Getting Started, Documentation, Tips & Tricks

Greetings,

About 3 weeks ago I adopted my first SGI workstation, a R12K 270 Mhz O2. I have been busy reading, downloading, and configuring. This site has been an invaluable resource. Thank you!

When I try installing the O2 Demos 1.2 through the Software Manager, I get a conflict stating to "also install demos.sw.base". I have tried renaming the files to what I believe the Software Manager is looking for but I have not been able to get it to work. I am wondering if some kind soul who has a original of this disk could do a "ls -l" on the dist directory and tell me the filenames and bytes so that I can properly rename the files and check to make sure they are the proper size. I would greatly appreciate it.

I am hoping that since this is a demo disk, it doesn't fall under the pirating category. If so, I appologize in advance.

Dan
http://www.youtube.com/user/DigitalNeohuman

Renaming files isn't going to help - it's more likely to cause harm to your IRIX install.

The demos.sw.base inst is asking for is located on one of the original IRIX install library disks. The install program is asking for the original file because the O2 demo disk alone only provides an incomplete upgrade.

Hi,
I had the same problem in the first place...
I learned that sgi had that strange habit of giving a package but it couldn't install without the "base" part ...
Anyway for your exact question :

The "o2 demos cd" are only the demos for the o2 workstation and it's an upgrade for the general demos that is shipped with the 6.5.x Irix system (so it can't run without that "base_demos")

The base package you can find in the :
1 - June 1998 "Applications cd (first 6.5 version) (this is for version 1.2 of o2 demos )
2 - 6.5.10 Applications cd (this is for version 1.3 of o2 demos, the last)
3 - it could be found probably on other irix distribution versions but that are the most relevant for o2 workstation

So you need the first, it also contains some general demos that works very nice with o2.

From my experience i can tell you that, with the right software, this little machine can become very creative and inspiring ... even today ...
First thing you should upgrade if you plan to use it more is to upgrade the hdd with a quiet one if you didn't already done that ...
See "the O2 hardware aggregator" ... it contains what you need to know.

Thanks for the very detailed response, rvic. I was assuming, for various reasons, that my demo disk itself had issues. I didn't realize it was an upgrade CD and I need the Applications CD for the base demos.

Dan

You're welcomed ...
Maybe i should stick to some reserved position vis-a-vis to irix knowledge but i started an year and a half ago with also an o2 r12k computer ... and i want to share some things that i've learned ...

one would be that this platform is unique .... it doesn't resemble any other platform despite the fact that is a traditional bsd unix derived os ...
First i was thinking ... ahh .. it's unix ... piece of cake ... linux was in my palm already ... not quite
This is a new world ... manuals are a pain ... and knowledge is a strange mix of trial and error and sustained reading of manuals, docs, and forum topics here.
All native applications are written in a professional way ... what i mean is that 10 years old, or more, applications aren't even matched today in functionality, creativity and, yes, speed.
A simple example ... photoshop for irix is hardware accelerated here, especially on O2, (with a free bundled package for irix) which is a low end workstation.
Another example would be piranha. Piranha is a professional video editing and composing software and it has a match (or maybe not quite), just in these years, in adobe premiere pro (but really, is no match trust me)
There are high end professional applications for video editing, image editing and 3d with features i never met anywhere else but here on Irix.
Sorry for being off topic and sorry for my basic english, sometimes i can't find the right expressions and it's probably a pain for native readers ...
What i wanted to say is that don't be reluctant to ask questions and to ask for help ... here you'll find very nice people ... and they will help you ... and most important they know this platform "to the bone".
The base_demos package is a trivial piece of program and i find, for my part, difficult to accept that you can't enjoy a demonstration of the capabilities of your computer ... in my opinion this is a required start.
I'm convinced that you'll find soon a way to enjoy this ... a simple way always exist ... just that it needs to be found
With many thanks for the people that helped me here i just want to do the same ...

Bursting your bubble - Photoshop was hardware accelerated on the Mac AV models as well (and you could also get DSP add-in cards that would work, too).

You're running up against the reason that UNIX guys snort at the Jurassic Park line "this is a UNIX system - I know this". That line is hubris exemplified. Really, though, IRIX is much closer to other UNIXes than, say, Windows or OpenVMS (which is really a different beast). IRIX is great (along with some others, such as DEC's old OSes (Tru64/OpenVMS) and recent Solarises in that all the documentation is available online and is easily organized - and for IRIX it goes back to 5.3 (1994!). SGI was at the forefront of the Internet for support at that time, pity that they've been going through and removing patches over the past couple of years.

rvic, your English is quite clear and understandable, and I appreciate your enthusiasm.

I guess I expect a bit of "this system is the best" here. I remember back in the early 90's working as a temp at IBM and being told by an engineer how OS/400 was the best operating system and how easy it was to use. Later that day I had to show him how to use the mouse in OS/2. It's all relative.

Dan

yes, in deed ...

It was on the late 1997, back in my graphic design years, when we received this powermac av 8500 with a full av monitor and this A3 umax mirage monster with full transparency unit.
We thought we had a decent graphic lab at that time ... and yes photoshop was somehow accelerated ... for a mac at that time ...
But then we took a very short visit to this old lab on a print house ... and that rearranged all in different perspective...
They had this 4 meters cylindrical scanner ... a beast ... and it was managed by a sgi indigo
We saw that a 9600 powermac was working on a small preview of the file ... and the indigo just apply the same steps on the real file ... because it was huge 1GB or more ... and i'm almost shure it was Barco ... (they said a name but it didn't meant anything for us then)
Well, no need to tell you more ... but from that day the mac started to be a nice but just a simple computer to me.
O2 is a much superior architecture in every aspect ... it lacks only the specific software ...
I always enjoy working on it ... it does the same thing but in a professional way ...

Possibilities --- endless ... just that it needs a specific type of software ...
killer looks even by today standards ... i have many computers including laptops and guess about what they are asking ... always ...
I even believe it can be made to hardware encode xvid ...