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IRIX is a computer operating system
Operating system

An operating system is an interface between hardware and applications; it is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the limited resources of the computer....
 developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) to run natively on their 32- and 64-bit MIPS architecture
MIPS architecture

MIPS is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . In the mid to late 1990s, it was estimated that one in three RISC microprocessors produced were MIPS implementations....
 workstations and servers. Based on UNIX System V
UNIX System V

Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV , is one of the versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by AT&T and first released in 1983....
 with BSD
Berkeley Software Distribution

Berkeley Software Distribution is the Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995....
 extensions, it is capable of extremely long uptime
Uptime

Uptime is a Measurement of the system time a computer system has been "up" and running. It came into use to describe the opposite of downtime, times when a system was not operational....
s, and its XFS
XFS

XFS is a high-performance journaling file system created by Silicon Graphics, originally for their IRIX operating system and later ported to Linux kernel....
 file system is regarded as one of the most advanced journaling file system
Journaling file system

A journaling file system is a file system that logs changes to a journal before committing them to the main file system. Such file systems are less likely to become corrupted in the event of power failure or system crash....
s in the industry.

The current major version of IRIX is 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.






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IRIX is a computer operating system
Operating system

An operating system is an interface between hardware and applications; it is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the limited resources of the computer....
 developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) to run natively on their 32- and 64-bit MIPS architecture
MIPS architecture

MIPS is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . In the mid to late 1990s, it was estimated that one in three RISC microprocessors produced were MIPS implementations....
 workstations and servers. Based on UNIX System V
UNIX System V

Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV , is one of the versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by AT&T and first released in 1983....
 with BSD
Berkeley Software Distribution

Berkeley Software Distribution is the Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995....
 extensions, it is capable of extremely long uptime
Uptime

Uptime is a Measurement of the system time a computer system has been "up" and running. It came into use to describe the opposite of downtime, times when a system was not operational....
s, and its XFS
XFS

XFS is a high-performance journaling file system created by Silicon Graphics, originally for their IRIX operating system and later ported to Linux kernel....
 file system is regarded as one of the most advanced journaling file system
Journaling file system

A journaling file system is a file system that logs changes to a journal before committing them to the main file system. Such file systems are less likely to become corrupted in the event of power failure or system crash....
s in the industry.

The current major version of IRIX is 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 software release are typically intended to solve minor problems, typically "software bug" 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 for free download, while version 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-", eg. "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 versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by AT&T and first released in 1983....
 Release 3 with 4.3BSD enhancements, and incorporated the 4Sight
4Sight

4Sight was the default window manager for Silicon Graphics' UNIX variant IRIX from version 3.0 to 3.3.3L. 4Sight ran under a hybrid window system known as xSGINeWS : a combination of MIT's X11 and Sun Microsystems' NeWS....
 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....
 and IRIS GL
IRIS GL

IRIS GL was a proprietary graphics application programming interface 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 computing software system and network protocol that provides a graphical user interface for networked computers. It implements the X Window System protocols and architecture and provides windowing system on raster graphics Visual display units and manages Keyboard and pointing device control functions....
 (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 computer software that controls the placement and appearance of window within a windowing system in a graphical user interface....
 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 Linking Format is a common standard file format for executables, object code, shared libraries, and core dumps....
-format executables. IRIX 5.3 introduced the XFS
XFS

XFS is a high-performance journaling file system created by Silicon Graphics, originally for their IRIX operating system and later ported to Linux kernel....
 journaling file system
Journaling file system

A journaling file system is a file system that logs changes to a journal before committing them to the main file system. Such file systems are less likely to become corrupted in the event of power failure or system crash....
.

In 1994, IRIX 6.0 added support for the 64-bit MIPS R8000
R8000

The R8000 is a microprocessor chip set implementing the MIPS architecture instruction set architecture jointly developed by MIPS Technologies , then a subsidiary of Silicon Graphics, Inc....
 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 to replace their earlier SGI Indy series. Like the Indy, the O2 used a single MIPS architecture-based Central processing unit and was intended to be used mainly for multimedia....
 workstation only. IRIX 6.4 improved multiprocessor scalability for the Octane
SGI Octane

The SGI Octane and the similar SGI Octane2 are Unix workstations marketed by Silicon Graphics. Both are 2-way Symmetric multiprocessing-capable workstations, originally based on the MIPS architecture R10000 microprocessor....
, Origin 2000
SGI Origin 2000

The SGI Origin 2000, code named Lego, is a family of mid-range and high-end Server developed and manufactured by Silicon Graphics, introduced in 1996 to succeed the SGI Challenge and SGI Challenge....
, and Onyx2
SGI Onyx2

The SGI Onyx2, code name Kego, is a family of visualization systems developed and manufactured by Silicon Graphics, introduced in 1996 to succeed the SGI Onyx....
 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 6.4 had severe reliability issues, limiting its adoption. IRIX development stabilized with IRIX 6.5, released in 1998. The current version of IRIX is 6.5.30, released in August 2006.

Features


IRIX 6 is compliant with UNIX System V
UNIX System V

Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV , is one of the versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by AT&T and first released in 1983....
 Release 4, UNIX 95 and POSIX
POSIX

POSIX or "Portable Operating System Interface" is the collective name of a family of related standardizations specified by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers to define the application programming interface , along with shell and utilities interfaces for software compatible with variants of the Unix operating system, altho...
 (including 1e/2c draft 15 ACL
Access control list

With respect to a computer filesystem, an access control list is a list of permissions attached to an object. The list specifies who or what is allowed to access the object and what operations are allowed to be performed on the object....
s and Capabilities).

IRIX has 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

A graphical user interface is a type of user interface which allows people to human-computer interaction such as computers; hand-held devices such as MP3 Players, Portable Media Players or Gaming devices; household appliances and office equipment....
 for the main desktop environment. IRIX was widely used in the computer animation
Computer animation

Computer animation is the art of creating moving images with the use of computers. It is a subfield of computer graphics and animation....
 industry and for scientific visualization
Scientific visualization

Scientific visualization is an interdisciplinary branch of science, primarily concerned with the visualization of Three-dimensional space phenomena, such as architectural, meteorological, medical, biological systems....
 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 uses the Indigo Magic Desktop
IRIX Interactive Desktop

IRIX Interactive Desktop is a desktop environment normally used as the default desktop on Silicon Graphics workstations running IRIX. The IRIX Interactive Desktop uses the Motif widget toolkit on top of the X Window System found on most Unix systems....
, which by default uses 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 paned windows display on a Computer display, and how the...
 with a custom look designed using the Motif
Motif (widget toolkit)

In computing, Motif refers to both a graphical user interface specification and the widget toolkit for building applications that follow that specification under the X Window System on Unix and other POSIX-compliant systems....
 widget toolkit
Widget toolkit

A widget toolkit, widget library, or GUI toolkit is a set of GUI widget for use in designing applications with graphical user interfaces ....
.

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 computer systems run Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux distribution produced by Red Hat and targeted toward the business market, including Mainframe computer. Red Hat commits to supporting each version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for 7 years after its release....
 or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a Linux distribution supplied by Novell, targeted at the business market. It is targeted for server , but can be installed on desktop computers for testing as well....
.

See also


IRIX software

External links

  • Document Number: 007-2862-004 February 1999