Nekonomicon - mattst88

mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Anyone Get LINUX Working On An Octane? at July 15, 2008, 11:15 a.m...

tillin9 wrote: As far as the kernel mode setting, I haven't gotten that working on an SGI. Actually, the only really working support (as in testable with a released distro) right now is Intel's integrated graphics. If Intel actually releases Larabee, that should work too. Open source radeon support is going to be included in kernel 2.6.27 or .28 (I know the devs. that are working on the ATI side - and have told them about my plans to put a card in an O2) but the current stable linux release is 2.6.25 so we're a few months off. When I get it working, I'll let everyone here know.

You're a little overconfident, to say the least. There are no definitive plans for Radeon kernel modesetting. It'll happen, yes. But currently, there is no timeline. Jerome Glisse is the person to talk to about kernel modesetting for radeon. I suggest you talk with him, as what you say about .27 and .28 is simply not the case as far as I can see. His modesetting code is available in his personal git repository ( http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=users/ ... ;a=summary ) but it hasn't been touched since December 2007.

Also, kernel modesetting is useless if the card cannot be initialized (POST'd) first. It's not as easy as finding a PCI Radeon and throwing it in a MIPS box, or an HPPA box, or SPARC, or PPC. They all have different ROMs with the code for the appropriate architecture's initialization. This is why ATI produces FireGL cards for HP's PA-RISC workstations and Radeons for PPC Macs. They contain code specific to the platform for which they're intended. The HP C8000 can be equipped with FireGL cards. Unfortunately though, there is still no DRI support for them under Linux/HPPA. I'm not sure X11 works on the C8000 under Linux in any case, actually.

Now, assuming you could get an X1550 (or even a Radeon 9100) with the appropriate MIPS initialization ROM, which, mind you, wouldn't be possible since there were never any Radeons made for MIPS boxes, Linux isn't guaranteed to work. For instance, I've got an Alphaserver DS20L. The good engineers at Digital were kind enough to implement an x86 BIOS emulator into SRM so that x86 add-on cards could easily work in Alpha systems even without the appropriate ROMs. The card works with xf86-video-radeonhd and crashes with xf86-video-ati. It's quite possible that whatever causes xf86-video-ati to crash has been fixed in more recent versions. Unfortunately, more recent versions of X11 require libpciaccess which in turn requires the kernel to allow access to PCI resources through sysfs. This feature has never been needed on Alpha, and is therefore not implemented. ( Kernel Bug Report )

All in all, it's not as easy to get a graphics card to work with strange hardware as it is to plug on into the strange hardware. I'm also not sure you've got any of your facts straight.

The only way I can see to use an x86 graphics card in a MIPS box is to find one that doesn't have an initialization routine. Matrox and Voodoo 3s come to mind.

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mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Anyone Get LINUX Working On An Octane? at July 15, 2008, 1:26 p.m...

As a follow up, David Airlie said just a minute ago on #xorg-devel on Freenode

<airlied_> mattst88: we haven't got radeon modeseting written yet..
<airlied_> it might make .28, but it more likely will be Fedora first.
<airlied_> I'm writing it as fast as I can.

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mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Anyone Get LINUX Working On An Octane? at July 16, 2008, 12:07 p.m...

I asked around on #dri-devel. Good news! I was wrong . Well, that's not really the good news. The good news is that what you said appears to be right!

<mattst88|laptop> will radeon kernel modesetting allow the usage of a x86 PCI radeon in a sparc, hppa, or mips box even without a special ROM?
<agd5f> mattst88|laptop: it should

So maybe there is hope for us Linux/AltArch users of enjoying nice, fast, hardware accelerated X11 on our O2s and PA-RISC workstations alike.

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mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Anyone Get LINUX Working On An Octane? at July 18, 2008, 3:29 p.m...

