SUMMARY: Openwindows colors

Mariel Feder (unix.support@central.meralco.com.ph)
Tue, 13 May 1997 09:41:46 -0800

Original question:
> Running Solaris 2.5.1 on a Sun Ultra 1.
>
> Something strange started to happen to my openwindows.
> When I try to start the Properties option, under the category of Color
> I get the following message:
> "Cannot allocate read/write colorcells.
> Consider quiting applications which use many colors.
> Restarting OpenWindows may help with 4-bit color."
> And the screen remains blank for this category, and at the bottom
> I can read the message: "Unable to create category"
>
> Also aplications that should show the color palette do not show it,
> or show it with three or four colors.
>
> I don't recall having changed anything regarding this (even though it
> is possible I did it without knowing), but everything was fine a week
> ago.
>
> Any hint will be appreciated, and I will sumarize.

Many thanks to those who replyed so soon and so brightly:

Craig Raskin <raskin@asiaonline.net.tw>
David Perel <davidp@jsbach.njit.edu>
Michael Zimmerman <zimmer@pop.psu.edu>
baldma@aur.alcatel.com (Mark A. Baldwin)
bismark@alta.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Bismark Espinoza)

The problem was that you are limited to a certain number of colors on
the desktop based on what kind of video card you have. In most cases
this will be 256 colors. If you have something open that is using up
part of the palette, (i.e. netscape, etc..) you will be limited in the
colors that other applications can use.
The Ultra1 has an 8 bit frame buffer and Netscape alone will use up
most of your color maps.

Closing netscape solved the problem.

Mariel

-- 
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 Mariel Feder
 unix.support@meralco.com.ph


 Meralco Electric Company
 Information Technology Team
 Distributed Systems
 Manila - Philipines


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