Nekonomicon - armanox

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Horsepower required to play H.264 video? at Sept. 1, 2015, 5:46 p.m...

kurkosdr wrote:

toasty wrote: Software - It looks like Firefox 31 (ESR, mind you) is the most recent build of FF and Thunderbird for SPARC.

Wow! Things have degenerated a lot for SPARC desktops. Not even the latest ESR? How long will Firefox 31 ESR be supported with security fixes? And the fact most malware is x86/win32 isn't much comfort, there are XSSes and cookie theft vulns.

Now Flash, I think Flash Player 10 was the last version for SPARC?

Does it matter? Any computer not running Windows should not have Flash anymore. And on Windows it's just because YouTube with flash consumes less CPU than the HTML5 video player.

I find it kind of sad, but there again how few people are using a Sparc system for a desktop? I know I did in college, but, just not something I see. I also don't think Solaris has the same kind of close knit community that IRIX has, nekochan seems to be pretty unique (though I would love to see a Sun, AIX, or HPUX equivalent to it. I'd go buy a Power server or an HP Integrity (and HPUX is reasonably priced too, unlike IRIX) and do some porting work and enjoy being on real UNIX instead of Linux (never quite got into the BSD world too much) and having non-Intel architecture to use.

On Flash - thankfully it's becoming less common across the board. The real issue is there is no hardware acceleration for the video codecs more so the what flash/HTML5 provides. Other then streaming media and some old flash-based web widgets I use to create/test for a previous job (and most of them I had done in JS anyway) I don't see the need for flash to be running (hence why I use Flashblock in Firefox). Final note - Flash on OS X (on Intel) is fully up to date too, so add that along side your windows comment

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Someone snagged a great Tezro deal on ebay... at Sept. 2, 2015, 1:43 p.m...

Nyebodnye wrote: Nobody Googled EYM3E65 ?
I'm scared to!

Googlewhack! Only one result returned!

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Using stock Ksh instead of Bash at Sept. 11, 2015, 11:55 p.m...

I personally prefer slightly more user friendly shells (bash, zsh, tcsh) to ksh. The shell does not really effect the way the system works, except to make your life easier. Now, I stick to MIPSPro over GCC as much as I can (until I hit something that really will not build), but I have no qualms personally with not using outdated software (I've built recent versions of httpd 2.2 (I can get 2.4 to build, but it's a pain), php 5.6, OpenSSL 1.0.2a, etc. I'm sorta big on security too, as I used to work for a major Network Security company. My IRIX box actually doesn't look bad on a Nessus scan....

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Greets! at Sept. 12, 2015, 11:25 p.m...

Mmm...a Tezro. Good machine to have (although I still love my Octanes)

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Almost new Sun Blade1000 xvr 1200 2 x 1.2ghz at Sept. 23, 2015, 7:27 p.m...

Not bad at all!

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Network CDROM share at Oct. 5, 2015, 8:20 p.m...

Wouldn't it be easier to set up an NFS share with the files on it?

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Oct. 14, 2015, 8:48 a.m...

dukzcry wrote: As for supporting anything but Linux, I see no point. Yes, Linux is lesser quality product, than *BSDs are, but vendors of big commercial software are all around Linux, not some BSD. So Linux is the best choice just because of popularity, available software base and hardware support. Its just what could be coupled with MaXX for doing real work!
Same with preference of x86/x86_64 architectures over other ones.

***snip***

As for which distributions to support, in my opinion it should be at least Debian (as it is known as default, de facto distro and it also gave a life to a lot of popular forks) and Ubuntu (again, superpopular default, fork of Debian, with great software support, but controlled by corporation and bloated).

Debian? Perhaps supporting Red Hat, who controls the direction that Linux moves, and is the enterprise/business option for Linux, would be a better pick? Plus, when it comes to commercial software, what do they target? Red Hat. I'm using your opening argument here. Debian has no real power in the Linux world, as much as their shrinking fanbase would argue otherwise. And Ubuntu, the once great option and hope for Linux to the masses, has no real power either. Red Hat controls, finances, or develops most of the Linux resources (systemd, PulseAudio, GNOME, X.org, LVM, KVM, and udev; just to name a few) and the rest of the Linux world just follows.

