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SGI misc Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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Archive-name: sgi/faq/misc
Last-modified: Fri Apr 6 1:00:03 CDT 2001
Posting-Frequency: Twice monthly
URL: http://www-viz.tamu.edu/~sgi-faq/

See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge
    SGI misc Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

This is one of the Silicon Graphics FAQ series, which consists of:

    SGI admin FAQ - IRIX system administration
    SGI apps FAQ - Applications and miscellaneous programming
    SGI audio FAQ - Audio applications and programming
    SGI diffs FAQ - Changes to the other FAQs since the last posting
    SGI graphics FAQ - Graphics and user environment customization
    SGI hardware FAQ - Hardware
    SGI impressario FAQ - IRIS Impressario
    SGI inventor FAQ - IRIS Inventor
    SGI misc FAQ - Introduction & miscellaneous information
    SGI movie FAQ - Movies
    SGI performer FAQ - IRIS Performer
    SGI pointer FAQ - Pointer to the other FAQs
    SGI security FAQ - IRIX security

Read the misc FAQ for information about the FAQs themselves. Each FAQ is
posted to comp.sys.sgi.misc and to the news.answers and comp.answers
newsgroups (whose purpose is to store FAQs) twice per month. If you
can't find one of the FAQs with your news program, you can get it from

    ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/faq/
    ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/sgi/faq/

(rtfm.mit.edu is home to many other FAQs and informational documents,
and is a good place to look if you can't find an answer here.) The FAQs
are on the World Wide Web at

    http://www-viz.tamu.edu/~sgi-faq/

If you can't use FTP or WWW, send mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with
the word 'help' on a line by itself in the text, and it will send you a
document describing how to get files from rtfm.mit.edu by mail. Send the
command 'send usenet/news.answers/sgi/faq/misc' to get the SGI misc FAQ,
and similarly for the other FAQs. Send the command 'send
usenet/news.answers/internet-services/access-via-email' to get the
"Accessing the Internet by E-Mail FAQ".

You may distribute the SGI FAQs freely and we encourage you to do so.
However, you must keep them intact, including headers and this notice,
and you must not charge for or profit from them. Contact us for other
arrangements. We can't be responsible for copies of the SGI FAQs at
sites which we do not control, and copies published on paper or CD-ROM
are certain to be out of date. The contents are accurate as far as we
know, but the usual disclaimers apply. Send additions and changes to
sgi-faq@viz.tamu.edu.

Topics covered in this FAQ:
---------------------------
   -1- How can I quickly find the information I want in the SGI FAQs?
   -2- What about the SGI FAQs and the World Wide Web?
   -3- With what version(s) of IRIX do the SGI FAQs deal?
   -4- What about material which doesn't fit in the FAQs?
   -5- What are the comp.sys.sgi.* newsgroups?
   -6- What about comp.sys.sgi.marketplace?
   -7- Are the SGI newsgroups archived?
   -8- What are some related newsgroups?
   -9- What are the info-iris-* mailing lists?
  -10- What are some related mailing lists?
  -11- What are some related WWW pages?
  -12- What are some related network-accessible documents?
  -13- What number do I call for information about SGI products?
  -14- What number do I call for technical support from SGI?
  -15- What about SGI-related publications?
  -16- What is the current release of ...
  -17- What is the current release of IRIX for my machine?
  -18- When will the next release(s) of IRIX be out?
  -19- How can I get lists of known bugs, lists of patches, and/or the
       patches themselves?
  -20- What's the best newsgroup in which to complain to SGI?
  -21- Wouldn't Nextstep be great on SGIs?
  -22- Can I run Windows NT on my Indigo or Indy?
  -23- Credits


Subject: -1- How can I quickly find the information I want in the SGI FAQs? Date: 11 Feb 1995 00:00:01 EST - The FAQs follow the RFC1153 recommendations for message digests and thus can be viewed easily with newsreaders that understand message digests. - Each question has a Subject: line, so you can easily step through the answers with rn's ^G command. - Each question is marked with a "dash number dash" so that you can find any answer with a simple search pattern. - Questions marked with a '+' in the subject line are new this posting; those marked with a '!' have significant new content since the last posting. Similarly, '+' and '!' in the left margin mark added or changed text. Questions marked with a '-' in the subject line will be removed in the next edition or so unless someone convinces us otherwise. - Don't forget about text searching! There's an excellent chance the information you want is in the FAQs, but not obvious from the table of contents. Every file viewer, editor and WWW browser has a way of finding arbitrary text in a file.
