{"slug": "irix", "name": "IRIX", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 5, "commenters": 11, "warners": 0, "score": 5.731, "rising": -1.64, "first": "2025-11-09", "latest": "2026-05-12", "why": "IRIX 6.x had one of the most beautiful (and colourful) GUIs ever.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 6, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [1, 0, 1, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "IRIX 6.x had one of the most beautiful (and colourful) GUIs ever.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "irixnet.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://irixnet.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["IRIX"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 756221616, "item_id": 47263851, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263851", "by": "reconnecting", "date": "2026-03-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "IRIX 6.x had one of the most beautiful (and colourful) GUIs ever.", "excerpt": "For me personally, IRIX 6.x had one of the most beautiful (and colourful) GUIs ever. For the curious, there is a guide (1) on how to run IRIX 6.5.22 in MAME. 1. https://sgi.neocities.org", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The IRIX 6.5.7M (sgi) source code"}, {"id": 753666608, "item_id": 47104163, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47104163", "by": "sixtyj", "date": "2026-02-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have forgot how this interface is awesome", "excerpt": "https://nekonomicon.irixnet.org/gallery/IRIX-Screenshots/SiliconClassics/ I have forgot how this interface is awesome. Thanks for the resurrection.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Nekonomicon \u2013 Nekochan.net Archive, Updated"}, {"id": 752530624, "item_id": 47033164, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47033164", "by": "rbanffy", "date": "2026-02-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love the IRIX look", "excerpt": "I love the IRIX look, but they\u2019d need to update it past the 1990s. It\u2019d look very dated to current audiences.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "LT6502: A 6502-based homebrew laptop"}, {"id": 748119296, "item_id": 46757456, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46757456", "by": "apaprocki", "date": "2026-01-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "IRIX was my daily driver", "excerpt": "Completely possible. In the early 90s everyone was buying SGI Indys to run Apache on and put the cool \u201cPowered by SGI\u201d badge on their site. I admin\u2019d a local ISP then and that Indy was on my desk and IRIX was my daily driver. Their UI just felt leagues beyond other commercial Unices of the time, so rather than being plausible, I\u2019d expect it due to the lab/science/dataviz aspect. edit: Just last night a friend was wat", "context": "ran a local ISP in the early 90s", "use_case": "Daily-driver workstation OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jurassic Park - Tablet device on Nedry's desk? (2012)"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "apaprocki", "context": "ran a local ISP in the early 90s", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46757456", "date": "2026-01-25"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["daily-driver workstation os"], "compared": [{"slug": "linux", "name": "Linux", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939187", "title": "Reverse Engineering the Prom for the SGI O2", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45862071", "title": "IRIX Introduction", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48104428", "title": "Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47637353", "title": "SQLite in Production: Lessons from Running a Store on a Single File", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47262402", "title": "The IRIX 6.5.7M (sgi) source code", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47102208", "title": "The Nekonomicon \u2013 Nekochan.net Archive, Updated", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 3, "recommend": 2}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 769816609, "item_id": 48113538, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48113538", "by": "ndiddy", "date": "2026-05-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "IRIX used the 4Dwm window manager", "excerpt": "> Also, Irix would be nice to get \u2014 although I don\u2019t recall if SGI had much in the way of custom vibes for their window managers, they certainly had amazingly cool 3D demos. IRIX used the 4Dwm window manager, which is a lot more polished than other UNIX desktops. Few screens I found: https://deskto.ps/u/fathonix/d/3p6fkk https://files.catbox.moe/cognfj.jpg https://guidebookgallery.org/guis/irix/screenshots", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes"}, {"id": 762880595, "item_id": 47680037, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47680037", "by": "chasil", "date": "2026-04-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Some that I used that are gone", "excerpt": "AIX is still supported and sold, so quite current? Some that I used that are gone... Ultrix (MIPS), Clix, Irix, SunOS 4, SCO OpenServer, TI System V. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergraph", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "SQLite in Production: Lessons from Running a Store on a Single File"}, {"id": 756221616, "item_id": 47263851, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263851", "by": "reconnecting", "date": "2026-03-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "IRIX 6.x had one of the most beautiful (and colourful) GUIs ever.", "excerpt": "For me personally, IRIX 6.x had one of the most beautiful (and colourful) GUIs ever. For the curious, there is a guide (1) on how to run IRIX 6.5.22 in MAME. 1. https://sgi.neocities.org", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The IRIX 6.5.7M (sgi) source code"}, {"id": 753666608, "item_id": 47104163, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47104163", "by": "sixtyj", "date": "2026-02-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have forgot how this interface is awesome", "excerpt": "https://nekonomicon.irixnet.org/gallery/IRIX-Screenshots/SiliconClassics/ I have forgot how this interface is awesome. Thanks for the resurrection.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Nekonomicon \u2013 Nekochan.net Archive, Updated"}, {"id": 752530624, "item_id": 47033164, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47033164", "by": "rbanffy", "date": "2026-02-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love the IRIX look", "excerpt": "I love the IRIX look, but they\u2019d need to update it past the 1990s. It\u2019d look very dated to current audiences.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "LT6502: A 6502-based homebrew laptop"}, {"id": 751165344, "item_id": 46947834, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46947834", "by": "ThatGuyRaion", "date": "2026-02-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "IRIX only supports about OpenGL 1.2", "excerpt": "SGIs that matter (MIPS, etc) IRIX only supports about OpenGL 1.2. It does have a fragment shading extension though: https://tech-pubs.net/reputable-archive/fragment_lighting.txt", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Reverse Engineering the Prom for the SGI O2"}, {"id": 751034064, "item_id": 46939629, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46939629", "by": "spijdar", "date": "2026-02-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I'm not super interested in IRIX", "excerpt": "Yes! I don't use my O2 a lot (I think the PSU is flaky, and I'm not super interested in IRIX), but I'm aware of at least https://forums.sgi.sh/index.php, among other similar sites, full of people porting/developing software for IRIX. It's a pretty active community for a 90s workstation platform, the most active one I'm aware of!", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Reverse Engineering the Prom for the SGI O2"}, {"id": 750816289, "item_id": 46926018, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46926018", "by": "mixmastamyk", "date": "2026-02-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used the enhanced tcsh on Irix in the 90s.", "excerpt": "csh? I used the enhanced tcsh on Irix in the 90s.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Start all of your commands with a comma"}, {"id": 748119296, "item_id": 46757456, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46757456", "by": "apaprocki", "date": "2026-01-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "IRIX was my daily driver", "excerpt": "Completely possible. In the early 90s everyone was buying SGI Indys to run Apache on and put the cool \u201cPowered by SGI\u201d badge on their site. I admin\u2019d a local ISP then and that Indy was on my desk and IRIX was my daily driver. Their UI just felt leagues beyond other commercial Unices of the time, so rather than being plausible, I\u2019d expect it due to the lab/science/dataviz aspect. edit: Just last night a friend was wat", "context": "ran a local ISP in the early 90s", "use_case": "Daily-driver workstation OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jurassic Park - Tablet device on Nedry's desk? (2012)"}, {"id": 733845744, "item_id": 45865359, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45865359", "by": "lproven", "date": "2025-11-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "There's a Linux version. https://docs.maxxinteractive.com/ I do not know of a single distro that includes it, but then, this may be because I think it's not 100% FOSS.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "IRIX Introduction"}, {"id": 733838144, "item_id": 45864884, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45864884", "by": "anthk", "date": "2025-11-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "If you install EMWM and the goodies from the author's page you can get a very close system. Also, some guy at Nixers.net it's trying to recreate the whole Irix interface under EMWM. https://fastestcode.org/emwm.html Also if you want to program something in Motif: Motif prog. manual https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/motif/vol6a/Vol6a.pdf Motif reference manual https://www.ist.co.uk/motif/download/6B/6B_book.pdf For the", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "IRIX Introduction"}]}