Export-to-EPS is broken

[Gerhard Kremer]

Binary package hint: gs-esp

[Edited to remove irrelevant references to Inkscape]

I export a figure containing text to either PS or EPS. When I try to open said figure with any ghostscript reader (gv, kghostview . . .), the reader isn't able to open it and begins to suck in system memory (as reported by top). The computer becomes unusably slow and there is a lot of hard disk activity.

If I try to open the same figure without any text, it opens and is displayed normally. THe problem occurs only when there is text, even a single character.

This bug seems to be exclusive of Feisty; I tried older versions in oth Edgy and Dapper and they worked without problems.

System:
Intel Pentium-M 2GHz w. 512 MB RAM running up-to-date, stock Kubuntu Feisty and Inkscape 0.45 (seemingly not 0.45.1).

[Bruno S. (fischkudder-deactivatedaccount)]

That's a nasty bug in Ghostscript then (memory leak, infinite loop?). Ghostscript should always behave independent of malformed Postscript files.

You might file a report here:
http://bugs.ghostscript.com/

[Gerhard Kremer (gerhardusm2002)]

It is indeed ;-). After some tinkering with the installation, I found out that the problem was in the "improved" gs-esp Ghostscript interpreter. I removed it, installed the old gs-gpl package and presto! Everything works perfectly.

I'm going to file a bug report for the gs-esp package. My apologies to the Inkscape developers for casting doubts over their superb program. ;-)

[Áron Sisak (asisak)]

As stated by the reporter this is rather a gs-esp than an inkscape issue.

[Áron Sisak (asisak)]

Still present in up-to-date gutsy.

[rjonnal (rjonnal)]

Gerhard,

Your advice was quite useful. I too removed gs-esp, and installed gs-gpl. As an Ubuntu novice, however, I ran into difficulties installing gv. I'm using Feisty Fawn, and when I try to use apt-get to install gv, it reinstalls gs-esp. So, I'm just doing without gv for the time being. I'm also doing without evince, the lightweight PDF viewer.

Specifically, to clean things up and install what I needed, I took these steps:

sudo apt-get remove gs-esp
sudo apt-get remove gs-gpl
sudo apt-get remove gs-afpl
sudo apt-get remove gs-common
sudo apt-get install gs-gpl
sudo apt-get install ps2pdf (may not be necessary - I can't remember)

Then I installed acrobat reader (acroread) per these instructions:
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-install-adobe-pdf-reader-with-plug-in-for-mozilla-firefox-in-feisty-fawn.html#more-218

My use for gs is related to latex, and now the following steps in my latex script work:

latex document.tex
bibtex document
latex document.tex
latex document.tex
dvips -o document.ps document.dvi
ps2pdf document.ps
acroread document.pdf &

It works just fine.

-Ravi

[Gerhard Kremer (gerhardusm2002)]

Ravi,

Yes, the dependency of gv and evince on gs-esp is quite annoying (in fact, I think it's a bug in itself).

However, you don't need Acrobat Reader; you can use your favorite programs by having gs-esp installed to satisfy their deps but telling the OS to use gs-gpl instead. To do that, install both gs-gpl and gs-esp (plus gv, evince or the viewer you want, of course) and then type at a terminal:

sudo update-alternatives --config gs

You'll see a menu list of all installed gs drivers. Choose gs-gpl. That's what will be used. You can use gv, evince & co. without problems.

(I suggest you rememeber update-alternatives for the future. It's a very useful command).

Hope this helps,

GK.

[Áron Sisak (asisak)]

This dependency should be "ghostscript-x".
In Gutsy Evince it is already fixed, it should be fixed in gv as well.

[Gerhard Kremer (gerhardusm2002)]

Seems to be fixed in Jaunty, as I don't have to do the above to get EPS figures. I suggest that the bug be closed.

GK.