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Oct. 14, 2015, 1:32 p.m...

dukzcry wrote: You just named questionable creations, like systemd, pulseaudio, udev. At least with systemd, not all alive distributions took it, and mainstream ones had large debates on whether to take it or not. Many are looking into development of own initialization system.
Also you just showed that Red Hat is monopolist and maybe evil company (not sure whether Canonical or Google are better, they just target on different audience). Its good that Linus still shows his claws and protect kernel from corporations bad ideas: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/24 ... alds_rant/

BTW just went for Steam client for Linux from OS X machine and it started to download a *.deb package (so Debian/Ubuntu) without letting me to choose which distribution I use

Also there is an another trouble for MaXX, as modern unix like systems do slowly adopt Mir and Wayland, and X.org may be phased out at some point of time.

Maybe I am pointing that Red Hat is monopolistic and trying to dominate the market

. Also, that last once, about Mir and Wayland, worries me a great deal. I still haven't gotten over systemd (actually am avoiding it), and dropped Fedora from my laptop and desktop due to differing views with the Fedora team (Communications have shown (yes, I do contact them) that I am not their target audience).

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Oct. 14, 2015, 1:33 p.m...

armanox wrote:

dukzcry wrote: You just named questionable creations, like systemd, pulseaudio, udev. At least with systemd, not all alive distributions took it, and mainstream ones had large debates on whether to take it or not. Many are looking into development of own initialization system.
Also you just showed that Red Hat is monopolist and maybe evil company (not sure whether Canonical or Google are better, they just target on different audience). Its good that Linus still shows his claws and protect kernel from corporations bad ideas: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/24 ... alds_rant/

BTW just went for Steam client for Linux from OS X machine and it started to download a *.deb package (so Debian/Ubuntu) without letting me to choose which distribution I use

Also there is an another trouble for MaXX, as modern unix like systems do slowly adopt Mir and Wayland, and X.org may be phased out at some point of time.

Maybe I am pointing that Red Hat is monopolistic and trying to dominate the market . Also, that last once, about Mir and Wayland, worries me a great deal. I still haven't gotten over systemd (actually am avoiding it), and dropped Fedora from my laptop and desktop due to differing views with the Fedora team (Communications have shown (yes, I do contact them, and used to do pre-release test days, etc.) that I am not their target audience).

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Email from SGI Support at Oct. 16, 2015, 8:06 p.m...

Titox wrote: Logged on the new support web. No Irix downloads or Cool Software, just Knowledge Base. Irix is also deleted from the main SGI portal... That's the end!!!

I'm going to go pour some whiskey and drink to it's memory.

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Current State of Nekoware / otherware at Oct. 16, 2015, 8:25 p.m...

hamei wrote: I have started going in a different direction and so far, pretty happy with it. Same goal, just a different path ...

To me, when nekoware was started the gnu stuff was either pretty good or had a lot of potential. But since then, much of it has turned to crap.

We aren't going to change those people. gtk2 for instance, is just garbage. Not only is it awful to build, what you end up with is still pointless trash. I really really really need thirty gigabytes of html docs in Tibetan -- not !! The nitwits hardcode gcc into everything, the code is often stinkypoo, new-age gnu apps are repulsive. If you work your way up the gtk2 chain reading the release notes, the shit they did is appalling. Kindergarteners should not be allowed to play with software.

But there is good old stuff out there that could be rescusitated. Or in some cases, maybe the okay level of a gnu app can be rescued, bugfixes from newer versions backstalled, and Irixicisms inserted - kinda like what you guys did with MPlayer. If Inkblob or Scribus actually worked that would be cool. There's Maxwell. There's Axene. There's Ted. There's some games. There's some 3d graphics stuff. There's utilities. There's a ton of older software that would be useful.

The trouble is, the coding knowledge is here - there's at least five guys in nekochan who really know what they're doing - but the support at user level sucks. You can't get the "I wuvs my sgi ! it's the kewlest machine ever and I wanted one ever since grade school, why don't those meanies at sgi Release the Source ?" group to even try out the most basic apps and give feedback. Developers can't do everything.

And why should they, if no one even bothers to try it and report back ? It's like pissing into the wind.

So I don't know. Maybe it really is dead. If you do anything, dexter, it will be great. But you better do it for your own satisfaction 'cuz there's about five people here who really use their best-beloved coolest-ever SGI computers.

