IRIX(tm) 6.2 is an upwardly compatible revision of IRIX 5 and IRIX 6. This is the first release that merges the 5.3 (32-bit) and 6.1 (64-bit) releases of software across our product line. IRIX 6.2 bundles the new xfs filesystem and provides a number of improved kernel locking and synchronization methods. To reduce system bottlenecks and improve response time to user requests, kernel threads and increased modularity of graphics and kernel functions have been added. IRIX 6.2 incorporates IRIX 5.3 features not previously available in IRIX 6. Based on UNIX System V Release 4, IRIX 6.2 provides exceptional desktop multimedia functionality, with performance networking and advanced data management for servers, plus extensive support for industry standards. Among the Key features are:
IRIX 6.2 is supported on Silicon Graphics platforms with R4000, R4400, R4600 (Crimson, Indy, Indigo, Indigo2, Challenge, and Onyx), R8000 (Power Challenge/Onyx/Indigo2) CPUs. Systems with R3000 CPUs and COFF (IRIX4 or earlier) executables are not supported in IRIX 6.2. For more information please view the release notes; you have multiple ways to do this:
IRIX 6.2 continues to support the MIPS 64-bit architecture with enchanced kernel use of 64-bit data structures. In addition, IRIX 6.2 has been designed to use an addressing scheme appropriate for specific architectures. Indigo, Indy, Indigo2, and Crimson kernels will support 32-bit addresses, while Challenge, Onyx, and the "Power" systems kernels will support 64-bit addresses.
XFS(tm) is an advanced 64-bit journaled filesystem with integrated volume management and guaranteed rate I/O. XFS provides fast recovery by quickly referencing a small journal of recent filesystem transactions, bypassing the traditional, non-scalable UNIX filesystem checking utility. Consult the on-line Insight Getting Started with XFS Administration Guide for more information.
XFS supports:
XFS scales in performance with multiprocessor implementations of the MIPS(tm) architecture. The XFS volume manager, xlv, is a superset of the lv volume manager and supports disk striping, concatenation, and a disk mirroring option. XFS supports contiguous data through filesystem extents, allowing you to create block sizes from 512 bytes to 1 gigabyte for any data. XFS is the only filesystem available that allows applications to reserve a specific bandwidth to or from the filesystem (such as is needed for media serving).
IRIX 6.2 supports the use of both XFS and EFS filesystems, allowing customers a quick and easy transition between filesystems. Consult the IRIX Admin: Disks and Filesystems, available on-line with InSight for more information (including the new xfsm tool).
In contrast to other 64-bit offerings, Silicon Graphics software vendors and customers can now migrate 32-bit applications to take full advantage of the performance of the MIPS3 (R4000, R4400, R4600) and MIPS4 (R8000) architectures. The n32 compiler option involves a new calling convention and better use of registers and instructions on the newer hardware. This gives developers the option of porting or not porting based upon their needs. IRIX6.2 support both 32-bit and 64-bit applications. Consult the MIPSpro 64-Bit Porting and Transition Guide and MIPSpro N32 ABI Handbook, available on-line with InSight for more information. Options available on IRIX 6.2 include:
NFS(tm) 6.2 is a layered product which provides high performance implementations of both NFSv2 and NFSv3. Enter the command 'grelnotes nfs' for more information. Features include:
The kernel code that implements TCP/IP networking was modified in IRIX 5.3 to allow greater parallelism on multiprocessor machines. IRIX 6.2 continues to deliver better network throughput when configured with multiple network interfaces.
The streams subsystem has been modified to support the use of multiple monitors, allowing streams code to run on multiple CPUs in parallel. This modification improves the performance of the pty/tty and streams pipe subsystems.
ISDN has been approved for the following switch protocols in the following countries:
If your country standard is not listed, check with your local service provider to confirm conformance in your country.
Silicon Graphics implementation of Point To Point
Protocol now has support for:
IP Aliasing permits a system to have more than a single IP address on a given interface. This enables an Internet service provider to have a single machine act as WWW server with different homepages based on the domainname/IP address. Refer to the -alias option on the ifconfig manual page for more information.
OpenGL(tm) extensions in IRIX 6.2 include (consult the OpenGL Programming Guide, OpenGL Porting Guide (updated), and the brand-new OpenGL on Silicon Graphics Systems, available on-line with InSight for more information):
With IRIX 6.2, the X libraries, clients and server are based on the X11R6 release from the X Consortium. In IRIX 5.3 and IRIX 6.1 the server was X11R5 based.
IRIX IM(tm) is Silicon Graphics' enhanced version of the OSF/Motif(tm) Release 1.2.4 graphical user interface.
The standard IRIX 6.2 development environment continues to support the MIPS ABI and API, including the ANSI, XOPEN/XPG4, POSIX90, SVID3 and most of the SVR4 API standards.
Options available on IRIX 6.2 include:
Consult the MIPSpro 64-Bit Porting and Transition Guide and MIPSpro N32 ABI Handbook, available on-line with InSight for more information. Also see the grelnotes IRIX 3 chapter on compiling options.
Basic Information:
| Options | |
|---|---|
| Instruction sets | mips1, mips2, mips3, mips4 |
| ABIs | -32, -n32, -64 |
| Processors | R4000, R4400, R4600, R8000 |
ABI Information:
| -32 | -n32 | -64 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Register width | 32-bit | 64-bit | 64-bit |
| Data width | ilp32 | ilp32 | lp64 |
| Address space | 32-bit | 32-bit | 64-bit |
| Parameter registers | 4 | 8 | 8 |
Instruction Set Information:
| Sets | ABI | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| mips1 | -32 | R3000 instruction set. Available on all 4 CPUs. |
| mips2 | -32 | More floating point registers, improved floating point instructions. Available on all 4 CPUs. |
| mips3 | -n32, -64 | General purpose registers are 64 bits wide, new instructions added to load, store and 64-bit manipulations. Available on all 4 CPUs. |
| mips4 | -n32,-64 | Add conditional moves, floating-point fused multiply/add, floating-point indexed addressing mode, prefetch instructions, imprecise exceptions, reciprocal and square root instructions.Available on R8000 CPU only. |
No other mixing of instruction sets is allowed.
At the time of this notice, current compilers that support n32 development include FORTRAN, C, and C++.
The combination of ABIs and ISAs forms a rich environment for applications developers to reap the benefits of the various capabilities. The following table describes which ABIs and ISAs are supported on which platforms.
Table of execution options by system (note all systems can compile mips4).
| o32 mips1 | o32 mips2 | n32 mips3 | n32 mips4 | 64 mips3 | 64 mips4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CHALLENGE DM,L,XL | yes | yes | yes | no | yes | no |
| CHALLENGE M | yes | yes | yes | no | no | no |
| CHALLENGE S | yes | yes | yes | no | no | no |
| Crimson | yes | yes | yes | no | no | no |
| Indigo R4K | yes | yes | yes | no | no | no |
| Indigo2 | yes | yes | yes | no | no | no |
| Indy | yes | yes | yes | no | no | no |
| Onyx | yes | yes | yes | no | yes | no |
| PowerCHALLENGE | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| PowerOnyx | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| PowerIndigo2 | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
Binary Compatibility Between IRIX 5.3 and IRIX 6.2
Object Compatibility Between IRIX 6.1 and IRIX 6.2
In addition to supplying NetLs licensing, IRIX 6.2 also provides FLEXlm licensing. FLEXlm allows licensing for both 32-bit and 64-bit applications.
swmgr is the graphical tool used to install, remove, and browse software distributed by Silicon Graphics. Enter the command 'man inst' for more information. IRIX 6.2 swmgr includes the following features:
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol extensions to bootp (RFC 1541, 1532-1534) are supported. This allows SGI systems to interoperate with DHCP servers as they provide the networking configuration data needed to add new systems to the network. Consult the dhcp_bootp man page for more information.
Support for larger User ID values, supporting up to 2 billion unique IDs (previous limit of 60002) has been added. This allows large sites greater flexibility in user accounts and better administration of those accounts. Requires XFS to handle the use of these UIDs. It is still recommended that a site keep their password file to a reasonable size, this new size will allow the flexibility of using more relevant data as the UID (e.g. employee number).
The IRIX Advanced Site and Server Administration Guide has been reorganized into five separate volumes to help system administrators more easily locate useful information. And the Software Installation Administrator's Guide has joined these five volumes to form a new six book IRIX Admin suite.
The new volumes are:
Availmon consists of a set of programs that collectively monitor the availability of a system. Using availmon, it is possible to collect and track the availability of the system's up-time, start-time, down-time and reasons for unavailability.
Information collected at a given system may be optionally sent to a concentrator account at SGI, which maintains a log of all systems monitored. Enter the command man availmon for more information.
We continue to provide and improve tests for audio, dial+buttons, monitor, spaceball, video, cdrom, floppy, mouse, tablet, keyboard, presenter and tape tests.
IRIX 6.2 Indigo Magic Desktop includes:
In IRIX 6.2, the digital media software has been enhanced to provide better end user tools, easier to program APIs, and higher performance. New features include:
Showcase(tm) has been tuned to improve performance and stability.
The Netscape Navigator(tm), graphical web browser developed by Netscape Communications is included in IRIX 6.2.
WebMagic Author is a WYSIWYG authoring tool for HTML. Users creating content for the Web no longer need to master the HTML language.
Xwsh now has the ability to highlight and pass the text of a URL. Enter the command 'man xwsh' consult the information in the -highlight URL and the URL sections.
Display PostScript in IRIX 6.2 includes (enter the command grelnotes acrobat for more information):
CID fonts - outline fonts with large character sets
Adobe Acrobat reader 2.1.
The Acrobat Reader allows you to use documents digitally published in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF), such as the World Wide Web. PDF allows documents to be presented in their original form, retaining the font, color, graphic, and page layout information as the author intended.
Almost all IRIX 5 binaries can run under IRIX 6. However, there may be rare cases in which application code must be recompiled, or even less likely, recoded. More detail can be found in the IRIX 6.2 Release Notes.
User binary code is compatible between IRIX 6.1 and IRIX 6.2, however, C++ code that was compiled with the -n32 and -64 flag and device drivers may require recompilation.
COFF (Common Object File Format) is the binary format of programs compiled under IRIX 4.0.5 and earlier. The binary format produced by IRIX5 and later is referred to as ELF (Extended Linking Format). Removal of COFF support means that execution of COFF binaries will fail, runtime linkage of COFF objects will fail, and compilation of COFF objects will fail. If you rely on these COFF binaries for your work, do not install IRIX 6.2 until these files have been recompiled on IRIX 5.2 or later.
Since IRIX 5 built executables as ELF by default we expect that most third party applications are now in ELF format. Enter the command grelnotes IRIX for details. Users will see the error 'Exec format error' when they try to execute a COFF executable and will need to rebuild the executable in ELF format (the default format with the IRIX 5 and IRIX 6 compilers).
IRIX 6.2 does not support the following systems and peripherals:
Please read all relevant release notes for information on specific installation information, changes, additions, bug Fixes and known problems/workarounds issues for a given product. This web page refers to a lot of products that may or may not be installed on your current system; again, check your release notes for more information.
Copyright 1995 Silicon Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved.