Nekochan Net

A big hello to all you almighty people who are giving us the software for our beloved SGI computers.

I have a pledge - if it's not a hassle can you please also make mips3 versions for the binaries you make available ? There are a few people around with only access to R4k machines and no chance of upgrading to somthing better. And not everyone can compile his sources.

At least - please [Neko] - specify in the download section as a comment or in the archive name - mips4 only. It SUCKS to download the whole Mozilla package over a slow 'net connection only to be greeted with an: "mozilla-bin: architecture not supported"

Thank you for your time and keep up the good work !

I vote for both 3 and 4, although I will only build mips4 myself, which is already taking so much of my precious time.

_________________
Shall I describe it to you? Or do you want me to get you a box?

Actually, why not ? The parts to do it are all available (not MIPSPro, but gcc.) I also don't have the time or skills needed to barge through the dependencies swamp, but I certainly could set up a script and let it run overnight. You would like mips 3, I'd like highly-optimized mips4, the people doing the work would like some occasional sleep

What about good step-by-step recipes for self-compiling ? Linux turkies can do it - the trouble with Irix is that there are so many goofy gnu-isms in gcc, but once someone has figured those out if there were a recipe along with the mips4 packages why *couldn't* people compile their own gcc versions for mips3 ?

while not affiliated with nekochan directly I will soon be offering alot of items for older IRIX releases in about a month. I have half of my development environment built out with the remainder coming online in a week.

IRIX 5.3, IRIX 6.2, and some things for IRIX 6.5 will be available. the focus is mainly on older IRIX releases which are far less supported but equally important.

other than compiled for others to use, GCC has no place on my IRIX machines. supporting tuxed up garbage is not an option.

i think the current nekochan contributors support IRIX 6.5 nicely and they should continue to focus on that. Most of us probably have real jobs and lives and are not paid to do this so focusing on a single area is probably the best approach.

perhaps a bit more formal approach to software development/porting at nekochan would be beneficial to all. a formal team of contributors broken down by IRIX release... so we have foetz cranking out 6.5 mozilla while others are doing the same for 5.3 and 6.2 etc.

just a thought.

_________________
The preceding thoughts were brought to you by Jack Daniels.

I think building for MIPS3 for the kind of software found on this site is silly.

Mostly because an R10K250 isn't powerful enough to run any of it half decently, so anything MIPS3 is obviously going to be completely overwhelmed.

_________________
--
lisa

Just as well i got a dual R10k 250 still am saving to get a dual 360 for my octane

There was a old russian saying in the lines of:
When you don't have raspberries, you drink tea from its leaves and say that it's good
My R4400/200Mhz tea is good

I am willing to help - but I have only gcc and little experience beyond "./compile && make && make install"

Congratulations! You are over qualified as an open source programmer.

_________________
The preceding thoughts were brought to you by Jack Daniels.

cosmos: you should change your nick to sarcasmos :-P

_________________
Shall I describe it to you? Or do you want me to get you a box?

I only speak the truth.

cheers.

_________________
The preceding thoughts were brought to you by Jack Daniels.

I have to ask, cosmos -- since you are only the second person I know of that speaks out against open source -- are you by any chance a professional programmer? (The other was). That is the only reason I could imagine (i.e. loss of wages) that would cause some one to dislike getting a thing for free.

i am a jack of all trades. yes i have coded for a living, managed systems, managed databases, and many other exciting roles along the windy road of making a living!

if "getting it for free" is your criteria for quality the end result is always going to be garbage. i am and always have been a business man. the economics of producing quality for dollars makes perfect logical sense. on the other hand giving something for nothing is always suspect and is not in line with basic human nature. the world is not a utopia; in fact, it is a rather dismal environment all around.

do you get garbage from commercial companies? absolutely! do i like alot of commercial software...hell no. but i do have some recourse and in the end can vote with my pocketbook which has alot more bite than lofty idealism. in the real world my time is worth money and it is utterly wasted if i am forced to recode or scour usenet and forums because open source widget number one does not work. multiplied by the enormous amount of open source products this quickly soars into astronomical amounts of wasted man hours. and in the end who pays? everyone but the open source programmer.

and quite frankly if i am only the second person you have ever heard speak critically about open source then something is very wrong. either you need to get out of the house more or something is rotten in the state of denmark. no one should trust anything in which critical analysis is absent. from my ivory tower it usually appears as if both the microsoft and the linux camps are near identical albeit at opposite ends of the spectrum. both are fanatical and both seem to operate in complete unison and oneness of thought. i make sure not to drink the kool aid.

there is a happy medium between idealiistic software development and monolithic corporate entities, it just has not been realized yet. until then i will continue to cry out in the wilderness as it would seem and collect my paycheck for services rendered since goods and services in the real world have not been open sourced to my knowledge.

keep the faith.

_________________
The preceding thoughts were brought to you by Jack Daniels.

Can resist:

IMHO, the beauty of open source is the ability to fix what's broken -- rather than a propriety blackbox I can't peer into. I expect very little work to be done for me and appreciate those who are willing to give away what they have learned in the past -- quality or kludge. I liken code to scientific research -- the engine behind it is the individual's claim to fame or the developer scratching a particular itch -- that's why research is freely published. Once someone does the dirty work it becomes "obvious" and the rest of us shouldn't be hampered by "intellectual property" rights from repeating their success.

Oh, and I don't get out very often.

my issue with open source is not the model it's the real world application. the bottom line is that except for a few shining examples the majority of open source code is cobbled together trash and altogether unuseable without major effort on the individuals part. this may not be an issue when you are in school or in a research environment but it often fails miserably in the trenches.

if i can expect to have to rewrite 75% or all of the open source contribution applicable to my project and/or spend a few business workdays tracking down patches, supplimentary code, and prerequisites than i have wasted both mine and my employers time and money. perhaps there is no commercial "black box" to achive a particular need so this is your only option save write everything yourself from scratch. i tend to lean towards doing it all myself--at least i can vouch for the end result.

in the end it probably comes down to philosophical differences. i am not a communist, never was a communist, and never will be a communist. if i write a piece of quality code then i want to get paid for it and i do not people monkeying with my code. on the flip side i would feel ashamed and loathsome tossing out some half ass code under the banner of open source and shamelessly passing it off as a community project because i am too incompetent to complete it.

i think we can agree to disagree.

cheers

_________________
The preceding thoughts were brought to you by Jack Daniels.

I don't think communists have a problem with making money, just they believe that the means of production should be in the hands of the state, which given what actually happened in the Soviet Union was a disater. After all if everything is owned by one entity (such as the state) then there can be no competition, result the consumer gets screwed.

I think squeen point is fairly valid, after all if you do a phd in university your thesis gets published and other people can use your work (as long as they acknowledge you in their work)
After all computer standards such as TCP/IP were developed in a open situation, as result you don't hear much talk of decnet anymore (or other propiertry network standards)