Subject: -2- What about the SGI FAQs and the World Wide Web? Date: 04 May 1996 00:00:01 EST The SGI FAQs are on the World Wide Web in hypertext form at http://www-viz.tamu.edu/~sgi-faq/. The hypertext version (as well as the plain text) may be FTPed from ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/faq/ for offline reading. You can also get the FAQ source from the same place and build the hypertext yourself. There are several archives of FAQs from news.answers converted to hypertext, including the SGI FAQs, listed at http://www.jazzie.com/ii/internet/faqs.html, and some mirrors of just the SGI FAQs: http://reality.sgi.com/employees/jm/sgi-faq.html/ http://www.sgi.com/Archive/FAQs/ (and at www.sgi.com's mirrors) Anyone is welcome to set up their own mirror, public or not. Please note that the SGI FAQ group does not administer any of these sites, so we can't guarantee that any of them are complete or up-to-date. You can read the hypertext SGI FAQs with any WWW browser, e.g. Mosaic (which you can get from ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Web/Mosaic/), Netscape (ftp://ftp.netscape.com/netscape/unix/ for the generic version or http://www.sgi.com/Products/Evaluation/netscape/page1.html for the custom SGI version) or, for text terminals, Lynx (ftp://ftp2.cc.ukans.edu/pub/WWW/lynx/). A Mosaic binary for IRIX 4.0.x, including WAIS support, is in IBD's SGI collection; see below under "WWW pages". Some types of references in the SGI FAQs are formatted so that our hypertext conversion software (and perhaps others') recognizes them and turns them into links: - References to Internet services are written as URLs. ('protocol://site/path/file'). If you're reading the SGI FAQs as plain text, you can paste URLs into your browser. If you're not using a WWW browser and you want to access an FTP URL ('ftp://site/path/file'), just do 'ftp site', 'cd /path' and 'get file' as usual to get a file. References to directories end with slashes so you know what you're getting into. Some FTP servers are incompatible with some WWW browsers; use 'ftp' or another browser. At this writing viz.tamu.edu does not accept FTP connections from Netscape; use 'ftp', Mosaic or lynx. - Manpages are written 'foo(1)' in the traditional Unix manner and linked to the "uman" database of IRIX manpages at http://reality.sgi.com/cgi-bin/uman. - Internet RFCs ("Requests for Comment") are written 'RFC####' and linked to the collection of RFCs at http://ds.internic.net/rfc/.
Subject: -3- With what version(s) of IRIX do the SGI FAQs deal? Date: 13 Jul 1996 00:00:01 EST Unless otherwise specified, the FAQs discuss IRIX 5.2 or later. A few entries deal with IRIX 3.x and 4.x, and they should all say so. Versions of IRIX 5 before 5.2 are rarely discussed because everyone should have upgraded by now. IRIX 6.x is not covered as well as it should be, but since 6.0.1 is based on 5.2 and 6.1 is based on 5.3, discussions of problems with 5.2 and 5.3 are often relevant to 6.0.1 and 6.1 respectively.
Subject: -4- What about material which doesn't fit in the FAQs? Date: 13 Feb 1995 00:00:01 EST Entries in the FAQs should be relatively short and genuinely "frequently asked". Some material which is of less general interest or which is too long is archived at ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/. If information you're looking for isn't in the FAQs, look there. The FAQs may direct you there as well. You can submit material to that archive just as you can an FAQ: mail it to sgi-faq@viz.tamu.edu, or put it in ftp://viz.tamu.edu/incoming/ and let us know by mail. If you have a lot, perhaps it should be its own FAQ. If you like we can post your SGI-related FAQ for you.
