SGI: Hardware

Some of my old SUN systems have SUNpc/SUNpci cards.. that provide a real x86 system running in a PCI slot (usually Windows95, etc..) that you can acess from the Solaris/SPARC desktop. "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunPCi"

Call me crazy, I thought it would be neat to have something similar for an SGI.. most likely a mini-PC inside a full height scsi disk for an Octane, or replacing the CDROM drive in an O2 or Tezro.. and then just remote desktop/RDP or VNC into it. Maybe have video/key/mouse out in the front.. so open your Octane front case or eject the CDROM door in an O2 and then you can program/install an OS on it, etc..

Then you can run MS Office, Chrome, etc.. from within the confines of your SGI system.

Yeah, you could just RDP or VNC into another PC or server elsehwere around the house or office.. but to have something that is part of the SGI (like SUN's SUNpci cards) would be neat.

Does anyone know of a small PC that would fit in a hard drive shell? getting power from a hard drive SCA port or a molex power plug? A real x86 system, not ARM or other embedded types.

-Kevin

Here we go:
Intel Compute Stick PC. WIndows 8.1 or Linux. x86 chip.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2906353/ ... linux.html

Now.. how do we power a Micro USBjack with SGI innards? (Molex to Micro USB? SCA power adapter to Micro USB?.. ). Its a Wifi connection too.. not a problem if your home/work was the SGI on same network as a Wifi connection I guess.

Will a Tezro's USB port power this?

Doing some research:
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Mol ... gQod7vMBjw

Im in no way an electrical engineer.. not sure if this would work or not with an SGI molex cable powering an Intel Compute Stick PC?

If you're at all handy with solder and wire you should be able to tap off the voltage you need from the power supply...

vishnu wrote: If you're at all handy with solder and wire you should be able to tap off the voltage you need from the power supply...

How much will an sca connector deliver ?

I thought there were some peecee-onna-pci card thingies -- put one in a shoebox, add a little two-port switch, and bob's yer uncle ? That would make the ethernet connector more accessible, too.

You could even do that to an O2 ...

When my Sunblade2000 was in action, I had a SunPCi[3 or 4] and I had it driving it's own monitor & keyboard/mouse and it was very cool. So if I was to do this, I'd make sure I had an empty slot in the octane and have external VGA KB/Mouse/USB, in fact, if you didn't have a PC cage you could use the blanking plate.

uunix wrote: I had a SunPCi[3 or 4] and I had it driving it's own monitor & keyboard/mouse and it was very cool. So if I was to do this, I'd make sure I had an empty slot in the octane and have external VGA KB/Mouse/USB,...

Have you tried rdesktop, u-u ? It works pretty good. That's how I do innernuts these days. Having it all in one box might be fun.

The only hangup comes when you swipe something off a web page and try to drop it via the mouse onto your Irix desktop. Oops

I have tried it chap, in fact it was you who pointed it in out to me.

uunix wrote: I have tried it chap, in fact it was you who pointed it in out to me.

Guess I better start hitting the fish oil

I see Intel has a new thingy they call Edward (named after Eddie Munster ?) - a (400 mhz) peecee on an SD card. So you could build an entire Loonix cluster of those and stick it into the drive slot of an octane

hamei wrote:

uunix wrote: I have tried it chap, in fact it was you who pointed it in out to me.

Guess I better start hitting the fish oil

I see Intel has a new thingy they call Edward (named after Eddie Munster ?) - a (400 mhz) peecee on an SD card. So you could build an entire Loonix cluster of those and stick it into the drive slot of an octane

It's called Edison not Edward: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Edison

Anyone use ThinStuff and connect via RDESKTOP? (Off topic again... )

Never used ThinStuff, but I will tell you that an XRDP server running on Linux performs excellent with rdesktop.. more so than VNC or even RDP/rdesktop to a windows node.

ThinStuff's TSX RemoteApp product looks cool to launch just the app and not the entire desktop. Linux-based rdesktop can do 'seamless' apps too if a seamless-rdp DLL is installed on the remote windows node. I never have tried to see if our Nekoware version would work this way too. Something to play with for another weekend Having just the remote apps popping up on our IRIX desktops would feel more integrated than a full windows desktop window (and use less bandwidth). Currently I use SSH X11 forwarding for running Linux apps, and windows apps run via Wine on Linux, so they too go through X11 and look more native on the desktop.

I ordered one of those Intel Compute Sticks from NewEgg.. and a Molex to USB (female) from ebay. When it comes in, ill stuff it all in an O2 .. maybe replacing the cdrom with it since I can get a molex connection from that area easily.

-Kevin

necron2600 wrote: ThinStuff's TSX RemoteApp product looks cool to launch just the app and not the entire desktop. Linux-based rdesktop can do 'seamless' apps too if a seamless-rdp DLL is installed on the remote windows node.

Can you go into this "seamless-rdp DLL" a little more ? That's how I get my interweb now, rdp Light onto 4Dwm, but getting just the application would be nice.

Not that happy with Light, either, but what can you do ?

GL1zdA wrote: It's called Edison not Edward: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Edison

Wasn't he the guy who insisted 500 vdc was the way to go for long-distance power transmission ?

From nekoware's rdesktop man page:
-A Enable SeamlessRDP. In this mode, rdesktop creates a X11 window
for each window on the server side. This mode requires the Seam-
lessRDP server side component, which is available from
http://www.cendio.com/seamlessrdp/ . When using this option, you
should specify a startup shell which launches the desired appli-
cation through SeamlessRDP.

Example: rdesktop -A -s 'seamlessrdpshell notepad'.

However, https://www.cendio.com/seamlessrdp says it needs rdesktop 1.8.0 or later where nekoware is 1.7 (at least my copy). Not sure what the implication of that is since rdesktop does have the seamlessrdp code in it.

"SeamlessRDP works best with modern window managers" .. IRIX 4Dwm is modern right?

Now that you got me looking into this... ill have to spend time on it now to see if this works or not with an SGI Thanks hamei

Works!
I attached the seamlessrdp zip .. as it is not found on its website as easily anymore. I found it from some random place online and I did not check for viruses or trojans,etc.. so beware

I extracted seamlessrdp.zip into C:\seamlessrdp\

Then ran this:
rdesktop -A -s 'c:\seamlessrdp\seamlessrdpshell C:\Pro
gram Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe' <ip or hostname here>

I logged in, (may be able to autologin?), and got a seamless window. Like how you would see an X11 display from a remote node but its a windows system. (which you could do the same running your windows apps under wine on Linux and remotely displaying via X11...) Except, RDP tends to be much faster than X11.

Notes:
I used a Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server. Not sure how this behavies with Win7, WIn8, etc.. I hope this works with the Intel Compute Stick I ordered that comes with Windows8.. stick it inside the SGI running on its power... then I can get a 'SUNpci' for SGI.

Its possible Fast User Switching needs to be turned on in order for seamlessrdp to work. I did not confirm this.

A more advanced rdesktop usage:
rdesktop -r clipboard:PRIMARYCLIPBOARD -r disk:'Home'=
$HOME -r sound:local -a 16 -z -A -s 'c:\seamlessrdp\seamlessrdpshell C:\Program
Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe' <serverorIPhere>

-Kevin

Screenshot:
Note the top right corner.. seamlessrdp runs a tiny app. You can open more apps without needing to re-run rdesktop and login, etc..
Also, you should be able to run more rdesktop commands but re-using the existing seamlessrdp (-A argument) session, so single-signon style ability)

So windows7 did not seem to work the same way.
As a workaround, I disabled the desktop.. then I was able to get a windows7 start/taskbar on the bottom of my IRIX 4Dwm desktop (the horror!) You can launch apps all day. Note, its a bit sluggish on an R5k O2.. a windowed-XRDP server on Linux seems to give the best performance.

Create a reg key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\
A DWORD entry NoDesktop set to 1

Auto Start seamlessrdp on login:
Create a shortcut to C:\seamlessrdp\seamlessrdp.exe to your startup folder:

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
Edit it’s properties by adding ‘ taskmgr‘ to the end of the Target entry – it should read
‘C:\seamlessrdp\seamlessrdpshell.exe taskmgr‘

Now when you rdesktop into it, seamlessrdp runs.. showing you the windows taskbar since the desktop is turned off (or else the desktop would be in a window blocking 4Dwm desktop.

-Kevin

Any solution without disabling the desktop for win 7 ?

Update.

I have been using the Intel Compute stick as a 'coprocessor' (aka companion) to my SGI Octane for a month now. Since its not super fast, and it requires remote access to it.. this ensures the IRIX desktop and applications are used first and only rely on a Windows (or Linux in a VM) counterpart for windows-based application assistance or conversion (MS Word .docx files, etc..). This should be the same thought process behind SUN's SunPCI 'coprocessor' cards used with SPARC workstations running Solaris. In fact, the Intel Compute Stick really is much smaller than any SunPCI and you can stick it anywhere (pun intended). Unlike a PC sitting in a corner, or a rackmounted server in a basement.. the intel compute stick uses very little electricity, produces little heat, and can be attached to an SGI (or stuck inside one).

I did try to cobble together a molex power plug to the Intel Compute Stick's micro-USB power port (all 5volt).. and it worked for several seconds. The BIOS booted, Intel logo shows (when connected to a TV) but then it shuts off abruptly. Either my donor power supply/ATX case that I tested this with has a problem, my wire cutting and soldering work are shoddy (very possible here!), or its trying to draw more than the expected 5volt. In the end, I just plugged it into a power outlet somewhere nearby.

The Compute Stick come with a reduced version of Windows 8.1 Bing.. which does not allow remote desktop access to it. I used an app called RDPwrap that makes remote desktop access work. You could install win2003 server inside a virtual machine on top of this windows version and get seamless RDP applications...

Aside from my installing plenty of windows-related apps on it, I also installed VirtualBox... and ran a mini-datacenter on a tiny 103mm long stick, with 2GB ram and quad core CPU. I was able to run XP, and a few Ubuntu virtual machines at the same time.. although with reduced memory usage.

Screenshot below shows an IRIX desktop with a rdesktop window into the stick.. and VirtualBox running Linux and XP VMs. Then, two windows above the rdesktop window show remote SSH X11 applications (Skype and Chrome) running from an Ubuntu VM on VirtualBox on the stick.



I am not sure if all this good news, or just some geeky efforts wasted .. but not being tied to a PC in the corner or rackmounted server somewhere but instead relying on an SGI Octane and stuff near/inside it means something to me.

I just recently learned about single board computers that are on a PCI card. Forgive me if you all have known this...I’m a youngin’! My understanding is that you use them on a passive backplane to cram a bunch of computers in a small case.

Some models have an ATX power connector and since I’ve got an ATX PSU in my Fuel, it got me thinking: can I put one in it? I’ve been going through manuals and data sheets and they don’t really go into detail about power. So I don’t know if they usually draw power from the PCI connection or just ATX. But I see voltage requirements for 12V, 5V, and 5VSB.

Anyone have experience with these things? Would you advise trying to use one in an SGI? It would make a nice solution to what necron2600 is looking for.

Example:
Advantech PCI-7032
http://www.advantech.com/products/1-2jkn7b/pci-7032/mod_2b0c1cae-2197-4d35-937e-4e7e4aa80ed7