8 bit X-Win application in 24/16 bit Xorg

eRJe · 02-28-2014, 05:41 AM

Hello,

From a Debian system I remotely login to a AIX system and then I run a x-win application that has a 8 bit color depth. It works but the colors are wrong and I am getting the following error messages. (This is just an extraction of the errors, there are many more of the same)

Code:

CPU0: XXG:Index surpassed 256 color 3136
CPU0: XXG:Index surpassed 256 color 3200
CPU0: XXG:Index surpassed 256 color 3264
CPU0: XXG:Index surpassed 256 color 3328
CPU0: XXG:Index surpassed 256 color 3392
CPU0: XXG:Index surpassed 256 color 3456

The colors are being displayed quite good accept for a few (perhaps only one) THese color(s) are now just black.

When start x in with a lower color depth,

Code:

startx -- -depth 8

even more colors are being displayed black and I'm getting the following error messages:

Code:

CPU0: XXG: Failed to Allocate Colors Reverting to Black & White
CPU0: XXG: Failed to Allocate Colors Reverting to Black & White
CPU0: XXG: Failed to Allocate Colors Reverting to Black & White
CPU0: XXG: Failed to Allocate Colors Reverting to Black & White
CPU0: XXG: Failed to Allocate Colors Reverting to Black & White
CPU0: XXG: Failed to Allocate Colors Reverting to Black & White
CPU0: XXG: Failed to Allocate Colors Reverting to Black & White

Is there anything I can do to solve this issue?

Thanks,
Robbert

business_kid · 03-02-2014, 02:30 PM

What's your video Card. Does that handle 8 bit?
This is probably a video issue. Can you get to use vesa, or framebuffer for this thing?

There's also some weird special purpose X servers, one of which might handle 8 bit better.

eRJe · 03-05-2014, 02:19 AM

Thanks for you response business_kid,

Actually I'm running this from a Raspberry Pi.

There are two applications that I'm running in 8 bit. Application A is showing the colors just fine in 16 bit, though I get messages like this:

Code:

CPU0: XXG:Index surpassed 256 color 3136
CPU0: XXG:Index surpassed 256 color 3200
CPU0: XXG:Index surpassed 256 color 3264
CPU0: XXG:Index surpassed 256 color 3328
CPU0: XXG:Index surpassed 256 color 3392
CPU0: XXG:Index surpassed 256 color 3456

But I guess this is good and is just some translation of the color table?

When I do startx -- -depth 8 and run application A, the colors are all wrong, mainly black but there are no messages.

When running application B in 16 bit mode, the colors are wrong, mainly black, (application A is still fine) and I'm getting the message

Code:

Visual type immutable, using default colormap

When doing the same again in 8 bit, both applications are showing wrong (black) colors but no messages at all.

What exactly do you mean with "vesa" or "framebuffer"? Do you happen to know which xserver would be a good go to test? I'm currently using mwm as window manager.

business_kid · 03-05-2014, 12:55 PM

The Raspberry pi has a fairly sophisticated OpenGL driver for X bundled that is all in the firmware. It does full hdmi. You can't use mplayer - you need ?omxplayer? or something. I have one myself.

If that's a Pi, you're going down in flames. you need to get your software using that driver or using OpenGL. I haven't gone there, as I took the line of least resistance. I wanted to watch an internet movie to prove a point, and did, using a fifo and omxplayer. Something like this:

Code:

omxplayer ./my_nutty_fifo & youtube-dl http://www.youtube.com/some_video > my_nutty_fifo

eRJe · 03-05-2014, 02:58 PM

I'm not sure if we are still talking about the same thing here. Just to be clear, I am not trying to play any video content. I am trying to run an application via a xserver-client setup. The xserver being the raspberry, the client an old fart AIX Risc system.

I did see some changes when I switched back from mwm to Openbox. Openbox shows more colors in 16 bit than mwm. Perhaps I should try some more xservers. Like you mentioned in your first post, I think.

business_kid · 03-06-2014, 07:22 AM

Right. I would get some remote desktop thing going on them. That would get around the software hassle.