FAQ: Athene Desktop Edition

"What do I get in the commercial version of the Desktop Edition?"

You get full support for your graphics card (see list) - besides full acceleration, you get support for all resolutions, refresh rates, gamma correction and other video related features. In the CDROM release, you get the complete operating system and the features as listed on the Athene introductory page. Most importantly all proceeds go towards advancing Athene's development, so your purchase is an investment in the platforms future.

"Does the Linux version of Athene support X11 programs?"

Yes, in version 3.4 we added an X11 compatibility server so that you can run X11 programs in the Athene desktop. It works extremely well and has been tested on the biggest and most popular X11 programs, such as Mozilla, Evolution and Open Office.

"What packaging system does Athene use?"

Athene programs are distributed in '.install' files. These are standard zip files that contain an install.xml file that QikInstall (Athene's install program) uses to install the package. You can unzip .install packages to learn how they work. For technical information on building install files, please see this page in the Pandora Engine SDK.

"How secure is the Linux version?"

We have done our best to ensure that Athene will not compromise system security on Linux. The PCMEM kernel module that is included with the 4.0 release of the desktop edition allows Athene's programs to run with full access to the graphics card without compromising access to the rest of the system. This gives you the best possible graphics performance with the best available security model.

Security is taken very seriously in the CDROM release, in which we provide full support for multi-user logins and secure personal directories, and the necessary security patches are already applied.

"When I tried to run/install Athene on my system it failed to work. What can I do?"

First of all, check the rest of this FAQ in case there is a solution to the problem. Failing that, if you know that Athene failed due to a specific bug or if you want to report a bug in general, download this bug report form and send it to support@rocklyte.com. Please provide a full and detailed description of the problem that you are experiencing when sending in such reports.

Support is provided free of charge and there is no absolute guarantee that it will be possible to fix a given problem in a reasonable amount of time (less than seven days). However, we do like to see Athene working on all system configurations. Rest assured that all e-mail's are read carefully and prioritised according to severity. If you do not receive a personal reply, keep an eye on the new releases to see if the fault you reported is listed as being fixed.

"I get an 'illegal instruction error' when running Athene."

Your CPU does not support the Pentium II instruction set. This error is commonly reported by AMD K6-2 owners (the '2' does not make it PII compatible).

"How do I access the file system and partitions on my machine?"

Athene automatically creates filesystem shortcuts for your drives, using the names 'drive:', 'cd:' and 'disk:'. More information is available in the User Guide that is installed with Athene.

"How do I change the names of my detected drives?"

To rename a volume like 'drive1' to 'home', you need to open/create a file at 'user:config/assignments.cfg' and add new entries to reconfigure your setup. Here is an example for renaming drive1:

   [drive1]
   Name = home
   Icon = misc/athene
   Hidden = No

Note that the drive that you want to rename must be identified in the section header, identified by the closed brackets. Following this are the attributes that you want to define - Name, Icon, Hidden and Label are valid attributes. If you set the Hidden attribute to YES, the drive will not be shown in system file views. All attributes are optional, so if you don't want to change an attribute, do not make a reference to it.

Linux Specific: "I get a 'No such file or directory' message when running 'athene'."

Has the /usr/local/athene link been created? If not, you must change to the root user and reinstall the system so that the links are created.

Linux Specific: "I tried to run Athene as a non-root user and it failed."

Refer to the 'documents:security.txt' file that is included with Athene for further information on user security.

Linux Specific: "How do I uninstall Athene?"

Run the following from a Linux terminal:

  rm -fr /usr/local/athene /usr/local/pandora
  rm -fr /usr/local/share/athene* /usr/local/share/pandora*
  rm -fr ~/.athene*

X11 Specific: "Athene or Pandora failed because it could not load one of the default linked libraries (libdl.so, libm.so, libXext.so or libX11.so)."

Your system has a path or linking error with the software library. Check your /usr/lib and /lib directories to make sure that the necessary file and/or link exists. You will need to use the 'ln' command to create the link to the correct file. Athene expects the binaries to be located at these locations:

libX11.so: /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so
libXext.so: /usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so
libm.so: /usr/lib/libm.so
libdl.so: /lib/libdl.so

If you specifically have problems with libX11 or libXext even after creating the correct link, open the "/etc/ld.so.conf" file and add the line "/usr/X11R6/lib" to the end of the file. Then run "ldconfig" to update your library paths. You can test the connection to the library by running the command "ldd /usr/local/pandora/system/classes/graphics/screen.so". If it comes up with an error, check the correctness of your links for libX11.so and libXext.so again.

X11 Specific: "When I run Athene in X11, it complains about the number of display colours."

Athene will only run in 15 bit, 16 bit, 24 bit and 32 bit colour modes. If your graphics card is limited to 256 colours (perhaps due to driver limitations) then you won't be able to get Athene running, What is more likely is that X11 may not be configured correctly, and you should check your XF86Config file.

X11 Specific: "How do I get Athene to run on remote X11 displays or be the default X11 window manager?"

Open the /usr/local/athene/programs/bin/athene-xserver script and find the line beginning with 'xinit'. Remove the 'xinit' from the beginning of the line and remove the "-- :1" string as well. Make sure that the DISPLAY variable is set in your environment, then put "/usr/local/athene/programs/bin/athene-xserver" in the .Xclients file for the user account. This will make Athene the default window manager for the user, and it will boot up correctly.

FAQ Index