Getting Started, Documentation, Tips & Tricks

Hello Nekochan...new SGI owner here - Page 1

zagnut
Who joined July 2, 2015, 8:35 a.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 8:50 a.m...

Hello everyone.

As a teenage computer geek back in the 90s, I remember seeing my first SGI machines. I dont recall exactly what models they were, but the way they looked made me want one! Until I found out the price.

Fast forward many years to yesterday, 2015. Im 38 now and had long forgotten about SGI...until yesterday. While surfing Craigslist I came across a person with 6 old computers he wanted to get rid of. And there was the picture....an SGI Octane! Ten minutes later, it was in my car

I have no way to connect a monitor to run hinv, so I immediately took it apart. It appears to be a single 300mhz r12000, with 1.5gb RAM, and Es video. Sadly, no drives.

I dont know much about SGI/Irix. I'm thinking about installing a MIPS Linux distro for one of two uses...either for use as a dedicated photo editing box, or simply as a NAS RAID array for my photography needs.

I look forward to bothering you all for help in the near future.

Oh, the other computers this person had.... 4 were simple, old, dirty Dell desktops. No drives or RAM. So I pulled the cpus. However....the 5th was a dual Xeon Dell Poweredge server with RAM. Just need drives. The best part...this was all free.

Good day for this nerd.

uunix
From Stourbridge / England / UK
Who joined March 27, 2011, 12:48 p.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 9:03 a.m...

Nice haul, and welcome brother zagnut.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey Ho! Pip & Dandy!
:Octane2:

loft =>

nyef
Who joined April 28, 2015, 7:54 p.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 9:05 a.m...

zagnut wrote: I have no way to connect a monitor to run hinv, so I immediately took it apart. It appears to be a single 300mhz r12000, with 1.5gb RAM, and Es video. Sadly, no drives.

I dont know much about SGI/Irix. I'm thinking about installing a MIPS Linux distro for one of two uses...either for use as a dedicated photo editing box, or simply as a NAS RAID array for my photography needs.

No monitor on an Octane? Don't attach a keyboard or mouse, connect to serial port 1 at 9600 8N1, power up. You should get access to the PROM that way. When buying an adaptor, keep in mind that SUN and SGI 13W3 connector pinouts are not the same. If you want EDID and the like, you'll need the SGI version. Look on eBay. Also, the PROM runs at a fixed resolution, and may require sync-on-green. YMMV.

As far as Linux goes, you'll need a patched kernel in order to run on Octane. It may (or may not?) be a bit of a project to get everything running.

zagnut
Who joined July 2, 2015, 8:35 a.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 9:31 a.m...

uunix wrote: Nice haul, and welcome brother zagnut.

Thank you! I really only wanted the Octane and the Dell server. But the arrangement was to take all. This Octane is a heavy little box!

nyef wrote: No monitor on an Octane? Don't attach a keyboard or mouse, connect to serial port 1 at 9600 8N1, power up. You should get access to the PROM that way. When buying an adaptor, keep in mind that SUN and SGI 13W3 connector pinouts are not the same. If you want EDID and the like, you'll need the SGI version. Look on eBay. Also, the PROM runs at a fixed resolution, and may require sync-on-green. YMMV.

As far as Linux goes, you'll need a patched kernel in order to run on Octane. It may (or may not?) be a bit of a project to get everything running.

Thank you. Much of that is over my head, thankfully I'm a fast learner. The sad bit....I dont think I have a serial cable either. I'll have to make a trip to the parts shop. I knew I would need a 13w3 adapter, but did not know there was a Sun variant.

I've decided I just want to use this as an NAS RAID. Will I be able to access the array from a Windows machine? I've yet to look up the partitioning types for Irix. I know theres 1, maybe 2, Linux distros that will run on the Octane. For simple NAS and RAID, that should work fine hopefully.

Out of curiosity....should this have the bandwidth capable to stream 1080 HD video at around 25mbps? I understand the type of array will effect that as well, but that aside, will the Octanes components handle that ok?

