Re: TN5250 problem

On 05/17/2010 01:27 PM, John Aldrich wrote:

I've built a Linux box (Ubuntu 10.4 LTS) and I'm trying to create an icon on
the desktop for TN5250 that will launch it, but it's not working. I've
edited the hosts file to include a name for our AS/400 and the command for
the icon is "/usr/bin/tn5250 brcc2" (without the quotes) which works fine
from the command-line, but does not execute the command in question.

I'm using Kubuntu 10.04 so I'm more familiar with KDE than Gnome but here's my best guess...

You probably want to use xt5250 rather than tn5250. Create an icon on the desktop (in KDE I right click and select "Create New -> Link to application"). Somewhere it should ask you for the name of the application to run and that's where you will enter:

/usr/bin/xt5250 PGBRIAN1

I wrote "PGBRIAN1" there where you used "brcc2". It doesn't matter what you call it, I name my sessions PGBRIAN1, PGBRIAN2, etc.

After you set up an icon for each of your sessions you'll need to create a .tn5250rc file in your home directory. Use gedit or whatever text editor you are familiar with to create a file with these contents:

PGBRIAN1 {
host = xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
env.DEVNAME=PGBRIAN1
+local_print_key
+uninhibited
}

PGBRIAN2 {
host = xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
env.DEVNAME=PGBRIAN2
env.TERM = IBM-3477-FC
+local_print_key
+uninhibited
}

Save this file as .tn5250rc (note the leading period!) and put it in your home directory (/home/john or whatever).

The "PGBRIAN1" and "PGBRIAN2" groupings are for sessions. The "host" attribute will be the IP address of the AS/400 you want to connect to. The "env.DEVNAME" is the name of your session on the AS/400. The "+local_print_key" enables your "Print Screen" key on your keyboard so you do screen prints. The "+uninhibited"... uh, does something that I've completely forgotten :-) I'm sure somebody will pipe up and tell you what it does.

You'll notice my second session also has the "env.TERM = IBM-3477-FC" entry. This tells xt5250 that I'm wanting a 132-column display instead of the default 80-column.

That ought to do it for you.

James Rich has written some documentation that you might find helpful as well (and I'm sure it tells you what the "uninhibited" option does):
http://www.chowhouse.com/~james/tn5250-HOWTO.pdf