[jwhat]

Hi SGIer's

hoping to avoid having to do a complete reinstall of IRIX on my Fuel...

I got this Fuel with IRIX installed and rather than start afresh I just added stuff I needed and played around with the configuration to suite my needs.

I recently noticed that some "genius" had created a symlink from "/usr/local" -> "/usr/freeware" and "/opt" -> "/usr/freeware"

The result is that all the stuff that typically goes into /usr/local & /opt is now all mixed up with the SGI Freeware stuff :-( .

This is putting a spanner in my approach to trying to use FreeBSD ports with IRIX.

So I did the simple thing and:

1. moved symlink "/usr/local" to "/usr/local.bak"
2. created a real "/usr/local" directory

This broke the web based "infosearch" help, which is essential for me as I read this quite a bit when doing IRIX / SGI stuff.

So I reverted back by:
1. moved my "/usr/local" to "/usr/local.bak" (as it now contained some of the GNU tool I was building...)
1. moved symlink "/user/local.bak" back to "/usr/local" which is pointing back to "/usr/freeware"

But now infosearch is still broken web browser displays:
"ELF      ????'|/usr/lib/infosearch"
When it opens window...

I have checked all the /var/sgi_apache config files and cannot see any obvious errors... and there is nothing in the log file to indicate what is going wrong

So just seeing if others have had similar problems with infosearch configuration ...

Thanks.

Cheers from Oz,


jwhat/John.

[Raion]

jwhat, you can use a different prefix. I used /usr/nekoports for the tree, and /usr/nekoware for the actual install prefix (clean install)

You're going to have to delve into the configuration files but we can't just straight up use the FreeBSD assumptions for environment. It doesn't work. I just got back home to my house, but it's going to take me at least a couple days to track down where I put the copy of the ports tree, or else a few days to document what I did and do it again.

[jwhat]

HI Raion,

this has nothing to do with building GNU / Open Source SW, just an very annoying IRIX sgi_apache / inforsearch configuration issue.

Interestingly the Infosearch web help comes up no problem with I use my login rather than root login...

Still not sure how the stuffing around with symlinks broke that, but /var/sgi_apache/httpd_outbox/etc/httpd.conf somehow also got stuffed up, likely as part of autoconfiguration that happens on boot.

I also did some digging and updated /root/.infosearchrc and now root is working again....

So the Infosearch problem is fixed.

On other problem with symlinks, I spent a couple of hours today untangling the /opt /usr/freeware & /usr/local mess.

So now I have a few options for using a "more unix standard" prefix for GNU source build stuff.

This is goodness, as the reason I have never done a fresh install of IRIX on this Fuel is that it has a bunch of SW that I do not have install image for, so I don't want to lose existing install.

Better do a back up ;-)

Cheers from Oz,


jwhat/John

[Raion]

What I'm saying is you can just change the install prefix of the ports tree. Bypassing this issue.

[jwhat]

Hi Raion,

yes your are right but I could not live with the /usr/freeware and symlink mess... ;-)

Cleaning it up was not a bad as I thought it might be as I just used inst listing to work out what needed to go where.

So the SGI IRIX binary install tool helped me.

Cheers from Oz,

jwhat/John

[Raion]

I get it. Just saying.

For the ports tree stuff, my suggestion is we leave /user/local alone by default and go elsewhere, but give people the opportunity to switch it back if they prefer.

[jwhat]

Hi Raion,

sorry distracted getting Fuel install fixed....

Having got Infosearch Web Pages working it automatically broke itself again....

Turns out there is "autoconfig" script "/var/sgi_apache/sgi_config/configure" that gets run automatically on boot and its SED'ing was f#$king up the config.

So I would fix it and then it would globber my fix on reboot :-(

After much reading of script and testing I had to fix yp config /var/yp/ypdomain even though yp is off on the machine as script uses "/usr/bin/domainname" to get domain name (and a bunch of other ways including the mail confg script/program).

Luckily for me I had day zero httpd.conf files that I pulled over from my Octane2 (which was cleanly installed donkey's ago).

So auto-reconfig of sgi_apache seems to have now stopped screwing up machine.

None of this appears to have had anything to do with the /usr/freeware mess, just co-incidental timing.

So now back to the real job... of trying to get FreeBSD ports going in IRIX.

Cheers from Oz.

jwhat/John