Scribus is Qt based last time I checked. Now, good luck getting Qt 5 to work on IRIX - closer to compiling then Qt 4 ever was for me, but last time I tried it choked on the webkit section (or is it KHTML? Something about web rendering anyway) and I am not a clever enough person to fully work around it.

Aside from the nostalgia factor, what's in it for most users anyway? My Octanes, while I love them, aren't really too useful in the modern era. Sure, I rebuilt a lot of software on them and used them for web/db servers for a bit (ran a Drupal 7 site on there actually, and had it authenticate against Active Directory on my Windows Server), and the UNIX setup is ideal in my opinion, but the machines themselves are old, noisy, and power hogs. If I wanted to, I could accomplish the same thing using less electricity and with more horsepower on a Raspberry Pi or MIPS CI20 (actually I want either an IBM p520 or HP Integrity RX2660 next, because they were the first AIX and HP-UX systems I worked with. The only problem with the IBM is I'd need the HMC to go with it (I've also worked with i/OS on the IBM 520, that was a lot of fun when Nessus locked out all accounts with SECOFR rights))

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Current State of Nekoware / otherware at Oct. 16, 2015, 8:36 p.m...

foetz wrote:

hamei wrote: I have started going in a different direction and so far, pretty happy with it. Same goal, just a different path ...

To me, when nekoware was started the gnu stuff was either pretty good or had a lot of potential. But since then, much of it has turned to crap.

We aren't going to change those people. gtk2 for instance, is just garbage. Not only is it awful to build, what you end up with is still pointless trash. I really really really need thirty gigabytes of html docs in Tibetan -- not !! The nitwits hardcode gcc into everything, the code is often stinkypoo, new-age gnu apps are repulsive. If you work your way up the gtk2 chain reading the release notes, the shit they did is appalling. Kindergarteners should not be allowed to play with software.

well that's the other important point and indirectly solves the gcc question as well. the point being: which "modern" freeware is actually worth having?

Depends on what you're doing - I built PHP, OpenSSL, HTTPD, and MySQL just to run a Drupal site. All in the eye of the user.

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Just got my first SGI machine. Requesting help with IRIX at Nov. 5, 2015, 5:12 p.m...

bushnrvn wrote: Back from the dead. I put the Octane on a shelf and let it sit unused for the last several months. Just before that, I got my hands on two new TRAM modules, but they fail the hardware test. Oh well. That's life.

Anyway, I have some discs that I think are what I need to get this thing working. I am going to try and set up a Linux network install this weekend.
It also occurred to me to try using a SCSI zip disk for storage - is this possible?

Maybe? I've never successfully done a local Linux boot on an octane (outside of a Gentoo live CD I used to have). I suppose you could NetBoot it and just use the Zip afterwards, but that only is going to give you what, 100 megabytes of storage? Might be better off using NFS for storage.

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Just got my first SGI machine. Requesting help with IRIX at Nov. 5, 2015, 9:11 p.m...

bushnrvn wrote: Just to clarify, when I am talking about a network boot with Linux, I am talking about doing a network install of Irix via a Linux host. It is outlined here:

http://techpubs.spinlocksolutions.com/irix/remote-irix-6.5-installation-from-linux.html

Ah okay. I thought you meant running Linux on the Octane. I put together a more recent guide then the one you listed (there was a detail or two missing when I tried to use it) about a year ago that you're welcome to use: Installing IRIX from Fedora Linux

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Current State of Nekoware / otherware at Nov. 22, 2015, 9:43 a.m...

hamei wrote:

jimmer wrote: ehrmmm... IMAP not available in the Middle Kingdom?

Not a fan of IMAP, unless it's on my own server. And that's a beetch these days -- "It's from CHIIIIINA ! Oh noes ! Block it before those devious orientals overwhelm us with their intellectual superiority !"

Those yrgltworps don't even do that to Nigeria, but Chiiiiina ! ...

Au contraire....I block all of Africa, Middle East, and Eastern Europe, in addition to China. If I had need I'd white list as needed (as I've done for a couple of Russian sites), but I block based on where the majority of my attacks have come from.

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Current State of Nekoware / otherware at Nov. 22, 2015, 8:23 p.m...

hamei wrote:

armanox wrote: Au contraire....I block all of Africa, Middle East, and Eastern Europe, in addition to China. If I had need I'd white list as needed (as I've done for a couple of Russian sites), but I block based on where the majority of my attacks have come from.

