[jander31]

Most old stations use BOOTP instead of DHCP at the PROM to autoconfig anything.  There are of course PROM commands to set a static IP address as well as a file location if you're doing network based BOOTP file fetching.

If you're using the LOVE utility to do network installs, read here: https://github.com/ColinLaws/love

Just so you're aware while SGI did support network installs the machines generally did not anticipate needing network at their firmware level or much during boot. The actual interface "up" occurs later in the kernel start up then you might expect, after say using systems like Linux.  Most people would use local media unless you were part of a lab or a large infrastructure and spent the money for a network share and to set up the automation. Outside of booting and installing you can't do anything else with the network on an SGI in its firmware modes.  You can't update firmware using the network. So most of the time you're talking local volumes.  Network setup is not terribly bad for doing remote OS installs, but it's going to be command based and very few if any of the prompts are going to be graphical.

I'm not saying it's hard for anyone that's installed Linux before, but if you've only installed an operating system like Windows or MacOS you would definitely be caught up in a few of the steps.

When it comes to the L1 and text PROM interface, yeah they fight, I've always felt it was mainly because both of them were waiting for input and so there appears to be activity that forces one to the other. Yes there is a way apparently go permanently go back to L1, but I've only used that on a graphical PROM... You're using a serial terminal PROM. 

I see that your system only carries a single serial port, the workstations don't do this and have multiple ports and so they tend to spread out over a separate terminal for each interface, the way I use them. I have seen what you're talking about with it jumping back-and-forth and the best I could really say is we don't normally need to fiddle with the L1 when you're in PROM... I'd sort of forget about it being useful.

So I would just acknowledge that you can issue a single command really fast from PROM to the L1 by doing the terminal switch but in reality I just consider it kind of unusable. The only reason to access L1 from PROM would be to check your ENV tables, which if you go fast you can do.

Another word of advice on the installation of Irix, when using FX to partition, don't use AUTO and don't use the [FOR]MAT command. It doesn't do what you think it does. Use the manual methods outlined in the guides you'll read. I can explain why but just don't...you won't like what happens as you won't be expecting it.

The Origin 300 has 2 serial ports and one console port.  How do I use the serial ports?  I'm currently on console (38400, RTS/CTS, etc).  I guess I do see your point with L1 only being used to see ENV tables, L1 didn't have much use other than diagnosing which fan was malfunctioning.

I'm ready for the command-based install.  Though my Mac Mini Server's Ubuntu installation was graphical initially, a lot of the reverse SSH configs, firewall configs, package/software installations, and IP configs were from a command line.

I had a few questions about the IRIX installation.  How long do you think a network installation of IRIX 6.5.22 would take (an hour or more)?  And where should I go about finding an ISO of IRIX?  I would like to avoid spending $100 on a physical copy of IRIX.  Thank you for the heads up on the installation procedure though, will be making a note of that.