The collected works of hamei - Page 67

vishnu wrote: Welcome back to the Land of the Living...

more or less ...

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.

diegel wrote: Currently we have two main issues: get firefox 3.5 or newer running ...

Another way to approach this problem, and perhaps one that would be more maintainable over the long term, would be to recreate Proxomitron. There is nothing in the 'modern internet' worth having.

Do you think it might be more practical to create a proxy that would insulate us from the sewage that overlays today's web ?

armanox wrote: 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.

As you just pointed out, you can do all that faster, cheaper, easier and quieter on a peecee.

What you can't do on a peecee is run Irix.

Now, everyone has their own reasons for whatever they do in life. But as far as I can see, the only good reason to use an Octane is to run Irix. All the gnu stuff was interesting and in some cases useful but currently, most of it is shit. It started out okay but then went to the dark side.

Any actual decisions about the direction of nekoware would have to be made by the commyewnity ! But we don't have a community. It's like pulling teeth to get one person to say "hey, the newest version of libjpeg works for me."

Damned if I know.

I know that Display Postscript is tits. I know that I can open PShop 3 in Irix and have a jpeg 'enhanced' in Irix faster than CS3 even starts under Windows. I know that I can create professional-grade CAD files that anyone in the world can use. I know that xpdf kicks ass over any version of Acrobat back to v3. I know that neko MPlayer works better in Irix than it does in Windows. I wish I were a Framemaker ace, it's ten times more capable than I will ever be. There are a few gnuey applications I'd like to have, but none that I need to have. In every case where there's an Irix application comparable to a gnu one, the Irix one is better.

To me, there isn't much point in talking about server uses. If a person wants to do that, it's cool. But the hardware is definitely not the best for that. It's on the desktop that Irix still shines. On the desktop, I'd rather see five programs that run really well than fifty that are half-ass. But if no one actually uses it, then what's the point ?

Dunno, dexter1. I hope you can get something going. But nekoware at the moment is totally stagnant. What is the reason for that ? Answer that and you'll know what to do.

nekonoko wrote: Well at least it's more active here than the NeXT Computer forum . I love the concept of that forum; I keep visiting hoping people will post something cool, but consider myself lucky if I find one new post a week.

Yeah, the NeXT guys ... gotta feel sorry for them. The software is very cool but the hardware is just a leetle too slow. When you can type faster than an editor can display on-screen, that's not very practical. And keeping those things running must be a chore

I was surprised at how little I miss the 2x800 O350. Would still like to get four V12's running the one monitor tho. Maybe some day.

vishnu wrote: What we should do in order to compile this "modern" shite on our SGI's is to write and compile binary patches to MIPSPro that add the functionality that C and C++ now possess, that MIPSPro doesn't.

How is that going to make gtk2 apps run under Motif ?

That's the real problem. The gcc stupidities can be coded over. But what are you going to do about the retarded dependencies ? and the ghastly toolkits ? Right now, we're running two complete operating systems, one on top of the other. Sometimes three. That's silly.

Especially when the real one is so much better than the overlays.

"Motif is so ugly" ... umm, has anyone looked recently at the average Loonie desktop ? Bring a barf bag.

Could someone please tell me what "modern era" software brings to the table ? Warning : there's a Windows box ten feet away and software costs about a buck-fifty here. (That's $1.50, not $150.00) And the Assist bought a Macbook a while back (which is now broken, of course. Pay more, get better quality ! unh-hunh.) So I'm not speaking from a position of ignorance.

Into the fray!

Any time I get anything frayed, the Assist makes me throw it away

foetz wrote: that goes hand in hand. to know what works fine we need to know what sucks or vice versa

Yes, the point is not dissing for fun but dissing to forestall the "we need mooodern software !" remarks.

A lot of modern software is ghastly. I don't think we need that. Although if everybody else wants that, that's fine too.

Dexter, you haven't been building open source on Irix for a few years, I think you are in for a shock. Of course, you can just fix their stupidities so it won't be a major barrier for you. But .....

I don't want to sound like a wet blanket, especially when we get another code warrior returning to the fold, but seriously, if the users don't step up their game, this isn't going anywhere. I hope this is the first sign of a rebirth of interest in actually using SGI computers

About the browser problem, something to consider -- I don't have an Irix browser problem. I rdesktop across the room and steal cycles from the Assistant. That's not what I'd like to do best but you know what ? It works. Now I can concentrate on something more productive than the endless fight with the Mozilla jerks.

