SGI Freeware
Frequently Asked Questions

Installation Problems

Run Time Problems Miscellaneous GNOME Known Package Replacement Histories

Installation Problems

Q1.1: How do I install a package on IRIX?

Open source comes in .tardist extension files. tardist files are tar archives of inst (SGI auto-install) files. They normally install automatically when you click on them in your browser. If you have an old IRIX system (6.2) or you didn't have auto-installation configured in your browser this auto-installation may fail to work in which case you may follow the following manual procedure:
    % tar xvf xxxx.tardist		(untar that tardist file)
    % su				(become superuser)
    # inst -f .				(install from current dir)
    inst> go
    inst> quit

Automating this process:

The utility tardist does all the above automatically. If you don't have it you may download it from:
        http://www.sgi.com/Support/patch_down.html
To configure your browser to support auto-install (i.e. calling tardist or SoftwareManager automatically when you click on a .tardist file on the web) you should have two entries added to your mailcap file (either your personal ~/.mailcap or, depending on your browser version, the system one in /var/netscape/.../mailcap, /usr/local/.../mailcap, or equivalent).
  application/x-install; \
	/usr/sbin/SoftwareManager -a -F %s ; \
	description="SGI automatic software installation"
  application/x-tardist; \
	/usr/sbin/SoftwareManager -a -f %s ; \
	description="SGI software distribution archive"
All this should work out of the box on recent IRIX releases. It is just on older IRIX systems (6.2) that you may need to go through the manual procedure.

Q1.2: I can't view the man pages...

All packages come with the full original documentation if it exists. However they are configured to install their man pages under /usr/freeware/... which is a non-standard location to search for man pages. To make this work, you must tell the man program to search there.

You may do it either by setting MANPATH using something like: 

  % setenv MANPATH /usr/freeware/catman:/usr/freeware/man:/usr/catman/local:/usr/local/man:/usr/share/catman:/usr/share/man:/usr/catman:/usr/man
(note the added /usr/freeware/catman location).

Or simply follow the instructions on the SGI Freeware web page which recommend running the utility fixpath. fixpath is included with every package as fw_common.sw.fixpath. You should run fixpath only once to update your personal startup files. Once you run fixpath you should re-login for it to take effect (or directly execute your fixed startup files (e.g: source ~/.cshrc)) from your shell.

Q1.3: packages (like XEmacs 20.4) are too big to download...

HTTP implementations seem to time out and fail on slow links and big files. The symptom is getting a timeout or some error message like "premature EOF" from Software Manager during the unpacking of the tardist file.

A good solution is to use FTP instead of HTTP.

You may access SGI/freeware via FTP using any of the following methods:

Q1.4: While installing [old-package] I get this error: 
    /bin/sh: \//usr/freeware/relnotes/shared/mkindex.sh:  not found
    ERROR: Command "( \\$rbase/usr/freeware/relnotes/shared/mkindex.sh )"
    failed (return status 127, subsystem XXXXX.man.relnotes 1022574820)
You may safely ignore this message. This is an old package (from Freeware release 6.2). Some of these old packages were not re-packaged for the current Freeware release. Instead, they were simply recycled "as-is". The error is benign and is a result of a typo in the exitop. The software itself should run fine.

Q1.5: I'm getting "missing prereqs" when installing on IRIX 6.2

Most likely, you're missing n32 libraries. Many of these are not installed by default on IRIX 6.2 (later IRIX versions should be OK). For example, in the case of XEmacs, if you get an error message like:
  Install Base Execution Libraries (N32) (1232792133 - 1239999900)
  (not on current distribution).
This means you should install compiler_eoe.sw32.lib -- it should be on your distribution CDs.

The other suggested resolutions boil down to "upgrade to a newer version of IRIX", which is probably overkill (But still a good idea! :-)

Q1.6: Can I install freeware in a different directory?
This question is often being asked by people who don't have superuser permissions and/or whose sysadmin disabled tardist on their system so they cannot install into /usr/freeware via the web, or something similar. Unfortunately, the answer to this is no. Many packages are preconfigured to look for files in certain directories so moving them will simply break them. While some packages may not be sensitive to locations we simply don't have the resources to support such feature by creating alternate distributions.

Note that if you are short on disk space you can move the /usr/freeware directory to a different location; just make sure to leave a symlink behind so that the original path names still work. Moving individual subdirectories of /usr/freeware may or may not work.

Run Time problems

Q2.1: When I run gnuplot, I get the following message:
    gnuplot: rld: Fatal Error: object libpng.so from liblist in gnuplot
    has version "sgi1.0", which does not match the found object:
    usr/lib32/libpng.so (with version "sgi2.0")

Two possible solutions:
  • Best for the long run: Upgrade to a more recent version of libpng.so (or upgrade IRIX to 6.5)
  • Fastest/simplest solution (csh/tcsh example): Tell rld to ignore versions in this particular case:
        alias gnuplot 'env _RLD_ARGS=-ignore_all_versions gnuplot \!*'
Substitute gnuplot with your failing program name if it is different.

