[Gllug] SGI Octane pain

[Richard]

It seems that the only Linux distro which even makes a tilt at 
supporting SGI Octane hardware is Gentoo. This fact alone makes me 
unhappy. IP30 is the problem child of the Linux family, and only the 
very clever/unstable folks at Gentoo are willing to give it some love.

I don't have access to IRIX install disks, nor another machine I can put 
this (SCSI) disk into :-( I also don't have the exact PROM error message 
in front of me, but it's something like "no media present: 
scsi(0)disk(1)...". hinv does report the disk.

So, using some highly suspect methods, and a total lack of regard for 
man pages, I've trashed (poss. never had) the sgilabel that's supposed 
to be on my disk. I have half a Gentoo (stage4?) installation on the 
disk, compiled a kernel, and now I can't boot the disk. I'm scared 
witless of re-partitioning the disk because I don't think I'll be able 
to put sash back on it afterwards, which means I won't be able to 
execute the all important "bootp():/sgikern...." at the PROM, so I'll be 
left with a "functioning" box that will not boot from disk, and won't 
give me access to the prompt so I can boot from the network. Well, 
that's the fear anyway. Since 2am this morning, I have figured out that 
I might be able to use an NFS mount to hold sash while I work on the 
partitions, and if there's an issue I'll have a 25kg paper weight, but 
that's not the real problem anyway.

How do I proceed from here? Can I re-build the sgilabel without 
re-partitioning the disk? Has anyone on the list succeeded in running 
not-IRIX on an SGI machine (preferably Linux on an IP30/Octane)? If 
someone gave me the sgilabel from their disk, what would happen if I put 
it on mine (dvhtool can/"should" accomplish this lesser task)?

Thanks,

Richard
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