Software Installation
After formatting and paritioning the disk,
you can install the software. The easiest way, IMHO, is to issue a
go command to install the default software configuration, then
use the step command to step through each subsystem and add or
remove non-default modules.
Install default software with go
After the basic filesystems have been created, you must select and
install software. I find it easiest to first install the default
software with the go option.
Reboot the machine, if it hasn't been already, and at boot up,
stop in the Maintenance Menu and select Install
Software. This will read information of the CDROM, load up a
miniroot, mount some filesystems, then begin the inst program.
Simply type go and all the default system software, man
pages, etc will be installed for you. This takes some time. Don't exit
yet when it finishes.
Modify the default installation with step
Then tell inst to step through all the modules. It will
show you what has been installed (and therefore can be removed), what
can be installed from CDROM. I remove things I don't need (eg:
FORTRAN), and add things I do need; on Irix-5.3, I added: dps, sysv
networking security auditing, avilability monitoring, snmp,
accounting, bind, ppp, slip, spell, and bsdlpr. (The most important
for me were bind and bsdlpr.) When you've made all your selections,
again type go to install the configuration you've chosen.
Afterit's completed use quit, which will do some final
post-installation work.
Rebooting now should get you a functioning system. I like to try
it out now before installing other software, such as IDO (compiler)
and NFS.
Installing other software
Once the system's up and running Irix, I install other software like
NFS and IDO from multiuser. Login as root, load the CDROM, and the SGI
should show a CDROM icon. Double-click the icon and a GUI installation
program will run.
You can choose upgrade or new as appropriate, and it
will check disk sizes for you to make sure the software will fit. (NFS
is small, IDO is large).
You may have to reboot for the software to take effect (eg: NFS).
Next...
Next you'll need to protect the
machine's basic accounts and then do basic setup with EZsetup. You should
protect the system accounts before you enable networking, or
else your system may become a net.victim. :-(
Chris Shenton