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HELP - Installing IRIX on Octane from ZuluSCSI - varomix - 05-27-2025

Hi I need your help, I am new to this world of IRIX, first time installing the system.
I am trying to install IRIX on my Octane machine, I an using a ZuluSCSI card as both the drive and the CDROM, I was able to start fx fine, did all the partitions, label etc. now I launch the install from CDROM loads but then I get this errors on the CDROM.
I might have either a bad image or something configured wrong, if anyone can help I would really appreciate it.

Thanks

RE: HELP - Installing IRIX on Octane from ZuluSCSI - weblacky - 05-27-2025

you either have an incomplete install CDROM image OR have a version of IRIX that PREDATES the Octanes introduction/creation to market.  You're literally missing the "Kernel" for the CPU Version/Family!  So either too old and you didn't get a complete copy....BE AWARE that the fact that your MOUNT command had an error leads me to believe that you don't actually have an image of the CROM you more have just the files from the EFS partition on the CDROM.  You need a LITERAL "DD image" of the CD...not just the "readable files" from mounting the CD under Linux and copying from EFS.  That isn't everything!

Irix install CDROMs are like every other UNIX install Disc!  They are actually formatted as if they were a hard drive with a 512 byte sector. They have the same partitions a hard drive would have. Irix has files stored on other partitions than the main EFI!  The CD image should at least have three partitions I think, it could have more. The entire thing is an emulation because it's easier for the firmware to read the CD as if it was a hard drive then to actually read the CDROM file systems of the day.  512-byte block Mode on older optical drives was designed for this exact purpose, that's why it's a non-standard feature in optical drives and pretty much nonexistent today.

So since I know the Octane was released BEFORE Irix 6.5.0...and you're sure you have 6.5 files then you have an incomplete CD image.  The mount command not detecting the partition #7 on the CD image validates that assumption for me.

RE: HELP - Installing IRIX on Octane from ZuluSCSI - robespierre - 05-27-2025

The error message coming from mount(1M) is "Invalid argument", with no indication of which argument was invalid, or why. This is typical New Jersey software engineering. The arguments to mount(1M) come from /etc/fstab, which evidently has an entry for dks1d4s7 and /CDROM.

Code:
% grep CDROM /etc/fstab

It probably looks something like
Code:
/dev/dsk/dks1d4s7 /CDROM efs ro 0 0

but this won't work if the named device file or mount point don't already exist (mount(1M) never creates inodes)

Code:
Inst> shell
% ls -d /dev/dsk/dks1d4s7
% ls -d /CDROM
If either command returns "no such file or directory", you know that this filesystem has been tampered with.

RE: HELP - Installing IRIX on Octane from ZuluSCSI - varomix - 05-27-2025

(05-27-2025, 12:35 AM)weblacky Wrote:  you either have an incomplete install CDROM image OR have a version of IRIX that PREDATES the Octanes introduction/creation to market.  You're literally missing the "Kernel" for the CPU Version/Family!  So either too old and you didn't get a complete copy....BE AWARE that the fact that your MOUNT command had an error leads me to believe that you don't actually have an image of the CROM you more have just the files from the EFS partition on the CDROM.  You need a LITERAL "DD image" of the CD...not just the "readable files" from mounting the CD under Linux and copying from EFS.  That isn't everything!

Irix install CDROMs are like every other UNIX install Disc!  They are actually formatted as if they were a hard drive with a 512 byte sector. They have the same partitions a hard drive would have. Irix has files stored on other partitions than the main EFI!  The CD image should at least have three partitions I think, it could have more. The entire thing is an emulation because it's easier for the firmware to read the CD as if it was a hard drive then to actually read the CDROM file systems of the day.  512-byte block Mode on older optical drives was designed for this exact purpose, that's why it's a non-standard feature in optical drives and pretty much nonexistent today.

So since I know the Octane was released BEFORE Irix 6.5.0...and you're sure you have 6.5 files then you have an incomplete CD image.  The mount command not detecting the partition #7 on the CD image validates that assumption for me.
Are there any ISO/IMG files that are known to work? I am using the files from this guide http://techpubs.spinlocksolutions.com/irix/remote-irix-6.5-installation-from-linux.html#unpacking-cds

Thanks
(05-27-2025, 02:18 AM)robespierre Wrote:  The error message coming from mount(1M) is "Invalid argument", with no indication of which argument was invalid, or why. This is typical New Jersey software engineering. The arguments to mount(1M) come from /etc/fstab, which evidently has an entry for dks1d4s7 and /CDROM.

Code:
% grep CDROM /etc/fstab

It probably looks something like
Code:
/dev/dsk/dks1d4s7 /CDROM efs ro 0 0

but this won't work if the named device file or mount point don't already exist (mount(1M) never creates inodes)

Code:
Inst> shell
% ls -d /dev/dsk/dks1d4s7
% ls -d /CDROM
If either command returns "no such file or directory", you know that this filesystem has been tampered with.
This is what I got from running those commands, no errors

RE: HELP - Installing IRIX on Octane from ZuluSCSI - weblacky - 05-27-2025

Sorry, I actually use physical Irix OEM CDs myself. Eventually I'll put together something for network loading, but software loading is not on my radar as hardware fixes dwarf the need to install the operating system on most of my collection.

You can try sources from archive.org: https://archive.org/details/IRIX6530

There are a few different ones posted around that site.

RE: HELP - Installing IRIX on Octane from ZuluSCSI - Podboy - 05-29-2025

Hi varomix,
Were you able to get this to boot and install? Are you naming your IRIX boot ISO CD4_512.iso? How do you access the other ISOs within inst?
Maybe you can list a directory structure of your ZuluSCSI SD card. None of the official documentation seems to say anything specifically about 512byte CD emulation, but others have gotten at lease single ISOs to load with CD?_512.iso.
I'm still super curious (obviously Tongue ) if/how this works.

BTW, the link you listed (http://techpubs.spinlocksolutions.com/irix/remote-irix-6.5-installation-from-linux.html) is the one that helped me setup a network install server on an old rPi, and then later in the debian qemu I still use. Indispensably helpful stuff.