os

1. SERGIO G. DAYAO
IT31A

3.  The IRIX name was first used around the time of release 3.0 of the
operating system for SGI's IRIS 4D series of workstations and
servers, in 1988. Previous releases were identified only by the
release number prefixed by "4D1-", e.g. "4D1-2.2". The 4D1- prefix
continued to be used in official documentation to prefix IRIX
release numbers.
 IRIX 3.x was based on UNIX System V Release 3
with 4.3BSD enhancements, and incorporated
the 4Sight windowing system, based on NeWS and IRIS GL. SGI's
own Extent File System (EFS) replaced the System V file system.
 IRIX 4.0, released in 1991, replaced 4Sight with the X Window
System (X11R4), the 4Dwm window manager providing a similar
look and feel to 4Sight.

4.  IRIX 5.0, released in 1993, incorporated certain features of UNIX
System V Release 4, including ELF executable. IRIX 5.3
introduced the XFS journaling file system.
 In 1994, IRIX 6.0 added support for the 64-bit
MIPS R8000 processor, but was otherwise similar to IRIX 5.2.
Later 6.x releases supported other members of the MIPS
processor family in 64-bit mode. IRIX 6.3 was released for the
SGI O2 workstation only.IRIX 6.4 improved multiprocessor
scalability for the Octane, Origin 2000, and Onyx2 systems. The
Origin 2000 and Onyx2 IRIX 6.4 was marketed as "Cellular
IRIX", although it only incorporated some features from the
original Cellular IRIX distributed operating system project.IRIX
development stabilized with IRIX 6.5, released in 1998. The last
version of IRIX was 6.5.30, released in August 2006.

5.  IRIX is a computer operating system developed by Silicon
Graphics, Inc. (SGI) to run natively on their MIPS
architecture workstations and servers. It was based on UNIX System
V with BSD extensions. IRIX was the first operating system to include
the XFS file system.
 The last major version of IRIX was IRIX 6.5 which was released in May
1998. New minor versions of IRIX 6.5 were released every quarter until
2005; since then there have been four further minor releases. Through
version 6.5.22, there were two branches of each release: a maintenance
release (identified by an m suffix to the version number) that included
only fixes to the original IRIX 6.5 code, and a feature release (with
an f suffix) that included improvements and enhancements. An overlay
upgrade from 6.5.x to the 6.5.22 maintenance release is available as a
free download, whereas versions 6.5.23 and higher require an active
Silicon Graphics support contract, despite only running on Silicon
Graphics hardware.

6.  The current major version of IRIX is IRIX 6.5 which was released
in May 1998. New minor versions of IRIX 6.5 were released every
quarter until 2005; since then there have been four further minor
releases. Through version 6.5.22, there were two branches of each
release: a maintenance release(identified by an m suffix to the
version number) that included only fixes to the original IRIX 6.5
code, and a feature release (with an f suffix) that included
improvements and enhancements. An overlay upgrade from 6.5.x
to the 6.5.22 maintenance release is available as a free
download, whereas versions 6.5.23 and higher require an active
Silicon Graphics support contract, despite only running on Silicon
Graphics hardware.

7. IRIX 6.1
This new version is based on the 64-bit operating system IRIX 6.0.1
and is downward compatible. It unfolded his full performance on
R8000 chip sets with 6 operations per processor cycle, 64-bit
processing and compatibility to older 32-bit and 64-bit MIPS
processors.
Functions:
- 64-bit virtual address space of 1 TByte for each 64-bit user process
(R8000)
- Large physical memory of 16 GByte (R8000)
- Large file size of 1 TByte at first release (R8000)
- Large file system size of 1 TByte at first release (R8000)

