"About This Guide" includes brief descriptions of the contents of this guide and an explanation of typographical conventions used, and refers you to additional sources of information you might find helpful.
This guide explains how to perform general system configuration and operation tasks under the IRIX(TM) operating system used with Silicon Graphics® workstations and servers. It provides descriptions of a broad range of tasks, from turning on a system, to adding users, to tuning the operating system kernel.
If you have a graphics workstation, you may find it convenient to use the System Manager, which is described in the Personal System Administration Guide. That guide should be your first resource for administering graphics workstations. Regardless of whether you use the System Manager or the IRIX command-line interface, the results are the same. The System Manager does not create any new files on your system, unlike applications such as WorkSpace.
If you have a server, the IRIX Administration manual set (of which this guide is part) is your primary guide to system administration, since without graphics you cannot use the System Manager. This guide does not describe the System Manager in great detail. Instead, it covers the traditional shell command approach to administering an IRIX operating system.