[LXLS]

Greetings!

I'm new here, but have been lurking for some time. I've been restoring and repairing computers for 20+ years now, safe to say that computers are my first true love, and I always wanted something SGI. After some luck, I ended up with an Onyx2, two teal Indigo2's and an I2 Impact 195/SI.

There's a lot for me to unpack in this brave new world, but my first question is this:

What version of IRIX to install on what machines? I've read a lot of posts around here, and it appears, though I cannot confirm that a significant majority of the members are running 6.5.xx. This is fine, and I'm sure the I2 Impact and Onyx will run 6.5, but what about my teal machines, or an Indy if I pick one of those up someday? I have other makes/models of machines that are identical, and on those, I try to vary their OS version. Running the same version of the OS on every machine that can run the last OS is generally not the way to go IMO, and I have often ended up with a machine that doesn't show off its true potential under the weight of the final OS and software therein. I am not yet familiar enough with SGI hardware/software to make the determination on whether that is the case here, but it has been my experience in several other areas. 

I was thinking 5.3 for the lowest end machines, but I've heard mumblings that software for 5.3 is generally not easy to acquire. What about 6.2? Is 6.2 a respected member of the IRIX family? If yes, what are the major differences between it and 6.5? If 6.2 is a nice middle ground that doesn't have a resource consumption problem, is there still some software available for it? 

Thanks!
B.

[robespierre]

I would run 6.5.22 on all of those machines. It is the highest version supported on Indy or Indigo2, and will work fine on the Onyx 2 as well. Onyx 2 can use up to the latest IRIX release, 6.5.30, but I'm not aware of any specific benefit of doing that.
It's true that 5.3 and 6.2 can be faster, but the real difference that hits the most is the memory requirement. 5.3 or 6.2 can run comfortably in 256MB but you really want more than that for 6.5. The R4000 Indigo2 can use up to 384MB of main memory and the R10000 Indigo2 can use up to 1GB. The sticking point is that 5.3 and 6.2 were not universal releases. There were specific discs for different machines and configurations and it can be harder to find the precise disc required.

[Trippynet]

A lot depends upon the spec of your teal Indigo 2s. I've run 6.5 on Indys (133MHz R4600 with 128MB of RAM) and it wasn't a great experience, there's just too little RAM left after the OS has booted and performance wasn't great. However my Indigo2 originally had 256MB and ran 6.5.22 without any major problems, of course more RAM is always a good thing!

Hence, I'd say 256MB+ to go for 6.5.22, and if you have 128MB or less, maybe 5.3 or 6.2 would provide a better experience. Robespierre is right though that IRIX was quite fragmented before 6.5 came out, so you'll need the appropriate disk for your systems if you do decide to run an earlier version. Also, it'd be useful to know what CPUs your teal Indigo2s have as there was a big range (100MHz up to 250MHz).

[LXLS]

Finally had some time to take a look at the machines.

2 of them have 150MHz R4400's and the parts box has a 100MHz R4K, the Impact machine has a 195MHz R10k.

I ordered a RPi 4 so I could set booterizer up on that, we'll see how it goes.

[jan-jaap]

As a rule of thumb:

• Anything with an R3000 : IRIX 3.x, 4.x, sometimes 5.3.
  
• Anything with an R4000 : IRIX 5.3 or 6.2
  
• Anything with an R8000 or R10K: IRIX 6.2 or 6.5.22
  
• Anything newer: IRIX 6.5.30
  

Actual choice depends a bit on the system, amount of RAM installed, disk speed etc, and what I intend to do with it. Of course, I have many systems, so it doesn't make sense to load the latest and greatest everywhere because they would all be the same except some would be painfully slow.