In the interests of nekochan peace and harmony I will not say a word. But you can bet your sweet bippy I am thinking some very harsh thoughts.

Fair enough - we're not here to start a war, but to cooperate. If it makes you feel any better I'll soon be blocking all inbound connections from non-US IP addresses at work to simplify things even more. We do not target nor have any clients outside the US and US territories

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of What do you use your SGI for? at Nov. 26, 2015, 6 p.m...

BLAiSE wrote: People have to use these computers with these well written, optimized and reliable software. With just collecting them, we cannot save them. We have to use them, without it they will become only rusty boxes and fading memories.

You have a very good point there, but it's still invisible to the general eye. I love my Octanes (and used to love my O2, but it's kinda dead), but I don't use them in the same sense that most people should be using SGIs. I'm basically using my Octane along side my RPi and NetraT1 as server (my love has more to do with the IRIX backend then it does with the desktop). I think visibility is important and often overlooked.

Also, availability of good software is lacking. I know there used to be a lot of IRIX software, but getting it can be troublesome. I had Photoshop on my O2 (and used it quite often), but the license information is lost and trying to get Adobe to even understand that Photoshop ran on IRIX seems to be pointless from other people's accounts - they just say that versions that old are not supported and you need to buy an upgraded copy.

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Recommendations at Dec. 29, 2015, 10:36 p.m...

If you want to secure your installation....

Minimize running services. If you want to really see the ins-and-outs of your SGI machine, run a Nessus scan on there. If you are running it for yourself a Tenable allows home users to download it for free (there are some limitations, such as how many hosts you can scan and you can not do compliance checking). That should give you a very good starting point on where to start disabling extra running software, and should point you at a lot of out dated software.

Step two: Update your software. For things that you are using, use the most updated copy you can. Nekoware provides a lot of easy to install tardists that are much newer then what SGI provided, and you can also consider building your own software.

Step three: Secure your network. Firewalls, IPS/IDS, and such are your friends.

Disclaimer: I am a former employee of Tenable Network Security. This is not a paid advertisement, nor do I represent the company in any way, shape, or form. I just think they still make the best Vulnerability Scanner on the market.

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Solaris software? at Dec. 29, 2015, 10:51 p.m...

All Sun hardware is entitled to run Solaris without the need to purchase a license. It's the updates they charge you for.

Also, the Solaris Studio Compiler is free from Oracle too (formerly Sun Studio).

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of What SUN hardware do we have? at Dec. 29, 2015, 10:54 p.m...

I've got a Netra T1, a Blade 1500, and I might end up with a SunFire V245

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of What Apple hardware do we have? at Jan. 14, 2016, 1:16 p.m...

I've got a few at home:

PowerBook 540c that a previous owner upgraded to a PPC proc (System 7.5 IIRC - watch it boot at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqgZujtQ0T4 )
G3 iBook in Teal (OS 9)
G4 Quicksilver (800MHz, 1.5GB RAM, OS 9.2, OS X 10.1, OS X 10.4, Ubuntu 12.04)
G5 PowerMac (Quad G5, 16GB RAM, OS X 10.5)
MacBook Pro 1,1 (2GB RAM, OS X 10.6)
MacBook (2008 model? C2D, 4.5GB RAM, OS X 10.7)

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of What Apple hardware do we have? at Jan. 14, 2016, 10:21 p.m...

ClassicHasClass wrote: Too bad we couldn't see the actual Happy Mac (is it black and white bitmap, or greyscale)?

But, great cat butt pr0n!

I don't remember actually seeing the Happy Mac on that one. I'll have to dig it out and take a look for you.

And Friskie was very proud of her butt. And having it in the middle of everything.

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Jan. 16, 2016, 8:43 a.m...

Did this project die? I seem to be unable to access the website these days

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Jan. 16, 2016, 1:26 p.m...

Thank you. I'm going to add it to a few places right away....

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Jan. 21, 2016, 6:17 a.m...

maxxi.desktop wrote:

armanox wrote: Thank you. I'm going to add it to a few places right away....

hey! please don't my content is under a dual license between SGI and my company. much appreciated

I was referring to on my own, personal machines. Not internet backups.

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Feb. 2, 2016, 9:46 a.m...

uunix wrote: Not really related since you have been trying for two days, but related because you are in the UK as am I.. but.. BT have gone tits up this afternoon.. in fact so bad it was announced on the News.. thank the lordy I have Virgin line also..

