Automated Package Management for IRIX?

wowbagger asks: "We've all heard of the various apt-get packages for Mac OS X (and more power to them!), but does anybody know of a similar effort for Irix? Yes, SGI has their freeware distribution of GNU and other utilities, but there is as far as I've seen no good way to automatically update - you just have to go to the SGI open source server (when it is available) and try to find something new. Has anyone set up a apt/gentoo/redcarpet system to automate this process"

Comments

It's quiet.

[presearch]

An IRIX post. The slience is deafening.

Re:It's quiet.

[slithytove]

heh:)
I've only just gotten into sgi's since I used to drool over the ones that are now going on ebay for $50-1000
Maybe a whole new generation of irix users are awakening! hehe, nah I know, but theres a few of us:)

Re:It's quiet.

[presearch]

Yeah, I've got a couple Indigos, 2 Personal Irises, an Indy, and this big honkin'
100 plus lb. dual proc Power Series GTX. Other than bringing up the GTX because it's...there
(and it's still kind of fast), the other machines just aren't very interesting any more.

The GTX eats so much juice, and throws off so much heat, I only run it for short bits in the winter.
Shame, I used to really like SGI stuff.

Re:It's quiet.

[Tumbleweed]

Yeah, but it's a reverent silence.

Like when you're in a tomb. :)

sgi's apt-get .01

[slithytove]

I have one sgi with 6.5.13 and I installed a few of the freeware collection packages before I wondered this same thing. There is a a script linked to off the faq at freeware.sgi.com - I'm pretty sure thats where it is, but its been a little while and I'm not going to go find it for you because I had a bad experience with it.
First of all there were a couple minor things wrong with it that I can't even remember, but I fixed them- they were pretty obvious. Then I installed everything I wanted. Most of it worked great, but I had a few problems and figured a reboot might help. Now after logging in the menubar loads but nothing else- really weird state like nothing I've seen in linux. I'm going to do a re-install though soon and I'll be happy if someone has a better answer than this:)
And it is possible that it was a peculiarity of my system that caused it, but I cant think what- just be careful.

Re:sgi's apt-get .01

[gribbler]

What did you end up installing? One of the non-standard Desktops? You may need to define what else starts up when you login, probably a couple items that would need to complete the desktop environment. I would tend to browse through all the exectuables that are under the /usr/freeware directory, some will be obvious that they are related to the desktop, some won't. Any Q's, let me know. Irix rox, I wish they could have kept on top of their entertainment market, it would be easier for me to find work. :)

Irix package management

[termos]

IIRC there is something called swmgr for IRIX, if that's not what you mentioned in the "SGI open source server" thing. At least it should handle dependencies, and I also found some old slashdot comment on the subject available here.
Hope this can help.

Re:Irix package management

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Yeah, If you dont't get every dependancy fetched locally first... Ouch. Go back to the fyp and retrieve libungif.x.x.tardist! O.K., now start over again...

It's a pity that compiling GNU and BSD sources aginst IRIX is such a black art. It seems that autoconf hurts you more than it helps on SGI. So, it is hand-editing Makefiles and trial/error, untill you aquire the knack for Irix.

If this weren't the case, there could have been a Fink for Irix 6.

I remember how I felt triumphant when I could finally build ssh 1.27, libpcap and nmap on an Indigo 2. That was many hours of effort, for a trivial task on Linux or even Solaris 2.6. Oh, well!

Such pretty blue boxes! Gobs of RAM and I/O. I still keep an affectionate spot for the things.

Re:Irix package management

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a pity that compiling GNU and BSD sources aginst IRIX is such a black art. ./configure

make

sudo make install

Seriously. Works every time, once you've got GCC installed. (For reasons that are obvious but unacceptable nonetheless, freeware programmers tend to hard-code GCC-isms into their makefiles. Meh.)

Re:Irix package management

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

./configure

Works every time? Not more than half...

There is a long-standing link from the freeware pages at SGI which states:

GNU autoconf generates configure scripts that assume that if a library exists, it should be used. This is incorrect on IRIX, which keeps some old libraries around just for the sake of backward compatibility with very old programs. This alone breaks most of the GNU utilities on IRIX. To prevent this from happening, simply force GNU configure to explicitly ignore 'libsocket', 'libnsl', 'libgen' and 'libsun'. All these interfaces have their up-to-date entries in the standard C library libc.so on IRIX 6.x.

For example, when calling GNU configure you should use something like:

ac_cv_lib_gen_getmntent=no \
ac_cv_lib_sun=no \
ac_cv_lib_sun_getpwnam=no \
ac_cv_lib_sun_getmntent=no \
ac_cv_lib_sun_yp_match=no \
ac_cv_lib_socket=no \
ac_cv_lib_socket_main=no \
configure ...
Note that this is just an example. Make sure to look at your config.cache (or equivalent) file after configuration, and inspect it for any suspicious ac_cv_lib... entries that match one of the libraries mentioned above and force them to no (or equivalent).

This is a fair warning, and the devil is in the details...

something more automated than swmgr?

[irix]

You can point swmgr (and inst too - maybe?) at a directory containing tardists over HTTP. It will sort out the dependencies and install/update everything you want.

It isn't quite apt-get or up2date interms of automation, but it gets the job done. I'm not aware of anything that automates swmgr/inst so that it will automatically notify you of updates. However, SGI releases Freeware on a cycle, so you should know about when to update your installed packages.

Dead unices should be opensourced

[mnmn]

When you have to ask slashdot for a package manager for your unix, that unix is dead. There are other dead unices like SCO unixware xenix (if you can count that) and of course the old sysv and the likes, sitting on some companies shelves rotting away. They could do great service by releasing them opensourced so development on the can start.

If they really want to keep a hold onto them, they can do what Sun did with Solaris, release free x86 binaries (free for usage not alteration and distribution) and support free software developed for it. The key part of such success is releasing the associated developer tools with it for free usage too (Sun was late with Forte). One of the first things the GNU foundation did was develop gcc, libc, make and port it to many platforms. The rest of the developers followed suit.

So now the weak SGI should really do the same with IRIX maybe release a free version like Darwin by Apple to attract software and improvements and eyeballs to revamp their OS for free. Opensourcing Irix will go a long way in improving Irix (and Linux and FreeBSD), which will sell the SGI platforms well. They wont have to resort to Linux on the x86 and die a painful death.

I'm not against Linux, but I dont want to see Linux killing powerful potent companies. Linux should really augument them(maybe with some progressive competition), while these companies should use Linux like IBM to sell their products as well as improvise on their applications.

Re:Dead unices should be opensourced

[Anonymous Coward]

When you have to ask slashdot for a package manager for your unix, that unix is dead.

Or, much more likely, you're a fuckin idiot who doesn't know how to use the operating system in question.

Inst. Learn it. Live it. Love it. "apt" makes me fuckin puke compared to inst. "rpm" is a fuckin nightmare next to inst.

Opensourcing Irix will go a long way in improving Irix (and Linux and FreeBSD), which will sell the SGI platforms well.

First of all, IRIX doesn't need any improving. Seriously. It's pretty much done. It's the sheep's testicles, man. And as for improving other people's shit... who cares? SGI isn't in the "let's make Linux better" business, contrary to what slashbots the world over seem to believe.

Re:Dead unices should be opensourced

[terrencefw]

When you have to ask slashdot for a package manager for your unix, that unix is dead

I think you'll find it probably isn't dead. They are still releasing new versions on a 3 month cycle like they always have done ever since 6.5 was released.

There are other dead unices like SCO unixware xenix (if you can count that) and of course the old sysv and the likes, sitting on some companies shelves rotting away.

WTF???? Xenix really has been dead for years! You're comparing apples to very mouldy rotten oranges.

If they really want to keep a hold onto them, they can do what Sun did with Solaris, release free x86 binaries (free for usage not alteration and distribution) and support free software developed for it.

So you can get Slowaris x86 for free, but I don't see anybody using it. Just because you can build popular free software packages on it hasn't made it any more popular or useful.

Linux can focus on the eye candy, IRIX isn't really like that. When you've got an IRIX box doing vast amounts of number crunching, who cares if it's a little bit more difficult to get the lastest windowmanager running on it? Many SGI's out there in the real world don't even have any graphics heads on them. SGI have done a great job in producing a good, stable OS with a fantastic filesystem (which they've donated to Linux), and world-class support for things like shared memory in many-processor systems. NUMAflex rocks!

Put simply, an idiot-proof package manager wasn't exactly high on their list of priorities, but like another poster suggests, if you don't like it, just go and get one from somewhere else.

Eleven comments so far...

[fm6]

... of which 7 or so are offtopic. And the rest tell you stuff you could have found out with "apropos". I cannot believe some of the stuff Cliff picks up.

dpackage

[Sevn]

I can remember at Mindspring years ago we installed
the dpackage system on FreeBSD and on Digital
Unix 4.0x. I don't recall it being very hard
to get the system up and running. Before someone
jumps my shit about ports being significantly
better, I agree. The reason we went with dpackage
was because we did a lot of custom in house
code, and dpackages are very easy to put together.
This meant that the developers had to hand the
admins dpackages. If for any reason the install
didn't work or the package was moofed, it got sent
back until it did work. It made developing a project
life cycle much easier.

NetBSD pkgsrc

[sethgecko]

Supports

Darwin 6.6/powerpc
Debian Linux/i386
FreeBSD 3.5/i386
FreeBSD 5.1/i386
IRIX 6.5/mips
IRIX64 6.5/mips
OpenBSD 3.2/i386
Slackware 8.1/i386
Solaris 8/sparc
Solaris 9/sparc
Solaris 9/i386

http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/software/pac ka ges.html.

Of course, you have to compile the packages using the framework they provide, but where will you find 3000 precompiled Irix binaries anyway?

Re:NetBSD pkgsrc

[GiMP]

Sounds good in theory, but most SGI machines will not actually run an operating system other than Irix.. sure, maybe an Indy will run NetBSD and Linux; however, try running something other than Irix on an Octane.. and Octanes are already slow old, obsolete, equipment.

Re:NetBSD pkgsrc

[hubertf]

Um, we're talking operating systems here, not hardware. pkgsrc works on Irix, no need to install NetBSD. :-)

- Hubert

inst

[rf0]

Not automatic but the best way might be similar to the following as it should avoid dependancies

download all the iso images and save them locally to say /dist/disk[1234]. You can also script this. Look on http://techpubs.sgi.com but basically

inst -f /dist/disk1 -f /dist/disk2 -f /dist/disk3 -f /dist/disk4
inst upgrade
conf (there shouldn't be any conflicts as you are updating everything)
go

come back in 10 minutes

HTH

Rgds

Rus

Already done for you

[terrencefw]

inst -f http://freeware.sgi.com/Inst

Then do keep *, install updated, go

Inst can fetch stuff over http so what's the problem?

Re:Already done for you

[dargaud]

> inst -f http://freeware.sgi.com/Inst > keep *

It looks like a great trick, so I just tried it and... Segmentation fault (Core dumped)

*ROFL*

[Outland Traveller]

I can't believe I just saw someone say "inst" and "avoid dependancies" in the same sentence!

Gotta love SGI's inst packages.. Never the same upgrade twice, circular dependencies, and a 10 minute per install cleanup routine.

The only thing it's good for is job security.

Re:*ROFL*

[rf0]

No its not. I only know as I worked for SGI then they riffed me :)

rus

Screw SGI

[BoomerSooner]

They don't even give you a listing of prices on their site. You have to call resellers. Why the hell would I want to deal with a reseller instead of the company itself? Sun has a much better model.

If you have to ask for the price..

[Anonymous Coward]

you probably can't afford it anyway. =)

Re:If you have to ask for the price..

[BoomerSooner]

You'd be surprised. I'd guess they are similar to the Sun's of the same speed etc. 5-6k for a workstation with a good fx card. I hardly see the reason to go for anything outside of Windows on Intel, Linux on Intel or Mac OS on PPC at this point. You can get one hell of a beowulf (sp?) cluster of linux machines for a very good price. I'd bet there is more value in hiring a good software engineer than getting a more expensive machine. I guess it all depends on your need.

What I learned

[Stonent1]

Go into software manager. For the install location put in http://freeware.sgi.com/Inst/ . It will then get the list of packages and then you choose to deselect all of them. And tell it to filter by upgrades. Then select all. You can also do this from "inst" but I don't have the exact instructions.