SGI Gifts April 2009, Part 1 of 2 For IRIX 6.5 or Later Compiled by Ian Mapleson (mapesdhs@yahoo.com) Last Change: 18/Apr/2009 Key: In this document, the expression '' (an abbreviation for 'directory path') refers to your CDROM mount point. Usually, will simply be 'CDROM', ie. '//dist' would mean '/CDROM/dist', but sometimes one might have more than one CDROM present (/CDROM2, /CDROM3, etc.) or one may have copied the CD data to disk (eg. /var/tmp/cdrom/dist). For complete information on this CD and detailed installation instructions, read Section 1 (Introduction) and Section 2 (The INSTALL Script). To just get started with the installation straight away, simply follow the instructions below in Section 0 (Quick Install). 0. Quick Install ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Part A ------ Install all other normal IRIX software first, ie. the IRIX base OS CDs (all extra N32 libs, etc.), development libraries, development foundation, MIPS Pro All-Compiler CD (for the compiler front ends, which will work even without a license), Cosmo, NFS, Inventor, freeware, etc., followed by a suitable 6.5.x update (I recommend 6.5.22m, 6.5.26m or 6.5.30m if you're using any video option boards). You can use the product selections files from this CD to greatly ease the process of installing extra software after an initial default IRIX installation, though note that the selections files are designed for the maintenance stream only (most will work ok with the Feature stream, but I can't guarantee it). To begin: login as root. Activate swmgr (Software Manager): either enter swmgr in a shell or select Software Manager from the system Toolchest. Type the following as a distribution path in swmgr and press Enter: //dist ie. if you're installing from /CDROM, then use '/CDROM/dist'. Note that when typing /CDROM/dist, swmgr will often let you get as far as typing /CDROM and then will suddenly fill in the rest automatically. Dismiss the README which appears. Click on 'Customize Installation'. When the list of items appears, select the ones you want and click on Start. The above actions will install all items that can be installed using the SGI swmgr program, except for the Java2 and Java3D products and other items such as video drivers, FastEthernet drivers, etc. - see the specific sections below for details on these products if you want to install them (eg. there are important caveats about using Java2 and Java3D). Part B ------ The rest of the items on the Gifts CD cannot be installed using swmgr (I shall refer to these as non-swmgr items). This Gifts CD includes an INSTALL script which you can use to install many of the non-swmgr items automatically. Login as root. If the Gifts data is being installed via CD from /CDROM, then just run the INSTALL script as it is (enter this at the prompt): /CDROM/INSTALL If the gifts data is not in /CDROM, eg. if it is in /CDROM2, or if the data has been copied from CD to disk somewhere, then do the following: - copy the INSTALL script to somewhere temporary, eg. /tmp or /var/tmp - edit the script so that the GIFTSROOT variable points to the location of the Gifts data (this is the same directory where you copied the INSTALL script from) - save and run the edited script The INSTALL script automatically checks to make sure that GIFTSROOT has been set correctly (it looks for a .Gifts file), so don't worry about making a mistake. If GIFTSROOT is not yet correct, the script will stop, giving a helpful explanatory error message. The script will ask about your CPU type, ie. whether your CPU is an older MIPS3 type (R4000, R4400 or R4600) or MIPS4 (R5000, R7000, R8000, R10000, R12000, etc.) This question is necessary in order to install the appropriate version of BMRT. Note that the script does not check for errors in the answers to these questions, so please answer correctly; if you make a mistake, just stop the script with CTRL+C and run it again. The script asks which items you would like to install. Here is a summary of the items that can be installed by the script at present: Item Space Used (MB) ^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Base documents, web pages, installed software 10.0 reference information, extra executables in /usr/local/bin, PPP setup help files, etc. Extra online reference books in PDF format, 20.5 consisting of owners guides and upgrade guides for Indy, Indigo2 and ChallengeS. Blender Animation/Rendering Program 13.6 BMRT - Blue Moon Rendering Tools 14.2 Ayam3D Animation/Rendering Program 10.0 Doom, Doom II and Ultimate Doom for SGI systems 54.3 SGI Space Demo 15.6 irixdivx 4.5 ----- Total: 142.7 At the very least, you should install the base files. If you do not install an item, you can always run the script at a later time to install further items. Note that minor items such as irixdivx are always installed. If you have followed these instructions for a quick installation, I recommend that you do read the rest of this document at a later date for more detailed information just so that you know what the INSTALL script has done, and how to uninstall items if you need to by using the UNINSTALL script. NOTE: Certain information links on the custom home page will not work until further extras have been installed, eg. RealPlayer8. These are items which must be instaled manually, eg. for RealPlayer you should execute the installation script in the RP8 subdirectory called 'rp8_irix_mips_65_cs1.bin' (easy way, if your shell is tcsh: change directory into the RP8 subdir, type './' followed by TAB and then Enter). ------ End of Quick Installation Instructions ------ 1. Introduction ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This CD contains miscellaneous products that are not part of the SGI Freeware distribution. I have collected them together for convenience, saving a great deal of time and effort that would otherwise be spent accessing web/ftp sites, downloading large files, following installation instructions, resolving conflicts, deciding where to store reference documents, example code, etc. The second SGI Gifts CD contains Quake and Quake2 for SGI IRIX. They untar ready-to-use into /usr/local/games. Other items on the CD are Adobe Acrobat V4.0, FlightGear and Eclipse V3.1.3. Some of the items on this 1st CD are installed in the normal manner using Software Manager. See Section 0, Part A above on how to quickly install these items; for full details though, see the section below entitled, "4. Detailed Index". All other items (non-swmgr items as I call them) would normally be installed manually using tar, shell commands, etc. However, this CD includes an installation script (called INSTALL) to allow you to install most of these items automatically. If you use the script, please read the instructions carefully, though the script offers plenty of chances to quit if a mistake is made. If you wish to install an individual non-swmgr item from this CD without using the INSTALL script, please see Appendix A for useful tips on using the tar command. 2. The INSTALL Script ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The script, called 'INSTALL'. should be run as root. It can be executed from any directory location, ie. the current working directory does not have to be /CDROM (or whatever) for the script to work, though if the Gifts CD data has been copied somewhere else, or if the location of the Gifts CDROM is not /CDROM (eg. more than one CDROM present, giving rise to /CDROM2, etc.) then the GIFTSROOT variable in the script must be changed to match the new location (copy it somewhere else, edit, run again). The script begins by checking if GIFTSROOT has been set correctly; if it isn't correct, a description of how to edit the INSTALL file is given and then the script stops. The script is designed to work on a system that has an _unmodified_ /usr/local and /var/www/htdocs subtrees, and a /.cshrc file that hasn't yet been altered. If you have already created custom web pages, modified the /.cshrc file, installed items under /usr/local, etc. then you may wish to examine the script first to see what it does, though note that any existing index.html file is renamed to index.html.orig and /.cshrc is copied to /.cshrc.orig, so don't worry about losing these originals. The script asks which items you would like to install. I recommend that you at least install the 'base' files so that the online web pages I've written are accessible. See Section 0, Part B for a summary of the items that can be installed by the script. The script asks about CPU type, ie. whether your CPU is an older MIPS3 type (R4000, R4400 or R4600) or a newer MIPS4 (R5K, R7K, R8K, R10K, etc.) This question is necessary in order to install the appropriate version of BMRT. NOTE: Virtually all the extra items to be installed are stored under /usr/local, the exception being some web pages installed in /var/www/htdocs, and a new version of .cshrc for the root user, plus some other definition files (/.jotrc, /.jotmacs, etc.) and an example desktop archive for root (/desktop.tar). IMPORTANT: some of the extra items rely on certain Freeware components such as tcl, tk, etc. in order to install correctly. Thus, I _strongly recommend_ that the August 2003 (or later) version of SGI Freeware is installed before running the script. If you're not sure which items to install to be certain of the script running correctly, then simply download all the freeware (or use my custom CD freeware split if you've obtained it from me) and use my product selections file within swmgr to install the appropriate components; use the Load Selections option from the File menu in swmgr to select the file part1of4selections.txt in the Selections/6.5 directory (a 64bit version of the file is included for users of systems running 64bit kernels) - the same selections files are included on the 1st freeware CD of my custom split. 3. The UNINSTALL Script ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ An UNINSTALL script is copied into /usr/local so that you can remove one, some or all Gift items at a later date if required. The script is copied and renamed with an added date stamp suffix matching this version of my Gifts CD, thus in theory allowing multiple versions of this CD to be used at the same time, though please note I have not yet tested this. After using the UNINSTALL script, if there are no Gift items left, then the script also removes itself and the remaining related files. However, the general top-level directories in /usr/local created by the INSTALL script are not removed; this is just in case you have installed further items separately. Also, the UNINSTALL script does not use wildcards, insuring that any extra files that have been manually installed into the general subdirectories are not removed. Note that the best way to update to a newer version of my Gifts CD is by running the UNINSTALL script in /usr/local or from the earlier Gifts CD, and then running the INSTALL script from the newer Gifts CD release. I do not recommend installing different items from multiple versions of my Gifts CD - I have not had the opportunity to test out how such mixing would work, and although I may modify the INSTALL script in a future release to support such mixing, this current release does not include anything to handle such a situation. It will probably work to a large extent, but I can't guarantee it. I welcome any feedback on this compilation, especially the use of the scripts. Cheers! :) Ian. SGI Depot: http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgidepot/ Email: mapesdhs@yahoo.com Tel: +44 (0)131 476 0796 Mobile: 07743 495403 (usually off; leave a message and I'll call back) CC all emails to: ian@sgidepot.co.uk and sgidepot@blueyonder.co.uk My Auctions: http://uk.four.ebid.net/perl/main.cgi?words=mapesdhs&mo=search&type=user Tired of eBay? Then try eBid! Safe, secure! Follow this link to register: http://uk.four.ebid.net/perl/normal.cgi?ref=mapesdhs&mo=register-main SGI/Future Technology/N64: http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/ Mirror (Holland): http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/ Mirror (USA): http://vintagecomputers.info/ ******************************************************************* Please see the file 'changelog.txt' for a list of changes since the previous version of this CD. 4. Detailed Index ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ dist/ This is a products index for SoftwareManager (swmgr) which contains links to almost all of the installable products on this CD, ie. items in 'inst' format. Thus, the Java2_Java3D, bin, blender, bmrt, Ayam3D, misc, mplayer, video, ppp and other directories (described below and listed above in reference to the INSTALL script) are not referenced by this index since these other items are either .tar.gz files or important caveats mean that including them in the main index is unwise. If you wish to install several of the items from this CD at the same time (eg. Cosmo3D, Java Dev Kit and GLUT), then the 'dist' directory is the one to use in swmgr, ie. use a source directory of: //dist Simply double-clicking on the CDROM icon should be sufficient for swmgr to read