HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: karlton@fudge.asd.sgi.com (Phil Karlton)
Subject: Re: GL distribution policy
Keywords: SGI GL
Reply-To: karlton@sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics, ASD
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 17:15:33 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.131906.16094@itnsg1.cineca.it>, ditolla@itnsg1.cineca.it (Francesco Di Tolla) writes:

    So I've some question about the compatibility
    of SGI GL whith non SG machines:

    - which workstation do support (or will support) SGI GL? 
      (I know that IBM-risc6000 do have them for instance)

The IrisGL has been licensed to IBM for its workstations. It was also
licensed to Nth Graphcis and DuPont Pixel Systems and they have products
that are available for SUN and HP boxes.

    - the IBM-risc6000 I've seen didn't support spheres sublibrary
      doe's it happen cause the impossibility to support hardware
      drawing of spheres (as it happen for some (big) SG machine)
      on IBM machine or was only due to an uncomplete installation
      of the GL library on the IBM machine I've used?
      (We use spheres to represent atoms, of course).

The spheres library is software and wasn't licenses to any other vendor.
I know of no special hardware in SGI graphics accelerators for spheres.

    - are GL on machines different from SG fully compatible?

Not fully. With the current IrisGL, different graphics boards have
different capabilities and that shows back through the supported
API for that board. There is a reasonable subset that works on
all platforms.

    - is FORMS library compatible?

The FORMS package is free software in source form. There should be a
copy available on archive.cs.ruu.nl [131.211.80.5] with anonymous ftp
in the directory /pub/SGI.

What you probably want to learn about is OpenGL. That has been licensed
by around 20 vendors and will be available on every major workstation
platform as well as with Windows NT. The sample implementation went out
on 30 June, and folks are working to get it into product release at quite
a few places.

PK
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: mds@sgi.com (Mark Stadler)
Subject: Re: VGX Texture Spans
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Distribution: comp
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 09:05:55 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.082023.20740@nntp.csl.sony.co.jp> stevef@csl.sony.co.jp writes:
>
>
>After upgrading to Irix4.0 on a Iris4D/320vgx I have been reading the
>Graphics LIbrary Programming Tools and Techniques to optimize some
>graphics performance.
>
>On pg 2-46 they talk about not overflowing the hardware texture 
>memory and give a table of memory size for 5-span and 10-span systems.
>
>I have tried hinv -v but there is no mention of # of texture spans...
>does anyone know how I can find out how many "texture spans" I have???
>
>

run /usr/gfx/gfxinfo.  it will tell you how many spans each head has
installed.  (the only possible answers are 5 and 10).  your systems
have only a single head, skywriters have 2 heads.


--
-- mds	[aka Mark D Stadler  mds@sgi.com  ...!uunet!sgi!mds  (415)335-1327]
From: leininge@dcdmbl.fnal.gov (Mark Leininger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: 6u->9u VME adapter (solution), uimx question
Date: 23 Jul 92 16:51:30 GMT

mdgerha@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (EA Gerhardt michael d) writes:

>I knew that I could stick a 6u card in a 9u VME slot, but when
>you have to pull it out, your knuckles get very bloody. My
>solution will be to have a machine shop build me one. I am
>sorry it will not help the rest of you, but other alternatives
>were too expensive (they were all >$400). 

>I would like to hear responses to UIMX for the SGI machines and
>any other Motif development kits available for the SGI. I will
>post a summary.

>                                Thanks in advance.


We have used the following 6u-9u adapter with both FDDI boards and Jaguar
boards in SGI ASD machines:

DAWN VME PRODUCTS
47073 Warm Springs Blvd.
Fremont, CA. 94539
attn: Terry Rose and Suzanne

VME 6U to 9U extender cards, PN 11-100 2730,
FFA 6U160/9U400 version 3 with Calmrk ejectors.       $150/each



Mark Leininger, Fermilab  708.840.4776
leininge@dcdmbl.fnal.gov
From: lee@luke.rsg.hac.com (C. Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: assiging vme ipl to cpu's on mp systems
Date: 23 Jul 92 16:44:46 GMT
Organization: Hughes Aircraft Company; Culver City, CA

I remember seeing on our system a few months ago a file (don't
remember the name) that assigned VME IPL numbers to specific cpu's in
an mp system, and mentioned that the default for an unassigned IPL
was cpu 0.

