BeOS / Haiku on an SGI machine?
I have an offer from a friend of a choice of Indy or O2 Octane Sgi machine with monitor and was wandering if anyone knew if it was possible to install BeOS or Haiku on it?
I also have my eye on a video outboard going for less than $100 on ebay which would be awsome if I could get it working under Be as I always wanted to do video in BeOS!
Failing that, if someone has a BeBox they want to sell to me?
Comments
Re: BeOS / Haiku on an SGI machine?
Those SGI machines seem to run on MIPS hardware. Haiku or BeOS only support x86 and PowerPC.
Re: BeOS / Haiku on an SGI machine?
These machines all run IRIX 6.5, which is in maintenance mode. You will need an SGI support contract to receive security updates, or you should run the machine disconnected from the public network. There is some very good AV application software available for IRIX, although some it looks a bit dated these days, and it may be rather expensive considering the machine itself is a gift.
Alternatively you could investigate installing a Linux variant on it, most of the hardware in an Octane is supported but obviously you'll have to find an SGI-specific Linux distribution or roll your own system which might be beyond your capabilities.
Those are basically your only two options, even NetBSD doesn't have a port to this particular type of MIPS hardware.
Re: BeOS / Haiku on an SGI machine?
Despite the fact that there are obviously better things to focus on than porting Haiku to obsolete hardware, it'd still be dead cool to run it on these machines.
If I were you I'd get an Octane anyway and run Linux on it. They're rather hot and noisy though - I was half thinking of getting one off eBay just to look cool and help warm my flat in the winter.
Re: BeOS / Haiku on an SGI machine?
François Revol has just started work on an m68k port (processor used in Macs prior to PowerPC, Acorn and NeXT's machines) so although no-one is working on a MIPS port at the moment, who knows what will happen in the