Another possibility would be Proxomitron. I am not sure which is more difficult, recreating a recoding proxy or fighting with fireflop and gtk2 and all the other ridiculous dependencies involved. It's not just fireflop - it's everything it sits on, too. That's a massive undertaking because the people involved no longer even pretend to care about anything but Windows, the latest Loonix ("just aptyumget the 30 newest packages !") or maybe OS X. Firefox 3.5 would be cool, but ... the other side of that is, by the time it works the web will probably be totally useless, with the few remaining decent websites working fine in Mosaic

How about a list of What Do People Want to See ? for starters ? Here's mine :

For strictly nekoware, testing all the basic dependencies and getting them into /current would be YAY ! Nekoware was always so reliable, you could put anything from /current into your box and know it was good. We've fallen off that horse

Again about nekoware, maybe re-examine and codify the underlying conventions ? For example, I would now put 'release notes' as a default install. They are very useful. But html docs, puhlease. and the 58,000 languages that fossies love to install, sheesh. Some people here still have Indigo2's with 8 gig drives. Or smaller. I don't think we need Tibetan or atk or a lot of the other Copy-Mickeysoft stuff.

Programs :

Newer MPlayer. The old one works super but (supposedly) the newer versions have more support for multiple processors. Indigo guys won't care but Octane people would want that. Axatax has already done a lot on this, getting it over that last hurdle would be great. It's one of my favorite programs, works better in Irix than any media player I've used on Windows.

A word processor. Framemaker is good but definitely overkill for a letter to mom. Ted is okay but some smoothing of the rough edges would be nice. I found Axene source, that might be a nifty project. We did some playing with Maxwell without final success. If it were Indigo Magicked that might be a cool useful program. Open Office is ghastly.

Axene also has a spreadsheet that can (supposedly) read Excel files. Not all that sexy but if you use the computer, being able to read spreadhseets is useful.

A newer and more stable Dia. I've used the older one, it works and it's useful but it's not really up to snuff.

A newer GIMP ? That's a popular program and SGI's are supposed to be about graphics and the gimp was always pretty okay before. Don't know if they've gone goofballs since but pretty sure a lot of people would use that.

I don't know if people do ftp anymore, but I messed with Axyftp a little, it wouldn't take too much to truly Irrixify it. It's already Motif, just some rework to use more Indigo Magic widgets would make it into a real Irix app. There are more older Motif utilities like that out there, too. Or programs like Pho. Pho is gtk2 but it is so simple, if it were jacked up and Motif slid underneath, it's very useful for paging through directories of photos.

A lot of people would like some games. Fair enough. The Transport Tycoon looked like a natural, until I tried to build it. Here I disagree with you, dex. Those people don't need to be dissed. They need to be taken out behind the woodshed and whipped with a leather belt. Go try to build that before you tell me you disagree. But games, for the casual user, that's a definite yes ?

You'd know more than I about this but to me, it seems that putting a lot of effort into Pango and Cairo and GTK2 is not .... productive ? That group of people has gone off the deep end, their code is no longer portable in any way, you could spend your life trying to keep up but what do you get in the end ? A crappier version of something that worked better before. You get 10% more glitz for 60% more cpu but we ain't got that much cpu to waste on nonsense. Concentrating on a few useful programs and really optimising them for Irix, like y'all did with MPlayer, would be a better approach ?

Although all that seems to be dead in the water now, the bros are infatuated with smartphones these days, so maybe those basics will stay still long enough to be worth working on ?

vishnu wrote: I think the GIMP is enmeshed with a pretty recent gtk2...

You're right. What was I thinking ? that they would concentrate on the graphics instead of changing the toolkit every week ? what an idiot

http://feenix.darktech.org/files/gtk2.mpg

Trippynet wrote: Overall, yes I'm admittedly one of hamei's enthusiast users.

I apologize if you thought I was being negative. Enthusiasts are great, too. I was meant to be just explaining where I was coming from. Of course other people have other viewpoints.

commodorejohn wrote: I can't imagine that the embedded world has gone any crazier than the desktop world.