8. - Millions of files per directory (R8000)
- Supports up to 18 R8000 processors per POWER CHALLENGE
or POWER Onyx system
- New XFS file system for high-performance
- New N32 software developers kit
- New networking and system administration features (based on
IRIX 5.3)
- POSIX 1003.1 Specification
- Complies with the X/Open Portability Guide, Issue 3
(XPG3), including support for I18N and L10N
- Nearly all binaries built on IRIX 5 can be run under IRIX 6
- Network: 64-bit NFSv3 for faster data transfers and distributed
64-bit addressing
- Network: Parallel TCP/IPx for higher parallel networking
throughput
- Network: IRIXpro(TM)
- Network: Performance CoPilot(TM)

9. IRIX 6.2
Functions:
- Advanced 3D Internet/multimedia user and developer desktop
environment
- 1 TB virtual memory addressing, 9 TB files, 18 TB partitions on 64-
bit platforms
- 32-bit ABI compatibility with IRIX 5 applications, recompile for full
performance on R4x00/R5000/R8000/R10000 systems
- Complete software environment for industry-leading graphics
workstations and high-performance supercomputer, database, and
network servers
- X/Open Base 95 Profile branding from the X/Open Company Ltd.
- POSIX 1003.1 certification
- Supported file systems are EFS, XFS, Network File system
(NFS), ISO 9660 (CDFS), DOS (floppy only), swap, /proc File
system

10. 6.5.30 - 08/16/06
6.5.29 - 02/08/06
6.5.28 - 08/03/05
6.5.27 - 02/02/05
6.5.26 - 11/03/04
6.5.25 - 08/04/04
6.5.24 - 05/05/04
6.5.23 - 02/04/04
6.5.22 - 11/05/03
6.5.21 - 08/06/03
6.5.20 - 05/07/03
6.5.19 - 02/05/03
6.5.18 - 11/08/02
6.5.17 - 08/07/02
6.5.16 - 05/08/02
6.5.15 - 02/06/02
6.5.14 - 11/07/01
6.5.13 - 08/08/01
6.5.12 - 05/09/01
6.5.11 - 02/07/01
6.5.10 - 11/08/00
6.5.9 - 08/09/00
6.5.8 - 05/09/00
6.5.7 - 02/10/00
6.5.6 - 11/03/99
6.5.5 - 08/06/99
6.5.4 - 05/11/99
6.5.3 - 02/09/99
6.5.2 - 11/17/98
6.5.1 - 08/24/98
6.5 - 06/98
6.4 - 11/96
6.3 - 09/96
6.2 - 03/96
6.1 - 07/95
6.0.1 XFS - 03/95
6.0.1 - 12/94
Other Version of Irix Operating System

11.  IRIX 6 was compliant with UNIX System V Release 4, UNIX
95 and POSIX (including 1e/2c draft 15 ACLs and Capabilities).
 IRIX had strong support for real-time disk and graphics I/O. IRIX
was one of the first Unix versions to feature a graphical user
interface for the main desktop environment. IRIX was widely
used in the computer animation industry and for scientific
visualization due to its once-large application base.
 IRIX was a leader in Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP), scalable
from 1 to greater than 1024 processors with a single system image.
 IRIX used the Indigo Magic Desktop, which by default used
the 4Dwm X window manager with a custom look designed using
the Motif widget toolkit.

12. Clearing Old Data Prior to Installation
One can use another IRIX system to do this, but do not use a non-6.5
system. This is because the volume header information is not quite
the same in 6.2 compared to 6.5. Also, if you use a much later version
of 6.5, eg. 6.5.15, then the older 6.5 boot kernel on the CD will not be
able to mount a disk which has been fx'd using the fx program from
the running IRIX system. This is because slight changes were made to
the XFS file system structure in 6.5.6. It doesn't matter if you intend to
boot from the corresponding later Installation Tools and Overlays
CDs for the main installation, but it does matter if you intend to boot
using the original June 1998 Installation Tools CD. Thus, it's better to
use the boot version of fx from the CD you're going to use to
repartition the disk, unless you happen to have a running IRIX system
that has just 6.5 with no updates

