Sun Studio (12,1) is unable to find a supported version of the Netbeans IDE

Question

Hi all,
We're working on upgrading both the hardware and software on our application currently, and part of this involves upgrading our compiler to Sun Studio 12.1. I downloaded
SunStudio12u1-SunOS-SPARC-pkgs-ML.tar.bz2
from the Sun website and we installed it into the following location on our server:
/opt/compiler/sunstudio12.1
I successfully compiled all my code using the compiler, however, when I try to launch the debugger by typing ./sunstudio in the 'bin' directory, I get the following error:
{opt/compiler/sunstudio12.1/bin}./sunstudio
Sun Studio is unable to find a supported version of the NetBeans IDE.
Sun Studio requires a NetBeans IDE version 6.5.1 with NetBeans C/C++ module (cnd
2) enabled.
Sun Studio looks for a valid NetBeans IDE installation in the following order:
1) Location specified with --netbeanshome command line option
2) At /opt/compiler/sunstudio12.1/netbeans
I have seen references to executing 'prepare_system' on forums while I was trying to investigate this, but when our sys admin folks try to execute the command, it does not work (command not found). They've mentioned that they expected a prepare_system script in the directory where we untarred the downloaded sun studio tarfile, but it is not there:
drwxrwxr-x 4 59001 staff 1024 Aug 20 2009 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 yu12 lifecad 1024 Jul 2 09:48 ..
drwxrwxr-x 4 59001 staff 1024 Aug 17 2009 LEGAL
-rw-rw-r-- 1 59001 staff 3985 Aug 19 2009 SS12u1_README-pkgs.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 59001 staff 5598 Aug 20 2009 SS12u1_README-pkgs_ja.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 59001 staff 4155 Aug 20 2009 SS12u1_README-pkgs_zh.html
-rwxrwxr-x 1 59001 staff 517979136 Aug 6 2009 SunStudio12u1-SunOS-SPARC-pkgs.sh
-rwxrwxr-x 1 59001 staff 11814 Aug 6 2009 install_patches.sh
drwxrwxr-x 5 59001 staff 96 Aug 17 2009 patches
I can see a netbeans directory was created as part of the install, but I'm not sure why sun studio thinks netbeans is not available (afraid my knowledge about netbeans is practically non existent):
{opt/compiler/sunstudio12.1/netbeans}ls -l
total 6062
drwxr-x--- 2 root root 512 Apr 5 11:14 bin
drwxr-x--- 7 root root 512 Apr 5 11:14 cnd2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 5254 Mar 5 2009 CREDITS_ja.html
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 5175 Mar 5 2009 CREDITS_pt_BR.html
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 4908 Mar 5 2009 CREDITS_zh_CN.html
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 5434 Mar 5 2009 CREDITS.html
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 1717 Mar 5 2009 DISTRIBUTION.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 0 Aug 6 2009 dummy
drwxr-x--- 2 root root 512 Apr 5 11:14 etc
drwxr-x--- 7 root root 512 Apr 5 11:14 gsf1
drwxr-x--- 6 root root 512 Apr 5 11:14 ide10
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 1845 Mar 5 2009 LEGALNOTICE.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 64275 Mar 5 2009 LICENSE.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 37141 Mar 5 2009 moduleCluster.properties
drwxr-x--- 7 root root 512 Apr 5 11:14 nb6.5
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 15822 Mar 5 2009 netbeans.css
drwxr-x--- 8 root root 512 Apr 5 11:14 platform9
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 6141 Mar 5 2009 README_ja.html
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 5692 Mar 5 2009 README_pt_BR.html
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 5122 Mar 5 2009 README_zh_CN.html
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 5155 Mar 5 2009 README.html
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 2913280 Mar 5 2009 THIRDPARTYLICENSE.txt
drwxr-x--- 5 root root 512 Apr 5 11:14 websvccommon1
Our server details are:
{opt/compiler}uname -a
SunOS a03714 5.10 Generic_142900-03 sun4v sparc SUNW,T5440
Any advice appreciated on how to get the debugger working. Ideally, I'd prefer not to uninstall / reinstall if at all possible as we're about to start system testing our executables, and I think a reinstall would require more unit teting and delays to our project (yikes!). But any input would be appreciated here.
Thanks,
Brendan.

Answer 1

Hi David,
First off - thanks for the response. I do have some follow up questions if you don't mind though:
1. When you say the install is corrupted, do you suspect
- the file I downloaded from the website either was corrupted, or was not the correct file for my platform
- the procedure used to install the software was incorrect
- something else
2. Is there a logfile that the sun studio install creates which would indicate an error during the installation procedure? I'm sure our admins who performed the install would have shouted if an error was logged... but on the offchance that the installation does not 'shout loudly' for some errors, I'd like to see a log of the error. At a minimum, I'd expect it to say why the install failed, and what we need to modify to ensure a successful install next time 'round.
3. I successfully compiled my code using the C compiler from the install. My unit tests also look good... does this suggest that the install was at least a partial success, and would you suspect that my recompiled executables are reliable, despite the fact that I cannot launch the IDE?
4. Today, one of our admins telnetted to our unix server - not via exceed by the way, but he did try the following test:
- set his display env variable (he knew he would not get a display however)
- executed the sunstudio script
He did not get the netbeans error, and the process appeared to be running (as I mentioned, without a display) until he killed it. I've asked if they can repeat the test using an exceed session. I thought there may be something on his $PATH that I did not have - unfortunately this was not the case (although, he may have access as 'root' to something that I require to launch the IDE). My question is, would you expect this behaviour if the install was corrupted?
Let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Brendan.