Re: [Sheflug] Silicon Graphics (Iris?) / Smoothwall

[Richard Lowe <nospam [at] richlowe.demon.co.uk>]

* James Bruce (aca00jab [at] sheffield.ac.uk) wrote:
> Hi everyone, *long message alert* 
> 
> Thought i'd tell you all about [read: show off]  the exciting
> possibility that I may actualy be getting a Silicon Graphics 'indy'
> workstation (remember i said my dads company was closing down? well,
> this thing was used to control one of the big laser cutters or
> somehting like that, has a massive screen for cad work etc)... anyhew
> i havent got it yet but ive had a chance to play with it and seen its
> running something called IRIS , which ive heard is a 'flavour' of unix
> just like linux. Well, I thought this would be nice to have in my
> room, even i just use it to check my mail!!! Only thing is, it only
> has a floppy drive (no cdrom), i have absolutely no idea how to use
> it, and has an admin account on it so i can only get in as guest.
> Basically, is there any chance out there that someone has experience
> with one of these machines or with iris? Is it possible to put linux
> on there?! Or can i reinstall iris off a remote cdrom drive (it has
> network connection) and therefore have admin access. To be honest, I
> am so out of my depth with this thing, but what the hell its not as if
> im paying for the machine.... I would love to bring it in to the next
> meeting once im back up in sheffield and let you all play with it etc,
> but the screen is so huge i can't carry it (and I can't drive), i
> would need someone to give me a lift if they could. (go on ill let you
> play with it!!!)
> 

IRIX is SGI's UNIX. IRIS is they're modeller, or something, iirc.
Yes you can get linux on there, (although I've never done it, and from
what I've heard from various people, it isn't the easiest of archs to
install on).

There's a mirror of install stuff, and software from various places on
Jaded's site at http://black.hole.org (which is easier to link to than
the various things that are mirrored / linked to).
Although, I'm not sure the mirrors are up to date etc, so it might be an
idea to check the original URLs


> Second point, i said earlier this month about getting an old pc to act
> as a server running smoothwall so i can share a cable connection. Well
> turns out it might be a rather cute PIII 450mHz 128mb ram instead....
> obviously i dont want to use it to just run smoothwall on since then i
> cant use the power for anything else.... Although it wont be my main
> system, it would still be a server essentially,  i would ideally like
> it to have the functionality of smoothwall but
>  as a useable linux box aswell ; ie would anyone know how to put
> debian or suse or whatever onto it and set it up to act as a firewall
> cable connection sharing thing as well as a standard linux system when
> i wanted (can the sharing thing run in the background?)
> 
> Sorry to post such long messages, but thought y'all might like to know
> about the SGI workstation and stuff... plus i really need help with
> eveyrhitng and you guys are cool... :)
> 
> Thanks, 
> James
> 
> *glowing from the fact that he's gonna have a silicon graphics
> workstation*
> *with a 23" screen*
> *just to check mail!*
> 
> (ps: i think i set my message settings correct now, i told it to wrap
> to 74 characters before sending, sorry to whoever if it wasnt doing
> that before)
> 
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-- 
[ Richard Lowe - richlowe - richlowe [at] richlowe.demon.co.uk ]
[            http://www.snowman.net/~richlowe/            ]

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