I *thought* the file was somewhere in "/usr/sysgen/master.d", but
I've looked thru the files there and in "/usr/sysgen/*" and can't
find it.  We haven't upgraded since I saw it, but it might have been
"over modified" or accidently deleted, or I'm overlooking it or
looking in the wrong places.

Does anyone know the name and location of the file?

Thanks.
From: zrawi01@indiaka.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (J. Wiedmann)
Subject: XClock- or MailBox-Geometry
Organization: Comp. Center (ZDV) U of Tuebingen, FRG
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 13:32:48 GMT

This is probably a FAQ, sorry in this case.

I like those pretty tools, XClock and MailBox. I would like them more, if i knew
a way to start them automatically, e.g. from .sgisession. But i don't know any
way to determine the position of their windows. -geometry doesn't work.

		Thanks in advance

				Jochen

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: Questions about SGI floppy drive
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 01:58:15 GMT

In <1992Jul28.184356.18370@cs.wayne.edu> atems@hal.physics.wayne.edu (Dale Atems) writes:
| I am considering buying SGI's internal floppy drive for an Indigo.
| Does anyone have any experience with this drive? I intend to use it
| mainly to archive data generated by software running under IRIX. Tape
| is inconvenient for this purpose since 1/4-inch drives don't support
| updating an existing archive. 8-character filenames are too
| restrictive, so I would want to use floppies formatted as efs volumes,
| not DOS volumes.  Among my concerns are:

DAT is like 9 track, it supports appending to archives (r and u options
work, that is).

| 1). How do you format floppies under IRIX?

fx -x (you don't need to be superuser though, for floppies).

| 2). Do you have to be superuser and use the mount(1M) command to mount
| floppies, or will msdosd do this for you even if they are efs volumes?

msdosd will mount EFS floppies as well, although this works better under
4.0.5 than earlier versions.

| 3). Although this is an internal drive, is max SCSI cable length an
| issue here? This Indigo already has two external devices attached, a
| CD-ROM drive and a 1/4-inch tape drive.

If it is internal, there are no cable length issues (unless the bus
is already too long, of course).

One other comment: the floppy drive is excruciatingly slow...
--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
From: jek@duke.cs.duke.edu (just james)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re-mapping keys?
Date: 21 Jul 92 15:51:23 GMT
Organization: Duke University Computer Science Dept.; Durham, N.C.


Hello,
	I was wondering: is there any way to re-map the
keys on the keyboard of our Iris 4D?  I am asking
because most of the people in my group do the majority
of their work on machines with keyboards that have
somewhat different layouts (for shift, control, etc.)
than the 4D's keyboard, and switching between the two
is pretty disconcerting.

Thanks very much,
--james
-- 
James Kittock   --   Duke class of 1992    --    Computer Science/Mathematics 
jek@cs.duke.edu | mcnc!duke!jek | PO Box 5750, Duke Station, Durham, NC 27706
"Yes, I will kiss the girl from Venus for science." - They Might be Giants
From: jwt@duke.cs.duke.edu (Jeffrey W. Tannehill)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: how do I make sendmail use the name server rather than /etc/hosts
Date: 29 Jul 92 23:11:07 GMT
Organization: Duke University Computer Science Dept.; Durham, N.C.


	Our sendmail.cf seems to work fine for local hosts, or hosts in the
/etc/hosts file that are in our local domain (cs.duke.edu).  However, 
if a host in another domain is specified and that host is in the hosts file,
then the sendmail.cf file drops off the hosts' domain name and replaces it with
cs.duke.edu .  Apparently this is due to the sequence of ruleset 0 rules

	# Canonicalize the host name.  Detect any failures.
	R$*<@$+>$*              $:$1<@$[$2$:$2.$Y$]>$3
 
	# If we successfully canonicalize a hostname, but the result contains
	# no dots, make it relative to our domain.
	R$*<@$->$*              $1<@$2.$D>$3

Apparently, the first rule takes "bob@physics.phy.duke.edu" and changes it to 
something like "bob@physics" and the second line then rewrites this as 
"bob@physics.cs.duke.edu".  If the name services is consulted instead of the
/etc/hosts file (i.e. I remove physics from the hosts file) then the mail
is sent properly. I tried using the "-oI" option with sendmail, which the 
man page says will

     	  Insist that the domain name server be running to resolve host names
          and MX records.  Treat ECONNREFUSED errors from the resolver as
          temporary failures.

but this had no effect when the entry for physics was in the /etc/hosts file.
Since I prefer to use the name services anyway (it is more likely to be correct
than the local /etc/hosts file), then is there anyway that I can make 
sendmail consult the name services first?  

