A Look at IRIX 6.5.17

XFS writes "OSNews got their hands on the latest version of IRIX, 6.5.17 (released in August), and they have published an interesting article about it and they explain why IRIX was and still is, one of the best workstation Unices out there. Especially when it comes to multimedia/GL performance. I hope SGI will do something with IRIX though, as they seem to have let it fall behind and be one of these great technologies that get lost through various corporate focus shifts..."

Comments

What about...

[Sc00ter]

What happened to SGI's big push for Linux?? looking back at past SGI stories there's a lot there about Linux work.

Re:What about...

[T-Kir]

They'd better hurry up on the said 'push' before they sell any more patents off to 'other' companies.

Isn't it more a case of gfx/animator studios are buying loads of Intel boxen and slapping Linux on them rather than buying SGI kit (expensive kit I might add), and is working out to be cheaper for the studios?

Re:What about...

[SanLouBlues]

Thus the poster's comment about hoping sgi doesn't let Irix die. The truth is even Solaris has caught up to Irix in terms of usability, 3d speed, and multimedia-ness unless you get a stack of Onyx machines. And the expense of an Onyx is what is driving Irix towards AIX in terms of market size.
And we all know IBM is even trying to migrate to Linux over AIX, so why shouldn't SGI with their fewer resources than IBM do the same. And they are.
But there are enough Irix diehards (Woot!) that SGI can't just drop it in one fell swoop. Plus SGI hardware does not go obsolete even a third as fast as PCs do.

Re:What about...

[duffbeer703]

That's funny.

AIX has more (and growing) marketshare than Irix has had in years. The Power4 and Power5 chip is attracting alot of business away from Sun.

SGI has been obsolete since 1996. A $2,500 Dell Workstation can do as much as a $25,000 SGI workstation.

Wake up McFly! It's 2002 calling!

Re:What about...

[gfxguy]

Isn't it more a case of gfx/animator studios are buying loads of Intel boxen and slapping Linux on them rather than buying SGI kit (expensive kit I might add), and is working out to be cheaper for the studios?

Yes and no. We (sadly) replaced a number of SGI animator computers with Windows 2000k. We tried Linux for the render farm, but at the time Maya did not render, pixel per pixel, the exact same images that Windows would render, and that wasn't acceptable. I don't know what the status of Maya on Linux is now.

The speed/cost ratio is much better with PCs, even though you need a fairly high end PC in order to run demanding 3D applications.

I've been arguing in my department that the cost savings don't outweigh the drawbacks of using Windows with demanding applications: blue screens, flakey "drive mapping", license servers that don't work as expected...

PCs are great for render farms, but I still think the interactive use for the high end 3D applications is better done, and more cost effective, on SGIs. It's not the PC, it's the OS...

On a side note, we had a recent visit from SoftImage (no longer an MS subsidiary) demonstrating XSI (very cool but expensive application). The person who was demonstrating said they had up to 20% speed improvements on Linux over Windows 2000, although there are certain features in the Windows version not available on the Linux version.

We use Maya, though, and while Maya is available for Linux, the other tools we use (many Adobe tools, for example) are not. Our render boxes are Windows, for consistency.

We still use SGI's for a variety of applications that, as the article pointed out, a five year old SGI is still better than a brand new PC. Flame/Inferno compositing, for one, and some real time 3D applications. Also cell animation ink and paint. There are some things the SGI can do as far as video I/O that PCs simply can't do at all. PCs are certainly coming close, though.

Re:What about...

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

Power5?
The Power5 is already for sale? /me scratches head, thinking Power4 just came out.

Re:What about...

[Refried Beans]

The truth is even Solaris has caught up to Irix in terms of usability, 3d speed, and multimedia-ness unless you get a stack of Onyx machines.

What kind of crack are you smoking? Sun released a new graphics workstation last year that they said could compete with an Octane 2. At the same time SGI released Fuel which roughly doubles performance over Octane 2. At SigGraph Sun was showing an in-development high end graphics targetted at InfiniteReality3. SGI released at the show InfiniteReality4 and also backed it up with 128p (on the show floor). Sun has not caught up.

Re:What about...

[timeOday]

Here's a paper I did comparing various PCs with Onyx systems with Infinite Reality and IR2 graphics systems.

The graphs are at the end.

The result is that PC's have recently surpassed these 5-6 year-old SGIs in rendering of basic texture-mapped lighted polygons, but the PC hardware doesn't accelerate some things at all (like the accumulation buffer).

Re:What about...

[gfxguy]

I agree, but they've already switched to Windows. Since we haven't added systems to the render farms since that time, they are not going to want to switch back (unfortunately).

That means they a bunch of extra added software on the Windows boxes in order to access them remotely, as well as causing other headaches. But we're a small group, and they're accustomed to it. I shake my head every time I see a maintenance request because of a blue screens, random reboots, and lost drive connections, and ask "how is this saving us money?"

Re:What about...

[Zarf]

But there are enough Irix diehards (Woot!) that SGI can't just drop it in one fell swoop. Plus SGI hardware does not go obsolete even a third as fast as PCs do. Read: The US DoD owns a lot of SGI hardware and pays lots of money for it's support and maint. and that SGI stuff happens to be in sensitive (as in tender, not as in secret) areas that can't have drastic changes. Might actually be enough contracts and hardware to keep SGI alive for about five to ten years. Not enough to prosper a company, just enough to keep it alive.

Oh my god

[Anonymous Coward]

And now we get all these posts from guys who know a bit of Linux who think they know *NIX because they post on slashdot.

Re:Oh my god

[irix]

As you can tell from my nick, some of were unfact *NIX users long before we were Linux users ;-)

Thank god...

[qurob]

That they haven't gone with a Windows XP interface!

Kudos to SGI!

Re:Mmmmkay...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unstable????

It _is_ better than windows, and if it was unstable for you, you have to look at your own skills...

_YES_ I have managed many IRX Boxes for years, seems to me you breathed on one once...

Fallacy of benchmarks

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is pretty interesting that the benchmark that they used measured memory throughput of the graphics CPU, as opposed to, say, an actual workload-handling of the OS. In other words, this is a synthetic benchmark, versus a real-world benchmark. They say, "Look! We can do memory transfers really really fast!"

Unfortunately, memory transfers are not the world when it comes to multiprocessor multimedia boxes. The overhead comes in when you're trying to synchronize a large number of threads/CPUs to do a large task. For example, an Oracle database.

Sun has proven that it scales up the tree very well with large numbers of processors. But from my understanding, Linux is more efficient with a low processor count, and less and less efficient with more processors.

I question its ability to do anything with a real workload. And I've even more suspicious because they use a benchmark I've never heard of to push its superiority on a single-aspect synthetic benchmark.

Re:Fallacy of benchmarks

[Mac Degger]

Uh, I do a bit of 3d, but only just enought to be intelligently stupid about it...but I don't use Oracle databases for my asset management...I couldn't care less what a database did on my CG box...memory transfers however is exactly what I would want to be fast.

And syncing large numbers of threads/cpu's, well, that is handy when doing a distributed render, but remember here: Irix is NOT Linux...just as linux is not unix :)

Anyway, I'd say they used the correct benchmark...especially for a workstation running a 3d app.

But as I said, IANA3DExpert...

Re:Fallacy of benchmarks

[GT_Alias]

Why would you use an SGI machine for running an Oracle database anyhow? Of course memory throughput isn't going to be as essential to running a database as thread/process management.

It's like saying my Miata is horrible for towing the boat. It's not made for that.

(*disclaimer -- I don't actually drive a Miata)

Re:Fallacy of benchmarks

[fgodfrey]

Uh, SGI sells more than multimedia workstations. They sell 1024 processor supercomputers too and memory bandwidth *IS* the world in high performance computing. That's why supercomputers like high end SGI's and Cray's can still beat the crap out of a cluster on a number of applications. That said, Irix is also quite good at scaling up to large processor counts. If you can find me another example of a single kernel OS that scales to 1024 processors, I'd be quite shocked. The only SSI OS on that scale that I can think of is Unicos/mk (the Cray T3E operating system).

I do, however, agree that benchmarks are often quite useless. The way it any machine performs is highly dependant on what mix of jobs/applications you plan to run on it.

Re:Fallacy of benchmarks

[Osiris Ani]

"I think it is pretty interesting that the benchmark that they used measured memory throughput of the graphics CPU.... The overhead comes in when you're trying to synchronize a large number of threads/CPUs to do a large task. For example, an Oracle database."

Are you aware of the primary functions at which SGI workstations are supposed to excel? Do you know anything of their reputation as graphics workhorses? Can you tell me why an SGI workstation's performance at handling an Oracle database is relevant to this discussion, and why such a benchmark would be at all useful for those who are most likely to utilize such a workstation for its stated intended purpose?

Indeed, I find it very interesting that they would use a benchmark that measures memory bandwidth through the graphics subsystem of a graphics workstation. It tells me what I need to know about what the system needs to do.

"And I've even more suspicious because they use a benchmark I've never heard of to push its superiority on a single-aspect synthetic benchmark."

"There are a million things that you don't know. That doesn't make them secrets."
- R.B. Fairchild

Hmmmmm

[IamTheRealMike]

One of the most innovating things about the IRIX in the '90s were the vector icons it uses for its desktop and file/icon managers. IRIX had vector support by default in its desktop long before MacOSX ever existed.

Not sure what this is implying, but it seems to be a surprisingly common misconception that MacOSX has vector based artwork. Not so. GNOME can do, and I think KDE3.1 can as well, via SVG. MacOS icons though are just bitmaps in a variety of sizes, with some scaling/blending algorithms applied.

The SGI desktop is of course based on a heavily modified commercial X Server. And here I will stop for a second, get a big breath and say: 'wow'. I have never seen an X server being so fast, on a 5-year old machine (no matter if this is an SGI machine or not).

I'd kind of expect this given that IRIX comes as a bundle with the hardware. When you choose the hardware as well as the software you can of course optimize the drivers a lot, so you will get good speeds out of it. XFree has to deal with a lot of different hardware, and the driver manufacturers are sometimes less than helpful. Probably worth remember that IRIX won't have some of the newer X extensions like XRender.

Re:Hmmmmm

[JimBobJoe]

One of the most innovating things about the IRIX in the '90s were the vector icons it uses for its desktop and file/icon managers. IRIX had vector support by default in its desktop long before MacOSX ever existed.

Someone with a deeper background than I have should check this out, but my recollection is that vector support was implemented in NexTStep quite early in the 1990's in the form of its spiffy display postscript rendering system. Due to a licensing rights tussle between Adobe and Apple, Mac OS X uses disply .pdf instead (which is still vectoring based display system.) Therefore, in this regard, IRIX is/was not that revolutionary, and a lot of Mac OS X existed at that time in the form of NexTStep.

Incidentally, the careful eye will note a lot of similarities between IRIX and NexTStep in their interfaces.

Re:Hmmmmm

[spitzak]

NeXT (I programmed these things in the 1980's) certainly supported drawing using PostScript paths, but all "icons" were tiff files. In fact they added a special tag to tiff to represent their 2-bit gray screen.

Until recently vector-based icons were way too slow. Except for the Irix ones, which were neceessarily quite simple. This simplicity did add to their appeal I think, though they never really put some good graphics designers on it.

KDE and Gnome and OS/X all render the vectors into pixmaps and then blast the pixmaps on the screen. OS/X certainly supports pixmaps and all the icons that appear to be airbrushed are bitmaps. They scale quickly and nicely because they have them carefully rendered at several resolutions and use mipmapping (the same technique your fancy graphics card uses for textures when it is in it's highest-quality mode) to scale.

Ignoring the drawing speed vector icons are much more efficient and take far less memory. In fact the earliest icons could be considered vector-based, they were drawn on vector screens by machines where 8K of memory was expensive.

Re:Hmmmmm

[PCM2]

Not sure what this is implying, but it seems to be a surprisingly common misconception that MacOSX has vector based artwork. Not so. GNOME can do, and I think KDE3.1 can as well, via SVG. MacOS icons though are just bitmaps in a variety of sizes, with some scaling/blending algorithms applied.

Actually, Apple had built support for QuickTime vector graphics even in Mac OS 9. I guess it depends on whether you consider QuickTime an integral part of the Mac OS.

Otherwise, though, you're wrong that Mac OS X doesn't support vector graphics. It does, as part of the Quartz graphics subsystem.

