(Novell) SuSE 9 to 13, SLES

SuSE home page: http://en.opensuse.org and http://www.suse.com

Linux Installation Hints:

• Packages: in addition to default suggestions and your choices,
• at installation, select "Standard system with KDE" and "Detailed selection"→ Filter → Development:
• select/enable packages gcc, gcc-c++, glib2-devel, libjpeg-devel, ncurses-devel, xorg-x11-devel (or post-install later via yast → Package Groups → All Packages)  
• for running executables in Terminal i/o mode using "newfswin" script, you will need installed csh/tcsh, either from the Linux media, or from http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/3/srodzaj/1/search/csh

• 32bit Linux:
  • All packages for running your executables on customer's system are installed automatically by SuSE default installation.
  • For development, install packages suggested above, or invoke simply "zypper install gcc gcc-c++ glib2-devel libjpeg-devel ncurses-devel xorg-x11-devel".

• 64bit Linux:
  • All packages for running your executables on customer's system are installed automatically by SuSE default installation, including 64bit and 32bit libraries.
  • For development, install packages suggested above (with 32bit version), or invoke simply "zypper install gcc gcc-c++-32bit glib2-devel libjpeg-devel-32bit ncurses-devel-32bit xorg-x11-devel-32bit" . With some newer SuSE versions, you may need also "zypper install glibc-devel-static-32bit libjpeg62-devel-32bit xorg-x11-libX11-devel-32bit xorg-x11-libXext-devel-32bit xorg-x11-libSM-devel-32bit xorg-x11-libICE-devel-32bit" for static linking.
  • See also this 64bit info for further information. Since 32bit libs are available in SuSE per default in /usr/lib (and 64bit libs in /usr/lib64), you don't need to change the -L path nor anything else in the /usr/local/FlagShip7/FS7config file.

Installation of Visual FlagShip 7.1.* (VFS7):

• Install the .rpm based package FlagShip-7*.rpm, see the booklet for details and step-by-step instruction
• The main FlagShip directory is /usr/local/FlagShip7
• SuSE Pro supply all required static libraries in packages suggested above, so you may compile both dynamically (default) and statically (using the -stat compiler switch).
• If you get get some warnings at the end of FlagShip installation, or linker errors at static linking, post-install the required packages noted above from the SuSE CD-ROM or DVDdistribution or from on-line repository via YaST.
• With some SuSE versions, you may get failed rpm dependence at FlagShip installation, or message "error while loading shared library libjpeg.so.62" at the time of executing your application or fsman. You may invoke "zypper install libjpeg62-32bit" or "zypper install libjpeg6-32bit" or via "rpm -ivh http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/vodoo/openSUSE_12.3/i586/libjpeg62-62.0.0-1.1.i586.rpm" to install it.

Installation of Visual FlagShip 6.1.* (VFS6):

• Install the .rpm based package FlagShip-6.1*_26.rpm, see INSTALL file in the distribution ("less INSTALL") for details
• SuSE 10.2 and later: install the package "compat" and "compat-libstdc++" (named also "libstdc++33") otherwise FlagShip rpm installer may report "failed dependencies libstdc++.so.5"
• The main FlagShip directory is /usr/local/FlagShip6
• SuSE Pro supply all required static libraries in packages suggested above, so you may compile both dynamically (default) and statically (using the -stat compiler switch). If you get get some warnings at the end of FlagShip installation, or linker errors at static linking, post-install the required packages noted above from the SuSE CD-ROM or DVD distribution via YaST.

Using FlagShip:

• In VFS7, read the short step-by-step instruction for using FlagShip in the booklet (available also in the main /usr/local/FlagShip7 directory)
• If in X/GUI environment (KDE, Gnome etc): open console/terminal window.
• To test and run supplied examples, invoke  cd /usr/local/FlagShip[6|7]/examples ; make .
• Compile your sources as described in fsman section FSC, e.g. "FlagShip myapp*.prg", a short help is available via "FlagShip -h". Note the case sensitive names in Unix/Linux.
• Watch for displayed compiler and linker errors, and fix if any. If you use the older gcc 3.4, the displayed gcc warning "cc1: note: -fwritable-strings is deprecated; see documentation for details" is harmless and can be ignored.
• If everything is ok, execute (see fsman section FSC):
  ./a.out            # in GUI mode
  newfswin ./a.out   # for Textual i/o mode in X11 environment
• In some SuSE packages, you may need to disable line 416 (#xrdb -merge ...) and enable line 419 (source $FlagShipDir/bin/$xmapFile) in /usr/local/FlagShip[6,7]/bin/newfswin to proper support Terminal i/o in X11 environment.
• The on-line manual is available by entering "fsman &" in KDE/Gnome console for GUI mode, or "newfswin fsman" for textual mode. Manual in pdf format is available in /usr/local/FlagShip[6|7]/manual or in Web. Printed manual is available upon request.
• Step-by-step instruction for converting available applications to GUI is given in fsman section LNG.9.6
• Examples are available in /usr/local/FlagShip[6,7]/examples and .../tools directory. Best to copy them to your working directory.
• If you have enabled new kernel security extensions from the SELinux project, and get "error while loading shared libraries: /usr/lib/libFlagShip6.so: cannot restore segment prot after reloc: Permission denied" at the time of invoking dynamically linked executable, you will need to enable security context for your shared FlagShip library by issuing : su -c "chcon -t textrel_shlib_t /usr/local/FlagShip[6|7]/lib/libFlagShip[6|7*].so" or disabling SELinux altogether in your /etc/sysconfig/selinux file by setting the line SELINUX=disabled
• You may use FlagShip's distribute.sh script to customize all redistributable files with your application.
• On problems or questions, please check the on-line manual and FAQ first. If your problem persist, contact FlagShip support - we grant free tech support not only for the licensed, but also for the Test/Eval version.

Known Issues :

• If the PC-8 semi-graphic characters are displayed in textual mode as Ä's (A-umlaut) etc, you eiter may either
  - start the application via newfswin, newfscons or newfsterm (see above and Release Notes in fsman) which automatically sets the proper environment, or
  - disable Unicode i.e. set the environment variable "LANG=en_EN", and start the application via newfswin.
  See also and/or test with /usr/local/FlagShip6/examples/boxcommand.prg


• If the last character in the manual pages seems to be missing in GUI mode, select Courier[adobe] via Menu→Options→Font→Input/Output or assign other font via command-line parameter, see fsman -h for furtehr details.


• When compiling large sources, you may get compiler error "** Warning: C compiler not invoked" but without any displayed syntax error. This is caused by insufficient stack size (stack overflow in yacc/lex parser) for large source files or many continuation statements (check the displayed source code line). You may increase the stack by e.g. "uname -s 30000". If you get here a message "ulimit: stack size: cannot modify limit..." you need to set (as su/root/sudo) "uname -Hs 30000", then re-open the user terminal, and set "uname -s 30000" anew. You may add this also in your ~/.bashrc script for an automatic set at login.

Additional Info:

Since FlagShip translates the Xbase code to C code as an intermediate step and requires object compatible libs during the linking stage, C compilers, utilities and libraries must be chosen with great care, otherwise upredictable errors may occur.

The C compiler (and the optional static libs) is required only in the developing phase, it is not required for the user of your application, which only needs the by FlagShip produced executable (i.e. your own application executables, see also fsman section SYS.1.2 for distribution hints).