Hello again:
Referring to the problem of xmaxima from maxima-5.17.1 seeing an older
release of maxima that comes with sage, I found a solution.
In the file /usr/local/bin/xmaxima I found the following procedure:
proc vMAXSetMaximaCommand {}
and within that procedure I found:
tide_failure [M [mc "Error: Maxima executable not found\n%s\n\n Try
setting the environment variable XMAXIMA_MAXIMA."]
so I simply did the following in a Konsole window:
export MAXIMA_PREFIX=/usr/local
export XMAXIMA_MAXIMA=/usr/local/bin/maxima
/usr/local/bin/xmaxima
and xmaxima came up normally with an entry prompt.
(%i1)
It looks like it's functioning normally. I mention this to you in case
another person happens to experience the same problem someday.
The environment variable "XMAXIMA_MAXIMA" may be listed in the
documentation somewhere, but I did not know where to look for it.
Thanks again for the assistance you provided. I wouldn't have known to
look within xmaxima if you hadn't gotten me thinking about it.
I'll talk to you later,
Paul Bowyer