How To Download And Run NCSA Mosaic ----------------------------------- NCSA Mosaic is an Internet-based global hypermedia browser, available free for academic, research, and internal commercial use. If at any time you have questions or problems with NCSA Mosaic, please feel free to send electronic mail to: mosaic-x@ncsa.uiuc.edu The NCSA Mosaic anonymous FTP distribution site is ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu. Program files are in directory /Mosaic. Executable Binaries ................... The easiest way to download Mosaic is to retrieve an executable binary from subdirectory Mosaic-binaries. The following binaries are distributed: Mosaic-sun.gz Sun 4, SunOS 4.1.x Mosaic-sun-lresolv.gz Sun 4, SunOS 4.1.x, no DNS Mosaic-sgi.gz Silicon Graphics, IRIX 4.x. Mosaic-indy.gz Silicon Graphics, IRIX 5.x. Mosaic-ibm.gz IBM RS/6000, AIX 3.2. Mosaic-dec.gz DEC MIPS Ultrix. Mosaic-alpha.gz DEC Alpha AXP, OSF/1. Mosaic-hp700.gz HP 9000/700, HP/UX 9.x To download a binary, put your FTP session into binary mode (type 'binary', without the quotes), pull down the file, quit the FTP session, uncompress the binary (type, e.g., 'gunzip Mosaic-sun.gz' without the quotes), make the binary executable (type, e.g., 'chmod 755 Mosaic-sun'), and execute the binary. Run-Time Problems ................. There are three problems that you may hit when you run a Mosaic binary for the first time. They are discussed in order of decreasing severity. (a) Mosaic dumps core. Most likely, this is because your system is slightly misconfigured. Try starting Mosaic back up with with the following command-line flag: Mosaic-sun -ghbnie If Mosaic works with the -ghbnie flag, then your system is coredumping while trying to discover its own fully qualified hostname with the gethostbyname() system call; contact your system or network administrator. If Mosaic still doesn't work, follow the instructions displayed as Mosaic dumps core and send a bug report to mosaic-x@ncsa.uiuc.edu. (b) An error message shows up in the Mosaic window saying that Mosaic couldn't retrieve a file over the network. There are three possible explanations: (1) You aren't connected to the Internet. (2) You are behind a firewall. (3) Your system can't resolve the remote machine name 'www.ncsa.uiuc.edu'. (There is the additional possibility that the central NCSA document server might be temporarily down, in which case you should try running Mosaic again in a few minutes.) If the problem is (1) or (2), your network administrator will have to find some way to fix it. If the problem is (3), and you're running on a Sun, try the binary named Mosaic-sun-lresolv. If this still doesn't work, or if you're not on a Sun, then contact your network administrator. (c) You see lots of warning messages in the terminal window. If you get warning messages (generally about missing "keysyms" or fonts) but the Mosaic window comes up and stays up, then the situation isn't serious and Mosaic will run be running normally. Read the online Frequently Asked Questions for more information on how to make the warning messages stop showing up. Some X servers refuse to run Mosaic when all of the fonts Mosaic requests upon startup are missing. If this happens to you, send mail to mosaic-x@ncsa.uiuc.edu for more help. Source Code ........... The complete Mosaic source code distribution is located in subdirectory Mosaic-source. The distribution comes as a single compressed tar file, and can be compiled on most Unix systems. You must have the X11R4 (or later) and Motif 1.1 (or later) header files and libraries on your system to compile Mosaic. See the README in the source code distribution for more information on compiling Mosaic. External Viewers ................ Mosaic assumes the presence of a number of external viewers -- programs that Mosaic can use to allow you to view images, movies, PostScript files, etc. that are retrieved over the network. See the subdirectory Mosaic-viewers for copies of the normal source distributions of some of these viewers. We strongly recommend downloading and installing these viewers if they do not already exist on your system, as Mosaic will be much more useful with them present. For more information on these viewers, see the online documentation. More Information ................ More information is available online, through Mosaic. .