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freke
Veteran
Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 1050
Location: Somewhere in Denmark
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 Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:23 pm Post subject: Current status of Gentoo on SGI Octane? |
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I'm looking to acquire an SGI Octane workstation, I've got several different configuration options and was wondering if any would work better than others for Gentoo (or work at all that is)...
R10k 195MHz CPU
R10k 250MHz CPU (Either single or dual)
R12k 300MHz CPU
Standard (SE?) Graphics
SSE Graphics
MXE Graphics
I was hoping to get a dual 250MHz system - as for graphics I'd obviously like the MXE, it's quite a jump in price compared to a SSE configuration though.
The system will come with a fresh IRIX-installation, could I in some way preserve that (ghost, full backup or...)? So I could return to IRIX should I want that?
Or maybe even better - dual boot? |
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jballou
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 10 Mar 2005
Posts: 128
Location: Baghdad, Iraq
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| Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 1:11 am Post subject: Re: Current status of Gentoo on SGI Octane? |
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| freke wrote: | I'm looking to acquire an SGI Octane workstation, I've got several different configuration options and was wondering if any would work better than others for Gentoo (or work at all that is)...
R10k 195MHz CPU
R10k 250MHz CPU (Either single or dual)
R12k 300MHz CPU
Standard (SE?) Graphics
SSE Graphics
MXE Graphics
I was hoping to get a dual 250MHz system - as for graphics I'd obviously like the MXE, it's quite a jump in price compared to a SSE configuration though.
The system will come with a fresh IRIX-installation, could I in some way preserve that (ghost, full backup or...)? So I could return to IRIX should I want that?
Or maybe even better - dual boot? |
Last I checked SMP was not a happening event on MIPS, just runs one proc. I have a 195MHz R10K/2Gb RAM that I run fluxbox, dillo, and a few other apps on as a station that I let people come check their email on since they can't do a damn thing but what I want them to. It's a load of fun to work with, and for $100 shipped I love my 54 pound minifridge. I don't have Irix on mine but dual boot should be pretty straightforward from what I've seen of ARCS. As for the graphics, it's only an issue if you run Irix, in Linux it's pretty much just a VESA like minimum video implementation with the framebuffer. X runs, but don't expect to do anything heavy. Some argue that's the whole reason for having an SGI, but honestly it's a hobby.
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-Shuttle SN25P, Opteron 185, 74Gb WD Raptor, 2x 300Gb Barracuda 7200.9, 2x 1Gb Corsair dual channel, BFG GeForce 7800GT
-Asus Z7100 laptop, P-M 2.13, 2Gb DDR, 100Gb 7200RPM HDD, 128Mb GeForce 6600 Go. |
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freshy98
Apprentice
Joined: 11 Jul 2002
Posts: 274
Location: The Netherlands
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| Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 1:09 pm Post subject: |
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Since when is SMP not working on Octane? Afaik it used to work at least.
Skylark has made the kernel working for Octane, as well as several other things, and SMP was one of them.
Try googling for Skylark Octane or something.
Also, there is no real X driver. Only a software driver hackup of somesort.
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Mac Pro single quad 2.8GHz, 6GB RAM, 8800GT. MacBook. Plus way too many SUN/Cobatl/SGI and a lonely Alpha. |
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Redhatter
Retired Dev
Joined: 20 Sep 2003
Posts: 548
Location: Brisbane, QLD, Australia
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| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 11:57 am Post subject: |
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freshyapepper: Really? That's news to me. And it'll be news to iluxa who's been using his 16-CPU Origin 2000 to push out the big endian MIPS stages. 
SMP has worked fine for quite a while... just that only a handful of SGI machines that run Linux are SMP capable.
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Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...
Gentoo/MIPS Cobalt developer, Mozilla herd member. |
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Frapazoid
n00b
Joined: 03 Apr 2006
Posts: 18
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| Posted: Thu May 25, 2006 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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I'm running Linux on my Octane at the moment. Here's what to expect:
It ~should~ support SMP. It's considered supported but I don't use it myself.
Get an Impact video card, not VPro. VPro has no X support. Impact does work in X just fine. The most notable limitations are that it can't change video mode and has no 3D acceleration. So make sure to get a 1280x1024x75hz monitor.
FireFox, Mozilla and Java do not work. You'll be using Konqueror sans Java if you intend to browse the web. That part I didn't know ahead of time 
Gimp, Gnome and most other things seem to be working perfectly. I was told Gnome doesn't work but I'm using it just fine and dandy.
Expect to have a system to product a TFTP and BootP server. There are very common difficulties getting it to boot Linux off a volume header.
The advantage of Linux over IRIX is that Linux has USB support and isn't about to be end-of-lifed. It's more like a beta stage. If it's constantly developing than it has potential to become a lot more useful.
So if you're still sure you wanna use Linux, consider that Linux means you can get a PCI bracket and use some standard PCI cards, including USB support and other addons. I haven't messed with adding video cards but I suddenly want to take a crack at it when I get home.
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My systems:
MIPS R12000 400mhz - 1536 Megs RAM - Impact SSE Video Board - 10k RPM 73gig SCSI - Gentoo Linux
Athlon K7-Thunderbird 1000mhz - 512 Megs RAM - GeForce 5.2 128meg Video - 5k RPM 40gig IDE - Fedora Core |
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Gentoo on Alternative Architectures