Re:Hmmmmm

[Jamie Zawinski]

The SGI desktop is of course based on a heavily modified commercial X Server. And here I will stop for a second, get a big breath and say: 'wow'. I have never seen an X server being so fast, on a 5-year old machine (no matter if this is an SGI machine or not).

I'd kind of expect this given that IRIX comes as a bundle with the hardware. When you choose the hardware as well as the software you can of course optimize the drivers a lot, so you will get good speeds out of it. XFree has to deal with a lot of different hardware, and the driver manufacturers are sometimes less than helpful.

That's an interesting theory, but it is easily refuted with one word: Solaris.

Sun has all those advantaged you mentioned, and their X server has consistently been the biggest piece of garbage to bear the name.

The fact is, SGI's X server is just really, really good. Don't minimize their accomplishment by assigning credit to captive hardware: it's really high quality software, plain and simple. In 8+ years of using it, I saw an Xlib client bring down the server maybe twice. That's pretty much an hourly occurence with a Sun server, until you learn what not to do.

Of course, some of the credit goes to SGI's graphics hardware, which has always been great.

For example, it is still impossible to find a combination of hardware and software for Linux that will let you mix visuals of multiple depths on the same screen (e.g., having one window be 24 bit TrueColor, and two others be 8-bit PseudoColor with different simultaniously installed colormaps) while still having acceleration turned on. (I need to do this kind of thing to properly debug various xscreensaver configurations.)

Since I switched from my SGI O2 to a Linux machine, I've been solving this problem by having two monitors, one running in 24 bit and one in 8 bit, and it's hard enough even getting that to work without crashing at random every couple of days. Unless I turn off acceleration, which makes my dual-1600MHz vintage-2002 Linux box do graphics at half the speed as my 200MHz vintage-1996 SGI O2.

SGI's X server rocks. I miss it dearly.

Re:Hmmmmm

[IamTheRealMike]

I didn't really mean to pooh pooh what the SGI team had done, though as I've never used their X server I can and will take your word for it that it's very good.

However just because Solaris has good hardware integration and a bad X server doesn't mean SGI don't get an advantage from matching hardware with software. They just focus on different areas: Solaris can do stuff like hotswapping CPUs at runtime (i think), so they concentrated mainly on high end server stuff. The advantages they get from hardware/software integration aren't graphical, they're server based. SGI just chose to focus a lot on their X server, which is definately cool, but considering the challenges the XFree team face I think they do a pretty good job too.

Oh and finally, XScreensaver rocks, I love it and use it all the time :) Though I think it could do with fewer mathematical savers and more eyecandy ones, like atlantis (my favourite).

Dual 195MHz machine?

[qurob]

SGI was very kind to send us in this dual Octane 2x195 Mhz MIPS machine accompanied with a 24" SGI-branded Trinitron monitor.

Otherwise, they would have had to shell out a whole $799.00 on eBay for one.

What did SGI do, pull one from the junk bin?

They should have sent some relatively modern hardware....

Re:Dual 195MHz machine?

[GigsVT]

But it Swings with performance!

We're gonna rock-tane!

Re:Dual 195MHz machine?

[ari_j]

You are aware of the difference between an Octane and an Octane 2? It's not just the little number. Although I'm not entirely certain on the specifics, I believe the Octane 2's bus architecture is significantly faster, and I'm almost certain that it would have been sent to these guys with a bit better graphics than the SSI.

However, given all the '5 years ago' references in the article, I wouldn't be surprised if they just screwed up and wrote Octane 2 where they just meant Octane. They sure didn't mix any system specifics in among all those incorrectly-used make-me-look-smarter words, like 'whilst'. Damn, do I hate people who don't use one-syllable words correctly.

Re:Dual 195MHz machine?

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

If you read the quote more closely, you'd see that it's not an Octane 2 system....it's a dual-CPU Octane. It has 2 195 MHz MIPS R10000 CPUs.

Re:Dual 195MHz machine?

[prefect42]

We've got a dual-225 IP30 R10000 1GB Ram box, and that's not even the slowest SGI we keep in service. It's not the shiniest of kit, sure, but it's still used in plenty of places.

I think it's worth remembering that Mhz means different things over in SGI land.

jh

Re:Dual 195MHz machine?

[commodoresloat]

I think it's worth remembering that Mhz means different things over in SGI land.

Yeah - it means "megaherz" as opposed to "inches of penis length" as it means here in slashdot-land.

Re:Dual 195MHz machine?

[Nachtfalke]

Heh, I have that CD at home, a nice customer service lady sent it, after asking what kind of music I was listening to in the hold queue.
There should be much more of this kind of stuff.

Re:Dual 195MHz machine?

[ari_j]

Ah - "Dual Octane 2x195 Mhz" is too redundant for my tastes, so I elided the 'x'.

IRIX is great

[schlpbch]

but, looking the terminal of the first screenshot, KDE is better (and a whole lot cheaper :) )

Re:IRIX is great

[/ASCII]

IRIX == Operating system
KDE == Desktop environment

Comparing the two is like comparing grapfruits to Volfram. One has a juicy pulp interior and the other has a truly remarkable melting point.

It should be noted that KDE runs under IRIX.

It may be the greatest, but I wouldn't know...

[DeepEyes78]

I went to SUNY-Fredonia and they had about 16 SGI O2's with IRIX running on them in the CompSci. lab. The machines looked pretty slick and they seemed like they'd be fun to use, but none of the faculty ever bothered to show us how to use them. (Or, for that matter, why we should use them when we had boatloads of Windows machines to do our work on.) A year after I graduated (in 2000), they were shoved in a storage closet somewhere to make room for more x86 machines running Windows (How ironic!)

(Sigh) What a waste...

Re:It may be the greatest, but I wouldn't know...

[gerbache]

A CS department working on Windows? Wow, I figured they'd at least be x86 running linux. My school's CS dept. runs evertything out of Sun Solaris boxes, and the Computer Engineering people run everything out of x86s with Linux. It kinda seems to make sense to me to teach students to develop on *nix, considering that it is one of the strongest platforms for software development and has so many tools freely available.

Re:It may be the greatest, but I wouldn't know...

[Anonymous Coward]

And why should they?

Because it is the computer sciences department of a University, and not a Microsoft Developers Workshop?

There are way more jobs not developing on Windows than there are developing for Windows.

Re:It may be the greatest, but I wouldn't know...

[Wildcat J]

Most software companies I know do their development in Windows (not necessarily using Microsoft tools, though).

Then you probably don't know enough software companies ;)

-J

Do something with IRIX?

[Highly Motivated Ano]

What exactly do you want SGI to do with IRIX? Put it in a box, shrinkwrap it, and make it run your overclocked AMD chip-of-the-week? Probably won't happen.

Since IRIX 6.5, SGI has continued its promise to release quarterly updates. Each release introduces changes to the feature and maintenance stream.

I guess I'm confused as to what your hopes for IRIX are.

I haven't read the OSNEWS.com article yet, but I hope it isn't one of those "OS review" articles where they look at the installer and give it a rating.

-David

Re:Do something with IRIX?

[jkovach]

Installer?

inst sucks. If you've ever tried installing Irix, you know what I mean. Inst is text-based and command-line driven. Older versions even had some undocumented magic words you had to type ("set delay_conflicts 1" or some such) or the install would fail. And if you have dependency conflicts, you can't tell it to just install all the packages to satisfy the dependencies. You have to tell it how to solve each individual problem by typing "conflicts 1a 2a 3b 4a 5b 6b 7b" or something similar. If they based the OS review on just the installer - or if they had to use the installer at all (they mention Irix came preloaded) - they probably would have said Irix is awful.

Re:Do something with IRIX?

[Highly Motivated Ano]

Exactly, a review of inst alone would not paint a good picture for IRIX.

open /CDROM/dist
install standard
keep *
go

Wouldn't know I was upgrading, would you? :)

My favorite is when you're resolving conflicts, they keep getting renumbered as you resolve each conflict. Argh!

-David

Re:Do something with IRIX?

[iangoldby]

Inst is text-based and command-line driven.

That's why most of us use the graphical version instead. It works well-enough. The only problem is when installing packages directly over the internet and a dependency package turns out to be needed too.

Re:Do something with IRIX?

[zrk]

Then you must Looooove the Solaris installer.

Re:Do something with IRIX?

[AragornSonOfArathorn]

Speaking of Solaris, why in the world are patches packaged as .jar files?? Sloooooooooow.....

Re:Do something with IRIX?

[netruner]

What exactly do you want SGI to do with IRIX? Put it in a box, shrinkwrap it, and make it run your overclocked AMD chip-of-the-week? Probably won't happen.

If SGI wants to be around in 5 years, that's exactly what they'll do. Word has it that SGI is going down the tubes. Graphics people have figured out that a PC based machine with a hot gaming graphics card de jour, a ton of ram and linux on it will do anything an SGI will do except one thing: crash your budget. SGI needs to re-evaluate its business model and realize who its competitors are.

My suggestion: take all the unique functions of Irix, port them into an SGI distro of Linux and throw the rest away. Make distros that will run on SGI, PC and Mac. Make PC-based machines (running the SGI distro of Linux) the bread and butter of SGI while keeping their house hardware for the niche markets. (a high-end SGI graphics card for PC's wouldn't hurt either)

whew- felt good to get that off my chest

Re:Do something with IRIX?

[jbolden]

Well first off SGI is huge in Linux and makes Linux workstations. For example they make the 64 way Itanium 2 Linux workstation that just got rated as the fastest system ever. What Linux doesn't do is run Irix apps.

As for your comment about PCs vs. SGI workstations I think you need to try expensive hardware before commenting. There really is a difference between what you get for $50k and what you get for $5k.

Re:Do something with IRIX?

[Van Halen]

The only problem is when installing packages directly over the internet and a dependency package turns out to be needed too.

Just download the tardist and add it as another distribution. freeware.sgi.com rocks. ;-)

Re:Do something with IRIX?

[Sabalon]

Hmmm....that is exactly not what the article was saying...about the 5 year old SGI blowing away the top of the line gamer card in open GL performance.

Re:Do something with IRIX?

[iangoldby]

That's what I do. As soon as the dependency tardist finishes downloading, it opens a new 'read-only' installer. I can get the file name of the tardist, and add this file in the live installer. A bit messy though, don't you think? Or is there an easier way?

Re:Do something with IRIX?

[abdulla]

And I have a lovely IRIX T-Shirt to show for it, 6.5.infinity. :)

Re:Do something with IRIX?

[Van Halen]

Hmm, that's about it. Would be nice if they could include an option for the installer to download from a web url, but I imagine they don't have the resources to throw at little details like that. I do have Mozilla configured to save tardist files to disk, so I can skip the step of opening a new installer.

It's the Hardware not the OS

[PegQuin]

IRIX is doomed. SGI needs to compete against the movement to replace expensive high end workstations with economical Intel based Linux clusters. Ask Lucas, they dumped a bunch of SGI opting for Linux. It's basic economics.

So where are all the AC's comments about X

[MeerCat]

... being completely unsuitable for 3D work ...

I'm not saying X can't be improved for the sort of things we want now out a display protocol that we didn't know we'd want 10 years ago, but you can still get excellent performance from it if you know what you're doing, and you try.

T

Re:So where are all the AC's comments about X

[br0ken by design]

but you can still get excellent performance from it if you know what you're doing, and you try.

...and if you use the SGI X server on SGI machines...

:wq

Re:So where are all the AC's comments about X

[MeerCat]

...and if you use the SGI X server on SGI machines...

True, but it still implies that the "architectural flaws" that everyone loves to bitch about are somehow missing from the SGI version. Funny that...

I still like X. If you don't mind debugging and profiling your X usage with xmon then you can get some excellent performance out of limited resources.

C-x C-c

I'm sure they've heard this before, but...

[sam_handelman]

IRIX Machines are huge in scientific computing.

However, since SGI announced that they wouldn't support IRIX anymore, everyone has concluded that they need to shift over to Linux machines.

Most people I know buy Dell machines. The cost savings is actually less of a concern for scientists (although it is an issue,) than keeping up with the state of the art.

If SGI released their IRIX source code, that would do a lot to help them recover their scientific market share; scientists would pay the extra money for SGI hardware if they aren't worried that support for the OS is going to evaporate entirely, and a Linux distro with lots of SGI-specific code imported from IRIX ought to fit that bill nicely. I'm a biologist, though, so maybe I'm missing something.

Re:I'm sure they've heard this before, but...

