SGI Freeware, Part 2 of 2
May 2001 Release
Compiled by Ian Mapleson (mapesdhs@yahoo.com)
Last Change: 11/July/2001
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).
Summary Contents of this CD:
Item Description
^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^
README This file you're reading now.
dist/ Installable products which constitute Part 2
of the May 2001 SGI Freeware release.
html/ HTML pages describing all freeware items.
productindex.txt Summary of freeware items included with Part 2
of the May 2001 SGI Freeware release.
This is Part 2 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. the Apache web server:
//dist/fw_apache
IRIX 6.5 allows one to specify multiple specific products, eg.
Apache and Seti@Home:
//dist/fw_nedit //dist/setiathome
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,
eg. GIMP, GNU, PovRay, cdrecord, xanim, ImageMagick, xmorph,
Xfig, a2ps, etc.
Part 2 includes those items which will likely be of less interest,
eg. YACC, GNOME, Apache, xemacs, Pine, etc.
Apache is not included in Part 1 since most users are unlikely
to want to setup their own web server (besides, SGIs 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.)
Note: if you have not installed any products from Part 1, then
it is highly likely that trying to install items from Part 2
will report dependency-related installation conflicts, ie. many
Part 2 items cannot be installed until some of the items from
Part 1 have been installed first (or open both distributions to
resolve conflicts, though IRIX 6.2 doesn't support this in
swmgr). An easy way to resolve all conflicts is to copy the
contents of the 'dist' distribution directories from the two CDs
into a single directory on your hard disk (eg. /var/tmp/dist),
and then use the hard disk's directory as a source for swmgr
(Software Manager), eg.:
swmgr -f /var/tmp/dist
Part 1 includes a product selections file to ease installation.
However, Part 2 CD does not include a selections file since most
users will likely just want to install a handful of items from
Part 2 (eg. the Apache web server, or the SETI@HOME software),
compared to installing just about everything from Part 1.
See the file //productindex.txt for a complete list of
all software subsystems included with Part 2. 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.
If you select all products for installation, be prepared to wait
a very long time if using something like an R4600PC/133 Indy
since there are dozens of separate software products to
install. Switch to a better CPU and faster CDROM (or other
source such as data via 100Mbit network server) if possible.
NOTES:
- 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.
- 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/NT System Administrator,
Centre for Virtual Environments,
University of Salford,
Salford,
M5 4WT,
England, UK.
mapesdhs@yahoo.com
Tel: +44 (0)161 295 2926
Fax: +44 (0)161 295 2925
Any comments, views or opinions expressed here do not
necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Virtual Environments
(CVE), or Salford University My sites, their contents and my
comments are the result of my own projects and not official
sites from SGI, CVE or Salford University.
Doom Help Service (DHS): http://gamers.org/dhs/
SGI/Future Technology/N64: http://www.futuretech.vuurwerk.nl/
BSc Dissertation (Doom): http://gamers.org/dhs/diss/