VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Thu Aug 06 2015 - 13:15:23 CDT

Brian,
  I note that spacenavd failed to connect to the X server due to
ssh (or something) setting the display to a non-standard port?
For spacenavd to successfully communicate with VMD, it has to open
a connection to the X server where VMD will be running. Normally
the local display would be X11 display ":0" or ":0.0" and that's what
you'd want both spacenavd and VMD to connect to. If you're doing something
with remote display that's an additional hurdle we'll have to work past.
Be sure to start 'spacenavd' _before_ you launch VMD. VMD only checks
for the existence of the driver when it first starts up. If you
launch spacenavd later after VMD is already running, VMD won't notice.

Cheers,
  John

On Thu, Aug 06, 2015 at 05:15:13PM +0000, Bennion, Brian wrote:
> rpm -qa |grep spac*
> spacenavd-0.6-1.fc21.x86_64
> spacenavd-debuginfo-0.6-1.fc21.x86_64
>
> Downloaded and installed most recent VMD binary a few days ago to make sure I was running the most current binary.
> Info) VMD for LINUXAMD64, version 1.9.2 (December 29, 2014)
> Info) http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/
> Info) Email questions and bug reports to vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> Info) Please include this reference in published work using VMD:
> Info) Humphrey, W., Dalke, A. and Schulten, K., `VMD - Visual
> Info) Molecular Dynamics', J. Molec. Graphics 1996, 14.1, 33-38.
> Info) -------------------------------------------------------------
> Info) Multithreading available, 4 CPUs detected.
> Info) Free system memory: 6137MB (77%)
> Warning) Detected a mismatch between CUDA runtime and GPU driver
> Warning) Check to make sure that GPU drivers are up to date.
> Info) No CUDA accelerator devices available.
> Warning) Detected X11 'Composite' extension: if incorrect display occurs
> Warning) try disabling this X server option. Most OpenGL drivers
> Warning) disable stereoscopic display when 'Composite' is enabled.
> Info) OpenGL renderer: Quadro 600/PCIe/SSE2
> Info) Features: STENCIL MSAA(4) MDE CVA MTX NPOT PP PS GLSL(OVFGS)
> Info) Full GLSL rendering mode is available.
> Info) Textures: 2-D (16384x16384), 3-D (2048x2048x2048), Multitexture (4)
> Info) Dynamically loaded 2 plugins in directory:
> Info) /usr/local/lib/vmd/plugins/LINUXAMD64/molfile
>
> spacenavd was started as root
>
> This is the info from the log file
> bennion1 21:~ less /var/log/spnavd.log
> setterm: terminal xterm-256color does not support --blength
> Spacenav daemon 0.6
> failed to open config file /etc/spnavrc: No such file or directory. using defaults.
> adding device.
> device name: 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse Pro
> using device: /dev/input/event15
> failed to open X11 display "localhost:10.0"
>
> embarrasingly enough, with the update to fedora core 21 I don't seem to be able to find the traditional xorg.conf file in /etc/X11.
>
> Brian
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: John Stone [johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2015 9:44 AM
> To: Bennion, Brian
> Cc: vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> Subject: Re: vmd-l: 3dconnexion spacemouse pro and vmd on fedora 21
>
> Brian,
> What version of spacenavd are you running on this machine?
> If VMD doesn't emit the startup messages, the next question is whether
> you're running one of the standard VMD binaries we compiled, or if you
> compiled your own from source? Is spacenavd running as root, or as
> a regular user with special permissions for the USB devices?
> Did anyone perform steps to prevent the X server from grabbing
> the SpaceMouse Pro for itself during startup? There are some FAQ
> items about how to prevent the X from interfering with the correct
> operation of these devices here (some X servers see them and try
> and treat them as a mouse, or worse, they just prevent spacenavd from
> working correctly but do nothing with the device):
> http://spacenav.sourceforge.net/faq.html#faq9
>
> Cheers,
> John
>
> On Thu, Aug 06, 2015 at 04:36:17PM +0000, Bennion, Brian wrote:
> > Thank you for the quick reply. I have been working on this issue on and off for a couple of months.
> > There are no spacenavd messages in the vmd startup text.
> >
> > Switching to the spacenavd drivers and getting the daemon running and confirmed as running from the spnavcfg gui is as far has I have been able to get.
> >
> > Initially, I tried installing the proprietary drivers but don't know if they were even running.
> >
> > Maybe having both sets of drivers is causing the trouble.
> >
> >
> >
> > My ergonomics people are hoping that I can reduce using my mouse in my visualization work.
> >
> > Brian
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: John Stone [johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu]
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:32 PM
> > To: Bennion, Brian
> > Cc: vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> > Subject: Re: vmd-l: 3dconnexion spacemouse pro and vmd on fedora 21
> >
> > Hi,
> > Assuming that the "spacenavd" daemon is running, and is
> > has registered and is generating standard X-Windows events
> > it should work fine with VMD.
> >
> > The first thing to look for is whether or not VMD is detecting
> > that the spacenavd driver is out there. When you run VMD you
> > should see a message like this:
> > Info) X-Windows ClientMessage-based Spaceball device available.
> >
> > If you see that, then VMD sees that spacenavd has registered the
> > special X-Windows event objects that the commercial drivers generate.
> > If you don't see that message when VMD starts up, then it doesn't
> > see those event types registered, and it can't talk to spacenavd for
> > some reason.
> >
> > Even if VMD prints the message during startup, it won't respond to
> > the device unless the mouse focus is on the VMD graphics window.
> > So, make sure the mouse cursor is within the bounds of the VMD
> > graphics window, and then try moving the SpaceMouse Pro and see
> > if it responds.
> >
> > If neither of these work correctly, then we'll need to dig further
> > and figure out if "spacenavd" treats the SpaceMouse Pro differently
> > than a SpaceNavigator, or other devices in the same hardware family,
> > for some reason. If you can tell me more details about the behavior
> > you see, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what is working and
> > what isn't.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > John Stone
> > vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 05, 2015 at 08:02:54PM +0000, Bennion, Brian wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I am curious if any vmd user has had any luck getting vmd-1.9.2 to access
> > > a space mouse pro device.
> > >
> > > I have installed the spacenav drivers and the driver is running fine
> > > according to the spnavcfg gui.
> > >
> > > Based on the vmd website vmd1.9.2 should automatically detect usb spacenav
> > > devices. Perhaps I am missing something simple.
> > >
> > > Brian Bennion
> >
> > --
> > NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> > Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> > University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> > http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Phone: 217-244-3349
> > http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/
>
> --
> NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Phone: 217-244-3349
> http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/ 

-- 
NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/           Phone: 217-244-3349
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/