-- 
/*______________________________Jeff Tannehill_______________________________*
 * MAIL:  Duke Dept. of Computer Science        Internet: jwt@cs.duke.edu    *
 *        Durham, NC 27708 USA                  PHONE: +1 919 660 6500       */
From: frank@marvin.contex.com (Frank Perdicaro)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: can lpr and lp share a printer?
Date: 30 Jul 92 14:18:52 GMT
Organization: Xyvision Design Systems

In article <1992Jul29.163727.28274@news.iastate.edu> bryan@pi.eai.iastate.edu (Bryan Manske) writes:
>In article <nsoeph4@zuni.esd.sgi.com> olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) writes:
>>In <howarth.712364458@proto> howarth@rice.edu (Jack W. Howarth) writes:
>
>[stuff deleted]
>
>>In a word, no.  With assorted hacks you might be able to get it
>>to work.  I've seen scripts here that cause lpd to create lp
>>jobs in the past (or was it the other way around?); anyway, that
>>is probably the only approach that would work.
>
>A most apropos time to follow up:
>(hideous laugh, ominous organ music in background)
>
>
>Any chance of getting ahold of such a script as the one mentioned
>above, Dave?  I'm still chasing this tiger's tail...
>
I am not Dave O, but I do know that Richard Stevens' book "Unix
Network Programming" will answer this question in excellent detail.
There is no script in the book, but there is more than enough info 
in there to make a 'lp -> lpr' script or a 'lpr -> lp' script.

f
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-- 
	 Frank E Perdicaro, Systems Admin, etc.		Xyvision Color Systems
      Legalize guns, drugs and cash...today.		101 Edgewater Drive
   inhouse: frank@marvin, x5572				Wakefield MA
outhouse: frank@contex.com, 617-245-4100x5572		018801285
From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: mail configuration problem
Date: 23 Jul 92 16:57:53 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In article <nkp5h40@zuni.esd.sgi.com>, olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) writes:
> In <1992Jul22.230222.18272@tamsun.tamu.edu> vamsee@bioiris.tamu.edu (Vamsee Lakamsani) writes:
> 
> | We have some problem with the mail configuration.
> | 
> | # /etc/init.d/mail start
> | Mailer daemons: sendmail.
> | # /usr/lib/sendmail.cf: line 214:cannot open /usr/lib/uucp/Systems: Permission denied
> | 
> | What's the reason for this problem. How can I set it right ?
> 
> Make an empty Systems file, or comment out the sendmail.cf line that
> refers to it.  It is only needed if you have uucp neighbors
> whom you exchange email with.


More likely is that /usr/lib/sendmail is not SUID=0.


Vernon Schryver,  vjs@sgi.com
From: andersen@marvin.ama.ttu.edu (Kim Andersen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Ghostview for 3.3.X
Date: 28 Jul 92 17:11:43 GMT

Does anyone have a compiled version of Ghostivew and Ghostscript
that will run under IRIX 3.3.X?  The one on sgi.com only likes
4.0.X.

Thanks.

Kim Andersen
andersen@marvin.ama.ttu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Subject: Re: indigo security
Organization:  Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 02:45:44 GMT

In <1992Jul23.185607.22177@math.waterloo.edu> rblander@math.waterloo.edu (Robyn Landers) writes:

| In article <1992Jul23.171949.5812@math.waterloo.edu> rblander@math.waterloo.edu (Robyn Landers) writes:
| > [...]
| >This means that the Indigos have to be in the same room
| >as the monitors, leaving them vulnerable to malicious students.
| > [...]
... 
|     Aackk, of course there *is* a passwd command at the PROM
| monitor prompt which restricts access to the other 4 actions
| at the system maintenance level.   Okay, so I was blind when
| I looked at the result of  >> help
| 
|     However it does appear to be undocumented in the Site Admin Guide
| chapter on PROM monitor, and of course I'll welcome any other
| suggestions on security in this situation.  (We're going to put
| an alarm cable on the metal bar that extends through the box,
| so the front panel can't be opened exposing the reset button.)