13. Plus, I've been told that the changes made in 6.5.6 were to aid with
improved NFS performance with XFS file systems; if this is
important to you, then you may wish to do the installation using a
6.5.6-or-later CD set anyway. Even so, the information given here is
still generally applicable.
Thus, the normal way to clear any old data and begin the installation
is as follows:
Boot up the system, press ESC to obtain the Command Monitor. At
this point, an extract from the IRIX online manual, "System
Configuration and Operation", is useful to explain what is
happening here:
The command monitor has been designed to keep it independent of
operating systems and as small as possible. Therefore, the command
monitor cannot directly boot files residing in IRIX or other operating
system file trees. However, the command monitor provides a two-
level boot mechanism that lets it load an intermediary program that
understands file systems; this program can then find and load the
desired boot file

14. . The program is called the standalone shell, and is referred to as
sash. sash is a reconfigured and expanded version of the command
monitor program, and includes the modules needed to handle
operating system file structures. It also has enhanced knowledge
about devices. After the system software is installed, a copy of sash
is located in the volume header of the first disk. The header
contains a very simple file structure that the command monitor
understands. You can also boot sash from tape or across the
network.
Thus, the idea is to boot into sash on the CDROM and from there
into fx, the main IRIX disk utility program.
Enter hinv if necessary to confirm the SCSI controller number and
SCSI ID number of the CDROM. Enter the following command to
boot from the CD (make sure the 'Installation Tools' CD is in the
CDROM drive):
boot -f dksc(X,Y,8)sash ARCS dksc(X,Y,7)stand/farces –x

15. where X is the SCSI controller number, and Y is the SCSI ID of the
CDROM drive. According to the fx man page, the above
command applies to systems with the 32bit ARCS PROM, namely
Indigo, R4K Indigo2, Indy, Onyx, Challenge and O2.
For systems with the 64bit ARCS PROM - POWER
Challenge, POWER Onyx, POWER Indigo2, Indigo2
10000, Origin, Onyx2, Octane, and all newer systems - use this
command:
boot -f dksc(X,Y,8)sash64 dksc(X,Y,7)stand/fx.64 –x
although note that some systems may show the device as
carom(x,y,z) rather than dksc(x,y,z). I found this to be the case on
my Origin200 and so the command I used was as follows (the
CDROM was on SCSI controller 1, ID 6):
boot -f carom(1,6,8)sash64 cdrom(1,6,7)stand/fx.64 –x

16. In some cases, often R4K IRIS Indigo for unknown reasons, one
may have to boot in two stages, first into the sash and then into fx. I
suspect this may happen because the CDROM doesn't quite
respond as expected on older hardware. Either way, just split the
boot command sequence into two steps if required, eg. the typical
sequence might be:
boot -f dksc(X,Y,8)sashARCS
boot -f dksc(X,Y,7)stand/fx.ARCS –x
You will now be in the fx program. Press enter until you see the
main menu (I'm assuming that controller 0, ID 1 will indeed be
your root disk). Enter 'r' for repartition, 'ro' for root drive
option, press Enter to confirm XFS, enter 'yes' to confirm the
request, '..' to change menus up one level, 'l' to create a new disk
label, 'sy' to sync the disk (write out the new label), and finally
'/exit' to quit fx.
The system will return to the System Maintenance menu

17. Select Install System Software (or press 2) and choose the
appropriate icon for the attached CDROM. After reading in the
installation tools, which will take between 20 second to 1 or 2
minutes depending on your CPU/CDROM speed, some IRIX
copyright information will be shown.
At this point, if the disk is completely new, or if an older type file
system was on the disk (eg. an old 6.2 installation), then the system
will automatically detect that there is no valid file system. A
message will appear, asking whether you would like to create a new
file system. Answer yes and follow the instructions, choosing a block
size of 4096 if your disk is 4GB or larger - otherwise choose a block
size of 512. A new file system will be created.
A README file will be displayed (press Q to stop it paging if
necessary) and then a question appears, asking whether you would
like to run the available 6.5 install script. Answer in the negative by
entering '2' for 'Ignore'. The rest of the README will be displayed
and then the inst prompt appears. If the system has already created
a new file system as described above, then you can skip the next
section on manually erasing the disk within the inst program; go
to Reading the CDs.