from the dist directory automatically. Note that the default selections made by swmgr will usually result in conflicts; it is best to use the 'Selected -> Unmark All' option to delesect all items before deciding what to install. To install individual products, just use an appropriate source directory as specified below, or deselect unwanted products from the overall list. Note that the Java2/Java3D items are not included in the dist software list because they're incompatible with CosmoCode - see the relevant notes below for details. If you install the Java2 items, you won't be able to use CosmoCode. If you want to install items not covered by the dist directory, either examine the contents of the directory of interest, or use the INSTALL script which will install most of the other items. See Section 0, Part B, for quick installation instructions. Ayam3D/ Ayam is a free 3D modeling environment for the RenderMan interface, with features including: RIB import/export, NURBS, Boxes, Quadrics, CSG, MetaBalls, Patch Meshes, Polygonal Meshes, Subdivision Surfaces, dynamically-loaded GUI-based parameter modifiers, tcl scripting, instancing, arbitrary number of modeling views, object clipboard, independent property clipboard, console, n-level undo. Use the INSTALL script to install Ayam3D. BaseChange/ When I first install IRIX onto a system, it is very convenient to be able to make a number changes immediately, such as turning off certain chkconfig flags, setting up a nice desktop, creating a better .cshrc file for root, etc. The BaseChange directory includes a script called RUN which performs these actions. I use an almost identical script for installing my own systems and it's incredibly useful, the only difference being the IP addresses given in the example hosts file. How to use: after a fresh 6.5 installation has been completed, login as root, insert this Gifts CD and then, once the icon shows the CD is ready, enter: cd /CDROM ./RUN After a pause, you will be logged out. Wait for at least ten seconds and then log back in again as root. A good desktop will be shown and Netscape will run up. If required, the 'setname' script can then be used to change the system host name - I use this for system testing, eg. to change the host name to 'o2': cd /CDROM ./setname o2 Using the setname script isn't essential though. All it does is change /etc/sys_id and then reboots. These scripts are merely very handy time savers. ChangeSysId/ This package allows one to temporarily change the system ID on an Indy, Indigo2, O2 or Octane. This can be very useful for transfering software licenses, testing, evaluation, etc. Full instructions are in the README file in the ChangeSysId directory. This package is not installed by the main INSTALL script. Cosmo3D/ Contains the products required to use (and develop) applications involving Cosmo3D software, eg. VRML-based authoring, OpenGL Optimizer, etc. If you want to work with VRML, then install and use these products after installing the Cosmo Suite software (that CD contains CosmoWorlds, CosmoPlayer, etc.) Here is a list of the products in this directory and the space used by each product in KBytes: Cosmo3D Debug Support 1.3 20292 Cosmo3D Development Environment 1.3 7104 Cosmo3D Execution Environment 1.3 9672 To install items from this product, use a source directory of //Cosmo3D. SGI has complete details about Cosmo3D on its web site. NB #!: the following are free permanent licenses for CosmoCode and CosmoWorlds. Add them to /var/flexlm/license.dat (copy and paste with the mouse). FEATURE cosmoworlds sgifd 1.000 01-jan-0 0 \ 3C16D11DF6120D788495 HOSTID=ANY \ vendor_info="COSMO WORLDS" \ ISSUER="Silicon Graphics, Inc." FEATURE CosmoCode sgifd 2.000 01-jan-0 0 \ 2C96712D8A7EE214AAF3 HOSTID=ANY \ vendor_info="COSMO CODE" \ ISSUER="Silicon Graphics, Inc." NB #2: after freshly installing a system, CosmoCode can give an error when run - this is probably because the latest Java JDK has not been installed. Make sure you install the latest SGI Java Development Kit from this CD too - see below for details. However, do not install any Java2 products if you want to use CosmoCode - Java2 is incompatible with CosmoCode. DualBoot/ This directory contains example script files one can use to setup a dual-boot SGI with IRIX 6.5 on one disk (0,1) and IRIX 5.3 on another (0,2). Edit the files to change their behaviour with respect to selected SCSI controllers, IDs, etc. Elite/ This is a newer version of Elite for UNIX systems by Christopher Pinder, called "Elite: The New Kind". It runs very well indeed! Careful, you could become addicted. :D Unfortunately, David Braben stopped Christopher from distributing this game after it was first made available for download, but thankfully a few sites still have it for download. Here is a list of the products in this directory and the space used by each product in KBytes: Elite-TNK 2408 allegro 4.1.9 4660 To install items from this product, use a source directory of //Elite. Games/ This directory includes various games for IRIX, none of which I've had a chance to experiment with yet, so feel free to try them out yourself! FastEthernet/ This directory contains driver files for the various 10/100 FastEthernet option cards available for earlier SGI systems, including the Phobos E100, G100, G130, G160 and the standard 3Com EISA 3c597. Drivers are included for IRIX 5.3, 6.2 and 6.5. For those who wish to use a standard 3Com 3c597, follow the instructions given in the README in the fehack directory. Jahshaka/ Jahshaka is a OpenGL accelerated video effects system. Extract the archive into /usr/local and then follow the instructions in the INSTALL file contained in the archive. JavaDevKit3.2/ SGI Java Development Kit 3.2 This directory contains the products which constitute the Java Development Kit for SGIs, ie. the Java Execution Environment 3.2 (SUN JRE 1.1.8) and the Java Development Environment 3.2 (SUN JDK 1.1.8). The Java RunTime plugin for IRIX is also included. Here is a list of the products in this directory and the space used by each product in KBytes: Java Development Environment 3.2 (Sun JDK 1.1.8) 41296 Java Execution Environment 3.2 (Sun JRE 1.1.8) 16492 Runtime Plug-in for Irix, Java(tm) Edition 1.1.1b 6180 To install items from this product, use a source directory of //JavaDevKit3.2 The directory also contains a compressed tar archive of the Java Foundation Classes (Swing components, etc.) If you want to install this, copy the file to disk, gunzip it, and uncompress into /usr/java, eg.: cp //JavaDevKit3.2/swing-1.1.1fcs.tar.gz /tmp cd /tmp gunzip swing-1.1.1fcs.tar.gz cd /usr/java tar -xvf /tmp/swing-1.1.1fcs.tar You will then need to set some environment variables to point to the class files. See the online Java docs for details. Java2_Java3D/ Java2 V1.4.0 based on Sun Java2 SDK V1.4 (including the appropriate runtime plugin for IRIX V1.2.2b) and Java3D based on Sun V1.1.3. This directory contains the products which constitute the Java2 and Java3D development environments for SGIs. If installed, then your system will have a Java2 environment, not ordinary Java. WARNING: CosmoCode will not work if these products are installed, though this side effect is not shown by swmgr, ie. Java2 is incompatible with any version of CosmoCode. Do not install Java2 if you want to continue using CosmoCode. For this reason, this directory has no convenience links from the dist directory. If you want more information on the CosmoCode issue, you'll need to read the release notes, or see SGI's web site. Unfortunately, the release notes are in the form of online web pages which can't be read until they're installed. Thus, to access the release notes without installing the Java2 execution environment (or other Java2/Java3D products), open up the "Java2 Execution Environment" from within swmgr and make sure the only item selected for installation is, "Java Documentation (HTML)"; also deselect all Java2 development items, Java3D items and the runtime V1.2.2 IRIX plugin. After installation the web page release notes, you can view the release notes for Java2 by entering this command: netscape /usr/java/webdocs/release.html If you decide not to install the Java2 products, then remove the "Java2 Documentation (HTML)" subsystem, ie. don't leave it installed, otherwise you'll have the wrong online release notes for ordinary Java! Here is a list of the products in this directory and the space used by each product in KBytes: Java2 v1.4.0 Development Environment (Sun Java2 SDK v1.4.0) 181144 Java2 v1.4.0 Execution Environment (Sun Java2 Runtime v1.4.0) 64088 Java3D (Sun 1.1.3) 7452 Runtime Plug-in for Irix, Java(tm) Edition 1.2.2b 1560 To install items from this product, use a source directory of: //Java2_Java3D LW/ This is version 5.5 of the Lightwave modeling and rendering package. It comes from the HotMix19 CD; someone wrote a crack so that the package would run unhindered. Install the software from the normal dist subdirectory on the Gifts CD. Once done, enter the following with the Gifts CD installed to run the crack on a MIPS4 system (any R5000, R10000 or later system): cd //LW ./RUN If you're using a MIPS3 system (any R4xxx systems) then enter this instead: cd //LW/mips3 ./RUN Now uncomment the two relevant lines in your .cshrc file, assuming your .cshrc file has been setup using the INSTALL script - if not, then these are the two lines to add to your .cshrc: # Lightwave 3D Settings setenv LIGHTWAVE /usr/lightwave/Bin set path=($path $LIGHTWAVE) Logout and log back in again for the changes to take effect. Although this is a rather old version of Lightwave, it can still be useful. The Gifts CD INSTALL script installs some online documentation for this package. LegoToolkit/ This is a 3D implementation of the popular lego building block system, written by Mark Hellegers. Installation instructions are in: cd //LegoToolkit/README MolecularInventor/ The release notes say (edited extract): "Molecular Inventor 1.1 Execution Environment is an extension of the Open Inventor Execution Environment which runs on IRIX 5.3 and IRIX 6.2 [or later]. It provides capabilities for viewing molecular structures within applications developed using the Molecular Inventor Development Kit and also within any Open Inventor-based application. This release of Molecular Inventor supports the Open Inventor 2.1.2 environment running on IRIX6.2. Most users do not have to concern themselves with the details of this subsystem; simply install the defaults to enable Molecular Inventor programs to run. The Molecular Inventor 1.1 Development Kit extends the capabilities of Open Inventor to more efficiently render objects encountered in molecular graphics. It greatly simplifies the programming required to build such applications. Included among its features are basic molecular rendering styles, selection mechanisms with automatic highlighting of the selected items, and the generation of isosurfaces and 3D contours. Currently it is geared towards the rendering of small molecules and allows for great control over various parameters of the rendering styles. In addition, much work has been focused on various selection mechanisms such as lassos, drag-rectangles and selection spheres. This release of Molecular Inventor requires IRIX 6.2 and OpenGL in addition to the Open Inventor Development Kit, version 2.1.2." Actually, Molecular Inventor also works with IRIX 6.5 and OpenInventor 2.1.5, installing just fine on my Indigo2 Extreme running 6.5.9m, and most of the examples compiled ok using MIPS Pro 7.3 (I've not tried using GCC). I've included some of the example binary files along with any required data files in the MolecularInventor/bin subdirectory. Note: in order to use GCC to compile the examples, the IRIX 6.5 Development Foundation compiler components must not be installed (more accurately, don't install anything that's specific to SGI's MIPS Pro compilers). Alternatively, locate SGI's base default headers definitions file and change the default C++ compiler from CC to gcc, or change the Makefiles so that they use GCC components only. The one example I had problems compiling was the babelViewer demo: there were a couple of unresolved text symbols. I was logged in as root and my root account doesn't have include/lib environment variables properly defined, so I'm sure the missing text symbols can be resolved if one wished to investigate further. However, the miApp program gives a good demonstration of what is possible with Molecular Inventor. Enter the following commands after installation: cd /usr/share/src/MolInventor/examples/miApp make After the compilation has finished, enter '/.miApp' (minus the quotes), load in the data file called azt.pdb, and explore the various menu options and Preferences panel. Remember: the key point about this product is that it provides libraries which enable one to create new molecular modeling applications, as opposed to actually being an application. Here is a list of the products in the MolecularInventor/dist subdirectory and the space used by each product in KBytes: Molecular Inventor Dev Kit, 1.1 18736 Molecular Inventor Execution Only Environment, 