Maxima encountered a Lisp error on start up


On Sun, 14 Feb 2010, Nicolas FRANCOIS wrote:

< Le Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:20:09 -0500,
< Duane Tarr <tarpit at comcast.net> a ?crit :
< 
< > I get the following error message when starting Maxima.  What's the
< > fix for this?
< > 
< > 
< > 60:dbt at loki:~> /usr/bin/maxima
< > Maxima 5.20.1 http://maxima.sourceforge.net
< > using Lisp CLISP 2.47 (2008-10-23)
< > Distributed under the GNU Public License. See the file COPYING.
< > Dedicated to the memory of William Schelter.
< > The function bug_report() provides bug reporting information.
< > 
< > stdin:1:Incorrect syntax: Premature termination of input at ;.
< > ;
< > Maxima encountered a Lisp error:
< > 
< >  
< > SYSTEM::FORMAT-TABULATE: argument -1 is not a nonnegative fixnum
< > 
< > Automatically continuing.
< > To enable the Lisp debugger set *debugger-hook* to nil.
< > 
< > *** - THROW: there is no CATCHer for tag RETURN-FROM-DEBUGGER
< > The following restarts are available:
< > MACSYMA-QUIT   :R1      Maxima top-level
< > Break 1 [1]> 
< 
< Same here with wxMaxima from Ubuntu Karmic :
< 
< (%i1)integrate(1/(x^3+1));
< 
< Universal error handler called recursively (:ERROR NIL
<                                                   CONDITIONS::CLCS-UNIVERSAL-ERROR-HANDLER
<                                                   ""
<                                                   "Couldn't protect")
< Universal error handler called recursively (:ERROR NIL
<                                             CONDITIONS::CLCS-UNIVERSAL-ERROR-HANDLER
<                                             "" "Couldn't protect")
< Maxima encountered a Lisp error:
<  Error in CONDITIONS::CLCS-UNIVERSAL-ERROR-HANDLER [or a callee]:
< Caught fatal error [memory may be damaged] Automatically continuing.
< To reenable the Lisp debugger set *debugger-hook* to nil.
< 
< Quite annoying. It seems to be linked with the Ubuntu Maxima package...
< was there something new in this karmic upgrade ?
 
Nicolas,
A good place to start is to tell us the information from

build_info();

Assuming I've guessed this information correctly...
There are two related problems which seem to have caught many
Ubuntu packages out. The first is that Ubuntu made a decision to
enforce a security policy at the kernel level in Karmic. The
security policy in question is to strictly enforce the aliasing
rules in C. My understading of the situation is that GCL, which
your Maxima is using, is caught out here. You'll find many projects
have been caught out (search for 'strict aliasing'), a big reason
behind the disappointment that is karmic.

You have a few options: 1/ install a pre-built .deb Maxima package
that is built with something other than GCL (Volker mentioned a
site in an earlier post); 2/ install another Lisp and build Maxima
forom source; 3/ fix the bug in GCL (this may be already done, check
on the Debian repositories). The options are not mutually exclusive
nor exhaustive.

Leo


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