No Kidding IBM iSeries Access (as400) Client on Edgy

[n8bounds]

UPDATED 080412
I made a deb!

http://ngbnet.homelinux.com/reposito...0-2.4_i386.deb

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This are my notes for installing IBM iSeries Client Access Emulator for Linux on Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy.

I have successfully done this on four machines, one was a few minute old install, two more had edgy installed on them three months ago and have been in constant use since then and another had edgy freshly installed just a few days ago. This is bound to work for you!

Be sure to add universe and multiverse repos and update aptitude first..

Go here and get the RPM from IBM:

http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserve...s/access/linux

This link may break with time, but its more direct:

http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserve...downloads.html


Make it easy on yourself and save it to your home folder, not your desktop...


Then open a terminal and do a

sudo /bin/bash

..to become root for a minute (it will ask you for your passwd)


DO THESE COMMANDS ONE AT A TIME AS ROOT

Warning, the first one takes FOREVER....

apt-get install msttcorefonts -y



fc-cache -f -v



apt-get install libmotif3 libxaw6 libstdc++5 alien -y



alien -i iSeriesAccess-5.4.0-1.0.i386.rpm -cv

Please note the last command (alien.....) might require editing as your downloaded version may be different than mine. I'd offer you the rpm I used, but that's probably against some EULA. It's also too large to be allowed as an attachment here. PM me if you get lost...

Then type exit or close the terminal and open a new one. (The point is to NOT be root any more.) Now, being certain that you are NOT root, say this in a terminal:

xset fp

Remember this command. If you reboot after changing things and you can't get Client Access to work (after it once worked properly), running this little command again will likely fix everything.

Just to test things, put this in a terminal to run the iSeries Client Access Emulator for Linux.

ibm5250 192.168.1.1 -geometry 9999x9999+0+0 -title LinuxCanWorkTheFourHundred -DISPLAY_NAME "PCNAMEA PCNAMEB PCNAMEC" -LANGID en_US

Replace the ipaddress above with the address of your eServer/as400. You may change the PCNAME... bits to reflect the device naming scheme of your iSeries system. Adding more than one lets you run the same command and automagically create multiple sessions. The bit about the geometry in there is an ugly way to fix a wide screen problem...it does not actually draw the window that big, but it refuses to shrink if you leave it as is. Experiment with the args to find your own solution. The LANGID part is important. If you don't have the english/U.S. version installed, I'm not sure what you should do here. The TITLE is a local window setting and can be changed to your preference.

For more tips, the book was located here as of this posting:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infoce...zatv/rzatv.pdf

..which I got from here:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infoce...atvkickoff.htm

The next logical step would be to add a launcher to the gnome menu using alacarte or something. If you got this far, I'm sure you can figure that part out.

Cheers!

[n8bounds]

If anyone knows how to fix any of this in a more elegant way, please say so...I feel like some of this is ugly...

[ColdBeer]

Originally Posted by n8bounds If anyone knows how to fix any of this in a more elegant way, please say so...I feel like some of this is ugly...

Well, thank you very much for your note!!!

Now, it works withouth restarting gdm every day

I have a bash script to start "setup5250" and launch from it the different terminals:

#!/bin/sh
xset fp
LANG="es_ES.ISO-8859-1"
setup5250 -LANGID es_ES

Which seems to work right for my non-english language even my version is:

iSeriesAccess-5.4.0-1.2.i386.rpm

I'm still looking for a way to 'debianize' this work and make a deb to automatize everything for everyone.

[n8bounds]

Okay, a friend of mine noticed that the fonts directories in the xorg.conf are screwed up. Further evidence its not just us can be found here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2130191

Edit your xorg.conf file and change:
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc"

to:
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"

Repeat for all of the font paths, reboot, and you should never need to xset fp any more.

[djearwig]

Excellent! This worked beautifully... Thanks

[Cono_Sce]

Thanks for the notes, I got it to work on the first try, as for xset fp I haven't tied renaming the the font files yet, what I did, I put the command in the startup and works perfectly.

[n8bounds]

I'm glad to hear it. Anyone tested this on Fiesty yet..?

[joethenoob]

I got all the way to the end and received the following error when I tried to test it.

5250: [ INFORMATIONAL ]: Build Date: September 2006 (1.2).
5250: [ ERROR ]: NSC0017: Xt Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-lucidatypewriter-medium-r-normal-*-14-*-100-100-m-*" to type FontSet.

Obviously its a font issue, but my noobness prevents me from figuring it out. Any suggestions anyone?

[n8bounds]

try saying

 xset fp

in a terminal and/or fixing the font paths in your xorg config file --or-- use Feisty

[joethenoob]

Originally Posted by n8bounds try saying xset fp in a terminal and/or fixing the font paths in your xorg config file --or-- use Feisty

Thanks for the reply, but xset fp didn't work. I got the same error. Since I am a linux noob, I'm hesitant to move to the Feisty beta just for this client. I'm affraid it will create more questions than answers.