Welcome to DINA. With DINA you can boot your Silicon Graphics computer and install IRIX over a network.. It can also be used as a NFS server to install software. The software repository Nekoware is included and is kept fresh by Nekosync. What is DINA and what can it do for me?DINA is a small software appliance (self contained package of software that contains an OS, network services and applications) that is specifically developed to service Silicon Graphics users.It provides the following services:
Download DINA.DINA is a VMware machine and can be downloaded here.First time setup and preparation of DINA.Before you can use to boot a SGI computer from it you need to configure the IP address and to transfer your IRIX files to it.There are also some issues using it on a network that has a DHC server that you need to be aware of and possible work around.
SGI Hardware and software compatibility for Netbooting.Netbooting and installation from DINA has been verified on the following SGI hardware and software:
How to boot your Silicon Graphics computer from DINA.If you don't have working mouse when doing this I have indicated in the braises {} what keyboard commands to use as an alternative to clicking with the mouse.Boot your SGI computer and click the "Stop for Maintenance dialog" {Escape}.
For information on how and what to install you may find good references on the Internet. How to read or write files to DINA from your Silicon Graphics computers .Once you have installed the IRIX operating system on your SGI computer you will find that DINA is still useful as a server for file storage.For example the nekoware files can be installed from it. You can access the files that are stored in DINA from your IRIX computer by doing the following: If you are running IRIX 6.5.x then open a file manager and type /hosts/IP-NUMBER where
IP-NUMBER is the IP number you assigned to DINA.If you did not change the factory IP it is 192.168.1.100 as in the example below. You can add,delete and change files as you se fit on all visible shared folders. The Files is for storing any files of your liking, it also contains the documentation files. The IRIX folders is for holding your IRIX operating files. I have created folders that you can use when copying your IRIX CDs here. The Nekoware will contain the distribution files from Nekochan. To download and unpack the files run the utility "Nekosync" from within DINA How to read or write files to DINA from your Windows computers.Even though DINA is primary a tool to simplify IRIX software installations you might want to put or retrieve files on DINA from a Windows computer.You can access the files in DINA by doing the following: In Windows XP click the Start button and use the Run button. In the run field type \\IP-NUMBER
where IP-NUMBER is the IP number you assigned to DINA.If you did not change the factory IP it is 192.168.1.100 as in the example below. Click OK and file explorer will open up and show the shared folders in DINA If you get a password questions, just click OK to bypass it. The Explorer shows the shared folders. You can add,delete and change files and folders as required on all visible shared folders. The Files is for storing any files of your liking. The IRIX folders is for holding your IRIX operating files. I have created folders that you can use when copying your IRIX CD here. The Nekoware folder will contain the distribution files from Nekochan. To download and unpack the files run the utility "Nekosync" from within DINA An alternative method to bring up the DINA files in Windows is simply opening a file explorer and type \\IP-NUMBER in the address field, IP-NUMBER is the IP number you assigned to DINA as discussed above. How to download and keep Nekoware files synchronized.Log in on the console of DINA as root, the default password is "password". A menu will start were you can run the nekosync utility.An alternative way of running it is to start the graphics and run it from the graphical environment. Once the graphic has started there is an icon in the startbar that you can use. Once you start the nekosync utility it will download all missing nekoware distribution files to your DINA and unpack it placing the result in /nekoware/inst folder. During the first run it will have to download and unpack several gigabytes of information so it will take a while. You can see the progress in a window, if you close it before it has downloaded all the data it will pick up were it left of the next time you start it. Nekosync need a working Internet connection and that the default gateway and DNS settings are correctly configured for it to be able to download the files. The easy way of installing software together with the necessary dependencies.One challenging thing with software installation in IRIX is dealing with so called dependencies or prerequisites.Dependencies are software that needs to be installed before you can install another piece of software. This is especially challenging when it comes to open source software like the SGI freeware or the Nekoware as they generally are made up of lots and lots of small pieces of software that need to be installed to make one single functional program. To make the installation a bit easier I have created a small utility called Installmenus. To use it first install the installmenu.tardist from the DINA /files folder on your IRIX 6.5.x computer. It will add two menus - Install.. and Install (automatic) to the right click pop-up menu. To use the easy installation option, view an inst folder on your IRIX computer, it can be the DINA /nekoware/inst folder that you are accessing over NFS or any other folder holding software installation files locally or on the network. Ones you find an interesting software you want to install right click on the icon and use the menu Install (automatic) These installation menus are only visible if you right click an installable file. For example in the image above the file "neko_abiword" is an installable file, you can tell by the icon that is a document with a CD pointing towards it. Once you clicked Install (automatic) a dialog will show the progress and when it is complete the software will be ready to use! All dependent files will have been installed for you automatically so this generally makes the installation process a bit more pleasant. There are some limitations to how well it will work, one limitation is that all the dependent files needed for the installation must all be found in the same /inst folder. That is generally the case for Nekoware and SGI freeware so it should work very well in those cases. |