Programming Zen

Resolving the gray window when running db2setup

Antonio Cangiano

You drank the Kool-Aid and downloaded the awesomeness which is DB2 Express-C. Good job! Next you proceed to install it on Linux with sudo ./db2setup and boom, instead of a launchpad all you see is a gray window. Now what?

This problem is a known Java bug (resolved in Java 6) that shows up on Linux distros where Compiz effects are enabled. For example, this problem manifests itself in recent Ubuntu releases, including 8.10, where Compiz is enabled by default.

There are a couple of easy ways to solve this problem though. The first is to temporary disable these effects during the installation and turn them back on when you’ve finished installing. In Ubuntu, you can do this by clicking on the Appearance menu, Visual Effects tab and then selecting None. The second method is to run export AWT_TOOLKIT=MToolkit, before running sudo ./db2setup.

A new setup is in the works to solve this issue, but for the time being, you can use the workarounds above to install DB2 Express-C on Linux.

Antonio Cangiano

Antonio Cangiano is an Engineering Manager and AI Specialist at IBM. He authored Ruby on Rails for Microsoft Developers (Wrox, 2009) and Technical Blogging (The Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2012, 2019). He is also the Marketing Lead for Cognitive Class, an educational initiative which he helped grow from zero to over 3 Million students. You can follow him on Twitter.

6 responses to “Resolving the gray window when running db2setup”

  1. Dan Scott

    Ah, good old db2setup. Say no more!

  2. Leons Petrazickis

    “gray” is often spelled “grey”. Both are acceptable everywhere, but “gray” is predominant in the US while Canadian and UK usage tends towards “grey”. I’m mostly mentioning this for Google search purposes.^-^

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#Miscellaneous_spelling_differences

  3. Sid

    You can see the same effects when using a Java based IDE on a Compiz enabled Ubuntu install eg: Netbeans Ruby/IntelliJ on Ubuntu 8.10 will occasionally popup a blank malformed (height, width wise) window when you hit ctrl+shift+f (popup a new window) Every once in three or four times it does this.

    It was listed as Swing apps playing badly with Compiz on an Ubuntu Forum somewhere.

    They should make it all play nice.

  4. Berend

    When I start DB2SETUP under Windows XP SP3 and I i see is also a gray window.
    The same problem as Linux?

  5. Philip Nelson

    Thanks Antonio. Just finishing up the install at the moment.

    I don’t do db2setup very often (I’m a db2_install man myself) but decided to use it for speed this time around. Bad move : I could have done it quicker manually !!!

    There are still a few issues with the installer : I already had a DB2 client instance on the box as db2inst1 and it didn’t discover immediately that this user existed. It also failed to create the DAS, which meant in a catalog of other “minor errors” too.

    However once you get it installed everything is good.

    Ubuntu, DB2 Express-C and Rails : what a combination !!!

  6. Rick

    Thanks, been trying to get over this problem for a while the export AWT_TOOLKIT worked for me!

    Rick

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