It's not just programming. We just had a bank take five weeks to issue an l/c. That's a three-day job. And the idiot document service in the US that knew all the docs were in process, then took another two weeks to create three pieces of paper. The "500 man-years of experience" global entrepreneurs at the other end (Chicago, Illinois) took another five weeks to get four pieces of paper together when the l/c clearly says "21 days."

This is simple simple stuff. They are all fucking nitwits.

We are doomed. No one anywhere can find their ass with both hands. And I haven't even mentioned the Republican Party yet

uunix wrote: Do you know if this machine was using the 1600sw before you received it? Have you ever seen it working together?

Can't remember the directory name for an O2 but on an Octane, look under /usr/gfx/ucode/ODSY/vof for the vfo files. The ODSY should be the only thing different on an O2. Then an < ls > and he should see all the resolutions that are installed.

I ran mine at 1600x1024_50, by the way. Anything you can do to help an O2, right ? The 1600sw will run fine at 50 hz.

mrintel97 wrote: Should I try reinstalling IRIX?

No, that's way overkill. Just snag a vfo file somewhere. I'd send you one but don't have an O2. The 1600sw will run happily at 50hz, I used that vfo because the O2 does not have a big block Chevvy under the hood. You can't tell the difference visually.

About not seeing the fpa tho, that doesn't sound good. Usually when you install hardware, hinv automatically sees it.

When you say you don't have the pci riser, that's a little worrisome too. There's a little system i.d. chip on that riser. Without that you don't have a mac address, iirc.

mrintel97 wrote: Where am I snagging the vfo from?

HELP ! Anybody gottta 1600x1024 vfo for an O2 I can borrow ?

There. That oughta do it

Could the missing PCI riser be causing any of these issues?

Better ask someone with more recent O2 experience than me .... but is your fpa fully seated and all that ? I remember they are a touch difficult to get installed. You can look through the hinvs in the hinv thread to see some examples, it normally would show the fpa as soon as it's installed. The chip on the pci riser is for your mac address and hostid for any licenses, shouldn't affect the fpa but you won't have networking without it.

mrintel97 wrote: Well, I just decided to do a fresh install of IRIX 6.5.18 and the monitor comes to life! Looks like Titox was right, I may have had a bad installation. So thanks for all your guys' help!

That's cool

But for futrure reference in case someone else searches this problem, you did not have a bad install. You were missing a file. It is not necessary to reinstall Windows to add a new resolution.

With an O2, first serious step is always to pull everything, take it apart, clean the connectors, and put it all back together snugly. Memory especially. I've occasionally had success by moving the memory around.

Sometimes that works.

necron2600 wrote: Any way to open/convert .docx and .xlsx formats would be a big bonus for Irix ... but nothing with docx/xlsx that the rest of the world seems to expect.

Getting a little off dexter1's topic here but a few things miight help you ... I've hunted everywhere for a docx-doc converter. To me, this is a big indication of the change in computing - in the old days someone would have coded up a commandline converter. Now there's nothing.

Online converter

Another spreadsheet application?

I did find the source for Axene, which is

1) Motif
2) supposedly reads / writes Excel spreadsheets

I'd love to see the Axene programs run in Irix.

There is SIAG somewhere here - it is supposed to read xls files but the program is more than somewhat goofy.

mp4 videos still give me a black screen most of the time.

Must be the O2 All the mp4's I tried on the O350 were fine, haven't tried too many on the Octane yet. Most videos so far on the Octane seem to be okay. Agreed, neko MPlayer is a highlight. If we can get dexter1 and axatax back on that train, it'd be a winnah ! winnah !

Thunderbird is still so sluggish ...

I use Tbird only because I have so much mail already in it and too lazy to change. Not too slow on an Octane. Ishmail runs great tho and it's more Irrixy. You might try that.

GNUCash ? Would save me from SoftWindows95 and an old version of Quicken.

LedgerSMB runs in Irix. Might be overkill tho

Vladio wrote:

foetz wrote: ah, for additional video hardware what comes with irix might indeed not be enough. it depends on what sort of video gear you have. some need specific drivers supplied by the manufacturer

I have an extra 24" Samsung LCD I was going to use. I did a bit of reading on what should be needed and didn't find anything other than needing a 13w3 adapter.