Q2.2: When starting XEmacs (or another n32 package)
      I get this error (or similar):
    prog: rld: Fatal Error: cannot successfully map soname
    'libXpm.so.1' under any of the filenames
    /usr/lib32/libXpm.so.1:/lib32/libXpm.so.1:/usr/libn32/libXpm.so.1:/libn32/libXpm.so.1:/usr/lib32/libXpm.so.1.1:/lib32/libXpm.so.1.1:/usr/libn32/libXpm.so.1.1:/libn32/libXpm.so.1.1:
We try to build new open source packages using the n32 ABI.

n32 executables require n32 libraries (which reside in /lib32 or /usr/lib32.) This gives us faster, better supported, executables at the price of presenting a minor inconvenience to IRIX 6.2 users who need to install something additional.

On old versions of IRIX (IRIX 6.2), the n32 libraries are not installed by default. Either upgrade to IRIX 6.5 (highly recommended) of install the n32 libraries.

On your IRIX 6.2 CD (1 of 2) you should look for subsystems with the sw32 component. In this specific case, you should install ViewKit_eoe.sw32.base which includes the n32 version of the libXpm.so library.

Note that since open source is built mostly n32, you may need to install further n32 libraries depending on what's missing and what's already installed on your particular system.

Note: missing n32 libraries are only a problem with IRIX 6.2; newer versions of IRIX have these libraries installed by default.

Q2.3: gcc can't find 'as'.

Please click on the name of the package in the download table (leftmost cell) to get to the brief release notes and follow them. In this specific case, it includes instructions on how to get the SGI assembler and linker which are not a part of gcc.

Q2.4: Where is the xemacs binary?

You need to manually select and install either the "MULE-free" (fw_xemacs.latin1.eoe) or "MULE-fied" (fw_xemacs.mule.eoe) subsystem, depending on how much foreign language support you want. When installing xemacs click on the "Customize" button in the software manager, and click on the little folder icon next to XEmacs product. Select the subsystem you want and hit "Start".

In the next release we'll probably make one or the other the default.

Miscellaneous

Q3.1: Could you please add package X?

Thanks for the request. All the open source packaging is done by volunteers so we cannot promise anything. Your request is noted and it is possible that someone would volunteer to contribute it. You may want to build it yourself and send us a pointer to your package so others may benefit as well. If you don't have the SGI development tools you may use the GNU compiler which is available in our recent distributions. If you do, please check-out the Notes on building open source packages on IRIX document.

Two particularly frequent requests are ssh and PGP. Note that according to U.S. law, we are not allowed to export crypto so we simply add pointers to such software which was built and distributed by other kind people. Try following the "More Freeware" link from the top SGI/Freeware page.

We sometimes get requests for stuff that comes standard on IRIX like gzip or rcs. Please check your IRIX CD's, maybe what you want is already there... Specifically, RCS should be found in eoe.sw.rcs.

Q3.2: How about packages for older IRIX versions?

Due to limited resources, new open source packages are built on IRIX 6.2 (which has been out since 1995...) so it should install and run on IRIX 6.2 and up but not on older versions.

An older open source release (called Freeware 1.0) which was built on IRIX 5.3 is still available at The Developer's Toolbox site. Note that these older versions are not being actively maintained, enriched, or updated. If you run older IRIX versions on relatively new hardware (Indy, Indigo2, Challenge, Origin), we highly recommend upgrading IRIX to a latest version. IRIX 6.5 in particular is a very stable, fast, well supported, multi-platform, and feature rich version of IRIX.

Q3.3: How can I order a freeware CD?

Unfortunately, this CD is a goodwill freebie. They are not in our price book and we do not sell them so you cannot order them.

Here are a few possible ways around this:

  • Order an IRIX system (the CD comes bundled inside).
  • Download it via ftp from freeware.sgi.com and burn your own CDs.
  • If you are a paying support customer, check out the CD request system on Support Folio.
  • Join the SGI Developer Program at the free Venture Online membership level and pay a US$100 yearly subscription fee to receive two Developer's Toolbox CD releases. Although not released as frequently as Freeware CDs, the Developer's Toolbox CDs include the latest freeware release when created.

Q3.4: What is package X? How do I run/configure it?

We try (but cannot commit) to provide a short description of the packages on our web site. Click on the name of the package to get to the brief description. Some basic questions can be avoided by clicking on the name of the package on the leftmost cell in the download table (note that this is different than the Download button or the rightmost cell).

Our volunteers normally build and package the software and give it some testing but we do not provide documentation beyond what comes standard in the package. You may want to contact the original authors and ask for better docs. See also Q1.2.

Q3.5: Is freeware Y2K compliant?

In general: SGI can not guarantee the Y2K compliance of these packages since they are not written nor maintained by SGI. Also, we have no resources to do Y2K testing as we do for IRIX. If this issue is critical to you we recommend you devote the resources to scan the included source and report bugs to the original maintainers (not SGI). See also Q5.1.

Q3.6: I want to contribute to SGI/freeware...

