Using the SGI Indy Workstation

About this document:

• Table of Contents.
• Revision history.
• Copyright information.
• Special Needs notice.

Using the SGI Indy at Athena

This is a test! Many programs are known to be buggy, and we're working on them. Please feel free to play around with the SGI-specific features as well as the Athena-specific software. This document covers some of the differences and features of the Athenized Indy.

Report bugs via e-mail to bug-sgi@mit.edu. Send comments to sgi-comments@mit.edu.

Logging In and Getting Started

Log into the Indy like you log into any Athena workstation. Your home directory appears as usual, although some of your dotfiles are ignored.

In particular, ~/.startup.X is ignored, so any applications (xterm, xclock, etc) that ~/.startup.X calls will not run. Therefore, if you have set skip_initial_xterm in your dotfiles, you won't get any xterm at all. You can choose Unix Shell from the Desktop menu on the toolchest to start an xterm (winterm) window.

If you want a normal Athena session (including your ~/.startup.X), you can put set skip_sgi in your ~/.environment file.

Parts of the Default Indy Desktop

These are the familiar "Athena" elements that appear on the default Indy desktop:

• dash
• initial xterm
• console window
• logout button

In addition, these SGI elements appear:

• the "Desk 1" toolchest. You can explore the menus to see what's available.

• "Console" icon. The SGI console currently gets the output from /dev/console. These messages will eventually appear in the Athena console window, and the SGI console will be removed from the Athena release.

• Mac-like icons:
  • floptical: This icon controls the floptical disk drive, which uses 21Mb floptical diskettes.

  • camera: This icon runs the Capture program, for recording movies, photos, and sound.

  • your locker: The folder icon with the name of your locker allows you to navigate your locker via graphics and icons.

  • dumpster: If you use the SGI Desktop, then deleting a file is a two-step process. Use the "Remove" command to place the icon in the dumpster, then choose "Empty Dumpster" from the Desktop toolchest.

UNIX Shell vs Xterm

The difference between an Athena xterm and Unix Shell (winterm) from the toolchest is that one runs SGI's xwsh shell qprogram, which isn't really compatible with our environment. Unless you don't have any xterm window, you should ignore the winterm.

Dotfiles

The $bindir variable is set to arch/sgi_52/bin. For example, the Mosaic program for the Indy is in /mit/sipb/arch/sgi_52/bin/Mosaic when you have add'ed sipb.

If you want certain applications to start up when you log in, without setting skip_sgi, you can take one of these actions:

• Leave them running when you log out. Next time you log into an Indy, the applications will start up where you left them. This doesn't work for every application.

• Put the applications in ~/.startup.sgi, which uses the same format as .startup.X.

• Read the man page for 4Dwm for details about session management.

Logging Out

There are three ways to log out:

• Click on the logout button and confirm with the "Yes, logout" button.
• Type logout from an xterm.
• Choose "Log Out" from the Desktop menu of the toolchest.

SGI Features

Drives

• The floptical drive (on the right side of the blue box) takes 21Mb floptical diskettes.

• The CD-ROM drive requires a caddy. There are a limited number of CD caddies in the clusters.

Speakers

If you're going to do something that requires the speakers, make sure you turn down the volume first. You can also bring headphones (from a "Walkman").

Video Camera

To get started using the camera, double-click on camera icon. There is online help within the Capture program. You can:

• Take a picture.
• Record a movie.
• Record audio.

Quit is under the Actions menu.

When you record with the Capture program, it creates a ~/.capturesettings file and a ~/.capture.mv.tmpa* directory. The files in the .capture.mv.tmp directory can be huge, so watch your disk quota.

The video cameras will not be replaced if destroyed or lost.

Other Software Differences

• The default window manager is 4Dwm, which is similar to mwm. Type man 4Dwm for more information.

• The default Emacs is version 19, which incorporates some windows features, like scroll bars and pull-down menus.

• Maple dumps core when generating plots

• Frame is missing BibFrame, warning messages on startup, and some filters.

• Use SIPB's xscreensaver, not the screen saver available in the toolchest.

• EZ doesn't work.

• The old Online Help, which depends on EZ, does not work. You can view the help modules via the World Wide Web at http://web.mit.edu/olh/.

• Use /bin/athena/tcsh instead of /usr/athena/bin/tcsh.

• The jot program may cause the machine to panic.

The following software does work on the SGI:

• Autocad
• Framemaker
• Maple
• Matlab
• Tecplot
• Xess

Troubleshooting

Rebooting

If you need to reboot the Indy, you can do either of the following:

• Pick Restart System from the System menu on the toolchest, and type in the public root password when it asks; or

• Become root with su, then type reboot.

If you can't do either of those steps, press the power button (the round button next to the power light on the left of the blue box). This still shuts down the machine cleanly and turns it off. Once the machine shuts off, wait about 30 seconds, then press the power button again to turn it on and boot it.

If the power button is wedged, there's a small rectangular reset button below the power button (recessed in the top stripe). You can use a pen or similar instrument to press it.

Bug reports and Comments

• To report bugs, use sendbug on the Indy or send e-mail to bug-sgi@mit.edu.
• Send suggestions, comments, or questions to sgi-comments@mit.edu.