[drmadison]

I'm curious why the comments about not wanting .30 on an O2 or Octane?
I'm running 6.5.30 on everything (well, not the Challenge S which is a few days away from a fresh 6.5.22 install).

Yes I've heard it's slightly slower, but how much slower is slightly slower? Or is it more ram requirements? Or what would make you suggest that?

[hamei]

I'm curious why the comments about not wanting .30 on an O2 or Octane?
I'm running 6.5.30 on everything (well, not the Challenge S which is a few days away from a fresh 6.5.22 install).

Yes I've heard it's slightly slower, but how much slower is slightly slower? Or is it more ram requirements? Or what would make you suggest that?

It's not about "slower" or not.

First off, almost all the fixes in overlays past 23 don't apply to anything older than Fuels and O300's or better. So there's not too much benefit, and what there is can be got by installing just the relevant fixes.

But what they did do at 24 was remove a whole bunch of excellent, working components..

Display Postscript, gone. Along with it several interesting useful early applications, and that removal also messes up PhotoShop, Illustrator, and Framemaker.

They totally butchered the fonts at 24, adding a complete layer of home-made shit over the top of the real Type 1 Adobe fonts. What you see in a post-24 Irix is not what you get. It is quite visible. This mostly matters in printing, I guess - which brings up the next abortion -

Printing ! The entire print subsystem was removed and a half-ass version of CUPS installed, which never did work right and which was buried yet again underneath another layer of shit, "ESP Systems" (or something like that) -- a commercial ripoff of an open-source printing system that didn't work to begin with, where even that commercial company is now long-gone.

The print subsystem also supported scanners in a clean, integrated, attractive manner. And oh yeah, it worked. Gone.

I'm sure there's more which I have forgotten.

If all you want to do is turn the machine on once in a while to fool around, this stuff won't bother you. But if you actually want to produce anything, it'll drive you nuts.

It was a giant step backwards at a time in SGI's history when management was sucking it dry of every penny they could get, while bending us users over that proverbial barrel.

Where is my free download n-3, liars ?!?! Guaranteed until eternity ! ?!?!

SGI became a really really bad company towards the end.

[indigofan]

Can the files be located on another disk other than root to do a fresh install?

Yes, that's a network install, if you're going to a bunch of boxes it's worthwhile. You have to deal with bootp and stuff tho. I think the process is documented on Ian's site ?

Or did you mean another disk in the same box ? Should be able to just tell inst to look in a different place. I haven't tried it tho, there may be pitfalls. Lots of that dksc(0,4,0) stuff ....

For a regular install, I just did the minimum minimum then added what I wanted later. Some of that junk you don't want at all anymore - things that quit working twenty years ago, for example - so I found that cleaner.

But installing isn't really that big a deal. You do it once and you're set for the next ten years, I am puzzled by why that seems to be such a fixation.

my machine takes forever to boot up, think that it has to do with trying to get a Firewire drive hooked up, also can't get Maya working, so another install issue. So, hoping that a fresh install will cure all my woes..

[indy99]

my machine takes forever to boot up

SGI's Electronic Support service is automatically turned on during IRIX installs.  Even when there was such a thing it was a major resource hog during start up. 

The service is enabled or disabled via chkconfig, running "chkconfig esp off" as root will disable it. Might check to see if it's on, and see if turning it off helps your situation.

[shrek]

my machine takes forever to boot up

SGI's Electronic Support service is automatically turned on during IRIX installs.  Even when there was such a thing it was a major resource hog during start up. 

The service is enabled or disabled via chkconfig, running "chkconfig esp off" as root will disable it. Might check to see if it's on, and see if turning it off helps your situation.

This is no joke. It cut my boot time in half. Thanks for this.

[Raion]

The ESP needs to be cut out of the system, but it's a bit beyond me to track down every binary, lib and mod the necessary init scripts.

If someone can document all the files that need to be deleted/modified to get rid of it without hurting the system, please do so and I'll add it to IRIXCE.

[hamei]

The ESP needs to be cut out of the system, but it's a bit beyond me to track down every binary, lib and mod the necessary init scripts.

If someone can document all the files that need to be deleted/modified to get rid of it without hurting the system, please do so and I'll add it to IRIXCE.

That's why I quit using the simple "install everything on the CD's" method. If you do a very bare install, then add exactly what you want, it comes out a lot nicer.

Since you only have to install like maybe every ten years, the results seem to be worth the effort to me ....

[indigofan]

my machine takes forever to boot up

SGI's Electronic Support service is automatically turned on during IRIX installs.  Even when there was such a thing it was a major resource hog during start up. 

The service is enabled or disabled via chkconfig, running "chkconfig esp off" as root will disable it. Might check to see if it's on, and see if turning it off helps your situation.

This is no joke. It cut my boot time in half. Thanks for this.

It cut my boot time to 1/4th of the time easily.

[indy99]

Thanks for this.

You're welcome, glad you found it useful.

I'm curious why the comments about not wanting .30 on an O2 or Octane?
I'm running 6.5.30 on everything (well, not the Challenge S which is a few days away from a fresh 6.5.22 install).

Yes I've heard it's slightly slower, but how much slower is slightly slower? Or is it more ram requirements? Or what would make you suggest that?

hamei and I have amicably agreed and disagreed on a number of subjects over the years, and this is one where our opinions slightly diverge.  I'd suggest running .30 on everything starting with the SGI "O" generation, including the O2, Octane, O200 and the entire O2k family of sytems. Though hamei is right on the money mentioning doing so necessitates the restoration of a number of classic IRIX appications/tools/utilities. 

For a regular install, I just did the minimum minimum then added what I wanted later.

Most of the undesirable stuff resides on the 6.5.30 'Complementary Applications' CD.  As hamei points out, do a minimalist install of .30 (Ian has a concise minimalist install guide on his site) and use Software Manager to add/restore all the missing classic IRIX bits from a .23 or earlier install set. 

...installing isn't really that big a deal. You do it once and you're set for the next ten years, I am puzzled by why that seems to be such a fixation.

Exactly.  If you're new to IRIX you'll likely find the install tools, Software Manager and IRIX don't operate like linux/bsd/windows/whatever.  Isn't that what brought you here in the first place?

[Raion]

6.5.30 really shines for things like FireWire and USB, so it's really good for the Chimera models.