I just installed Axiom Silver (looks like 2006-09-14 from the ChangeLog?). I am cycling through the HyperDoc menu looking for simple gotchas, and this is the first one I've found. When I tried to do a 3D plot with the defaults

draw(exp(cos(x-y)-sin(x*y))-2,x=-5..5,y=-5..5)

the interpreter printed the message:

   >> System error:
   Cannot create the file /tmp/gazonk0.fn.

A carriage return gets the interpreter back, and HyperDoc is still active

The "gazonk" files are created when the interpreter tries to compile the argument to draw as a Lisp function. The error message that you observe can be generated in the case that gazonk file remain in the /tmp directory that were created by another user on your system for which you do not have the right to delete (e.g. If you were previously testing using root by now are using a non-privileged account.) These files should normally be automatically deleted but in some cases Axiom seems to carelessly or accidently leave them lying around in the the /tmp directory.

Try to correct this problem by signing on as root and removing all temporary files:

  rm /tmp/*

Status: open => fix proposed