INSTALLING CYGWIN-X WITH THE INTENTION OF RUNNING MENTOR GRAPHICS ON WINDOWS 98/NT/2K/XP

 

By Nicholas DiPiazza

University of Wisconsin CS Dept.

  

Step 1: Install cygwin-x

 

Go to http://cygwin.com/setup.exe

 

The default packages are NOT ENOUGH. you must click certain packages in order to get the minimum stuff you need to run mentor.

Here are the bare necessities!!!

 

Under X11 -

    X-startup-scripts

    xorg-x11-base

    xorg-x11-bin

    xorg-x11-bin-dlls

    xorg-x11-fenc

    xorg-x11-fnts

    xorg-x11-xwin

    xterm

 

Under Net -

    openssh

    inetutils

    openssl

 

Under Admin -

    cygrunsrv

 

Under Base –

            This should have every box checked

 

Under lib (everything that is by default included LEAVE included!!)

    crypt

    openssl

    zlib (if it's not already selected)

 

Under util

    ccrypt

    cygutils

   

   

Any less than these essentials will lead to mentor not working at all or something else not working!!!!!!!!!!

 

After they have installed select NOT to put a shortcut or a start menu. The reason being we are not going to use their shortcuts.

 

Step 2: Starting cygwin-x

 

Go to your desktop, right click, go to new and new shortcut.

 

Then make a shortcut to

C:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin\startxwin.bat

 

Right click on the new .bat shortcut and click "edit"

 

Insert these 2 lines if they are not already

 

SET CYGWIN_ROOT=\cygwin

 

SET PATH=.;%CYGWIN_ROOT%\bin;%CYGWIN_ROOT%\usr\X11R6\bin;%PATH%

 

Save the changes and then try it out. Double click on the startxwin.bat and it should open up a BASH xterm. If you use SSH Secure Shell Client, you may wish to not to have that xterm pop up and to instead just use it to start your xwindows session. If this is the case then go back into startxwin and delete “xterm” command that opens the window.

 

It’s important to understand what exactly CYGWIN-X does for you. It opens up an X11 connection that you can use through SSH, Telnet or wherever to remotely run other X11 programs.

 

When you double click on startxwin.bat… no matter what you should see a x down in your task bar. If you see it, you are all good. If not, you screwed something up and you should re-read this document thoroughly and make sure you installed everything you need from step 1.

 

Step 3: Understanding how to use SSH with X11 port forwarding

 

This is an easy step but still important none-the-less.

 

If you are using the SSH-Secure Shell on windows, you will have to go in to Settings – Tunneling and click on “Tunneling X11 Connections.”

 

Otherwise if you are using openssh from your xterm window that opens after you execute startxwin.bat… you use this:

 

            ssh -X username@linuxmachine.cs.wisc.edu

 

 For instance if I am using one of the tux machines I would do

           

            ssh -X myname@tux24.cs.wisc.edu

 

Now, whatever the option before, do this: Type “emacs,” and instead of getting the text-based version, you will get an X11 connection from the remote machine with the real GUI interface of emacs. If this didn’t work and you got the text-based version, you might not have enabled X11 port forwarding correctly. Go back in and make sure the settings saved when you checked the X11 port forwarding box.

 

Otherwise, if you get errors at this point – it’s something you did somewhere back there.

 

Step 4: Installing mentor fonts

 

For most applications, we would now be ready to go. But mentor is annoying and uses their own fonts that we have to install. It’s a real pain.

 

The way to get this done is to download this file... http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~dipiazza/mgc.zip

 

Run this, extract into C:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\lib\X11\fonts. This should make a folder C:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\lib\X11\fonts\mgc_fonts_b4_dos

 

Now, here’s the hard part.

 

LOCALLY (on your own machine!!! not through SSH remotely!!!) Run this sequence of commands:

 

            mkfontdir /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/mgc_fonts_b4_dos

 

            xset fp default

            chmod ugo+r /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/mgc_fonts_b4_dos

            xset +fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/mgc_fonts_b4_dos

 

This should complete the font installation. Close everything including the X connection by clicking on the X in the task bar and clicking close.

Run a new startxwin, and ssh into a linux machine on campus. Type da and you should see the window pop up.

 

*****Finally, so in the future the font is loaded correctly, we go back into the startxwin.bat and add another line:

 

            run xset +fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/mgc_fonts_b4_dos

 

If you don’t do this, when you turn off your computer, the fonts will not be available next time.

 

Any problems? Contact me at dipiazza@cs.wisc.edu