Is there anyone here who would be willing to "Explain Like I'm 5" some basic questions about installing software onto an Indigo2?

[wowbobwow]

Hi everyone! New member here (thanks to Alex Fry from Facebook for suggesting that I join this Discord group). This is my Indigo2, which came back to life late last night (thanks in large part to @Elf's suggestion of a good 13w3-to-VGA cable) :

https://imgur.com/a/jI4hC5N

I'm going to be setting up the Indigo2 (along with other notable/fun/rare computers like the Apple IIe, Apple IIGS, a BeBox, etc.) at the upcoming East Bay Mini Maker Faire next weekend in Oakland California, so I'm very excited to have found a bunch of knowledgeable SGI fans here.

Since I'm hoping to set this machine up for hands-on use by the general public (esp. younger folks), I'm really hoping to find and install some eye-catching or interesting apps, demos, 3D graphics showcases, etc. Is there anyone here who would be willing to "Explain Like I'm 5" some basic questions about installing software onto this machine? I'm a complete novice with Unix / IRIX, but I'm making some progress - I've gotten the Indigo2 onto my home LAN and can access the Web and pull files from my personal FTP server, so getting files from the Internet onto the Indigo2 isn't hard... I just don't know what to do next.

Thanks for anyone who's willing to volunteer some beginner-level help here!

 

[wowbobwow]

It occurs to me that a couple specific examples might be helpful:

1. I'd LOVE to get this demo content running - can anyone assist?
2. At my previous Retro Roadshow events, games have been super popular. Are there any games (Doom, Quake, etc.) that would be a good showcase for the Indigo2? If yes, can someone guide me through getting them installed and running?

 

[Unxmaal]

TL;DR: put a pile of IRIX stuff on a Linux server, then mount that server via NFS from your IRIX box.

• Software Types
  • Closed/non-FOSS
    • Check out the Internet Archive https://archive.org for abandonware. Otherwise, ask around, as plenty of people have hoarded old software.
  • FOSS
    • Historical Overview
      • SGI IRIX Freeware
        • SGI provided precompiled binaries for some FOSS, but stopped around 2004. CD images are available on the Internet Archive.
      • Nekoware
        • Nekoware was developed and published on the Nekochan forums. It contains quite a bit of FOSS, compiled as recently as 2017. Copies abound, although the original Nekoware forums are dead.
      • IRIXports
        • IRIXports is a small but growing 'ports' style collection of FOSS.
        • https://github.com/larb0b/irixports
      • didbs
        • didbs has been in active development for several years. It has more ports than IRIXports, but is designed to primarily be a bootstrapper for getting a working dev environment going.
      • Others
        • There's several other individual port collections that users and fans have created over the years. I'll update as I get info.
• Installation
  • Booterizer
    • https://github.com/unxmaal/booterizer/
    • Sets up a VM for doing a network installation. It fetches the install media and generates a 'selections' file that has the proper media selected along with proper installation order.
    • I'm biased, as I wrote bunches of it.