The tasks of installing necessary hardware are described in the documentation for the hardware. Software installation is described in the IRIX Admin: Software Installation and Licensing volume. This Guide describes the tasks you perform once the system has been powered-up to bring your system from its initial distributed state to the state in which you will use it.
This Guide assists you by describing the procedures most administrators use to configure their systems and explaining the reasons why these procedures exist and why they work the way they do. Some of these tasks are typically performed only at times of major change - when a system is commissioned, when ownership changes, or when there has been a significant hardware upgrade. Others are ongoing tasks or tasks that may come up during standard usage of an installed system.
This chapter provides directions to the information that system administrators use in the course of their tasks. Also, background information is presented on the general nature of the job of system administration. There are many good books on system administration listed in Appendix E, "Bibliography and Suggested Reading" of this Guide, and these are available through your local computer bookstore. Your Silicon Graphics system is similar to the systems described in many of these books, and it is different in significant areas as well. The principles of good system administration, though, are constant.