SGI Freeware August 2003, Part 1 of 4 Freeware CD Split V1.0 by Ian Mapleson Last change: 12/May/2003 Contents: 1. Introduction 2. Installation 3. Background 4. Prerequisites 5. Security If you wish to proceed immediately with installing this CD, then go to section 2. 1. Introduction This CD is part 1 of my own carefully constructed split of the August 2003 SGI Freeware onto four CDs. Installing all items from this CD on an N32 system will use up 580MB of disk space (plus an extra 214MB if the GCC Java utilities are also selected for installation). A list of the freeware products on this CD is contained in the file: cd1prods.txt The short product names are included, allowing for easy identification of file names in the dist directory. Also, web page release notes for all the freeware products (from all four CDs) are contained in the html subdirectory on each CD, while a summary list of product titles for the items on the other CDs are in the files: cd2prods.txt cd3prods.txt cd4prods.txt The same files are on the other CDs. These documents should aid the location of items without the need for swapping CDs; remember you can use grep to search the contents of a file. CD 1 includes a selections file, called: part1of4selections.txt to simplify installation. The selections file allows one to install all the items on this CD in one go without any conflicts, although it is assumed that a full standard installation of IRIX 6.5.x has already been done (see the Prerequisites section below for details). A 4GB minimum disk is recommended. I have tested this installation on systems running 6.5.15m and 6.5.17m. The design of this CD ensures that, using the selections file, none of the products on CD 1 depend on anything from the other CDs. Thus, the selections file can be extremely useful as it prevents one from having to worry about installation conflicts, ie. this CD can be regarded as a self-contained collection of the most useful and interesting freeware items for the majority of users. Some items I would like to have included on CD 1 are not present because of the disproportionate amount of space they take up. A good example is ImageMagick, which not only takes up alot of space anyway (26MB) but also requires the rather large product called teTeX to be installed; together they take up 130MB of space! That's a bit much just to enable the presence of ImageMagick. Thus, ImageMagick is on CD 2, but to aid those who wish to use it, CD 2 includes a special product selections file just for ImageMagick: if you have already installed CD 1 successfully then the selections file will select just the items required for ImageMagick from CD 2, with no conflicts. Insert CD 2, run swmgr, read in the CD (the source would normally be /CDROM/dist), unselect everything, load the selections file for ImageMagick from the CD (the file called imgmagsels.txt) and click Start. Easy! Note that although CD 1 does not depend on anything from the other CDs, the reverse is definitely not the case. Thus, if you want to install something from the other CDs, it is very likely that at least some of the items from CD 1 will need to be installed first. Hence, to make things easier, and assuming you have the space, just install all of CD 1 using the selections file before trying to install anything from the remaining CDs. If you don't have the space for this, then I'm afraid you'll have to resolve any conflicts manually. One solution is to copy the contents of all the CDs' dist directories into one place on a remote server and then use that as an installation source - this would at least remove the need to swap CDs during installation. Note that there is an alternative selections file for users of 64bit systems who wish to have access to the N64 libraries in the freeware distribution. The file is called: part1of4selections64.txt The normal selections file will work just fine on such systems, but if you wish to make use of the N64 libs in the freeware distribution then use the 64bit version. Most people won't need the N64 libs though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Installation The following assumes that this CD is mounted on /CDROM. Login as root, double-click on the CDROM icon and click on Customize Installation. Or run up Software Manager by using the Toolchest or by entering swmgr in a shell, in which case type /CDROM/dist as a source location and then click on Customize Installation. Note that swmgr may fill in part of '/CDROM/dist' as you type - watch for this. From the Selected menu, choose Unmark All. This clears the default selections made by swmgr. From the File menu, click on Load Selections and load the file called part1of4selections.txt from the CD. swmgr will mark all the items present, but this time in a way described by the selections file which gives no conflicts and includes all the useful extras which swmgr does not select by default, eg. the optional extra brushes in GIMP. Click on Start; the installation will take some time to complete. NOTES: The selections file chooses all items for installation except one. Inside the product called: gcc-3.3 GNU Compiler Suite there is a subsystem entitled: gcc-3.3 java support, utilities This subsystem, if installed, takes up a collosal 219MB (typical Java!). Thus, the selections file does not select this for installation. If you think you'll need this item, then before starting the installation, go down to the GNU Compiler Suite product in the list, open it up and select the Java utilities for installation. If you're not sure whether it would be useful, you can always install the CD initially without the Java utilities and then consult the installed GCC release notes which should explain more about the GCC Java utilities. Either way, click Start to begin the installation. Also, if you wish to have the language locale extras installed for the GIMP/CUPS print facility, open up the product called: gimp-print-4.2.5 print facility for GIMP and CUPS and select the required items for installation before clicking Start. By default, none of these locale items are not selected for installation by the selections file. Similarly, the product: ispell-3.1.20 Interactive Spelling Checker also does not have the extra language locale items selected for installation by the selections file. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Background My methodology in creating this freeware split is to put the most interesting and useful items that would be wanted by the majority of home/hobbyist users onto the first CD, with less interesting/useful items on the other CDs. This certainly involves a bias on my part, eg. I'm not interested in the GNOME products. It also requires a degree of compromise. Thus, for some users, what they actually want will not correlate to the way I've split the products across the CDs, eg. those who want to use GNOME, but I aim to cater for the majority. Thus, if you want useful general applications (eg. CD authoring), movie/image/audio tools, life management tools, rendering applications, PC-compatibility tools, web programs and other such generally cool things, then you'll find them on the first CD. The other three CDs are treated more or less equally, ie. an item not on CD 1 could be on either of the other two, though there is a slight bias towards CD 2. As freeware items on CD 1 become larger, I have to move things off the first CD in order to keep the CD contents under 700MB; when this happens, items are moved onto the 2nd CD. Similarly, when the 2nd CD becomes overfull, items are moved onto the 3rd CD. If you're looking for a particular item, use grep to examine the cd*prods.txt files. NOTE: the items which could not be fitted onto CDs 1, 2 and 3 are, as mentioned earlier, on CD 4. However, there was still a great deal of unused space left over on CD 4, so I have included various other shareware/freeware items on CD 4 as a useful extra resource. These include: Certain Impact Version 1.0 Impact Demos CD Version 1.0 Form & Vision Eclipse 3.1.3 MPlayer 1.0pre3 (timo) Macromedia's Flash5 plugin - 5.0.89 Mekton Game Mozilla for IRIX 1.4 OpenOffice: Office Suite, v1.0.3.1 XV 3.10a See the README file on CD 4 for full details. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Prerequisites As stated in the introduction, the selections file will cause conflicts if certain items are not already installed as part of a typical full IRIX installation. However, if you use the selections files for IRIX 6.5 from my Gifts CD (look in the Selections/6.5 or Selections/6.5.15 subdirectory), then there will be no conflicts. An example is the 'R' package for Statistical Computation and Graphics: the Fortran Execution Environment must be installed in order to install the 'R' product. The Gifts CD selections files are designed to install just about everything from the main IRIX CDs. Once the freeware is installed using the selections file, any unwanted items can then be removed. This is definitely the easiest way to install the freeware since manually resolving conflicts is a pain. However, if you've already installed IRIX and are seeing conflicts when trying to install the freeware from this CD, then check the file prereqs.txt to see the list of products which are installed by the Gifts CD selections files. Check for missing items and install them, especially any N32 libs, etc. If your installed software list matches the list shown in prereqs.txt, then the selections file on this CD should work just fine. Note that if disk space is a problem, then try deselecting unwanted items after the selections file is loaded, or perhaps even unselect everything and then only select the desired items - this will mean you'll have to manually resolve any conflicts, but it will minimise space usage. Dependencies vary: some items can be installed on their own, others are dependent on further products. I will create extra selections files at a later date which install a more restricted set of items from this CD, aimed at those with space limitations (eg. users of 2GB disks), those only interested in audio, or CD authoring, imaging, etc. At the moment though, the selections file installs _everything_, except for the GCC Java utilities as mentioned in Section 2. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Security If you install Samba or MySQL from this CD, then read the security notes relating to these products in the files mysql_notes.txt and samba_notes.txt. Both products recommend a degree of post-installation configuration in order to ensure maximum security. Feedback on this freeware split is welcome! Cheers! :) Ian. PS. In 2001 I created a split of the May 2001 freeware (the last proper freeware release for IRIX 6.2) in a similar way to this split, ie. it included a selections file on the 1st CD, etc. If you're interested in obtaining my version of May 2001 freeware then feel free to email me. These will be of most interest to those who are still using IRIX 6.2, or cannot upgrade for whatever reason (eg. sw compatibility issues) or who are using a system which cannot use IRIX 6.5 at all, eg. Crimson. SGI Depot: http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/sgidepot/ Email: mapesdhs@yahoo.com Backup email (send copy to this too): im011f3554@blueyonder.co.uk Home: +44 (0)131 477 1142 (best to call this number first) Mobile: 07743 495403 (usually off; leave a message and I'll call back) SGI/Future Technology/N64: http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/ Mirror site: http://futuretech.mirror.vuurwerk.net/ Doom Help Service (DHS): http://www.gamers.org/dhs/