[lovebyte]

True, SGI is huge in scientific computing. But about 3 years ago, many scientific computing groups decided to stop using SGI (because SGI MIPS where not so fast, were too expensive and SGI itself seemed to be about to die) and move to Compaq alpha chips (for many applications they were the fastest chips, and by far). Ah! The same people are now puzzled about what to do or have gone to using Linux clusters.

Re:I'm sure they've heard this before, but...

[MarkTina]

SGI have announced that they're not supporting IRIX ??!?!? Since when ? Please provide a link to your source of information. And why should any company release for free the source code of their product ? They've put many years of effort into IRIX why should they release it to the great unwashed masses ? All (!) SGI have to do is get a good entry level system back into their range of workstations and price it to attract. Linux is OK but it always lives in BETA or ALPHA versions of everything, people start projects then give up when it gets to the boring bits like documentation or bug fixing, this is where "proper" commercial software wins, it's supported by people whose only job is to support that bit of software and things are documented so that if the lead programmer gets run over by a bus the project can continue. Regards Mark

Re:I'm sure they've heard this before, but...

[mysticbob]

However, since SGI announced that they wouldn't support IRIX anymore, everyone has concluded that they need to shift over to Linux machines.

false. sgi does and will continue to support irix, virtually forever. period. ask them if you don't believe me. or, even better, back up your claim with a press release, web page on sgi's site, etc. you will not find either, anywhere.

Re:I'm sure they've heard this before, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

"IRIX Machines are huge in scientific computing."

Well, they used to be, but are fading fast. At least in my area (Space systems operations, simulation & analysis).

Why?
- Their floating point performance sucks.
- PC graphics performance is now good enough for most applications.
- They are hugely expensive

2 years ago I ported a large astrodynamics simulation from Irix to Linux. Had a brand new Octane and a brand new dual PIII 700MHz running Redhat. I don't remember what chips the Octane had, but they were the best available at the time. And the Octane had twice the RAM.

This very floating point intensive simulation ran about 3x faster on the PC which cost about 10x less ($3K vs. ~$30K).

My boss just asked me if we should buy a service agreement for one of our older Octanes. $5K/year. I told him no. If it dies, we'll spend half that to upgrade to a faster Linux box.

Don't get me wrong. If you need the kind of huge bandwidth and massive multi-processing that higher end SGI's can give you, there is no question that SGI rocks. But at the workstation level, forget it.

And, FWIW, IRIX is absolutely the least stable Unix I've ever worked with. And I've worked with a few.

Re:I'm sure they've heard this before, but...

[Libor Vanek]

What exact projects do you mean? I don't know about any such a IMPORTANT project! Look: kernel, bash, Xfree, KDE, GNOME, Mozilla, GCC, GIMP, Samba, NFS, Apache, xinetd, PHP, Perl, Python, Java... should I talk more?

Yes - there are LOTs of abonned projects - but mainly that there is lack of users. And it's even better that such a projects are not lost - if you need it, you can continue where previous ppl stopped.

Re:I'm sure they've heard this before, but...

[MasterD]

On IA64, maybe, but SGI has no plans to put Linux on their MIPS based machines. More likely is that they will slowly replace the userland stuff with free stuff from the Free Software community and keep the IRIX kernel going.

Re:I'm sure they've heard this before, but...

[wwest4]

And, FWIW, IRIX is absolutely the least stable Unix I've ever worked with. And I've worked with a few.

Well that's just, like, your opinion man.

I've worked with more than a few Unices also. IRIX has been production-quality stable - as in easily-controlled updates, won't break down under high loads, multiple-year uptimes in production stable for compute or i/o applications.

Check yourself; blanket statements like the above make you sound like a poser, and it borders on trolling.

Re:I'm sure they've heard this before, but...

[daviddennis]

I believe that at about the time they proposed going to Windows NT systems, they produced a road map that had them pulling out of MIPS processors entirely, and phasing out Irix.

I love Irix, although I've switched most of my computing over to MacOS X nowadays. Irix does desperately need updating, but if you need X-Windows, Irix is by far the coolest implementation of same.

I'd like to see something a bit more up to date, at least with thinner window borders and a close-box. But compared to Linux as I've seen it, it does have first-rate usability. Compared to MacOS X, though, it's dropped way behind.

D

Re:I'm sure they've heard this before, but...

[fockewulf]

I used to run large scale molecular dynamics simulations, simulating binding of drug to protein among other stuff. We ran our simulations on a Origin 2000 cluster (this was about 3 yrs ago) and an AIX RS/6000 cluster and the Origins scaled up much better. They're still very good when comes to handling huge data flows and they cluster really well though they're a tad expensive compared to a PC cluster :) don't know how current pc clusters compare with the latest Origins.

If there only was...

[Antity]

If there only was some kind of free (as in beer, please don't stop reading, this is not supposed to start a flamewar :-)) IRIX distribution, maybe slimmed-down, so at least more people could get hands on it and actually try it out.

I mean: Many of us have read lots about IRIX, how it works neatly for graphics workstations etcpp., but how many of you actually were able to try it out?

IRIX could gain a huge boost in popularity if people could "try it at home" on cheap x86 hardware and then - maybe - convince people at work to buy it if it is ok for the job. Even a 30-day evaluation copy would be great.

IMHO, it was a great idea of Sun to give away SunOS/x86 for free for personal use. So I had the possibility of fiddling around with it at home and improve my work with Solaris at work.

Anyone out there providing ssh'd remote X access to an IRIX box so one could have a look?

Re:If there only was...

[danimal]

Anyone out there providing ssh'd remote X access to an IRIX box so one could have a look?

that won't do you any good. most of the GL stuff won't display back because of library incompatabilities. You also lack the groovy hardware to work the X magic.

We have lots of IRIX machines where I work (a computer animation studio). For interactive use, you can't beat the cheaper x86 based hardware, be it running Windows or Linux. We are going to be moving from IRIX to Linux because the machines cost too much and the support contracts are a nightmare of expense. The faster interactive work doesn't hurt the cause either.

Re:If there only was...

[siemce]

Irix could be huge if they finally add some futures that everybody else has been using for a looooong time; like LDAP support for example. They haven't done a single thing with that OS since 6.2 which was probably the most stable Irix.

Re:If there only was...

[Xpilot]

There'd need to an x86 IRIX first, and that would take some time and money to develop. And giving it away free simply to promote it doesn't really sound like a good strategy for SGI. If I remember correctly, SGI is facing hard times these days during the slump of the tech sector. Hollywood's growing usage of Linux clusters for rendering isn't helping either.

SGI machines are simply too expensive to be a commodity machine, and anyone who buys one already has some application or requirement that made the purchase necessary (not simply because he thought it was sort of fun to play with the free x86 version).

Re:If there only was...

[gmack]

"Anyone out there providing ssh'd remote X access to an IRIX box so one could have a look?"

Yeah any scientific intitution still running last year's IRIX.

Seriously though IRIX is very tied to the hardware and by the time they ported it to x86 they would have a mostly new OS.

SGI wants to go x86 but the best way for them seems to be just having their own engineers port the best IRIX features to Linux. SGI is still active on linux-kernel so they havn't changed their minds yet.

Re:If there only was...

[WWWWolf]

Anyone out there providing ssh'd remote X access to an IRIX box so one could have a look?

Um... frankly, the IRIX X clients are pretty nifty, but if you are not also seeing the Unbelieveable Sweetness That Is IRIX X Server, you're missing a lot. =)

Re:If there only was...

[MasterD]

There'd need to an x86 IRIX first, and that would take some time and money to develop.

There was an in house port of IRIX to x86 a few years ago. However, this project was abandoned when SGI decided to go the Linux route on commodity hardware. Since then, Linux has been the OS of choice even on their IA64 based NUMA machine. AFAIK, there has never been a port of IRIX to IA64.

Re:If there only was...

[axxackall]

I guess it will be much faster to complete the port of Linux to SGI/MIPS. By the time it will be done SGI will have same OS on both platforms, namely Linux :)

"The OS looks dated" - WTF?

[Gothmolly]

Recipe for technology article:
1 paragraph fluff
1 paragraph spin
1/2 cup FUD

Mix in HTML editor.
Publish.

Seriously, this article is light on details, and filled with inane comments like "the OS looks dated". While there were some good comments, half of the time it was gushing over the X server, or cheering over the fact that the author can run XMMS. What about performance? Applications? Hardware compatibility/expandibility? Talk to us about the box - does SGI/IRIX know about USB, for instance? FireWire?

Details please..

Re:"The OS looks dated" - WTF?

[revision1_1]

1 paragraph fluff
1 paragraph spin
1/2 cup FUD
[...]

PROFIT!

Re:"The OS looks dated" - WTF?

[jbolden]

Eugena who runs the website is really into interface design. The reviews always tend to be primarily about look and feel.

As for the rest of your hardware compatability you may be failing to understand that Irix is an in house OS. It supports the hardware you get from SGI, its not an open platform.

Re:"The OS looks dated" - WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Eugenia is a extremely vain person who qualifies her comments by referring to past comments she's made on other subjects.

Most of her reviews are crap.

OSNews is ok, but quickly becoming Eugenia's personal weblog -She tends to mod down anyone who offers opinions which disagree with her, and woe to those who might offer suggestions or constructive criticisms.

Some of the 3rd party articles and reviews are great, but Eugenia's quickly trashing what a couple of months ago was a site w/great potential.

Damn... I've gotta remember to bring my /. login info. to work...

In other SGI news:

[Sn4xx0r]

They just hired Jon "maddog" Hall to 'help SGI to sponsor and encourage a community-based "Extreme Linux" movement around SGI's NUMAFlex architecture.'

the obligatory, classic tagline...

[avel599]

Whip me, beat me, make me administer IRIX.

Re:the obligatory, classic tagline...

[Junta]

IIRC, I have only heard that with regard to AIX (rightfully so). We have Solaris, AIX, IRIX, HP-UX, Linux, and Solaris boxes, and I shudder when I have to mess with the AIX box.....

Re:the obligatory, classic tagline...

[/ASCII]

You said Solaris twice. And there was a comma between Linux and and.

Shame on you.

Re:the obligatory, classic tagline...

[be-fan]

Actually, its just a matter of personal preference whether you put the comma after the last item before the "and" in a list.

You're a pedant, stickler, and an ignoramus.

is as correct as

You're a pedant, stickler and an ignoramus.

Have SGI abandoned Iris?

[91degrees]

Many years ago when I jad a chance to play with an O2, I fell in love with the window manager. This article doesn't mention it at all. Has SGI given up with it?

Re:Have SGI abandoned Iris?

[shaunbaker]

are you joking, the last O2 i worked on made me want to run screaming back to Windows 3.1

Re:Have SGI abandoned Iris?

[fyonn]

I fell in love with the window manager. This article doesn't mention it at all.

well, ot be brutally honest, it does mention it, just says absolutely notihng about it, see:

"The window manager included on IRIX is the 4Dwm"

dave

Re:Have SGI abandoned Iris?

[irix]

The window manager is 4DWm. I have an (old...) screenshot of it running here. I also have a crappy screenshot of IRIX running Enlightenment here.

A lot of people don't like 4DWm, put compared to other desktops that *NIX vendors were/are shipping (CDE!) 4DWm rocks. I think that Gnome/KDE have surpassed it in some areas, but the IRIX system admin tools in the toolchest are still better than what Gnome or KDE ship. Of course, IRIX only has to run on SGI hardware :-)

X11 credit's where credit is due

[Diabolical]

This is a fine example that X11 is a good graphics-server.

Although alot of X11 bashing has been going on IRIX shows us that X11 is actually a very viable and capable graphics-server and certainly gives the finger to all those X11 implementations which have been done BAD.

So please, next time you go and blame your sucky graphics on X11, take a good look at the implementation of it in your system.

Re:X11 credit's where credit is due

[FooBarWidget]

XFree86/MetroX/AcceleratedX/FooBarX are X servers. X is just a specification.

Re:Mmmmkay...

[PegQuin]

It's an f'in pain in the ass. I doubt many of if any of da nerds have touched it. They see SGI on their pirate copy of the Monsters, Inc. DVD extras--that's as close as they get. "Gee, if I had one of them there Octanes, I'd finally be cool."

