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HOW TO: open a remote frontend in X11

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg43136] HOW TO: open a remote frontend in X11
  • From: Eric Bittner <bittner at uh.edu>
  • Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 05:07:52 -0400 (EDT)
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Hi All,

Since this question keeps popping up and I've yet to see a
step-by-step solution in the archive or FAQ lists, here are the
exact steps one can follow to open a remote front-end from a
unix machine under X11.

First, you need to put the required fonts on your local machine.
in my case, it's a G4 Mac running OSX and I want to run a remote
kernel/front-end from my Beowulf cluster.  For other
configurations, you will need to modify the command slightly
to reflect your exact configuration.

On the remote unix machine,  cd to the file containing the fonts.
On my beowulf cluster, these are in
/usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/4.2/SystemFiles/Fonts

In this directory are three subdirectories: AFM, BDF, Type1, tar these  
up
tar cvf mathfonts.tar */*
and ftp  this over to your local machine.
*** BEFORE you untar
cd to your SystemFiles/Fonts directory and make a new subdirectory, X11.

cd  /Applications/Mathematica\ 5.0/SystemFiles/Fonts/
mkdir X11

This may not be necessary, it was just a safeguard so that I would not  
overwrite my local fonts.
Put the tar file in the SystemFiles/Fonts/X11 directory and untar.
tar xvf mathfonts.tar

Next, you need to add these to your x11 font-path.  This you do with  
xset +fp
On the local machine in an X11 terminal window:
xset +fp /Applications/Mathematica\ 5.0/SystemFiles/Fonts/X11/AFM
xset +fp /Applications/Mathematica\ 5.0/SystemFiles/Fonts/X11/BDF
xset +fp /Applications/Mathematica\ 5.0/SystemFiles/Fonts/X11/Type1

Finally,  on the local machine---in an X11 terminal window
xhost +remotemachine
ssh -X remotemachine

Now, on the remote machine, simply start up Mathematica....and voila,  
you have your fonts.

Some of these steps may not be necessary, and I have only tried this on  
a
OSX/Linux combination...but the prescription above works.

If you're running MacOSX...this will not work in the "Terminal.app",  
you need to use an X11
terminal window.

Cheers!
Eric

--
Prof. Eric R. Bittner
Department of Chemistry
Univ. of Houston
ph:  713-743-2775    fax: 713-743-2709
bittner at uh.edu
http://k2.chem.uh.edu/bittner/

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-------------------
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon  
it,
can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the  
universe
to do. -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)


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