[gembud] Gempak questions from a newcomer

• To: gembud@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: [gembud] Gempak questions from a newcomer
• From: ~Stack~ <i.am.stack@xxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 16:50:56 -0500

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Hello everyone!

I am a server systems guy and on Monday those in higher positions then I
informed me that the weather guys were going to start using the cluster.
Horray! I like a good workload on my cluster (and I have heard tale of
weather code bringing clusters to their knees). So my response was
'Bring it on!' to which they added "And they need you to learn their
math and software starting with Gempak." Err...

So I am completely new to all this. I had some issues trying to compile,
but thanks to previous messages on this list I was able to work my way
through the compile, but I couldn't get through the tutorial without
some strange errors and files being missing. Fortunatly one of our tests
systems is a CentOS 5.4 64bit box so thanks to Jeff Lake[1] I was able
to get it installed (a newer/latest version to boot!).
[1]
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/mailing_lists/archives/gembud/2010/msg00017.html


Now I am slowly working my way through the tutorials that are posted
online hoping to gather as much information as I can. I don't have a
clue what these numbers mean nor the math behind them, but I concider
myself making progress as long as the tutorial numbers match mine.
However, I have hit a few snags and would greatly appreciate any
pointers that allow me to move forward.


1)
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/gempak/tutorial/gdlist.html
Everything goes well up to the run command. All my numbers and outputs
match. When I give the run command I get:
[GDLIST -3]
Error in message send = 22
itype, ichan, nwords,0,65536,3

and it dumps me back out to the bash command line...
I have found others with this error, but so far none of their fixes work
for me.


2)
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/gempak/tutorial/answers/listing_answers.html#2

"You may not need to restore the defaults file, if you do, you'll find
it in $GEMPAKHOME/restore/sflist.nts. "
It gave me an error saying "The save file is invalid."

I found this and used it instead: "$GEMPAKHOME/defaults/sflist.nts".
Seems to work, is this a typo in the tutorial or a missing package on my
end?


3)
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/gempak/tutorial/answers/sfmap_answer1.html

Again, everything goes well until I try to run it at which point I get:
[SFMAP -3] Fatal error initializing GEMPLT.
Error in message send = 22
itype, ichan, nwords,0,65536,3

I found this email[2] which is a similar error with the reply basically
saying to check my variables.
[2]
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/support/help/MailArchives/gempak/msg04939.html

$echo $DISPLAY
localhost:0.0
$echo $GEMEXE
/usr/local/lib/gempak/NAWIPS/os/linux64/bin

And yes, I have been running GPEND to clean up after each failed attempt.

At first I thought this was a problem due to me launching an xterm over
an ssh connection. So I went and sat down on the box host display itself
(localhost:0.0) and yet I still got the error. The box has a monster
NVidia GT200 graphics card in it that works really well so I am pretty
certain the video card itself isn't the problem. Concidering how new I
am to all this (gempak) I wouldn't put it past being a configuration
step I missed; I just am not finding which one. I even went down the
list and tried each and every one of the display drivers; each one gave
me the same error.


I would appreciate any feedback or help. I am currently just going
through the tutorials on unidata.ucar.edu site one-by-one so if you know
of another good tutorial I should look at, I would appreciate a link.
Thanks everyone!
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