See 'man prom nvram'.  Note that the bar and lock won't deter any
body who is really malicious, but it is a pretty good compromise.

Also be aware that the PROM password is useless if physical access
to the backplane is available, or if there is an open root account,
or if they can swap disks (if bootmode == c, since somebody can just
swap disks, become root, and clear the password).
--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
From: henrik@mpci.llnl.gov (Henrik Klagges)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: 'SGI posts loss, cites merger & mips deficit' (WSJ, 7/30)
Date: 30 Jul 92 18:21:58 GMT

Wall Street Journal, Thursday July 30th:

'Silicon Graphics Posts Loss, Cites Merger And MIPS Deficit'

SGI in its first quartely report since its merger with MIPS Computer 
Systems Inc., posted a large fiscal fourth-quarter net loss stemming
from merger expenses and an operating deficit at MIPS.
 Excluding MIPS's loss and merger expenses, though, the computer maker
posted a 51% jump in earnings, thanks to strong sales of its machines.
 SGI, which officially acquired MIPS June 29, posted a combined net 
loss of $108.9 million, or $1.88 a share, for the quarter ended June 30,
compared with combined net income of $9.3million, or 14 cents a share,
in the year-earlier quarter. Sales were $239.8 million, up from combined
sales of $207.9 million in the 1991 period.
 The 1992 results include a $110 million charge fore merger-related 
expenses. And MIPS, which has suffered a string of quarterly deficits, 
recorded a net loss of $20 million in the quarter. A SGI spokeswoman 
said the company doesn't anticipate any additional merger-related
write-offs.

[...]

Hope this is only a temporary hickup ...

Cheers, Henrik
IBM Research Division physics group Munich
massively parallel group at Lawrence Livermore
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: garvin@cfd.mae.ncsu.edu (Michael Garvin)
Subject: Formatting 2 gigabyte disks (also, striping questions)
Organization: North Carolina State University
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 21:39:12 GMT

	I have what are probably a few senseless questions.  Our setup is a
Power Series 4D/440 with a Jaguar differential SCSI controller.  Connected to
each channel is a third-party drive tray containing four Micropolis 1548 disks
(2,000 MB/unit unformatted capacity, 1,748 MB/unit formatted) and a single
ended SCSI to differential SCSI converter.  After formatting and partitioning
the disks I notice a few curious things.  First, fx reports, correctly I
believe, the drive geometry:

----- current drive geometry-----
      Tracks/zone =   15       Sect/track =  131
    Alt sect/zone =    8       Interleave =    1        Cylinders = 2112
 Alt track/volume =   45    Cylinder skew =   43            Heads =   15
   Alt track/zone =    0       Track skew =   13   Data bytes/sec =  512

showing 2,112 cylinders which is close to what the Micropolis manual states
(2,099 unformatted, 2089 formatted).  However, the partition table (partition
ten in particular) tell a different story:

----- partitions-----
part  type       cyls             blocks          Megabytes   (base+size)
  0: efs        3 + 16         5871 + 31312         3 + 15
  1: rawdata   19 + 41        37183 + 80237        18 + 39
  6: efs       60 + 1651     117420 + 3231007      57 + 1578
  7: lvol       3 + 1708       5871 + 3342556       3 + 1632
  8: volhdr     0 + 3             0 + 5871          0 + 3
 10: entire     0 + 1711          0 + 3348427       0 + 1635

Is this discrepancy (2,089 vs 1711 cylinders) a possible bug in fx?  What leads
me to think this is that 1,711 works out close to 1.65 gigabytes, the size of
the largest drive SGI is supporting.  I've tried altering that parameter, but
fx refuses to let me do so.