I wish I could get hold of it

[fyonn]

I've got an old sgi indigo2 currently with irix 6.3 on it and most of the freeware I've found seems to be for irix 6.5, so my sgi has been in the cupboard. I'd like to give it a go again but I want to get some decent tools on it (like ssh for example ;).

one day I'll get hold of a 6.5 set of cd's and then I'll have another go.

dave

Re:I wish I could get hold of it

[bmajik]

No you dont. Irix 6.3 was For O2's only. You're either running 5.x, 6.2, or 6.5 on your Indigo2. If its got the R8000 (power Indigo2) it might be running 6.01 or 6.1

Or, you have an O2, not an indigo2, in which case you're running 6.3 or 6.5

Re:I wish I could get hold of it

[fyonn]

no, I do :)

it's an 250mhz R4400 indigo2 and although I'm not really in a position to check, I've lent the monitor cable to a friend and I've not got an appropriate ps2 style serial adaptor. I've turned it on and I'm ping scanning to see if I can find what IP address I set it to but that might take a while... (just the 10/8 network ;)

however, the co I got it off only had one and they gave me the cd's with it and they are all 6.3 oh, 6.2 even, whoops, okay, maybe you're right :)

*sigh*

okay, point being, 6.2 ain't 6.5 which I want to get installed on it before I give it a serious play. however, no-one I know seems to have a copy that they might accidentally trip over and insert into a cd copier *ahem*

dave

Re:I wish I could get hold of it

[jkovach]

If you go to freeware.sgi.com, and click on More Freeware, there should be a link to the May 2001 freeware distribution, which was the last one that would run on Irix 6.2-6.4. I run a lot of stuff from that freeware set on my old Indy. If you'd rather run newer versions of things, you can get gcc from the freeware distribution, install it, then compile programs yourself. Only thing that I've found is that since SGI changed the interfaces to the audio library between 6.2 and 6.5, you'll have to hack the source to MP3 players to get them to compile.

Irix: What Linux wants to be when it grows up...

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple fact: Irix is elegant. The 4DWM is far superior to almost anything that you can put on linux ( poor 5DWM project went away.. it was the salvation) For the end user 4DWM was simple, uncomplicated, and most of all fast.. I personally have several IRIX boxen that I wouldn't trade in for anything. The installation of free software http://freeware.sgi.com couldn't be made easier. recompiling the kernel ( one command) and the fact that when I stick in a second display sub-system it automatically sets it up for me. True the machines are starting to show wear and age, and for the most current hardware you are paing a fortune, but if you NEED a ferrari you pay for a ferrari, you don't take a Yugo ( PC) and stick a ferrari logo on it... There is the whole fact that IRIX is expensive, but you do pay for what you get. I can effectively use a R4000 or R4400 with the latest version of IRIX, and it runs just fine. Try that with a stock install of Linux on a machine that is 6 or 7 years old, you won't be happy.

You're an idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

IRIX could gain a huge boost in popularity if people could "try it at home" on cheap x86 hardware

So you think that SGI should spend huge amounts of money and development time porting IRIX to x86, and then give it away free, simply so that you can "try it out at home"?

Are you aware of the fact that IRIX does not run on x86 hardware? Are you aware of the fact that SGI will be moving to Linux on IA-64 in the future, rather than attempting to port IRIX to the IA-64? Do you, in fact, have any idea of how much work it would be to port IRIX to anything other than MIPS?

No? Didn't think so.

Re: You're an idiot

[Antity]

First: Many thanks for choosing such an appropriate Subject for your reply. Philosopher, uh?

So you think that SGI should spend huge amounts of money and development time porting IRIX to x86, and then give it away free, simply so that you can "try it out at home"?

Yes. But you don't seem to understand what "try it out at home" means. It would be quite a boost for the amount of people that know about the OS.

One reason that many people know how to use/program/manage Linux by now is not that it is Open Source. It's because they can get it cheap and fiddle around with it at home. This enlarges the market for Linux admins, programmers, ... You name it.

Are you aware of the fact that IRIX does not run on x86 hardware?

Sure. And I was also sure that this was a widely-known fact.

Are you aware of the fact that SGI will be moving to Linux on IA-64 in the future, rather than attempting to port IRIX to the IA-64?

Yes. Although I think that IA-64 will not be that important at all. There's no need for graphics workstations to run on 64 bit CPUs at all. 64bit file I/O can be done nicely with any 32 bit CPU. I can't think of any other applications of 64 bit CPUs there.

Do you, in fact, have any idea of how much work it would be to port IRIX to anything other than MIPS?

Seriously, I don't care. I was pointing out that offering a cheap evaluation copy of IRIX for cheap hardware could boost sales for IRIX powered equipment quite a bit. I was not suggesting that this should be done even if their departments don't have the money to do it.

There's a difference between "What would be a good thing we could do to help our product?" and "Are we able to fund it?", as you might as well know. But there's no reason not to point it out.

No? Didn't think so.

Please excuse if I won't comment on that.

Re: You're an idiot

[wackysootroom]

One reason that many people know how to use/program/manage Linux by now is not that it is Open Source.

How do you know this? If Linux was not open source, kernel development and source auditing by programmers around the world would not be possible.

Really, if you ask alot of the early kernel developers, I think that they would tell you that the reason that linux is so popular today is that it is completely open source. If Linux was made closed source, IMHO the project would have never left the stack of floppies on Linus' desk.

If open source does not matter, then why isn't everyone using Sun's free version of Solaris X86? Solaris is a fine, enterprise-quality OS, but the free version does not have the popularity that Linux enjoys. If you are correct about giving software away for free, then why arent there more stories on /. about Solaris x86?

Re: You're an idiot

[eggnet]

This side thread is irrelevant. SGI doesn't make 32 bit computers that run IRIX anymore.

Re:Mmmmkay...

[uncleFester]

Seriously, IRIX is about as stable as Windows 95. Have you ever used it?

I think it depends on your point of reference. When I worked as a student Unix lab luser, we just acquired a bunch of Indigos with 4.0.5f, and it seems fairly stable compared to what we were running in the lab before (HP diskless workstations (not even SWAP local.. don't ask)). If anything would happen, it typically would be a graphics hang curable with the Vulcan Death Grip.

The last job had a handful of systems (an Origin and a few Octanes): one Octane had semi-frequent graphics hangs but I think that was hardware on its way out. The other Octanes never had problems... and this was running typically pissey software (HKS Abaqus, PATRAN, ANSYS, ProE), either locally or over X/network (again, don't ask). These were systems running 6.5.x (all were at .15 when I was laid off).

My biggest beef with IRIX was the piss-poor default security. 4.0.x releases were HORRIBLE: things have become better in time but SGI's security for these boxes is still kinda shoddy at best. And with cheaper PC graphics hardware (or cheaper workstation-level graphics like HP's fx cards) SGI can no longer rest on their 'visualization' laurels.

.. but I do love the fact I own an Indigo2 now. :)

-fester

Re:Mmmmkay...

[Tim Browse]

It _is_ better than windows, and if it was unstable for you, you have to look at your own skills...

I'm sorry - did you say that out loud?

You have to be skilled with an OS for it not to crash?!

Sheesh. Kidding, right? Or just trolling?

Tim

IRIX isn't what killed SGI for us.

[nutznboltz]

What killed SGI for us was their hideous treatment of customers. We had some SGI boxes with 10-Base T as web servers in the past. When we went to look at a 100-Base T card we discovered that all SGI wanted to do was to sell us new boxes. They priced then network card around $6000.

Re:IRIX isn't what killed SGI for us.

[bmajik]

Well, i dont blame them. The 100mbit cards for the machines that didn't ship with 10/100 were expensive and SHITTY. For instance, for the indigo2, you could get an EISA phobos ethernet card which is basically a 3c597 with a different rom. This was spendy and you would never saturate the 100mbit card and it would generate a crapload of interrupts (slam cpu utilization).

Similar story for SGI Indy/Challenge S. The 100mbit workstation cards were 3rd party, spendy, and not so hot.

you could get SGI labeled 100mbit cards for the VME boxes (Challenge DM, for isntance) that worked pretty well.

I Actually Found the Article Quite Bad

[RAMMS EIN]

I read the article, but didn't bother to submit a story to /. because I found the article quite bad. IRIX may be quite good, but the author is all enthusiastic about features that I wouldn't think great wins myself. OK, you might dismiss this as a difference in taste, but I still think the author could look around a little more.

``The Guest account has quite some privillages by default, I was even able to install software, for example some KDE libraries and applications, so it was good enough to keep me going.''
It sounds like the author applauds this. Think about it, though. Would you really have Natalie Netuser log in to your box and have her install her own software? Apart from the security issues (which might not be there...I don't know exactly what kind of software you can or can't install), I think you'd better order that new hard drive already.

``The great thing about IRIX is that a lot of open source applications have been ported over to the proprierty X11 of IRIX''
Right. So IRIX is great because it can run all those open source apps that were developed with Linux and BSD in mind? OK, this might make IRIX better than some other proprietary OSen, but that doesn't necessarily make it great.

``X just works''
Yes, and so it would on Linux if the OS came preinstalled and tailored to the machine you ordered. That's not a feature of IRIX, it's the logical result of writing software for specific hardware (which, IMHO, shouldn't be necessary - standards should take care of that).

``Because there is one IRIX, one company behind it, and very specific versions, there are virtually no dependancy problems. Installations just work.''
Because there is one RedHat Linux | Windows | Mac OS, one monopoly behind it, ...
I mean, this sort of Just Works (WOW) goes against flexibility and freedom of choice. I don't know about IRIX, but I know that RedHat's packaging system gets confused when you install software via other means. Windows is a disaster (install from _what_ source?), and Apple is getting it right with OS X. ports rules!

``The window manager included on IRIX is the 4Dwm, while the toolkit used is the king of the Unix toolkits, Motif.''
I don't like 4Dwm, but I can see why others would. But Motif the king of Unix toolkits? Come on, speak for yourself, man. I don't even have Motif installed. All apps I use are either console or GTK, and there are a number of apps that would be cool to have, but not really worth installing Qt for. Motif _was_ king, yes, but it's reign is over.

---
Timeout error: Operator fell asleep while waiting for NT to complete boot sequence

Issues...

[Anonymous Coward]

Irix is based on System V, it is nothing LIKE bsd... Irix's 64-bit'edness is dependent on the hardware that one runs it on, and porting recent opensource apps to it (at least 6.5.13 and back) can be quite a chore.

That said, it *IS* a wonderful OS. I have been an Irix user at home for over five years (has it been that long???) and overall since 4.0.5 back in my undergrad years (EH GADS, IT HAS BEEN THAT LONG!).

-johnny
http://www.martnet.com/~johnny

PS: As a side note, Irix has had it's fair share of security issues, but security is not SGI's primary focus... So it's somewhat understandable.

Re:Issues...

[Dave9876]

4.0.5 back in my undergrad years (EH GADS, IT HAS BEEN THAT LONG!).

Don't knock irix 4.0...I have box in the corner that I power up every so often for that irix 4 fix (even has copyright dates from 1991) :o)

Then again, it is a PI 4D/20, wouldn't expect it to have something more recent than that on it (12.5MHz of R3000A goodness).

Then there's the Indy running 5.3, but I don't even have any boxes with 6.? on them yet (damn it, I want my octane).

A benchmark story

[killraven]

A lot of people are asking about benchmarks and complaining about how MIPS sucks on SpecFP tests and stuff. So I thought I'd offer a quick test I ran for the company a worked for when we where deciding whether to go Intel or SGI for compositing. We ran this test on a highend dual proc x86 workstation and a middle of the road single proc Octane2 (I don't remember the exact specs any more, but I do recall we had the same amount of RAM, 1.5 gigs, in both machines, so there was no advantage there).

Anyway we ran two tests, one comping 8 bit video res. footage and some relativly simple effects, and one comping 16 bit film res footage with a number of heavy effects. On the video res stuff the x86 work station convincingly beat the Octane2 every time. However on the film res stuff the Octane2 totaly left the x86 machine in the dust, it wasn't even close.

So basically, unless you have really heavy loads an sgi workstation won't really shine and you're probably better off with an x86 box. However once the load starts to seriously increas the x86 archetcture simply cannot keep up and that's when the sgi boxes really start to show off. It just doesn't matter how fast you CPU is if your machine cannot shuffle data to and from it quickly enough,

Irix is painful and unpleasant

[Montressor]

IRIX might have enterprise-level performance, but it suffers enormously in the usability department. I work in a lab where IRIX is standard, because 64-bit memory addressing and extreme graphics performance using ImageVision is a must. However, I keep running into issues with the development tools. Most impotantly, SGI's cc (c compiler) is slow and hard to customize flags on, especially for debugging. Furthermore, frequently, if my program commits a memory fault, it receives a SIGKILL rather than a segfault which makes it very difficult to debug (this usually happens if the malloc pool gets corrupted or while using ImageVision).