1.1 11232 To install items from this product, use a source directory of //MolecularInventor/dist. Note that if you observe installation conflicts after reading the dist subdirectory within swmgr, this is because the Dev Kit contains updates to parts of the Execution Environment (namely the Run-time products, though the Dev Kit doesn't call them that) - simply resolve any conflicts so that installed products are biased towards the Dev Kit, ie. select all of the Execution Only environment (open up the subsystem to see its contents), then select all of the Dev Kit (ignore the conflicts, just click on all items in the Dev Kit - as you do so, some items in the Execution Environment will be unselected and the conflicts will vanish). If you want to obtain Molecular Inventor more officially from SGI, contact the address given on the Downloads area of SGI's web site (software section). SGI will supply the source code for MolecularInventor with an official free license. Netscape4.8/ Contains V4.8 of the Netscape web browser. Not as reliable as Mozilla or Firefox, but useful nonetheless if one is doing something simple that can benefit from the better speed, eg. consulting locally stored web pages such as the InfoSearch system. Most of the time though, I would recommend Firefox since Netscape is very flakey on complicated or modern web pages. Pegamento/ Pegamento is a hardware accelerated image compositing application. It's also a Spanish word, which means "glue", and that is indeed the purpose of the application: To glue things in a canvas. The application is highly focused in hardware acceleration, not only for the interactive work, but also for (high-quality) final rendering. If you want a 100% software-based solution, this is not what you're looking for. The directory contains both MIPS3 and MIPS4 versions of the application. You can only install one of these versions, for obvious reasons. If your system is an R4000, R4400 or R4600 system, then install the MIPS3 version. If your system is an R5000, R8000, R10000, R12000 (etc.) system, then install the MIPS4 version. A copy of the Pegamento web site is included in the html subdirectory, complete with screen shots. Pegamento uses about 4.2MB of space once installed. See the web docs in the html subdir for full details of hardware/software prerequisities, product features, limitations and an example demonstration contained in the file desktop_demo.tar.gz RapidApp/ This is SGI's Rapid Application development GUI toolkit, allowing to quickly create a user interface for an application, after which the appropriate code modules can be linked in. RP8/ This is the IRIX version of RealPlayer8 for SGI systems. Install it by executing the binary install file in the RP8 directory: cd //RP8 ./rp8_irix_mips_65_cs1.bin And to set it up as a plugin for Netscape: cd /usr/local/RealPlayer8 cp rpnp.so raclass.zip /var/netscape/communicator/plugins32 I normally use Mozilla or Firefox though since they're much more reliable than Netscape now. NB: I use a dummy email address for the installation, eg. someone@somewhere.org, and I always uncheck the option to receive updates. Note that the installer is a bit slow at times when changing from one information panel to another, so be patient. You may wish to setup the plugins for Mozilla and FireFox too, if you're using those browsers. Lastly, remove the mime and plugin installation results files from the root directory (they're easy to spot since the file names are very long). Selections/ This directory contains a number of product selections files for use with Software Manager (swmgr) which allow one to install extra software (ie. items not installed by default) after a clean default installation of 6.2 or 6.5.x in a manner that is considerably easier than going through each CD one by one, choosing products manually. Assuming a clean installation of 6.2 or 6.5.x has been completed, copy the files from the appropriate subdirectory into /var/tmp and then load the files into swmgr from there. For example, for IRIX 6.2, insert the first base 6.2 OS CD (part 1 of 2) and then load the file 6.2base1of2.txt - the CD will be read automatically and then various extra items will be selected for installation. For IRIX 6.5, full instructions are in this README file: //Selections/6.5/README If you are using a system which has newer components, such as an R5200 O2, R12K Octane, or any system with VPro graphics, then it isn't possible to do a clean installation using the original June 1998 installations CDs, ie. the June 1998 CDs do not have any drivers for the later hardware components. Thus, an extra directory containing selections files for 6.5.26m is included to enable one to do a full installation of IRIX 6.5.26m onto such a system. Read the following file for complete instructions on how to carry out the installation and use the selections files: //Selections/6.5.26/README I use these selections files myself all the time; they save a huge amount of time and effort compared to installing extra software manually. The only other thing I do which cannot be replicated on a CD is copy the CDs to disk and change the selections files to install multiple items from disk, which is of course very fast. Other files are included for 6.5.22 (last release for Indigo, Indy, Indigo2, Onyx/Challenge, etc.) and 6.5.15 (included for legacy reasons). ShotMaker/ This is SGI's rewritten version of MovieMaker which has been optimised for uncompressed video. ShotMaker used to require a license, but SGI finally released a free license which is included on this CD in the Gifts subdirectory, but here it is for reference: FEATURE SHOTMAKER sgifd 1.000 01-jan-0 0 8D523EC13F12C3B65C47 \ HOSTID=ANY vendor_info="ShotMaker" SN=133659 \ ISSUER="Silicon Graphics, Inc." NOTICE="Courtesy" ck=77 Here is a list of the products in this directory and the space used by each product in KBytes: ShotMaker Version 1.1.1 5032 To install items from this product, use a source directory of //ShotMaker. Sudo/ From the README file in the archive, "Sudo is a program designed to allow a sysadmin to give limited root privileges to users and log root activity. The basic philosophy is to give as few privileges as possible but still allow people to get their work done." I used Sudo during my time at Salford University to allow non-root users to execute commands controlling the display properties of a CAVE system and RealityCentre. The commands had to be executed as root, but I obviously didn't want ordinary users to have root access. Sudo is the ideal solution to such problems. To use