Return to FAQ.misc CVS log

Up to [Development] / projects / inventor

Initial revision

MISCELANEOUS TECHNICAL QUESTIONS FOR Open Inventor (TM) Open Source Release.

                 What platforms does it run on?

                 This release was built and has been tested with Red HatTM
                 Linux® versions 6.0, 6.1 and 6.2 on a variety of Intel® 
                 Pentium II® based systems including the SGI® 230, 330, 550
                 workstation with VPROTM graphics accelerator. It is also 
                 known to run with several other Linux distributions on 
                 IA32-based hardware. 

                 What are the dependencies for this release?

                 The libraries and sample programs built for this release have
                 dependencies upon the following DSO's. For your convenience
                 their corresponding package name from the system which built
                 the images is included below. Many of the packages are included
                 in Red Hat 6.0 or 6.1:

                      ld-linux.so.2    [glibc-2.1.1-6]
                      libdl.so.2       [glibc-2.1.1-6]
                      libm.so.6        [glibc-2.1.1-6]
                      libc.so.6        [glibc-2.1.1-6]
                      libICE.so.6      [XFree86-libs-3.3.3.1-49]
                      libSM.so.6       [XFree86-libs-3.3.3.1-49]
                      libX11.so.6:     [XFree86-libs-3.3.3.1-49]
                      libXext.so.6     [XFree86-libs-3.3.3.1-49]
                      libXmu.so.6      [XFree86-libs-3.3.3.1-49]
                      libXt.so.6       [XFree86-libs-3.3.3.1-49]
                      libXi.so.6       [XFree86-libs-3.3.3.1-49]
                      libGL.so.1       [Mesa-3.2-1]
                      libGLU.so.1      [Mesa-3.2-1]
                      libXm.so.1       [lesstif-0.90.0-1]

                 Where can I get OpenGL? 

                 OpenGL® is now available from many sources. Certain
                 vendors (such as SGI) pre-bundle accelerated OpenGL drivers
                 with their systems; some (nVidia, et al) have accelerated
                 drivers available on their web sites; and other vendors (3dfx,
                 Matrox, ATI, etc) use drivers created by the DRI Project or the
                 Utah-GLX Project. Which implementation of OpenGL to
                 choose is ultimately dependent upon the type of graphics card
                 you have.

                 Open Inventor 2.1.5 is compatible with any implementation of
                 OpenGL that conforms to the OpenGL ABI for Linux, such as:

                      SGI 230, SGI 330, and SGI 550 workstations with
                      VPRO graphics are shipped with specially-tuned OpenGL
                      DSO's.

                      NVIDIA-specific drivers compliant with the OpenGL
                      ABI for Linux can be found on the NVIDIA web site.

                      DRI Architecture Drivers. The DRI architecture uses
                      Mesa and provides hardware acceleration for a number of
                      popular chipsets. The DRI implementation is included in
                      XFree86 4.0. See 'Where can I get XFree86?' below.

                      OpenGL Sample Implementation is the driver
                      framework used by almost all commercial 3D hardware
                      vendors to develop OpenGL drivers for their systems.
                      Source code is available from the SGI Open Source web
                      site.

                      Mesa is a 3D graphics library with an API which is very
                      similar to that of OpenGL. Mesa 3.2 includes OpenGL
                      ABI for Linux compliant DSO's. See 'Where can I get
                      Mesa?' below.

                 More links to various vendors' OpenGL implementations are
                 available from these sites (subject to change): 

                      http://www.mesa3d.org 
                      http://www.linux3d.org 
                      http://linux3d.netpedia.net 

                 If you are unable to find accelerated OpenGL drivers for your
                 card, or have problems using the vendor-provided accelerated
                 drivers, we recommend using Mesa 3.2 or the OpenGL sample
                 implementation.

                 Where can I get Mesa? 

                 Mesa is a 3D graphics library with an API which is very similar
                 to that of OpenGL®. For general information about Mesa
                 please refer to the Mesa web site, http://www.mesa3d.org.

                 Special Note: Official Mesa releases prior to version 3.2 were
                 not compliant with the OpenGL ABI for Linux. If you are
                 using Mesa you must upgrade to Mesa 3.2, or you may
                 encounter dependency problems when installing via rpm.

                 Where can I get Motif® or Lesstif? 

                 If you do not have Motif already installed on your system,
                 Lesstif will work just fine with Open Inventor. 

                 For general information about Lesstif please refer to the Lesstif
                 web site, http://www.lesstif.org. Links to pre-compiled binaries
                 of Lesstif can be found at ftp://contrib.redhat.com or one of the
                 many Red Hat contrib mirror sites, typically under
                 contrib/libc6/i386/. 

                 How do I install this release? 

                   1.Check to see that you have the software listed above as
                      dependencies already installed on your system.

                   2.Download all three Open Inventor rpm files from the
                      download site into a temporary location on your system.
                      (for example, /usr/tmp)

                   3.Log in as root.

                   4.In a shell window, type: 

                      rpm -Uvh /usr/tmp/sgi-OpenInventor*.rpm

                      (Replace /usr/tmp with the location where you
                      downloaded the files)

                      Refer to the rpm(1) manual page for more information
                      about the rpm tool. 

                 What do these rpms install? 

                 sgi-OpenInventor installs the execution-only-environment,
                 which contains the Open Inventor run-time libraries under
                 /usr/lib: libInventor.so, libInventorXt.so, libFL.a.

                 sgi-OpenInventor-data installs a number of example model files
                 under /usr/share/data/models. 

                 sgi-OpenInventor-devel installs the full Open Inventor
                 development environment. It includes header files in
                 /usr/include/Inventor and manual pages in /usr/man/man3.

                 What should I do to run it? 

                 Open Inventor is an Application Programming Interface that
                 you would typically utilize in your own program. However, there
                 are some sample programs in the distribution. After installing
                 the images, open a shell window and type the following:

                      ivview /usr/share/data/models/SgiLogo.iv
                      or
                      ivview /usr/share/data/models/buildings/windmill.iv