The ImageVision library (an OpenGL-based image processing system) hsa great performance and features. However, it refuses to link with programs not built with cc (thus, no gcc!). Furthermore, programs that seem to follow spec mysteriously die with a SIGKILL during deallocation. I certainly realise that I might be doing something wrong in the way I call the library, but it does not provide any error
message, exception, or fault.

Finally, IRIX standard header files are a colossal mess and almost impossible to use. Standard C and C++ objects are casually redefined throughout the header structure.

Re:Irix is painful and unpleasant

[1000StonedMonkeys]

There's no excuse for programs getting a SIGKILL instead of a segfault, but if you think you're running into memory problems I would suggest using some sort of malloc debugger.

I use Electric Fence on linux, and have been rather happy with it. I've never tried it on SGI, but I think it would work.

Re:Irix is painful and unpleasant

[fockewulf]

It also has some weird issues with SIGCHLD and waitpid(). If you have a signal handler for SIGCHLD in your program, waitpid never gets the status of the child process. It has far too many quirks of it's own which makes porting to IRIX a royal pain.

Re:Why is SGI not switching to FreeBSD ?

[zentec]

"first crash-resistant, high-performance file system "

Possibly, but you won't beat XFS for its high performance file system. Period. End of discussion.

XFS cleanly handles files that would choke your beloved BSD.

Moreso, it's *POSIX* compliant. But then, the BSD crowd never did care about POSIX.

/me likes the IRIX interface

[thesadmac]

I aquired a ye olde Indy from my Uni for about 30 quid a year back and was quite taken by the interface; I spent a fair amount of time getting my Linux/KDE to look exactly like it. I hope if SGI goes Linux that maybe they'll port their window manager over. That'd be nice of them.

Yea...that desktop looks real nice...

[blakespot]

Vector based graphics -- indeed they beat OS X to it. And how...nice...that desktop looks. Hrmmmmm. Umm--it seems more vanilla basic than even Windows 95.

I'll stick with OS X. Hell, it's father NEXTSTEP was out in '88 and had a slicker interface....

blakespot

Sour taste..

[robbo]

I still have a sour taste in my mouth from attempting the 6.2 to 6.5 migration several years ago. It was right about that time that our lab pretty much gave up on spending oodles of cash on O2 and Octane workstations and moved to low-cost pc's running linux. We haven't looked back since, and the fundamental differences (apart from price), were the benefits of having an open-source system, the GNU development tools, and the much easier to use package managers like apt and rpm versus the old SGI package manager whose name now escapes me. I must admit, clunky though it was, the Irix package manager did allow for rollbacks, something lacking in rpm or apt.

All that being said, we still have a few Indy's kicking around, and some people actually still use them!

Re:Mmmmkay...

[Anonymous Coward]

That might be the most unintelligent post ever made on Slashdot. What a great advertising campaign that would be for a campaign. Please don't use our product if you are not a certified expert in using our product. I have found it to be just the opposite. It is hard to crash a box from just using it (except maybe Windows 9X) but it is easy to crash when you think you are an expert and start twiddling where your thumbs don't belong.

No more Eugenia, please

[BurritoWarrior]

All of her (his? its?) articles are completely myopic, focusing on "how nice/useable" is this as a desktop.

Evaluating Irix on its UI alone is completely useless.

Re:No more Eugenia, please

[be-fan]

Congratulations on failing to miss the point completely. She wasn't trying to do a review of IRIX as a server or workstation OS (which would logically be what you'd expect from an IRIX review). Her line of interest is in GUI/desktop usability, and she found it interesting to take a look at an OS that most people don't get to use, from a different perspective. It's not an evaluation of IRIX, but rather a look at it from her own particular field of interest.

Re:No more Eugenia, please

[BurritoWarrior]

I see. So, if I have an interest in farming, it would be OK (and somehow useful) for me to do a review on whether or not a Corvette makes a good tool for plowing.

What is the logic for evaluating the desktop/gui of something that isn't designed for such, and therefore, logically, does not have much emphasis or time dedicated to it?

In order for a review of something to be useful, it should focus on what the tool is designed to do, not what your "interest" is.

Re:No more Eugenia, please

[be-fan]

The "review" isn't meant to be useful in that sense. OSNews isn't, and doesn't claim to be, a site you go to to research and impending purchase. It's meant to be entertaining, to expose the OSNews readership to something they don't see everyday. It gives a little perspective on where the desktop OSs that people use everyday (Linux, Windows and MacOS) stand in relation to workstation OSs like IRIX. It's a computer-interest piece. And note, it's an "Introduction to IRIX." The word "review" doesn't appear in either the OSNews article OR the Slashdot post.

Re:No more Eugenia, please

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually a site for Eugenia to show how great she is, and for her to reference her other myopic posts. It's not a well-balanced look at anything, unless it's one of the rare 3rd party reviews she deems worth to sit alongside her personal reviews.

At least it appears to be going in that direction rather quickly. :(

usb and firewire

[green pizza]

The newest SGIs support USB and a few (maybe just O3K?) have firewire. On the big iron, USB has been a *really* nice upgrade from PS/2, especially on machines configured with multiple graphics pipes and multiple users. Rather than installing extra BaseIO modules for additional PS/2 hookups for additional users, you can now just plug in as many keys/mice as you'd like, bind each set to a certain number of graphics pipes. Helps us keep our Onyx 3800 flexible... most of the time it's running each of its three graphics pipes seperately... we have a config that'll drive three sets of keys/mice for three users, one graphics pipe driving two monitors per user. But when we need the power, we have one user driving all three pipes on a single multi-projector panoram screen. It's not totally plug and play, but it's a lot easier than it used to be.

Re:usb and firewire

[prefect42]

We've got a 3400 with 4 displays hooked, four kbd/mice. Plug that with some range extenders, and touch screen LCD config panels (that simply go into a serial port on the onxy and flip the keyboards/mice/X servers on demand) and you've got quite a nice setup.

We've got USB interface devices and Firewire CDROM.

Instead of the panoramic display, it's holobench time... ;)

bits per component

[green pizza]

Maybe you should clarify that you're talking about 8 bit and 16 bit *per component* not per pixel. 48 bit per pixel color and heavy lifting has been an SGI MIPS/IRIX strong point for a long time. Some folks use the 18 wheeler analogy... a high-RPM sports car will beat a big diesel 18 wheeler in a drag race... unless each is pulling a 60 ton trailer.

Irix and Gnome

[wowbagger]

I'm running Irix 6.5.16 at home on my Indy, and I also installed the build of Gnome that SGI has made for Irix (because I HATE 4dwm!)

I just wish that SGI would make an up2date/Red Carpet like system for Irix, especially for the Gnome stuff - in the build I have, things like the pager applet don't work (which is a BIG pain - no virtual desktops!).

Also, supposedly Irix now supports IMP/S2 style mice (i.e. with a wheel) - but I have not been able to get it working on my system.

I'd put Linux on my Indy in a heartbeat IF the support for all the A/V systems was there....

for all of you unlucky souls

[paradesign]

who will never have the chance to use an SGI, you are missing out. We recently(6 mos) received new octane 2s at work to run a high end modeler on( Alias|wavefronts studiotools). using it on a $30,000 SGI is lightyears ahead of using it on a dual proc dell with a fire gl card. the dual mips r1400's put pc chips to shame. they only run at like 300mhz, but GOD DAMN!

so all of you fan boys who say "oh my $900 dollar linux boxen is as good" can shut the hell up cause you have obviously never layed your hands on a real workstation.

if i could afford the price tag, there would be no way that i would even consider buying a mac or a pc, i would go straight to SGI, and im seriously thinking about taking out a loan for an SGI fuel.

but anyways, relevent links are here
sgi octane 2
sgi fuel
studiotools

Re:for all of you unlucky souls

[Billly Gates]

Funny how the guys at pixar who use studiotools as well as render disagree.

Re:for all of you unlucky souls

[Billly Gates]

oops renderman

Re:Mmmmkay...

[jbrocklin]

Yes, I have used it...for several years, first doing perl develoment, and then doing development on a high-end CAD/CAM/CAE package. I loved working with IRIX on my Indigo 2 - it was very fast even though it was quite dated compared to modern intel boxes. The machines themselves were very stable and rugged too - the SGI technician used to joke that you could toss them out of the back of a moving truck and the would keep runing :) Unfortunately, they don't hold up too well when your basement floods while its running :(

--Joe

But he's right.

[Wakko Warner]

Do you, in fact, have any idea of how much work it would be to port IRIX to anything other than MIPS?

Seriously, I don't care. I was pointing out that offering a cheap evaluation copy of IRIX for cheap hardware could boost sales for IRIX powered equipment quite a bit. I was not suggesting that this should be done even if their departments don't have the money to do it.

So you think SGI, a company who does nothing but bleed money, should drop what they're doing and pay a dozen or so programmers' salaries for a year or two to get a semi-working version of IRIX for "cheap [x86] hardware" simply because you think it might boost sales of machines whose base price is about $6000?

You're either an idiot or you're on crack.

- A.P.

IRIX's visual appeal

[nenolod]

IRIX doesnt look very good. This is version 6.5, you would at least expect a nicer desktop than what you get. I am aware that KDE and GNOME/Sawfish can be installed, but that's a pain. They should scrap this release, completely rework IRIX and release it as IRIX 7.0, as IRIX is starting to grasp obsolescence, even though the switch to XFS was a good move for IRIX.

Re:IRIX's visual appeal

[Laplace]

People want to do work on an IRIX. If they wanted a fancy pants desktop with no functionality they would go with a Windows or a Mac machine. IRIX is best at doing graphics processing, and there is no reason to waste that processing power on purty desktops. Hence the description "workstation" instead of "desktop."

At work I use a dual P3 933 running pwm. At home, an iBook with OS X. It's called using the right tool for the job, you nitwit.

Re:IRIX's visual appeal

[be-fan]

A pretty desktop doesn't necessarily require more power, just some taste. The IRIX color scheme, for one, is horrid. Then take the check-marks on the boxes. Really ugly. It would cost 0% performance to use a nicer looking checkmark. A bitmap is a bitmap, and an ugly one doesn't blit any faster than a nice-looking one.

We Need to Clear Up a Few Things.

[Izang]

Anyone can upgrade to 6.5.17 if you have the 6.5 base CDs. You can download the 6.5.17 overlays from the maintenance stream at SGI. If you want a more automated update with updated applications then you need to subscribe to the feature stream. To subscribe to the feature stream you will need to buy a copy of IRIX from SGI. Last time I checked the price it was about $600 down from $1200 from several years ago.

Re:"The OS looks dated"

[iangoldby]

The most significant thing about this article is that it could have been written 4 years ago.

multimedia?

[Jacek Poplawski]

How can I watch movies on IRIX? Which formats? What about nonlinear video editing?

Re:multimedia?

[SilentTristero]

I presume you're kidding about the video editing part. SGI's largest OEM outside the government is, I believe, Discreet, probably the most popular high-end nonlinear editing/compositing/effects packages in the industry.

Pretty much any FX movie you watch anywhere was at least partially made on a Discreet, and thus on IRIX.

Now as for watching your DVDs, well... Octanes are not really desktop machines. :-)

Re:multimedia?

[nurble]

apple won't license new quicktime code to SGI, or anybody other than microsoft, for that matter. and microsoft sure as hell isn't going to license windows media to a Unix vendor. so you're stuck with Quicktime implementation from 1996. sorry.

SGI still rules on installations

[zrk]

I preface this with the fact that I haven't worked with Solaris 9 yet.

If you want to do a custom installation of the OS, Sun's OS installer for version 8 IS HORRIBLE. I changed jobs three years ago, and I moved from a predominantly SGI environment to one that's predominantly Solaris.

The OS installation tools for IRIX three years ago still are BETTER than what Sun currently offers up in Solaris 8 TODAY. What's there is putrid and annoying. The IRIX installation allowed you to select packages based on package names and wildcarding, whereas Sun uses a number-based scheme, and the numbers change from monthly release to monthly release. IT SUCKS!!!!!!

