The Fuel is Silicon Graphics’ last MIPS based entry level graphics workstation. Like it’s bigger brother the Tezro, it’s based around the updated innards of the Origin 3000 machines – in the same way the Octane used the same innards as the Origin 2000.

The family lineage goes like this:

Origin 3000 -> Origin 300 -> Tezro -> Fuel
Origin 2000 -> Origin 200 -> Octane

The advantage this gives the Fuel is much faster memory bus speeds, as well as multiple PCI channels and faster throughput to the graphics card. Unless you need multi-CPUs, you’ll find Fuel faster than Octane. Taking into account the cost of an Octane2 with a V10 board set, the Fuel represents a massive bargain right now.

SGI sold the Fuel with no sound card, providing extra cost options of either a PCI based card, or a USB sound system. This does actually make sense, if you think about Fuel’s target CAD and graphics markets – cut the cost of manufacturing by pulling out parts that aren’t used by the majority of the client base.

My current problem was two-fold:

1. I want to get one of my 1600SW screens wired into my Fuel
2. I want some sound on the Fuel as well

Solution to problem number one is to buy a Niktec GFX-1600SW. It takes up a single PCI slot for power (so no drivers needed) and converts DVI to OpenLDI. It’s a nice neat internal solution that’ll work on anything with a spare PCI slot.

Solution to problem number 2 is to purchase a Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS. This is supported natively under IRIX, and is much much cheaper than the other supported sound options for SGI gear.

Total time to plug everything in was under 5 minutes – the Fuel is very very easy to get into.

The only issue I faced was that I’d forgotten to reconfigure the X server before shutting down the machine. The configured resolution was 1900×1280, for the 24″ CRT I had plugged in before. This would clearly not work with the 1600SW.

The easiest option to this was to hit ESC once the Fuel had started booting, to drop into the graphical PROM menu. The default graphics settings appear to be 1024×768, and these can’t be changed, so no matter what you have plugged into a Silicon Graphics machine, you should always have something displayed during power on.

From the main PROM menu I entered the PROM monitor, then typed single and hit enter. This tells the machine to boot IRIX, but drop into single user mode. You just then need to enter the root password when prompted, and you have a root login in single user mode.

Reconfiguring the X server was then as straightforward as entering:

/usr/gfx/setmon 1600x1024_60

Answer No to whether or not you want this as the power on default. Remember, you can’t change that, and trying to will cause setmon to error out. Once setmon has done it’s magic, just type reboot, and wait for the machine to restart.

The graphical login window should pop up and you’ll be able to login to X with the new resolution fitting nicely on your 1600SW.

We can check the graphics board set configuration from the command line using the gfxinfo command:

valaraukar # /usr/gfx/gfxinfo 
Graphics board 0 is "ODYSSEY" graphics.
        Managed (":0.0") 1600x1024 
        BUZZ version B.1
        PB&J version 1
        32MB memory
                Banks: 2, CAS latency: 3
         Monitor 0 type: UFC 0
        Channel 0:
         Origin = (0,0)
         Video Output: 1600 pixels, 1024 lines, 60.00Hz (1600x1024_60)

Here’s the output from hinv after the hacking about:

valaraukar # uname -a
IRIX64 valaraukar 6.5 01090133 IP35
valaraukar # uname -R
6.5 6.5.29m
valaraukar # hinv
1 600 MHZ IP35 Processor
CPU: MIPS R14000 Processor Chip Revision: 2.3
FPU: MIPS R14010 Floating Point Chip Revision: 2.3
Main memory size: 1024 Mbytes
Instruction cache size: 32 Kbytes
Data cache size: 32 Kbytes
Secondary unified instruction/data cache size: 4 Mbytes
Integral SCSI controller 2: Version IEEE1394 SBP2
Integral SCSI controller 0: Version QL12160, low voltage differential
  Disk drive: unit 1 on SCSI controller 0
Integral SCSI controller 1: Version QL12160, single ended
  CDROM: unit 6 on SCSI controller 1
IOC3/IOC4 serial port: tty1
IOC3/IOC4 serial port: tty2
IOC3 parallel port: plp1
Graphics board: V10
Integral Fast Ethernet: ef0, version 1, module 001c01, pci 4
Iris Audio Processor: version EMU revision A4, number 1
DMediaPro DM10 FW option: unit 0, revision 1.1.0
USB controller: type OHCI

You can see the Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS card is recognised by the Iris Audio Processor driver – no messing around needed.

Again, none of this required any fiddling with drivers or messing around – you should be able to cheaply add sound to your Fuel in 10 minutes or less, and I picked up the Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS card for £19.

IRIX Security HOWTO

In an effort to solve the many security FAQs which pop up, I’ve written a security HOWTO for IRIX. It contains step by step instructions on how to secure your 6.5 system.

The current version is 0.1, and it can be viewed here: irix_security_howto_0.1.pdf

Please send any questions or feedback.

SGI

SGI provides security patches, as well as recommended/required patch sets, for free.
For some of the patches, you’ll need a Supportfolio username and password to download them – you can apply for one here.

• Security patches can be found at http://www.sgi.com/support/security/index.html

• Recommended/Required patch sets are available at http://support.sgi.com/colls/patches/tools/patchset/index.html
  You will require a Supportfolio login. This patch list should be updated monthly.

• If you have an SGI support contract, you can find the Support Contract Required Patches at http://support.sgi.com/colls/patches/tools/patchset/index.html
  You will require a Supportfolio login. Patch list updated daily.

• SGI also provides the Wiretap mailing list, for notification of security bugs and their patches.
  To subscribe, send an email to wiretap-request@sgi.com with a message body of:
  subscribe wiretap <your_email_address>
  end

• CERT – the Computer Emergency Response Team co-ordinates reports of vulnerabilities, and has a fairly comprehensive list of vulnerabilities, plus information on vendor-supplied fixes (and where to get them from)

• SANS – the SANS Institute was founded in 1989 as a co-operative research and education organisation. It’s one of the premier computer security organisations – lots of helpful information here.

• SecurityFocus has grown out of the BugTraq mailing list – it contains archives of vulnerabilities, archives of security related mailing lists, exploits, discussions – the works. You should subscribe to the BugTraq mailing list – it’s well worth it.

• If you have one of the newer SGI Visual Workstations, running Windows, then you should also subscribe to the NTBugTraq mailing list

OK, it’s not big, and it’s not clever. Never mind, here’s a list of some of the hacks I’ve been responsible for.

The Octane KnightRider Light Bar

Right, remember KITT from Knight Rider? Back when David Hasslehoff was surrounded by a rather naff Pontiac Trans-Am instead of the silicon splendour of Bay Watch?

KITT was cool. And the coolest part about KITT was the moving LED bar he had on the bonnet. If you didn’t grow up with Knight Rider, think Cylons. If you didn’t grow up with Battlestar Galactica, then – to be honest – you were probably an abused child. Seek help.

Now, there are a couple of problems with the stock light bar on the Octane:

1. It uses incandescant bulbs, which are more fragile than the XIO compression connectors
2. It’s incredibly dull on such a cool machine

Greg Douglas, over at Reputable, sells some rather nice LED light bars. They’re cool, but the shipping costs of getting them to the UK ruled them out for me.

So, what to do?

With a bit of hunting, I found KnightLight’s web site. Now, if you can ignore the appalling image of tragic mullet heads fitting this stuff to their Vauxhall Novas, you can find a LED kit for a PC, at http://www.knightlight.co.uk/pr-ks3016.htm.

Right, now, assume you have acquired one of these trinkets. Now, down to the hackery to get it fitted as the Octane’s light bar.

Remove the existing light bar

This is easy – they’ve got four ‘gripped’ tabs, a pair at either end. (See pictures below) Push them together and then pull it out towards you. Needs a bit of force, but easily done. You’ll notice there are four pins – these provide power.

Looking at the front of the Octane, the four sockets provide:

The LED bar will need a 5V supply, but after some extended testing (ie. none) I can conclude that it’s happy with a lower supply of 3.6V.

Attaching the LED bar

There are two ways to do this:

1. The Proper Way – soldering wires and taking your time
2. The Hack Way – bodge it a bit

Always remember – electricians tape is your friend.

Here’s what I did:

• Cut off some wires from an old broken Sparc LX which had a similar sized connector on the end
• Used a screw driver to lever open the pressed metal connectors inside the PC-style power connector
• Jammed the wires inside the metal connectors, and then forced them shut again
• Next, I cut a small section away from the front panel, to fit the bar in place
• I then stuck it in place with some electricians tape

All you need to do now is put it all together and turn on your Octane – and away you go.

Pictures

No hack would be complete without some poor digital photography to provide the details.

• The old Octane light bar
• The finished installation
• Closeup of the LED light bar fitted to the front cover
• The end result