Sudo, extract the archive under /usr/local and then read the README and INSTALL files for product and installation information. Unsorted/ I inevitably obtain a vast number of items to add to this CD, but never have the time to check them all. Anything I have not yet had time to sort out is included in this directory. Included are some very useful tools such as a 3D modeling system called Wings which is very useful when used in conjunction with Blender, a 1600x1200 video format file for O2 systems, and many other things. Feel free to browse and explore at your leisure. Probably the main things of note at present are newer versions of Blender and Ayam3D which I've not yet had time to absorb into the general INSTALL script setup. VideoDrivers/ This directory contains base driver files for the various SGI video option boards, including IndyVideo, Indigo2Video, CosmoCompress (both Cosmo1 and Cosmo2), Galileo, IMPACT Video, Sirius Video, DIVO, Octane Compression, Octane Personal Video, etc. Most of these files were obtained from the German web site called, "Video Treiber Matrix". This has sadly gone now, but a copy of the home page is included as index.html - point Netscape to this local URL to read the file (it's an easy way to check which file is appropriate for which option board): file://VideoDrivers/index.html As a special extra, a ready-to-use distribution source of 6.5.15m drivers for Indigo2 systems with IMPACT Compression is included in the ic6.5.15 directory. This is for IMPACT Indigo2s running IRIX 6.5.15m only. If you are using such an Indigo2 and have just fitted an IMPACT Compression board, then enter the following to point swmgr to the appropriate drivers: swmgr -f //VideoDrivers/ic6.5.15/dist Once done, exit swmgr and then add the entries contained in ic6.5.15/cshrc_extra to your .cshrc file, then reboot the system. These alias commands allow one to use the IMPACT Compression board more easily using command line shortcuts for dmrecord and dmplay. NOTE: in the next major release of this CD, the ic6.5.15 directory will be replaced by equivalents files for 6.5.22 and 6.5.26. XV/ I discovered this inst-format release of XV on the Freeware 1.0 CD for IRIX 5.3. For some reason, XV is no longer a part of SGI's freeware distribution, perhaps because XV is actually shareware, not freeware. Either way, now you can properly install XV so that it shows up in swmgr's installed-software list. XV V3.10a has a different user interface to V3.00. V3.10a has more functions and new features, but I'm not quite so keen on the interface, eg. selecting which image format to save-as is a little awkward (it would be nice to be able to set a default format for multiple save operations). For doing some of things I like to use XV for (eg. browsing pixel RGB values, cropping images), I find V3.00 easier to use. However, V3.10a does support more image formats, and - most importantly for simply displaying images - V3.10a correctly shows 24bit images (V3.00 always dithers 24bit images to 8bit by default). Both versions are especially good at dealing with converting images to Postcript for printing though - the GUI interface in the Postcript panel is excellent. Here is a list of the products in this directory and the space used by each product in KBytes: XV 3.10a 12108 The software includes release notes (as a web page), but if you want to read them before installation then enter this command: netscape //XV/xv.html Note: Be careful when loading large images. XV defaults to shrinking such images so that they fit on the screen. If you then do a save operation, you'll save the shrunken version. Tick the 'Normal Size' box in the Save panel if you want to retain the original image size. An obvious way of telling if you've saved a shrunken version by mistake is if you've loaded a large image, but saving the image seemed very fast. :) To install items from this product, use a source directory of: //XV bin/ Some useful shell scripts and other commands/applications. Copy all these to /usr/local/bin and make sure that directory is in your path definition (or use the INSTALL script). Enter the following for full details: netscape //webdocs/sw2.html blender/ Blender is a sophisticated tool for rendering and animation, akin to more familiar programs such as Maya, SoftImage, LightWave and 3D StudioMax. However, Blender is completely free! The Blender manuals, tutorials and examples are included. Further information and updates can be obtained from the Blender Home Page (www.blender.com). Blender is certainly nowhere near as sophisticated as something like Maya (which was used to do Phantom Menace), but the fact that Blender is free makes it a useful tool. There are, however, certain advanced features which require a license code to unlock, but one can still do a lot of work without these features. NaN, the company responsible for Blender, makes its money by selling a full-colour 350-page high-quality printed manual for the package for about $50 - if you want to get the best out of Blender, you need to get the manual. NOTE: since Blender is not some simple quick and dirty hacking package, don't expect to be creating studio-quality work in 5 minutes. Like any high-quality animation tool set, it will take a while to get used to the main features, menus, key shortcuts, etc. and longer to learn the advanced features, especially when used in combination. Packages like Blender are best used with systems which have at least 24bit colour and either hardware-accelerated graphics or a fast main CPU. Blender can output in Inventor format, which can then be used as an input to BMRT. Lastly, this CD continues to install V2.44 because it still has the best performance for rendering. V2.48 is included in the Unsorted directory, which supports up to 64 threads, but it is 11% slower than V2.44 in terms of efficiency of CPU usage for rendering. bmrt/ BMRT (Blue Moon Rendering Tools) is a suite of programs for performing extremely high-quality rendering of scenes, based on the RenderMan interface. BMRT was created by Larry I. Gritz who used to work at Pixar (makers ofToy Story); Larry now works for Exluna, a graphics software company which he co-founded. BMRT uses advanced effects such as diffuse/ambient/specular/etc. lighting, shadows, fog, mist, smoke, ray tracing, radiosity, motion blur, environment mapping, bump mapping, texturing, and many other features. Also included are tools for creating inbetween image frames that can be used to create a movie animation, or used in other projects. BMRT has been used in the production of a number of major films, eg. The Hollow Man. Unfortunately, NVIDIA and another company brought legal action to prevent the continued development of BMRT so it is now no longer available. However, the hobbyist community continues to use it with gusto. books/ This directory contains a number of online books in PDF format. You will need Adobe Acrobat in order to view the documents (on IRIX systems the relevant command is 'acroread'). Included are various system owners guides and upgrade/installation guides. These have been downloaded from techpubs.sgi.com and should be useful for learning more about a system, planning upgrades, etc. I shall add more guides later. To install these guides, just copy them to somewhere like /usr/local/doc, or use the INSTALL script. I would normally then add links to them from my customised system home page, /var/www/htdocs/index.html. Or one could do nothing and just read them from the CDROM as and when required, or perhaps print out just the required items. Note that the Indigo2 IMPACT Owners Guide would, if printed on one-sided A4, need a large binder to hold the 380 pages of the guide. If you print any of these books, use double-sided printing if possible. ccwrap/ A handy script to filter out the error message given when running the MIPS Pro Compiler. The compiler always runs even without a license (it just spits out an error message) so this is a convenient way to silence the errors. Full details in the cc-wrap.txt file (copy the archive to disk, gunzip and enter 'tar -xvf cc-wrap.tar' to extract the shell script and instructions file). divx/ A DivX player for IRIX. It hasn't been developed as much as mplayer has though, so you'll probably have much more success using mplayer. However, I've included it anyway. If you want to install it, copy the archive to disk, gunzip and tar extract with -xvf, then remove the tar file; alternatively, use the INSTALL script. The .cshrc file installed by the INSTALL script does already include an entry for /usr/local/divx in the path definition though, so if you do install it then the software will be ready to use. Note that you may need to change the shortcut 'divx' link in the directory depending on whether or not your system has hardware acceleration available. Any system with hardware texture mapping can use the .gl version. By default, divx points to the accelerated version. If you have an older system such as an Indy or XL/XZ/Elan/Extreme Indigo2, then enter these commands to change the link to point to the software version: cd /usr/local/divx rm divx ln -s irixdivx.soft divx If you also install the base files from the INSTALL script, the custom home page has a link to full details on this divx player. doom/ This directory contains files for Doom, Doom II and Ultimate Doom on SGI systems (full versions), plus some add-on levels. Use tar or cp commands to install these files, or use my INSTALL script which will give useful links to the various Doom information files on the system home page. The files take up a total of 55MB of space. glut/ OpenGL development libraries for advanced OpenGL development. For example, SGI's OpenGL Volumizer product (see the 3rd Gifts CD) requires the GLUT libraries to be installed if one wants to compile the demos provided in source code form. The OpenGL Development Environment provides enough material for basic OpenGL development, but some may wish to use the higher-level GLUT libraries to make life easier, just as SGI has done with Volumizer. Here is a list of the products in the dist subdirectory and the space used by each product in KBytes: OpenGL Utility Toolkit (GLUT) 3.6 7324 To install items from this product, use a source directory of //glut/dist. Note that the dist subdirectory contains the GLUT V3.6 distribution. If you want V3.7, then you'll need to unpack and compile the glut-3.7.tar.gz archive. The GLX libraries have been included to aid such a task, as well as V3.7 of the GLUT data files. The file glut-3.spec.ps.gz is a Postcript document describing the GLUT specification (uncompress using gunzip and then use something like xpsview or ghostview to view the document). imglab/ ImgLab is an image processing tool built on top of SGI's ImageVision Library (IL). It provides a graphical user interface to much of the functionality and performance built into the IL. This distribution contains ImgLab 2.12, which is an update to ImgLab 2.0 that is distributed with SGI's IL3.0. ImgLab was designed as an inhouse tool for image processing at MeVis - Center for Medical Diagnostic Systems and Visualization. Its intuitive graphical user interface has turned the IL programming environment into an easy-to-use image processing system. One must have the ImageVision library installed in order to run ImgLab. Version 2.12 requires ImageVision 3.0, no earlier release of the ImageVision will suffice, and the IL3.1.1 that comes with IRIX 6.3 (or later) is also not compatible with ImgLab 2.12. I have later versions of ImgLab given to me by MeVis, but they are not public domain and so cannot be included here. Here is a list of the products in the dist subdirectory and the space used by each product in KBytes: ImgLab 17452 To install items from this product, use a source directory of //imglab misc/ cshrc - my custom cshrc resource file for the root user. It's awesome!! I have included many very useful alias commands, plus definitions for many freeware/share applications are already included, ie. library paths, bin directory sources, environment variables, etc. My own cshrc is very similar to this; my file just has many more alias commands that are specific to my own Octane's file system. This file is installed in place of the existing /.cshrc file by the INSTALL script; the original .cshrc is preserved by being renamed to .cshrc.orig. space.tar.gz - the SGI Space Simulator demo from IRIX 6.2. It also works fine under IRIX 6.5, but for reasons unknown the demo was removed for the 6.5 release, so here it is once again. Copy the file somewhere else such as /tmp, gunzip the file and run 'tar -xvf' on the resulting space.tar archive. The files will be extracted into /usr/demos/data/space. Note that I've slightly changed the contents of the space directory so that it's easier to run the demo: in the original, the space executable was in /usr/demos/bin, but I've moved it into the /usr/demos/data/space directory. Also included is a 'RUN' file which uses the -f option to set the directory containing the data files. Thus, to run the demo, just execute the 'RUN' script. lynx-2.7.1.tar.gz - Lynx text-only web browser. I