This is to report a problem, a solution, and a request for update for cygwin distribution. The current distro of cygwin comes with GNU Ghostscript 7.05, which does not support display of postscript and pdf files on X11R6. One solution is to upgrade cygwin to use GNU Ghostscript 8.01 (2004-01-30). The request for update is that a newer version of ghostscript be included with cygwin distro (is this the right list for this type of request?). Follow a description of the problem and a temporary solution until the cygwin distro is updated.
The error message looks like this: ----snip----- $ gs triangulation_plan.ps GNU Ghostscript 7.05 (2002-04-22) Copyright (C) 2002 artofcode LLC, Benicia, CA. All rights reserved. This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details. Loading NimbusSanL-Regu font from /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/n019003l.pfb... 1940160 584178 1743104 451209 0 done. Loading NimbusSanL-ReguItal font from /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/n019023l.pfb... 1980352 634220 1783296 477523 0 done. Error: /invalidfileaccess in --.outputpage-- Operand stack: 1 true Execution stack: %interp_exit .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- false 1 %stopped_push 1 3 %oparray_pop 1 3 %oparray_pop .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- 0 4 %oparray_pop --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostr ingval-- Dictionary stack: --dict:1081/1123(ro)(G)-- --dict:0/20(G)-- --dict:69/200(L)-- --dic t:126/250(L)-- Current allocation mode is local Current file position is 33459 -----snap------ Instructions for updating to newer version of ghostscript: 1. unistall ghostscript using the cygwin.com install program 2. install a newer version of ghostscript gnughostscript-8.01.tar.gz obtained from http://www.gnu.org/software/ghostscript/ghostscript.html cd ~/software gunzip gnughostscript-8.01.tar.gz tar xvf gnughostscript-8.01.tar \rm gnughostscript-8.01.tar cd gnughostscript-8.01 ./configure make make install 3. install fonts ghostscript-fonts-std-8.11.tar.gz obtained from ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/AFPL/fonts/ cd ~/software gunzip ghostscript-fonts-std-8.11.tar.gz tar xvf ghostscript-fonts-std-8.11.tar mkdir mkdir /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts mv fonts/* /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts \rm -rf ghostscript-fonts-std-8.11.tar fonts