I wrote up a little blog post about this stuff if anyone is interested. http://mattst88.com/blog/?dd=18&mm=07&yyyy=2008

Also, D-EJ915: I love your signature

1 working 1 dead, and they're my friends

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mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Anyone Get LINUX Working On An Octane? at July 19, 2008, 8:14 p.m...

tillin9 wrote: What really surprises me is that more alt-arch people don't know / care about kernel modesetting. I'd think there'd be tons of embedded MIPS / ARM people who program devices with PCI buses (you'd be surprised that this is the majority, and most of the rest have PCIe 1x) who would love this. Just stick in a PC video card and have a low-end desktop environment for debugging / development instead of messing around with serial ports and JTAG.

In all fairness, for non-Radeons, the driver will have to initialize the card itself. So kernel modesetting won't magically cause all graphics cards to work in MIPS boxes.

It does, however, look good for AtomBIOS enabled Radeons though.

Gray Fox wrote: Why do people want to install Linux on SGI Systems for anyway? Same with Sun, Mac, HPPA, and etc. Why now save some money and hours by just building a PC and just install Linux on it. It looks the same on any other system.

For me, it's a fascination with architectures. I can't totally explain it. It's interesting to me as an assembly programmer for obvious reasons. Otherwise, it's just interesting because it's different. If you've ever done x86 assembly programming, you'll definitely understand my attraction to Alpha, MIPS, and PA-RISC.

This, coupled with the fact that getting a copy of commercial UNIX is both difficult and expensive, makes Linux an obvious choice.

Say I buy an Alpha. I can't easily, or cheaply, get Tru64. Even if I can, I've got to have a separate license to use hardware 3D acceleration offered only by a Radeon 7500 in my configuration. I've got to have another license to use the C++ compiler and another license to access certain features of the Advanced Filesystem.

Compare to Linux: Freely available. Maintained (that is, releases are more than just scheduled maintenance before decommissioning). C++ Compiler is freely available. Only cost involved in 3D acceleration is the time to setup. Plus, I can use my X1550 or even my 9100, both much newer than the 7500.

The situation is quite similar with that of MIPS/IRIX and PA-RISC/HP-UX I'd think.

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mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Anyone Get LINUX Working On An Octane? at July 21, 2008, 7:05 a.m...

tillin9 wrote: While AtomBIOS and AMD/ATI's new open source policy makes this a lot easier for radeons, there is no reason why kernel modesetting won't work for all cards. Intel does it themselves, and I'd actually think older cards would have a lot simpler sequence than even an AtomBIOS parsing radeon routine. That leaves Nvidia to be reverse-engineered, and the Nouveau devs seem to think they can do it. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... &px=NjU0Mg

Yep, probably right.

tillin9 wrote: Also note that the radeonhd camp doesn't like AtomBIOS and bit bangs all the registers manually

Well, used to. http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=12563

It's silly to have two drivers for the same cards, especially when a significant amount of the developers' time is spent copying code from the other driver. Once radeon kernel modesetting hits the kernel, one is going to die off. The kernel developers aren't going to be interested in having two drivers in the kernel for the same hardware that use 80% of the same code.

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mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of PMC RM7000C-600T CPUs on ebay at Aug. 6, 2008, 7:03 a.m...

Pretty cool. It'd be nice to see someone buy them, make some O2 compatible 600MHz cards and resell them.

Aren't the 300/350MHz processor cards harder to find than the actual 600MHz processors?

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mattst88
Enthusiast
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.
and authored 219 notes

Wrote on the subject of R5000 O2 at Jan. 20, 2009, 9:46 a.m...

mapesdhs wrote:

jan-jaap wrote:

When you use MIPSpro, I assume you build optimized binaries for each CPU?

Nope, I just run the Makefile as-is, since that's a more realistic test of what an ordinary user would experience. Besides, I'm not interested
in getting an optimised binary of the compiled program, just how long the compilation takes.

Ian.

I think he meant when you built programs to benchmark, did you compile them with processor-specific optimizations?

