Beginner's questions about AIX (6.1)

UNIX AIX
1

Hello,

For some time I have intellistation 9111-285 and I installed AIX 6.1 on it. As a complete beginner I have 2 questions in general about AIX and two specific:

  1. is the SMS (system management services) part of AIX? As I noticed when I had Yellowdog Linux installed they weren't available?
  2. How picky is AIX about hardware? As my workstation came without sound card can I use some PC sound card (like I have emu10k SB Live) or I have to get the only supported sound card for 9111-285: IBM part 8244? What is the general situation with non IBM hardware - are there any OEM pieces that match the original parts? Like in DEC/VMS I used some generic SCSI controllers & video adapters... For example I know that the GXT135P is a matrox G400 with an IBM BIOS (which is still not good enough if you don't have an original card to dump the BIOS).

The specific questions:
3. I would like to use it as a workstation hence would love to have KDE running. I'm trying to install it from the configassist tool -> manage software -> bundle -> from the DVD. The installation fails with the following error:

The same when I try to install Gnome.
It seems KDE is not in fact present on the installation media and this is just installation script and is expected to have the KDE files from somewhere else?
Right now I have only CDE running.

  1. I installed AIX through the serial console and now when the system boots the GUI login screen is not shown until I login through the serial console. Once I do it it appears. How can I change this (so there is no need of serial connection)?

Thank you for reading this long list of questions :slight_smile:

Vesko Kenashkov

2

No. It's part of what would be called "BIOS" on a PC.

Quite picky. The hardware itself is not the problem, the machines are quite common PCI-based CHRP systems, but you will have a hard tme finding a manufacturer who provides AIX drivers for his hardware. In your example: get Matrox to provide an AIX driver for their G400 and you would be up and running in no time. Unfortunately they can't be bothered.

Search IBMs "Linux Toolbox for AIX" and download KDE from there. You may have to install the "rpm" package manager before.

see above.

See the (manpage of the) command "dtconfig".

I hope this helps.

bakunin

1 Like
3

Thank you. Found a lot of RPMs and now I'm struggling to satisfy all the dependencies.

P.S. got KDE 3.4 running. Just need to fix the fonts - look a little off compared to linux.