For you SGI fans...

Ian Finder ian.finder at gmail.com
Wed Jan 13 02:16:46 CST 2016


Yeah, the versions > 6.5.22 can be nice for a variety of reasons if you've
got the later hardware. [I think the last one even had an
almost-totally-working default DHCP config out-of-box. ;) ]

I run it on systems where I can.

6.5.22 is nice because it doesn't have dependencies on some of the harder
to find later developer CDs, and it is the last version I expect a lot of
the SGI hardware changing hands these days, but it is sufficient for the
late SGIs too.
(later versions drop Indy, Indigo2, Onyx, etc.)

*anyway- If you plan on ever installing more than a couple SGIs...*
Doing a* full and up-to-date *install from scratch using the CDs is a *pain*
.

Solution- netboot.

The CDs [there are a zillion point release layer things] are in EFS format
and can't be mounted on OS X or Windows. At some point I mounted them all
on Linux and wrote a script that copied the /dist folders to a folder
structure on an NFS share I use to do a net install.

It has various mid-release CD versions for things like the Developer
Libraries and NFS discs, and can do a pretty full install of both 6.5.30
and 6.5.22 for older (I2, Indy, etc.) systems.

There's also some demos / application CDs, and some of the more recent
SGI-built [freeware- mozilla, etc] freeware CDs.

*These are all components of IRIX itself as supplied with systems over the
years*, but the layered CD-based software distribution model employed by
SGI is maddening.

I don't have the original images- I never plan to touch an IRIX CD again.

What's SGI-rackable's take? pretty sure support for these ended LONG ago-
last release is 10 years old and they will not sell you IRIX, nor current
or extended support.

I could look into tarring this up and getting it on Archive.org.

- Ian

-- 
   Ian Finder
   (206) 395-MIPS
   ian.finder at gmail.com


More information about the cctalk mailing list