Introduction

I recently acquired a Silicon Graphics Indigo2 Impact 10000 and an Indy R4600 workstation. I have fond memories of using these workstations in the mid 1990s when they were new, and some of that institutional knowledge is still rattling around in my head somewhere, but a lot of it escaped somewhere between then and now. Having just gone through installing IRIX onto these relics, I wanted to record how to do it again before I forget once more.

Important Note

This is not a comprehensive guide. These are really just notes made for myself so I don’t forget some things.

CDs Needed

All CD images can be found on jrra.zone.

If installing from a CD drive, the EFS CD images are what you want, but for doing a Network install, you’ll want the tar versions of these instead.

For the Indigo2 IMPACT Only

• IRIX 6.2 with Indigo2 IMPACT 10000 (Part 1 of 2) [812-0469-002, 06/96]
• IRIX 6.2 with Indigo2 IMPACT 10000 (Part 2 of 2) [812-0470-002, 06/96]

For the Indy Only

• IRIX 6.2 (Part 1 of 2) [812-0469-001, 03/96]
• IRIX 6.2 (Part 2 of 2) [812-0470-001, 03/96]

For Both Systems

• IRIX 6.2 Applications May 1996 [812-0542-001, 05/96]
• IRIX 6.2 Auxiliary Applications [812-0542-003, 08/97]
• Supportfolio IRIX 6.2 Patches [812-0603-003, 04/97]

Optional for NFS

• NFS/ONC3 for IRIX 6.2 Version 1.2 [812-0305-006, 08/96]

Optional for Developers

• IRIX 6.2 Development Libraries [812-0698-001, 09/97]
• IRIX 6.2 Development Foundation 1.2 [812-0695-003, 05/99]
• MIPSpro All-Compiler CD May 1999 [812-0925-001, 05/99]

Installing from the Network

This all assumes that the CDs have been unpacked onto a Linux server named irix that has TFTP and bootp configured correctly, serving up the CDs under /srv/tftp/sgi/6.2/

inst> from irix:sgi/6.2/cd1_10k/dist
inst> keep *
inst> i *.sw32.*
inst> i *.*.ipgate
inst> i *.*.srv4net
inst> i *.*.xlv*
inst> i *.*.netman
inst> i *.*.named
inst> go

After installation, do CD2

inst> from irix:sgi/6.2/cd2_10k/dist
inst> go

Patches

The most important IRIX 6.2 patches to install are:

From the Supportfolio IRIX 6.2 Patches April 1997 CD

• SG0001571: IRIX 6.2 POSIX 1003.1b Compliance Roll-Up
• SG0001418: IRIX 6.2 Networking Rollup Patch
• SG0001227: IRIX 6.2 Routing Enhancements
• SG0001397: sash patch for 6.2 XFS changes
• SG0001417: Security fix for sysmon/sgihelp for 6.2

From the Development Foundation 1.2 CD

• SG0003597: Patch required in order to run FORTRAN f90

Post Install Tasks

Visual Login account pictures

The visual login screen on IRIX allows custom pictures for each user account. Their file names must match an account’s login name exactly, they must be in SGI RGB format, and they must be resized to 100x100 pixels. Put them under the directory /usr/lib/faces/.

Static Route

To set up a static default route, edit the file /etc/config/static-route.options and add a line:

$ROUTE $QUIET add -net default 192.168.0.1

Replace 192.168.0.1 with your gateway IP address.

Note: If you don’t have the file /etc/config/static-route.options, it means you haven’t applied the required IRIX 6.2 POSIX roll-up and IRIX 6.2 Networking Rollup patches yet.

Licenses

Grab a copy of this totally legitimate and not at all suspicious license file and put it into the directory /var/flexlm.