Hello everyone, I am thinking about buying an SGI Indy or Indigo2 for programming with. I will likely use C with SDL and some Mono and Ruby. I'm probably going to dual boot it with Gentoo or Debian and Irix because I would like to use Linux for programming and Irix for 3D modelling and using other Irix apps. Would this be a good idea or would the SGI be too slow/old?
The collected works of electrithm
rosmaniac wrote: Linux GUI support is pretty broken on SGI, from what I remember from my research a while back. Linux is basically completely broken on R10K on O2 and not especially well-supported at all, at least the last I looked. OpenBSD is a better non-IRIX choice on that hardware (and I am primarily a CentOS Linux user, with a grand total of one BSD machine around.....), although O2 is better supported on the GUI.
But it has been quite a while since I looked; YMMV and all that, plus people do change things and ports come and they go. The core of the Linux MIPS stuff has been for non-SGI MIPS stuff, especially routers. But there is some good info, if you're into Linux on MIPS or want to be into Linux on an I2, at https://www.linux-mips.org/wiki/IP28
Part of the fun of retrocomputing (and SGI computing is at the point of retro, now) is getting the hardware to do things it was never originally designed to do, or in my case of getting to play with hardware on the cheap that used to cost kilobucks (kindof like getting to play with a VAXstation 4000/96; at one time that box was the bomb). So if you're able to get a usable GUI (or CLI if that's your thing) Linux of BSD working like you want, kudos.
dexter1 wrote: ...
If you get an Indigo2 like Foetz suggested, get a fairly decent system with at least an R10K and Solid impact GFX. That doesn't have texture support, but should be good for programming and modelling. But if you want to run Debian and Gentoo i am not sure if there is graphic driver support for Impact systems, ...
The Octane port supports Impact; the I2 port may or may not at this point (the online docs are pretty old in this area). This is for console framebuffer; X support is (or at least was) either experimental or nonexistant.
I had looked into running a Linux on some Teal Indigo2 Extreme's here, but then I found the stash of IRIX 5.3 CD's that came with the machines, and that might be a better choice for them; there are better Linux machines out there, and IRIX is a far better choice on R4K hardware, IMO. My R10K Indigo2 with SolidIMPACT is running IRIX 6.5.22m, and performances is pretty good (I have 512MB of RAM in it, and a relatively fast hard drive).
Wait so you're saying I wouldn't be able to run Gentoo with the MATE gui on the Indigo? That sucks because I was gonna use it for playing around with SDL. I'm not gonna do very heavy modelling on IRIX, just some small little animations and making 3d models so I probably wouldn't need a very heavy duty SGI.
jimmer wrote:electrithm wrote: Hello everyone, I am thinking about buying an SGI Indy or Indigo2 for programming with. I will likely use C with SDL and some Mono and Ruby. I'm probably going to dual boot it with Gentoo or Debian and Irix because I would like to use Linux for programming and Irix for 3D modelling and using other Irix apps. Would this be a good idea or would the SGI be too slow/old?
Good grief, I havent seen a troll this obvious in a while. In short: Yes, the SGI will be too old and too slow. Now go away and play with your ipad.
OK friendo
