[Raion]

So I've taken a closer look at the RDP protocol, and I think that RDP is probably the best option. IRIX does have rdesktop, and porting a later version may not be too hard. I'll look into it soon.

XRDP exists for a UNIX-based RDP client, and I think I'll be using that anyways to get a better browser on FreeBSD (since it has an issue with no acceptable browsers that don't require dbus)

[Dionisis]

Hi, I'm very interested in this topic but I see no movement for two years now, right? So I'm wondering why can't we finance a modern Chrome or Firefox port via simple Motif (IndigoMagick) frontend (I think IndigoMagick is good enough to be used as a frontend for any app on the SGI). And why can't for example OpenGL be used for fast drawing web page elements? Aren't even older SGI's (Indy's or O2's) powerful enough to parse technologies like CSS,HTML5 or JavaScript?

[Raion]

Zdravo, Dionisis.

Dodoid is actively working in this topic on a remote display solution: https://forums.irixnet.org/thread-3855.html

As for why we can't do a native solution I can give you multiple good reasons:

1. Porting browsers is a highly specialized set of skills with a lot of work that mostly would go unpaid.

2. Firefox is now rust-powered. Even if we got rustc or another rust compiler (e.g. the upcoming rust frontend for GCC) working, it would probably run worse due to Rust being unoptimized for MIPS than C.

3. Webkit/Blink are both going to mandate at least C++11 (if not higher, I haven't checked in a while) which when you get into C++14 and up it requires a relatively new GCC that usually has far less testsuite integrity which means bugs in the finished product.

4. Setting aside that, glib and the respective toolkits cannot be easily uncoupled. GTK2 and up and QT4 and up use Cairo and Xrender which on IRIX are CPU-generated for things like text shaping and rendering. They were not designed for IRIX, which is stuck in 1990s era graphics routines

5. None of the JS engines are optimized for MIPS, let alone our version of MIPS. And once you drop JS as a requirement many sites break, and many users lose interest.

6. OpenGL would fix Cairo/XRender but again, who is going to fund that? I want to, but I also have a million system-side things that need to be done and I'm pretty limited on what I can afford at once, and funding such simplistic tasks is not likely to generate the necessary income fo pay devs to do it.

7. Every "browser guy" has his own ideas about what IRIX can and can't handle and some of them aren't aware that going the "hard way" on a CPU arch that's nearly 30 years out of date is just not smart. The R1X000 series is fundamentally unchanged since 1996, the R14000 and R16000 were obsolete by 2003-2006, the last years of IRIX.

8. JS, WebGL, and other standards are a pain to keep up with and no matter what targets you set, what warnings you put and expectations you try to set you will get a swarm of morons whining about it not working for Facebook or twitter or discord.

TL;DR At this time a native solution is untenable, and considering the lack of people we have in the community who are OpenGL masters on their own, we're kinda left without anyone to do it and the few that have the skills are either too busy, overestimate capabilities and go the most stupidly painful path, or just don't have any interest. Pick yer poison.

[hamei]

This whole subject is like five years out of date ... since about fireflop 4 there has been no chance. Not because of the SGI hardware, because the web is currently a piece of shit and getting worse by the day.

It's 1995 all over again, google is taking over our lives and there's not even a micky to put up a fight. Firefox now has something like a 5% market share ? That pos "chrome" is over 65% ? No wonder nothing works and most places don't even have a working email address to send a note "thanks for the lovely notice 'my browser is too old', you can keep your effing product and even jam it up your ass if you like".

If dodoid makes something better that'd be cool but otherwise, rdp works fine. Forget about building an Irix browser, it'd be easier to build a rational worldwideweb*.

* Mr Berners-Lee is rolling over in his grave, and he's not even dead yet. They are just going to inter him on a rotisserie spit when the time comes.