[robespierre]

sash has a bit of a funny name because it's a funny kind of program. Calling it a shell is overly generous: it's just a glorified boot loader. When you are interacting with sash, the IRIX kernel has not been loaded yet and IRIX is not involved at all!

The installation procedure should set up the computer properly so that it boots directly to the IRIX graphical login screen, but many users are now running alternative install procedures like "DINA" or "LOVE" and this adds additional complications.

The normal order of starting a SGI machine is that the machine displays the "starting up, stop for maintenance" dialog, then a screen of text scrolls past with system messages, then the login screen linked above appears and you can log in. If you never see these steps, it may be that your installation is not properly done, or there may just be a problem with boot variables that tell the firmware what you want to do.

From the firmware prompt, you can type

Code:

auto

which should start IRIX. If this doesn't work, your installation isn't done correctly.

In the manual, it describes the boot variable called "AutoLoad", which should be set to "Yes". This is what tells the firmware to execute the normal boot procedure in the above paragraph. From the firmware prompt (which is popularly called the "prom" and can be reached via the "5. Command Prompt" button on the maintenance menu) you can type

Code:

setenv AutoLoad Yes
reset

After setting this variable, the machine should boot to the login screen every time it's turned on.