In SGI-land, video and graphics are two separate things. Graphics is display on a monitor, video is .. well, video

Glitterred the Treasurer of the Frisco Hell's Angels once ... looked very electric as he rode up Fell Street.

uunix wrote: I'm suspecting you logic here.. Trippynet & myself have9 months of misery ahead..

You are both doing better than the niners will until they get a new owner. The one they have proved himself to be a backstabber of the first order. He's never again going to get a decent coaching staff.

chemdream wrote: Since NOTHING happens when I hit the power switch, I'm assuming it's the PSU...

Most likely not, I'm afraid. This is standard O2 behavior, I've never heard of it being the power supply. Doesn't mean it never was, once or twice in all of existence, but ...

There's a power-on jumper on the mainboard you can try. It behaves in an erratic manner - sometimes putting it on works, sometimes taking it off. And sometimes it does nothing. But it's worth a try. Search function is up and to your right

I had no idea these things were so touchy.

Yeah. Everything about them is great, except for reliability I've never had another computer that was anywhere near as flaky.

Well, maybe the Nokia N900. That thing is a true piece of shit also.

Did you totally disassemble, clean and reassemble ? If you haven't, you need to. It's a hail mary but next to calling in the witch doctor, it's about all you can do.

You'll probably need a new mainboard. You'll put it in and everything will work and you'll be all "Yay ! Fixed !" but don't throw out the 'broken' one. Six months from now when the new one does the same thing, put the old broken one back in. Wa ! Now it works ?

Who knows ? O2's suck if you turn them on and off. Once you get it up, leave it up. Feed it viagra if necessary.

If you ever get it past the red light but it still doesn't boot, don't despair. I've had one sit at the orange light for ages before it finally came up. I would have given up but once went to take a dump while it sat orange, came back a half hour later and viola ! it was running !

Other times, no such luck. Eventually you will ditch it because no matter how much you like them, they are the Zelda Fitzgerald of the computer world.

jan-jaap wrote: That's an SGI badged Neterion Xframe ...

They aren't even that expensive ... but I bet a (non-Dlink) 10Gbit switch would be more than my entire retirement fund

Krokodil wrote: Ah yes, I did have a scare like that myself early on, video graphics board trouble, but was probably caused by an improperly reinstalled TRAM ...

rosehillbob wrote: I didn't some testing of the libraries in found faults in GTK>=2.6 and a faulty DBUS library currently in Neko beta. I have a fixed GTK2.10.14 with cairo 1.8 now.

Did you try the file handling features ? With the Firefox 3.0.19 in nekoware, I was able to build gtk 2 up to 2.10.16 (iirc) without too many problems, but the file handling went to hell at about x.12. Firefox would run fine but if you tried to download or save a file, kerblammo.

Krokodil wrote: So what's your point? Lol.

The point is, with SGI machine graphics != video. There is no tram on any video board that I know of.

Woops, I was mistooken It's gtk 2. 12 .16 that's easy to get to. After that, it wasn't too hard to get through the 18's, as I remember.

Then there was a big hurdle. Maybe at 2.14.0 ? Somewhere right around there.

Anyway, gtk 2.12.12 even passes the tests, then up to 2.12.16 is also easy but the file handling goes kerput, then up to 2.12.18 had a couple more hangups but still pretty simple. There were some improvements and fixes mixed in with the goofiness. In fact, I was running 2.12.2?-something, I think. It was noticeably better except had to be careful to not download any file in Firefox or the world came to an end. So if you have a little spare time ....

rosehillbob wrote: firefox3.5 must have gone under a lot of testing ...

Umm, yeah. You might want to revisit that assumption. In fact, I'm kinda curious about how you got "testing" and "firefox" into the same sentence ?

vishnu wrote: Not exactly OT but I've found recent versions of Firefox to be almost unusable on my Linux box ...

Light on Windows, version 36, via rdp - same. Awful.

techgrrl wrote: Anyone have experience just setting this up and working out of the box as it were?

Yes. Ran cyrus, exim (i think), apache and php all on an O2 for several years. All straight out of nekoware.

Then the O2 fried a disk and that was all she wrote ... but that's not nekoware's problem.

What does "fail" mean ? More info required ...

p.s. I don't think I'd do that on an Octane ... the Octane can handle it fine but noise and electricity-wise, maybe an Indy is a better choice ?

techgrrl wrote: ... went further down the rabbit hole on the net to no avail - as far as php it also seemed simple but think I'm out of my depth - everyone on the web shows a few line solution that has not worked for me

Unfortunately, the disk that fried was the boot disk. Just took a look and I don't seem to have saved any configuration files.