We do a lot of customized OS installations (the most minimal core OS, plus some additional packages) for security reasons, and we don't have enough common system types to make the Solaris automated installation worthwhile.

I wish Solaris would join the 21st century in this regard.

Re:SGI still rules on installations

[Mister G]

3 words for you sparky: custom jumpstart install.

enough said.

Re:Mmmmkay...

[habig]

Seriously, IRIX is about as stable as Windows 95. Have you ever used it? Or just lusted after the hardware, nerd-boys?
Yep, used it more than a bit. A wide variety of workstations, from the very old to brand new, with a central 4-CPU Origin system serving most of the disk space and batch CPU cycles. With the exception of one creaky old Indy-2 box (which locked up every few months for no apparent reason), these machines would get rebooted only to upgrade the OS to the next release. Case in point: At my son's first birthday, I went back to check out the new baby pictures I had whipped together on a Zope server back when he as born. The same Zope process was still running! (I'd started it manually, not through init.d stuff, as it was a temporary thing to appease the relatives)
And that's with a building full of high-energy particle physicists doing lots of data crunching, although for CPU-years of time we'd send jobs upstairs to the O2000 massively parallel SGI (which is a whole 'nother plane of coolness).
So, have YOU ever actually used irix, flame-boy?

Desktop usability

[Door-opening Fascist]

The writer of the article mentioned desktop usability. The desktop that was displayed looked like TWM, and I can understand the concerns. But it's a Unix for cryin' out loud! If you don't like something there are at least half a dozen replacements for it. I'm sure XFce would compile on it, which is my favorite. If not, take a look at Window Manager for X for all the X window manager known to Unix.

Re:Why is SGI not switching to FreeBSD ?

[fgodfrey]

How on earth did this comment get moderated "insightful"?!?! I'm not really sure where to start here:

crash-resistant, high-performance file system. Ever heard of "XFS"??? It's journaled and has been around almost longer than the FreeBSD project.

First multithreaded kernel: Um.... Right... Multithreaded kernels have been around for probably a decade if not more. FreeBSD is hardly the first. Irix has had kernel threads for ages. The first reference I can find to them is in '95 (and I suspect they have been around longer than that) when FreeBSD didn't even run on multiprocessor systems.

First "compact" kernel: What is a "compact" kernel? The FreeBSD kernel is a monolithic BSD kernel. Irix is a monolithic System V kernel. Even Linux is a monolithic kernel (of Linus + other's design). Microkernels haven't lived up to their initial hype (though MacOS X uses one), but neither they nor monolithic kernels are "obsolete".

Now don't get me wrong, FreeBSD is a great OS. I have run it in the past and regularly use it. But it doesn't run on 1024 processors, have multiple tens of terabytes of storage in a single filesystem, and manage a terabyte of RAM. It's not designed for that. Irix is.

IRIX is SVR4, not BSD based.

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Minor quibble, but it mentions it's different than Linux because it's UCB BSD based. It's not (well, it is up to teh point that SVR4 took a lot of BSDisms) but it's SVR4 machine. Linux distros generally take a bit from classic BSD, a bit from SVR4, and a bit of whatevehell else they want, so they're all a bit different.

How many new bugs?

[jholzer]

Everytime we try to upgrade Irix we just find more and more bugs. We currently use 6.5.12 and if we try to go any higher our applications start breaking. Upgrading to 6.5.16 broke xemacs for us even. Then we just get a run around for weeks when we report the bugs and they are always "fixed" in the new version but never are.
--
Disgruntled SGI Customer

All together now...

[Ed Avis]

'This is a Unix system. I know this.'

Re:All together now...

[WWWWolf]

'This is a Unix system. I know this.'

Yeah, except that I heard fsn no longer runs in new SGI stuff. Pity. =/ Well, there's always fsv, and I think it's a better program anyway...

eeet's not true!

[Keith Maniac]

Package management on IRIX is great, but there's nothing wrong with Solaris. Custom installations with Solaris Jumpstart are extremely easy and flexible.

I'm not sure where your number-based package scheme is coming from, because I've not seen any such thing in Solaris (2.5 to 9). You may be confusing patches (which are numbered xxxxxx-yy), with packages (mostly SUNWxxxx).

With the Flash Archives and LiveUpgrade stuff that's been quietly appearing in the later revisions of Solaris 8, it's as good or better than anyone else's installation scheme. Furthermore, you'll have much better control, documentation, and repeatability using automated hands-off Solaris systems. I simply won't do Solaris installs of the CD any more.

Use the tools that are there, they'll make your life much easier.

Re:eeet's not true!

[zrk]

From your message, it's obvious you've haven't recently done a commandline OS install and done chose to customize the software packages from CD.

I'm not confusing anything. Did you read what I wrote? I mentioned automated installs are not for us (security is a principal concern), so no Jumpstart and no live upgrades, for security reasons.

Re:eeet's not true!

[Keith Maniac]

You're absolutely right, I haven't done one from the commandline in quite some time. Why would I?

You mention that "security" is your goal? What are your security concerns over doing Jumpstart installs? Or LiveUpgrade, for that matter? If you don't want the risk of net booting, you can burn custom JumpStart CDs, which will do the install to *your specifications*, and can be reused. I'd hate to see how you customize packages from the commandline. Are you sure you got that right? Did you leave one out? What about the last server? Is it the same?

For "security" purposes, you should be all over Jumpstart (with or without net boots, depending on the situation). There isn't a better way to ensure correct, repeatable, known configurations.

If you're really concerned about matching packages and patches for a completely known installation, go with Flash Archives. They're faster, too.

I fail to see how automation can possibly reduce security for you, and see quite the reverse. I pity anyone who tries to install a custom Solaris by hand, because no sane person does that. Not even Sun, insane as they may be in other things. They've developed better ways to install their OS, which you won't use because of some perceived "security" hangup. Please explain.

Re:eeet's not true!

[x0]

I was considerating moderating you down, but I feel a response is more in order.

I can tell from reading your post that it is unlikely you have anyone there with any real Solaris skills, let alone any knowledgeable Jumpstart admins.

An automated install is really the only way to ensure that all of your systems meet the standards your Unix engineering group publishes. (You do have standards ...don't you?) There is literally nothing that connot be configured, added or deleted from the install from within the Jumpstart profile. Need more atomic customization? Use a finish or post-install script. Want tighter security? Use the JASS finish scripts.

Everything from the way root is sliced to the installation of third party applications can be handled by Jumpstart. In an environment with over 300 servers, manual installation is not an option. Working for a government facility, poor security is not an option. Using Jumpstart does not preclude having proper security if you know what you are doing.

As for Live Upgrade; I have used LU to upgrade nearly 80 servers here, 16 of which were Sun Cluster 2.2/Oracle servers. Other that re-configuring any new packages which might be different from those of the older OS, LU does not change existing configuration files. Properly scripted, LU just works.

Re:eeet's not true!

[zrk]

Whoa there. If you take the ability to use Jumpstart out of your reaction and what are you left with? Please step away from the pulpit, please.

Jumpstart is currently verboten in my environment. It was not my choice, so I have to accept it as part of job. Believe me, I would if I could. It's not always fun to work with one hand tied behind my back.

Aside from that, we have a fully documented installation procedure, and yes, some people might even call it having standards. SPMBE (it's name) is a way of life around here.

We also clone systems that perform similar functions, so it's not too bad.

Re:eeet's not true!

[Keith Maniac]

So you've blasted Sun for not moving into the 21st century, but then admitted that you're simply not allowed to use their next-generation tools? Ouch.

It sounds like an education issue at your place of business (not necessarily *your* education).

Most people hear "Jumpstart" and think "net-boots". That's simply not the whole story. As you may know, no network is required to do a hands-off custom install (still with the confusing name Jumpstart). Burn CD, pop in drive, watch system install and configure itself.

Is Jumpstart as a product banned by name? Is it a corporate policy that all installs must be done by hand? I'd work on reversing *those* decisions, while keeping in mind the valid security concerns (no network traffic during installs, for example).

At any rate Sun is not the source of your problems. They have better installation methods, but you seem to be screwed. Sorry, man.

Re:eeet's not true!

[zrk]

Ok, I get your point, but why provide the tools if you want people to use other methods?

I wish Sun would make the available installation procedure easier. Even if I had jumpstart, I would have to go through this pain at least once per server type/configuration, no?

Re:eeet's not true!

[Keith Maniac]

Not really.

Jumpstart profiles are really just high-level installation scripts. They work on nearly every server type without modification. You have to do the legwork once (which I'm sure you've done) to figure out which packages you really want to install. If you're using core Solaris (SUNWCreq), then adding packages, you already have your profile almost written.

I do nearly all of my installs from two profiles. One uses the developer Solaris package (machines which need X and header files), and one uses minimum (+ some essential packages). Sun and I differ on quite what "minimum" really means, though.

These two profiles (+ the JASS package and a few custom finish scripts) are good enough to give me a standard, secure, repeatable system configuration. At this job, I've used them without modification for everything from an Ultra 2 to a SunFire 3800.

The magic is still in the installer, but Jumpstart profiles let you tell it what to do. The hard part is coming up with standard policies for installs, which you seem to already have a book of. Translating that to Jumpstart profiles would save you many hours on *every* install.

Flash Archives may be even better for your purposes, because then you can archive a complete installation as a large install file, and clone it at your leisure. It also reconfigures for you based on the sysidcfg stuff, so you don't have to mess with changing hostnames by hand.

Sun Blueprints publishes an excellent (recent) book on Jumpstart, and most of that is available in the original papers on www.sun.com/blueprints

I wanted to put in a short profile, but the lameness filter choked on the "#" comments. Examples can be found in Blueprints, though.

Installations don't have to suck...

inst works for me

[NTSwerver]

I use inst daily, I don't have a problem with it. If you're getting so many conflicts then maybe you're not doing it right (maybe you forgot to read a package?). The most common cause of getting loads of 'conflicts' when installing IRIX is forgetting to read the 'unbundled' distribution, which is usually on the last Overlays CD (on Overlays 3 of 4 with 6.5.16).

wrong...

[halfelven]

2x195MHz MIPS you're saying is the same thing as a 400MHz Intel? :-) That's ridiculous.
First off, MIPS is 64 bit, so the dual CPU is more like a 800MHz Intel.
Second, MIPS has a huge cache, like 2MB or so. Intels have tiny caches.
Third, SGI architecture has a huge internal bandwidth. Intel comes nowhere near that.

Re:wrong...

[Paul Jakma]

Well, actually, you're wrong.

"SGI architecture has a huge internal bandwidth. Intel comes nowhere near that."

This unfortunately is no longer true. As with many things related to SGI vs Intel performance it was true about 6 years ago and SGI have rested on their laurels since then while PCs have progressed and progressed.

5/6 years ago PCs were using 66MHz memory,
32bits@66MHz => 264MB/s, while SGI Octane had a 1.6GB/s IO crossbar, with 1GB/s going to the processor board, and then 800MB/s to 1GB/s to the CPU(s). Ie the SGI truely did have ungodly fast IO compared to the PC in those days.

However, since then generic RAM used on PCs has steadily gotten faster, 100MHz (for 400MB/s peak) then 133MHz (532MB/s peak), then DDR doubled the peak rates even further, DDR200 (800MB/s) DDR266 (1GB/s) and now, iirc, we're at DDR333 and 1.3GB/s of host bus IO bandwidth being cheaply available on PCs.

So what about the SGIs? Well, SGI released an updated version of the Octane recently (year ago?), the Octane2. The differences between Octane and Octane2 are, as is symptomatic of SGIs stagnation, very little. The IO architecture is unchanged from the original. Same 1GB/s CPU board peak bandwidth, plugged into the same 1.6GB/s peak IO crossbar. The only real upgrade was a slight update to the graphics (VPro), but a good modern PC graphics card will easily beat that too for performance. SGIs new high-end workstation is little more than a very modest upgrade of their existing 5odd year old high-end workstation.

So:

"SGIs have huge internal bandwidth"

Myth: PCs have caught up, even surpassed the top-end SGI workstations.

"SGIs have superior graphics"

Myth: A good GeForce or Radeon will stomp on any SGI workstation. Indeed, they are now almost on a par with SGIs InfiniteReality2 graphics engine. (ie simulation class).

However, they're still beautiful machines, and as an all-in "package" they still are wonderful. But SGI has literally done /nothing/ in the last 6 years to keep themselves ahead of PCs, and in the last 2 years they've actually fallen behind PCs.

