Amithlon Setup Guide

[SnkBitten]

Alright....new kernel compiled. Staying with the Matrox for now.... It takes maybe 10 minutes to boot a Virtualbox of my kernel compiling system, make the changes and compile the kernel, save it to my NAS box, pull that file in from my NAS box on the Amithlon and save it to the DOS boot C: drive. Edit my small file to use the new kernel and reboot.

[Methanoid]

Does that mean i217/218 work now too?

[SnkBitten]

No, it only means the e1000 works and in PCIe form. Milan had the driver and stated in his module list that this was a working card in Amithlon. I had not read anywhere of anyone using this card and wanted to test a PCIe card.

This is the e1000 driver, not the e1000e driver.

This release supports the latest 2.4 series kernel as well as 2.6.x and 3.x versions.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/dow...s-Under-Linux-

e1000e.x.x.x.tar.gz is designed to work with the Intel® 82563/82566/82567 Gigabit Ethernet PHY, Intel® 82571/82572/82573/82574/82577/82578/82579/82583 Gigabit Ethernet Controller, and I217/I218 controllers under Linux*. The latest version and earlier versions of this driver are available from SourceForge*.

If your adapter/connection is not 82563, 82566, 82567, 82571, 82572, 82573, 82574, 82577, 82578, 82579, or 82583-based, you should use one of the following drivers:

igb-x.x.x.tar.gz driver supports all Intel® 82575, 82576, 82580, I350, I210, or I211-based Gigabit Network Adapters/Connections
e1000-x.x.x.tar.gz driver supports all Intel® 8254x-based PCI and PCI-X Gigabit Network Adapters/Connections

[SnkBitten]

A little Catweasel update:

Playing around I figured I'd give MultiFileSystem (mfs21.lha) a try. I had mountlist for Amiga DD (TD1), Amiga HD (TH1) and also PC disks (PD1 and PH1). Inserting a floppy would give you it's icon plus a drive:??? for the others. Once MultiFileSystem was installed I copied all the mountlist into the DF0 folder it had created in DEVS:dosdrivers/

A reboot and inserting a floppy now only shows it's associated icon, and it is mounted as DF0: So insert a disk, copy to/from DF0: regardless of disk type/size/format. Much nicer than remembering it's an Amiga HD disk (TH1: ) or a PC DD disk (PD1: ), etc...

Very cool.

[SnkBitten]

On another note, and being slightly bored today, I swapped the Matrox PCIe G550 out for the nVidia PCI FX5200 card again.

Primary reason, I'm spoiled by the nVidia. It is significantly faster than the Matrox in graphics performance (Intuition and Graphics test). Using SysSpeed v2.6 as my benchmark, the nVidia card outperforms the Matrox in most test by 2x as much, some 6x and a few even 12x faster (OpenScr16 and OpenScr256). This goes with the nVidia cards as having the most hardware accelerated features among the supported cards.

The Matrox is no slouch and it takes the lead in a few of the performance test, possibly from it being on a PCIe bus. In those cases the nVidia is .8x as fast, the slowest at .63x in comparison (PrintTxtTru).

The second reason would be memory. The Matrox (32 MB card) is limited to 4 MB in Picasso96/Amithlon Framebuffer. This limits high resolution/high color displays compared to the nVidia which is limited to 16 MB. I use a 1280x720 @ 32bit Workbench and the Matrox had a few (very few) glitches with left behind pixels or a slight trail left over occasionally. When I installed the card I lost 1280x1024 @ 32bit so my 1280x720 @ 32bit was pushing it pretty hard. I could have lowered the resolution or reduced the colors to 16bit to eliminate this.

The Matrox is a nice card and runs very well in Amithlon and is a good choice if you need a PCIe hardware accelerated video card. I'd like to figure out why the Matrox was limited to 4 MB though....that could bump up it's performance and output abilities.

[SnkBitten]

Doing some more reading/researching and I found some nice information on the init string to launch Amithlon and set certain settings typically done in the 'startup-sequence' in AmigaOS.

First off, the init string... (most of this is not new info)

console_level=0
Set this to 4 (instead of 0), and the boing ball will no longer bounce, but rather sit in the top left corner, and you will get kernel and emulator messages during startup. Do this if things fail to start!

root=/dev/ram0
Leave this as it is. Amithlon needs it like this (kernel 4 uses ram1 instead)

ramdisk_size=12010
Leave this as it is for 'bigird.gz' or use 2310 if using 'smallird.gz'

leavepages=7400
Don''t reduce this number. You might want to increase it to give Amithlon more memory for disk caching (only read-caching, no write caching, so it's safe!).
Each page stands for 4k; If you increase the number by 1024, you are adding 4MB of disk cache (but take 4MB away from the Amiga). Reducing the number below the values given will result in weird and hard to track hangs!

vga=769
Only used if you are using the VESA driver for graphics support. In that case, this decides the one (and only) mode you will have available. See the following table for the meaning of the numbers. ** Installing amithlonupdate131 will give you screenmode choices in AmigaOS for additional VESA modes.

Resolution 640x480  800x600  1024x768  1280x1024
8bit          769      771      773      775
16bit         785      788      791      794
24bit         786      789      792      795

So an 8bit 1024x768 screenmode would be vga=773 or a 16bit 1024x768 screenmode would use vga=791

Below was new to me and allowed me to add configuration options at the init string vs. in the s:startup-sequence file.

If you are using the setconfig options in your startup sequence (e.g. to set cachesize, or monitor frequencies), you can also put those onto the kernel command line. The advantage is that those options are available before AmigaOS starts up, and will thus not require a reboot to come into effect. To set, for example, the cachesize to 16384kB from the kernel command line, simply add the option "cachesize=16384" after the "leavepages=xxxx" entry. A word of warning, though --- the various boot loaders all have limits on how long the kernel command line can be; So if it looks like your settings didn't make it into Amithlon, check with "dumpconfig"... They might just have been truncated.

My init string for loadlin.exe is named tsmall and contains the following:
(note - nvitel.gz is my kernel, kernel4 or kern310 would go here instead)

nvitel.gz init=/linuxrc console_level=0 root=/dev/ram1 initrd=smallird.gz ramdisk_size=2310 leavepages=7800 cachesize=65536 vesa_defaults=0 hsyncmin=24 hsyncmax=82 vsyncmin=48 vsyncmax=76 clockmax=300 asynchronous_io=1

So my autoexec.bat file reads
"loadlin @tsmall"


The rest are the init options and then the setconfig settings that were previously in my s:startup-sequence file. Since I can comment those out now, on boot the "setconfig reboot if changed" no longer forces a reboot. Running dumpconfig confirmed all my settings were still present (after a complete power cycle and restart).

Not huge news but nice to always eliminate any additional reboots on boot when possible. Plus feeding monitor specs in before AmigaOS starts could help with some boot picture programs.

[Dunny]

Hmm. What is responsible for the bouncing ball, and can it be installed into Amilator?

[mac388]

Hi i am new but have setup amithlon on a dell c610 but can only get 8 bit res
have followed SnkBitten install guide which i think is spot on but if i add any of the 16 or 32 bit res to the startup script the emulator crashes is this a problem with graphics card as when trying to set in screen mode pref i only see 1 builtin preference which as to be set in the @small file any help would be appreciated

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by mac388

Hi i am new but have setup amithlon on a dell c610 but can only get 8 bit res
have followed SnkBitten install guide which i think is spot on but if i add any of the 16 or 32 bit res to the startup script the emulator crashes is this a problem with graphics card as when trying to set in screen mode pref i only see 1 builtin preference which as to be set in the @small file any help would be appreciated

I have a Dell C610, unfortunately I can't find the power cable for it. I installed Amithlon on it a while back but do not remember much of my setup to know what screenmodes I was using.

What patching have you done on Amithlon?

From my guide...

First patch - AOSXL-update1.lha

Second patch - BB3.9-2.lha (yes to install rom update when asked)
reboot (Control+windows+windows or PrntScrn+R)

Third patch - AmithlonUpdate131.lha
reboot (Control+windows+windows or PrntScrn+R)

Forth patch - Powerpci_user.lha
reboot (Control+windows+windows or PrntScrn+R)

The third patch adds the contrib files that were released after Amithlon and it should allow you to choose other VESA screenmodes. The init file vga=nnn is just what Amithlon will start in though if your monitor (or laptop display) doesn't support standard VESA modes, you have to pick the single mode you want to use and set that in the init string.

I'll keep looking around for the cable so I can fire that laptop up again and see what screenmodes I have available.

[mac388]

yes i have done all the patches as in your guide which is very good i have even tried to reinstall AmithlonUpdate131.lha witch as no effect what so ever would you think a total reinstall may solve the problem thanks

[SnkBitten]

I'd wait a bit before doing an entire reinstall. What screen mode are you currently using?

640x480, 1024x768, etc....??

Let me keep looking for the power cable.

Until....have you tried deleting your screenmode.prefs in Amithlon and then setting a 16 bit mode in the init string for the 8bit mode you typically use? vga=??? There could be a conflict in booting and AmigaOS trying to set the mode.

[SnkBitten]

Found my power cord.

In AmigaOS, what screenmodes do you have listed as available? I have Built-in, Fake Native and VESA-1. VESA-1 and Built-in are the same, it's just the VESA "board" attached in Picasso96Screenmode Prefs. Not needed unless attempting to configure your own modes.

With the built-in modes I can choose 8bit, 16bit and 32bit modes.

[mac388]

at the moment i am using 1024x768 but to get that i have to set in the small loadlin script
VESA board-1 is attached in Picasso96Screenmode Prefs
builtin 1024x768 8 bit
fakenative highres
fakenative highres-lace
fakenative lowres
fakenative lowres-lace
fakenative superhighres
fakenative superhighres-lace

thats the full list in screen mode prefs i may have screwed up in the install some how but i know i installed all patches in order everything else works usb etc and a full work tcp stack (genesis)

[SnkBitten]

try adding video=dovesa at the end of the init string.

Did you install the latest P96 software?

[SnkBitten]

Here's my init string (named 3small as I was testing kernel 3 and kernel 4).

kern310 init=/linuxrc console_level=0 root=/dev/ram0 mem=752M initrd=smallird.gz vga=773 ramdisk_size=2310 leavepages=7400 cachesize=65536 video=dovesa


I launch with loadlin @3small

(I really need to re-do this laptop, it's been a while since I set it up and I've learned a lot since that time).

[mac388]

The init string is the same as your string what i have done is put a spare hard drive in and started from scratch.
when i first installed the os 3.9 i checked the screen preference and had all
builtin res up to 32 bit so i applied the patches 1 by 1 and used print screen + R to restart every think was fine up to installing the Forth patch Powerpci_user.lha and after restart ended up with builtin 640x480 8 bit the only one being available which should of given me more

[SnkBitten]

That's very weird as the 4th patch has nothing to do with graphics or screenmodes.

[mac388]

i will just put it down to a useless laptop and call it a day thanks for all your help as it is much appreciated

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by mac388

i will just put it down to a useless laptop and call it a day thanks for all your help as it is much appreciated

Why not do all the updates but skip the powerpci update. It's not like you'll be adding any PCI devices to it anyway

[Methanoid]

With all the things learned and gathered from various sources its probably time for a major update to Charlie's guide if someone has the time. I don't! :-(