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OS X can handle filesizes up to eight exabytes

That's cool and all, if true, but XFS has been able to handle 9 million TB files and 18 million TB filesystems for years and years.

(Can't really handle the term "exabyte" ever since that tape drive company comandeered it. Besides, a million terabytes sounds bigger than one exabyte.)

Other than its ability to run on cheap (price and often quality) hardware, I still don't understand SGI's movement to Linux.

1. Port IRIX to the Itanium. Expensive, and not a good way to grow their customer base. People who prefer IRIX will want to run it on MIPS-based systems anyway.
2. NT. License fees, scalability. They've actually done an NT workstation or two, but the market was underwealmed. SGI just no longer has a role in the low-end workstation market.
3. Linux. No license fees. There are scalability issues here too, but the source is open, and the Linux community is more than happy to accomodate SGI's needs. Especially after they contributed a few nice toys, like XFS.

www.sgi.com/linux/ and
www.sgi.com/developers/technology/linux/.
Certainly doesn't look like it's over yet...

www.sgi.com/linux/ and
www.sgi.com/developers/technology/linux/.
Certainly doesn't look like it's over yet...

Actually, according to SGI's own docs The VPro cards are just rebranded Quadros, which, in fact, *ARE* vanilla GeForce cards with some special features enabled in the hardware (like line-AA). All it takes is a change to one resistor to turn a "vanilla" GeForce into an SGI "VPro"

As for performance, right now on linear algebra codes you will be hard pressed to beat a P4 with any RISC hardware. Alpha is about the only thing that can do it over a very wide range of benchmarks, and there you are looking at 10% differences in wall clock. On chem and bio codes, the winner is the AMD Athlon in most cases. Single CPU to single CPU, it is 2-3 x the performance of the current SGI offerings, which are within a factor of 2 of all the rest of the RISC pack.

It is very very hard for the RISC crowd (I used to be one of them) to believe it. They have been lapped. Its not gonna get any better.

As noted elsewhere, you can accept reality, or do what SGI did. SGI closed reality.

I have benchmark after benchmark after benchmark, real customer benchmarks that is, on real codes, with real problems, which illustrate what is said above. But you can go on denying it.

Cray denied it for a long time. Look where it got them.

Yeah, really ironic considering the deal between SGI and NVIDIA.

http://www.sgi.com/newsroom/press_releases/1999/au gust/nvidia.html

It's not like they're using vanilla GeForce cards or anything.... still high-end stuff.

I am reminded of the saying "Never attribute to malice that which may be attributed to stupidity."

SGI sold the same stuff for years for several simple reasons. I know, I was there watching this drama unfold. Basically the issues were as follows:

• followon project mismanagment: It took how many years to get odyssey out the door? Bali never really made it out. The 6 year old technology is being sold because the followon technology never got to a salable point
  
• an insane merger: causing SGI to focus inward on battles it should have never fought, and made it take its eyes off the market. In 1995 they commented that they had the largest number of web servers around, and didnt understand why. Amazing.
  
• lossage of quality people: competing with the Dot-Bombs was hard.
  
• layoffs of large fractions of unpopular teams: So if your VP lost some turf wars, during the layoff penalty phase, your team got whacked.
  
• general cluelessness and management malaise: Why SGI hired some of its senior management... I will never know. It seems as if they wanted to fail. Mr. Coleman was the prime example of this.
  
• product transitions: such as when they transitioned the odyssey team to nVidia, and they all left.
  

No, SGI sold 6 year old technology because it had no other choice, not because it could. I remember some benchmarks towards the end where PC's with simple graphics cards from nVidia were completely destroying the Octane on graphics and computing intensive tasks at a major OEM customer of SGI's. I can run performer town on my laptop in 1280x1024 mode faster than I can on my old O2. Inventor screams on my desktop, on par with my old Octane2.

In short, SGI was lapped. They never got a clue once they lost it, and they thought their shit didnt stink. The reality is that their products are slower than PCs in many cases, and most of their competitors are better/faster/more likely to survive. The only real thing that SGI has going for it these days is its large scale graphics, which no one else can do. They can drive display centers like no one else.

But then again, in typical SGI fashion, they will be sitting on their collective asses waiting for the business to find them, rather than hunting down the business. Right now their CEO is running around telling the world that "we are doing better". Not "Hey world, we have the best visualization technology around, so we have help you solve your problems before they get to be problems". Only one of these is a sales pitch intro. The other is begging for handouts.

This looks pretty cool and I'm thinking it's the workstation that someone else mentioned will be based on the Origin 3000 architecture. Pretty cool. If OpenGL code ports to IRIX easily, then I think I'll be entering. Looks like you need to be present to win, good thing I'm in the SF Bay area!

http://www.sgi.com/developers/

This looks pretty cool and I'm thinking it's the workstation that someone else mentioned will be based on the Origin 3000 architecture. Pretty cool. If OpenGL code ports to IRIX easily, then I think I'll be entering. Looks like you need to be present to win, good thing I'm in the SF Bay area!

http://www.sgi.com/developers/

I really don't understand how anyone can take this seriously. All these plans must be imaginary, since SGI has cancelled reality. It was a big story here some months ago.

What is SGI's relationship to linux, and why doesn't this article mention linux once?

I'm posting this anonymously because I don't wanna get in trouble in case any of this is confidential. I don't think it is, but you never know.

SGI's official relationship to Linux is this: none whatsoever. At one time, there were some pretty serious plans to port core OS libraries, build abstraction layers and shims, and phase out the IRIX kernel in favor of Linux. It was thought to be easier to turn Linux into a real commercial-quality kernel (not my words; don't flame me!) than to port 60-odd million lines of IRIX to the then-proposed IA-64-based Origin 3000 variant. These plans have been informally shelved, meaning SN-IA is still a product on the roadmap, but nobody is working on it. It seems to have been put in the "maybe after McKinley" category.

(Take all of this as unofficial comment, of course, but this paragraph is total speculation on my part. I wonder if part of the reason IA-64 isn't really going anywhere in this market is because of the lack of a really good Fortran compiler for it. The MIPSpro Fortran 77 compiler, which I've worked with a lot, kicks ass, and I understand the F90 one does as well. Getting all of that tuned, optimized Fortran code to run on IA-64s seems to be a challenge for a lot of folks that are long-time die-hard SGI customers.)

SGI is officially committed to continuing to develop and ship systems based on the MIPS processors (R12000, R14000, and the upcoming R16K, and R20K) with the IRIX OS until further notice, which is to say that they're not opposed to exploring other options, but there just isn't any reason to switch that plan right now. The Origin 3000 server is a great piece of work, and the new lower-end Origin 300 is selling nicely, too. On the workstation side, believe it or not the humble little O2 is still selling briskly-- now with R7000 or R12000 processors, painted purple, and called O2+. Octane2 kicks ass, and a new workstation to be announced in January or February is also going to be based on MIPS/IRIX, combining Octane2 graphics with Origin 3000-style architecture.

So the official story is MIPS/IRIX forever.

Unofficially, SGI loves Linux. Check out oss.sgi.com sometime to see what SGI is doing with respect to Linux specifically (XFS, kdb, bigmem, NUMA, STP, etc) and Open Source in general (GLX, Inventor, Performer, etc).

Anyway, I hope they stay in business. Their web site is the easiest place to remember when you need to look up something in the STL Programmer's Reference.

2) Right, right. So lets go all the way and just forgo BFS completely.

I think he meant he wants to use LTP, not STP.

STP isn't much use for testing kernel pre-releases.

Even at SGI, they no longer believe that proprietary architectures can compete with commodity boxes in the workstation market. But there's still "visualization" systems, which you definitely can't do with PC clusters!

OVERDONE WEB PAGES:
I agree with your point. I always advocate simplistic, standards-compliant web pages (after all HTML is about content, not appearance!). To see how dependent recent web pages are on plugins, one only needs to spend a few minutes browsing with a vanilla Mozilla build. :-(

NETSCAPE ON IRIX:
Have you tried Mozilla for IRIX? Mozilla itself is somewhat bloated IMHO, but it is becoming quite stable and should easily run on the Indigo box you mention. Have a look at SGI Freeware for an inst package.

A DECENT BROWSER ON IRIX:
Maybe it's worth seeing whether Galeon will build on IRIX. (I expect this will require some work, as recent GNOME libraries don't seem to be readily available on IRIX.)

OVERDONE WEB PAGES:
I agree with your point. I always advocate simplistic, standards-compliant web pages (after all HTML is about content, not appearance!). To see how dependent recent web pages are on plugins, one only needs to spend a few minutes browsing with a vanilla Mozilla build. :-(

NETSCAPE ON IRIX:
Have you tried Mozilla for IRIX? Mozilla itself is somewhat bloated IMHO, but it is becoming quite stable and should easily run on the Indigo box you mention. Have a look at SGI Freeware for an inst package.

A DECENT BROWSER ON IRIX:
Maybe it's worth seeing whether Galeon will build on IRIX. (I expect this will require some work, as recent GNOME libraries don't seem to be readily available on IRIX.)

So far, IBM is the only large company that is doing a damn to help Linux.

• Remote host Linux kernel debugger via GDB
• Kernel debugger
• Linux scalability
• XFS Journaled File System

So far, IBM is the only large company that is doing a damn to help Linux.

• Remote host Linux kernel debugger via GDB
• Kernel debugger
• Linux scalability
• XFS Journaled File System

So far, IBM is the only large company that is doing a damn to help Linux.

• Remote host Linux kernel debugger via GDB
• Kernel debugger
• Linux scalability
• XFS Journaled File System

So far, IBM is the only large company that is doing a damn to help Linux.

• Remote host Linux kernel debugger via GDB
• Kernel debugger
• Linux scalability
• XFS Journaled File System

There's always SGI's OpenGL Shader, an evaluation of which is available for free for Linux 2.2, and IRIX 6.5 (currently at IRIX 6.5.14). Get it here:
http://www.sgi.com/software/shader/

I prefered the trailer park variant of Bob myself :) As far as the jurassic park navigation screen (its actually a file manager) - its a real piece of software called FSN. I dont know where the source code to it is, but if you have IRIX <= 5.3, then go here: here.

So, if anyone out there runs IRIX version 5.3 or below, you might want to try this, it's freeware.

When Alias first released Maya 1.5 on NT (maybe a year and a half or so ago), a pair of artists created a very realistic 5 minute clip of bruce lee doing some martial arts and even a close up, I believe the quote when the camera zoomed for a close-up dialog was something about water and how it becomes whatever you put it in "you put it in a cup, it becomes the cup". There was voice, there was extremely realistic video, etc. Alias Maya is now at 4.0, I dont see what the big deal is, same model, some new backgrounds, a new plot, and a couple more animators to stretch 10 minutes to 90. *shrug* I woulda been impressed in 99, now its just a remake.

Not just Economy PCs - you can use this architecture to to do much more than that

I'm looking at the Linux XFS feature page, which states:

Maximum File Size
For Linux 2.4, the maximum accessible file offset is 16TB on 4K page size and 64TB on 16K page size. As Linux moves to 64 bit on block devices layer, file size limit will increase to 9 million terabytes (or the system drive limits).

Maximum Filesystem Size
For Linux 2.4, 2 TB. As Linux moves to 64 bit on block devices layer, filesystem limits will increase.

And, on 32-bit architectures, there's no way to get the buffer cache to address more than 16TB.

I used to work exclusively with SGI hardware and software in a broadcasting environment. HDTV output is fairly new in the SGI world - I'm thinking it came out about two years ago. This HDTV input/output board was made only for the very high end servers (only onyx2 servers afaik). Information about the HDIO card is here.

It is not supported in the most common machines used at TV stations, the Octane and the O2. There have been rumours that an HDTV card was being developed for the Octane, but as far as I know it hasn't been released.

SGI hardware is, IMO, overpriced. We usually would buy a barebones system (no memory, no monitor, etc) and then buy the parts from third party vendors. At the same time, SGI and the Irix operating system offers much more than you can get out of a standard windows or macintosh system, such as really fine grained scheduling control, guranteed I/O and frame rates, which is very important to engineers.

PC's are improving (and in many areas surpassing), but are not yet at the level of SGI servers for specialized broadcasting environments.

Itanium isn't just for the server market now. IBM, SGI and several others are marketing Itanium technical workstations. Intel has also stated that it sees Itanium making it to the desktop at some point in the future, replacing x86.

Hammer, on the other hand (specifically Clawhammer) has always been targeted at the desktop from the get-go (along with server and workstation). Check it out on the AMD processor roadmap (which I just managed to find again;).

Another point to keep in mind is that the ability to compete in the server marketplace is a key for AMD. It will provide them with the same ability as Intel to subsidize desktop processors with expensive server processors. Right now Intel can sell P4s at a loss and still turn an overall profit, while AMD suffers. Once Hammer ships, the dynamic will change quite a bit... ;-)

Perhaps McKinley (the joint project with HP) is Intel's idea of the post P4 desktop processor, as I've seen elsewhere that Itanium's x86 emulation makes a PIII look attractive.

I thought McKinley was just the .13 micron version of Itanium, perhaps with more cache. Does it have an enhanced ability to do IA32?

The ability to build a desktop workstation with the ability to run all my old x86 crap, fast, and move into 64bit software, also fast, is highly attractive. Athlon or P4 will undoubtably be the choices for the next year, but when AMD gets the Hammer out into the mainstream with a mainstream price, Intel watch out.

I couldn't agree more!

Lastly, Microsoft, last I read, didn't indicate any interest in doing a version of XP for the Hammer. Perhaps that hasn't changed. If not, there's a potential hole through which someone may exploit Microsoft's disinterest. Linux, sure, AOL, Hmmm, you know that's a mean fight going on between Reston, VA and Redmond, WA, if the Hammer is attractive to home users, don't be surprise if AOL chooses to support it. It's entertaining to think about, anyway, however you feel about the combatants.

I think Linux will be strong presence on the Hammer, along with potentially (wild prediction here) MacOS X. Microsoft will support it as soon as it begins to take marketshare like the US Rangers taking Omar's palace (not that I particularly care if Microsoft supports it). As for AOL, it should just get busy porting it's interface to Java like it said it would a year or so ago. That alone would be a big blow to Microsoft, and would simplify software development quite a bit for AOL as well as widening the number of AOL platforms substantially.

299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!

Nope. As has been stated over and over again, BeOS cannot and will not be relicensed as Open Source software. There is simply too much proprietary, third party, technology embedded in it that it would take a lot of time, and probably a lot of cash, to strip away. It took SGI almost a year, if not longer, to get XFS released as GPL. Okay, the had to reengineer a good deal of the Linux kernel too. Besides, even if Be manages to strip out the proprietary bits you will most likely be left with a shell of code that will not compile, for a significant amount of time (*cough* Mozilla *cough*).

And IMHO, the "coolest" bits of BeOS have already made it into Linux -> 64-bit journalling FS with attributes, XFS! The other cool BeOS buzzword "pervasive-multithreading" didn't turn out to be that cool after all.

-adnans (ex-BeOS fool)

• Linux Devices Article detailed, very nice, on this issue from Sept 6
• Kernel Hacking How-to Page on this again, very detailed.
• The Kernel SpinLock metering FAQ

• Linux Devices Article detailed, very nice, on this issue from Sept 6
• Kernel Hacking How-to Page on this again, very detailed.
• The Kernel SpinLock metering FAQ

"Today's flatscreens also have a really coarse dot pitch with sharp square pixels. As far as I'm concerned, that puts them out of the running for the ULB. I do a lot of writing and, not infrequently, my own typesetting; I want to be able to preview two pages of Postscript at actual size and have the fonts look good."

I'm sorry, but has this guy ever seen a high-end flat panel? I personally own an SGI 1600SW, and not only do you not see the pixels, but you can also preview two Postscript pages side-by-side with its 1600x1024 widescreen aspect ratio. Of course, SGI stopped selling it (*sigh*). But there are other excellent flat panels out there, like the Samsung line that lets you run a TV signal in and do picture-in-picture. I've seen the Samsung ones up close, and they have wonderful image quality. Apple also makes some excellent flat panels (does anyone know whether there is an adapter to run them on PCs yet?)

All I'm saying, is while there are still plenty of reasons to run CRT's, in a "cost-is-no-object" type of article, you should at least consider the high-end flat panels.

P.S. I've seen the dual 1600SW setup, and it is STILL, to this day, the only monitor setup that ever made me speechless with its absolute beauty.

Followup to my last, see also See also http://www.e-nef.com/CGI/MachineInfo.html and ftp://ftp.sgi.com/sgi/linux

The Federal Aviation Administration, at least during my tenure there, relied heavily upon SGI IRIX systems.

While these systems were obviously used for such purposes as flight simulation, they were also used for design and validation of flight procedures, approach and departure procedures, and many many other critical operations.

The FAA got me hooked on SGI, and now I've been called home to the mother ship. Of course its hard not to get hooked when your first exposure was to an Onyx. :)

I have seen (and maybe somebody else can provide links) some innovations in the research of data representations. Basic approach is to display data in more than 3 dimensions, using colors, forms and relative position to enrich the data and provide a better decision making process (first usage is in risk management for Financial Institutions, analysis of brokerage data, etc.) One very impressive example was done by SGI and it consisted of a wheel with different rings that you could turn and move freely that would directly indicate the performance of of certain stocks. It could be used for long-term analysis or day trading. I believe, if I am not mistaken, that it is (was?) in use by Morgan Stanley.
The point is, once you have a different representation of data a different GUI approach (using the data) has to follow. I see data representation of large streams paving the way for true "Cyberspace" GUIs, allowing the user to walk through the data, adding movement, position etc. to the user experience.
Just my 0000010 cents ...

however, since these are long gone from the usual retail channels, their used price has skyrocketed and the used prices are now approaching the price of the units as if they were new! guess that tells SGI that they shouldn't have retired this design. (and they replaced it with a far inferior unit that only does 1280x1024, and via analog, too!) ;-(

the downside of the lcd's is that they aren't the best for doing photo retouch work. interesting that you mentioned the nikon d1x - I just bought a used nikon d1 (original) and while its "only" 2000x1300 in output resolution, its still a darned good camera body and being able to shoot off 4.5frames/sec with no noticeable shutter lag or latency is still state of the art. but I do have to do my last stage of retouching on an actual CRT.

CRTs will never go away. LCDs are uber-cool but bright highlights get blown out when you view on an LCD. I do mostly C-coding and sysadmin type stuff at home (and only occasional photo work), so the dual LCDs pretty much fit my need. but don't think that they're a complete substitute for a CRT in all cases, 'cause they're not.

Without some scheme to lie to half of your hardware you can't have more than 4 primary partitions per drive no matter what size it is (or 3 primary and only 1 extended),

I seem to recall an article a while back talking about how the 64-bit version of Windows XP has a new partitioning system - GPT ("GUID Partition Table") - which is meant to sort out current problems with partition tables.

And don't worry, 64-bit Linux supports it too ;-)

MS has a document explaining their 64-bit things, including GPT and the associated support stuff -- Designing for 64-bit Windows. Things appear to be changing a fair bit -- most software will break on the new hardware they describe, but it should simplify what's left ...

First of all,there was no "300L". SGI made a "1400L" server and a "230" workstation, among other models, but no "300L".

Have you checked out SGI's website? There are many good linux docs, faqs, and links:
http://support.sgi.com/linux
http://techpubs.sgi.com
http://oss.sgi.com

Keep in mind that aside from the (NT/W2K only) 320 and 540, all of SGI's x86 PCs are based on OEM components. There is no need for SGI-specific software. SGI has offered ProPacks in the past, mostly a combination of kernel patches and other tweaks. The ProPacks are opensource, but keep in mind that the most recent update is only for Red Hat 6.2. You're best off with your favorite distro and the latest components.

(begin rant)
Why did you buy a linux system from SGI in the first place? At the time, VA and Penguin offered better deals and better support. My office owns several SGI systems, but we stick to what they know best - MIPS/IRIX. Our Origin 2000 fileserver, Origin 3000 compute/simulation machine, and the two Octane2 V12+DM2+FibreChannel workstatons (running Piranha HD for high def video editing) come from a long lineage of MIPS/IRIX systems SGI has offered over the years --- not some new wiz-bang technology they thought they'd try to capitalize on, then dump.
(end rant)

First of all,there was no "300L". SGI made a "1400L" server and a "230" workstation, among other models, but no "300L".

Have you checked out SGI's website? There are many good linux docs, faqs, and links:
http://support.sgi.com/linux
http://techpubs.sgi.com
http://oss.sgi.com

Keep in mind that aside from the (NT/W2K only) 320 and 540, all of SGI's x86 PCs are based on OEM components. There is no need for SGI-specific software. SGI has offered ProPacks in the past, mostly a combination of kernel patches and other tweaks. The ProPacks are opensource, but keep in mind that the most recent update is only for Red Hat 6.2. You're best off with your favorite distro and the latest components.

(begin rant)
Why did you buy a linux system from SGI in the first place? At the time, VA and Penguin offered better deals and better support. My office owns several SGI systems, but we stick to what they know best - MIPS/IRIX. Our Origin 2000 fileserver, Origin 3000 compute/simulation machine, and the two Octane2 V12+DM2+FibreChannel workstatons (running Piranha HD for high def video editing) come from a long lineage of MIPS/IRIX systems SGI has offered over the years --- not some new wiz-bang technology they thought they'd try to capitalize on, then dump.
(end rant)

First of all,there was no "300L". SGI made a "1400L" server and a "230" workstation, among other models, but no "300L".

Have you checked out SGI's website? There are many good linux docs, faqs, and links:
http://support.sgi.com/linux
http://techpubs.sgi.com
http://oss.sgi.com

Keep in mind that aside from the (NT/W2K only) 320 and 540, all of SGI's x86 PCs are based on OEM components. There is no need for SGI-specific software. SGI has offered ProPacks in the past, mostly a combination of kernel patches and other tweaks. The ProPacks are opensource, but keep in mind that the most recent update is only for Red Hat 6.2. You're best off with your favorite distro and the latest components.

(begin rant)
Why did you buy a linux system from SGI in the first place? At the time, VA and Penguin offered better deals and better support. My office owns several SGI systems, but we stick to what they know best - MIPS/IRIX. Our Origin 2000 fileserver, Origin 3000 compute/simulation machine, and the two Octane2 V12+DM2+FibreChannel workstatons (running Piranha HD for high def video editing) come from a long lineage of MIPS/IRIX systems SGI has offered over the years --- not some new wiz-bang technology they thought they'd try to capitalize on, then dump.
(end rant)

You think 100 processors are a lot? Take a look at SGI3000 which can come with 1024 processors at any time. Now that's a lot! ;-)

I think you missed the partitioning link on the web page. Also, how do you upgrade a StarCat? With an O3k, you just keep adding to the system. You never have to get rid of your old hardware. No more fork lift upgrades.

If you want a real system that scales and doesn't lose IO capability, check out an SGI O3k. up to 512 CPUs, as much IO you want.

http://www.sgi.com/origin/3000/

I wonder how this would compare with the sheer amount of hardware that was thrown at the rendering of that movie. (I can't find the original link, but over and above the SGI stations that were used there were hundreds of clustered 'normal' PCs)

Just thinking "could they've just slapped a few of these suckers into place instead?"

This isn't even a really impressive box. I'd rather have an sgi O3K system if I'm going for the ultimate in servers you can actually purchase. The SGI Origin 3800 has anywhere from 16 to 512 processors, 716 GB/sec system bandwidth and up to a terabyte of memory. It's also a single system image machine. Oh yeah, and you can cluster them to scale way beyond 512 processors.

One way to go might be an inexpensive, but not underpowered PC, with a PCI Firewir-- er, IEEE-1394 card.

Buy a bunch of cheap, identical IDE HDs, and put them in IEEE-1394 cases (~$150/ea.). Compile yourself some bleeding-edge Linux-1394 support, plug in your HDs, run XFS as the filesystem, and use software RAID. Because you said this is just for storage and media access, you probably don't need the currently limited FireWire hot-plug support and possibly still currently limited RAID hot-swap support.

For more on software RAID, IBM has a nice two-part article (1, 2) on it.

the machine my university has been working with. 1024 x 500 MHz = 512 GHz ?

Of course now the machine has been partitoned, so it's not quite that large, but at least there is still a "256 GHz" partition.

Keep in mind that Origin is not a cluster, but a huge mother of a single-image machine. No backplane, but instead a mesh of CrayLink/NUMAlink cables interconnecting the CPU, I/O, and Router modules. My favorite part, though, is that with the addition of a "Graphics Brick" it becomes an Onyx. Add up to 16 G-Bricks!

You can also get an iso containing a modified Redhat 7.1 installer that will create XFS partitions.

I believe there are a couple of kernel patches that add support for ACLs.