SGI Freeware, Part 1 of 2
May 2001 Release
Compiled by Ian Mapleson (mapesdhs@yahoo.com)
Last Change: 28/Jan/2004
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/cdromstuff/dist).
[if you want to use the CDR selections files from this CD, see Appendix A]
Summary Contents of this CD:
Item Description
^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^
README This file you're reading now.
bin Extras for using CDR tools.
cdrbase.txt Selections file for basic CDR and ZIP tools.
cdrfull.txt Selections file for full CDR and ZIP tools.
dist Installable products which constitute Part 1
of the May 2001 SGI Freeware release.
html HTML pages describing all freeware items.
part1of2selections.txt Product selections file to aid installation.
part1of2selections64.txt Product selections file for 64bit systems.
productindex.txt Summary of items included with Part 1, given
as short product name and product title.
mysql_notes.txt Notes to read after installing mySQL.
samba_notes.txt Notes to read after installing Samba.
spiral.aifc Sound file used by CDR tools scripts.
Details
^^^^^^^
This CD is Part 1 of the May 2001 freeware software
distribution for SGI systems (IRIX 6.2 or later). To install any
of the freeware products, use a source directory of:
//dist
or you can specify one particular product, eg. nedit:
//dist/fw_nedit
IRIX 6.5 allows one to specify multiple specific products, eg.
nedit and PovRay:
//dist/fw_nedit //dist/fw_povray
The May 2001 release of freeware totals approximately 1.3GB
of data, ie. far too much to fit on a single CD. Thus, I've
split the freeware into two parts. Part 1 includes all those
items which the vast majority of users will be interested in,
for example (and this is only a tiny selection from the 178
products included in Part 1):
GNU - C/C++ compiler development environment
GIMP - General Image Manipulation Program
xanim - multiformat animation/video/audio viewer/player
PovRay - Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer
cdrecord - record audio or data CDs
ImageMagick - X11 image display/manipulation
xmorph - image morphing program
nedit - GUI style editor
Xfig - Drawing Program
a2ps - Pretty-print files in postscript
abi - gtk+/gnome word processor
fr - FileRunner file manager
sc - Spreadsheet Calculator
R - Statistical computation & graphics
Part 2 includes those items which will likely be of less interest,
eg. YACC, GNOME, Apache, Pine, etc. Note that all the main GNOME
items are on the Part 2 CD.
Apache is not included in Part 1 since most users are unlikely
to want to setup their own web server (besides, IRIX include
servers such as FastTrack and outbox anyway). The items chosen
to be included in Part 1 were selected to reflect the likely
interests of home users, and/or those interested in
audio/image/video/3D graphics, other media applications
(rendering/animation) and application development in general
(GNU), plus a degree of home management, (spread sheet,
database, calender/reminder tool, Postcript tools, web tools, 2D
data plotting tools, etc.) and research support (geometry
visualisation tools, statistical computation/analysis, arbitrary
precision calculations, GNU Scientific Library, etc.)
Some of the items from Part 1 may not at first sight appear to
be of much interest (eg. tiff-v3.4beta037, Utah Raster Toolkit,
etc.), but other items like ImageMagick and GIMP depend on them
and so they must be included with Part 1. Thus, it is highly
likely that if no items have been installed from Part 1, then
trying to install items from Part 2 first will report conflicts,
ie. many Part 2 items cannot be installed until some of the
items from Part 1 have been installed first. Alternatively, open
both distributions to resolve conflicts (not possible with IRIX
6.2; definitely ok with IRIX 6.5 though), or copy all the
products from both CDs into a single distribution directory.
For Part 1 Freeware items, a software subsystem selections file
is included (part1of2selections.txt) which removes the need to
manually resolve installation conflicts before beginning an
installation. The file assumes that the path of the target
CDROM is /CDROM, such that the distribution directory would be
/CDROM/dist.
Note that if you're using a 64bit system such as R8000/R10000
Indigo2, Octane, Onyx/Challenge/etc., then there is a different
product selections file which also includes all relevant 64bit
subsystems, called part1of2selections64.txt. The instructions
below refer to the normal selections file; if you're using a
64bit system, then use the 64bit selections file instead.
If your distribution directory is indeed just the normal
/CDROM/dist, then simply read the CD in swmgr as normal,
deselect all items, load the selections file and procede from
there. However, if the target CDROM is elsewhere, or if the
distribution files have been copied to a different location,
then follow this procedure:
- Copy the selections file part1of2selections.txt into /tmp
- Using an editor such as jot:
jot /tmp/part1of2selections.txt
Change '/CDROM/dist' at the start of file to the correct path
name and save the file. For example, the line might now read:
from /CDROM2/dist
or the CDROM contents might be on an NFS mounted file system,
resulting in a different source path (this is just an example):
from /depot/fwMay2001/cd1/dist
- Run swmgr (Software Manager) from a shell or from the ToolChest.
- Read the products list into swmgr from the new target
directory, deselect all items (press CTRL+U), load the
selections file from /tmp and proceed as normal. If you run
swmgr from a shell, you can specify the software distribution
directory on the command line using the -f option.
