Minimum Requirements and Supported Platforms

Memory and Disk Space Requirements

  • Memory. The minimum memory requirement for Indy, R4000 Indigo and Indigo2 is 32 megabytes (MB). However, 64MB of memory or more is highly recommended. For all other supported systems, the minimum is 64MB.

  • Disk Space. A standard, default installation of IRIX 6.5 plus IRIX 6.5.18m occupies approximately 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of disk space.

    A 2GB or larger hard drive is recommended, although it is possible to limit your installations so that you can run 6.5 on less than 1GB, as shown in the example below.

    Example of a "Minimal IRIX" Upgrade
    What follows is an example of how you could install a very minimal IRIX 6.5.18 on less than 1GB--by substituting these installation commands for the installation selection part of the IRIX upgrade. This "minimal IRIX" example occupies about 500MB on an Indy, and does not include any of the online books or man pages.
    Inst> keep *

    Inst> install required

    Inst> install default eoe 4Dwm desktop_base x_eoe desktop_eoe netscape

    Inst> keep *.books *.man

    Inst> install prereqs

Supported Platforms

You can upgrade from IRIX 5.3, or IRIX 6.2 through 6.5.15.

IRIX 6.5.18 supports all SGI systems with R4x00, R5x00, R8000, and R1x000 CPU types, except Crimson. This includes:

  • Challenge® M
  • Challenge® S
  • Indigo®--see special preinstallation caveat
  • Indigo2TM --see special preinstallation caveats
  • Indigo2TM ExtremeTM
  • Indigo2 ImpactTM10000
  • Indy®
  • Origin® 2000 (now also includes the Cray Origin® 2000 systems)
  • Power ChallengeTM
  • Power ChallengeTM M
  • Power Indigo2TM
  • Power OnyxTM
  • SGI® Origin®200
  • SGI® Origin®300
  • SGI® Origin® 3000 server series
  • Silicon Graphics® O2®
  • Silicon Graphics® Octane®
  • Silicon Graphics® Onyx®
  • Silicon Graphics® Onyx2®

Obsolete Peripherals and Software

The following are not supported in 6.5.18:

  • 4DDNTM
  • 4DLTTM
  • EISA Sync Serial Card
  • GIO Sync Serial Card
  • GIO Token Ring
  • Hibernator II
  • InPerson®
  • IRIS® 5080 Emulator
  • IRIS AnnotatorTM
  • IRIS Channel Adapter
  • IRISxfr mainframe software
  • IRIXproTM
  • IRIXproTM Proconf
  • Molecular Inventor
  • PeoplePages
  • Propel
  • SNAserver
  • SX.25
  • Tooltalk Dev
  • USL C++ Translator V3.0.1
  • Vigra VME audio board
  • VME Sync Serial Card
  • VME Token Ring Card