Seeing a synergy with its own platform, Silicon Graphics (SGI) Wednesday announced plans to form a worldwide SGI User Group that will take in users of both Linux and IRIX (define) operating systems.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company said the idea is to get the two groups to share information and learn how to work together to develop high-performance computing and visualization systems. The two languages have much in common; both are UNIX variants and many of the commands for IRIX and the Red Hat Linux operating system are very similar to those in MS-DOS.

For example, "Wildcards" in Red Hat and IRIX work the same way that they do in MS-DOS. By default, ls lists all of the files in the current directory, but using wildcards, the list can be narrowed down. For example, ls *.dat would list all of the files in the current directory that end in '.dat' and no others. Wildcards will also work with the rm, cp, and mv commands.

But, SGI is hoping to better bridge the relationship between the two camps. SGI announced it will host its first annual Technical Users' Conference June 12-13 in Mountain View, California. The company says the event will be open to all SGI customers and will cover all systems, with a focus on technical users. SGI will waive registration fees for customers who attend the inaugural conference.

"Scientists, engineers and other technical computing users face increasingly unique challenges," SGI chairman and CEO Bob Bishop said in a statement. "As SGI's highly scalable Linux and IRIX systems set performance records for technical computing, high-performance users will benefit tremendously from regular interaction with colleagues involved in similar pursuits. The SGI User Group will help these customers establish and nurture a global community of like-minded professionals-and will give SGI an opportunity to integrate even closer to our customer base."

In the near future, SGI said it would debut a special user group Web site with additional event details and a place for "information collection, coordination, and dissemination, and for fostering online community."

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