	Secondly, I was wondering if someone would critique my striping scheme.
Here's my /etc/lvtab file:

-=-=-=-=-
#
# Logical volumes on Falcon drive trays (each with four two-gigabyte drives).
#
lv0:First 8 Gigabyte Striped Logical Volume:stripes=4:devs=/dev/dsk/jag0d2s7, \/dev/dsk/jag0d3s7, /dev/dsk/jag0d10s7, /dev/dsk/jag0d11s7

lv1:Second 8 Gigabyte Striped Logical Volume:stripes=4:devs=/dev/dsk/jag0d4s7, \
/dev/dsk/jag0d5s7, /dev/dsk/jag0d12s7, /dev/dsk/jag0d13s7
-=-=-=-=-

As I understand it this should provide maximum performance by striping across
each of the four two-gigabyte drive (an eight gigabyte partition), with two
drives in each logical volume being on a controller channel.  Comments?

	Thanks in advance for any aid rendered.

-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Michael Garvin [System Manager]				garvin@mmrc.ncsu.edu
Mars Mission Research Center, NCSU			(919) 515-5250
"We're not hitch-hiking any more, we're _riding_!" - Ren and Stimpy
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: davea@quasar.wpd.sgi.com (David B.Anderson)
Subject: Re: Confusion with 'ar'
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 16:58:08 GMT

In article <4107@inca.comlab.ox.ac.uk> mjs@prg.ox.ac.uk (Michael Smith) writes:
>When trying to compile xmailtool on my SG, I get the following error
>
>        cc -o xmailtool check_mail.o xmailtool.o proc.o util.o mail_int.o 
>vars.o date.o -O2 -float -lXaw -lXmu -lXt_s -lXext  -lX11_s -lm -lc_s
>-lmalloc -lsun -lmalloc -lc_s 
>/usr/bin/ld:
>Archive: /usr/lib/libXaw.a has no table of contents, add one with 'ar ts'
>/usr/bin/ld: Usage: /usr/bin/ld [options] file [...]
>*** Error code 1
>
>Yet if I do a 'ar ts' to libXaw.a, it makes no difference.  What is going on?

Possibly something wrong with libXaw.a.   Perhaps some non-MIPS object files.
Perhaps some data files.  Maybe bad disk block?

Something to try: in an empty directory, 
	ar x  (path)/libXaw.a
	file *
Make sure all the files are MIPS cpu object files by checking the output
of the file command.

Hope this helps.
[ David B. Anderson             (415)390-1548             davea@sgi.com ]
From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Does renice work?
Date: 28 Jul 92 03:16:00 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In <1992Jul27.172835.19148@dale.ksc.nasa.gov> chc@orion.ksc.nasa.gov (Charles Curley) writes:

| I have a 4D/35 running 4.0.1 and renice doesn't seem to work.  Here is what
| happens on my machine:
| 
...
| hydra $ renice 20 -p 9558
| renice: 9558: setpriority: Invalid argument
| hydra $ renice -20 -p 9558
| renice: 9558: setpriority: Permission denied
| 
| Of course, the last one is correct because I don't have permission to
| "mean" the process.  Hopefully I haven't missed this question flying about.

The man page has a minor error ;)  The valid range is -20 to +19.
--
Let no one tell me that silence gives consent,  |   Dave Olson
because whoever is silent dissents.             |   Silicon Graphics, Inc.
    Maria Isabel Barreno                        |   olson@sgi.com
From: leininge@dcdmbl.fnal.gov (Mark Leininger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: We use Jaguar boards. We want to use Cougar boards. We need advice!
Summary: We can not see the Cougar board after rebooting the SGI 310.
Keywords: Jaguar Cougar SGI IRIX3x IRIX4x Vendor=Interphase Can-not-see
Date: 22 Jul 92 17:35:54 GMT

We have been using Jaguar boards for some time under both SGI IRIX 3.x and
IRIX 4.x with success.

We now have some Interphase Cougar board which are alleged to be plugin
compatible.  We actually have no reason to believe otherwise.  We believe
that we installed the card correctly at the proper address.

But, after installing the Cougar board as a second such card in a SGI 310 that
already has a Jaguar board that we do not want to remove, we reboot the system
and do not see the Cougar board.  We do see the Jaguar and the other devices
on the system.

We have been told by Interphase that the problem is probably due to SGI
examining the firmware revision level and rejecting the card.

We have access to the Jaquar i/o driver source code if changes are necessary.

Any advice would be welcome.




Mark Leininger, Fermilab  708.840.4776
leininger@dcdmbl.fnal.gov
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi