OpenBSD sgi


OpenBSD/sgi runs on most 64 bit MIPS-based SGI servers and workstations. OpenBSD/sgi is a fully featured 64 bit port and will thus only run on systems based on 64 bit processors, i.e. R4000 and up.

The OpenBSD/sgi port was discontinued after the 6.9 release.

A mailing list dedicated to the OpenBSD/sgi port is available at sgi@openbsd.org. To join the OpenBSD/sgi mailing list, send a message body of "subscribe sgi" to majordomo@openbsd.org. Please be sure to check our mailing list policy before subscribing.

sgi octane

History

The OpenBSD/sgi port has its roots in the OpenBSD/arc port created early in the OpenBSD history. ARC support was rather soon discontinued due to the lack of interest and availability of decent hardware.

Eventually SGI hardware became more affordable and obtainable, and interest for an SGI port in the tree increased. The final piece, a working 64 bit toolchain, eventually became available and allowed the 64 bit SGI OpenBSD port to appear in 2004.

Hardware support was initially limited to the O2 workstations. Efforts to port to more systems did not really start until 2008, where the first Octane support parts were introduced. This work was completed in 2009 with support for Origin family systems as well, allowing OpenBSD to be the first free operating system to run on the Fuel workstations, and even later, also on Origin 350 servers.

The earlier generation of R4000 Indigo, Indy and Indigo2 was not forgotten either and support for it appeared in 2012. This paved the way for R8000 and R10000 POWER Indigo2 support as well.

Current status

OpenBSD/sgi runs in 64 bit mode and boots multi-user on supported systems. All graphics options but the IP27 Kona frame buffer should be supported. On such setups, the kernel will be limited to serial console operation only. An X server, currently unaccelerated, is also available for IP32 (O2) systems.

Supported hardware

For a complete system component and device driver listing for this architecture, see intro(4/sgi).

The following families are supported:

Note that Octane 3 and Origin 400 systems are completely different architectures based on x86 processors, and as such are not supported by OpenBSD/sgi.

The following devices are supported:

Getting and installing

The last supported OpenBSD/sgi release was OpenBSD 6.9. Here are the OpenBSD/sgi installation instructions.