But who in their right mind is going to pay more than 5x the price of a good PC for performance lower than last years PCs?

"He's dead Jim!"
- SGI, Oct 1997, RIP

Re:wrong...

[cweber]

"SGIs have huge internal bandwidth"

Myth: PCs have caught up, even surpassed the top-end SGI workstations.

However, we are talking about IRIX here, i.e. software. IRIX supports this internal bandwidth exceptionally well. An SGI box running IRIX can sustain such bandwidth with real world applications. And it has done so for years.

Five (5!) years ago I talked to an SGI engineer who configured an SGI server to suck down satellite data at 7 GB/s sustained over days and weeks. It was not hard to put the server together, and the OS didn't need any tweaking. Show me any single-system Intel box that can do that now, or even any Intel cluster, for that matter.

So, while your recent PC may have great peak bandwidth, I bet any OS - even the beloved Linux - will not easily let it sustain this data rate.

Now, whether most of us really need those sustained data rates is another matter altogether. But on the other hand, do all of us really need 2.8 GHz CPUs?

SGI cc is slow to compile for a good reason

[halfelven]

SGI's compiler (MIPSPro) is slow to compile because it does some really powerlifting stuff with the optimisations.
I did a lot of tests with gcc and MIPSPro, and gcc doesn't come near to the SGI compiler.
The neatest trick is that MIPSPro does a global optimisation after linking the .o files.
If you want your binaries to run really fast, use MIPSPro; forget gcc.

sinking ship

[JDizzy]

SGI has lost all their jedi developers, and as Eugenia mentions how Dominic Giampaolo went from SGI, to Be. Dominic now works for Google, as of 2 years ago. But that isn't the only person who has jumped ship at SGI, countless other faces, and names no longer reside at the old 'cool place to work'. The stock price was a penny-stock for awhile. Their hardware bussiness is lagging behind, and basically not moving forward. There has not been any new inovations from SGI in the past 3 or 4 years. In short, the industry finally caught up with SGI, and they have lost their graphics nitche. What Eugina doesnt' know, among many many many things, is that Sun is filling the void that was left open by SGI.

Anyways, his review of Irix is a version that is now old. It would be one thing if this was a hot new release of Irix 6.6 (non-existent), or some major point release. This version is a maintance release, and is old now. We have version 6.5.18, as of a week ago or so.... SGI sent me the new disc's. Also, booting the system up, and playing with the OpenGL crap is lame. Sorry, but it might impress an idiot, or people who have never played quakeII. Mozilla is not that impressive, and neither is the port of KDE or Gnome for Irix. These are things that, well, are not very interesting considering these tools run on just about all *nix variants now. Only a noobie would think otherwise. His bench mark analysis is to simply say "x seems to run faster on this old box", with no numbers or anything. Basically there is no relevance to his claims.

What I see is a guy who got a new toy to write about, and is all wet behind the ears. I use SGI computers evry day, and they are not all that! I have everything from O2, indiego, to bing honking 12-way Onyx clusters.

So let me explain what is nice about IRIX, for somebody that really does use it, and isn't still inthe first day experience level. Think about it, when you first tried Linux, or FreeBSd for the first time, as in never touched *nix before. If red hat was your first distro, say aorund version 7.*... your review might look something like Eugina's: noobie'ish! Sure, you can click'ity'clickty around the menus, launch softwareyou have never seen beofre.... ohh... ahhh...ooo.... wow! Whatever! The good thing about Irix is the fact that evrything is doable with a pretty gui tool. It was apparent from the early stages in Irix that people at that company were tired of the command line. For example, their package manager (aka software install tool) swmgr is fully graphical, and probably the best software installer for Unix there is, hands down. The upside is they also have another just-as-good version of the tool for the commandline. Sun could take some hints from what SGI has done inteh swmgr tool. For example, it has pie charts of filesystem utilization, with colors that represent what the other softwre packs take up, and what it would take to isntall this new peice. Everything look perfect. On the other hand, the X window system in general is lacking, the toolchest is gay. Lets face it, the SGI default desktop is kinda bleak, and empty. Maybe I'm a bit too used to CDE, KDE, or whatever.... but the first thing everyone I know does is install KDE to get some real work done. The day to day work of a developer wis what makesIrix nice to work on. The diff tool highlites the changes in files in an inteligent way, the ps program is graphical, or not, and is easy to spot problems with. The NIS, NFS, AFS work with gui tools to make things easy, yet all these tools could be used in a command line only mode. For those subterainian-commandlien dwealers, your still taken care of, and nicely too.

XSF is not like BFS, no matter how much Eugina want to think they are the same. They are not! It is true that XFS is more unixlike where bfs was more Be like. Both are 64 bit namespace safe, both have extensible attributes, but on XFS you have to really work hard to mess with these features. This is one area SGI needs to improve. The tools that ship with IBM's JFS are the best, but the features of XFS are probably better than JFS. Basically put, SGI XFS just works, without much tweaking. Or if you want, you can mess with the XFS. These days SGI is getting out of the graphics biz, and moving into the storage server biz. So maybe they will improve the XFS options/administration.

Dead IRIX? Not.

[fm6]

However, since SGI announced that they wouldn't support IRIX anymore, everyone has concluded that they need to shift over to Linux machines.

I must have missed that announcement. I do recall SGI announcing that they would not port IRIX to IA32 or IA64 -- instead they're using Windows or Linux. Somehow, people keep interpreting that as "abandoning IRIX", but SGI can't do that as long as they keep selling MIPS-based systems.

get your facts straight

[GunFodder]

IBM is doing fine in the market, and so is Sun (who grew their Unix market share last quarter). This makes any massive migration from Sun to Big Blue unlikely.

I'm sure that a brand new $2500 Dell Workstation can do many things faster than a 1996 era $25,000 SGI workstation. I highly doubt you have even seen a brand new $25,000 SGI workstation or have any idea what it can do.

Re:get your facts straight

[axxackall]

Is there any brand-new $2,500 SGI we can compare?

The point was to compare performance and features (read: a product value) of equally priced products, dis-regarding with the age.

Re:get your facts straight

[axxackall]

I guess ford has lost less % of its initial cost - it must be in better shape. Isn't it?

Re:get your facts straight

[Billly Gates]

Both the video cards and cpu's are alot faster. Today's pentium4's are close to 3 gig while the latest irix workstations are at 700mhz. Yes, I know risc is faster but not that much anymore. Maybe %40 at the most. The latest wildcat video cards and the nvidia quado's are many times faster then sgi's fastest.

The only thing sgi traditionally has is better i/o. However that gap is now closing thanks to better memory and faster bus speeds. Intel is smoking all the benchmarks agaisnt AMD recently because of faster 1066mhz rambus ram and its 533mhz bus!

If sgi was so fast then why did pixar claim that the latest dell's with redhat were 3x faster and many times cheaper then equilivant sgi's on the market?

I remember when sgi tried to come out with wintel workstations. They ported the same video technology and it was far behind the quadro's and other high end cards. They failed and costs sgi billions. They are dying. Sgi itself is losing marketshare to Sun, IBM, Linux, and w2k. Infact info world claims MS now owns %50 of the server market. Sun in the late 90's took a very large chunk of their market as well.

Sgi should focus on the server market and leave the workstation market. All their customers have left mostly to Windows and the rest to Sun and Linux. They need to change their image to a corporate server one and pay erp and mrp software writers to port their apps to irix. They already lost and are dying as we speak. Aren't they like $.80 a share!

Re:get your facts straight

[Ilgaz]

''Both the video cards and cpu's are alot faster. Today's pentium4's are close to 3 gig while the latest irix workstations are at 700mhz. Yes, I know risc is faster but not that much anymore. Maybe %40 at the most. The latest wildcat video cards and the nvidia quado's are many times faster then sgi's fastest.''

Erm can't you people stop comparing supercomputer mhz'es to DESKTOP (yes desktop) Mhz es? SGI is the system of pros. There are of course top of the line, cluster setup PC'es but it makes them beowulf cluster. Not ordinary PC to compare and send SGI to grave.

E.g. Cray... They hardly care to write CPU speed (mhz) but the last top model I saw had 550 Mhz CPUS.. yes! 550 Mhz...

I mean... Come on...

The champion of Mhz game is Intel right? I wonder why they don't write Itanium's mhz speed at ads? Would crash their own game eh?

Re:get your facts straight

[duffbeer703]

I think your issue is more a Windows vs. Unix problem, or a ported Unix app running on Windows problem.

It is hard to justify spending money on Unix servers and workstations when you can get a 3x faster Intel system for 1/3 of the cost.

For example, I had to spec a server that would be running an interal app on Websphere. My choice was a dual 333Mhz Power3 AIX box w/1GB RAM and 2x18GB drives, redundant power, etc. The cost? 15,000. The alternate choice was a dual Xeon 2.4 ghz w/2GB RAM, 2x36GB disks, redundant power, etc. The cost? $10,000.

Why do you think Sun and IBM are seeing the light and investing in Linux? In the midrange in low-end, you don't really get anything to justify the outrageous cost of Unix hardware.

Hmmm...

[GunFodder]

Considering there appear to be more Windows boxes in the world I would suspect that there are more developers on the Windows platform than any other single platform. That said, I don't think it is fair to castigate a school for choosing Windows over any other proprietary platform.

My school used a lot of donated hardware/software, and generally the only companies that can afford to donate labs worth of hardware/software are doing so to push their own proprietary platform. So we ended up doing our development on Sun, DEC and HP workstations.

jar has nothing to do with it

[GunFodder]

The jar format is exactly equivalent to zip, which seems to work pretty well.

horrible management OS

[jaxon6]

If you're looking to build a network of machines, stay away from IRIX. There's not kerberos support, no pam, no extendible way to login other than local files and NIS. If SGI were to include kerberos support, the urgent move to Linux we are doing here wouldn't be needed, although we'd still move, albeit slower. The apps that demanded an SGI took 22 minutes on dual octane, versus 3:40 on P4. Screw IRIX.

Re:horrible management OS

[Paul Jakma]

hmm.. PAM is available for SGI - look on the freeware site. Though to get things like login and the xdm login widget to work with PAM, you'd need to recompile freeware versions of them and replace the system versions with the freeware versions. Eg, take XFree86, compile it with PAM support and replace the IRIX xdm with your own PAM-enabled xdm.

Its all a bit of a bags though, and a pain that SGI wont go do it themselves and make the standard install support PAM, pain to maintain boxes with non-standard system software.

However, IRIX 6.5.x does support LDAP - and it works fine. So, one option that works out of the box is to use LDAP for authentication. Works fine across both Linux and SGI. (cant remember if IRIX supports anything other than {crypt} passwords though).

Re:Perhaps you can explain

[Keith Maniac]

You have to do one install from CD, or use the pre-installed Solaris on every machine shipped from Sun.

Set up your Jumpstart server on that, create your profiles and finish scripts based on your site policies and requirements. Use that to Jumpstart your *real* Jumpstart server, then recycle the old one. Never install from a stock Solaris CD again.

If you have one host, install from CDs (or DVD). If you have two, grumble and perhaps install from CD. More than that? Set up Jumpstart from the beginning.

When upgrades come along, add them to your Jumpstart server. Mine will install solaris 7, four revisions of Solaris 8, 9 EA (should be removed), and the first release of Solaris 9.

My basic install is:
add client to /etc/hosts and /etc/ethers
run the "add-client" script to set up netbooting
add the profile to "rules", run "check"
boot net - install
go away for a while
return to a fully installed and secured system.

Net booting may not be an option for everyone, though. As I said above, there are alternatives. An air-gapped install network is one method, as are custom CDs.

Linux on SGI hardware.

[jericho4.0]

Several people have commented on Linux for SGI machines. Currently the only fully supported hardware is the Indy, all others lacking a working Xserver. On the Indy, linux performs very well, and X is nice and fast for such an old machine (8 bit though). So for the people who didn't buy that cheap SGI machine because they couldn't find Irix for it, get it anyway, install Linux. The quality of the hardware is fantastic.

Not gonna happen.

[haeger]

" There'd need to an x86 IRIX first, and that would take some time and money to develop."

Not gonna happen. Although they've released XFS for Linux (I love it) and are committed to OSS they will only make IRIX for their mips processors. Mainly because they control "Mips technologies" or whatever they are called and have direct and total control over what's happening inside the CPU. You think AMD or Intel would give sgi this kind of info?

