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Troy Baer wrote
Something to keep in mind about the the Origin 2000 (SGI's 128-256 CPU boxes) is that they're not SMP systems. They're ccNUMA machines, and a lot of the "ccNUMAness" (including cache coherence, I think) is handled largely by the hardware.

The point of ccNUMA is to minimise the cost of porting software from uni-processors. The crux of the matter is that it is non-trivial to adapt programs to run on multiple processors efficiently. The ideal is to have a single source tree, add extensions such as OpenMP, then recompile. Kernels are a different matter as they have to be closer to the hardware. It is still a royal pain to code to the wire and manually manipulate the cache and bus protocols but that is what is needed for maximum performance. Apart from special cases such as national defence codes, the commercial imperative is time-to-market which means a ccNUMA machine can address 95% of the issues at reasonable cost would be preferred.

I wouldn't be surprised if you could boot the MIPS version of Linux on (for instance) an Origin with little or no modification. I don't know how well it would scale, though.

As far as I'm aware (correct me if I'm wrong), the SGI port of Linux has so far concentrated on older systems such as Indys and patches for their VisualWorkstation. I suspect it will take a while (2-5 years?) for them to get to the stage of having Linux+IRIX SMP extensions running on their highly scalable systems. Cellular IRIX is a single system image which is different from the way Linux is designed. Perhaps one conceptual integration approach is to follow how RTLinux works in having a separate real-time kernel embedded within the full Linux system. Also there are other multiprocessor optimisations like processor affinity which might take a while to enter into the kernel. SGI staff may be very enthusiastic and dedicated but there is a lot of work involved which will take time.

In other words, nice PR for SGI but don't hold your breath.

LL

You can also look over Intel's site, and see how many products they sell that include Windows drivers, but not Linux drivers, and Intel doesn't (yet) have a site like Compaq's Linux Site or SGI's Linux Site.

I am simply pointing out that Compaq is acknoledging Linux, and the comparison between Compaq and Intel doesn't automatically make Intel look like it's supporting Linux and Compaq doesn't really care.

GCC/EGCS is acceptable on x86 hardware, it's doing "ok." But, Alpha/Linux is still not as powerful of a platform as Alpha/Tru64. I do hope GCC/EGCS narrows the margin at some point in the future. But bashing Compaq isn't going to help. Compaq may be in a position to help GCC by simply donating some hardware to developers. But if they get an "unfriendly" responce from the Linux community, it would be unlikely that they would want to help.

SUN sells workstations that will beat the G4 handily except for Altivec stuff, which probably is faster. But they also have the Enterprise 10000 can be equipped with up to 64 processors, which means it will leave a G4 in the dust.

SGI sells Onyx2 InfiniteReality2, which will beat probably anything else on heavy-duty visualisation stuff, and can be equipped with up to 128 processors.

HP makes the J-5000 workstation, which will also beat a G4 on most tasks, as well as big-ass servers with up to 128 processors.

IBM makes RS/6000 workstations and servers, which can scale up to 128 processors.

Compaq sells XP1000 workstations with a 667MHz Alpha 21264 processor, which will beat the G4 on anything that can't make very good use of Altivec, and there are places that sell dual 667MHz 21264 workstations. Compaq also has the AlphaServer GS line, which can take up to 14 21264's, probably beating the G4 on anything.

Furthermore, the Athlon probably beats the G4 on stuff that doesn't parallellise well, and an 8-way Xeon should be faster for most, if not all, things.

Unfortunately all the systems here, except the Athlon, are far, far more expensive than a G4. But you can get faster systems if you're willing to pay the price. Oh, and all of those run some Unix variant, as well as Windows NT for Alpha and Athlon/PIII.

Also, when it comes to the speed of the G4, it all depends on how useful Altivec is for your app. If it isn't useful, the G4 isn't that impressive. If it is, the G4 should be very good value for money, if Altivec is anywhere near as good as the hype claims it is.