18. Erasing the Disk Within the Inst Program
There are two ways of doing this, either using the Admin menu, or
by going into a shell. If your disk is 4GB or larger, then use the
Admin menu as follows:
• Enter 13 at the Inst prompt to select the Admin menu,
• Enter 11 to select mkfs,
• Enter y and confirm the action of making a new file system on
the disk.
This will use a 4096 block size.
• Enter '..' to return to the Inst menu.
If the disk is smaller than 4GB, then using the Admin menu to mkfs
the disk will result in an inefficient block size being used (it will still
work, but 4096 is rather large for a disk as small as 2GB). Thus, for
disks smaller than 4GB, follow this procedure:

19. • Enter 'sh' at the Inst prompt to go into a shell.
• Unmounts the system disk from the miniboom file system by
entering:
amount /root/hw
amount /root
An older installation on the disk may have attempted to mount
other file systems. If so, unmounts them before unminting /root
(enter 'mount' on its own to see the current mounted file
systems).
• Use mkfs to make a new file system (this assumes the normal
system disk location as controller 0, ID 1):
mkfs -b size=512 /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0
• Now remount the system disk and go back to the Inst prompt
(CTRL+D here means hold down the CTRL key and then press
D):
mount /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0 /root <CTRL+D>

20. You can of course use the shell method no matter what size disk
is being used, eg. some people like to use mkfs manually in order
to know more about what is going on. For a 4GB disk or
larger, just leave out the '-b size=512' part; mkfs will use a 4096
block size automatically. There are minor variations on the above
procedures. If you have any queries, please email me.
You should now be at the inst prompt once again, with a clean
disk ready to install onto.
Reading the CDs
It is at this point that one can commence the installation
process, which begins with reading in the base set of four IRIX
CDs. Enter 1 and then enter the following to read in the
installation tools CD:
/CDROM/dist

21. Unlike IRIX 6.2, the 6.5 version of inst pre-reads all the CDs that
you intend to install before beginning the installation process. At
the very least, a minimum set of four CDs must be scanned. This is
a better way of preventing installation conflicts from multiple CDs
compared to the older method of having a 'delay conflicts' flag
which had to be configured manually, a step which was easy to
forget. A description of the 6.5 installation script will appear (this
is not needed for a fresh installation). Quit the script by pressing Q
and select option '2' to ignore it. The CD is read and then a prompt
appears. Remember to use a later 6.5.x at this stage if your
hardware requires it.
Eject the CD, insert the IRIX 6.5 Foundation 1, June 1998 CD and
press Enter once the CDROM drive has settled itself. When the CD
has been read, a further prompt will appear; eject the CD, insert
the Foundation 2 CD, press Enter, then do the same for the IRIX
6.5 Applications CD (June 1998) and so on until all the CDs you
want to initially install have been read (including any
corresponding 6.5.x update CDs if you used a 6.5.x boot CD).

22. Then enter 'done'. Full details are in the installation instructions
booklet, but it's pretty simple to follow. At a minimum, you must
let inst read the following CDs (the first of these will already be in
the CDROM drive):
•Installation Tools
•Foundation 1
•Foundation 2
•Applications
Load any additional CDs you want after the above minimum four,
eg. the NFS CD. Personally, I prefer to install this minimum 4-CD
set, plus the NFS CD (and any required 6.5.x for later hardware),
restart the system to get IRIX up and running, and then carry out
further installations from swmgr, often across a network using NFS
for convenience. Once the distribution details on the CDs have been
scanned, you are ready to begin the installation. According to the
booklet, a simple way to ensure a clean initial installation is to enter
these commands at the inst prompt:
keep *
install standard

23. Now enter 'go' and the installation will begin (follow any
instructions concerning conflicts that are given). Note the new
keywords, 'standard' and 'prereqs' - read the installation notes to
learn more about what these keywords mean. Also note that the
'install prereqs' command will probably give an error saying, 'No
matches for "prereqs" were found' - this message is perfectly normal
and can be ignored.
For the purposes of this discussion, I will refer to the above
minimum four-CD installation as the 'Basic Set'. I found the default
installation to take up 761MB of disk space on O2, a little less for
Indigo2, decreasing to 704MB on Indy.
During the installation procedure, you will be asked to insert
particular CDs. When the prompt message appears, just press the
CDROM eject button, replace the current CD with the requested CD
and then push the tray back in. There is no need to press the Enter
key - the system automatically detects the presence of the requested
CD and proceeds with the installation. You will be asked to insert
the following CDs during the install procedure, in this order:

24. •Foundation 1
•Applications
•Foundation 2
•Installation Tools
The part of the installation procedure which took the longest
period of time to 'process' before the percentage indicator actually
changed was when the procedure had reached 94%. Thus, don't
worry about there being anything wrong if the system seems to be
taking a long time at that point. It's perfectly normal (systems with
older CPUs could spend several minutes with the indicator
staying at 94%). Also, unlike older versions of inst, there is just a
single 0% to 100% numerical indicator for the entire initial
installation procedure, eg. the checking-disk-usage-requirements
stage ends when the percentage indicator reaches approximately
15%, the software installation ends at around 95%, then the exit
commands begin, etc.At 95% complete, some 'UX:make: INFO: '
messages are shown. Ignore these.

25. Usually, two errors concerning the Netscape system will be
displayed at some point, two messages for each error. According to
the system documentation, this is normal and can be ignored.
When the installation ends, the inst prompt will return. Enter 'quit'
to begin the process of 'requickstart'ing the ELF files (see the man
page for rqsall if you want to know more about this). My timing for
the tests in the appendix includes this rqsall step because it does
take a while; in fact, this step can easily constitute one third to one
half of the total installation time, especially on systems with older
CPUs.
When the rqsall procedure has finished, a question will appear
asking if you would like to restart the system. Enter 'y' and the
system will create a new kernel and then reboot.
Handy tip: after the Foundation and Applications CDs have been
processed, one inserts the Installation Tools CD. It is after this CD
has been processed that the inst prompt will return; one normally
enters 'quit', after which the rqsall procedure begins

26. However, the system will remember any keyboard presses that are
made after the processing of the Installation Tools CD begins, so
instead of waiting around for the later questions to be asked, just
enter 'quit' and then 'y' now so that, when the questions appear, the
answers will already be in the keyboard buffer and thus accepted
immediately. This means you can just leave the installation
alone, and come back later to find the system fully rebooted and
ready for you to login at the login menu. Note that the installation
will have created the usual default setup where the host name is IRIS.
It's surprising how useful this is sometimes, eg. start an
installation, buzz off to lunch, come back to find the system ready to
use and carry on.
And that's basically it! After the main reboot, login as root and begin
any further required installations. I normally remove some unwanted
items first, then I install various extra items from the Basic
Set, followed by all the other usual CDs (Development
Libraries, Development Foundation, etc.) I will add some
information about dealing with these other CDs later, including some
example product selections files which will make life much easier for
most installations.

28. Irix Desktop with tools for the administration

29. running graphic Demos

30. file manager with graphical restriction setup

31. Open Source software Gimp 1.2 and bluefish pre0.7 on the run

32. Internet browser Netscape

33. Bash Shell with programs hinv, gfxinfo and esdreprt

34. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRIX
http://www.operating-system.org/betriebssystem/_english/bs-
irix.htm
http://ryan.tliquest.net/sgi/irix_versions.html