By this time Artisan Developers should have received an advance copy of IRIX 6.2. If you have not received your copy, it could be because you have not registered your primary Development System Serial Number with the Developer Program. To register your serial number, include it in an e-mail to devsupport@sgi.com and I will send your copy. Read this article for information about the IRIXá6.2 upgrade.
As of early May, IRIXá6.2 is rolling out of Manufacturing on both the high-end systems as well as the Indigo² family. In mid-May, IRIX 6.2-based Indy workstations will roll from the factory. The software push to the installed customer base will also begin in May.
There is a known problem on CHALLENGE® and Onyx® systems with IP19, IP22, and IP25 boards: when an IO4 prom fails to program the first time, upon running FLASHIO in the exitops, retry does not work. The CHALLENGE is rendered unbootable. This is a problem that existed in 5.3 and earlier releases, and it affects about 2 to 3 percent of the systems with these boards. A patch is being created and will be expedited to all Developers who received IRIXá6.2. In order to fix the prom, you need to load the patch twice: once before installing IRIXá6.2, and again after installing IRIXá6.2. To see if you have an IP19 or IP22 board, type the command hinv in a shell. If you have any questions, send an e-mail to devsupport@sgi.com.
The patch is also ftp-accessible.
You can also receive the patch by sending an e-mail to devsupport@sgi.com. Be sure to include the serial number of the system on which the patch will be installed.
The installation software searches for inconsistencies in product releases. Inst then requests that you resolve these conflicts as soon as they are detected. Since IRIX is now shipped on two CDs, the number of conflicts can be large. Refer to the following instructions to assist your installation of IRIXá6.2.
The initialization process guides you in using the inst.init script. This script evaluates your installed software and hardware configuration, then adjusts your subsystem installation settings for the optimal installation. The inst.init script also prompts you to execute useful installation utilities to remove old temporary files and to check for COFF files. SiliconáGraphics recommends that you follow the prompts. It could save you work later in the event of an error.
Inst> set delay_conflicts on
Inst> go
The first CD-ROM (IRIXáPartá1áofá2) contains the operating system as well as the base library-level support for other software. The installation tools detect software installed on your system that is not upgraded until later in the installation process. The installation tools list this software as a conflict.
For more information on conflict checking, type the following command:
Inst> set delay_conflicts
Inst> from /CDROM/dist
Inst> quit
You need to resolve all conflicts before you can successfully complete the installation.
IRIXá6.2 includes several products also released under IRIXá5.3. The release notes for these products state that IRIXá5.3 is the required operating system software; the release notes also refer to eoe1 or eoe2 subsystems. Disregard this information IRIX--6.2 is also a correct operating system for these products. IRIXá6.2 combined eoe1 and eoe2 into eoe, so the referenced subsystems are in fact present.
In addition to the supported systems listed in Chapter 1 of the IRIX Release Notes, Indy® R5000TM, Onyx® InfiniteRealityTM, Onyx InfiniteReality 10000, and Indigo² IMPACTTM are supported.
A few of the products include the word "Beta" in the product descriptions and release notes. The products included on the IRIXáCD set are all fully released and supported products.
XPG4 is referenced as XPG4-Base95. The installable software product name is xpg4.
A bug in the License Manager erases existing NetLS licenses when you add new ones. This problem exists in the Releaseá2.1 of license_eoe. Until you receive the 2.1.1 or later release of license_eoe, address this issue by adding NetLS licenses as described in IRIX Admin: Software Installation and Licensing.
The release notes for certain products list incorrect release numbers. Refer to the following table for the corrected release numbers:
| Product | Correct Release Number |
| isdn_eoe 1.1 | isdn_eoe 1.2 |
| tooltalk_eoe 1.2.2 | tooltalk_eoe 1.3 |
| dynaweb 1.0 | dynaweb 1.0.1 |
| outbox 1.1 | outbox 1.2 |
| showcase 3.3 | showcase 3.4 |
| efast 5.3 | efast 6.2 |
| imgtools 2.2 | imgtools 2.3.1 |
| whatsnew 1.2 | whatsnew 6.2 |
Several products in IRIX and IDO are missing release notes. Use the composite release notes IRIX and IDO for product descriptions.
This is fixed by patchá1197, which ships with all InfiniteReality systems, so this should not be a problem. However, if you reinstall IRIXá6.2 from scratch, you must also reinstall the patch before rebooting.
To address this issue, make sure that pipe #0 is the pipe with the largest number of RM6 boards and DG4 video output channels.
COFF binaries do not run on IRIX 6.2 and therefore the PostScript RIP portion of Impressario 1.2 will not work with IRIX 6.2. Impressario 2.0 is being released to correct this problem and will ship with the IRIX 6.2 applications CD (May 1996).
If you choose to upgrade the system to IRIX 6.2, the upgrade process will display conflicts stating that you need to remove Impressario 1.2 images before you can install IRIX 6.2.
If the client machine is running IRIX 6.2 and the driver for the printer of interest is in COFF format (old third-party drivers), then the Options button on the Printer Manager window and the More Options button on the Print Panel may no longer work. The workaround for this problem is to wait until the Impressario server has been upgraded to Impressarioá2.0, and use the Printer Manager to reinstall the printer on the server and the client.
One workaround is to obtain a license for Impressario PostScript RIP before upgrading a print server to IRIXá6.2 and Impressarioá2.0.
We welcome feedback and comments at
devprogram@sgi.com.