This is a 1600x1024 display selling for $4000. SGI has had one of these out for a while now, selling around $2500. It's called the 1600SW flatpanel. So far only works with a NumberNine video card that's not great for 3D, but hey.. if you have $2500 to burn, just use it as your second display. :-)

See the SGI Flatpanel page , and check out places like shopper.com for the best price deal.

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Slashdot Load Testing (Continues) Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon August 30, 02:13 PM EDT
from the ain't-this-fun? dept.
Fixed so far:

• Dropped http MaxClients down to 75
• increased mysql max_connections to to 250

( Read More... | 190 of 190 comments )

Help Test Our New Server! Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon August 30, 12:51 PM EDT
from the load-testing-is-cool dept.
So here it is: A mirror of Slashdot (as of a week or so ago). It exists now for testing: So feel free to post comments and help test the new load balancer. For the curious, the new system has 3 http machines (P2s) and one mysql box (a dual P2) with a load balancer trying to keep everyone all equally busy. And its about time: the old setup has been really stressed out trying to keep up with everyone. Anyway, don't get to attached to any of your comments here, when we're satisfied that the new setup is stable, I'm gonna mirror over Slashdot and make the final switcheroo.

( Read More... | 335 of 335 comments )

Interview: Mandrake Answers Posted by Roblimo on Fri August 20, 12:00 PM EDT
from the x-leads-to-enlightenment dept.
Monday a whole bunch of people had questions for Mandrake, one of the heavies behind Enlightenment. Slashdot Moderators picked the best ones. We forwarded them, unedited, to Mandrake on Tuesday. His (excellent) answers appear below.

( Read More... | 11562 bytes in body | 9 of 9 comments )

Geeks in the Space: The Attack of 5 Posted by Hemos on Thu August 19, 04:10 AM EDT
from the more-stuff-to-listen-to dept.
Well, we've done it again. Yes, Geeks in Space, Episode 5 has been released. In it, we lament the lack of good news, talk about anti-matter, and the hiring of hacks by companies. You can also become...educated in my long-term plan for the hostile takeover of a certain Redmond-based company.

( Read More... | 14 of 17 comments )

Apple announces Darwin 0.3 Posted by Hemos on Thu August 19, 12:24 AM EDT
from the more-to-download dept.
J. FoxGlov writes "Macintouch reports that v0.3 of Darwin, the open-source foundation for Mac OS X Server is available on Apple's Public Source site. Apple Developer Connection members can get it on CD for $29. Check Public Source for more about the Darwin SDK and the new Darwin. "

( Read More... | 67 of 68 comments )

Microsoft's New Audio Format Cracked Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 05:23 PM EDT
from the secure-this-buddy dept.
Barcode (JPB) was one of the first to send us the word from Wired that the new audio format Microsoft introduced (Two days ago), supposed to be a secure format (resricting playback) has already been cracked. Dimension Music first carried the news-and what a name the crack has *grin*.

( Read More... | 238 of 240 comments )

Find your Star Wars Twin Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 05:16 PM EDT
from the what-freud-really-wanted-to-do dept.
The_Monk writes "Ever wanted to know your Star Wars twin? Now this incredibly important information can be verified. It placed me the likes of Astro Mech Droids, 'Tarkin, and R2-D2. " Ahem-as the lost twin of Lando (extraversion), I have a Cloud City I'd like to sell someone. But I'm about as agreeable as Boba, always a bonus.

( Read More... | 94 of 94 comments )

Now Police Can 'See' Through Walls Posted by Roblimo on Wed August 18, 12:40 PM EDT
from the move-along-there's-nothing-to-see-here dept.
Bram writes "Just found an article about another way to invade privacy." He's talking about hand-held radar systems police can use to detect breathing, beating hearts or other motion through walls and other obstacles. Sounds like a declassified version of the Ground Support Radar [GSR] units we used years ago in the Army. I can see why police would want them, and I can also see why Bram considers them a privacy threat. Depends on how they're used, I suppose.

( Read More... | 205 of 205 comments )

FreeType posts patent warning Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 11:53 AM EDT
from the i-want-my-verdonna dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "According to the the FreeType web page, there have been some new concerns raised about Apple's patents on TrueType. I hope this doesn't affect the planned TrueType support in XF86 4. " It appears that they are still checking into the issue, but I'd really like TrueType support. A lot. Let's hope Apple responds nicely.

( Read More... | 202 of 206 comments )

Microsoft to "publish code" to Instant Messenger Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 09:49 AM EDT
from the want-more-market-share dept.
VFVTHUNTER writes "According to this article at cnet, MS, in an attempt to gain a share of AOL's Instant Messenger Service Market, announced today it is going to publish the protocol to its own messenger service. " It's important to note it's NOT the source code, just the protocol.

( Read More... | 192 of 192 comments )

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What particular aspects of CVD do you find the most useful? Those features should definitely be added to the projects list for Jessie.

As an aside, the Jessie team also works on CVD.

I agree, that is a very nice feature of CVD, thus I have added scrollbar marking to the projects lists in the "How to Contribute Section".

Check out the "How To Contribute" section to find out how to get involved.

From http://oss.sgi.com/projects/jessie/li cense.html:
3.Termination. This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically if Recipient fails to comply with terms herein and fails to cure such breach within 30 days of the breach.
.
.
.

Sure doesn't look like the GPL or even a DFSG-compliant license. :-/
I can't get through to the FTP site, so I don't know if it says differently there.

Hopefully SGI's port of XFS to Linux will be done by then. It can access "millions of terabytes, millions of files, and a million files per directory", and is journalling so you never have to run fsck.

Go to Corpspeak Generator at lavarand.sgi.com and see one better (and truly random!!!)


Jaime Herazo B.
(I lost my slashdot password and i'm too lazy to create a new account or retrieve the old one so don't cry)

Go to Corpspeak Generator at lavarand.sgi.com and see one better (and truly random!!!)


Jaime Herazo B.
(I lost my slashdot password and i'm too lazy to create a new account or retrieve the old one so don't cry)

It's certainly time that Linux got a journalling file system. fsck's are not only much faster, they're unnecessary. In the event of a crash the file system checks for any writes that were open but not committed, eliminating the necessity to check the entire volume. XFS also has support for 9 million terabytes which should suffice for the next few years. check out the white paper.

The announced GPL'ing of SGI's XFS shows 'the big guys' can actually release real content to the public (and thus their old Unix-opponents). If SGI can show it's not afraid to contribute then there's hope for all.

Linus has stated that he doesn't want to 'kludge' the kernel to support more memory than 32 bits can address (only in 32-big CPU's, of course). This creates a limit of 2 gigabytes of addressable memory (Not 100% sure here).

Actually, it's theoretically possible to address up to 4 GB. SGI's "bigmem" patch makes it possible to do this, but I think Linus has rejected the patch for the mainstream kernel. That wouldn't shop SGI from shipping kernels built with this patch, so long as they also distribute the source for it.

Will this limit any of your applications?

Not really. Our J90/SV1 and Origin system both have 16GB of memory, but I don't think we allow a single job to use more than 2-4 GB of memory. Large files is actually more of a problem than large memory; Gaussian can generate 20+ GB output files. Thankfully support of large files on 32-bit platforms seems to be coming along.

What was your reasoning behind not choosing a similar solution from an Alpha vendor? (64-bit CPU, much more addresses)

We have a fair amount of Alpha experience in-house already; several years ago we had a classroom cluster of DEC Alpha workstations, and we currently have a Cray T3E which is also Alpha-based. Our main concern with the Alpha was software availability, especially compilers. The Compaq Digital Fortran beta is a good start, but I would like to see the Portland Group and KAI compilers for Alpha Linux as well.

--Troy

At SGI's Open Projects page for XFS you'll find that at LinuxWorld, SGI released documetation, data sheets and some sample parts of the XFS Journalling code (Those parts that are owned by SGI, and which there are no patent issues with).

In other words, SGI is delivering on their Open Source promise with XFS, even if in only a small way (for the moment).

Quoted from their own page... "This initial publication of excerpts of XFS Source code indicates SGI's commitment to port XFS to Linux as GPL code. This code can be freely used with Linux, without the worry of violating the GPL terms by mixing copylefted GPL and copyrighted non-GPL code in Linux. It also shows some interesting code (originally developed for IRIX) which implements the XFS journaling techniques."

At SGI's Open Projects page for XFS you'll find that at LinuxWorld, SGI released documetation, data sheets and some sample parts of the XFS Journalling code (Those parts that are owned by SGI, and which there are no patent issues with).

In other words, SGI is delivering on their Open Source promise with XFS, even if in only a small way (for the moment).

Quoted from their own page... "This initial publication of excerpts of XFS Source code indicates SGI's commitment to port XFS to Linux as GPL code. This code can be freely used with Linux, without the worry of violating the GPL terms by mixing copylefted GPL and copyrighted non-GPL code in Linux. It also shows some interesting code (originally developed for IRIX) which implements the XFS journaling techniques."

--Troy

It can be quite slow in practice; for example, untarring a large amount of scientific data, JFS took three times as much time as ext2, even though it was running on a faster SCSI disk. I haven't done XFS measurements, but XFS also feels sluggish in practice to me.

According to this paper, XFS has "near-raw I/O performance". It also has a "guaranteed I/O rate" feature for real-time applications. SGI has more specific tests (comparing XFS and raw I/O performance) in one of the other papers on their site.

XFS uses B-trees to store directory entries. According to their graph (in the above paper) a directory with 50000 files is accessed at the same speed as a 500-file directory.

I don't know how well XFS scales to *small* file systems (ie. desktop Linux installations), but it looks like it will work very well for servers.

SGI makes a number of different Visual Workstations. Some of them were designed with Linux in mind, some were designed for NT but work well with Linux, and still others don't work with Linux.

For example, the 1400 systems were designed from the ground up for Linux. However, the 320 I tested Linux on had problems since its Qlogic SCSI cards were not supported at that time.

Check SGI's Linux on Intel collection for more information. (It looks like they fixed the Qlogic support problem-- see "BROKEN STUFF").

I submitted this earlier today, but it didn't get posted.

A message on the XFS Open Source Site has some new information. XFS is going to be released under the GPL.

See their PDF Doc on what this release will cover. It looks like they are holding back the real-time multimedia features of XFS, but that's about it.

Some source is already available for download, the rest will be up as soon as they clean up the source code for GPL'ing.

--

I submitted this earlier today, but it didn't get posted.

A message on the XFS Open Source Site has some new information. XFS is going to be released under the GPL.

See their PDF Doc on what this release will cover. It looks like they are holding back the real-time multimedia features of XFS, but that's about it.

Some source is already available for download, the rest will be up as soon as they clean up the source code for GPL'ing.

--

Don't forget Samba, too.
SGI has been dipping it's toes in open software for more than a year now - not including the times open software has been incorporated into IRIX in the past (ie tcsh and top). Learning open software development practices has been an ongoing process at SGI - IRIX 6.5's maintenance process has a remarkable resemblance to those of several open source projects. They're also doing quite a bit to establish SGI as a valued member of the community by making contributions to the open source base. SGI is one of the few vendors who have realized that open source projects are community efforts and success depends on having the recognition and support of the existing community.

Note that effort to have Linux running well on the visual workstations have been redoubled, it looks like Fahrenheit was canned, and the new
Intel based low-end server is being pushed with more emphasis on Linux than on NT. Maybe a unix vendor found it hard to work with folks from Seattle. What a shocker!

Unlike the other major vendors that are hopping onto the open source train, SGI still has some remainder of the freewheeling, motivated by coolness factor and pride in achievement (that has to be flagrantly displayed) corporate culture that made them a leader in the first half of the decade. The same motivations that drive open source. The 'g' stands for geeks, maybe?

Another interesting thought is that while IRIX is certainly one of the most advanced OS's around, the only reason it exists is that SGI wants to sell hardware, but needs to have an OS that will actually take advantage of it. All that really takes is being able to contribute a few key pieces. They are bound to IRIX until another OS has it's capabilities but don't feel like waiting for a potential option to catch up - especially when they might make money supporting it now.

Don't forget Samba, too.
SGI has been dipping it's toes in open software for more than a year now - not including the times open software has been incorporated into IRIX in the past (ie tcsh and top). Learning open software development practices has been an ongoing process at SGI - IRIX 6.5's maintenance process has a remarkable resemblance to those of several open source projects. They're also doing quite a bit to establish SGI as a valued member of the community by making contributions to the open source base. SGI is one of the few vendors who have realized that open source projects are community efforts and success depends on having the recognition and support of the existing community.

Note that effort to have Linux running well on the visual workstations have been redoubled, it looks like Fahrenheit was canned, and the new
Intel based low-end server is being pushed with more emphasis on Linux than on NT. Maybe a unix vendor found it hard to work with folks from Seattle. What a shocker!

Unlike the other major vendors that are hopping onto the open source train, SGI still has some remainder of the freewheeling, motivated by coolness factor and pride in achievement (that has to be flagrantly displayed) corporate culture that made them a leader in the first half of the decade. The same motivations that drive open source. The 'g' stands for geeks, maybe?

Another interesting thought is that while IRIX is certainly one of the most advanced OS's around, the only reason it exists is that SGI wants to sell hardware, but needs to have an OS that will actually take advantage of it. All that really takes is being able to contribute a few key pieces. They are bound to IRIX until another OS has it's capabilities but don't feel like waiting for a potential option to catch up - especially when they might make money supporting it now.

The only way you can beat that system for 3D graphics performance is to spend $2000+ on a high-end graphics card such as the Intergraph Wildcard 4105. Of course you still have to buy a well configured PC to stick that card in. As far as 2D graphics goes the SGI VW 320/540 is unbeatable. Check out the review at Lumis3D.

If you're not doing highend 2D/3D graphics then don't buy the SGI VW320.

Admittedly, if you needed to do graphics work on the 320 today, you'd have to run WinNT, but it looks like SGI is committed to making Linux do 3D graphics well, in the very near future. There's gonna be some serious Linux goings on at SI99RAPH

The only way you can beat that system for 3D graphics performance is to spend $2000+ on a high-end graphics card such as the Intergraph Wildcard 4105. Of course you still have to buy a well configured PC to stick that card in. As far as 2D graphics goes the SGI VW 320/540 is unbeatable. Check out the review at Lumis3D.

If you're not doing highend 2D/3D graphics then don't buy the SGI VW320.

Admittedly, if you needed to do graphics work on the 320 today, you'd have to run WinNT, but it looks like SGI is committed to making Linux do 3D graphics well, in the very near future. There's gonna be some serious Linux goings on at SI99RAPH

SGI Linux® (for Intel ® based servers)
Linux/MIPS (Indy etc.)
Linux on the SGI Visual Workstations
SGI kdb (Linux kernel debugger)
XFS (high perf journalling file system)
Bigmem (Big Memory support for Linux)
lcrash (Linux post crash analyzer)
CRCalc (Constructive Reals Calculator, Java Applet)
OpenVault (mass storage management and framework)
STL (C++ standard template library)
GLX (OpenGL extensions to X)

SGI Linux® (for Intel ® based servers)
Linux/MIPS (Indy etc.)
Linux on the SGI Visual Workstations
SGI kdb (Linux kernel debugger)
XFS (high perf journalling file system)
Bigmem (Big Memory support for Linux)
lcrash (Linux post crash analyzer)
CRCalc (Constructive Reals Calculator, Java Applet)
OpenVault (mass storage management and framework)
STL (C++ standard template library)
GLX (OpenGL extensions to X)

This D11 idea is a new one to me until i saw it posted here earlier.

C.

Humm,

SGI ownes CRAY Research. Have you guys seen the specs on their t3e? 2048 Liquid Cooled Alpha CPUs, 2GB of ram for each one. Drool.

But maybe having a modern OS on these things would slow it down anyways....talk amonst yourselves

According to www.top500.org, SGI is owning the supercomputer market. They account for over 1/3 of the world's installed base, and almost 1/2 of the world's supercomputer horsepower.

And according to page 13 of SGI's 10Q from Q3 1999, the supercomputer market and the desktop Unix market is shrinking. And they didn't turn a profitable quarter last Q because of Cray.

They're simply following the money with what they would consider a midrange offering.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's fantastic news and I think this is where SGI needs to be. And it's especially good news for me because I'm right smack-dab in the midrange market. But if I had a dime for everyone who said that SGI is making money because of the supercomputing biz, I'd have enough of a slush fund to buy SGI's loser stock. (That might be considered a donation to a non-profit organization! 'Course, there's last quarter's actual good news...)

I don't think SGI will forsake any market -- supercomputing, desktop IRIX, whatever -- for Linux. Frankly, they'd be fool to. A lot of Guv'ment stuff riding on mega-multi processing power. But not enough for SGI to be consistently profitable in the past.

Linux is SGI going for diversification. *sigh* As is NT. And I'm sure there's more to come. If SGI is smart -- and there's some indication of intelligent life in Mountain View -- they'll go for the profitable markets, not the stuff that people think is "cool."

Hell, everyone else is...Sun...HP...IBM Anyone I missed?

That's pretty harsh.
On the other hand, it IS true that there is a learning curve to STL, and once you get to the top of that curve, it becomes quite a bit easier to use STL than to make your own versions of everything, because it is really likely that the STL list class, for instance, is more flexible, more robust, and more efficient than the list that you would write in 30 minutes or an hour. While it probably won't be as intuitive for you at first, a little perserverence is all it takes. For a good STL starting point, check out SGI's documentation. It's pretty good.
To keep this at least somewhat relevant, I think that despite all of the language-theory arguments against C++, STL and the extremely wide support of C++ practically everywhere make it really useful to know. Is it the best language possible? No. Is it the best language right now? Depends on who you are and what you want to do.

<ASIDE>
Someone in this thread mentioned hash maps losing data- sounds very much like a comparator problem. Whoever had that problem should make SURE that the hash map has a working comparator. In my experience, 95% of hash map problems turn out to be a broken comparator.
To see if that's the case, you can check to see what's in your hash map with a simple snip of code. Assuming you've typedef'ed your hash map's type as "hash_type":

hash_type::iterator i = hash.begin();
while (i != hash.end())
{
cout << "Key: " << *i.first() << endl;
cout << "Value: " << *i.second() << endl;
i++;
}
</ASIDE>

On sgi web site:
http://www.sgi.com/Products/PDF/2331.pdf

There is no mention of any nice Linux extras, just that it uses RH6.0.

I can see a market for something like this maybe with desktop displays, but I, too, think 16 inches is too large for a laptop. And if they made it a desktop display, it might be a great (read: cheap) competitor for this monster.

I just wanted to emphasize that mental ray has been available on Linux x86 and Alpha for at least a couple of years now.

Another major rendering package, Pixar's Photorealistic Renderman Toolkit AKA PRman may already be available for Linux as well. I saw a demo at ACM/SIGGRAPH'98

I just hope that the various 3D modeling and animation packages are ported to Linux as well. The Sidefx Houdini port is a great first step, but I'm hoping that Alias|Wavefront Maya and Softimage|3D are not far behind.

All systems based on MIPS chips will run Irix. Keep in mind that such systems tend to live far longer than your average PC. I expect to see MIPS/Irix-based boxes in operation (and supported by SGI) well after 2005, probably out to 2010.

However, SGI has publicly stated that they will migrate features from Unicos to Irix, and from Irix to Linux. Eventually, Unicos will fall by the wayside along with the systems it runs on. A few years after that, Irix will be discontinued. But this is many years from now.

You're welcome...

bpm

"Perhaps nothing new..."

Nothing new indeed. This is all information that can be gleaned from SGI's latest 10Q submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission in March. Geeks would do well to read a financial document or two every once in a while. Read the PDF of SGI's 10Q form -- a "forward-looking document" penned by SGI and turned in to the Wall Street types. (Click on the link to the Q3 1999 PDF under the heading "10Qs.")

In the 10Q, SGI further defines present and future markets, lays out risks and puts their tarot cards on the table. It makes for interesting reading for some of us. SGI says some things in the 10Q that would make the SGI-faithful faint. Shrinking supercomputer market. (Yes, SGI has the lion's share of that market. So? If a market is shrinking, by their own admission, how does that help them succeed?) A move to the low- to mid-range desktop and server market.

As someone else indicated, SGI's earning statement, due out later this month, will tell more. I hope it's better news than last quarter's statement.

Sequent mananged to clear out some bottlenecks with their NUMA architecture, but their systems are still bus based. Even though the bus is large, they will not be able to push as much data as say a SGI Origin class machine (with cache coherent NUMA and a Hypercube topology instead of a bus topology)

More information is available on SGI's NUMA page, still more info available here

Disclaimer: I work for SGI, but I believe in everything I say.

Sequent mananged to clear out some bottlenecks with their NUMA architecture, but their systems are still bus based. Even though the bus is large, they will not be able to push as much data as say a SGI Origin class machine (with cache coherent NUMA and a Hypercube topology instead of a bus topology)

More information is available on SGI's NUMA page, still more info available here

Disclaimer: I work for SGI, but I believe in everything I say.

Rule #1 - what is the limiting factor?

Bandwidth? Machine costs? or your time?

It really puzzles me how people wish to skimp on the hardware then set themselves up for later hassles and risk of (expensive) failure.

Lets take a look at a baseline video server from SGI, Origin 200 with MediaBase with say 100 seat configuration, web management tools + 200 Gbyte FibreChannel and network bits would cost about $50K minimum upfront (guesstimate here based on educational discounts and extrapolation of bits and pieces we've purchased over the years) + 10% maintenance/year. Extra for their FailOver system.

OK, now the hand-rolled Linux version. You need to look for
a) streaming software (Darwin?) for multiprocessor
b) decent high-end file system (port SGI XFS?)
c) tuning the sucker for the best SCSI and network parameters
d) video library management software (none as yet, perhaps someone port SGI OpenVault?)
e) system management to monitor the whole thing

Lets assume you've got a collection of genius hackers at 1 man-years worth at each task, working for nothing except glory, you can probably get it done for $20K and 5 man-years worth of pizzas and coke.

Cheap at that price.

Rule #2 - If you don't know what you're doing, make sure you get damn good advice from people who've done it before.

Rule #3 - You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

LL

"This is Unix. I know this."

I believe that SGI has a No9 video card
that they were marketing with their
lcd screen.

check:
SGI Announces Linux Support for Award-winning Silicon Graphics 1600SW Flat Panel Monitor

~Darkfell

-jwb

Its still available to download, and I think a new version (which allows you to run it on Irix 6.x).
Check it out here.

ftp://ftp.sgi.com/sgi/fsn/

Also, here's a screenshot.

ftp://ftp.sgi.com/sgi/fsn/

Also, here's a screenshot.