Note that reading the selections file can take a very long time
on IRIX 6.2 systems - the process is not very efficient for some
unknown reason. Sometimes it takes several minutes. IRIX 6.5 deals
with selections files much faster (presumably, SGI changed how
swmgr deals with selections files at some stage).
You are now ready to begin the installation - click on 'Start'.
If any conflicts are still shown, resolve them in the normal
manner; some freeware items will give conflicts if SGI products
they depend on have not yet been installed, eg. items from the
Development Libraries CD (see 'NOTES' below).
The amount of disk space used by installing Part 1 based on the
normal selections file is approximately 650MB (an extra 120MB on a
64bit system). If you do not have enough disk space to install all
the selected items, the disk usage pie chart in swmgr will turn
red, and will indicate the amount of extra space required - you can
then deselect any items you don't want in order to fit into the
available space. Be careful which items you deselect though
since some are required by other products. If deselecting an
item creates a conflict, reselect it again (and if that creates
a conflict, then just unselect all and reload the selections
file once more).
Part 2 of the Freeware does not include a selections file since
most users will likely just want to install a handful of items
from Part 2, compared to installing just about everything from
Part 1 (assuming there's enough spare disk space).
See the file //productindex.txt for a complete list of
all software subsystems included with Part 1. An HTML index to
_all_ of the freeware products that constitute the May 2001
release can be found in the subdirectory named 'html'. This
index is included on both Freeware CDs so that one can see,
after examining productindex.txt, which items are on the other
CD without having to switch CDs. To access the html pages, enter
this command:
netscape file://html/
and then just click on the desired item given in the directory
listing.
The actual installation will take a very long time to complete
on something like an R4600PC/133 Indy since there are dozens of
software products to install. If you can, install a better CPU to
help speed up the installation (having some L2 cache makes a big
difference), and if a better CPU is present then using a faster
CDROM also helps (copying the data to disk or installing across
a 100Mbit network link is also a good move if possible).
NOTES:
- The selections file includes extra items from certain
subsystems which one would normally wish to install if one
knew they were present, eg. the optional fonts and brushes
for GIMP. This saves the need to install them later. In
general, everything from every product is selected for
installation apart from source code, archive libraries and
static/benchmark libraries.
- Before installing any freeware items, always install the
following CDs first:
- IRIX Development Libraries
- IRIX Development Foundation
- MIPS Pro All-Compiler CD (May 1999)
This ensures that any prerequisite subsystems have already
been installed.
- Make sure all N32 libraries are installed, especially the
IRIX Base Execution Libraries N32. Many products depend on them.
- It is common for people to remove Fortran products because
few people need them. However, some of the freeware products
need the Fortran Execution environment. Thus, even if you
remove any Fortran development components, do not remove the
Fortran Execution products. For example, the 'R' statistical
analysis package needs them.
- The installation can take a long time, especially on a slow
system. This is because Part 1 contains 178 different
software packages, ie. alot of data to install.
- During installation, some products attempt to alter the
/usr/freeware/relnotes directory in an incorrect manner.
When this happens, swmgr will report an error and give you
the following options:
- Retry the operation,
- Cancel the installation,
- Ignore the error and continue.
Thus, when you see these errors, select ignore and continue.
At the end of the installation, swmgr will report a summary
saying that errors occured during installation - just ignore
this message.
- After the installation has completed, some packages may
require further configuration, eg. Samba and mySQL. Extra
chkconfig flags will be installed, the states of which you
may wish to change before continuing, eg. the network time
protocol daemon (ntp), sharity and samba. In the cases of
Samba and mySQL, notes are placed in the swmgr log, but most
users will not have the log panel visible when using swmgr,
so they won't see the notes. Thus, I have included copies of
these notes in the files samba_notes.txt and mysql_notes.txt
- please read them after the installation has finished if you
install Samba and/or MySQL, even if your intention is merely
to turn off the samba service and disable mySQL (the latter
requires the setting of an access password for security reasons).
- If you're not sure whether you really should install a
particular product you're interested in, perhaps because of
security reasons, then a safer method is to only install the
release notes and documentation for a product. Then you can
read the documentation and decide what to do next.
If you have any questions about this freeware CD I have
constructed, feel free to email me. However, if you have
questions about specific freeware products and their use,
please email the authors concerned, not me.
Cheers! :)
Ian.
SGI Depot: http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/advert/ian.html
Email: mapesdhs@yahoo.com
Home: +44 (0)131 477 1142
Mobile: 07743 495403 (usually off; leave a message and I'll call back)
SGI/Future Technology/N64: http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/
Doom Help Service (DHS): http://www.gamers.org/dhs/
BSc Dissertation (Doom): http://www.gamers.org/dhs/diss/
*************************************************************************
Appendix A: CDR Authoring Tools
Introduction
^^^^^^^^^^^^
The SGI Freeware includes some useful tools for CDR authoring. For
basic essential functionality, these consist of command line tools
such as cdrecord and mkisofs. Other tools are also present to provide
a GUI interface to these tools and to aid the creation of CD label
inserts.