Thanks very much for the offer. This is highly appreciated. We have a few reasons why we don't just take precompiled packages from external contributors:

  • Security (obviously)

  • Adherence to pretty elaborate build conventions + process (which are unlikely to exist in random builds):
    • IRIX 6.2 and up runtime backward compatibility
    • Using our latest compilers + patches
    • n32 builds with full optimizations
    • Install in standard places that don't clash with existing SW
    • Taking care of dependencies and/or clashes with shared libs
    • Various additional automatic checks of the packages

To help other SGI users without endorsement, we do, however, refer to external packages using links from our web site. If you could place your contributed package out on the net and send us a pointer, we'll gladly add a link to your contributed freeware from our web site "More Freeware" section.

GNOME

Q4.1: What freeware images do I need to install to run GNOME?

There are a lot! GNOME 1.4 was released too late for inclusion in the May 2001 freeware distribution, but it will be included in a later release. The current archive contents are a "top-of-tree" snapshot of GNOME taken roughly at the end of March.

To make life easier, we've included an inst selections file in that installs all the prerequisites you need. Just install fw_common.sw.selections, and follow the instructions in the files: /usr/freeware/selections/.

If you want everything you'll need the following (listed alphabetically):
fw_ImageMagick fw_ORBit fw_audiofile fw_balsa
fw_bug-buddy fw_control-center fw_db fw_dia
fw_ee fw_enlightenment fw_esound fw_findutils
fw_fnlib fw_fortune-mod fw_freetype fw_gal
fw_gcc fw_gdbm fw_gdk-pixbuf fw_gedit
fw_ggv fw_glade fw_glib fw_gmp
fw_gnome-applets fw_gnome-audio fw_gnome-core fw_gnome-games
fw_gnome-libs fw_gnome-media fw_gnome-pilot fw_gnome-pim
fw_gnome-print fw_gnome-python fw_gnome-utils fw_gnumeric
fw_gtk+ fw_gtk-engines fw_gtop fw_guile
fw_imlib fw_indent fw_ispell fw_libghttp
fw_libglade fw_libgtop fw_libiconv fw_libjpeg
fw_libole2 fw_libpng fw_librep fw_libungif
fw_libunicode fw_libxml fw_libxpm fw_libz
fw_lynx fw_mc fw_netpbm fw_pilot-link
fw_pspell fw_pspell-ispell fw_python fw_readline
fw_rep-gtk fw_sawfish fw_scrollkeeper fw_tar
fw_tcp_wrappers fw_texinfo fw_tiff fw_users-guide
fw_xchat fw_xscreensaver

If you choose to install some of the non-default variants you may need other images too, like fw_egcs or fw_socks5. Also note that the fw_ImageMagick.sw.plugins subsystem has many additional requirements not included above.

Images that aren't strictly part of GNOME, but which have GNOME support or are otherwise related, include:

  • fw_Eterm
  • fw_abi
  • fw_gftp
  • fw_gnomehack
  • fw_openssh
  • fw_rxvt
  • fw_xmms

Q4.2: How can I start GNOME automatically at login?

This is covered in the GNOME Users Guide, which should be installed in /usr/freeware/share/gnome/help/gnome-intro/C/a-sample-session.html on your system. Basically put 
    exec gnome-session 1>.xsession.log 2>&1
in your .xsession file. The default IRIX script is in /var/X11/xdm/Xsession if you want to duplicate parts of your IRIX setup.

Q4.3: Why do I get BadMatch errors, crashes, blue-on-blue text, etc.?

Many Linux systems use a single X visual and colormap for all windows by default; IRIX doesn't. As a result there are a variety of bugs lurking in the source code where programmers have, for example, allocated colors in the wrong colormap or assumed that all windows have the same depth. Try making your default X server visual 24-bit TrueColor by adding "-depth 24 -class TrueColor" to /usr/lib/X11/xdm/Xservers. (Run xdpyinfo first to make sure your server supports this visual, and be sure to restart the X server after making a change. Logging out may not be enough!)

Q4.4: How can I make enlightenment run faster?

There are many options in the configuration page. The Pixmap theme in particular is very sluggish on older machines; avoid it.

Q4.5: Why are sounds garbled or noisy?

There are known problems in the esound library. You may have better luck by forcing esd to start in 8-bit mode.

Q4.6: Why don't gtop and other system monitoring tools work?

The libgtop library is very system-specific, and has not been ported to IRIX. As a result nearly all of its functionality is stubbed out.

Known Package Replacement Histories

Q5.1: What packages are known Y2K fixed?
As has been previously stated, we do not officially test for Y2K compliancy; we only fix the problems as they are reported. Again, this goes back to our core mantra "If we don't know it's broken, we can't fix it" so please email a report of any problems you encounter to us!

The following packages are Y2K fixed packages, and their release date:

  • fw_elm, February 2000
  • fw_sc, February 2000

Q5.2: What packages have been replaced or obsoleted?
Here's our known list of replacements or obsoletions, and the CD release where it took effect :
  • fw_colorls replaced by fw_fileutils, February 2000
  • fw_gnome-admin absorbed by fw_gnome-utils/1.2.0, August 2000
Additions and contributions to this list gratefully accepted.
freeware@sgi.com