Its small and unobtrusive, unlike a standard computer. So the gf wont complain about another "ugly computer" that I have to hide away.

ClassicHasClass
From Sunny So Cal
Who joined July 25, 2012, 7:12 p.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 10:05 a.m...

Welcome. I like Zagnut bars ...

Out of curiosity....should this have the bandwidth capable to stream 1080 HD video at around 25mbps?

Well, like everything else, it depends on the data rate, the network ... but the controller at least should be able to manage 25Mbit/s without difficulty, I should think. You can get a rough idea by taking Ian's numbers here for the Fuel and dividing them by 3-ish. http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/fuel.html

smit happens.

:Fuel:

bigred , 900MHz R16K, 4GB RAM, V12 DCD, 6.5.30
:Indy:

indy , 150MHz R4400SC, 256MB RAM, XL24, 6.5.10
:Indigo2IMP:

purplehaze , R10000, Solid IMPACT
probably posted from

bruce , Quad 2.5GHz PowerPC 970MP, 16GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.4.11
plus IBM POWER6 p520 * Apple Network Server 500 * HP C8000 * BeBox * Solbourne S3000 * Commodore 128 * many more...

Krokodil
Who joined April 17, 2015, 2:32 p.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 11:43 a.m...

Welcome from a fellow Octane owner.

I recommend IRIX if you want the full SGI experience . Ebay is selling a somewhat expensive 13w3 to VGA adapter, but I can confirm that it does work. The Octane is heavy but it's well constructed.

I recently sent most of my old PC's to the scrapyard to make room for the truly special machines.

O2 - (Mantadoc) - R5K - 200MHZ - 128MB RAM - 6.5.30
:Octane:

Octane - (Montrealais) - R12K - 2*360MHZ - 1024MB RAM - EMXI. - 6.5.30
Alphaserver DS10 - (Vandoc) - EV6 - 466MHZ - 256MB RAM
Sun Ultra 5 - (Quedoc) - UltraSparc II - 400MHZ - 512MB RAM
ASUS K55VD - (Mapleglen)- I5 - Dual Core 2.5GHZ - 8 GB RAM
Dell L502X - (Algorail) - I7 - Quad Core 2GHZ - 6 GB RAM

zagnut
Who joined July 2, 2015, 8:35 a.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 12:07 p.m...

ClassicHasClass wrote: Well, like everything else, it depends on the data rate, the network ... but the controller at least should be able to manage 25Mbit/s without difficulty, I should think. You can get a rough idea by taking Ian's numbers here for the Fuel and dividing them by 3-ish. http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/fuel.html

Looks like even with 15k discs, bandwidth could be an issue for streaming HD. For photographic redundancy however, it will suffice just fine. I would prefer to stream HD video as well. But if not, oh well.

Would it be worth investing in the pci cage for a SCSI card usage? Also, would it be worth considering upgrading to a dual cpu unit...should I be able to find one? I suppose that last question is just personal preference.

I wish they sold Zagnut bars here in Detroit.

Krokodil wrote: Welcome from a fellow Octane owner.

I recommend IRIX if you want the full SGI experience . Ebay is selling a somewhat expensive 13w3 to VGA adapter, but I can confirm that it does work. The Octane is heavy but it's well constructed.

I recently sent most of my old PC's to the scrapyard to make room for the truly special machines.

It will depend on cost of a hdd with Irix loaded. If it costs considerably more than a blank hdd, I will opt for attempts at running Linux. I dont want to spend too much at this time.

I have 4 old p4 Dells by my garbage cans....you can pick them up if youd like

foetz
Moderator
Who joined April 14, 2003, 4:34 a.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 12:37 p.m...

welcome here zagnut :-)

as it's been said already not running irix on an sgi makes it rather pointless. you got the octane for free so spending a few bucks on irix is the best investment you can make and that's also the only way to actually get what sgi was all about.
if you wanna run a linux file server use one of those dells

r-a-c.de

uunix
From Stourbridge / England / UK
Who joined March 27, 2011, 12:48 p.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 12:40 p.m...

nyef wrote: keep in mind that SUN and SGI 13W3 connector pinouts are not the same.

I was unaware of this? Is there a way to identify without a multi-metre ?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey Ho! Pip & Dandy!
:Octane2:

loft =>

zagnut
Who joined July 2, 2015, 8:35 a.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 3:50 p.m...

foetz wrote: welcome here zagnut

as it's been said already not running irix on an sgi makes it rather pointless. you got the octane for free so spending a few bucks on irix is the best investment you can make and that's also the only way to actually get what sgi was all about.
if you wanna run a linux file server use one of those dells

The Dell is big and ugly though. Besides, it's a Dell :roll:

I'll probably get a drive with Irix, just so I can check out an OS I have no experience with.

uunix wrote:

nyef wrote: keep in mind that SUN and SGI 13W3 connector pinouts are not the same.

I was unaware of this? Is there a way to identify without a multi-metre ?

I don't feel like such a n00b now.

uunix
From Stourbridge / England / UK
Who joined March 27, 2011, 12:48 p.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 4:05 p.m...

zagnut wrote: I don't feel like such a n00b now.

My work is done then..

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey Ho! Pip & Dandy!
:Octane2:

loft =>

foetz
Moderator
Who joined April 14, 2003, 4:34 a.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 4:31 p.m...

zagnut wrote: I'll probably get a drive with Irix, just so I can check out an OS I have no experience with.

well irix is unix so if you can set up a linux file server working with real unix won't cripple you either

also what's the point of getting the dream machine of your teen years just for putting it in the corner as a linux file server? if you wanna have the sgi experince you have to, well, experience it

r-a-c.de

sgifanatic
From Texas
Who joined July 25, 2010, 2:47 p.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 4:36 p.m...

Welcome to the world of SGI and vintage computing... Very satisfying hobby!

Would definitely recommend Irix. Will simply be a better experience.

Second, using an octane as an nfs server is great, and yes, you can use free PC software to mount NFS volumes from windows clients. But, I would imagine you will enjoy the SGI desktop experience... There is a possibility you may not, but now that you have the box, might be worth a giving it a go.

Search eBay for 13w3 sgi vga and you should find an adaptor for ~$30-35.

Good luck and would love to see pics when you can take some.

zagnut
Who joined July 2, 2015, 8:35 a.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 4:54 p.m...

uunix wrote:

nyef wrote: keep in mind that SUN and SGI 13W3 connector pinouts are not the same.

I was unaware of this? Is there a way to identify without a multi-metre ?

Per the Octane Hardware Aggregator thread

Note: A properly wired 13w3 to HD15 adapter or cable is required. Most generic 13w3 to HD15 adapters are wired to the Sun version of 13w3 which may cause display issues if used with an Octane. If the advertisements says an adapter "works with Sun, IBM and SGI", it probably doesn't without modification. SGI made a 13w3 to HD15 cable for the Octane, the part number is 018-0881-002.

sgifanatic wrote: Welcome to the world of SGI and vintage computing... Very satisfying hobby!

Would definitely recommend Irix. Will simply be a better experience.

Second, using an octane as an nfs server is great, and yes, you can use free PC software to mount NFS volumes from windows clients. But, I would imagine you will enjoy the SGI desktop experience... There is a possibility you may not, but now that you have the box, might be worth a giving it a go.

Search eBay for 13w3 sgi vga and you should find an adaptor for ~$30-35.

Good luck and would love to see pics when you can take some.

I'll try and get some pics this weekend. I did a tear down last night, to try and identify parts, and was surprised how clean it was.

ClassicHasClass
From Sunny So Cal
Who joined July 25, 2012, 7:12 p.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 5:08 p.m...

Would it be worth investing in the pci cage for a SCSI card usage? Also, would it be worth considering upgrading to a dual cpu unit...should I be able to find one? I suppose that last question is just personal preference.

The PCI cage? I think so, if SCSI throughput's going to be what you'd use it for. The extra CPU would mostly benefit using it as, you know, a computer.

Once you go Irix you don't go, uh, bye-bye-rix.

smit happens.

:Fuel:

bigred , 900MHz R16K, 4GB RAM, V12 DCD, 6.5.30
:Indy:

indy , 150MHz R4400SC, 256MB RAM, XL24, 6.5.10
:Indigo2IMP:

purplehaze , R10000, Solid IMPACT
probably posted from

bruce , Quad 2.5GHz PowerPC 970MP, 16GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.4.11
plus IBM POWER6 p520 * Apple Network Server 500 * HP C8000 * BeBox * Solbourne S3000 * Commodore 128 * many more...

hamei
From over the rainbow
Who joined Feb. 24, 2004, 4:10 p.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 6:29 p.m...

zagnut wrote: I've decided I just want to use this as an NAS RAID.

I know it's rude to tell people their ideas are ... errr ... not good, but :

Octane makes a terrible file server. They are big (which you don't care about cuz it's attractive - okay), loud (not good) hot (not good), noisy (really not good), have a crap selection of disks (sca scsi only, slow transfer rates, only three internal disks, even the sata adapters that work on O3x do not work on Octane) ... basically, that's a bad job for an Octane. There's a good reason you can buy those external scsi raid enclosures for nothing. That's what they are worth.

I will avoid the Loonix - vs - Unix subject entirely

Will I be able to access the array from a Windows machine? I've yet to look up the partitioning types for Irix. I know theres 1, maybe 2, Linux distros that will run on the Octane. For simple NAS and RAID, that should work fine hopefully.

To be realistic, for a server these days in a mixed network, you really want Solaris 11. If you want to go second-best there's the BSD's. Samba sucks the big ten-inch. And Swervices for Yewnix is awful. I've used it in Real Life (tm). Four years of bread and water, ten lashes daily. If you were sticking with all Unix and pseudo-Unix computers, NFS would be great and Irix and even Loonix does that good. But when you add Windows .....

If you just want a nas, no other services, then one of the BSD-based point-and-click appliances looked pretty nice. I tested about five, one of them seemed okay. ZFS. A couple of people here are using the HP microserver happily. Sata disks. Smallish. Quiet. Very quiet. Low electricity usage. Two each gigabit interfaces and a spare pci-express slot for whatever. A thousand times faster and more capable than an Octane for that job.

Anyway, the point is you won't be happy using an Octane for this. Octane makes a great desktop but a piss-poor file server.

zagnut
Who joined July 2, 2015, 8:35 a.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 7:39 p.m...

hamei wrote:

zagnut wrote: I've decided I just want to use this as an NAS RAID.

I know it's rude to tell people their ideas are ... errr ... not good, but :

Octane makes a terrible file server. They are big (which you don't care about cuz it's attractive - okay), loud (not good) hot (not good), noisy (really not good), have a crap selection of disks (sca scsi only, slow transfer rates, only three internal disks, even the sata adapters that work on O3x do not work on Octane) ... basically, that's a bad job for an Octane. There's a good reason you can buy those external scsi raid enclosures for nothing. That's what they are worth.

I will avoid the Loonix - vs - Unix subject entirely

Will I be able to access the array from a Windows machine? I've yet to look up the partitioning types for Irix. I know theres 1, maybe 2, Linux distros that will run on the Octane. For simple NAS and RAID, that should work fine hopefully.

To be realistic, for a server these days in a mixed network, you really want Solaris 11. If you want to go second-best there's the BSD's. Samba sucks the big ten-inch. And Swervices for Yewnix is awful. I've used it in Real Life (tm). Four years of bread and water, ten lashes daily. If you were sticking with all Unix and pseudo-Unix computers, NFS would be great and Irix and even Loonix does that good. But when you add Windows .....