I can confirm the site is dead State-side too

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX pre release - need Linux testers at March 3, 2016, 2:21 p.m...

I can do some testing for you (seems like everyone is jumping on Fedora, but I am also running Ubuntu (both 14.04 LTS and 15.10, Slackware, and I can put up a RHEL install) - what all do you want us to look at?

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Would it be a good idea to pick up an SGI for programming? at March 25, 2016, 12:34 p.m...

As someone who used to run Gentoo on an Octane (back 2007-2009), I wouldn't bother. For graphically related work, there is no point in running Linux on MIPS, it just lacks the horsepower to handle the bloatware that is MATE. If you have the modeling software for IRIX, then it's worth getting for doing that, but even then it's a stretch. The main reason to deal with IRIX these days is the retro factor, and for stupid fun (can I get libReSSL to run on IRIX? Can I use it to host Drupal? Build a cloud storage network? Etc).

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at July 29, 2016, 11:40 p.m...

I might have a copy, but I make no promises. And I wouldn't mind having a copy of the file manager to use with it.

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Sept. 25, 2016, 7:14 p.m...

It's not dead yet!

Also - I had it working on Slackware 14.1, Ubuntu 15.10 (16.04 does not work at all for me), CentOS 7, and Fedora 22 (I know 24 does not work, don't remember if 23 does or does not). I've been running CDE on my Ubuntu box in the meantime....

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Sept. 27, 2016, 12:17 p.m...

Shiunbird wrote: The file is there. Hooray!

But x86-only is sad. I only have PPC Linux desktops, and I have CDE on Debian on PPC.
I will get some x86 machine.

That is correct. His agreement with SGI only allows for Linux on Intel platforms.

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Oct. 1, 2016, 8:09 p.m...

vishnu wrote:

opcode wrote: Ahh Thanks Vishnu Wasn't MaXXX working on a new build? Did he give those files out for testing?

Indeed he did say he was working on a new build, and then he promptly disappeared. Again...

I saw a post out of MaXX Interactive Desktop on Facebook recently - so assuming that he's running that page it isn't 100% dead after all.

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Oct. 13, 2016, 7:48 a.m...

maxxi.desktop wrote: he's baaaaaack!

Sorry for the lack of updates. My health has been up and down for quite a while, but I think we've figured it out

Updates:
1) HP acquired SGI... I've reopened the discussion and waiting for a reply
2) I retain the rights for MaXX and binaries/installers must come from maxxinteractive.com as of now.
3) Working on new code and looking for c,c++ and Java developers
4) Fedora 25 and Debian8/Ubuntu 16.04 are the supported releases
5) New links (see below)
6) Incremental releases will be the way to go.
7) New release dubbed Onyx is on the work
Writing technical documents to facilitate the involvement of contributors

Here are the main links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maxxdesktop/
main site : http://www.maxxinteractive.com

-Eric

Awesomeness - let us know what exactly you are looking for. I for one am more then happy to help with testing, and I have some experience with C, C++, and Java (most of my experience is in C/C++), but I am sure that plenty of others would be willing to step up to help with development too. Just think - getting some helpers might really kick this thing into gear!

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Oct. 13, 2016, 12:01 p.m...

maxxi.desktop wrote:

maxxi.desktop wrote: he's baaaaaack!

Sorry for the lack of updates. My health has been up and down for quite a while, but I think we've figured it out

Updates:
1) HP acquired SGI... I've reopened the discussion and waiting for a reply
2) I retain the rights for MaXX and binaries/installers must come from maxxinteractive.com as of now.
3) Working on new code and looking for c,c++ and Java developers
4) Fedora 24 and Debian8/Ubuntu 16.04 are the supported releases
5) New links (see below)
6) Incremental releases will be the way to go.
7) New release dubbed Onyx is on the work
Writing technical documents to facilitate the involvement of contributors

Here are the main links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maxxdesktop/
main site : http://www.maxxinteractive.com

-Eric

Correction: Fedora 24 is the version. Too many uncertainties for ABI compatibility, the intro of Wayland as default Windowing System and Python 3.6 (for anything Blender)

I wouldn't worry too much about Fedora 25 until it is closer to release. Fedora will have to include X.org still because Wayland + nvidia proprietary drivers currently does not work, and other desktops (XFCE, LxQT, plus the basic Window Managers like FVWM and Window Maker) do not support Wayland at this time (and I doubt that FVWM or Window Maker ever will). There again, the Fedora team has a history of just breaking things and not really caring, plus they have been trying to shove Wayland down our throats for what, six years now? Too many things at this time do not support Wayland for that to be the only option (plus they would break compatibility with other developers, like the TDE team, Mplayer, CDE, etc).

