Re: Strange Linux colors

[Udo Grabowski <udo.grabowski(at)imk.fzk.de>]

Hello !

We have the same trouble with Idl, and (for direct graphics) it's
a flaw of the fvwm window manager which does not handle private
colormaps in widgets correctly. Get the newest fvwm2 release from
www.fvwm.org, which has a patch for that problem. For object graphics,
there currently is no way to get the correct colors on fvwm when a
private colormap is needed, I currently try to get some ideas from
a former developer of RSI for a patch. As a workaround, close all
color sucking applications such as netscape, java applications etc.
until enough colors are available (do a 'print,!d.n_colors' after
launching an idl window do see how many are allocated). This will
help in most cases. But you will have no chance if the application
itself allocates a colormap with 256 entries, which always results
in a private colormap. The only way to get out of that is to start
the Xserver with 24 bit RGB color (modify /etc/XF86Config), which provides
always enough colors to avoid a private colormap, but some other
applications cannot handle that mode correctly, so expect to have to
switch back from 24 to 8 bit sometimes. I don't know if the KDE manager
does a better job on the colormaps.
-- 
Dr. Udo Grabowski                           email: udo.grabowski@imk.fzk.de
Institut f. Meteorologie und Klimaforschung II, Forschungszentrum Karslruhe
Postfach 3640, D-76021 Karlsruhe, Germany           Tel: (+49) 7247 82-6026
http://www.fzk.de/imk/imk2/ame/grabowski/           Fax:         "    -6141