Undefined color error

Undefined color error

[Ken Keefe]

Hello, I recently installed the latest Mandrake Linux distro and emacs
seems to be broken. Here is what happens when I try to start emacs from
a terminal:

$ emacs
Undefined color: "black"

And that is all that happens. I have tried reinstalling it, I even
installed it from the tarball available on gnu.org. Same thing. I am
guessing that this might be a problem with X or something? I can do
emacs -nw and it works, but I like the X version. I have completely
removed my .emacs file, so I don't think it can be that. 

Thanks ahead of time for your help. I love emacs!! I feel like I have
been separated from a brother or something!

Ken Keefe

Re: Undefined color error

[Pascal Bourguignon]

Ken Keefe <kaje@digitalfamily.org> writes:

> Hello, I recently installed the latest Mandrake Linux distro and emacs
> seems to be broken. Here is what happens when I try to start emacs from
> a terminal:
> 
> $ emacs
> Undefined color: "black"
> 
> And that is all that happens. I have tried reinstalling it, I even
> installed it from the tarball available on gnu.org. Same thing. I am
> guessing that this might be a problem with X or something? I can do
> emacs -nw and it works, but I like the X version. I have completely
> removed my .emacs file, so I don't think it can be that. 

My guess is that it's a X problem too. Check the ~/.Xresources file

You may have lines like:

emacs*Background:                 white
emacs*Foreground:                 black
emacs*pointerColor:               red
emacs*cursorColor:                black

X keeps a dictionnary of color names in files named rgb.txt.  It seems
emacs has a copy in its etc directory too:

/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt
/usr/share/emacs/21.3/etc/rgb.txt
 
These files contains RGB values in decimal followed by the name of the
color:

255 255 250		white
255 250 250		snow
248 248 255		ghost white
248 248 255		GhostWhite
245 245 245		white smoke
245 245 245		WhiteSmoke
...
255   0   0     red
...
  0 255   0     green
...
  0   0 255     blue
...
  0   0   0		black


> Thanks ahead of time for your help. I love emacs!! I feel like I have
> been separated from a brother or something!

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

Re: Undefined color error

[Ken Keefe]

On Fri, 2004-11-05 at 06:31 +0100, Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> Ken Keefe <kaje@digitalfamily.org> writes:
> 
> > Hello, I recently installed the latest Mandrake Linux distro and emacs
> > seems to be broken. Here is what happens when I try to start emacs from
> > a terminal:
> > 
> > $ emacs
> > Undefined color: "black"
> > 
> > And that is all that happens. I have tried reinstalling it, I even
> > installed it from the tarball available on gnu.org. Same thing. I am
> > guessing that this might be a problem with X or something? I can do
> > emacs -nw and it works, but I like the X version. I have completely
> > removed my .emacs file, so I don't think it can be that. 
> 
> My guess is that it's a X problem too. Check the ~/.Xresources file
> 
> You may have lines like:
> 
> emacs*Background:                 white
> emacs*Foreground:                 black
> emacs*pointerColor:               red
> emacs*cursorColor:                black
> 
> X keeps a dictionnary of color names in files named rgb.txt.  It seems
> emacs has a copy in its etc directory too:
> 
> /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt
> /usr/share/emacs/21.3/etc/rgb.txt

I checked these files and both have RGB definitions for black. Any other
ideas? I recently ran a java program at the command line and received
the same error, so it seems to not be merely an emacs problem...

Thanks,
Ken

>  
> These files contains RGB values in decimal followed by the name of the
> color:
> 
> 255 255 250		white
> 255 250 250		snow
> 248 248 255		ghost white
> 248 248 255		GhostWhite
> 245 245 245		white smoke
> 245 245 245		WhiteSmoke
> ...
> 255   0   0     red
> ...
>   0 255   0     green
> ...
>   0   0 255     blue
> ...
>   0   0   0		black
> 
> 
> > Thanks ahead of time for your help. I love emacs!! I feel like I have
> > been separated from a brother or something!
> 

Re: Undefined color error

[Pascal Bourguignon]

Ken Keefe <kaje@digitalfamily.org> writes:
> > /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt
> > /usr/share/emacs/21.3/etc/rgb.txt
> 
> I checked these files and both have RGB definitions for black. Any other
> ideas? I recently ran a java program at the command line and received
> the same error, so it seems to not be merely an emacs problem...

Then, check whether it's well configured in /etc/X11/XF86Config
(assuming you're using a XFree X server). There should be a section
such as:

Section "Files"
        RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
        ...
EndSection

(the extension should not be provided, because it can be .txt or .db).
Which makes me think that perhaps the file format of rgb.txt is more
precise.  My file has spaces between (or after) numbers, and two
tabulations before the name:

...
255 250 250^I^Isnow
248 248 255^I^Ighost white
...
252 252 252 ^I^Igrey99
255 255 255 ^I^Igray100
255 255 255 ^I^Igrey100
...

You may check quickly with: cat -t /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

Re: Undefined color error

[Ken Keefe]

That was it!! Thank you so much! It turns out my RgbPath was this:

RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt"

I dropped the txt, restarted X, and everything is lovely again. Thanks
again!

Ken

On Fri, 2004-11-05 at 11:55 +0100, Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> Ken Keefe <kaje@digitalfamily.org> writes:
> > > /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt
> > > /usr/share/emacs/21.3/etc/rgb.txt
> > 
> > I checked these files and both have RGB definitions for black. Any other
> > ideas? I recently ran a java program at the command line and received
> > the same error, so it seems to not be merely an emacs problem...
> 
> Then, check whether it's well configured in /etc/X11/XF86Config
> (assuming you're using a XFree X server). There should be a section
> such as:
> 
> Section "Files"
>         RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
>         ...
> EndSection
> 
> (the extension should not be provided, because it can be .txt or .db).
> Which makes me think that perhaps the file format of rgb.txt is more
> precise.  My file has spaces between (or after) numbers, and two
> tabulations before the name:
> 
> ...
> 255 250 250^I^Isnow
> 248 248 255^I^Ighost white
> ...
> 252 252 252 ^I^Igrey99
> 255 255 255 ^I^Igray100
> 255 255 255 ^I^Igrey100
> ...
> 
> You may check quickly with: cat -t /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt
> 

Re: Undefined color error

[Michael Slass]

Ken Keefe <kaje@digitalfamily.org> writes:

>That was it!! Thank you so much! It turns out my RgbPath was this:
>
>RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt"
>
>I dropped the txt, restarted X, and everything is lovely again. Thanks
>again!
>
>Ken
>

You should probably report this as a bug to the Mandrake folks.
-- 
Mike Slass

Re: Undefined color error

[Tom Morris]

Ken Keefe wrote:
> That was it!! Thank you so much! It turns out my RgbPath was this:
>
> RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt"
>
> I dropped the txt, restarted X, and everything is lovely again.
Thanks
> again!
>
> Ken

I had the same problem, and changed it today. It worked.

The rgb turned to rgb.txt when I installed my Nvidia card.

Thanks for this thread. I can now use my favourite editor again!
Yours,

-- 
Tom Morris
http://www.bbcity.co.uk