How-To: Run Rebol2 Scripting Language on Debian-Based ARM Systems

Recently, we had the need to run the Rebol/View scripting language (Rebol2) on a Debian-Based ARM single board computer (SBC). If you don't already have it, it can be obtained at http://www.rebol.com/downloads.html.

Here's a step-by-step of what we did to get it to run:

wget http://www.rebol.com/downloads/v278/rebol-view-278-4-8.tar.gz
tar zxvf rebol-view-278-4-8.tar.gz
cd rebol-view
sudo apt update
sudo apt install xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi
./rebol

For error while loading shared libraries: libXt.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory:

sudo apt install libxt6

For error while loading shared libraries: libXaw.so.7: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory:

sudo apt install libxaw7

On our test system, Rebol was able to be started at this point. If you encounter a problem starting it at this point, a reboot is probably required.

If your system is headless (not running a desktop), you may receive the following error:

REBOL: cannot open X11 window (XOpenDisplay failed)

** User Error: Bad face in screen pane!
** Near: size-text self

In this case, there are two options:

• Install xvfb and xauth, and run your script like this:
  

  sudo apt install xvfb xauth
  xvfb-run ./rebol -cswq myscript.r2

• Use the non-graphical version of Rebol2:
  

  wget http://www.rebol.com/downloads/v278/rebol-core-278-4-8.tar.gz