Bugzilla Bug 121849

For some *.ps documents gv-3.6.1-r1 shows just a blank page instead of the
document content. The same documents are correctly shown by gv-3.5.8-r4 or ggv.
Unfortunately there is no error message.

Created an attachment (id=79039) [edit]
1.ps

Sample PostScript file for which there is a problem.

Portage 2.1_pre4-r1 (default-linux/x86/2005.1, gcc-3.4.5, glibc-2.3.6-r2,
2.6.14-gentoo-r5 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.14-gentoo-r5 i686 AMD Sempron(tm)   3000+
Gentoo Base System version 1.12.0_pre15
dev-lang/python:     2.4.2-r1
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.17
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.59-r7
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1
sys-devel/binutils:  2.16.1-r1
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.22
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.11-r3
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-Os -march=athlon-xp -mfpmath=sse -mmmx -msse -m3dnow -funroll-loops
-pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/grass60/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/env
/usr/kde/3.4/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/shutdown /usr/kde/3.5/env
/usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config
/usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config
/var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/web2c /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-Os -march=athlon-xp -mfpmath=sse -mmmx -msse -m3dnow -funroll-loops
-pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks sandbox sfperms strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://src.gentoo.pl http://gentoo.prz.rzeszow.pl
http://gentoo.zie.pg.gda.pl http://gentoo.po.opole.pl ftp://gentoo.po.opole.pl
http://stoofo.math.uni.lodz.pl/gentoo/ ftp://stoofo.math.uni.lodz.pl/"
LINGUAS="pl en de fr it ru ar"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 3dnow X Xaw3d a52 aac alsa apm arts avi berkdb bidi bitmap-fonts blas
bonobo bzip2 cairo cdparanoia cdr crypt cscope ctype cups dbm dts dv dvb dvd
dvdr dvdread eds emacs emboss encode exif fbcon ffmpeg fftw flac foomaticdb
fortran gb gd gdbm gif ginac glut gmp gnome gphoto2 gpm gps gstreamer gtk gtk2
gtkhtml guile ieee1394 imagemagick imlib ipv6 jack java jpeg kde lapack lcms
libg++ libgda libwww lm_sensors mad matroska mbox mikmod mime mmx mng
mnogosearch mono motif mozilla mp3 mpeg msql mule ncurses netcdf nis nls nodrm
nsplugin ocaml odbc ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pcmcia pdflib perl php
plotutils png portaudio postgres python qt quicktime readline recode ruby samba
scanner sdl sndfile speex spell spl sse ssl svg szip tcltk tcpd tetex theora
threads tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts unicode usb vcd vhosts vorbis
wifi win32codecs wmf wxwindows xine xinerama xml2 xmms xosd xpm xv zeo zlib
elibc_glibc kernel_linux linguas_pl linguas_en linguas_de linguas_fr linguas_it
linguas_ru linguas_ar userland_GNU"
Unset:  ASFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS

I added a -r2 including fixes from debian. I guess debian fixed this. Please
reopen if not.

This seems to be happening again in 3.6.1-r3

It appears to be a problem in the gs command line:  there is a -g2x2 which
tells gs to render into a 2 pixel by 2 pixel window. 

This behaviour is caused by the gv-3.6.1-landscape.patch
which apparently is there to: 'Avoid unwanted rotation of landscape pdf files'

The original (?) posting of it:
http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?func=detailitem&item_id=12155#attached
says its a workaround - looks like kind of an ugly hack since the -g option is
supposed to specifiy the device dimensions in pixels.

This patch breaks gv for some ps files - looks like the cure is worse than the
disease.

It seems that there is a problem again. Reopening.

so what exactly do I need to do to fix this?

Just removing the gv-3.6.1-landscape.patch from the ebuild solves the blank
page
problem for me.  That patch is a one liner that simply adds -g2x2 to the gs
command line.

According to the bug at gnu.org this will expose a not-that-easy to see
cropping bug, but to me that sounds less harmful than the blanks it produces
now.

The thing that is confusuing, is that the gnu bug says this patch solves a
cropping problem, but the patch itself claims to avoid unwanted rotation of
landscape pdf files - perhaps those are the same thing, but it isn't obvious to
me that they are.

Created an attachment (id=84582) [edit]
After 1/4 of a years testing, I think this patch fixes the bug 121849.

On sv.gnu.org/projects/gv, the same bug is bug #12155 (closed, as the
maintainer has not reopened it yet). Perhaps he will not do so, because here is
the fix:

I am not an official maintainer, but gv is my by
far most used postscript previewer - in fact, the same bug can be triggered
with usual postscript files, too.

I have benn testing the attached fix since 1/4 year with best results, so
it's time to release it :-)

"-dFIXEDMEDIA" instead of "-g2x2" seems to be much more compatible - even more
compatible than giving no option at all.

Please note that this patch changes the default parameters of the
ghostscript invokation in the "State - Ghostscript options - Arguments" dialog,
so consider clicking on "System defaults" in that window. If the user may edit
the parameter, he can easyly change it for hard files; 'specially if
"-dFIXEDMEDIA" causes problems. I think it's just the best solution

As usual, my contact info is in the patch file as comment.

(In reply to comment #9)

Yust forget to mention: The patch is against the CVS HEAD Version of GNU GV
from the sv.gnu.org-repository.

Can you please make a svn-ebuild for it including the patch? :)

I guess I do not understand gv enough .. I already messed up the last
ebuild-patch

(In reply to comment #8)

> The thing that is confusuing, is that the gnu bug says this patch solves a
> cropping problem, but the patch itself claims to avoid unwanted rotation of
> landscape pdf files - perhaps those are the same thing, but it isn't obvious to
> me that they are.

They are the same thing: The cropping occurs 'cause the dimensions of the
landscape page are incorrently rotated by 90 degree (please do not ask me if
clockwise or anticlockwise, I do not know) by ghostscript. "-g2x2" implies
"-dFIXEDMEDIA" and therefore the dimensions of the page cannot be changed,
'specially they cannot be rotated by ghostscript.

-g2x2 implies other parameters then "-dFIXEDMEDIA", e.g. "-dFIXEDRESOLUTION"
(Information originally taken from the source code of Ghostscript).  There
should even more parameters be implied, but I do not remember them.

This is the explanation why the ugly parameter is a work-around for the
problem. 




(In reply to comment #11)

If you mean me: I cannot, I am not using gentoo. YUst saw in the
sv.gnu.org-bugzilla that you have a problem I have a solution for. But surely,
you will find someone else for doing it.

Created an attachment (id=84593) [edit]
proposed patch against gv-3.6.1 replacing -g2x2 with -dFIXEDMEDIA

This is a version of Markus' patch that will work with the ebuild.  It patches
Makefile.in in addition to Makefile.am

All that needs to be done, I think to go from gv-3.6.1-r2.ebuild to
gv-3.6.1-r3.ebuild is to remove the gv-3.6.1-landscape.patch in the ebuild with
this patch.  Works for me, and I like that this option is user changable.

To make the patch work, you must rebuild gv, and then etc-update, as this fix
gets put into a config file in /etc/X11/app-defaults/GV

Why hasn't this fix been incorporated into portage yet?

I added a -r4, can you please confirm that it works for you?

alpha amd64 ppc ppc64 sparc x86

please test

The new ebuild (-r4) fixed the problem for me. Thanks.