I think we all will be happy to have it working with Ubuntu 16.04 and Fedora 24 though

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Nov. 10, 2016, 1:15 p.m...

Fedora 24 works, I don't think it works in 25 right now. Debian and Ubuntu are reported to work (I know it worked with Ubuntu 15.10, haven't tried the updated version on 16.04 yet since I've been in Slackware and Red Hat land for a while).

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Nov. 10, 2016, 2:05 p.m...

No USB sticks or netboot servers?

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of MaXX is back! at Nov. 10, 2016, 2:28 p.m...

Lol. Sounds fair enough. I actually had to hunt for blank DVDs when I was doing an install on my P3 laptop since I've been using USB sticks for so long to do installs (the Dell C400 doesn't support booting to USB. And even if it did I think it only has USB 1.1, so that would be painfully slow).

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of POWER6 Linux and AIX at Nov. 13, 2016, 5:27 p.m...

Hmmm...Just a thought, but if you have both drives in there boot to the SAS drive and then have it mount the SATA drive with your data and such (in older days it would have been put /usr on the SATA, but I don't think RHEL 6.x allows / and /usr to be separate)

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of POWER6 Linux and AIX at Nov. 14, 2016, 3:31 a.m...

japes wrote:

ibmfiles wrote: Proposal: if you buy a GENERIC (like LSI / Adaptec) SAS controller and ensure it has the correct miniSAS connectors to connect to the backplane, in theory the firmware should give boot control to the generic SAS card and then boot from whatever disk you want. This is assuming of course the motherboard firmware will work with it, and isn't performing any additional checks.

EDIT: by 'backplane' I mean the PCB that the HDDs connect to / typically backplanes and controllers use MiniSAS.

Sadly, or awesomely depending on if you want to hack or easily service the system, but the Power6 p520 backplane has a board to board connector with the main planar. There is a card that adds RAID capability and i think it works without the card fine - that might change the boot behavior. For alternate card the drives would have to be in an external shelf or in the tape drive bay.

edit: nice job getting a p520. I picked one up a while ago but haven't had time to do anything but install AIX on it. The seller did a terrible job packing it - so I got a second for parts (and virtualization license) and again packing was a challenge but that seller did better - haven't had a chance to try it yet. At least the faceplate isn't falling off the dvd drive of number 2.

Agreed - nice job on getting a P520. I miss having access to the two that I used to (Previous job had two of them in the lab, both connected to an HMC. One ran AIX 7.1 and the other ran IBM i), they were pretty nice machines.

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

armanox
From Baltimore, MD, USA
Who joined Feb. 23, 2014, 9:31 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of POWER6 Linux and AIX at Nov. 15, 2016, 11:48 p.m...

Shiunbird wrote:

armanox wrote: Agreed - nice job on getting a P520. I miss having access to the two that I used to (Previous job had two of them in the lab, both connected to an HMC. One ran AIX 7.1 and the other ran IBM i), they were pretty nice machines.

How's IBM i?
I've never managed to find much about it.

To me, the menu based system was awkward. Plus, the only times I actually got to use the system was when there was an issue, so my view may be slanted. We had them in the R&D lab, and anytime someone would scan a box running [OS/400 | i5/OS | i] it would lock out all of the administrator accounts and I would have to connect to it using the IBM 5250 emulator included with the HMC (alternatively I would have needed an IBM 5250...) in order to unlock the accounts.

As the resident UNIX guy in the lab IT team, I got all of the unusual requests that nobody else wanted (or was able) to handle (but I did get to get experience with AIX, i, HMCs, HP-UX, OpenVMS, Oracle VM (SPARC), and a VMware cluster with ALL of the bells and whistles (and about 11,000 running VMs)). It was also my job to be able to find the hardware to match whatever insane setup the clients had. That was a fun one at times....

"Apollo was astonished, Dionysus thought me mad."
:Octane:

The collected works of armanox - Page 3