Information for Solaris : Notes for building X11R6.9 on Solaris
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2. Notes for building X11R6.9 on Solaris

  1. Both GCC, and the Sun Studio compilers are supported by X11R6.9. The minimum recommended GCC release is 2.7.2. Some earlier GCC's are known to not work and should be avoided.

    You should also make certain your version of GCC predefines `sun'. If needed edit /usr/local/lib/gcc-lib/*/*/specs, and modify the *predefines: line.

    On SPARCs, regardless of the compiler you use, ensure it generates 32-bit binaries. At this time, 64-bit binaries will probably not work.

  2. Also on SPARCs, you may be able to build the old deprecated Xsun* servers for older cg* graphics devices by adding "#define XsunServer YES" or "#define Xsun24Server YES" or "#define XsunMonoServer YES" to  xc/config/cf/host.def. These servers are no longer maintained nor supported and may not build in this release.
  3. A Threaded Xlib compiled with GCC has subtle problems. It'll work 98% of the time, however clients will occasionally exhibit strange hangs. Most notably image viewers such as xv-3.10 exhibit this problem.

    It is recommended that you set ThreadedX in ~xc/config/cf/host.def to NO, if you are using GCC. Sun's compilers do not have this problem. Whether this behaviour still exists with newer GCC's has not been verified.

  4. To build X11R6.9 with GCC you need gcc and (optionally) c++filt from GNU binutils. Don't install gas or ld from GNU binutils, use the one provided by Sun.

    You might need to setup a /opt/SUNWspro/bin directory containing symbolic links named cc, CC, and c++filt pointing respectively to the actual gcc, g++ and c++filt commands.

  5. If you are using Sun compilers to compile the X11R6.9 distribution, you need to modify your PATH appropriately so the Sun compiler tools are available. Normally, they should be in /opt/SUNWspro/bin
  6. You MUST put /usr/ccs/bin at the front of your PATH. There are known problems with some GNU replacements for the utilities found there. So the /usr/ccs/bin versions of these programs must be found before any possible GNU versions. (Most notably GNU 'ar' does not work during the build).


Information for Solaris : Notes for building X11R6.9 on Solaris
Previous: The VT-switching sub-system in Solaris x86
Next: Notes for running Xorg on Solaris