use this as a compilation speed test. Included just in case you happen to have a CPU/system combination I've not tested yet. If you do, please send in your compilation speed test results; see: http://www.futuretech.vuurwerk.nl/perfcomp.html#INT8 S59delnslock - if you're tired of Netscape moaning about a lock file after logging on following a fresh bootup, then copy this into the /etc/rc2.d directory. The script simply removes any existing lock file from root's Netscape directory. You could always customise it to act on a normal user's netscape directory too, eg. add a script to remove any lock from any user's Netscape directory listed in /etc/passwd. desktops - a directory containing a couple of example nice desktop archives for use with systems that have a full installation plus Maya, SoftImage, etc. index.html.mayasi - a version of the custom home page which includes links to online information for those systems which also have Maya and/or SoftImage installed. Links to SoftWindows95 online info are also included. system.4Dwmrc-sw95 - if you install SoftWindows95, after initial execution the SW95 setup alters the 4Dwmrc file in a way which breaks the Alt+TAB window switching functionality (only available when click focus is in use). If you wish to retain this functionality, then copy this modified version of the file into /usr/lib/X11 to undo what SW95 does, ie. enter as root: cp system.4Dwmrc-sw95 /usr/lib/X11/system.4Dwmrc del*.txt - Information and product selections files for freeing up disk space on a system which has a _full_ installation as typically done by me. The delinfo.txt file contains instructions for use. These files are copied to /usr/local/doc/swmgr by the INSTALL script, and a link is available from the custom home page. Various other files are included. These are used by the INSTALL script. mplayer/ A version of the mplayer movie playback tool which has been optimised for MIPS4 systems, but also includes files for MIPS3 systems. This version of mplayer runs very well indeed on a decent SGI, eg. an R12K/400 Octane VPro system can easily play back full-size/rate PAL DivX movie files, though note that many of the optimisations are specific to VPro graphics boards, ie. it's nothing like as fast if run on an MGRAS system (eg. MXI). The Nekoware now has a newer version of mplayer, but I'll keep this old version as it should be useful for those who are unable to download the huge Nekoware distribution. patch5086/ For full details, see the file README.patch.5086 in the directory, but here's an extract: This patch contains the IRIX 6.5.21 versions of the installation tools inst, swmgr, showfiles and showprods. Therefore, IRIX 6.5.21 itself will replace this patch. If you are using the "live installation" method to upgrade from any 6.5-based release prior to 6.5.21 to another from 6.5.21 onwards, you must first install this patch to enable inst to handle certain additions to the format of the distribution images. If you have 6.5.21 installed on your system, the required changes are already contained in inst. ppp/ This is a copy of the SLIP/PPP documentation from Scott Henry of SGI, and also the excellent page written by my friend Jonathan Mortimer, which explains how to configure PPP for IRIX 6.2 and 6.5 (Jonathan's pages include descriptions and pictures on how to make the right modem cable, example settings for a popular model of modem, etc.) IRIX 6.5 has a GUI manager for configuring PPP, but Jonathan's information should still be useful, especially the details on how to make an appropriate modem cable. To access the pages, enter: netscape //ppp/dialup-support.html or use the INSTALL script to install them under /var/www/htdocs, in which case a link from the local system home page is made available; enter this as a URL in Netscape: http://localhost/ src/ Source code for the miscellaneous C programs described in the 'bin' section above. Might be useful for beginner programmers. I use a clear style for C programming, and the programs do include some good examples of error checking and string manipulation. video/ A collection of extra freeware tools for video processing, including: MJPEG Tools 1.6.1.90 (timo) 4.5MB ffmpeg 20040222 4.7MB libdvbpsi3 0.1.4000 292K libdvdcss-1.2.8 libdvdplay-1.0.1 libdvdread-20030812 776K libmad 0.15.0b 284K mpeg2dec 0.4.0 448K vlc 0.7.1 8.2MB Note that the Nekoware collection has newer versions of some of these items. Included here to help those who are unable to download the large Nekoware archive. webdocs/ These files are installed into /var/www/htdocs and /usr/local/doc by the INSTALL script. 5. Known Problems and Workarounds ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Problem: Installing the same item from different versions of the GIfts CD is not detected by the INSTALL script (yet), so doing such a thing could cause problems. It might work ok, but I've never tested it. In general, it's better to update completely from one version of my Gifts CD to the next, by removing the old Gifts data using the earlier UNINSTALL. script and then installing the new CD. However, installing different items from different versions of my Gifts CD will probably work ok, especially since now the UNINSTALL script is named based on the CD date stamp. 6. Appendix A: Tips on manually installing items using tar ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Obviously, the man page for tar is the main source of information, but here are a few useful tips for using tar: The 'tar -tvf' command can be used to view a tar file's contents without extracting the archive. This is useful for seeing where files are going to be placed. The -R option can be used to remove leading / signs from directory paths. Thus, for example, one could install the SGI Space Demo somewhere other than /usr/demos/data/space. A convenient method for copying a file or directory is: tar cvBpf - item | (cd /target_directory; tar xBpf -) where 'item' is the source file or directory (or just '.' for current directory contents), and target_directory is the destination, whether that is /tmp or somewhere deeper in the file tree such as /usr/people/guest. 'item' can of course include wildcards, or more than one item can be listed. This command sequence is very useful since the double-use of tar ensures all file ownerships, date stamps and file permissions are retained (the 'cp -r' command does not do this). Note that the tc and tt script commands included with this Gifts CD can be used to abbreviate the above command sequence, but be careful how you use them - remember which is which! END