Wnn / Xwnmo / mule-19.33-delta woes

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

Wnn-zilla is back!  And it's hairier than ever!  And it _just_ _don't_ 
_work_!  Sigh.

It's almost enough to make one think about converting to Windowze 94.3 
on your FM dial....  Obviously I'm losing it....  Yow!  Maybe MADONNA
could SPICE UP this BOX!

Back at the ranch...

I'd like to hear about anybody's experience with Wnn/Uum/Xwnmo
(especially the last).  As much detail as possible.  What worked and
what didn't.  But if you simply exactly followed instructions for
installing JE, for example, I don't need to know what those
instructions were, I can find them as long as you give version
numbers.  I'm not going to just go looking at lots of different
versions of JE, though, since I know that some of them don't work.

Here's my personal saga:

The latest versions of Mule are being prepared for integration into
the general Emacs 19.3x line.  They don't even mention Mule in the
docs in mule-19.33 (I assume this will eventually get fixed :-)!  This 
means that the old version-of-Mule-per-FEP approach is unacceptable.
I don't know what is going to be done for consoles; I guess you'll
have to run Mule inside of uum or some such environment.  For X, the
XIM protocol is to be used.

Years ago, I tried installing JE 0.9.5.  I installed both Wnn and
Canna; Wnn never could make its user dictionaries (I have often had
this problem on SunOS 4.1.3-JLE, too, it's Wnn, not Linux).  Nor did
the Imake file work; I couldn't get the libraries set up so that Mule
would compile at all.  Canna worked and worked with Mule.

I've been using Canna with good results for about 3 years now (it has
a smaller footprint than Wnn and more important, it worked on the
first try with Mule; I have yet to get Wnn to work at all).  But Canna 
doesn't support XIM.  Wnn (allegedly) does.

I tried installing Wnn from the JE 0.9.8a distribution.  I had an wnn
user left over from the last time, so that was no problem.  I had to
run the "doinst.sh" scripts by hand, OK.  But the jserver couldn't
open a socket.  OK, I put it in /etc/services, at port 601 like the
Suns here.  Oops, wnn is not root so no privileged ports (< 1024)
allowed.  OK, we put it at 6680.  Now jserver can't open its
dictionary files.  Yada.  Try uum anyway.  uum complains about being
unable to make directories and user dictionary files.  uum is suid
root!  uum won't go into henkan mode with C-\ or C-o or C-SPC (the
keys that usually work on most FEPs), despite the fact that uumkey
says that C-\ should work.  OK, jserver isn't working, so maybe that's
the problem.  Try xwnmo anyway.  Can't connect to server.  Tell it to
use localhost.  OK.  But with no client, can't do much.  Try
mule-delta.  Mule-delta hangs (and eats lots of time according to
top).

Don't know what to do about those dictionaries or the Mule hang;
anyway, I like to build things from scratch.  Get the Wnn4.2-tar.gz
from etlport.etl.go.jp (it's the same size as the file at Omron, Wnn's
home, so it's presumably a mirror).  Build Wnn.  Xwnmo doesn't build
because of an inaccurate declaration in a source file (always a bad
sign when prototypes for system calls appear in a source file!)  Fix
it, pray that the millions of warning about comparing pointers to
integers and implicit casts don't matter.

uum now has no trouble connecting to jserver, but still won't go into
henkan mode (and the uumkey file is seriously broken for xterms, lots
of missing and/or illegal keycodes).  And it still can't build those
user dictionaries.  Exit.  Run xwnmo.  Xwnmo builds the user
dictionaries, thank you.  Try uum again, now uum hangs.  Kill uum, try
mule-delta.  Mule-delta hangs.  Give up, and write to TLUG.  :-)

I guess I'm just going to have to use Quail, the IM supplied with
Mule-delta.

-- 
                            Stephen J. Turnbull
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences                    Yaseppochi-Gumi
University of Tsukuba                      http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/
Tel: +81 (298) 53-5091;  Fax: 55-3849              turnbull@example.com


-----------------------------------------------------------------
a word from the sponsor will appear below
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The TLUG mailing list is proudly sponsored by TWICS - Japan's First
Public-Access Internet System.  Now offering 20,000 yen/year flat
rate Internet access with no time charges.  Full line of corporate
Internet and intranet products are available.   info@example.com
Tel: 03-3351-5977   Fax: 03-3353-6096