Maybe nekonoko will be along after a bit, he ran nekochan off an O2 then an O350 for ages. This bbs software runs on top of php so it's definitely possible I had LedgerSMB running on it, too, so even a doofus can conquer those apps. Eventually ..

p.s. I disliked Apache enough so that I am now using SunJavaOneInternetNetcsrapsOneServerToRuleThemAll. It's pretty okay but I don't think has an Urx version. If it were just web serving I'd be looking around for other choices, but if you want php also, maybe Crapache is best

TeamBlackFox wrote: Towed my friends truck with my roommates truck using a ratchet tow strap 35 miles from his girlfriends house to his house.

If we're going to go automotive ... four guys, three bikes in a Ford van. Leaving Ontario at about 6:00 p.m. on a Sunday, it went onto five (from six) just as we came out of the tunnel into the parking lot. Shit, we gotta get home. Pulled the pushrods for that cylinder, headed north. Made it over the grapevine, don't touch the brakes, we need every bit of momentum we can get. Yay ! We're home !

Well, not exactly. 300 miles to go. Went okay tho except ... we forgot about the Altamont Pass.

By the time we got there, still had at least four cylinders. I think, sounded like that many anyhow. So about ten miles away, put yer foot into it, Ed. We need more momentum

Pass is about six lanes in each direction, we started out about 65 in the right lane, doin' okay. About halfway up down to maybe 30, I'm wondering why no one is passing us ? it's late but not THAT late ... crawl back, take a look through the back windows.

Oh ! there ARE cars back there ! All herded up, scared to death to pass us, cuz they can't see that far ahead. We looked like a crop duster, or an aerobatic plane on full smoke. You never saw such a huge cloud. You couldn't even see the cars, just their headlights gleaming faintly through the smog

Got to the bridge, didn't dare stop, threw a buck out the window (this was a long time ago), made it past San Quentin where we belonged, got to the shop, backed it into the parking place and turned the key. I've never heard an engine stop that quick.

Came by a few days later, the shop owner was in the van with the engine cover off, a 4x4 in one hole, a 16 pound sledge in both hands, trying to beat the pistons/ crank out the bottom of the engine Gosh Rich, what happened ? no, was running okay when we got back ....


I dragged a full rack PDP-8 back from LA in a VW Rabbit once, too, but at least that was less environmentally damaging Hard on the shorts tho, the tule fog was so bad you couldn't see twenty feet ahead. So I found a KW running about seventy and stuck my nose ten feet off his butt for a hundred miles or so.

Years later, my sister is watching a NASCAR race with her boyfriend and he made the mistake of explaining drafting. Oh really ? She enlightened him on the finer points of using the Mansfield Bar to regulate your position, how far back you can drift before losing the draft, how to keep your engine from burning up and other technicalities Nice thing about my sister is, she's not a sniveller. "Can't see where we're going so we'll tuck in behind this truck for 100 miles ? Cool."

Or the time I dropped a tranny (another Ford van, this one was an eight) over by North Richmond and didn't want to leave it (there wouldn't have been anything left, I didn't even want to get out of the van to tell the truth), so had a friend come over. Too obvious to use a rope, that's illegal, so he just pushed me. Chevy van pushes Ford. He had to back off every once in a while to get some air into the radiator but it worked okay. Over the bridge without stopping at the toll gate again (we've got practice), could we stay in the right lane at least ? Hell no. Jerry insists on passing everybody. I'm driving in the rear view mirror from the front, which is kinda weird, but I didn't want to get left behind by my push truck. Made it okay. Again.

Don't nobody tell the Assist, she thinks I'm safe and sane ....

vishnu wrote: Another thing, if firefox sits at youtube for a while, not watching any videos and not having it as the active window, if you go back to that window, it takes like a minute to become responsive. What the heck is up with that? It's been doing that for years. Chromium does not do that. I'll be sticking with Chromium for the foreseeable future it seems.

Firefox is a piece of shit written by whores. Currently, I have a whole bunch of domains dumped to a mini-http-server that returns a 404 immediately, instead of waiting forever. That seems to be a help.

