Re: X colormap problem when viewed via Microsoft Remote Desktop

[jeff_schenck at att dot net]

Jon, thanks for your suggestion.  Using the -nocompositewm option
fixed my problem.  If you'd still like a screenshot, I can send one if
the mailing list doesn't mind big attachments.  Basically, it looks
like the color map is wrong.  My terminal window background is
brownish-green instead of dark grey and font edges are fuzzy and
multicolored.  A plot window I created has incorrect colors but the
plot is legible.

Thanks!
Jeff

----- On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 05:54:07AM PST, Jon Turney wrote:

> On 29/01/2017 03:16, jeff_schenck@att.net wrote:
> > After a fairly recent update of cygwin, I now find that all my X
> > windows (xterm, emacs, etc.) have color and font problems.  Non-x
> > terminal windows are fine.  Windows 7 is running as a VM on an esxi
> > hypervisor, so I view it remotely with Microsoft Remote Desktop.  It
> > worked well on a previous cygwin release, but I don't have the exact
> > date when it changed.  Also, I don't think the problem is with MRD
> > because I see it with VNC also.
>
> Thanks for reporting this problem.
>
> "color and font problems" is a bit vague.  Can you upload a screenshot 
> somewhere which illustrates this?
>
> This is unlikely to be a problem with actual X colourmaps unless you 
> are using antique X clients which use 8 bit visuals.
>
> However, RDP can step down the display colour depth, whereas the 
> colour depth of an X server root window cannot change, which can cause 
> dithering to occur.
>
> Additionally, sometimes DirectDraw rendering to RDP doesn't seem to 
> work properly, for unknown reasons. (This is discussed briefly in [1])
>
> Since this has started 'recently', I guess it might be related to the 
> '-compositewm' option being turned on by default [2].
>
> So, you might try starting the X server with a limited colour depth 
> (e.g. '-depth 16'), or try the '-engine 1' or '-nocompositewm' options 
> [3].
>
> [1] https://x.cygwin.com/docs/ug/using-terminal-server.html
> [2] https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-announce/2016-06/msg00045.html
> [3] https://x.cygwin.com/docs/faq/cygwin-x-faq.html#q-command-line-args
>
> --
> Jon Turney
> Volunteer Cygwin/X X Server maintainer

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple