Ralph Aichinger wrote: > I hope this list is OK for my user level questions: > > I've just bought an SGI Indy (P22, 64MB RAM, small Disk) and > two Alphas (300 MHz or so, not yet switched on or tested). > > Which architecture do you think is the "easier" one to start > with? I want to install Debian or NetBSD on all machines in > the long run, but I don't have too much time ATM, so if one > architecture has more problems, I will try the other one first.
If the Indy has the 8 or 24 bit entry level graphics, it should work fine. The "hinv" command tells. > That particular Indy has no floppy. Will that be a problem > (I can connect an external SCSI CD-Rom or setup a bootp/tftp > server to boot from)? No Indy has a floppy. :-) It would IIRC be a 21 MB floptical drive, but I have never seen one. For Debian, you will need to boot via bootp/tftp. CD boot is at the brink of being supported in sarge, but needs in any case a CD drive which supports 512 Byte reads. > Furthermore: With my experience of i386 hardware it seems to > me that above Indy (with its 64MB RAM) is a bit underpowered > for a full Gnome setup. I assume it is best used as a X-Terminal > for an moderate PC "Host" to run the apps on (say, a 2GHz Athlon). > Does that sound about right, or should I try to run the apps > locally nevertheless? Some lightweight applications (probably even xfce) run quite decent on the box, but Gnome+Mozilla+OOo won't work that well. :-) > Is there anything I should do while there is still Irix > on that machine, before installing Linux? You may want to run the "ide" hardware diagnostics (choice 2 from the firmware). It needs an installed IRIX. Thiemo