If you just want a nas, no other services, then one of the BSD-based point-and-click appliances looked pretty nice. I tested about five, one of them seemed okay. ZFS. A couple of people here are using the HP microserver happily. Sata disks. Smallish. Quiet. Very quiet. Low electricity usage. Two each gigabit interfaces and a spare pci-express slot for whatever. A thousand times faster and more capable than an Octane for that job.

Anyway, the point is you won't be happy using an Octane for this. Octane makes a great desktop but a piss-poor file server.

I appreciate and respect your opinion very much. After seeing bandwidth rates, and knowing those rates will be slower once a redundant array is introduced, I've given up the idea of streaming for home entertainment. It would probably choke on 30mbps HD video. I cant justify the expensive cost of the shoebox for a SCSI card. For my photography needs, as a redundant storage device, it should serve well. I can add a fan to that empty space above the PSU where the shoebox for PCIs would normally go. That should keep the heat down. I haven't fired it up to see about noise yet. Is it mechanical noise, or vibrational? I can probably find a way to deal with vibrational/case noise in a certain way...might effect internal temps though.

And yes, Samba blows goats...to put it nicely. I had a WD MyBook World....I hated that POS. I eventually ripped it apart for its hdd and tossed the rest.

I have a dedicated media server actually. Its an AMD 5000+ Black Edition. But Id like some redundancy...and there just isnt any room in its custom case for another hdd. So I may just use the Octane for the above redundant photography server as I mentioned. It should serve 30mb RAW files just fine.....given the noise and heat arent too bad.

Id set up the PowerEdge for complete redundant media streaming....but its just so damn big and ugly.

foetz
Moderator
Who joined April 14, 2003, 4:34 a.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 8:49 p.m...

there's a very simple formula to determine what the sgi (and pretty much any other proprietary unix system) is good for and what not:

everything hobby/home user related => bad
professional tasks => good

that should solve the video streaming question and can serve you well as some sort of template for any other idea you might have along the way

r-a-c.de

zagnut
Who joined July 2, 2015, 8:35 a.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 9:41 p.m...

foetz wrote: there's a very simple formula to determine what the sgi (and pretty much any other proprietary unix system) is good for and what not:

everything hobby/home user related => bad
professional tasks => good

that should solve the video streaming question and can serve you well as some sort of template for any other idea you might have along the way

Well, photo editing would fall into the pro category...not sure about RAID serving for that purpose though.

Im curious, has anyone ever ported an old mac os (system 7 or 8 ) to a MIPS SGI? Im not educated in fruit OS. Many years back I had a PowerBook 1400c....a beautiful laptop for its generation. I regret disposing of it

But I digress....

vishnu
Donor
From Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
Who joined March 18, 2007, 3:25 p.m.

Wrote the following at July 2, 2015, 11:58 p.m...

zagnut wrote: Well, photo editing would fall into the pro category...not sure about RAID serving for that purpose though.

There's an Irix version of Photoshop 3, ancient but still usable. And any of the Irix versions of Shake are still world class at all aspects of photo editing, not to mention compositing.

magnet wrote: Im curious, has anyone ever ported an old mac os (system 7 or 8 ) to a MIPS SGI? Im not educated in fruit OS. Many years back I had a PowerBook 1400c....a beautiful laptop for its generation. I regret disposing of it But I digress....

Uh, wouldn't you need the source code to mac os 7 or 8 to do that? Did Apple release that source code? I must have missed that press release... :shock:

There's a fella on Ebay who sells Irix on 10 (and occasionally 15) K SCSI disks for a very reasonable cost. Not sure if he's got any on there ATM (too lazy to check) but a search for Irix && SCSI will eventually turn him up. With regard to the use of Linux vs. Irix, I hasten to point out that the prevailing sentiment among most members here (heretics notwithstanding) is "why would you ever want to run Linux on such a unique piece of hardware as that?! :mrgreen:

Project:
Temporarily lost at sea...
Plan:
World domination! Or something...
:Tezro: