Linux on a Zx10

[michelu]

Anybody has experienced linux distributions (or BSD) on a SGI Zx10 with
Wildcat 4110 graphics ?

[Emmanuel Florac]

Post by michelu
Anybody has experienced linux distributions (or BSD) on a SGI Zx10 with
Wildcat 4110 graphics ?

Maybe hard. The Zx10 (and previous Intergraph machines) had very weird
BIOS with pretty bad compatibility on the hardware and software side.
Dunno if there are serious drivers available for the wildcat either.

[Benjamin Gawert]

Post by Emmanuel Florac

Post by michelu
Anybody has experienced linux distributions (or BSD) on a SGI Zx10 with
Wildcat 4110 graphics ?

Maybe hard. The Zx10 (and previous Intergraph machines) had very weird
BIOS with pretty bad compatibility on the hardware and software side.

Can't say about the ZX10 but the Intergraph TDZ machines used a plain
vanilla intel mainboard and other standard components. Nothing "weird".

Post by Emmanuel Florac
Dunno if there are serious drivers available for the wildcat either.

Even if they are drivers they probably won't be accelerated.

Benjamin

[d***@yahoo.com]

Post by Benjamin Gawert
snip<
Can't say about the ZX10 but the Intergraph TDZ machines used a plain
vanilla intel mainboard and other standard components. Nothing "weird".

Jeez, you don't remeber those humongous, hydra-like, clunky,
proprietary PSU's Benjamin? Hardly "vanilla" on the mobo. Have to agree
you could pretty much swap out CPU's, VRM's, etc. within specs. And I
also remember some little gremlins in the BIOs myself. I can't say
about the ZX10's either, but I thought I heard they pretty much used a
standard PSU. But that wouldn't have made much sense coming from
Intergraph. Probably at least switched the wiring around.

And just out of curiosity, has the price gone up or down from the
$395 on the agreeably superior XIG drivers?

Dave

[Benjamin Gawert]

Post by d***@yahoo.com

Post by Benjamin Gawert
Can't say about the ZX10 but the Intergraph TDZ machines used a plain
vanilla intel mainboard and other standard components. Nothing "weird".

Jeez, you don't remeber those humongous, hydra-like, clunky,
proprietary PSU's Benjamin? Hardly "vanilla" on the mobo.

Well, in case of the TDZ I removed the "hardly vanilla" dual P2 mobo
(btw a standard intel 440FX mobo) and used the "proprietary" PSU to feed
a nice standard TYAN Dual Socket 370 mainboard ;-)

The remaining "hardly vanilla" TDZ mobo went into a plain standard
el-cheapo case fed by a even cheaper 200W PSU. The BIOS also was plain
standard, and the last update from intel loaded just fine.

Really everything in this machine was plain standard. Including PSU and
mainboard. The only thing that was proprietary to Intergraph was the
design of the case and the small stickers with the Intergraph P/N on
every part of the machine...

Benjamin

[d***@yahoo.com]

Benjamin,

You are one of the most respected on this and many other NG's. Y'a
ever gonna lighten' up and grow a sense of humor?
And I mean most sincerely, thank you for all the hardware help
you've given to all of us over all these years. You're a good man, you
just need to smile a few more times a day!

Best,
Dave

[Benjamin Gawert]

Post by d***@yahoo.com
You are one of the most respected on this and many other NG's. Y'a
ever gonna lighten' up and grow a sense of humor?
And I mean most sincerely, thank you for all the hardware help
you've given to all of us over all these years. You're a good man, you
just need to smile a few more times a day!

Thanks for the flowers. Unfortunately, you maybe right that humor
sometimes passes by unnoticed by me. This occasionally even happens in
my native language (english), and sadly even more in English.

Sorry if I got you wrong.

Benjamin

[Benjamin Gawert]

... my native language (english), and sadly even more in English.

^^^^^^^

That should be "German" of course. I think it's really getting late for
me ;-)

Benjamin

[Atro Tossavainen]

Post by d***@yahoo.com
And just out of curiosity, has the price gone up or down from the
$395 on the agreeably superior XIG drivers?

I can't see anything for the 4110, but the driver for the 5110 series
lists as going for $249 on

http://www.xig.com/Pages/Summit/CardsChips/3Dlabs/Wildcat-5110.html

[Benjamin Gawert]

Post by Atro Tossavainen

Post by d***@yahoo.com
And just out of curiosity, has the price gone up or down from the
$395 on the agreeably superior XIG drivers?

I can't see anything for the 4110, but the driver for the 5110 series
lists as going for $249 on

Wow! 249USD for getting an ancient outdated card to run? You're probably
much better replacing the crappy 4110 with something like a Quadro 4
900XGL which can be had for a few bucks today and is supported by
Nvidias Linux drivers for free.

Benjamin

[Atro Tossavainen]

Post by Benjamin Gawert
Wow! 249USD for getting an ancient outdated card to run?

Somebody asked for the pricing information on XiG drivers. I just
dug it up. The Wildcat drivers are really quite expensive compared
to the XiG drivers for most other cards.

Post by Benjamin Gawert
You're probably much better replacing the crappy 4110 with something
like a Quadro 4 900XGL which can be had for a few bucks today and is
supported by Nvidias Linux drivers for free.

If you don't have Issues(tm) with nVidia, sure.

[Atro Tossavainen]

Post by Emmanuel Florac
Dunno if there are serious drivers available for the wildcat either.

Yes indeed, excellent serious accelerated drivers at www.xig.com.
This is not a paid advertisement, I'm just a happy user (though not
on SGI hardware nor on Wildcats, on regular peecees and Radeon 9200).