SGI indy 500 & linux?

[Lev Lvovsky <levl289@sonous.com>]

Hello,

I work at my school radio station as a member of the web department.
Currently, we stream audio over the 'net using an NT computer (I serve the
html from a Debian box sitting in my room)...we recently had an SGI
Indy500 donated to the department, and would really like to use it as the
streaming server if at all possible.  Needless to say, I'd like to load
linux on it (currently it's equipped with IRIX).
does anyone have any experience with this?  SGI has made available a "Hard
Hat" distro of a modified Red Had 5.1...am I correct in assuming that
whatever software is available for linux can simply be compiled on the
machine to run on it?

thanks!
-lev