SGI gotcha's

This is not exhaustive. It's my notes, really.

Hardware:

dmumford@sillyg$ hinv
1 100 MHZ IP20 Processor
FPU: MIPS R4000 Floating Point Coprocessor Revision: 0.0
CPU: MIPS R4000 Processor Chip Revision: 2.2
On-board serial ports: 2
On-board bi-directional parallel port
Data cache size: 8 Kbytes
Instruction cache size: 8 Kbytes
Secondary unified instruction/data cache size: 1 Mbyte on Processor 0
Main memory size: 32 Mbytes
Integral Ethernet: ec0, version 1
Integral SCSI controller 0: Version WD33C93B, revision C
  CDROM: unit 4 on SCSI controller 0
  Disk drive: unit 1 on SCSI controller 0
Iris Audio Processor: revision 10
Graphics board: LG1
dmumford@sillyg$

Installation

CDROM: The first time I attempt to read from the CDROM after selecting it as the source of the installation, (Click system maintenance or hit
, click Install Software or hit 2, select CDROM & hit enter, load the CD & hit enter), I get the error
```
dks0d4s8 volume header not valid. 

Error 20 while reading scsi(0)cdrom(4)partition(8)sashARCS
Unable to continue, hit  to return to the menu.  
```
But the second time I try, everything works fine. The CDROM is an old toshiba.
EFS/XFS: My box seems unable to boot from XFS partitions. So, duh, make the partition EFS.
S31proclaim/bootp: For some reason I haven't bothered to look into, /etc/rc2.d/S31proclaim makes the system take forever to boot (if ever). I expect it's looking at bootp stuff, but I'm probably not gonna get around to checking it. I just moved it to s31proclaim, and all is well.
Configuring the IP addresses right:
1. Put the hostname in /etc/sys_id
2. Put the hostname & ip address in /etc/hosts
3. Put the network address in /etc/networks

Administration

gcc: I do not have a copy of SGI's c compiler. The copy of gcc included in the freeware 2.0 cd I got just plain doesn't work as far as I can tell. I forget where I found it, but this (10MB) is what gave me a semi-functioning gcc. Semi-functioning meaning "hello world", gmake, less, and zsh compile satisfactorily. SSH compiles, but unsatisfactorily (generating p during make install never stops). Don't bother recompiling gcc.
accounts: Shudder. half a dozen accounts installed without passwords, including root.

Useful Links

Here's some stuff that was useful at one time, and may still be useful.