[techtalk] Problems w/Gimp

Darren Osadchuk osadchuk at pangea.ca
Sat Nov 20 19:02:19 EST 1999


>>I'm having some odd colour problems with Gimp (and Wordperfect, it
>>turns out). When I start Gimp, I get a message which reads, "Unable
>>to allocate sufficient colormap entries. Try exiting other color
>>intensive applications." The Gimp window then appears in purple
>>(which it shouldn't be). Clicking on it will make it turn into the
>>proper grey, but everything else on the screen goes wacky. As soon as
>>I move the mouse, everything reverts to its normal (screwed up)
>>status. When I start WP, I get the message "Cannot allocate colormap
>>entry for default background" and the WP document window is in black
>>and white. Any explanations as to what's causing this would be most
>>welcome.
>
>You are running X in 8 bit mode.  Gimp, like most graphics
>applications, requires a lot of colors, and when run on an 8 bpp
>display, attempts to allocate a "color cube" that will take up most of 
>the 256-entry colormap.  If you're running a WM like Enlightenment,
>odds are there won't be that many free colors available.

Running X in 16 bit fixes the problem (thanks to everybody who pointed this
out).

My next question is, why is this the default choice for X? My video card
can definitely support higher colour depths, and those settings are in
XF86Config, so how do I make X start in a higher colour depth by default,
without having to type "startx -- -bpp 16" every time?

>What version of Gimp do you have?  The behavior you're reporting
>sounds like 0.54 -- I'd hope that nobody is distributing such an
>ancient version.... 1.1 has GtkRGB support and should cope even with
>very restricted colormaps, thanks to the magic of Raph... :)

Offhand, I can't remember. It's the version that's distributed with Red Hat
5.2.
______________________________________________________________________________
osadchuk at pangea.ca                             http://www.pangea.ca/~osadchuk/

"If nations can behave like individuals, he was an individual who behaved
 like a nation: enduring decades of edgy submissiveness, then bursting
 into revolt, eager for fresh rhetoric and a renewed image of himself."

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