Subject: -5- What are the comp.sys.sgi.* newsgroups? Date: 04 May 1996 00:00:01 EST The active SGI newsgroups are comp.sys.sgi.announce Announcements for the SGI community. (Moderated) comp.sys.sgi.admin System administration on Silicon Graphics' Irises. comp.sys.sgi.apps Applications which run on the Iris. comp.sys.sgi.audio Audio on SGI systems. comp.sys.sgi.bugs Bugs found in the IRIX operating system. comp.sys.sgi.graphics Graphics packages and issues on SGI machines. comp.sys.sgi.hardware Base systems and peripherals for Iris computers. comp.sys.sgi.marketplace SGI-specific for sale, wanted and jobs. comp.sys.sgi.misc General discussion about SGI's machines. The original comp.sys.sgi newsgroup is obsolete. Please don't post to it, so the rest of us won't miss anything. To submit an article for posting in comp.sys.sgi.announce, post it as you would to any newsgroup. If you absolutely can't post, send mail to sgi-announce@ornl.gov. Related business (anything other than an actual post) goes to sgi-announce-request@ornl.gov. The addresses comp-sys-sgi-announce@uunet.uu.net and comp-sys-sgi-announce-request@uunet.uu.net may also work. A not-guaranteed-to-be-up-to-date copy of the moderation policy is at ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/misc/announce-policy. Each of these newsgroups is also a mailing list; see below. Historians may find the newsgroup charters, which are archived in ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/comp/, of interest.
Subject: -6- What about comp.sys.sgi.marketplace? Date: 06 Apr 1996 00:00:01 EST comp.sys.sgi.marketplace is an unmoderated group for "for sale", "wanted to buy" and jobs offered/sought postings specific to Silicon Graphics computers. Commercial and/or continuing advertising, and postings about non-SGI-specific equipment, services and jobs, are not welcome. The Usenet Marketplace FAQ (at ftp://ftp.phoenix.net/pub/USERS/lildan/FAQ/ and http://www.phoenix.net/~lildan/FAQ/) discusses the misc.forsale.* and biz.marketplace.* newsgroups, and has plenty of good advice which applies equally well to comp.sys.sgi.marketplace. Here's some of the most important: - Like misc.forsale.*, comp.sys.sgi.marketplace is restricted to individual (one-time) transactions. - Use key words in your subject lines to clearly mark for sale ("FS", "FORSALE" or "FORSALE"), wanted ("WTB" or "WANTED") and jobs offered ("JOB") postings. - Limit your post's distribution to areas in which it will be of interest by putting a distribution keyword (e.g. "usa" for the United States) in your Distribution: header. - Cancel your post when it has accomplished its purpose to save yourself many wasted replies. - You're welcome to crosspost to both comp.sys.sgi.marketplace and the appropriate misc.forsale.* or misc.jobs.* group. However, be sure that you crosspost (specify the groups to which you're posting on the Newsgroups: line of a single post) rather than posting separately to each group. - Do NOT post or crosspost marketplace posts to comp.sys.sgi.hardware! There is not yet an info-iris-marketplace mailing list.
Subject: -7- Are the SGI newsgroups archived? Date: Wed Sep 22 16:31:25 CDT 1999 Archives of the info-iris mailing list (see below) from 1986 to 1990 are at ftp://ftp.brl.mil/info-iris/. Archives of the SGI newsgroups from 1988 (when there was only comp.sys.sgi) to the present are at ftp://ftp.sgi.com/comp.sys.sgi/. Archives of comp.sys.mips from 1993 to the present are nearby in ftp://ftp.sgi.com/comp.sys.mips/. Archives of the SGI newsgroups, from 1988 to the present, comp.sys.mips and several other groups are at http://hornet.mmg.uci.edu/~hjm/projects/sgi.wais.html. They may be SEARCHED with any WWW client (no built-in WAIS support or WAIS proxy needed) or native WAIS client. Archives of the SGI newsgroups from 1988 to the present are at comp.sys.sgi&DBS=2&maxhits=25">http://www.dejanews.com/dnquery.xp?QRY=comp.sys.sgi&DBS=2&maxhits=25 They may be SEARCHED with any WWW client. Thanks to these services, just posting something goes a long way toward making it available to everyone, even after it expires. Always post a summary of the answers to a question you ask!
