Getting started with SGIs, where to start to get a full development environment?

austinramsay

New member
Jul 18, 2020
9
6
3
Hello! I just got an SGI Indigo2 Impact with an R10k. I would love to get into developing on this platform and maybe even using it to develop my senior year capstone project for my bachelor's degree in CS just because it would be different and fun to get into. I'm familiar with Sun hardware/software of this vintage, but this is my first SGI. I have to admit that it seems the whole IRIX environment is confusing with the variety of CD install media, packages, and so on. My Indigo2 had Irix 6.5 preinstalled for me, and it seems to be a clean install.

I attempted a simple C hello world to test out the compiler, and it failed. The MIPSpro compiler complained about a missing license, and then I got an error of

"cc ERROR: cannot exec /usr/lib32/cmplrs/fec"

According to some posts online, I need to install some packages off the Irix 6.5 Development Libraries CD since I'm missing that 'fec' executable it is looking for. Also, I've seen the compiler will still work even though it complains about the missing license correct?

I've found an ISO for the development libraries CD, so I will give that a try. But I see there is also a development foundation CD as well.. so I'm assuming I should find that too? What exactly do all these CDs contain?

What else is recommended for me to install to get a fully functional development environment? Any advice on best sources for documentation and anything else that may be helpful. I'd like to get into the OpenGL capabilities and use the Indigo2's full potential. Thanks in advance!

Austin
 
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TruHobbyist

Member
Jul 27, 2019
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Hi there

Irix is distributed across multiple CDs containing related installable tardists.
Just pulling some tardists from one of the CDs wont work, so here is my approach and you still will have to manually tweak some things:

1. Make sure you have a disk with a minimum of 18GB and at least 7GB of free disk space on your Irix system disk

2. Copy ALL Irix CDs from an ftp or nfs server to your Irix box.

You will need a full Irix distribution plus SGI Mipspro compilers CDs (this last one available on irixnet)

3. On Irix, put them in separate subfolders within the same folder (for example IRIX_6530)

4. Use inst and open ALL subfolders as distributions

5. Check/uncheck what you need from the dependency window displayed by inst until no more deps are shown.

Often this is more of a trial and error process. In particular, if having trouble with java dependencies, uncheck everything related to java. Theres a post on irixnet (Irinikus?) detailing the process to get these deps sorted if you really need it.

6. Install.

This will install every default selections from all opened distributions.


7. Finally, to get rid of the Warning message when running the compiler driver (cc or CC), use either a serial (look on irixnet) or a binary patch (here or irixnet) made by myself.


And there you go. Some relevant patches you may find useful can be found on irixnet too. Just take a look which ones affect the compilers you use.

Some words of caution: trying to cherry pick this and that CD from the distribution to get the minimum possible set of necessary tardists for the compilers is something you should never rely on under Irix. You may do so under hpux, aix, tru64 or solaris. But not Irix. The reason is this scattering of interdependent tardists across so many CDs. If you want to save yourself lots of trouble today and in the future, I recommend the approach outlined above.

Cheers
 

austinramsay

New member
Jul 18, 2020
9
6
3
Hi there

Irix is distributed across multiple CDs containing related installable tardists.
Just pulling some tardists from one of the CDs wont work, so here is my approach and you still will have to manually tweak some things:

1. Make sure you have a disk with a minimum of 18GB and at least 7GB of free disk space on your Irix system disk

2. Copy ALL Irix CDs from an ftp or nfs server to your Irix box.

You will need a full Irix distribution plus SGI Mipspro compilers CDs (this last one available on irixnet)

3. On Irix, put them in separate subfolders within the same folder (for example IRIX_6530)

4. Use inst and open ALL subfolders as distributions

5. Check/uncheck what you need from the dependency window displayed by inst until no more deps are shown.

Often this is more of a trial and error process. In particular, if having trouble with java dependencies, uncheck everything related to java. Theres a post on irixnet (Irinikus?) detailing the process to get these deps sorted if you really need it.

6. Install.

This will install every default selections from all opened distributions.


7. Finally, to get rid of the Warning message when running the compiler driver (cc or CC), use either a serial (look on irixnet) or a binary patch (here or irixnet) made by myself.


And there you go. Some relevant patches you may find useful can be found on irixnet too. Just take a look which ones affect the compilers you use.

Some words of caution: trying to cherry pick this and that CD from the distribution to get the minimum possible set of necessary tardists for the compilers is something you should never rely on under Irix. You may do so under hpux, aix, tru64 or solaris. But not Irix. The reason is this scattering of interdependent tardists across so many CDs. If you want to save yourself lots of trouble today and in the future, I recommend the approach outlined above.

Cheers
That's perfect thanks for the advice! One question about the CD images I have found.. some of them are EFS images, some are ISOs, and there are also some tarballs for specific CDs but not all of them. I can't even mount the ISOs to FTP the content over to my Indigo2 because 'mount' just complains about a "wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop0, missing codepage or helper program, other error". I've tried mounting with a few different options and all fail. I have no idea how to mount the EFS images either. Is there a source you recommend to get all the CDs from? I see IrixNet has some Irix 6.5 files in their FTP server under /sgi-irix/irix-6.5/network-installs but the full 6.5 download is not there, only a couple discs and some 6.5 upgrades like 6.5.22 and 6.5.30.

