is the
System V -based
Unix Operating System with
BSD extensions developed by
Silicon Graphics (SGI) to run natively on their 32 and 64-bit
MIPS Architecture workstations and servers.
As a result of its Unix underpinnings, it is capable of extremely long
Uptime , and its
XFS filesystem is regarded to be one of the most advanced
Journaling File System s in the industry.
IRIX has particularly strong support for
3D Graphics , video and high-bandwidth bulk data transfer. IRIX was one of the first Unix flavors to feature a
GUI for the main desktop environment, and is widely used in the
Computer Animation industry and for
Scientific Visualization due to its extremely high 3D graphics performance. IRIX uses the
IRIX Interactive Desktop with its default
4dwm Window Manager and
Motif Widget Toolkit with a custom look and feel.
The current major version of IRIX is IRIX 6.5. New minor versions are released every quarter. Up to and including Version 6.5.22, there were two branches of each release: a maintenance release that includes only fixes to the original IRIX 6.5 code, and a feature release that includes improvements and enhancements. Versions up until the 6.5.22 maintenance release are available for free download; 6.5.23 and higher require an active Silicon Graphics support contract, despite only running on Silicon Graphics hardware.
