[opcode]

Just curious how many 5.3 users are out there. What hardware are you running? What is the purpose/what are you doing on 5.3?

[nintendoeats]

I typically use 6.5. However, 5.3 has some introductory features and demos that are not provided with 6.x variants. One of my main goals for my SGIs is recording and demonstrating their software and capabilities, so finding these is important. I have an Indy drive with 5.3 installed for this reason. As you know I am trying to get my I2 set up with 5.3 as well.

Indy:
-R4400SC/150
-XL24
-128MB

Indigo2 (Teal):
-R4400SC/250
-GR3/XZ (eventually Extreme, once I can afford a multi-item order from Ian)
-160MB

[jirka]

I'm using the 5.3 on my Indigo R3k. It does not support anything better. I don't run this computer on daily basis, of course. I use it mostly for browsing Gopher pages (Netscape/Lynx) and for writing/programming (C+OpenGL) or to do some light computations (Octave+Gnuplot) when I don't want to be distracted by availability of modern WWW or email or social networks... I'm not sure if I'm using someting special here.

In average I run it once per week for 3-4 hours, I think.

[Raion]

In the event that a free open source version of IRIX is released, I would support a parity release bringing innovations back to the machines left behind. obviously functionality is simply not going to be the same and it's very unlikely that most packages would work, but I think the meat of my intent is clear.

[halfmanhalftaco]

I'm generally opposed to running the last supported OS version on retro hardware I own, I feel like it's not representative of how the machines would have actually been used when they were new. I generally try to run either the OS it shipped with or one or two bumps up from that.

So, I run 5.3 on my Indy R4600SC/133. I have tried 6.5.22 on it in the past and it's pretty much unusable on it.

[jan-jaap]

I'm generally opposed to running the last supported OS version on retro hardware I own, I feel like it's not representative of how the machines would have actually been used when they were new. I generally try to run either the OS it shipped with or one or two bumps up from that.

So, I run 5.3 on my Indy R4600SC/133. I have tried 6.5.22 on it in the past and it's pretty much unusable on it.

This.

Loading 6.5.x on everything is boring. I generally run:

* IRIX 3, 4 or 5.3 on R3K hardware
* IRIX 5.3 or 6.2 on R4K hardware (you should really try IRIX 4.0.5H on an Indigo2 R4400. It's screams. It's more responsive than my 4x1GHz Tezro running 6.5).
* IRIX 6.2 or 6.5 on R8K/R10K hardware
* IRIX 6.5 on everything newer than that.

One of my most used systems right now is a 250MHz R4400 Indigo2 SolidImpact. It runs IRIX 5.3. Don't think nothing runs on IRIX 5.3: this system happens to run AutoCAD R13, but applications like Adobe PhotoShop, CorelDRAW and even SoftWindows work fine on IRIX 5.3. This machine also has a complete set of development tools. Of course this system is plenty fast running IRIX 5.3. I simply partitioned the 18GB disk into equal parts for system, /usr/people and /usr/local so the lack of XFS doesn't bother me.

I find that many of the additions in IRIX 6.5 are only useful on the larger NUMA systems. An Indigo2 R10K runs better with 6.2. And my systems have plenty of RAM.

Now, I worked with these systems when 5.3 or 6.2 was current, so I'm probably used to their quicks and the somewhat more spartan environment. With TGCware there's plenty of FOSS to choose from (I'm not interested in using my SGI's for web browsing anyway) and I'm also quite capable of building my own software if I want to. So the lack of Nekoware doesn't bother me.

[Raion]

Given sufficient demand I don't mind taking some of the projects I'm working on behind the scenes and trying to backport them but I'm not really confident that the older compilers are going to be able to do very well with anything that I throw at them, though that begs the question:

Can mipspro 7.4.4m produce 32-bit MIPS ELF binaries that run on IRIX 5.3 or 6.2?

If so with compatibility libraries and such it might be possible to easily back port some stuff. I don't think that it can produce ECOFF though.

[jan-jaap]

Can mipspro 7.4.4m produce 32-bit MIPS ELF binaries that run on IRIX 5.3 or 6.2?

If so with compatibility libraries and such it might be possible to easily back port some stuff. I don't think that it can produce ECOFF though.

It certainly won't do COFF. It might be able to create binaries for 5.3 or 6.2 if you make it only use include files and libraries from those systems (What GCC calls a TOOLROOT I think). But the real problem is porting the source code to these older platforms which lack all sorts of things we take for granted these days -- unicode support (wchar), many string and number manipulation functions, POSIX threads, ... By the time you've added all of that back in, these systems will be just as heavy weight as IRIX 6.5. And then you can run you modern, bloated FOSS software.

That's backwards. What's the point of turning your proud IRIX workstation into a super slow Linux clone? I speak for myself here, but what I like about them is the fact that they're different. Accept these systems for what they are, and make them run the light weight software that works best on them.

Oh, regarding MIPSpro 7.4: it may have a C99 compiler but it's still at least 15 years behind when it comes to C++ so it's not like it will magically make all your problems go away compared to the IRIX 5.3 compilers. Many people think of IRIX 5.3 as old and primitive, but they forget that by now every version of IRIX is old and primitive. The last major version of IRIX was released in 1998, 22 years ago. IRIX 5.3 is simply another good 4 years older, but hey, it's all old news.

[Raion]

I think you and I are on the same page with regards to not running massively modern software. That's why I have not been very enthusiastic about the RPM project because they are literally having to bloat and paravirtualize significant parts of gnu/Linux. Look at the very compatibility libraries for information on what I mean. And of course none of it runs on the native compiler and they will up-and-down claim that there is no speed difference...

I've never been meaning to run the latest and greatest but it does help if you have c99 or c++98 support from the compiler for the simple reason that compilers are a major limiting factor. It's just nice to be able to get at least some basic software like a good web server, more modern command shells, and things like openssl. Nobody's expecting a miracle at least the majority of people here.

[arhiman57]

Most of my Indy and Indigo are running on 5.3, and they are clearly responsive (maybe it's a little bit iased due to many upgade on these system compared to original specs...). I always wanted to try 4.05 on an I2....

I don't have any skill in dev so I think it's much better for me to have the more "logical" OS on all of my machine.