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mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of compiling clamav at Feb. 18, 2009, 5:13 p.m...

eMGee wrote: A bit off-topic, in the light of the question. ClamAV for IRIX . That's nice, but... why though? Are there virii out there affecting MIPS-based platforms? (And specifically targetting IRIX? ) Or will it serve to check x86 systems?

http://www.xoup.net/peeves/virii.php

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mattst88
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and authored 219 notes

Wrote on the subject of Prefix-portage from Gentoo on IRIX at April 19, 2009, 9:02 p.m...

Cool. I'll definitely try this out when my SGI box(es) arrive.

Are you officially a Gentoo developer?

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mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of What led to The Fall of SGI? - From www.vizworld.com at Aug. 12, 2009, 9:29 a.m...

tesla wrote: Interesting reading. Would have been even more interesting to hear "the full story" of employee combined interviews. Book material maybe?

That's exactly what ex-SGI employee Jesse Barnes suggested when I talked with him about cool stuff like IRIX x86.

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mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of What led to The Fall of SGI? - From www.vizworld.com at Aug. 12, 2009, 10:01 a.m...

directedition wrote:

mattst88 wrote: I talked with him about cool stuff like IRIX x86.

Whoa whoa whoa, back up. This was in the pipeline at some point? While I obviously have my heart reserved for MIPS, I would still kill to be able to run IRIX on PCs of the future.

Yes, I posted it here.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16720602
http://mattst88.com/blog/?dd=09&mm=04&yyyy=2009

It didn't seem to make a big splash when I posted it. :\

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mattst88
Who joined July 13, 2005, 8:54 a.m.
and authored 393 notes

Wrote on the subject of PMC RM7000C-600T CPUs on ebay at Oct. 8, 2009, 1:55 p.m...

Beyond that, I doubt the own all the PROM source.

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mattst88
Who joined July 13, 2005, 8:54 a.m.
and authored 393 notes

Wrote on the subject of PMC RM7000C-600T CPUs on ebay at Oct. 26, 2009, 5:45 a.m...

I'll repost here, since no one saw it or responded in the other thread.

Subject: o2 R7k 600MHz 1GB

omelett wrote:

thats a good hint!
here the part nr. of the L3 cache chip out of my box :
ibm 9314
84364BSLAC
81L3394 7
A07043XT PQ

anyway, we start again for a O2 speedup, thanks much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

omelett

I've found some pretty readily available parts that use the following cache chips in capacities of 1MB (and 2MB I think, but I cannot confirm)

Cache from System 1 wrote:

IBM 9314
041841QLAD
01L4989 5
U33096XT PQ

Also, in another system in capacities of 1MB:

Cache from System 2 wrote:

IBM 9314
041841QLAD
01L4988 4
U29008XT PQ

Also, in a system identical to System 2 in capacities of 1MB:

Cache from System 3 wrote:

Motorola (the M with a circle around it)
MCM69R818AZP5
QQQAC9842
TNRXQ

Are these usable in the O2 CPU modding project? Are these the chips that are 50% faster?

I hope that knowing that the Motorola chip is available makes this project more do-able.

I'm not ready to divulge where these chips can be found, out of fear of people scalping this hardware for its cache chips.

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mattst88
Who joined July 13, 2005, 8:54 a.m.
and authored 397 notes

Wrote on the subject of PMC RM7000C-600T CPUs on ebay at Oct. 29, 2009, 10:29 a.m...

mapesdhs wrote:

rumble writes:
> Lack of PROM source probably isn't the problem so much as the inability to alter the IRIX kernel is.

Nope, according to Joe, we DO need the PROM source.

I don't think he's claiming it's unneeded, just that the IRIX kernel poses a larger problem.

mapesdhs wrote:

> think it'd be reasonably straightforward to create a workable replacement that could load a Linux or BSD kernel.

Who the heck cares about Linux or BSD on O2? IRIX rules on this system. Otherwise, it's just a generic box. *yawn*

I do, but this is really a different topic.

