The MI/X FAQ

A: The FAQ is the only documentation available for MI/X.

A: The Windows version is X11R5.

A: No.  We get 1000 to 2000 downloads of MI/X per week, so our server is very busy.  Please try again at a different time.

A: Run the uninstall program that is found through Start / Program Files / MicroImages / Uninstall MI/X.

A: You can start MI/X from the "Start" Menu (Start / Programs / MicroImages / MI/X ) which runs MI/X, or you can change to the directory where MI/X is located and type 'MIX'.  In some rare cases using the shortcut  to launch MI/X does not work. In those cases issue the following commands from a DOS prompt (you cd to the directory where you installed MI/X):

                MIX

This will start the server and its window manager manually. Running the commands from the command line can also be a good way to trouble shoot since you may get error messages reported to the console that may help you discern what is going wrong.

A: A multi-user license uses a server to issue licenses to remote MIX 2.0 installations.  The requirements for the license server is it needs to be installed on a Windows NT based system (either NT Workstation or Server).  Start the installation of MIX 2.0 on the server platform and select "Custom" for the type of installation.  If this selection does not appear, that means that the platform is not an Windows NT based system.  Select "Custom" for the install type and a list of components appears, select the default, which will install the license manager.  Copy the attached license.dat file from the e-mail sent by MicroImages to the installation directory.  You must edit this license.dat file with a simple text editor (notepad) to match your machine name and installation directory.  Comments in the license.dat file will explain what needs to be changed.  To start the license server open the Control Panel and open the Services applet.  Highlight the "MIX License Server" entry and press start.  If it is already running press stop and then press start.

To install clients on other platforms that access the license server, install MIX 2.0 on that platform (if Windows NT based select "Typical" as the installation type).  Run MIX 2.0 from the Start Menu and the authorization dialog comes up.  To have the client get the license from the server turn on the check box and enter the following in the text line below:

ServerName 1234 5678 9ABC DE

Where "ServerName" is the name of the server and "1234 5678 9ABC DE" is the machine ID of the server as it appears in the "order.txt" file in the installation directory.  The client will then connect to the server to obtain the license.

If MI/X has already been installed on an NT server and you selected "typical" instead of "custom" install, then you will need to uninstall MI/X and then reinstall it.  If you followed these instructions and still have problems, you can install the license manager manually with the following command:

installs -n "MIX License Manager" -c "<installation directory>\license.dat" -l "<installation directory>\mix.log" -e "<installation directory>\lmgrd.exe

After installing the manager, locate the program named flexlm.cpl in your MI/X folder.  Run this program, click on the Control Tab, press the Start button.  The license manager should become fully operational at this point.

Start MI/X on each client workstation, check "obtain license from server" in the Authorization Code window, and enter the server's name and Machine ID in the space provided.  If you do not immediately get the MI/X main window, place a copy of license.dat in each MI/X directory and restart MI/X.   This license.dat file should be a copy of the same edited file that you placed on the server.

A: If you are running your computer/monitor in a color mode with less than 256 colors, MI/X will not work. If you want to run MI/X, you will have to change the color mode to 256 or more colors.

A: You have to establish your remote connection outside of MI/X. Windows comes with a telnet utility that works well for this purpose.

A: Try changing your MI/X Preferences (found by left clicking on the MI/X icon in the upper left corner) so that "Exit When All Windows Closed" is not checked.

A: Yes, however twm is the window manager we support. We can't tell you how to configure other window managers, or even guarantee that they'll work.  If you choose to do this, you must specify that you are using another manager than twm in the MI/X Preferences.

A: Start MI/X. Telnet to the remote host. Set the DISPLAY environment variable on the remote host to the machine you are running MI/X on. For example on Solaris (running csh):

        

                setenv DISPLAY mymachine:0.0

or failing that:

                setenv DISPLAY my.machine's.ip.number:0.0

(running BASH):

            export DISPLAY=mymachine:0.0

      

       or failing that:

                export DISPLAY=my.machine's.ip.number:0.0

replacing "my.machines's.ip.number" with the actual IP number of the local machine running MI/X.

After this, you can launch whatever X applications you wish on your remote host and they will display on the machine running MI/X. To invoke a command shell try:

                xterm &

When the xterm comes up you can close the telnet session. The commands may differ on various flavors of UNIX.

A: If you are following the procedure outlined in this FAQ and you are still getting this error, contact the sysadmin of the remote host, the sysadmin of the system you are using or tech support for your ISP and ask if the systems that you are going through allow x-traffic to pass through. Some of them don't.  You can also specify to have your local IP displayed at the top of the MI/X windows through the MI/X Preferences.

A: BDF, PCF, and Speedo fonts.

A: Yes, you can get rid of some of the extra fonts. Of course, you will still need to keep some of them. Here are some examples of fonts to keep:

        7x13b.bdf        -misc-fixed-bold-r-normal--13-120-75-75-c-70-iso8859-1

        ascii.bdf        -mi-fixed-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-160-ascii-1

        olcursor.bdf     -sun-open look cursor-----12-120-75-75-p-160-sunolcursor-1

        olgl10.bdf       -sun-open look glyph-----10-100-75-75-p-101-sunolglyph-1

        cursor.bdf       cursor

        deccurs.bdf      decw$cursor

        decsess.bdf      decw$session

The last part of the font is the language encoding. Chances are that if it isn't "iso8859-1", then you don't need it. Exceptions are the other files above. "cursor.bdf" is especially important as it contains the cursors used by the X Windows System.

A: Yes, you can use the PCF format. Find the BDF/MISC directory (it should be in the directory into which you install MI/X), there should be a file called "fonts.dir" which contains examples of how to add BDF and PCF fonts. The "fonts.dir" file for MI/X corresponds to the file with the same name on a UNIX X server.

A: First, open the font in a text editor. The first few lines will look like this:

STARTFONT 2.1

FONT -Misc-Fixed-Medium-R-Normal--10-100-75-75-C-60-ISO8859-1

SIZE 10 75 75

Copy the line that appears after FONT. Next, open the fonts.dir file with a text editor. It will look like this:

87

gb16.pcf        -cclib-fixed-medium-r-normal--16-150-78-78-c-160-gb2312.1980-0

ascii.bdf        -mi-fixed-medium-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-160-ascii-1

7x13b.bdf        -misc-fixed-bold-r-normal--13-120-75-75-c-70-iso8859-1

Note that there is a number at the top of the file. This has to match the number of fonts in the file. (I've only included the first three in this example. The actual file would have 84 more entries.) Once the fonts.dir is open, go to the bottom of the file and add the name of the font you are adding and paste in the information you copied from the font. Then change the number at the top of the file to reflect the new number of fonts in the file. In my example, I would change 87 to 88.

A: Follow the steps mentioned above for opening the fonts.dir file, delete the entry for the font you are deleting, change the number at the top of the fonts.dir file to reflect the correct number of fonts listed in the file. Save the font.dir file and delete the *.bdf or *.pcf file.

A: No. Fonts have to copied to the machine running MI/X.

A: MI/X doesn't support the ALT-GR key sequences. Some clients have reported success using the ALT-GR key sequences after using the xmodmap utility to remap their keyboard once the remote connection has been made. The following was submitted by a client, and was reported to work rather well.

Activation with 'xmodmap .xmodmaprc'.



! Key Mapping for MicroImages X-Server (MI/X)

! 

!22.07.1998

!

! Oliver Breuninger

! ob@seicom.NET

!

!Jim Fulton's xev (X Event Tester) was very helpful.




keycode 65=at     at     at     at     at     at

keycode 92=bracketleft bracketleft bracketleft bracketleft bracketleft bracketleft

keycode 93=backslash backslash backslash backslash backslash backslash

keycode 94=bracketright bracketright bracketright bracketright bracketright bracketright

keycode 124=braceleft  braceleft  braceleft  braceleft  braceleft  braceleft

keycode 125=bar  bar  bar  bar  bar  bar  


keycode 126=braceright  braceright  braceright  braceright  braceright  braceright

keycode 36 = numbersign numbersign numbersign numbersign numbersign numbersign

keycode 127=asciitilde  asciitilde  asciitilde  asciitilde  asciitilde  asciitilde  

keycode 179=twosuperior  twosuperior  twosuperior  twosuperior  twosuperior  twosuperior

keycode 180=threesuperior threesuperior threesuperior threesuperior threesuperior threesuperior

keycode 182= mu  mu  mu  mu  mu  mu  

clear mod5

add mod5=Super_L

A: Currently, if you want to have three buttons for your X clients, you need to have a three button mouse on your PC.

If you want to use the paste/insert text function in X which is by default mapped to the middle button which is unavailable on the PC, then there may be a workaround: You can use the xmodmap program to modify how the mouse events from the server (MI/X) are interpreted by the X client (i.e. xterm). For instance you can swap the middle and right mouse button with this command:

        xmodmap -display mix.machine.name:0.0 -e "pointer = 1 3 2"

That will make the right mouse button act like the "middle" button of a three-button mouse, thereby allowing selecting and copying text with the left button, and pasting/inserting with the right button. Note that on a two-button mouse you will still be missing a button (the button that was the right button, or button 3): you just switched around what button does what using the xmodmap program. So if you need true three-button functionality, the best solution is still to get a three button mouse.

If you have a three-button mouse and can't get the buttons to work properly, make sure that you have drivers properly installed and configured for the three-button mouse so that Windows can handle three buttons instead of the default two. Specifically, you will need to tell the driver that the middle button of the mouse is to be mapped to a "Middle Button" function, and not to some other nifty (and tempting) Windows shortcut. Note that if you do this, the "Middle Button" function will not used under Windows itself, but will be accessible to MI/X and clients running in it. Logitech provides three-button mice and drivers that work and have been tested with MI/X. Also, the Intellipoint mouse sold by Microsoft offers a rolling wheel that acts as a scroller controller on the mouse when turned while in Windows applications, and when clicked, it can be set to function as a "middle" mouse button which works in MI/X.

A: This error occurs when the UNIX box that MI/X is running against attempts to pass an image that is at a greater bit depth than the display of the local machine is set to. For example, if you are running MI/X on a Windows machine set to display 256 colors (8-bit) and the program you are running tries to pass a 16 bit image, you'll get this error. To correct this, set the parameters of the program you are running to match the resolution of the local machine, or change the resolution of the local machine to match the bit depth of the images that the UNIX box is trying to pass.

A: No.

A: Yes. Make sure that your DISPLAY environment variable points to the machine running MI/X, i.e. set DISPLAY=hostname:0.0 You can then run xclock, oclock, etc. on a PC running NT or 95 instead of using a remote UNIX host.

A: Yes. This can be specified through the MI/X Preferences, which is found by left clicking on the MI/X icon in the upper left corner of the MI/X window.

A: MI/X will support cut and paste of text to other X applications, but not graphics.

A: No.

A: No. The MI/X distribution does not include an rsh or rexec client. You can obtain rsh or rexec clients from other sources.

A: No. Although there may be options and Preferences to set regarding xdm, they have not yet been implemented.

A: No.

A: No.

A: Yes, if you are using the null modem cable to establish a TCP/IP network between the machines. However it will be limited to the speed of the communications. This is really no different than using serial to talk to a modem to talk to another machine to establish TCP/IP.

A: Yes, you can specify that your local IP be displayed at the top of the MI/X windows through the MI/X Preferences.

A: Try setting your local display to 256 colors (8 bit).

A: Yes, if your local display is set to 256 colors (8 bit).

A: No.

A: Yes. You can obtain this by setting your local color bit depth to 16 or 24 bit.

A: Yes. Start the x-term as follows:

             xterm -fg white -bg black

A: No. There is a work around, if you have Microsoft's Power Toys installed. You can use quickres to set your display to one bit depth, launch MI/X, minimize MI/X and then use quickres to change the bit depth of your display to something else. This isn't something we recommend, but some users have tried it with success.

A: No.

A: No.