Hardware For Sale/Trade

While browsing through Gumtree I came across this ad for a "SGI Prism Server" even though it looks like the deskside to me:

http://www.gumtree.com/london/53/69885753.html

Seems to have the lowest processors but the highest gfx spec. Would not pay £500 as no accessories apart from a power cable and no hard disk but may be worth a viewing for some locals.

Note: I am not affiliated with the seller or profit from the sale of this item in any way.

£500 is not that unfair. People have sold/bought for about £400 on Nekochan, but with somewhat different specs.

Given the fact that no additional components and no hard disks are included as well as no guarantee is given that the machine actually works beyond powering up makes me reluctant to pay more than £100 for it - you may just buy an expensive doorstop. I am not sure you can even get all the software needed for the machine to run any more. ATi still has the graphics drivers on the site, though.

eMGee wrote: They do? (Last time I checked, I couldn't find them...)

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/f ... ng=English

x86_64 != IA64

Also, the prism is apparently a very special beast with dual AGP controllers in some cases which is creating its own kind of trouble.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16724118

[quote="zmttoxics"]x86_64 != IA64[/quote]

Oops, my bad...maybe the drivers on HP's support site for the zx2000/zx6000 may work (since it is a similar machine)?

Other than that there is always Supportfolio but I deactivated my account after having divested all my SGI gear.

There is one on eBay at the moment for BIN $299. My friend was looking at it, but decided to pass due to the uncertainty. I'd snag it in a moment if I know I could either a) find drivers that I could use with a current SLES, RHEL, fedora, openSUSE or similar, b) get a full working install disks for the SGI linux that was supported on the box, or c) less ideal, but if the FireGL could be yanked and replaced with a more supported card.

Running this as an IA64 linux workstation would be cool, running it as a headless server because there are no display drivers beyond text mode, less so.

Geof

ratfink wrote: I'd snag it in a moment if I know I could either
a) find drivers that I could use with a current SLES, RHEL, fedora, openSUSE or similar,
b) get a full working install disks for the SGI linux that was supported on the box, or
c) less ideal, but if the FireGL could be yanked and replaced with a more supported card.

Running this as an IA64 linux workstation would be cool, running it as a headless server because there are no display drivers beyond text mode, less so.

You might want to read through this thread before deciding - all three of your questions are discussed: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16724118&

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't SGI Linux abandoned already when they started to move away from MIPS? Didn't they simply port the software and later named it ProPack? I believe the ProPack is distribution independent, though it'd probably be best to use one of the SGI-endorsed ones (like the ones you named).

If I could install RHEL IA64, then throw a "ProPack" on it to it, that would be good, but from my limited supportfolio account, I don't see any downloadable propacks. I also don't know which ones would be required for this box. There seems to be very little information on it.

You could do that yourself, or not? Though, what are your needs? Do you want OpenGL, with full DRM/DRI capability? That'd be a challenge, under Linux for sure. The open source AMD/ATi graphics card drivers are good enough for good quality framebuffer output under Linux. (With a FireGL X1 under Debian, for example, I can tell from experience.)

I don't have a lot of information on the system, and with 2 agp slots, I don't know what weird expectations the hardware might have, so I don't know wether it will even work with different cards installed. If I can get a decent performing framebuffer on the FireGL using the open source drivers, that is a start, or if I know the hardware will support yanking the FireGL and throwing a supported card.

The one on ebay is closing real soon with no bidders at the moment. Maybe if it doesn't sell the seller will relist at a lower price to allow more of an impulse purchase.

Geof

eMGee wrote:

c. less ideal, but if the FireGL could be yanked and replaced with a more supported card.

You could do that yourself, or not? Though, what are your needs? Do you want OpenGL, with full DRM/DRI capability? That'd be a challenge, under Linux for sure. The open source AMD/ATi graphics card drivers are good enough for good quality framebuffer output under Linux. (With a FireGL X1 under Debian, for example, I can tell from experience.)

I don't know if you're talking specifically about the operation of free software AMD drivers with an SGI Prism specifically, or the AMD drivers in general, but in general this is wrong. They're quite good and support OpenGL 2.1.

On Itanium systems, I have no idea. There was a thread (which I can't find in my mail now...) on dri-devel or a related mailing list about some problems a user was having with Radeon+Itanium. His problem seemed quite strange, which made me think that it wasn't something that would happen on all Radeon+Itanium systems.

Anyway, a Prism with a new Radeon would be a neat project.

recondas wrote: You might want to read through this thread before deciding - all three of your questions are discussed: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16724118&

That just cured me of any temptation. The only interesting thing would have been to run graphical Irix-software in QuickTransit but with no drivers, license issues or OS it's rather useless.