Ghostscript on Sparc

[Kit Halsted <kit_(_at_)_kithalsted_(_dot_)_com>]

Since ports@ is listed as the maintainer for the Ghostscript port, 
I'm forwarding my original message and the workaround. Please CC: me 
if you need any more info, as I'm not subscribed to ports_(_at_)__(_dot_)_

The error described below occurred originally when installing 
Ghostscript as part of the process of installing ImageMagick, and 
also occurred when installing Ghostscript on its own. The error did 
not occur on my i386 box. The workaround for the Sparc was to install 
the package.

-Kit

-----

Has anyone installed ImageMagick on a 110MHz SPARCstation 4? It seems 
to be taking an awfully long time on my machine. I know this box is 
old & slow, but this is the first time I've seen a port take longer 
than a make build. Here's the output from top in a new session:

-----
load averages:  1.09,  1.09,  1.08                                     11:33:09
42 processes:  2 running, 40 idle
CPU states:  100% user,  0.0% nice,  0.0% system,  0.0% interrupt,  0.0% idle
Memory: Real: 15M/41M act/tot  Free: 114M  Swap: 0K/320M used/tot

  PID USERNAME PRI NICE  SIZE   RES STATE WAIT     TIME    CPU COMMAND
12583 root      64    0 1060K  124K run   -       21.2H 99.32% genarch
25877 root       2    0   28K  120K sleep select  88:47  0.00% screenblank
19112 root       2    0  896K  104K sleep select  11:44  0.00% sendmail
14578 root      18    0  684K  248K sleep pause    6:17  0.00% ntpd
17659 root       2    0  340K   96K idle  select   5:43  0.00% sshd
13565 root       2    0 1128K  184K sleep select   3:59  0.00% httpd
29506 root      28    0  160K  328K run   -        1:48  0.00% top
32361 root      10    0  228K  196K sleep nanosl   1:29  0.00% cron
 7327 root       2    0  108K  192K sleep select   0:34  0.00% atalkd
 9640 root       2    0  848K  328K idle  netio    0:22  0.00% afpd
 4455 root       2    0  100K  172K sleep select   0:22  0.00% syslogd
32023 root       2    0  420K  204K sleep select   0:16  0.00% sshd
15792 root      10    0 2072K  352K idle  wait     0:11  0.00% make
29459 root       2    0  380K  204K idle  select   0:08  0.00% sshd
22499 root      18    0  884K  232K idle  pause    0:02  0.00% tcsh
17081 root      18    0  920K  244K idle  pause    0:01  0.00% tcsh
 8144 root      10    0  356K  344K idle  wait     0:00  0.00% make
 7430 root       2    0  248K  256K sleep select   0:00  0.00% afpd
-----

Here's the last screenful from the terminal session in which I typed "make":

-----
/tiffpack.dev
./objects/echogs -a ./objects/devs.tr -+ ./objects/tiff12nc.dev 
./objects/tiff24nc.dev
./objects/echogs -a ./objects/devs.tr -+ ./objects/psmono.dev 
./objects/psgray.dev ./objects/psrgb.dev ./objects/bit.dev 
./objects/bitrgb.dev ./objects/bitcmyk.dev
./objects/echogs -a ./objects/devs.tr -+ ./objects/pngmono.dev 
./objects/pnggray.dev ./objects/png16.dev ./objects/png256.dev 
./objects/png16m.dev
./objects/echogs -a ./objects/devs.tr -+ ./objects/jpeg.dev 
./objects/jpeggray.dev
./objects/echogs -a ./objects/devs.tr -+ ./objects/pdfwrite.dev 
./objects/pswrite.dev ./objects/epswrite.dev ./objects/pxlmono.dev 
./objects/pxlcolor.dev
./objects/echogs -a ./objects/devs.tr -+ ./objects/pnm.dev 
./objects/pnmraw.dev ./objects/ppm.dev ./objects/ppmraw.dev 
./objects/pkm.dev ./objects/pkmraw.dev ./objects/pksm.dev 
./objects/pksmraw.dev
./objects/echogs -a ./objects/devs.tr -+
./objects/echogs -a ./objects/devs.tr -+
./objects/echogs -a ./objects/devs.tr -+
./objects/echogs -a ./objects/devs.tr -+
./objects/echogs -a ./objects/devs.tr -+
./objects/echogs -a ./objects/devs.tr - ./objects/libcore
cc -I./src -o ./objects/genarch ./src/genarch.c
./objects/genarch ./objects/arch.h

-----

My dmesg from the last boot is at 
<http://sparky.kithalsted.com/dmesg.txt>; the kernel is GENERIC with 
one small change:

-----
sparky:conf {145} diff ATALK GENERIC
297,298d296
<
< option NETATALK
-----

I looked in /usr/ports & did not see imagemagick, so I attempted to 
install from source. That failed, & in the process of troubleshooting 
that failure I realized that a port did exist. 
(/usr/ports/graphics/ImageMagick, not 
/usr/ports/graphics/imagemagick. D'oh!) I don't see how that would 
affect anything, but I don't always see such things so I mention it. 
Apologies if I'm rambling, I'm not properly caffeinated yet. My 
question is: is this a runaway process that's just gonna keep eating 
all of my CPU 'til I kill it, or is it just a complex operation that 
needs a long time to finish on, ahem, "fully-amortized" hardware like 
my SS4?

Thanks,
-Kit
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary 
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin

"...qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum"
(...if you would have peace, be prepared for war)
-Flavius Vegetius Renatus