[hamei]

I'm unsure why SGI granite Trinitrons were [fixed frequency], I assume cost and availably at that size of CRT made that decision (It was a poor one, but did lock people into specific monitors...which did make SGI money in the short term). 

They weren't. Early ones were but by the time of the nice ones - Octane-ish ? 1995 or so ? those were multi-synch. The ones with flatter screens and the 24" one, multi-sync. I think all Sonys ? Have seen the same monitors as IBM, Sun, and SGI.

Early big monitors were fixed because they came with a workstation, not a peecee.  As such they were not expected to get hooked up to various different computers, it was "this setup goes on your desk" as a package. And you paid big for anything over 13". In fact 13" color wasn't cheap.

At the beginning of desktops people either soldered up their own mainboards and peripherals or bought the setup complete, not so much in the middle mix-and-match.

[robespierre]

They weren't. Early ones were but by the time of the nice ones - Octane-ish ? 1995 or so ? those were multi-synch.

From Reputable Systems' list of SGI monitors (http://shiftleft.com/mirrors/www.reputab...itors.html), it's apparent that only early displays like the CM2086 and GDM1950 are fixed frequency. These monitors were made in the 1980s. By the 1990s, superb displays like the 20D11 were available with a wide sync range including stereo modes at 150 fields/sec (and it has its own wireless remote). It does not synchronize below 48 kHz, because why would you want to?

Be careful about online information; I found sites calling the GDM20D11 a "fixed frequency" monitor despite that it's multisync. From PC users' perspective, anything that doesn't support MS-DOS 3.1 at 31.778 kHz VGA scan rate, must be "fixed frequency". There were special graphics adapters made for that market that used pixel-doubling to mimic VGA modes at higher output frequencies, to adapt MS-DOS PCs to workstation monitors.

Another sorry tale of PC users dragging the world back into the 1970s (with the 8086, character-cell video, and especially disco lights).

Also, I don't know any real argument to support why these old PROMs are superior to modern PC Firmware ... lighting

[ipmungam]

Thanks again for the advice.

It's true I did not pluralise CD -- I only had one old blank one lying around so I just burned the 6.5.0 installation disk to test (wish I had thought to use 6.3 instead!). But I think I've got things set up properly to install from linux over the network (fx is working this way) so hopefully okay.

I've got it connected to an older SHARP LCD TV that detects the VGA output from the O2 automagically -- indeed it looks to be at 75Hz. It's only during the Run Diagnostics utility when it gets to the graphics section that it goes out of sync. I guess this might be a problem if and when I get IRIX running. Luckily I do have an old Dell 2209WA, so maybe it will work if it comes to that.

I got my hands on a 300GB 10k RPM Ultra320 drive. It seems to be detected properly by fx and I went with the "auto" option as the manual suggested this was for initialising a new disk. It's now been "exercising" for 36 hours and isn't even at 30%, by my calculations that's less than 700kB/s of exercise -- is that normal? And if as I suspect it is not, is there a way to safely interrupt?

[weblacky]

"Auto" does not do what you think it does, it you interrupt it, your disk may not be accessible until you re-run "Auto" and it finishes (wastes more time). What happened was you accidentally threw it through a Low-level SCSI media format (surface rescan)...this is a one-way ticket...don't stop it...just remember NEVER TO USE AUTO AGAIN for the remainder of your time on this earth, unless you a really want to do a low-level format and know what that is.

For the future, you do this: http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/6.5inst.html

Also, Irix install DOES NOT blank media when you run it, if you run the OS install again over a previously installed disk...you'l get a partial merge of old and new. There is a "trick" to blanking the old disk label (which takes time..but much less time than "auto" does). You run FX with exe > seq > wr-o -> select all sectors > go.

That will overwrite entire surface with zeros. SGI disk label was an advanced item for it's time but UNLIKE GPT or MBR schemes, it's actually littered throughout the drive, you cannot "erase it" with just a region of blanking...to get it all...you need to wipe the entire thing (linux DD on another machine would do that too).

Please carefully read the guide, irix install is VERY UNFORGIVING, order matters!!! Take it slow, else you'll end up redoing it all again.

Also please don't install 6.3 Irix on your machine, it's a literal waste of time. Everything that was anything runs on irix 6.5...that's just life. It won't run faster, it won't be better, it will just suck more. Please install 6.5.22 to start, though you can go higher. But you'd have to ask option about that here. Most people think 6.5.22 was a great version and versions after it had some issues (I'm not certain of anything related to that). However the higher you go the more RAM you should install is it kind of bloated, also there are some things you should shutoff for runtime on later Irix OSes that have to do with the support contract software that takes up a lot of run time, so further tweaking may be needed.

I don't know if modern Linux supports SGI MIPs anymore, I think it all outdated by now? Even BSD dropped it quite a while ago. You may be back in the Linux 2.4 or 2.6 days and equally unable to do much.

[Raion]

And we don''t support installing BSD or Linux in the main forums here. The answer is never OS-related.

IRIX 6.2, 3 and 4 are effectively all the same OS, just 6.2 rebranded.

6.2 or 5.3 is only recommended for low ram old systems really.

[hamei]

Also please don't install 6.3 Irix on your machine, it's a literal waste of time.  Everything that was anything runs on irix 6.5...that's just life.  It won't run faster, it won't be better, it will just suck more.

You really should stick to hardware.

6.3 was specifically for the O2. It's a single-CD install, it has some special features tailored to the O2, it works great on an O2. Most or all of the reasons you'd want to go to 6.5 are not valid these days. Here's a clue : I have actually had O2's with 6.3 and they work great. (As great as an O2 ever works, anyhow).

The reason to use it is, it's a very simple and easy install, meant for the O2, which a 6.5 install is not. It's limited to just what an O2 has, so you don't have to know what you are doing and dig through five CD's to pick and choose the parts you need or want.

The reason to not choose 6.3 is, it's older and has fewer bells and whistles and features that one might want if one were using the computer as a daily driver in the modern world. Given the unreliability of the O2, that would be tantamount to masochism

The O2 prom does not come up at anything over 60 hz. Whatever is going on with yours, it's not that. When Irix comes up it initializes X and that can be where you'd see a switch to a higher resolution / faster refresh but not before then. Sorry.

Please, go to techpubs. All this is covered clearly, from the horse's mouth, not hearsay and faded memories or stuff someone read somewhere online.

[jan-jaap]

6.2 or 5.3 is only recommended for low ram old systems really.

I disagree. And all IRIX systems are old, and low on RAM by modern standards.

The argument for IRIX 6.5.x is that most pre-compiled OSS requires it. I don't see the point of that because you're basically turning your IRIX system into a half-assed Linux clone and then you still can't use it to browse the web. IRIX as a general purpose OS or platform for modern software is dead.

As a rule of thumb, I only run 6.5 on systems with R10K or better CPUs. Indys are fun little boxes but they were introduced when IRIX 5.1 was current. Some Indigo2's will even run IRIX 4.05. Sure, they will run IRIX 6.5, but the experience will be underwhelming. Better stay with 5.3 (or 6.2 if you must have N32/64 support). IRIX 6.5 was optimized for the ccNUMA generation and it's a lot less responsive on the older systems. That makes them less enjoyable, and enjoyment is all that counts for systems that are basically toys.

Most commercial software that's workable on older systems doesn't require IRIX 6.5 but works fine on 5.2 or 6.2. Adobe, Autodesk, AVID, Corel, FrameMaker, Lightwave, none of it requires 6.5. Heck, some of it is even broken on 6.5.

[weblacky]

His NVRAM defaults said cpufreq=195, so I assumed he has an R10K CPU, so I stand behind my advice. A new user will have an easier, better, first time experience by just doing 6.5.22 first, as that’s what’s most important.

That software availability, configuration advice, and compatibility will be the best under 6.5. Once some experience is accumulated, then I’d say downgrade if you want to experiment.

But I give advice based on what I wish someone had told me for this specific station. If 6.3 gets loaded and there are questions, I would think it more likely users would just recommend he upgrade, because 6.5.22 the most known, common, OS version. Most people couldn’t help, as how many of us have even really used 6.3 in much detail?

Let’s make this easy, why would we recommend older OSes that are less used or known by our members to a novice, new, user?

[hamei]

Let’s make this easy, why would we recommend older OSes that are less used or known by our members to a novice, new, user?

Because they work better. And there is no difference at all in basic advice from 5.whatever to 6.5.30.  The main reason to run 6.5 on an older box was nekoware, which is no longer around.

All the relevant information is at techpubs, as I have mentioned three times now. Real information, from the pens of the people who made this stuff. Those docs are well-written and illustrated and accurate. It's the place to go when you have a question, really ...

In this particular case 6.3 was a snack to install, which is worth a heck of a lot right there. Pop the CD in the drive, hit install, and away you go. It's almost like Windows 2000.

After which, it performs better and you can't even tell it's 6.3 either visually or by operational differences. It acts the same. No way in today's environment would I run 6.5 on an O2.

No way would I run an O2 tho, so there is that :-)

[Raion]

Jan, I understand your situation. My main recommendation is because I prefer the features and programming environment that 6.5 offers over 6.2 and derivatives. I find the operating system is more stable and featureful and runs fine on anything with over 128M of RAM.

I realize that some people here are graphics guys but honestly I'm not. I have little artistic talent and even less inclination for it, so I can't do 3D modeling to save my life or any of the other things that SGI was specifically known for. Rather my interest has always been on the HPC side. Yes our systems are slow and low memory by many modern metrics but I only consider something really low memory when it starts to get down into 64 mags or less because that's where programming starts to become difficult for a lot of things.

At some point when there's less pressure on me to take care of the future stuff for IRIX I do want to ensure 5.3 and 6.2 get some attention but it's just not in the cards for me right now.