SGI Windows NT Toolbox

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Transitioning from IRIX to Windows NT


System:   any Category:   Windows Last Modified:   12/09/98
OS version:   NT 4.0 Product:   MFC Service Pack:  
Description

I am planning to make the transition from IRIX to Windows NT. What tools should I get to make the transition easier?

Problem Resolution

Having the systems networked together is the best solution. Here are a few tools that will further assist with this project:

  • ftp. You can access the standard "ftp" program from the Windows NT Command shell.

  • Samba - allows IRIX system resources to be shared by using Network Neighborhood on Windows NT.

  • WinZip - provides UNIX-like compression/decompression support for most compression schemes. Also supports ".tar" format. For more information, see:    http://www.winzip.com

  • GNU tools - tar, compress, gzip, emacs, tcsh, etc. Most of these tools have been ported to Windows NT by various organizations. As an example, check out Cygnus; particularly, "Cygwin Project":   http://www.cygnus.com
If you want to use traditional makefiles, take a look at the "nmake" utility that comes with Visual C++. If Microsoft's "nmake" is inadequate, you might want to use GNU make. You will probably want to install Perl as well.

Since Windows NT has no real batch capability (other than ".bat"), a standard UNIX shell may be downloaded. Perl seems to be best supported on the PC platform.

NFS is not included in Windows NT. If you are familiar with NFS and wish to share IRIX volumes with PC's, here are a couple of NFS providers:

  • NFS Maestro
    http://www.hummingbird.com (NFS Maestro)
  • DiskAccess/DiskShare
    http://www.intergraph.com (DiskAccess - client, DiskShare - server)
There is some criteria to consider when purchasing NFS software, as well.

The DOS FAT16 filesystem (often installed on NT for backward compatibility) does not handle permissions at all. Access to FAT16 volumes is all-or-none for most NFS packages. Although the NTFS filesystem has file permissions, it is different than IRIX, which may cause problems with programs that expect unix-like permissions, like RCS.

This may cause problems with programs that share data, such as RCS, SCCS, etc.

If the machines do not participate on a network, an option is to use a Zip drive or other SCSI media to transfer files between IRIX and NT. A SCSI Zip drive with a DOS filesystem may be hooked to an IRIX system running IRIX 6.3 or greater. Older versions of IRIX can use the popular Mtools utilities for UNIX. Source for Mtools is available on most Linux sites.

For a list of freeware compiled for IRIX, check out:   http://freeware.sgi.com.


Send comments on this case to kbase@sgi.com.


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