Thanks again for the help!
 

TruHobbyist

Member
Jul 27, 2019
41
38
18
Hi ho

the distribution CDs can be obtained from enay or someone who kindly provides these to you. The third option is bittorrent.

EFS images can be mounted on either Irix or Linux with support for EFS AND loop devices. Any recent Linux distro should have both. Google for the exact command.

Same goes for ISO images. Iirc the freeware CDs at least where ISOs. These mount out of the box on nearly any Linux distro.


Cheers
 

stormy

Active member
Jun 23, 2019
133
55
28
FYI:
(massive robot packed sgug into a tardist recently. if this helps!)

Official Sgug github:
(includes all instructions step-by-step)
 

HAL

Administrator
Oct 22, 2019
33
24
8
yes, but those purists might neither want to port open source software that has been released in the past 15 -20 years because most
of the devs were probably working on Linux systems using mostly the GNU toolchain.
 

Unxmaal

Administrator
Feb 8, 2019
98
60
18
unless he wants the original experience i.e. not sort of a "linux on irix"
I believe it's good to have options.

If you prefer to experience IRIX as it was "back in the day", you can follow well-established paths to install software on your SGI.

If you would like to use your SGI hardware with new software, you now have the option to do so.

Some people only want to collect SGI gear for display. Some like refurbishing them, and some like maxing them out. Some enjoy running the old software, and some have fun trying to port new software to old OSes.
 

foetz

Member
Feb 19, 2019
93
47
18
Linux is just a kernel. I'm sure you mean GNU/IRIX :)
:p

I believe it's good to have options.

If you prefer to experience IRIX as it was "back in the day", you can follow well-established paths to install software on your SGI.

If you would like to use your SGI hardware with new software, you now have the option to do so.

Some people only want to collect SGI gear for display. Some like refurbishing them, and some like maxing them out. Some enjoy running the old software, and some have fun trying to port new software to old OSes.
which was the reason for my post.
 
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austinramsay

New member
Jul 18, 2020
9
6
3
Thanks for all the different options and advice guys! I'm going to just reinstall and do a full install with all discs and then follow up with the MIPSpro discs. I have all the 6.5 images downloaded and have a good understanding on how to install and in what order now I think. Lots of helpful sites out there. I did figure out that I just had to rebuild my kernel with EFS support in order to mount the images so that's working now. From this point I should be able to do a network install most likely using booterizer as advised from stormy.

I'm waiting on a hard drive upgrade before attempting an install since I'm only working with a 4GB drive and would like some extra space. After I get the full install done, I will go ahead and check out some of the other things mentioned too!
 
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austinramsay

New member
Jul 18, 2020
9
6
3
Got a new 73GB 10k Seagate Cheetah hard drive in and after an hour of messing with the Indigo2 just to even get it to boot (no idea what the issue is, sometimes just won't do anything besides the fans running, drive LEDs solid on, and no system status LED), and an hour of messing with Booterizer, I finally got a fresh install of IRIX 6.5.22 installed. Seems like it's missing the demos which is strange but it's up and running with MIPSpro as well which is working now! I used the provided images of IRIX from the Booterizer default mirror. One step out of the way!
 

CiaoTime

Public Enemy Number One
Jan 15, 2020
45
27
18
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Got a new 73GB 10k Seagate Cheetah hard drive in and after an hour of messing with the Indigo2 just to even get it to boot (no idea what the issue is, sometimes just won't do anything besides the fans running, drive LEDs solid on, and no system status LED), and an hour of messing with Booterizer, I finally got a fresh install of IRIX 6.5.22 installed. Seems like it's missing the demos which is strange but it's up and running with MIPSpro as well which is working now! I used the provided images of IRIX from the Booterizer default mirror. One step out of the way!
SGI pulled the 6.5 demo suite off of the installer set some time before 6.5.22, unfortunately! However, you can add them back in at any time by loading up an Applications CD from an older version of 6.5, like 6.5.8 or 6.5.11 or somesuch. You can load its contents up in Software Manager or inst, do a custom install, and then simply deselect everything but the demos before running the install tool.
 
Last edited:

austinramsay

New member
Jul 18, 2020
9
6
3
SGI pulled the 6.5 demo suite off of the installer set some time before 6.5.22, unfortunately! However, you can add them back in at any time by loading up an Applications CD from an older version of 6.5, like 6.5.8 or 6.5.11 or somesuch. You can load its contents up in Software Manager or inst, do a custom install, and then simply deselect everything but the demos before running the install tool.
Ahh that makes sense. Not a big deal it was fun to check them out once but not much to do with them after that lol. I just thought it was weird, but now I know it's expected! Now to figure out the big issue of why this thing doesn't want to boot 75% of the time
 

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