[H-GEN] Linux on an SGI Indy vs Linux on an SGI Indigo/Indigo2

[David Jericho]

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On Thu, Feb 13, 2003 at 01:03:08PM +1000, Stuart Longland wrote:
> Fair enough.  I'm completely naive on this point as I've never used an
> SGI system.  We're looking at a RISC based system, a MIPS powered system
> would be useful as we also have a Gateway Micro Server (aka Sun/Cobalt
> Qube 1) with a corrupted OS, if the processors are compatable, I could
> use the SGI box to build the tools to make a version of Linux for the
> Micro Server.

MIPS != MIPS. Most of the time user space applications will work, but rarely 
are MIPS boxes alike at the hardware level. 

You could always follow the process of setting up a cross compiler,
documented in many many locations around the net. Visit the Oracle^W^WGoogle.

> being a 64-bit RISC, it would have a fair bit of grunt.  Maybe not that 
> much grunt. ;-)

There is a lot of misinformation about the actual performance of RISC
systems simply because they're "RISC" based.

Most Indys (i.e. the cheaper ones) have no secondary cache. You really
start to notice this as your use of the machine picks up. 

> Fair enough, Does Linux support the video capture cards in the Indys? 

At present, no.

> A bit of support for the multimedia hardware in these boxes would be
> useful as I sometimes like to capture video, and there others who would
> find access to such a machine useful.

To be honest, it's cheaper to go buy a PC capture solution and you'll
get roughly similar quality. But I was very impressed with the actual
IEC958 audio output on the Indy.

If you've got the processor, 32 channels of 24bit 96kHz audio isn't a
stretch for the actual digital interface.

And as for letting others on the machine. Well :) I'm of Bruce's
mindset when it comes to this.[1]

> Yeah, typical closed-source.  I'll bet there priced for the corporate
> market too.

Well, I do have to say I rather like IRIX as far as a commerical Unix
goes. I can see where a lot of RedHat's approach to Linux has come
from.

-- 
David Jericho
Senior Systems Administrator, Bytecomm Pty Ltd


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