Subject: -8- What are some related newsgroups? Date: 02 Mar 1996 00:00:01 EST comp.graphics.*, particularly comp.graphics.api.inventor Object-oriented 3D graphics in Inventor. comp.graphics.api.opengl The OpenGL 3D application programming interface. comp.graphics.apps.* comp.mail.zmail The various Z-Mail products and their configurability. comp.sys.mips Systems based on MIPS chips. comp.windows.x.* comp.unix.*
Subject: -9- What are the info-iris-* mailing lists? Date: 18 Mar 1996 00:00:01 EST The info-iris mailing list began in 1986. It was originally hosted at Stanford and moved to the Ballistic Research Laboratory (now the Army Research Laboratory) in 1987. It was gated to the Usenet newsgroup comp.sys.sgi in 1988. It split in parallel with comp.sys.sgi in 1992. The info-iris-* mailing lists are still available for those who can't get news (or who just prefer mail). To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to info-iris-request@arl.mil (Chuck Kennedy, aka <kermit@arl.mil>). Chuck is a human, not an automated mail server, so be patient. To post an article, mail it to one or more of the following addresses: info-iris-admin@arl.mil info-iris-announce@arl.mil info-iris-apps@arl.mil info-iris-audio@arl.mil info-iris-bugs@arl.mil info-iris-graphics@arl.mil info-iris-hardware@arl.mil info-iris-misc@arl.mil There is not yet an info-iris-marketplace mailing list.
Subject: -10- What are some related mailing lists? Date: 24 Aug 1996 00:00:01 EST "Contact" addresses are humans. If a list has instructions on how "To subscribe", please use them instead of bothering the human. IRIS On-Line SGI's monthly news magazine To subscribe, send mail to majordomo@sgigate.sgi.com containing only the line 'subscribe iris-on-line' in the body See also below under "SGI-related publications" SGI large users discussion list For discussion of SGI systems with 1000 or more users Contact Philip Smith <owner-sgilarge@uwindsor.ca>; please state the type of system you are using and the approximate number of users. Indigo home users mailing list For people who use Indigos, Indys, etc. at home Contact indigo-home-request@world.std.com or Tim Hall <tjh@world.std.com> Performer mailing list Contact info-performer-request@sgi.com Iris 2000 & 3000 systems list (for old SGI models, not MIPS chips) Contact Jonathan Levine <jonathan@canuck.com>. See also below under "network-accessible documents". Biosym/Insight mailing list For users of Biosym Technologies software [many of whom use SGIs]. Contact dibug-request@comp.bioz.unibas.ch (Reinhard Doelz) HylaFAX (formerly FlexFAX) mailing lists For users of the free HylaFAX fax software To subscribe, send mail to flexfax-request@sgi.com or flexfax-announce-request@engr.sgi.com containing only the line 'subscribe' in the body Contact Sam Leffler <sam@engr.sgi.com> FTP back issues from ftp://ftp.sgi.com/sgi/fax/archives/ See also below under "What are some related WWW pages?". ImageVision Library users' group mailing list To subscribe, send mail to mail ilug-request@sgi.com containing only the line 'subscribe' in the body Contact SGI's TAC by phone, 1-800-800-4744 Alias software users' group mailing list To subscribe, send mail to LISTSERV@uga.cc.uga.edu containing only the line 'subscribe alias-l' in the body. Contact Steve Follin <sfollin@VISEF.UCNS.UGA.EDU> ElectroGIG users' mailing list To subscribe, send mail to majordomo@phxmedia.com containing only the line 'subscribe gig-l [you@yourhost.yourdomain]' in the body. Contact Jay Vaughan <jay@phxmedia.com> ViewKit mailing list To subscribe, send mail to viewkit-talk-request@ics.com containing only the word 'subscribe' in the body. Contact Aub Harden <harden@ics.com> sgi-all mailing list For UK SGI users To subscribe, send mail to mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk containing only the line 'Join sgi-all firstname(s) lastname' in the body. See http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists-p-t/sgi-all/ sgi-systems mailing list For UK SGI administrators To subscribe, send mail to mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk containing only the line 'Join sgi-systems firstname(s) lastname' in the body. See http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists-p-t/sgi-systems/ Interactive Effects (Amazon) software users' mailing list To subscribe, send mail to Majordomo@irc.umbc.edu containing only the line 'subscribe amazon' in the body.
Subject: -11- What are some related WWW pages? Date: Fri May 26 14:56:48 CDT 2000 SGI and subsidiaries: Silicon Surf (SGI's WWW servers) http://www.sgi.com/ http://www.sgi.com/Misc/world-sites.html lists Silicon Surf's international mirrors and support sites http://www.sgi.de/ http://techpubs.sgi.com/ Alias/Wavefront http://www.aliaswavefront.com/ InterActive Digital Solutions http://www.ids.sgi.com/ MIPS Technologies, Inc. Home Page http://www.mips.com/ Reality (SGI's employee home page server) http://reality.sgi.com/ Silicon Studio Inc. http://www.studio.sgi.com/ Cray Research http://www.cray.com/ Companies and organizations: Center for Landscape Research (including image editing and processing software for SGIs) http://www.clr.toronto.edu:1080/ Center for Visual Creation (an SGI International Training Center) http://www.msstate.edu/Dept/CAS/cvcinfo.html Easy Software Products ("2D & 3D software" for SGIs) http://www.easysw.com/ ELECTROGIG http://www.gig.nl/ Engineering Animation, Inc. http://www.eai.com/ Globalprint (a graphics arts information clearinghouse) http://www.globalprint.nl/ GLOBEtrotter (developers of FLEXlm) http://www.globetrotter.com/ Impediment (third-party memory and peripherals vendor) http://www.impediment.com/ Integrated Computer Solutions, Inc. (ViewKit) http://www.ics.com/ Interactive Effects Inc. http://www.webcom.com/~ie/ IRIS Explorer Center http://www.nag.co.uk/Welcome_IEC.html Kaleidoscope Animations Inc. http://www.kascope.com/ NATPIX software demos http://www.rahul.net/natpix/ Paradigm Simulations Inc. http://www.paradigmsim.com/ Template Graphics Software, Inc. http://www.sd.tgs.com/~template Vision Images http://www.visionimages.com/ NetManage (makers of Z-Mail/MediaMail) http://www.netmanage.com/ Miscellany: Anonymous FTP site list http://reality.sgi.com/employees/billh_hampton/anonftp/ See also below under "network-accessible documents" Audio Applications for SGIs http://reality.sgi.com/employees/cook/audio.apps/ Blip (a script for dynamic SLIP addressing) http://www.ifokr.org/bri/blip/ Buying Old SGI Systems FAQ http://cgi.amazing.com/internet/old-sgi-faq.html CAP for SGIs http://www.proximity.com.au/~tom/cap.html Configuring and Debugging SLIP and PPP http://reality.sgi.com/employees/scotth/dialup_support.html Enhance image enhancement software http://enhance.sgi.com/cgi-bin/enhance.cgi FaceIt video face recognition system http://venezia.rockefeller.edu/faceit/ Grafica Obscura (Paul Haeberli's graphics notebook) http://www.sgi.com/grafica/ HylaFAX (formerly FlexFAX) Home Page http://www.vix.com/hylafax/ i3D three-dimensional scene viewer http://www.crs4.it/~3diadm/ IBD's SGI Collection (including IRIX 5.2, 5.3 and 6.x patch lists) http://www.ibd.nrc.ca/~sgi/ See also below under "network-accessible documents" Indy Technical Hardware Page (Greg Douglas) http://www.reputable.com/indytech.html IRIX share trees http://www-viz.tamu.edu/~sgi-faq/archive/share_trees/ Ivy (a Scheme binding for Open Inventor) http://www-white.media.mit.edu/~kbrussel/Ivy/ JAVA resources for SGI users http://reality.sgi.com/grafica/javahack.html Scientific Visualization Software Packages http://www.msi.umn.edu/user_support/scivis/scivis-list.html SGI Advice and Technical Data (Ian Mapleson's detailed info) http://www.futuretech.vuurwerk.nl/sgi.html SGI Alternatif (une meta-page SGI en Francais) http://www.cenatls.cena.dgac.fr/~boubaker/Francais/SGI.html SGI Alternative (an SGI meta-page in English) http://www.cenatls.cena.dgac.fr/~boubaker/English/SGI.html SGI DOOM FAQ http://www.cmpharm.ucsf.edu/~troyer/sgidoomfaq.html SGI Meta-Page (collected SGI Internet resources) http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Faculty/Randy.Carpenter/sgimeta.html SGI Periodic Table (system performance comparison table) http://www.sgi.com/Technology/dev-resources2.html#periodic SGI Web Install Site (precompiled, instable software) http://mat075207.student.utwente.nl/pub/SGI/ http://www.pk.edu.pl/pub/sgi/ SGI-Usergroup Deutschland (auf Deutsch) http://sgiug.uni-paderborn.de/ Silicon Graphics Info at BNL http://www.ccd.bnl.gov/sgi/ Silicon Graphics Information (collected SGI Internet resources) http://www.star.rcast.u-tokyo.ac.jp/sgi-info.html Silicon Graphics User Groups http://www.cc.gatech.edu/services/sgiusers.html See also below under "network-accessible documents". Strange Software (Tom Benoist's free software) http://www.webcom.com/ie/benoist/ Swirly screen saver http://os.sri.com/~nat/swirly.html Third-party supplier of hardware for SGIs http://www.vigyan.com/~blbates/hardware/ This Old SGI (A. J. Corda's 4D series information) http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/2258/4dfaq.html TURN (Tiny UI Read News) newsreader http://reality.sgi.com/turn/ uman IRIX manpage database http://reality.sgi.com/cgi-bin/uman US Army Research Laboratory (ARL, formerly BRL) FTP site http://ftp.arl.mil/ Vince Liggio's SGI software collection http://www.madness.net/sgi.html WAIS archives of the comp.sys.sgi.* newsgroups http://hornet.mmg.uci.edu/~hjm/projects/sgi.wais.html XFS filesystem demonstration http://everest.ee.umn.edu/~cattelan/XFS/ Bill Henderson's FTP site list also lists some WWW pages.
Subject: -12- What are some related network-accessible documents? Date: 06 Feb 1997 00:00:01 EST Silicon Graphics-specific documents: SGI Anonymous FTP and WWW archives Posted monthly to comp.sys.sgi, news.answers FTP from ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/sgi/anonftp/ Contact Bill Henderson <billh@hampton.sgi.com> See also above under "WWW pages". Known SGI User Groups (SUMMARY) Posted monthly to comp.sys.sgi.misc FTP from ftp://ftp.cc.gatech.edu/pub/people/randy/ Contact Randy Carpenter <randy@cc.gatech.edu> See also above under "WWW pages". Iris 2000 & 3000 systems FAQ (for old SGI models, not MIPS chips) Contact Jonathan Levine <jonathan@canuck.com>. See also above under "mailing lists". Explorer FAQ Posted ??? to comp.graphics.apps.iris-explorer FTP from ftp://swedishchef.lerc.nasa.gov/explorer/ Contact explorer-request@castle.ed.ac.uk Third-party hardware vendor lists Contacts are given in the lists See also above under "WWW pages". SGI's Periodic Table of the Irises For the latest version, see above under "WWW pages." FTP old versions from ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/hardware/periodic-tables/ IRIX 5.2, 5.3 and 6.x patch lists Posted ??? to comp.sys.sgi.admin Contact Walter Roberson <roberson@ibd.nrc.ca> See also above under "WWW pages". Other documents of particular interest to SGI users: OpenGL FAQ Posted semiweekly to comp.graphics.api.opengl, comp.answers, news.answers Contact Paul Ho <pho@dilow.asd.sgi.com> comp.graphics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Posted monthly to comp.graphics, news.answers Contact grieggs@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov (John T. Grieggs) comp.windows.x Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Posted monthly to comp.windows.x,news.answers,alt.answers, comp.answers Contact faq%craft@uunet.uu.net (X FAQ maintenance address) comp.windows.x: Getting more performance out of X FAQ Posted monthly to comp.windows.x, news.answers Contact art@cs.ualberta.ca (Art Mulder) Motif FAQ Posted monthly to comp.windows.x.motif,news.answers Contact jan@ise.canberra.edu.au (Jan Newmarch) Unix - Frequently Asked Questions Posted monthly to comp.unix.questions, comp.unix.shell, news.answers Contact tmatimar@empress.com (Ted M A Timar) SCSI FAQ Posted ??? to comp.periphs.scsi Contact Gary Field <garyf@wiis.wang.com> Uninterruptable Power Source (UPS) FAQ Posted monthly to comp.sys.sgi.hardware, among others FTP from ftp://navigator.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/doc/faq/ Contact Nick Christenson <npc@minotaur.jpl.nasa.gov> Dave's List of Free Audio Goodies FTP from ftp://ftp.york.ac.uk/pub/users/elec10/voice/ Contact Dave Rossiter <dpr@ohm.york.ac.uk> Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) lists can be FTPed from ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/, and HTML versions of some are under http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/.
Subject: -13- What number do I call for information about SGI products? Date: 22 Jan 1994 00:00:01 EST For product information, call SGI Direct at US & Canada: 1-800-800-SGI1 (1-800-800-7441) France: 05 244 244 Germany: 0130 811 011 U.K.: 0800 440 440 or your local SGI sales office.
Subject: -14- What number do I call for technical support from SGI? Date: 20 Dec 1996 00:00:01 EST To reach SGI's Technical Assistance Center (TAC) in North America, call 1-800-800-4SGI (1-800-800-4744). Customers with a Varsity support contract should call 1-800-915-8277. Elsewhere, call your local sales office (see the previous question).
Subject: -15- What about SGI-related publications? Date: Mon May 22 17:03:46 CDT 2000 SGI publishes several periodicals: - i on Visual Computing (http://www.ion.sgi.com/), an online magazine about visualization technology and personalities - IRIS On-line, a subscription-only electronic newsletter which primarily reprints press releases and 'net announcements - IRIS Universe, a glossy, general-interest magazine - Pipeline, a very useful technical newsletter (http://support.sgi.com/search/?cmd=topic&node=pipeline&coll=0650) See http://techpubs.sgi.com/ for subscription information, back issues, etc. Registered developers get another set of publications; see http://www.sgi.com/developers/ or ask devprogram@sgi.com for info. There is one independent SGI-related publication, Silicon Graphics World. Contact PCI Publishing 12416 Hymeadow Drive Austin, TX 78750-1896 USA 512-250-9023 (voice) 512-331-3900 (fax) sgi@pcinews.lonestar.org Subscription rates are $45/year in the US and $75 elsewhere. SG World is a monthly tabloid. It has articles, product reviews and lots of SGI-specific advertising. It isn't a technical publication.
Subject: -16- What is the current release of ... Date: 07 May 1993 00:00:01 EST This changes quite often. The best way to get up-to-date information about SGI products is to call SGI Direct; see above.
Subject: -17- What is the current release of IRIX for my machine? Date: 20 Dec 1996 00:00:01 EST Ping Huang <pshuang@sgi.com> writes: If you don't know what release of IRIX you are currently running, the SGI admin FAQ explains how to find out. IRIX 5.3 is the current release on systems with the R2000 and R3000 CPU's and the Crimson with GTX graphics; it is the last release which will support these systems. IRIX 5.3 was first released in early 1995. IRIX 6.2 is the current release on Crimson with non-GTX graphics, Indigo R4000, Indy, {Indigo2,Onyx,CHALLENGE}, POWER {Indigo2,Onyx,CHALLENGE}, and {Indigo2,Onyx,CHALLENGE} R10000 systems; note that this list includes most of the installed base. IRIX 6.2 was first released in March 1996. IRIX 6.3 is the current release on O2 systems. IRIX 6.3 was first released in September 1996. IRIX 6.4 is the current release on the Origin 200 and 2000 and the Onyx2 systems. IRIX 6.4 was first released in late 1996. (The reason the phrase "was first released" is used is that SGI often re-releases a version of IRIX without renumbering, to make changes to add support for new hardware models. For example, the latest re-release of IRIX 6.2 as of December 1996 is "IRIX 6.2 with Indigo2 IMPACT 10000", released June 1996.)
Subject: -18- When will the next release(s) of IRIX be out? Date: 20 Dec 1996 00:00:01 EST Ping Huang <pshuang@sgi.com> writes: Another all-platforms release is being planned. (An all-platforms release, on the date it is released, can be installed on all available SGI systems which are not considered obsoleted. Previous all-platforms releases include IRIX 5.3 and IRIX 6.2.) At the current time (late 1996), we cannot provide a firm date for when such a release would be available; *perhaps* sometime in 1997.
Subject: -19- How can I get lists of known bugs, lists of patches, and/or the patches themselves? Date: 4 Nov 1998 00:00:01 EST Bugs: Known bugs are documented in Product Release Notes. The Support Advantage package (sent regularly to all customers on support) includes a Software Change Requests binder. SupportFolio Online (previously Advantage Online) (http://support.sgi.com/) also lists SCRs. Patches: a) Customers on support can get patches from the TAC. The TAC will tell you about a patch only if you report a bug which the patch fixes, but will give you a patch if you ask for it by number. b) Support Advantage periodically includes a patch CD. c) SupportFolio Online (http://support.sgi.com/) has lists of patches and the patches themselves. SupportFolio Online is not as complete or current as the TAC, but is updated regularly. d) Some patches (primarily for severe security problems) are in ftp://sgigate.sgi.com/Patches/. This is the only way in which you can legally get patches without being on support. Patches sometimes appear on sgigate before Advantage Online. e) Walter Roberson <roberson@hamer.ibd.nrc.ca> maintains his own lists of patches for several versions of IRIX, which he posts regularly to comp.sys.sgi.admin (see above under "network-accessible documents") and makes available via WWW (see above under "WWW pages"). See also the article on patches in the Jul/Aug 1995 Pipeline, but note that it doesn't mention Advantage Online. Finally, the SGI FAQs mention many patches. Be aware that patches are superceded regularly. If you ask the TAC for a superceded patch, you'll be told about the patch which superceded it. SupportFolio Online has lists of superceded patches and the patches which superceded them.
Subject: -20- What's the best newsgroup in which to complain to SGI? Date: Wed Sep 22 13:36:05 CDT 1999 It depends on what you're complaining about. Most of the SGI employees who read the SGI newsgroups are engineers and similar useful people, not evil marketing policy-setters. If you feel, for example, that NFS or Documenter's Workbench should be a standard part of IRIX, don't post; call your sales rep and yell at them. However, software bugs are better newsgroup material: an SGI person may well see your message and fix the bug then and there. Nonetheless, don't depend on it. Call the TAC and tell them too. There's also a website that provides an interface for people to publicly address complaints about various companies. It currently doesn't have any complaints about SGI... http://www.complainusa.com/servlets/CompanyListing?companyId=61
Subject: -21- Wouldn't Nextstep be great on SGIs? Date: 20 Dec 1996 00:00:01 EST Possibly. If Next ported Nextstep to IRIX (and several SGI employees have made it clear that it is up to Next, not SGI, to do so) the question might be worth discussing. That nonwithstanding, Next zealots have flogged Nextstep around the SGI newsgroups many times. They haven't convinced the command-line diehards that the Next way is better or vice versa. Please don't try it yourself. However, if you are primarily interested in the "look and feel" of the Nextstep user interface, you may be interested in the AfterStep window manager, available from http://mango.sfasu.edu/~frank/afterstep/.
Subject: -22- Can I run Windows NT on my Indigo or Indy? Date: 18 Jan 1994 00:00:01 EST No. SGI can, but only on Indigos with special hardware and software modifications and only for demos and porting. There are no known plans to provide NT on SGI workstations. Also, note that most comp.sys.sgi.* readers will answer this question "Why would you want to?". MTI, aka MIPS, an SGI subsidiary, does make NT-compatible machines. Try comp.sys.mips.
Subject: -23- Credits Date: Mon Mar 19 16:08:47 CST 2001 The comp.sys.sgi FAQs are the joint effort of the SGI FAQ group Kevin Glueck kglueck@viz.tamu.edu James Hayasaka jamesh@2tone.org and its alumni Gavin Bell gavin@sgi.com SGI inventor FAQ Kevin Brokaw kevinb@sgi.com SGI impressario FAQ Dale Chayes dale@ldeo.columbia.edu Bryan James bryanj@spiff.esd.sgi.com SGI audio FAQ Larry McDonough lardog@thepound.asd.sgi.com SGI inventor FAQ Michael Portuesi portuesi@sgi.com SGI movie FAQ Steve Rikli sr@sgi.com Allan Schaffer aschaffe@sgi.com Dave Schweisguth dcs@proton.chem.yale.edu Dave Story story@sgi.com SGI impressario FAQ Paul Walmsley ccshag@cclabs.missouri.edu Special thanks are due to Tom Davis Author of the 'zip' editor (now 'jot') Craig Hammack Viz Lab webmaster emeritus Mark Kirk Viz Lab sysadmin emeritus Harry Mangalam Maintainer of the comp.sys.sgi.* WAIS database Dave Olson comp.sys.sgi.*'s one-man TAC Steve Rikli Viz Lab sysadmin emeritus Dave Sills Moderator of comp.sys.sgi.announce Dave Walvoord Viz Lab sysadmin emeritus Matt Wicks Moderator of comp.sys.sgi.announce emeritus Finally, much thanks to all of the SGI employees on Usenet, who have provided gigabytes of helpful information. Credits for individual contributions are given in the answers. ------------------------------ End of sgi/faq/misc Digest ****************************** -- The SGI FAQ group <sgi-faq@viz.tamu.edu> http://www-viz.tamu.edu/~sgi-faq/ Finger us for info on the SGI FAQs, or look in ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/.

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