From: Benjamin Hall (benjamin.hall_at_bioch.ox.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Jun 04 2008 - 08:26:23 CDT

Hi Dan

Thanks for your advice- that has worked and completely fixed the
problem for me. Thanks everyone for their advice and help,

Ben

On 3 Jun 2008, at 17:24, Dan Wright wrote:

> Hi Benjamin,
>
> I've gotten VMD running in text-only mode on MacOSX before. I got it
> running on a machine to which I only have remote access, so it's not
> possible to run VMD as the user logged into the graphical interface.
> One
> caveat is that I did this on vmd 1.8.6, and while I think these
> instructions will still be valid for vmd 1.8.7, things might be a
> little
> different. Basically, what I've done is removed all calls to Apple's
> Carbon framework, which ALWAYS tries to touch the window system even
> if
> you aren't displaying any graphics, thereby creating the problem.
>
>
> 0) make sure netcdf and a non-Apple TCL are installed in /usr/local
>
> 1) build plugins
> - need netcdf lib installed
> - make
> - remove 'pdf' target from 'distrib' line in autoimd/Makefile and
> pdfgen/Makefile (to prevent attempts to build the documentation)
> - export PLUGINDIR=../vmd/plugins; make distrib
>
> 2) build vmd -- changes necessary to run in text mode!
> - ./configure MACOSX SILENT TCL
> - need to use non-Apple TCL in /usr/local/{lib,include}: set
> TCL_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/local/include, TCL_LIBRARY_DIR=/usr/local/lib
> - change '-ltcl8.4-x11' to '-ltcl8.4' in src/Makefile
> - change '-framework Carbon' to '-framework CoreFoundation' in
> src/Makefile
> - edit src/macosxvmdstart.C and add '#if 0' below the line that
> reads
> '#if defined(ARCH_MACOSX) || defined(ARCH_MACOSXX86)'; add an
> extra
> '#endif' to the bottom of the file.
> - edit src/vmd.C, and comment out the call to 'macosxvmdstart(*argc,
> argv);'
> - cd src ; make
>
>
> Sorry I don't have this available as a patch, I never got around to
> doing that. Hope this is helpful!
>
> Dan
>
>
> Benjamin Hall wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> I'm writing an a tool which uses vmd in an automated way to analyse
>> various properties of a set of trajectories autonomously, and I've
>> encountered a problem which specifically arises when running vmd in
>> the
>> background when not logged in (either with ssh or graphically). If
>> logged in with ssh, vmd runs but gives an error message:
>>
>> _RegisterApplication(), FAILED TO establish the default connection to
>> the WindowServer, _CGSDefaultConnection() is NULL.
>>
>> However, if I log out before completion, vmd aborts with the error
>> message:
>>
>> FAILED TO GET ASN FROM CORESERVICES so aborting.
>>
>> I have tried compiling vmd without "OPENGL", "FLTK" and "TK"
>> configure
>> options (as advised in a previous post,
>> http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/mailing_list/vmd-l/6192.html),
>> but
>> this doesn't appear to help. I've also tried omiting plugins which
>> might
>> use gui elements, without success. I think that the error itself is
>> related to a security feature of the operating system, described in
>> the
>> following technote:
>>
>> http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2005/tn2083.html
>>
>> Any advice on how to approach this problem would be greatly
>> appreciated.
>> Thanks in advance,
>>
>> Ben
>>
>> ************************************************************************
>> Benjamin A. Hall
>> Structural Bioinformatics & Computational Biochemistry Unit
>> University of Oxford
>> http://sbcb.bioch.ox.ac.uk/hall.php
>> +44 (0)1865 275380
>> benjamin.hall_at_bioch.ox.ac.uk
>>
>>
>>
>>

************************************************************************
Benjamin A. Hall
Structural Bioinformatics & Computational Biochemistry Unit
University of Oxford
http://sbcb.bioch.ox.ac.uk/hall.php
+44 (0)1865 275380
benjamin.hall_at_bioch.ox.ac.uk