[mesa-users] pgstar under ubuntu 13.10

[Alfred Gautschy]

To whom it might serve in the MESA community

The following note is for the records of the repository only:

A few months ago, I reported that upgrading from Ubuntu 13.04 to 13.10
left me with a not-working pgstar - all other computational aspects of
MESA were unaffected by the system upgrade. Each time when invoking
pgstar in a computational session, the system froze completely with the
only remaining option of shutting down the computer with the
"draw-the-plug" method. 

Now, finally, the origin of the problem is clear. The default
graphics-card driver activated by the 13.10 install procedure for the
AMD/ATI FirePro 4000 graphics card on my system was the open-source
X.Org-X-Server, this driver appears not to be up to the necessary
requirements of dealing with the high-frequency updating of the pgstar
plot window. After switching, on the 13.10 system, to the proprietary
driver from AMD (fglrx-updates) all pgstar problems evaporated;
eventually, I am back to having not only the power of MESA but also the
fun part of it - the working pgstar plotting environment.

In other words: MESA is doing fine on Ubuntu 13.10 systems. Worst-case
scenario: Some fiddling with the graphics-card drivers might be
necessary. 

I am grateful to Amber Lauer for her help to track down the problem and
hints to solve it. 

MESA without pgstar is -- by long personal experience now -- much less
enlightening and *fun*  (actually this applies to the computing and/or
prototyping sessions only)! 

Alfred