To aid installation, use the appropriate product selections file,
either cdrbase.txt or cdrfull.txt. The 'base' file selects cdrecord,
mkisofs, mkhybrid, zip and unzip for installation. The 'full' file
selects the same products as the 'base' file, but in addition also
selects gcombust (the GUI interface to cdrecord and other tools),
cdlabelgen and various prerequisite libraries (glib, gtk+ and perl).
Basic functionality for CD authoring can be done with the 'base'
selections of products; however, I recommend installing the 'full'
selection, especially if you intend to author any audio CDs. This
is because although it's easy to create ordinary data CDs with
cdrecord, I find it much more convenient to use gcombust when creating
audio or other types of CD, especially if one intends to extract data
from an existing audio CD.
Installation
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Double-click on the CDROM icon. Dismiss the README file, allow any
CD reading to occur, then click on Customise Installation. From the
'Selected' menu, click on 'Unmark All'. From the 'File' menu, select
'Load Selections'. Use the file browser to choose either cdrbase.txt
or cdrfull.txt and then click on OK. The data may be read from the
CD again. Now click on Start to begin installation.
After installation, errors may be reported but these can be ignored.
They refer to something perl is trying to do during installation.
I have included some extra items on this CD to make using the command
line tools even easier. To install them, do the following:
Create a 'src' directory under /usr/local (if it does not already
exist):
mkdir /usr/local/src
Copy the sound file into the directory:
cp /CDROM/spiral.aifc /usr/local/src
Create a 'bin' directory under /usr/local (if it does not already
exist):
mkdir /usr/local/bin
Copy the files from the CD's bin directory (note that these scripts
are designed for CDRW units which can write at either 8X or 16X speed;
you MUST edit them if you wish to write CDs at some other speed):
cp /CDROM/bin/* /usr/local/bin
Edit your .cshrc file to include the following alias command:
alias mk 'mkisofs -hide-rr-moved -R -o'
Also edit your .cshrc file to ensure the /usr/local/bin path is
included in the user path defintion. For example, add this line
at the end of the file:
set path = ($path /usr/local/bin)
Logout and log back in again. You are now ready to use the tools
and extras.
Usage
^^^^^
Feel free to examine the scripts I have provided. Their purpose
is to save you having to manually type the typical options one must
include in order to use cdrecord or mkisofs. Thus, for example,
here is how to use the scripts to create a typical data CD. This
assumes that you have a CDRW unit on SCSI channel 0 at SCSI ID 3,
for example an internal unit for Indigo2, which can write CDs at
8X speed, eg. a Yamaha 8/8/24 model.
Suppose there is a directory under /var/tmp called 'project' which
contains various files. To create the CD image file, enter:
cd /var/tmp
mk project.raw project
The file name of the image file can be anything. I normally just
add '.raw'. The important point is that the name of the raw CD image
file to be created comes first and the name of the target directory
containing the files is specified comes second.
NOTE: in this example, when the CD is written, the contents of the
finished CD will *not* contain a directory called 'project', ie.
listing /CDROM will just show the files inside the project directory.
If one wanted to create a CD which did show a top level subdirectory
instead, then move the target directory into some temporary directory
and then create an image file from the temporary directory. I usually
just create a directory called 't', eg.:
mkdir t
mv project t
mk project.raw t
Either way, to write the CD, do this:
cdr project.raw
And that's it! The cdr script, which is designed to write at 8X
speed, will write the CD, then play a sound file when finished
and lastly eject the CD automatically. When using these commands,
remember the use of the TAB key to fill in file names automatically,
though you must be using the tcsh (as defined in /etc/passwd) in
order to use the TAB key in this way.
If your CD can write at 16X speed, then use the cdrf script instead -
the 'f' just stands for 'fast'. Alternatively, just edit the 'cdr'
script so that it writes at a different speed. However, please note
that writing at 16X speed is very close to the maximum performance
of the internal SCSI bus. I recommend deactivating the system web
server if you wish to write at 16X speed, and make sure any other
CPU-draining applications are also closed, eg. the desktop clock
program. To stop the web server, enter:
/etc/init.d/sgi_apache stop
If you intend to deal with audio CDs, I recommend using gcombust
instead. Read the online help to learn how to use the application.
Lastly, I have included two scripts for erasing a CD. These are
both designed to erase (ie. rewrite) at 8X speed - edit the scripts
if your rewrite speed is different, or if other options such as the
target SCSI channel/ID need to be changed. To fully erase a CD, enter:
cdba
This stands for 'CD Blank All'. Examine the script to see what it
does. As with the cdr scripts, the CD will be ejected once the
erasure has finished.
To do a quick CD erase, ie. just to wipe the basic structures (which
is often sufficient), enter:
cdbf
This stands for 'CD Blank Fast'. See the cdrecord man page for
full details of the options used by the scripts:
man -M /usr/freeware/catman cdrecord
Full details of these scripts can be found on my site at:
http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/cdtips.html
If you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to email me.
END