From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (cthulhu.engr.sgi.com [192.26.80.2]) by neteng.engr.sgi.com (980427.SGI.8.8.8/970903.SGI.AUTOCF) via ESMTP id QAA82268 for ; Fri, 26 Mar 1999 16:51:41 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: Received: (from majordomo-owner@localhost) by cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (980427.SGI.8.8.8/970903.SGI.AUTOCF) id QAA63978 for linux-list; Fri, 26 Mar 1999 16:50:47 -0800 (PST) mail_from (owner-linux@relay.engr.sgi.com) Received: from sgi.com (sgi.engr.sgi.com [192.26.80.37]) by cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (980427.SGI.8.8.8/970903.SGI.AUTOCF) via ESMTP id QAA72497 for ; Fri, 26 Mar 1999 16:50:45 -0800 (PST) mail_from (tau@cubicsky.com) Received: from kotetsu.cubicsky.com (kotetsu.cubicsky.com [208.207.21.114]) by sgi.com (980327.SGI.8.8.8-aspam/980304.SGI-aspam: SGI does not authorize the use of its proprietary systems or networks for unsolicited or bulk email from the Internet.) via ESMTP id QAA01299 for ; Fri, 26 Mar 1999 16:50:39 -0800 (PST) mail_from (tau@cubicsky.com) Received: from cubicsky.com (jade.vlan1.cubicsky.com [192.168.1.3]) by kotetsu.cubicsky.com (8.9.2/8.9.2) with ESMTP id TAA34316 for ; Fri, 26 Mar 1999 19:53:50 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from tau@cubicsky.com) Message-ID: <36FC549B.3FF6607D@cubicsky.com> Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 19:46:35 -0800 From: Steve Martin Organization: Axial X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; I; IRIX 6.5 IP22) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: linux@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com Subject: Re: Port to R3000 Indigo References: <36FBEFA3.A6ADB8F0@norden1.com> <9903261648250V.04692@vulture> <36FC3841.71061373@hol.gr> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-linux@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com Precedence: bulk Theodoros Nikitopoulos wrote: > tom wrote: > > > And I know a group at KSC that's getting rid of a bunch of O2s. We'd love to > > grab them and make a nice little Beowulf cluster out of them :-). > > Unfortunately, we don't have the time at work to do a port :-( > > > > On Fri, 26 Mar 1999, Jeremy Parsons wrote: > > ? I think it would be very relevant. My company recently sold around 30 > > ? of the R3000 Indigo's. Just about every person who bought one of these > > ? was interested in the SGI/Linux project and wanted to know if they would > > ? some day be able to run Linux on it. > > ? > > ? Jeremy Parsons > > -- > > > I have a feeling that someone hasn't any chance to port Linux in the O2 or > Indigo2 platform unless Sillicon Graphics wants too. In other words, by > giving a great deal of information in public for building the appropriate > drivers. Am I wrong about it ? Well, regading the O2, several things come into factor if they were to release info: 1) They still support IRIX on the O2, and are still making money off of that. People that might get a new IRIX release or dev tools in the future might start using linux which would cost them money, and right now SGI can't afford to lose any money at all. 2) The O2 is still relatively new technology. The software algorithms behind the display mechanisms and such to support UMA and the various specialized components of the O2 are points of innovative technology, releasing source(or even detailed information about the processes used) to the public might not be a wise thing to do. 3) Linux could surpass IRIX on the O2 easily, because the IRIX implementation on the O2 is *crap*(relative to what I've seen on previous machines such as the Indy, Indigo2, Crimson, Indigo, etc..). It has more bugs regarding the graphics than I've seen since Windows 95 was first released. I ended up spending half my time trying to avoid getting kernel panics(note that in 6.3 things were bad, but in 6.5 things were better, although I had some problems with it and certain OpenGL applications. (I had posted about the bug with a picture and such in comp.sys.sgi.bugs a while back as well. An image of the screen is at http://www.cubicsky.com/~tau/_o2bug.jpeg). That was with running mere apps from the glut demo collection. I also noticed some considerable problems with 1600x1200@60hz(I wrote a vfo for that) although that is unsupported by SGI, and I can see why. Overall, I think Linux on the O2 would be a great thing, yet I wonder if it would be a wise business decision for SGI to support that at this time. I suppose that the O2 is a previous generation machine, but then I look at the VisualPC and see no real "workstation-calibur" software(regarding Windows NT), so perhaps the O2 is the newest low-end "true workstation" by SGI, and thus SGI may not want to release info on that. We could always run the IRIX kernel and all the graphics stuff through a dissassembler... :) ----Linux unrelated-- One unrelated sidenote that is a bug I've noticed both on the O2 and Indigo2(Elan). This is something you should try, run an app that uses glPixelZoom(such as "resolution" which is one of the things included with glut-3.7(I think)). Move the window to off the screen(but still showing some of the window area). Increase the zoom, and notice that the window goes blank(or displays multiple copies of the viewport within) on the Indigo2, or fills up the window with lots of trash on the O2. Is this a well known bug? (basically a problem with clipped glPixelZoom operations) ------------------ > > > By the way, SGI has officialy report to support Linux on visual > workstations. Any ideas if they will also transfer the desktop enviroment > commonly used in IRIX ? This seems to me very likely, in regards of > providing a common user interface both in IRIX based systems and Linux > based systems provided by SGI. That could be a great benefeat of the Linux > community.. > > Personally I haven't find any Linux user interface more nicely crafted > than SGI's 4DWM. Well, you could always try a gtk theme with gnome, and a 4Dwm enlightenment theme. I've wanted to see that, make all my PCs look like the Indigo Magic environment(hehe). I agree 4Dwm&Indigo Magic are pretty much the best there is, very innovative(introduced many things unseen as well thought out as they were in this before). Too bad I haven't seen much in that respect lately from SGI... (whatever happened to doing innovative things that changed computing like they used to?). I had given a guy on irc(efnet) some snapshots of some 4Dwm things as well as some desktop shots, because he was interested in doing an enlightenment theme to make his PCs look like 4Dwm, perhaps that'll happen. > > > Theodore . .. Steve Martin