IRIX
Encyclopedia
IRIX is a computer operating system
developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) to run natively on their 32- and 64-bit MIPS architecture
workstations and servers. It was based on UNIX System V
with BSD
extensions. IRIX was the first operating system to include the XFS
file system.
The last major version of IRIX was IRIX 6.5 which was released in May 1998. New minor versions of IRIX 6.5 were released every quarter until 2005; since then there have been four further minor releases. Through version 6.5.22, there were two branches of each release: a maintenance release
(identified by an m suffix to the version number) that included only fixes to the original IRIX 6.5 code, and a feature release (with an f suffix) that included improvements and enhancements. An overlay upgrade from 6.5.x to the 6.5.22 maintenance release is available as a free download, whereas versions 6.5.23 and higher require an active Silicon Graphics support contract, despite only running on Silicon Graphics hardware.
IRIX 3.x was based on UNIX System V
Release 3 with 4.3BSD enhancements, and incorporated the 4Sight
windowing system
, based on NeWS
and IRIS GL
. SGI's own Extent File System (EFS) replaced the System V filesystem.
IRIX 4.0, released in 1991, replaced 4Sight with the X Window System
(X11R4), the 4Dwm
window manager
providing a similar look and feel to 4Sight.
IRIX 5.0, released in 1993, incorporated certain features of UNIX System V Release 4, including ELF
-format executables. IRIX 5.3 introduced the XFS
journaling file system
.
In 1994, IRIX 6.0 added support for the 64-bit MIPS R8000
processor, but was otherwise similar to IRIX 5.2. Later 6.x releases supported other members of the MIPS processor family in 64-bit mode. IRIX 6.3 was released for the SGI O2
workstation only. IRIX 6.4 improved multiprocessor
scalability for the Octane
, Origin 2000
, and Onyx2
systems. The Origin 2000 and Onyx2 IRIX 6.4 was marketed as "Cellular IRIX", although it only incorporated some features from the original Cellular IRIX distributed operating system
project. IRIX development stabilized with IRIX 6.5, released in 1998. The last version of IRIX was 6.5.30, released in August 2006.
Release 4, UNIX 95 and POSIX
(including 1e/2c draft 15 ACL
s and Capabilities).
IRIX had strong support for real-time disk and graphics I/O. IRIX was one of the first Unix versions to feature a graphical user interface
for the main desktop environment. IRIX was widely used in the computer animation
industry and for scientific visualization
due to its once-large application base.
IRIX was a leader in Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP), scalable from 1 to greater than 1024 processors with a single system image.
IRIX used the Indigo Magic Desktop, which by default used the 4Dwm
X window manager
with a custom look designed using the Motif widget toolkit.
IRIX used the MIPSPro
7.4 Compiler for both its front end and back end. The compiler was designed to support parallel POSIX
programming in C/C++, Fortran 77/90, and Ada. The Workshop GUI IDE was used for development. Other tools include Speedshop for performance tuning, and Performance Co-Pilot
.
IRIX also supported OpenGL
for graphics chips and Image processing libraries.
or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
.
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) to run natively on their 32- and 64-bit MIPS architecture
MIPS architecture
MIPS is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . The early MIPS architectures were 32-bit, and later versions were 64-bit...
workstations and servers. It was based on UNIX System V
UNIX System V
Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV , is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by American Telephone & Telegraph and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, termed Releases 1, 2, 3 and 4...
with BSD
Berkeley Software Distribution
Berkeley Software Distribution is a Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995...
extensions. IRIX was the first operating system to include the XFS
XFS
XFS is a high-performance journaling file system created by Silicon Graphics, Inc. It is the default file system in IRIX releases 5.3 and onwards and later ported to the Linux kernel. XFS is particularly proficient at parallel IO due to its allocation group based design...
file system.
The last major version of IRIX was IRIX 6.5 which was released in May 1998. New minor versions of IRIX 6.5 were released every quarter until 2005; since then there have been four further minor releases. Through version 6.5.22, there were two branches of each release: a maintenance release
Maintenance release
A maintenance release is a release of a product that does not add new features or content. For instance, in computer software, maintenance releases are typically intended to solve minor problems, typically "bugs" or security issues....
(identified by an m suffix to the version number) that included only fixes to the original IRIX 6.5 code, and a feature release (with an f suffix) that included improvements and enhancements. An overlay upgrade from 6.5.x to the 6.5.22 maintenance release is available as a free download, whereas versions 6.5.23 and higher require an active Silicon Graphics support contract, despite only running on Silicon Graphics hardware.
History
The IRIX name was first used around the time of release 3.0 of the operating system for SGI's IRIS 4D series of workstations and servers, in 1988. Previous releases were identified only by the release number prefixed by "4D1-", e.g. "4D1-2.2". The 4D1- prefix continued to be used in official documentation to prefix IRIX release numbers.IRIX 3.x was based on UNIX System V
UNIX System V
Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV , is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by American Telephone & Telegraph and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, termed Releases 1, 2, 3 and 4...
Release 3 with 4.3BSD enhancements, and incorporated the 4Sight
4Sight
4Sight is the name of a desktop computer telephony software product made by 4Com. 4Sight is the name of the client software product. The associated server product is called 4Sight Server. The main purpose of the software is to provide integration between business telephone systems and CRM software...
windowing system
Windowing system
A windowing system is a component of a graphical user interface , and more specifically of a desktop environment, which supports the implementation of window managers, and provides basic support for graphics hardware, pointing devices such as mice, and keyboards...
, based on NeWS
NeWS
NeWS was a windowing system developed by Sun Microsystems in the mid 1980s. Originally known as "SunDew", its primary authors were James Gosling and David S. H. Rosenthal...
and IRIS GL
IRIS GL
IRIS GL was a proprietary graphics API created by Silicon Graphics for producing 2D and 3D computer graphics on their IRIX-based IRIS graphical workstations...
. SGI's own Extent File System (EFS) replaced the System V filesystem.
IRIX 4.0, released in 1991, replaced 4Sight with the X Window System
X Window System
The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
(X11R4), the 4Dwm
4Dwm
4Dwm is a window manager normally used on Silicon Graphics workstations running IRIX. 4Dwm is derived from the older mwm window manager and uses the Motif widget toolkit on top of the X Window System found on most Unix systems....
window manager
Window manager
A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment...
providing a similar look and feel to 4Sight.
IRIX 5.0, released in 1993, incorporated certain features of UNIX System V Release 4, including ELF
Executable and Linkable Format
In computing, the Executable and Linkable Format is a common standard file format for executables, object code, shared libraries, and core dumps. First published in the System V Application Binary Interface specification, and later in the Tool Interface Standard, it was quickly accepted among...
-format executables. IRIX 5.3 introduced the XFS
XFS
XFS is a high-performance journaling file system created by Silicon Graphics, Inc. It is the default file system in IRIX releases 5.3 and onwards and later ported to the Linux kernel. XFS is particularly proficient at parallel IO due to its allocation group based design...
journaling file system
Journaling file system
A journaling file system is a file system that keeps track of the changes that will be made in a journal before committing them to the main file system...
.
In 1994, IRIX 6.0 added support for the 64-bit MIPS R8000
R8000
The R8000 is a microprocessor chipset developed by MIPS Technologies, Inc. , Toshiba, and Weitek. It was the first implementation of the MIPS IV instruction set architecture. The R8000 is also known as the TFP, for Tremendous Floating-Point, its name during development.-History:Development of the...
processor, but was otherwise similar to IRIX 5.2. Later 6.x releases supported other members of the MIPS processor family in 64-bit mode. IRIX 6.3 was released for the SGI O2
SGI O2
The O2 is an entry-level Unix workstation introduced in 1996 by Silicon Graphics, Inc. to replace their earlier Indy series. Like the Indy, the O2 used a single MIPS microprocessor and was intended to be used mainly for multimedia. Its larger counterpart was the SGI Octane...
workstation only. IRIX 6.4 improved multiprocessor
Multiprocessor
Computer system having two or more processing units each sharing main memory and peripherals, in order to simultaneously process programs.Sometimes the term Multiprocessor is confused with the term Multiprocessing....
scalability for the Octane
SGI Octane
The Octane and the similar Octane2 are UNIX workstations marketed by SGI. Both are 2-way SMP-capable workstations, originally based on the MIPS R10000 microprocessor. Newer Octanes are based on MIPS R12000 and R14000. The Octane2 has four improvements compared to Octane, a revised power supply,...
, Origin 2000
SGI Origin 2000
The SGI Origin 2000, code named Lego, is a family of mid-range and high-end servers developed and manufactured by SGI and introduced in 1996 to succeed the SGI Challenge and POWER Challenge. At the time of introduction, these systems ran IRIX 6.4 and later, IRIX 6.5. A variant of the Origin 2000...
, and Onyx2
SGI Onyx2
The SGI Onyx2, code name Kego, is a family of visualization systems developed and manufactured by SGI, introduced in 1996 to succeed the Onyx. The Onyx2's basic system architecture is based on the Origin 2000 servers, but with the notable inclusion of graphics hardware. In 2000, the Onyx2 was...
systems. The Origin 2000 and Onyx2 IRIX 6.4 was marketed as "Cellular IRIX", although it only incorporated some features from the original Cellular IRIX distributed operating system
Distributed operating system
A distributed operating system is the logical aggregation of operating system software over a collection of independent, networked, communicating, and spatially disseminated computational nodes. Individual system nodes each hold a discrete software subset of the global aggregate operating system...
project. IRIX development stabilized with IRIX 6.5, released in 1998. The last version of IRIX was 6.5.30, released in August 2006.
Features
IRIX 6 was compliant with UNIX System VUNIX System V
Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV , is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by American Telephone & Telegraph and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, termed Releases 1, 2, 3 and 4...
Release 4, UNIX 95 and POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
(including 1e/2c draft 15 ACL
Access control list
An access control list , with respect to a computer file system, is a list of permissions attached to an object. An ACL specifies which users or system processes are granted access to objects, as well as what operations are allowed on given objects. Each entry in a typical ACL specifies a subject...
s and Capabilities).
IRIX had strong support for real-time disk and graphics I/O. IRIX was one of the first Unix versions to feature a graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
for the main desktop environment. IRIX was widely used in the computer animation
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
industry and for scientific visualization
Scientific visualization
Scientific visualization is an interdisciplinary branch of science according to Friendly "primarily concerned with the visualization of three-dimensional phenomena , where the emphasis is on realistic renderings of volumes, surfaces, illumination sources, and so forth, perhaps...
due to its once-large application base.
IRIX was a leader in Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP), scalable from 1 to greater than 1024 processors with a single system image.
IRIX used the Indigo Magic Desktop, which by default used the 4Dwm
4Dwm
4Dwm is a window manager normally used on Silicon Graphics workstations running IRIX. 4Dwm is derived from the older mwm window manager and uses the Motif widget toolkit on top of the X Window System found on most Unix systems....
X window manager
X window manager
An X window manager is a window manager which runs on top of the X Window System, a windowing system mainly used on Unix-like systems.Unlike the Mac OS and Microsoft Windows platforms which have historically provided a vendor-controlled, fixed set of ways to control how windows and panes display...
with a custom look designed using the Motif widget toolkit.
IRIX used the MIPSPro
Open64
Open64 is an open source, optimizing compiler for the Itanium and x86-64 microprocessor architectures. It derives from the SGI compilers for the MIPS R10000 processor, called MIPSPro. It was initially released in 2000 as GNU GPL software under the name Pro64. The following year, University of...
7.4 Compiler for both its front end and back end. The compiler was designed to support parallel POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
programming in C/C++, Fortran 77/90, and Ada. The Workshop GUI IDE was used for development. Other tools include Speedshop for performance tuning, and Performance Co-Pilot
Performance Co-Pilot
Performance Co-Pilot is an open source infrastructure for monitoring, visualizing, recording, responding to, and controlling the status, activity, and performance of networks, computers, applications, and servers.-Features:...
.
IRIX also supported OpenGL
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
for graphics chips and Image processing libraries.
Retirement
SGI announced the end of the MIPS/IRIX-based product line in a press release on 6 September 2006. Production ended on 29 December 2006 with last deliveries in March 2007, except by special arrangement. Support for these products will end no sooner than December 2013. All current SGI systems are shipped with Red Hat Enterprise LinuxRed Hat Enterprise Linux
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux-based operating system developed by Red Hat and targeted toward the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86, x86-64, Itanium, PowerPC and IBM System z, and desktop versions for x86 and x86-64...
or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a Linux distribution supplied by SUSE and targeted at the business market. It is targeted for servers, mainframes, and workstations but can be installed on desktop computers for testing as well. New major versions are released at an interval of 3-4 years, while...
.
External links
- Overview of information related to the IRIX operating system
- Technical Publications Library
- IRIX Datasheet
- Silicon Bunny - IRIX software and information
- Nekochan - IRIX open source software, information and forums
- IRIX Admin: Backup, Security, and Accounting Document Number: 007-2862-004 February 1999