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NetBSD Ported To SGI 02
NetBSD have added another platform to their supported hardware list. As the NetBSD/sgimips and announcement pages say, NetBSD/sgimips is now stable enough to run multi-user, making NetBSD the first OpenSource OS to run on the SGI O2. Currently it's known to work on the R5000 CPU, R10K and R12K are untested due to lack of hardware.
The O2 wasn't designed to excel at 3d graphics, rather for streaming image manipulation (which is why the O2 uses Unified Memory Arch at 3.2GB/s). If you want great OpenGL speed, get an Indigo2 Impact or Octane I or E or Octane2 with vpro graphics.
m ips.html) How many other companies have posted their plans through 2006? Not many...
With regard to irix support/devel tapering off, have you seen sgi's roadmap? (http://www.sgi.com/developers/feature/2000/irix_
SGI is going strong on irix, and will be for a long, long time. All that is changing is they are hiring *new* people to work on linux.
Of course, you also have to keep in mind that the hardare in the O2 came out about four years ago, that's a pretty long time in hardware-time. PCs still don't have the memory bandwidth of the O2 I don't think.
Try running Maya on your Voodoo3...
You didn't say which version of IRIX is running, but SGI changed the development policy a few years back to make it possible to develop without the (back then) costly dev libs. All the necessary headers ship, so you can use gcc, etc to your hearts content.check out the developer section on the website. davemc
Open Source Ronin
Actually, I said Indigo2 *Impact*, huge difference (at least 2-3x for 3d, 2-6x 2d, and ~infinite for texturing). Impact graphics came out in 1995 and are one *huge* leap over the previous generation. So, do the comparison again with an Impact with texture momory (High Impact, or MaxImpact (2x HighImpact)). Also, a semi-recent cpu (like a 200 or 250Mhz R4k with 2MB L2 cache, or a 175/195MHz R10k (2-6x 250MHz R4k)) will help out a lot. (the above configured box is faster at bzflag than a friends 600MHz p3 with a g400).
After doing a comparison with a machine more like the above, also keep in mind quake[all versions] was designed with fairly basic pc 3d cards in mind, thus it doesn't try to do anything normally expensive (time wise), which on an Impact card may not even change the speed at all. As for the cost of an Indigo2, I recently purchased a 250MHz L2 cache I2 with MaxImpact graphics, 256MB ram, 4.5GB drive, dds-2 drive, cdrom, 20" monitor, and all the standard for less than $600. Not too bad. You could buy a pc with a faster cpu for less, but try to buy a pc with the same amount of ram and a 20" monitor, you'll be pressed to do so.
Not to get into a "this box is better" war , but some sgi workstations are very well priced against pcs, you just have to look for the right ones, and know what you want (hint: if you want the fastest dnet scores, get a pc with 8mb of ram). Oh, and keep in mind that the Indigo2 did come out in 1993! And Indigo2 Impact in 1995. In 1993 the pentium pro was of course non-existant, in 1995 the pentium pro was just hitting production lines (just to give you something to compare it with).
You really don't know NetBSD. NetBSD project takes time to make sure their ports are complete, and they are very specific about the hardware it runs on. Sure you can say Linux has been running on SGI hardware for a long time, but which SGI Machines? NetBSD project will tell you which SGI machines it runs on. This announcement is for a specific class of SGI machines. Just because linux will run on one SGI machine doesn't mean it will run on all SGI machines, even if the machines are based on the same processor. Look at the NetBSD website, they are specific about the ports. For example, Linux will run on Alpha, but which ones? NetBSD I believe supports more machines based on Alpha than linux, and will tell you which machine types are supported.
Yes you are. Oxygen is fairly old iron. It has lots of quircks though...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
If you pay the money to buy a license for
IRIX 6.5 for it, then you get all the headers
you need to install gcc and in fact you even get
gcc precompiled for irix on the freeware cd.
Also, check ebay, people sometimes auction off complete IRIX cd sets for pretty cheap, you maybe be able to get a irix 6.5 set for $50 then you're sorted.
And yes irix 6.5 will run on any SGI with an R4000 or later cpu (except the R4000 Crimson or Indigo 1).
Nope. IRIX started from System V, thanks to (not that) Steve Bourne, who worked at SGI back in the old days. Story I heard is that he and someone else, probably Greg Chesson, walked into Jim's office one day and basically wouldn't leave until he agreed to use System V instead of BSD.
The interesting thing about IRIX is that it was one of the first SysV based kernels to incorporate a lot of BSD-isms, such as sockets and mbufs.
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
Well the graphics quality used to be better. We bought a O2 for $14,000 ~2 years ago. Now a GeForce2 for $300 has about 4x the OpenGL performance when running on a PC. A Elsa Gloria XXL has about 4x better than the O2 and it supports all the features (quad buffering, stereo, etc). The hardware (O2) is just getting old and the development/support for them is tapering off under IRIX. Hopefully someone will keep it going though.
I keep hoping someone'll get a port to the Power series (which use, for example, the R3000 CPUs) going, but by the looks of this post to the NetBSD/sigmips mailing list, it ain't gonna happen...
It's great to see an additional os run on sgi hardware, but at least for a while you likely won't see many switch over. Why?
Sgi does offer maintaince releases of irix for free on their site (several hundred megs, but at least they do offer it). Machines all the way back to R4k Indigo are still supported, so if you have the ram for Irix 6.5 you'll do well (at least 64MB, 96MB being much better on most hardware).
But mainly, sgi boxes are so fast because of their special hardware features! *Esp* boxes like the Indy and O2. The O2 R5k is a pretty slow box cpu-wise, but with crime graphics and ice it is **fast**. Take image manipulation for example: ont he main cpu you have probably pentium-similar performance. Recode your image manip tool to use OpenGL (and ice if you can) and you'll speed most everything up many times. ICE lets you resize, scale, re-color-code, color-space-convert, etc, etc all in *real time* on pretty large images. Its features like this that make sgi's so nice.
Now of course, netbsd once matured on sgimips may be more stable than irix (though they've done wonderfully with 6.5, my I2 easily goes hundreds of days before our house has a poweroutage, or it would go longer), and you have a current os as long as someone else (or yourself) is interested in keep the hardware current with the rest of the os. And then there's the ability to change your kernel and add your own changes, which you can't do with irix.
So...I'm happy (really happy) to see people taking interest in this port (and of course I'd love to see the Indigo^2 be supported too, right now I think linux boots on Indigo^2s (non-Impact?)), hopefully those who were so generous to work this far will also be interested in taking advantage of the machines, that'd be awesome to see!
SGI is still an acronym. I forget what its stands for, but read /. circa the logo change. Also, IBM stands for International Business Machines and I'm pretty sure that MCI is an acronym too.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Given the recent reliability *cough* of Slashdot, here's hoping they give one of those O2 + NetBSD boxes a try. :)
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
now, if only a 2nd ethernet interface did not cost as much as a box pc...
i have a feeling netbsd will be a better development environment than irix, but i will miss the opengl.
Some of you might have heard about Andy's Software Wars Map where we could have a nice global vision of the software alliances around Microsoft's domination.
I guess if Andy's aware of this good new, then we'll have some others arrows on the map.
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
yep, you are (really this time). That's the Octane 2 you see on www.sgi.com. The O2 is SGI's more standard workstation while the Octane 2's are much more powerful, and have even better graphics capabilities.
No, Irix is a code fork from BSD. In fact, Irix was the first BSD derivative to receive POSIX certification.
On a side note, SGI has been releasing Irix code under the GPL. However, this is all for show and to get cheap press. If they really wanted to play the open source game, they'd release their code under a BSD-friendly license as a sort of offering to their roots (so to speak;). Alas, business and the GPL fail us again.
Does it run on SGI Indy's? You can pick those up for about 2 grand.
Saying the O2 is 32bit isn't really correct.
Since the R4000 came out mips cpus have been fully 64bit capable. How do you define if a machine is 64bit? If the bus size is 64bit? Ints are? Shorts? Longs? Pointers? It's hard to say "a machine" is 64bit.
Anyway, the O2 (using R5k) runs n32 (and older binaries), which are the same as n64 with only one exception: memory-addressing is 32bit rather than 64bit. The assumption is that since you have only 1gig of ram, needing to address more than 2gigs of memory isn't really a problem. It also means pointers and such use *half* the memory they would otherwise. The R4k Indigo2 is the same way, but if you use an R10k in it, you have 64bit pointers (I would have thought R10k and R12k O2s would do the same, but according to you they don't, oh well).
And the O2 does have some nice hardware, check out the docs to ICE on sgi's website sometime. The O2 was designed to do multiple streaming-videos on many objects, and to be an inexpensive sgi workstation. Thus, certain features have to be left out (if you need fast 3d, get an Indigo2 MaxImpact for less than the O2 costs, or an Octane if you need more memory bandwidth or faster cpus).
Hope that clears up any misconceptions!