Hello Andreas et al. --

So far (and with only one exception, see below) I've been very
pleased with SL4.1 ... it runs my preferred astronomy CCD data
reduction and analysis package ( http://www.aao.gov.au/figaro )
just fine.  The purpose of my inquiry was just to get a better
idea how many SL users are out there running on ia64, and just
how active software/OS development on this architecture is.

My work is not being held back because I don't have SL 4.6 or
SL 5.x for ia64.  Apologies if I gave anyone that impression.

However my work would benefit from having openmotif-2.1.3X
(deemed the last official "stable" release by the Open Group)
available for ia64 as an rpm.  I've located source code here:

http://www.ist-inc.com/DOWNLOADS/motif_files/openmotif-2.1.32_IST.source.tar
.gz

but just following the FAQ directions to build it from source,
I was not successful (I'm a Fortran-77 applications programmer
[to support my science research] at heart, so I struggle with
code in C and unix/Linux system admin tasks).  Reportedly this
version (openmotif-2.1.32_IST) has been ported to x86-64, but
to what extent this simplifies the task of building it under
ia64, I don't know.  In the meantime my workaround is "twm"
(which I don't much care for as a user, but at least it allows
the image display tool in figaro to run without a segmentation
violation and core dump that happens under openmotif-2.2.3-9
... problems I've never had on previous platforms [32-bit and
64-bit] running the stable and official openmotif-2.1.3X "mwm"
versions).  ((My earlier 64-bit RH7.3 platform was a DEC Alpha
and the 64-bit OpenMotif 2.1.3X that I ran on it is found here:

http://ftp4.de.freesbie.org/pub/misc/metrolink/openmotif/current/

if that helps any with the creation of an Itanium version...)).

Keep in mind I have a "workaround" using twm, so if building
openmotif-2.1.3X for ia64 is a big job having little or no
benefit to the SL community except for me ... maybe nevermind?

Cheers,

    -- Jim


Andreas Hirstius wrote (Fri, 11-Apr-2008 1:13pm):
> Hi Jim,
>
> After a few detours I finally got your mail.
> I'm the contact for SLC (Scientific Linux CERN) on Itanium.
> We have ~100 Itanium boxes here...
> Coming to your question/problem.
> The development of SL for Itanium was stopped with version 4.1
>
> SLC, on the other hand, is still being maintained, so SLC4.6
> is available.
> SL5.x is not available for Itanium since there were no users...
> I wanted to start working on SLC5.x for Itanium when I have
> time for it ... it wasn't urgent because, up to now, I would
> have been the only user.
> How soon would you need SL(C) 5 for Itanium?
> Would you be able to help a bit with (possible) debugging ?
> Best Regards,
>  Andreas Hirstius
> P.S.: Your mailserver blocks messages from CERN because we're
>          supposedly a source of spam...