from a client. The weird
thing is that if I run pvserver or ParaView via VirtualGL in a TurboVNC
session it works!?

My solution at the moment works but is big bang and overkill for a cluster
node:

yum groupinstall "X Window System" "GNOME Desktop Environment"

Note I have read the following:

Setting up a ParaView Server
http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/Setting_up_a_ParaView_Server

Step by step guide for the installation and configuration of a cluster to
run ParaView
http://www.iac.es/sieinvens/siepedia/pmwiki.php?n=HOWTOs.ParaviewInACluster


Cheers,

Paul
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