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mattst88
Enthusiast
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Wrote on the subject of up2000+ questions at Nov. 11, 2009, 7:30 a.m...

miod wrote:

If you get a >>> SRM prompt, the command to switch console back to glass console is ``set console graphics'', and you'll need to power-cycle afterwards.

After `set console graphics`, you should just be able to run `init` actually.

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mattst88
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Wrote on the subject of up2000+ questions at Nov. 11, 2009, 9:21 a.m...

jmd8800 wrote:

i found this on the alphalinux.org wiki.

Glad someone found something on the wiki. (Notice my avatar, I created the wiki and 99% of its content.)

You should create a user account on the wiki and help contribute something. Also, get on IRC on Freenode in #alpha. My nick is the same.

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mattst88
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Wrote on the subject of up2000+ questions at Nov. 11, 2009, 1:09 p.m...

There are a lot of people running Gentoo on their alphas in #alpha and #gentoo-alpha on Freenode. Join us!

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mattst88
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Wrote on the subject of up2000+ questions at Nov. 11, 2009, 6:24 p.m...

jmd8800 wrote:

Quote:

There are a lot of people running Gentoo on their alphas in #alpha and #gentoo-alpha on Freenode. Join us!

i stopped by yesterday in my mid morning. both channels were quiet. surely everybody is busy doing things.

Just leave your client connected

(who shuts down their desktop?)

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mattst88
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Wrote on the subject of up2000+ questions at Nov. 12, 2009, 7:34 p.m...

You should check out Gentoo.

Debian is dead on alpha.

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mattst88
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Wrote on the subject of up2000+ questions at Nov. 15, 2009, 1:30 p.m...

The other CPU is already drawing power even if the kernel doesn't use it.

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mattst88
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Wrote on the subject of up2000+ questions at Nov. 15, 2009, 3:12 p.m...

theinonen wrote:

Fedora port for alpha works pretty well.

Too bad it hasn't had an updated package since April.

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mattst88
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Wrote on the subject of UP2000+ Update at Nov. 24, 2009, 2:31 p.m...

On a dual CPU UP2000+ (is it a 2000 + or a regular UP2000?) the compilation of a base Gentoo install shouldn't take too long at all. Again, get on IRC and I and others would be happy to help you. In order to get help though, you need to stay longer than the minute-and-thirty-seconds you've been popping in.

I wrote what I think is a pretty good wiki article about the UP2000/+, available here: http://alphalinux.org/wiki/index.php/UP2000

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mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of DIY XVR-100 at Feb. 6, 2010, 5:33 p.m...

I imaging the reason a Mac version card is needed is that the Sun firmware is 128K. If this is the case, you can check out this article to see how to replace the firmware chip on a regular PC version with a larger capacity chip. http://www.darkness.uklinux.net/

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mattst88
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Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.
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Wrote on the subject of Why do Alphastations go for over $1,000 ? at Feb. 6, 2010, 6:22 p.m...

I've noticed these before, specifically from one seller.

Since he normally has 4 or 5 listed at any given time, all which end up with 10~15 bids and sale prices of more than a grand and the fact that his bidder's list is private I think it's a scam.

Now, the one from the other seller... the bidder's list isn't private, but I still think it's a scam.

I've asked many times what in the world is happening with $1200 EV45 Alphas, and everyone I've asked thinks it's a scam.

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mattst88
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Wrote on the subject of Why do Alphastations go for over $1,000 ? at Feb. 8, 2010, 1:26 p.m...

The fact of the matter is that there are plenty of newer, faster, and cheaper alphas that run VMS and Tru64 for significantly cheaper than these 255s. Now, combine that with the fact almost all of them are 'sold' by one seller in private auctions, and it becomes pretty clear that it's some kind of scam.

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mattst88
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Wrote on the subject of Linux Graphicscard for IBM 275 at March 12, 2010, 10:53 p.m...

I wonder if you can use a Radeon with kernel mode setting.

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mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of IRIX patches at April 4, 2010, 8:56 p.m...

Code: Select all


   IRIX Patch 7235: IRIX ntp 4.1.1 patch                                                     08-Mar-2010    Green icon equals general availability
   

   IRIX Patch 7234: named fix for IRIX 6.5.[28..30]                                          06-Nov-2009    Green icon equals general availability
   

   IRIX Patch 7233: networking updates for 6.5.30                                            15-Oct-2009    Green icon equals general availability
   

   IRIX Patch 7232: OpenSSH security patch                                                   03-Aug-2009    Green icon equals general availability
   

   IRIX Patch 7229: 6.5.30 XFS Rollup #4                                                     06-May-2009    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7227: Rollup - kernel rollup for IRIX 6.5.30                                   12-Nov-2008    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7217: OpenSSL security patch                                                   09-Sep-2008    Green icon equals general availability
   

   IRIX Patch 7221: Updates for autofsd                                                      08-Sep-2008    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7209: ls 4 Gb FC for 6.5.28, 6.5.29, and 6.5.30                                28-Feb-2008    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7208: IP35 PROM to fix fibre panics in tg_set_flow_ctrl()                      31-Jan-2008    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7207: TimeZone processing change and 2007 zonefiles update                     16-Jan-2008    Green icon equals general availability
   

   IRIX Patch 7202: pthread library fixes for 6.5.30                                         07-Jan-2008    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7192: NFS fixes for 6.5.30                                                     29-Nov-2007    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7185: Parallel XFS Repair for 6.5.29 and 6.5.30                                25-Oct-2007    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7188: MIPSpro 7.4.4m C/C++ Front-end #1                                        02-Oct-2007    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7187: tpisockets fixes for 6.5.30                                              10-Sep-2007    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7173: fix ha_macconfig2 to send gratuitous arp                                 10-Jul-2007    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7177: patch to 6.5.30 var/sysgen/system/irix.sm                                03-Jul-2007    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7174: IRIX system command fixes                                                15-May-2007    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7146: XFS Project Quota Userspace Fixes                                        02-May-2007    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7155: KONA 6.5.30m libGL: pixmaps become corrupted with multi-threaded access. 18-Apr-2007    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7162: Xsgi: xterm program hanging when it receives ^E                          02-Apr-2007    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7149: System Controller Firmware/Software Updates for IRIX 6.5.24 - 6.5.30     30-Jan-2007    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7147: XVM update for IRIX 6.5.30                                               23-Jan-2007    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7144: xfsdump rollup for 6.5.30                                                11-Jan-2007    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7141: Fix frs frame boundary performance issue                                 06-Dec-2006    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7128: IRIX NAS Manager 3.1 patch for filesystem grow                           25-Oct-2006    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7114: Customer (Online) Diagnostic Patch for IRIX 6.5.15 through 6.5.30        10-Oct-2006    Requires Support Program to Access
   

   IRIX Patch 7111: ESP eventmond core fix                                                   28-Sep-2006    Requires Support Program to Access

Really, SGI? Why would you require that I pay for a support contract to get access to patches as menial as "pthread library fixes for 6.5.30"?

How ridiculous is that? And I bet they don't allow you to redistribute patches, either.

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mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of IRIX patches at April 4, 2010, 10:15 p.m...

You can't really think that companies are going to think it's worthwhile to pay for a support contract that gets them access to trivial and sporadic patches for an operating system that is no longer being developed.

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mattst88
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Wrote on the subject of Workstations and PDP-11s for grabs in Ottawa, Canada at June 30, 2010, 10:22 a.m...

pentium wrote:

If I hooked up with a truck that by chance was making its way to my end of the country and would deliver to me at a fee, what would the chances you could get the 11's onto the truck? How many racks total is there?

Oh man. I've got plenty of computers myself, but after reading this, I think we need to stage an intervention.

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mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Intel wants to charge you extra to unlock features at Oct. 8, 2010, 1:39 p.m...

Do you really have to use Blue fonts?

Seriously. I hate to be a dick, but it's just annoying.

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mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Intel wants to charge you extra to unlock features at Oct. 8, 2010, 2:26 p.m...

bri3d wrote:

mattst88 wrote: Do you really have to use Blue fonts?

Switch to italics , just for SkyWriter

Oh god. That too.

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mattst88
Who joined July 13, 2005, 8:54 a.m.
and authored 393 notes

Wrote on the subject of OpenBSD/sgi at Nov. 19, 2010, 3:14 p.m...

Is 'porting' really involved? They can't just be compiled on OpenBSD?

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mattst88
Who joined July 13, 2005, 8:54 a.m.
and authored 393 notes

Wrote on the subject of IRIX security at Nov. 25, 2010, 9:07 p.m...

Well, honestly who is actively looking for IRIX vulnerabilities? And why would they even bother?

_________________
My computers including Alphas, MIPS, PA-RISCs, VAX, and SPARCs.

mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of DIY XVR-100 at Dec. 3, 2010, 10:56 p.m...

You just have to use unmakeself to extract the files from the shell script.

The resulting xvr100.prom.1.61 file is available on my Radeon Flashing tools and ROMs for Mac/SPARC page.

Let me know if there are any other files I should have linked there.

My computers (incomplete)

mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of DIY XVR-100 at Dec. 18, 2010, 3:40 p.m...

It was just pointed out to me that although the XVR-100 ROM is 128k, the last 64k are entirely zeros.

It'd be interesting to know if you can strip off the last 64k and flash it on a standard Radeon 7000.

My computers (incomplete)

mattst88
From Hillsboro, OR
Who joined July 13, 2005, 9:54 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of SGI Prism for Sale in London at Dec. 23, 2010, 8:08 p.m...

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.

My computers (incomplete)

mattst88
Who joined July 13, 2005, 8:54 a.m.
and authored 393 notes

Wrote on the subject of HP C8000, PA-8800 1GHz, 4GB, FireGL X1 at Feb. 16, 2011, 4:40 p.m...

R-ten-K wrote:

Linux in HP-PA works fine as long as you keep yourself to one PA-8800 or PA-8900 chips in your C8000. Apparently, there are no developers with access to multichip C8000s or PA Superdomes, so the main issue with Linux in this architecture is that the algorithm for SMP coherency is rather "brute force" and since the latest PAs had very large L2s (32MB and 64MB respectively) things like cache flushes can induce some serious overhead.

This is actually being worked on actively. They've made pretty good progress recently too.

There's a current thread on linux-parisc with another patch.

_________________
My computers including Alphas, MIPS, PA-RISCs, VAX, and SPARCs.

mattst88
Who joined July 13, 2005, 8:54 a.m.
and authored 393 notes

Wrote on the subject of HP C8000, PA-8800 1GHz, 4GB, FireGL X1 at Feb. 16, 2011, 8:18 p.m...

D-EJ915 wrote:

I just need to pick up a serial card to install lol.

That's actually fixed recently too. (The onboard serial port didn't work before).

I don't know exactly when, so it's probably only available in Gentoo, which I'd recommend using anyway.

_________________
My computers including Alphas, MIPS, PA-RISCs, VAX, and SPARCs.

mattst88
Who joined July 13, 2005, 8:54 a.m.
and authored 393 notes

Wrote on the subject of Make "Notify me on new private messages:" default to yes at July 5, 2011, 8:32 a.m...

Too many times have I sent a person on this board a PM about a part (immediately after seeing their new FS: post) only to have it sit in my Outbox for months.

Can we somehow make notification of PMs default yes if it's not already? Otherwise, wtf are these people doing turning it off?

_________________
My computers including Alphas, MIPS, PA-RISCs, VAX, and SPARCs.

The collected works of mattst88 - Page 1