"Hollywood's growing usage of Linux clusters for rendering isn't helping either."
And Linux clusters are great for that. Or any job that don't require high internal memory bandwith. But when you DO need that, nothing except Cray comes close to sgi.

.haeger

ugh. IRIX? No thanks.

[tim1724]

Ugh. IRIX. I used to have to deal with IRIX machines. I was very, very, very happy when we junked those and replaced them with Suns.

The SGI hardware was nice, but very expensive. (weird nonstandard memory which cost 10 times what it should, etc.) Whereas the Suns took standard parts which we could buy anywhere (DIMMs, PCI cards, etc.)

But the hardware and associated costs were a very small factory in why we (Harvey Mudd College computer science department) moved away from them... the reason was the fact that IRIX just plain sucked.

IRIX has the worst security of any UNIX-like OS I've ever used. Unpacking an SGI meant spending hours fixing holes before letting it come anywhere near a network.. (deleting default [passwordless] users, turning off insecure network software, etc.) And even then they weren't secure at all due to fundamental flaws (mostly design decisions to make the machines "user friendly")

They were also annoying for an admin because IRIX is just plain _weird_ if you're used to other versions of UNIX (I dealt with Solaris, Linux, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD at Mudd)... The admin tools and config files are in strange places, use non-standard options, etc.

yes, the had good OpenGL support (duh). But so does everybody these days. Today it's more imporotant to have good security and easy administration.

Plus it's still as ugly as it ever was. Give me Gnome or Mac OS X any day. (Heck, even Windows XP looks better, and that's saying something!)

I agree.

[haeger]

"Evaluating Irix on its UI alone is completely useless."

I agree. The cool machines don't need gfx-cards.

.haeger

IRIX evaluation

[Antity]

Leaving out pirated copies (Windows and Visual C++ anyone?), you get more people that learn and program for an OS if it is free (as in beer). Just because they can get it for free and give it a try. Even more people are willing to work with an OS that is free AND OpenSource.

You're right that Linux is as popular as it is because it's OpenSource. No doubt about it. But MANY people I know just don't care about it being OpenSource. This is maybe the second thought. They're switching because it's free as in beer.

AmigaOS cost money but came bundled with the computer. Windows... let's say the same. BeOS used to cost money; then it went free for evaluation/personal use. SunOS/x86 the same. Linux is free and even comes with a compiler and development tools.

SunOS/x86 is free (beer), Linux is free/free. Sure. So most choosing a Unix-like OS will go straight to Linux because of the additional free (speech) and coolness benefit. (Solaris, on the other hand, gets a boost for free because most programs written for Linux will run on it as well.)

Apart from the hardware IRIX usually runs on, the only obvious benefit - compared to Linux - appears to me to be the nice desktop and integrated GL support. I'm trying to point out that only a few people will ever experience these features because you already have to own it to try it. Of course it would cost a bunch of money to make an x86 evaluation available. But what's wrong with the idea?

My original posting seems to polarize: "Troll=2, Insightful=2, Interesting=1, Total=5". Well... this really wasn't in any way supposed to be trolling and still ain't. IMHO trolling would have been something like "Ha! Those bastards will never sell their OS until it is available for free!!!1".

you're wrong again, of course. here's why:

[halfelven]

Please stop sending messages that do not have any support. Obviously you're talking without having the slightest clue.
For your information, if you go to www.sgi.com, in just one click (on Products/Servers) you can see how mistaken you are.
According to the webpage http://www.sgi.com/servers/ the SGI Origin 3000 have "Up to 716 GB/sec" internal bandwitdh. How do you compare that to the 1GB/s of your PC?

I agree, the Origin 3000 is not a graphical workstation, but SGI's focus shifted from graphical stations to supercomputers.
You were comparing PCs with SGI workstations, which indeed do not have a large technical superiority over PCs nowadays.

Re:you're wrong again, of course. here's why:

[Paul Jakma]

sigh....

You do realise that the Origin3000 is IA64? IA -> "Intel Architecture"?

Further, are you aware that Origin's are NUMA machines, and that the figure of 716GB/sec internal bandwidth is of /aggregrated/ bandwidth? I could build a beowulf cluster of a couple of thousand PC's with FC2 links and similarly claim it had 500GB/sec internal bandwidth.

The Origin is essentially a cluster of 'nodes' interconnected by NUMALink (which is essentially a really really hardcore network that carries inter-node bus traffic and deals with cache coherency iirc). The figure quoted is the sum of the bandwidth of all links in the system, specifically, 716GB/sec would refer to to a very fully specc'ed Origin3k.

Finally, your last comments:

SGI workstations Vs PCs: "which indeed do not have a large technical superiority over PCs nowadays."

Sorry, the point is not that SGIs do not have a large superiority, the point is they are actually way /behind/ PCs. The only thing an SGI might still have over a PC is that an SGI can do 48bit RGBA, and PC graphics generally dont go past 32bit, and 48bit RGBA is essential for high-fidelity image processing (film work) i've been led to believe. But that will change too - 48bit RGBA cards for PCs will be commonly available within a year or two i'll bet.

"SGI's focus shifted from graphical stations to supercomputers"

Indeed, they've retreated to this niche, but even in this stratified sector of computing they're being eaten by PCs -> Beowulf. Very few applications actually demand high IO-throughput / low IO-latency that Origin would excel in. Further for the applications that do, it can still often be more cost effective to try rewrite the application to be 'beowulf-friendly' and install a cluster of PCs than get an Origin3k. Because if you can cope with the high-latencies of a PC cluster, then a PC cluster of Athlons or P4s will eat an Origin's breakfast, lunch and dinner on CPU crunching power. ($ for $).

anyway, SGI, RIP..

PS: I own 2 SGIs, an Indy and an R10k O2.

Re:you're wrong again, of course. here's why:

[Paul Jakma]

Oops..

Looking closely, Origin3k is /still/ MIPS (R14k). Strange, as last i heard SGI were supposed to be releasing the R3k as IA-64. And they have built and tested Origin3ks with IA-64.

anyway, they must have changed their mind at some stage.

continuing to refute your arguments

[halfelven]

It is a good thing you noticed your own mistake: the Origin's are MIPS, not IA64.

I also noticed you are aware of the selling point of the Origins: extremely high bandwidth, single OS copy. This way, you can have one single large dataset accessed by all CPUs directly (over NUMA). The Beowulf clusters choke when trying to do this, because of the ridiculous latencies of the network.

I am not sure whether or not it is true "very few applications actually demand high IO"; they are few indeed, but not quite so "very few". As a plus, the ones that do exist are large cash providers, since they are usually required by the government and three-letter agencies. Also, the contracts in this area are not the quickly dissapearing kind. That's why you won't see SGI going away anytime soon.

P.S. reply to your P.S.: I own (as in: me, personally, not my company) an SGI Indy. At work, i deal currently with tens of SGI systems, from the oldest/smallest, to the newest. ;-) And yes, i do use systems with three-digit CPU numbers.

Re:continuing to refute your arguments

[Paul Jakma]

yes.. it is good i noticed that mistake. i'm sure you'd have been merciless in your reply otherwise. :) There must have been yet another shift in strategy at SGI, because the Origin3k's were originally supposed to be IA-64. So now it seems SGI have decided to continue with their MIPS commitment. Which is a very good thing. Also, its a pretty safe bet that MIPS are working on an R20000 - judging by the fact that a developer accidently posted about R20k issues to the linux-mips list.

I've no experience of large single image machines or the applications one might run on them, other than 3rd and 4th hand. Eg, Larry McVoy doesnt seem keen on single image, and he's got a few ideas, eg:

http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/00 01 .2/1172.html

and read his papers.

Anyway, SGI arent what they used to be, even if they do manage to survive off of very high-end NUMA cluster institutional contracts.

--paulj

4dwm is great! Get 5dwm if you like it.

[abdulla]

I have to say I love 4dwm, it just has a very nice intergrated feeling to it, but i guess it could be made to look more modern, I'm sure there should be someway to retrofit that.

And if you love 4dwm, there's 5dwm for linux and other unices that imitates it.

I'll stick with Debian

[dh003i]

As for IRIX, thanks but no thankx. The prospect of paying many thousands of dollars to use IRIX doesn't exactly turn me on.

The ultimate solution, of course, is to make your own system. There is nothing magical about SGI systems. They're made out of parts, just like any other computer system. The difference is, they're made out of better parts. If you want that kind of performance at a reasonable price, you'd best figure out how to make your own computer; and, quite frankly, that's not too difficult. Simplified, you buy the power, buy the hard drive, the RAM, the mother-board, the CPU, the graphics card, the sound card, the network card, and so on and so forth and put them in their slots. If you want SGI-level performance, you buy MIPS chips. You also, of course, have to get other parts that are high quality. You'll probably want a 15,000 RPM hard drive, and good RAM. Currently, the best RAM to get is DDR RAM. But SLD RAM and MRAM might be the way of the future. As for graphics cards, currently, I'd say bo with the Radeon 9500Pro. But Nvidia's Quadro4 is a nice professional graphics card. In short, if you know what you're doing, you can build your own system to exactly meet your needs, and get it at a decent price.

Think about it. You will necessarily get a better price if you build your own system, as opposed to buy one from a OEM. OEM's have to make money; they can't sell you the systems at the cost they paid for them -- if they did, they wouldn't make any money.

So anyways, I say if you really want what SGI has to offer, make your own system; don't spend 10 grand. Then put Debian GNU/Linux on it (Debian now can be installed on a MIPS architecture).

Best of all, you'll be able to choose your own Window Manager. If you want something that's really great overall, you can go with WindowMaker (I don't see why GNOME and KDE get so much attention, while WindowMaker gets none; wmaker is light years ahead of anything else in terms of usability). On the other hand, if you want something light and spartan, you can go with PWM. Meanwhile, you can use the nice Xfce desktop environment.

Re:join the 21st century???

[MaxQuordlepleen]

First they'd have to dump the 1970s tar and vi they're still shipping.

Preach it, brother! The list of post-install tasks required to make a Solaris box usable has gotten shorter with Solaris 9 (ssh out of the box, finally!), but they still have a long way to go.

Re:Where do you go to school?

[gerbache]

See, I find all of this really strange, personally. My school (also to be left unnamed, though I rather like my school) uses Sun Blades in all of the CS labs and Linux boxes in my Electrical Engineering labs. Then again, we also have several sun boxes publically available in the library, so I suppose my school rather likes them. I've just grown so accustomed to seeing nearly everything in the university either running *nix for the users or at least running *nix on the servers (which I seem to have a knack for coming into contact with) that I assumed that it would be similar elsewhere. Oh well, live and learn I suppose.

I just got an Octane

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

This is weird. My Octane arrived the day this article was posted. I personally like 4dwm. Clean and simple.

Re:Vulcn Death Grip Re:Mmmmkay...

[uncleFester]

(cntl)(shift)(/)(F12)

iirc, the (Cntl)(Shift) are the left-side ones, and the (/) is the one on the numeric keypad.

(from the IRIX Specific System Administration book for 6.5)

48-bit color

[bcaulf]

The only thing an SGI might still have over a PC is that an SGI can do 48bit RGBA, and PC graphics generally dont go past 32bit, and 48bit RGBA is essential for high-fidelity image processing (film work) i've been led to believe. But that will change too - 48bit RGBA cards for PCs will be commonly available within a year or two i'll bet.

The latest greatest PC hardware is the ATI Radeon 9700 card with its DirectX 9 functions. It can accomodate a number of different pixel representations including representations with more than 16 bits per color channel. The representation everyone mentions is 32-bit-per-channel floating point RGBA; 128 bit color. The output to the ramdac is maximum 10-bit per channel, but since your CRT display can't use more than 10-bit color, that doensn't matter. The accuracy of the operations in the graphics memory can far exceed the old Reality Engine accuracy.

I'm not aware of software that actually utilizes high accuracy color so far.

Re:48-bit color

[Paul Jakma]

hmm.. but that 32 bit might just be internal precision. can the card actually be passed 128bit RGBA values?

Last Post!

[alpg]

"Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams) "365,365,365,
365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365". He [ten-year-old Truman Henry
Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his pantaloons over the
tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes in their sockets, sometimes
smiling and talking, and then seeming to be in an agony, until, in not more
than one minute, said he, 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!"
An electronic computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't be
as much fun to watch.
-- James R. Newman, "The World of Mathematics"

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