There is no good browser out there

On a more pleasant note, I just read that faceblob is scared to death. 95% of their income comes from unwanted advertising, 78% of it on mobiles, and the Apple Store just started selling ad-blockers

To quote Mrs Lovett, "Die ! Die ! God in heaven -- die !"

techgrrl wrote: Oh goodness me what a huge muck mire of dependencies ...

Yes, that's FOSSY software for you

If you look on the downloads page tho, to the right of the tardist description is a list of what it requires. That's not 100% accurate all the time, but in general it tells you what you will need.

The good part is, you get to know exactly what you are installing, unlike the brain-dead package managers that are so popular in other systems.

uunix wrote:

Oskar45 wrote: This is not meant politically. But what occurred there last night should be shocking for everyone of us. It could happen anytime anywhere again. Oh, what an insane world we live in.

Shocking and awful chap. To this day I only understand the motive as != Muslim = Death ? Am I wrong and ignorant of what this is all about?

You might also wonder why Mr Obama is "shocked and horrified at this crime against humanity" but was not in the least disturbed when the CIA was bombing movie theaters in Havana.

The more you know about how people behave, the less you want to know. The "insanity" is nothing new, Oskar.

Full story ;

Xcircuit is a pretty nifty program -- besides making circuit diagrams you can use it for flowcharts, network layouts, all kinds of graphy kind of things. And it's tickletock, builds easily on Irix, up to version 3.3.38 everything is wonderbra. Output is PostScript, easy to pdf it, scalable, cool.

But you know version lust. And besides, there's a couple new export options in the newer revs that I could use. So.

Yeah, well. The newest (3.9.x) wants cairo, so that's out.

Built the biggest prior incarnation, 3.8.78. Built fine. Seemed to work fine, at first. But it wasn't quite right for drawing, then when I tried to grab an entity from the lbrary, there was no library. Well, there was, but it was invisible. You can drag the entity onto your drawing, where it shows (as well as where it used to be when you initially grabbed it) but if you mimimize the window or a dropdown menu covers the drawing area, the drawing disappears. You can print it but can't see it. This is WYCSIWYG printing, I guess

Backed my way down to 3.6.40 and found that this is where the bus error disaster crept in. Okay, I can use 3.6.39 for a while, at least that's quite a bit debugged from 3.3.38, right ?

Umm, well, no ... everything works very well except for when you click to drop a library item onto the drawing page. Then POOF !! Bus error and the program disappears.

Backtracked down the rev levels, that behavior appeared at 3.4.0. So the version in nekoware (3.3.38) is the newiest that works in Irix.

Unless I (i.e., someone smarter than me gives directions, I do the grunt work) can diagnose that bus error ...

It's a pretty useful program, actually. Even 3.3.38 is handy. One little fix would move us up three major versions, hint hint.

uunix wrote: I tried firing Xcircuit up , it requires tcl version > 8. I have tcl-8.4.11 installed ?

Wherever your base installation is - nekoware ? - above that there will be a /bin and /lib directory, then above the lib an /xcircuit-3.x directory. I'm guessing here but in nekoware, maybe /usr/nekoware/lib/xcircuit-3.3/ ... Inside that there will be a tkcon.tcl script. Edit that basterd to get rid of the -equal requirement. On mine it's at about line 44. It's insisting on one particular version. Mine works fine at 8.6.4, ymmv.

I edited some crap out of the startup script, too. No need to look for Cygwin on an Octane ... maybe Voidfoo already did that for nekoware.

If you are going to build it from scratch, yell and I can save you a few moments

If you find it too gaudy, there is a resource.tcl file that will Irixxify it pretty well. The Xdefaults don't seem to do anything ?

It's a little strange at first but after you figure out the different way it works, pretty fast. The way it gets shapes from the library onto the drawing is weird to figure out, but after a few minutes pretty neat. Read the tutorial. If you like keyboard shortcuts this is the program for you !

diegel wrote: Many bus errors are results of MipsPro aggressive optimization, so first try to build a version without optimization and look if you still have the errors.

Ha ! Thank you, tried that, no joy in mudville but I did isolate the crash to a particular activity (pushing any mouse button at one point in the process.)

So now it's hunt through code I don't understand for an error I don't understand, but still, forward movement

dexter1 wrote: Hamei, is there a simple check for the library inport and the display bug?
Xcircuit 3.8.78 compiles fine on my O200, but i'm not sure what the exact problem is.

