[ipmungam]

Thanks again for the advice.

It's true I did not pluralise CD -- I only had one old blank one lying around so I just burned the 6.5.0 installation disk to test (wish I had thought to use 6.3 instead!). But I think I've got things set up properly to install from linux over the network (fx is working this way) so hopefully okay.

I've got it connected to an older SHARP LCD TV that detects the VGA output from the O2 automagically -- indeed it looks to be at 75Hz. It's only during the Run Diagnostics utility when it gets to the graphics section that it goes out of sync. I guess this might be a problem if and when I get IRIX running. Luckily I do have an old Dell 2209WA, so maybe it will work if it comes to that.

I got my hands on a 300GB 10k RPM Ultra320 drive. It seems to be detected properly by fx and I went with the "auto" option as the manual suggested this was for initialising a new disk. It's now been "exercising" for 36 hours and isn't even at 30%, by my calculations that's less than 700kB/s of exercise -- is that normal? And if as I suspect it is not, is there a way to safely interrupt?