Outdated fontconfig in SALOME-MECA-2008.1

When I initially ran Salome, I found that

1. it spit out warnings about 'unknown element "cachedir"' and "scan" not being a valid value for the "target" attribute of the "match" element, and
2. The font used in Salome's widget was not the same from run to run.

It turns out that the problem is that the SALOME-MECA-2008.1 distribution comes with an old fontconfig library that tries to read the current fontconfig configuration files on my system, and these new files have elements and attributes that the newer fontconfig versions understand but older versions do not.

On my Ubuntu 8.04.1 (64-bit) system, I solved this problem by linking /opt/SALOME-MECA-2008.1-GPL/SALOME/SALOME3/prerequis/debianForSalome-v1_2_0/lib/libfontconfig.so.1 to /usr/lib32/libfontconfig.so.1.3.0. This is probably not the best solution, though.

J. J. Ramsey wrote:

When I initially ran Salome, I found that

1. it spit out warnings about 'unknown element "cachedir"' and "scan" not being a valid value for the "target" attribute of the "match" element, and
2. The font used in Salome's widget was not the same from run to run.

It turns out that the problem is that the SALOME-MECA-2008.1 distribution comes with an old fontconfig library that tries to read the current fontconfig configuration files on my system, and these new files have elements and attributes that the newer fontconfig versions understand but older versions do not.

On my Ubuntu 8.04.1 (64-bit) system, I solved this problem by linking /opt/SALOME-MECA-2008.1-GPL/SALOME/SALOME3/prerequis/debianForSalome-v1_2_0/lib/libfontconfig.so.1 to /usr/lib32/libfontconfig.so.1.3.0. This is probably not the best solution, though.

Thank you J.J. Ramsey for the tip about font config. This solved one problem I was having in my Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy 64bit PC. I have another problem though.

I installed using the following steps:
[code:1]
sudo mv /home/user/Download/SALOME-MECA-2008.1-GPL.tgz /opt
cd /opt
sudo tar -zxf SALOME-MECA-2008.1-GPL.tgz
cd /opt/SALOME-MECA-2008.1-GPL/postinstall/
sudo python ./postinstall.py
[/code:1]

All the modules are installed with green [OK]s


When I run using:

[code:1]
/opt/SALOME-MECA-2008.1-GPL/runSalomeMeca
[/code:1]

I get:

[code:1]
Searching for free port for the SALOME Naming Service: 2810 - Ok
Configure parser: Warning : could not find configuration file SalomeApp.xml
Configure parser: Warning : could not find user configuration file
Searching for a free port for naming service: 2810 - OK
Lancement du Naming Service runNS.sh
Searching Naming Service + found in 0.1 seconds
Searching /Containers/ubuntu16/FactoryServerPy in Naming Service ++ found in 1.0 seconds
Searching /Kernel/Session in Naming Service ++ found in 1.0 seconds
Start SALOME, elapsed time : 2.2 seconds
additional external python interpreters: 0
[/code:1]

I can see the "Splash" screen and all the Containers being loaded as the progress bar fills up from left to right. Then nothing. No Salome! I stare at the screen and it stares back at me. I have installed Salome 3.2.9 on several 32bit Ubuntu PCs and they work fine. The salomeNS.log is not anything I can understand. Is the absence of the "SalomeApp.xml" file the problem? I have checked all other 32bit PCs and they too lack this file but Salome 3.2.9 works ok on them. Any ideas? thank you for any help you or others can offer.

Regards,
JMB<br /><br />Post edited by: JMB, at: 2008/08/31 01:49