I managed to build 3.9.40 as well, by --without-cairo-ing it ... same problem tho (at least for me)

Xcircuit does a kind of odd thing to place items on the drawing area. Start the program. Shows up fine, looks good.

Now, the way you place an entity in your drawing is, with the cursor in the drawing area, either hit "l" (that's a small L) or go to Window -> Library Directory or Window -> Go to Library (then choose one).

It should instantly show the library (or all the libraries) in the drawing area.

At this point you can lmb an entity and the display will poof turn into the drawing area. If you do it from the full library page like shown above, it first goes to that individual library page then you can drag from there.

The mouse is a little tricky. A fast click is a click. A long click or click and hold is a drag. A short click will start drawing a line, so if it does that, don't freak out. Right mouse button is cancel, two rmb's is cancel cancel until the line you didn't want goes away. Middle mouse is the "finished" button.

Now with lmb you should be able to drag the entity all over the screen.


This works for me up to 3.3.38. At 3.4.0 I start to get bus error *just* when I drop the entity onto the drawing area. (Seems like the problem might be with that mouse action ? Or maybe what that mouse action does. Or maybe the phase of the moon But it's connected for sure). That continues up to 3.6.40, where Behavior Two kicks in - you can't see the items in the libraries. They are there, but invisible. And anything that has to do with refreshing the page doesn't behave properly, either.

With the earlier ones (bus error) that happens *exactly* when you do a mouse click to drop the entity onto the screen.

With the latest version, 3.9.40 (built that today, at least it gives some sort of error message in the terminal) does this :



So I am pretty sure it's fixable, I just don't know how

Actually, two fixes might be nice, since the earlier ones are a bit snappier. Might be nicer on an Indigo or something ...

Oh, one other point. Configure doesn't like to find xpm.h I originally thought "who cares, it's just for the icon" but in fact, without xpm the early versions are screwed up. Supposedly at 3.6.40 that changed (suspicious coincidence right there) but it may still really need Xpm. I got around it by cramming the full path into the configure script and some of the files, since --with-xpm=/usr/Motif-2.1/include/X11 (or whatever, doing that from memory) did not work. That trick did not even work in the 3.9.40 version, so the one I just built is once again without xpm. Not supposed to matter but I am suspicious of that, at least on Irix.

Tried diegel's suggestion of backing off on optimization but no success

As you can see, it has the potential to be a pretty nifty program. It can be easily Irixxified, too. Xdefaults don't seem to do anything but there is a resource.tcl file that does fix most of the tickletockiness of the windows. Maybe the Xdefaults work in the Python version. It's also pretty fast and accurate (the snapping is quite nice.) And it puts out in PostScript, so it's real easy to convert to just about anything.

dexter1 wrote: Hamei, is hat the Xw version of xcircuit you are using? You're typing ./xcircuit which leads me to believe you are using the (old) X interface.

No, it's tickletock. That's the script that it makes when you do gmake install. It lives in /whereveryouputtit/bin and calls /whereveryouputtit/lib/xcircuit-version/the_executable_script. Gmake install creates all that stuff and rearranges the files, so that the environment settings are no longer necessary.

Try going to tcl/tk. Nekoware has the 8.4.11 versions which are fine and do not require any dependencies.

I'm running 8.6.4 here ...

When building xcircuit 3.8.78, or 3.9.x for that matter, use: ./configure --with-tcl=/usr/nekoware/lib --with-tk=/usr/nekoware/lib
And when finished, do:

Code: Select all

setenv XCIRCUIT_LIB_DIR ./lib
setenv XCIRCUIT_SRC_DIR ./lib/tcl
./lib/tcl/xcircuit.sh

That's just for running it to test prior to installing. After gmake install, there will be a startup script in your /base_directory/bin

The one I wasn't able to conquer was making configure find xpm. It should work with --with-xpm=/usr/Motif-2.1/include/X11 (or words to that effect) but refuses. I got around that by pounding the entire path into configure and tkPixmap.c and xcircuit.x

Then that trick fails with 3.9.x

For several versions you have to edit the /base_directory/xcircuit_version/lib/tkcon.tcl script to get rid of the -exact switch on line 44 or 45. Unless you have exactly tickletock 8.6.0, anyhow

I actually reproduced the library display bug on my remote X terminal (Ubuntu 15.10 Latitude laptop) with the xcircuit program running on the o200.

Ah-ha ! Two cases of the same problem. We almost got us a convoy !

PS: i was able to compile 3.8.78 with tcl/tk it on my Ubuntu Laptop and the first thing i notice that there is a "grid" which is missing in the irix-xcircuit window. Sure enough, when i press 'l' i see the library...

That's how it is supposed to work. It does work that way on Irix at 3.3.38. Then at 3.4 it goes totally to heck. Somewhere later it comes back but does a bus error when you hit "l" or Window -> Library. It does this up until 3.6.40 when the behavior changes, no longer a bus error but now the library is invisible. And stays that way until The End (3.9.40, I think. That will build for you also, just add --without-cairo to your configure. If you find a solution for the xpm problem, please pass it along ?).

Trippynet wrote: I'm paying more attention to that crazy toolchest than the Wings screenshot. That must have taken some work to knock up!

.auxchestrc

necron2600 wrote: It would be a nice feature if the toolchest could be minimized.

You can put all the programs on a single popout, that way the chest itself stays small but still easy to get a long list of all your applications ... I'm too dumb to get a screeny with the submenu popped out, only one window can be active at a time. Could use the camera, I guess ...

programs pops out a long menu, like yours. The disadvantage of changing the .chestrc is that Irix will snivel every time you reinstall or rebuild your user desktop - "You are running a non-standard toolchest ! Oh noes ! The world will come to an end !"

But I don't do that very often, so who cares ?

vishnu wrote: Yet another update; after what can only be immodestly described as a monumental effort, I have finally prodded Maxwell into compiling and running ...

Woo Hoo ! Let's go get drunk ! Can't believe it. That's el-coolio, Mr Vish. Congrats !!

Geoman wrote: I think somehow we will enter 'full retro mode', where it isn't feasible anymore to port newer software to SGI.

Nah. We can build all the newer software we want. It just won't be gnu-er

Personally, I'm lovin' Motif and tickletock and other clean, speedy, functional programs.

dexter1 wrote: As for the bus error. I haven't learned to debug tcl/tk apps in the debugger. If anyone can show this for me, especially for xcircuit, i'd be all ears

This is the Late Model Problem, not the bus error, and you're demanding work way above my rating, but I built 3.9.40 with -g and tried running it from cvd. Didn't give me any information but that's probaly because I am stupid. There is an actual executable in there called "circexec" whioch you can run directly. It still uses tickletock in some way but might be more informative ?

I'd love to kill the bus error cuz that seems like a great first step but here's what I have on the later problem :

le developpeur wrote: Since the error is raised by the X11 server,
it will be necessary to catch it in the source where the XCopyArea
statement is called, and figure out why the target pixmap/window is
null or pointing to some random area of memory, and why.

In xcircuit-3.9, the places it might occur are elements.c lines
2360, 2364, 2380, and 2426.

Usually, these problems that are different from machine to machine are
caused by the interaction between the window manager, Tcl/Tk, and X11.
It will help to know which window or pixmap is undefined, and figure
out why it isn't getting set to a valid memory address.

Hope that helps someone with a brain.

Oh and on all IRIX build:

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checking X11/xpm.h usability... yes
checking X11/xpm.h presence... yes
checking for X11/xpm.h... yes
checking for XpmCreateImageFromData in -lXpm... yes

No problems with that fortunately.

Sigh. But at least in the earlier versions I managed to jam xpm down configure's throat and make it work ...

dexter1 wrote: As for the bus error. I haven't learned to debug tcl/tk apps in the debugger.

Ooookay, hope you can make more sense of this than me.

Built 3.9.40 with the -g switch.

Opened cvd (Workshop Debugger.) Opened the Execution View as well, that shows a little more of what's going on ?

Started xcircuit from the Command window in the debugger. Wa, it actually opened ! Wait, I should open this from the directory with the source code ? Seems to me you should ?

Anyway, it opened, I didn't even get as far as trying to open a Library window, just clicked on one of the menubar commands and kerplowie.


and the Execution view

plus I've got a nice non-responsive xcircuit window left with no text showing.

Maybe should go try to run the one that works, just for a comparison ..