[MrWeedster]

I'll start with a deskside prism thats standing around here.

Does anyone else have one of these ia64 machines?

Are you using it for anything or is it just collecting dust like mine does?

I'd love to give it a purpose, but i dont know what to do, and with the outdated OSes (SLES9/SLES11) theres nothing to get. Btw: If you have an altix/prism, and looking for the SLES9 CDs and the ProPack, i put them on archive.org some time ago: https://archive.org/details/SLES9Ia64RC5CD1

[micrex22]

I've always been interested in getting one of the IBMs with Itanium but yeah... I ran into the issue of finding what to run on them and even trying to find a system to purchase.

I guess Server 2003 for Itanium would work. But it would provide no advantages aside from the fact that IA-64 wouldn't suffer from meltdown and possibly most spectre. But of course you'd have the SMBv1 flaw in server 2003.

[johnnym]

I've always been interested in getting one of the IBMs with Itanium but yeah... I ran into the issue of finding what to run on them and even trying to find a system to purchase.

I guess Server 2003 for Itanium would work. But it would provide no advantages aside from the fact that IA-64 wouldn't suffer from meltdown and possibly most spectre. But of course you'd have the SMBv1 flaw in server 2003.

Apart from outdated Windows versions, you can still use GNU/Linux on Itanium. Since quite a while Debian Ports has support for Itanium and runs on HP Integrity rx2620, rx4640, rx2660 and blade systems (BL860, but unsure which generation). Gentoo also runs on these machines plus rx2800 i2 - actually Debian also seems to run with the Gentoo kernel on this type of machine.

Not sure about Altix or Prism, though. But the Linux kernel still has support for Altix:

https://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/IA64_SGI_SN2.html

The question is, if it still works.

[Raion]

I've owned Altix 350s before. However I never really found a use for IA-64 systems mostly because I dislike GNU/Linux, they can't run IRIX or VMS, and Windows Server 2008 R2? Hah, why bother?

That being said I wouldn't mind a prism for a couple of reasons. Getting NetBSD running on it would definitely make these machines useful to me.

Otherwise ive also considered case-swapping a Tez with Prism chassis pieces.

[johnnym]

I've owned Altix 350s before. However I never really found a use for IA-64 systems mostly because I dislike GNU/Linux, they can't run IRIX or VMS, and Windows Server 2008 R2? Hah, why bother?

Other than the Itanium systems made by SGI, the ones made by HP actually run OpenVMS.

That being said I wouldn't mind a prism for a couple of reasons. Getting NetBSD running on it would definitely make these machines useful to me.

Yeah, a second choice of a free OS on Itanium would be really cool.

[heavyfuel]

FreeBSD is also available for IA-64 but I'm not sure if it's still supported. NetBSD IA-64 port is in progress as far as I know.


A Superdome 2 in the basement would be cool... 8)

[MrWeedster]

I tried a lot of OSes in the past. The only ones really working without a lot of hassle are SLES9/SLES11 (obviously), Debian 6.x and RHEL 5.x

Debian 7.x (last supported IA64 release) boots up, but doesnt find the keyboard. I think it has to do with the SGIIOC4 module not being loaded, but my linux knowledge is somewhat limited to fix this. Also i don't possess an USB PCI card to counter-check.
Theres also an option to install it using the serial console, but that seems to work only half way. If you give the console=ttyS0 option you'll see kernel messages from boot on the serial console, but when the install screen appears on the prism monitor, the serial console just puts out some error messages.
I dont know how to get the installation working with the serial console.

Installing Debian 6.x first and then upgrade to 7.x works. It even boots, but i have to unplug the cdrom, or else there will be endless messages about it on boot and it wont finish.
If unplugged, it boots to the login prompt, but then throws an error and is unusable. Didn't try any further.
The error is:
hda: timeout in ide_busy_sleep
hda: no response (status = 0xff)

I gave gentoo a shot too, but can't remember exactly where it failed. I think i struggled with the right kernel configuration, and gave up eventually.

Windows and FreeBSD won't work. Windows doesn't boot anyway.
Sadly i forgot whats the matter with FreeBSD, i might give it a shot one more time.

[johnnym]

I tried a lot of OSes in the past. The only ones really working without a lot of hassle are SLES9/SLES11 (obviously), Debian 6.x and RHEL 5.x

Wow, didn't expect Debian to work on the Prism. I always thought these would require extra software from SGI to work. It could be interesting to try out the version from Debian Ports (which follows Debian Sid). But currently this can only be "installed" via either using debootstrap or by upgrading an existing Debian 7 installation. BTW, there's also a more recent kernel available for Debian 7 on IA64:

https://people.debian.org/~jrtc27/wheezy...4_ia64.deb

...which is needed for an upgrade installation due to newer glibc anyhow. Also check the other updated packages on:

https://people.debian.org/~jrtc27/wheezy...orts-ia64/
https://people.debian.org/~jrtc27/wheezy-extra-ia64/
https://people.debian.org/~jrtc27/wheezy-security-ia64/

If you know how to netboot your Prism and have all needed infrastructure (DNS, DHCP, TFTP and NFS servers) available, I can also provide you with all you need to first test it in diskless mode: NFS root FS, kernel, initramfs and elilo bootloader. PM me if you want to try this. I'd really be interested to see if a Prism still works with current Debian Sid. If it does this would highly increase my and maybe also other people's interest in Itanium gear from SGI.

I gave gentoo a shot too, but can't remember exactly where it failed. I think i struggled with the right kernel configuration, and gave up eventually.

I had similar issues with kernel configuration on my rx2660, the configuration chosen by me didn't even compile! In the end I used the configuration of the kernel from the installer ISO, which worked fine for me. If the kernel from the installer ISO works for you, too, maybe you can try the same? To use the old configuration on a newer kernel, you'd simply copy the current config (I think Gentoo makes it available as /proc/config.gz) to the source directory of your newer kernel and run make olddefconfig before actually compiling it.

[Raion]

FreeBSD is also available for IA-64 but I'm not sure if it's still supported. NetBSD IA-64 port is in progress as far as I know.


A Superdome 2 in the basement would be cool... 8)

FreeBSD IA-64 was never well supported and they dropped it in 11.x it's not likely to be reinstated, and FreeBSD isn't well suited to niche hardware tbh.

[bjornl]

I haven't used them for a long time because of lack of time but I have a deskside Prism. I tried to get Quicktransit to work on this, but there was some licensing issues if I remember correctly. I think there is a workaround that I never figured out.

Then I got an Altix 3700bx2 which I hoped I could find some simulation software for. Do some FEM calculation on or something like that to see the power of this 650kg (1300lbs) former supercomputer. I hoped for some commercial "abandonware", but could find any.
I managed to compile the stockfish chess engine on my deskside Prism and set up the Altix for some chess calculations. After some testing I got 6350% cpu usage (on 64 cpus)  . I'm still looking for interesting Itanium software.

When I get the time, I will try to repeat the experiments to use a graphics card in the Altix. There were some people who wrote about this on nekochan, but it is lost information now. I don't think I can get 3D accelerated graphics, but is hoping to at least get a GUI.

Then I have a couple of rackmount Prism's. Not all working, but at least two of them that was pieced together from non-working stuff. If I borrow some cables from my Origin300 setup, these can be numalinked.

Still, the lack of interesting software is a problem :s , basically I have only run SLES 9/10 maybe 11 on the machines.

Also, if someone remembers which OEM drivesleds that also fits in a Prism/Altix (/Origin300?) I would like to know. I think it was some IBM or Intel drivesled.