[rescue] sgi octane

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Thu, 8 Aug 2002, Michael Still wrote:

> Well I got my octane yesterday (my first sgi).  Nice box: R10k 195, 256M,
> 2x9G, SI, Fibre Channel XIO, PCI Cage.

Nice system.  I could sure use Fibre Channel right now, as I'm in need of
cheap storage at the moment (little cash, and two dying IDE discs on my
network).

> It has Irix on it.  uname reports '6.5-ALPHA' and then some numbers as the
> version string.  Is that normal?  Can anyone help me out with media or isos
> to load a fresh Irix on it?

No, that's not normal.  Here's mine:

$ uname -a
IRIX64 firehawk 6.5 04101931 IP30
$ uname -R
6.5 6.5.16f

The -R gives the IRIX platform version (6.5) and the IRIX kernel version
(6.5.16f).  The -a gives the OS (IRIX64), the hostname (firehawk), the
platform version (6.5), my system's ID (04101931), and my system's
platform ID (IP30).

It sounds like you somehow have a prerelease version of 6.5.  You probably
want to upgrade.  6.5 media kits pop up from time-to-time on eBay, and, if
you don't need the "feature stream", you can upgrade to 6.5.18m from
http://support.sgi.com/.  However, to do the upgrade, you will need the
6.5 release, not 6.5-alpha, so you'll still need a media kit.

> Seller packed a usb sgi keyboard that's useless with this box and also a sun
> monitor adapter that converts a sun monitor to work on a pc... also useless.
> No big deal for me though.

Well, at least you got some "free"... er.. junk.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke
   > Can you SysAdmins tell me what might go on in a typical day?
   Hours of endless frustration punctuated by moments of sheer terror.
                                 --Saul Tannenbaum (in the Monastery)