[plt-scheme] headless mred on OS X? Or, way to decode (lib"read.ss""wxme") reader in mz?

On Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 04:23:49PM -0400, Eli Barzilay wrote:

> I'm not sure about what you're trying to do because of that cron job
> remark, but the usual thing that I do, given that mred cannot run
> without a display even if it doesn't actually do any GUI, is run it in
> a VNC session.  This way there is no problems running mred.

Tricky to do with VNC servers on OS X.  On most other Unixes, starting a
VNC server (by default) actually starts a new instance of the X server
that's not hooked up to the screen or keyboard.  It's completely
independent of any other X servers on that machine.  On Mac OS, though, VNC
servers merely give you another connection to your existing (OS X) session.

Now, it's possible to use a specific OS X VNC server to achieve the effect
of a VNC session that's detached from the actual screen and keyboard, but
it requires creating a separate user to run the VNC server and associated
session.  I *believe* that, if you then start a process as that user
(whether from within the VNC session or not) it can access that user's
session---i.e., it can start MrEd.

If you're interested, John, drop me a private email and I can explain the
process in more detail.  But I'm not entirely sure it'll work.  (I can't
test it easily on my end, I'm afraid.)

I had thought that Fink's tightvnc package had a VNC server that behaves in
the traditional Unix way.  Unfortunately, it doesn't start at all, so
that's no good, even if you were interested in building the X11 version of
DrScheme.

HTH,

Richard