Idea: FS-UAE Puppy Linux Distro

[kire_online]

It would be great to create a Puppy Linux Distro with FS-UAE.
For those not familiar with Puppy Linux it's a small Linux that boots off CD, USB, Flash, etc and stores session on a layered filesystem.
Combining the two would make an awesome solution for retro gaming.

http://puppylinux.org/main/Download%...%20Release.htm

[AmithlonGuy]

Hi kire. I have a similar idea, but i want to rebuild a very reduzed debian to boot into the emulation. In my opinion Debian is more common for the most users, because it's much easier to update and mantaine.

Right now I rebuilding a new Kernel for my project to replace my Amithlonsystem.
My Currently Sys ist about 500Mb.

I was tinkering along similar lines about a year ago using Tiny Core Linux. But I like AmithlonGuy's suggestion of using minimal Debian, since you gain access to a huge repository of software. That's probably worth slightly longer boot times.

[kire_online]

Looks like this guy has done FS-UAE and a lot more with this distro;

http://scottjarvis.com/page105.htm

Nice work - I'm going to have a play with this.

[AmithlonGuy]

Ok thats another option. For me i don't like this multi-system-all-in-one concept.
But that's up to you.
My goal is to achieve something similar to Amithlon but with included chipset emulation. Speed isn't that important for me. The speed of a beefed up a4000 is enough for me to watch demos.
Ok this could be a look to the dark side, but a virtual maschine like aranym would be the ideal solution. This would make our favorite system unbreakable.
Aros 68k running on a Virtual Maschine would be a free solution for every Amigafreak to use his favorite applications and games on hardware which everyone can afford.

Ok enough said. Let's go to my Dev.-System and do some distro rebuilding.

This could be a fun project. I've been working with Debian the better part of a decade and a half at this point So are we looking for a plug-and-play distro? Questions:

1 - Name?
2 - Architecture? 32 and 64 bit or just 32 with potential PAE support?
3 - Boot directly into a UAE environment or boot to a lightweight WM with preconfigured UAE setups to choose from?
4 - How would we get commercial ROMs and ADF data (i.e., Amiga Forever stuff) from the user into the file system to make it a valid installation? We can't exactly pirate this stuff
5 - Desired configs? I'm thinking ClassicWB stuff for 3.1/3.9, and then an option for 4.x as well.

Also, where can this live? Should we register a site for it?

Follow up: If we use debian, register a place to hang the iso's/wiki/resources/etc, we could hypothetically host our own custom repos as well for a handful of UAE specific things. This would make it more of a "rolling release" style and include on-the-fly updating which could be somewhat transparent to the user.

Just sayin.

[FrodeSolheim]

This reminds me of a thought I once had...

it would be nice if you could spawn FS-UAE from FS-UAE (not, I don't mean running some kind of M68K FS-UAE within the Amiga). I mean you could:
- run in a fullscreen ClassicWB environment (A4000, JIT, whatever)
- if you want to run games requiring e.g. A500 cycle exact, you could click on an (config) icon which causes a new FS-UAE to be spawned, running the chosen config/game (using regular ADFs etc)
- this would work weil with directory hard drives, since a new FS-UAE process would be able to access the same files as the "host FS-UAE".
- the new FS-UAE could then just run (fullscreen) on top of the original one, and the original FS-UAE could pause in order to not use any CPU while the game is running. Using a minimal window manager would work well with this use case.

This way, you could basically use ClassicWB as a kind of alternative to FS-UAE Launcher if you want

Anyway, it's not a priority, and perhaps not even *that* cool.

As for some of the other choices. Go with 32-bit, at least for FS-UAE itself. ROMs and other data? Get it from a connected USB device? (User must have a USB stick or similar with the ROMs in a specific folder on the drive for example).

The "real challenge" in making it work really nice is to:
- Support good OpenGL drivers for all major GPUs - discrete and integrated (nVidia, AMD/ATI, Intel), and automatically use the best one without any configuratino.
- Automatically support / enable 50 Hz mode for perfectly smooth graphics - if possible across many GPU and monitor combinations (this should keep you busy for a while )

But other than answering questions about FS-UAE, I don't really have time to get involved. I've got more than enough to do to make FS-UAE work well on already-installed operating systems

For a name, how about "UAEnix" or something like that? LinUAE, maybe? LinuxAE?

32 bit, easy enough. PAE can be enabled if needed, but not necessary. I'm thinking very minimal debian setup, openbox WM with no frills. Easy stuff

As far as opengl, how hard does UAE bang GPUs? The reason I ask is because it's probably not necessary to use the bleeding edge, closed source drivers, and I'm pretty sure the standard open source (nouveau, vesa, etc) will probably suffice. Options to hack in more bleeding edge graphics can be an option beyond the scope of an initial installation. As far as 50 Hz...yeah, that may be tough

Plan for now is to build a 32 bit debian hack with all libraries required to support fs-uae out of the box, then remastersys an ISO livecd out of it. Beyond that, I believe registering a location to host a custom .deb repository for the distribution will be the smartest way of handling updates. Lots of little things but really not that big of a deal

[kire_online]

I still like the idea of a live cd but with a layered filesystem - like puppy linux implements.
This way when you boot the livecd it goes for the default vesa mode allows you to make quick adjustments to drivers and screen resolution if required, then save your settings to a savefile which automatically gets mounted on next boot from livecd.

On first power-off puppy linux prompts you to create the savefile which can reside on any filesystem of a regular hard drive, usb flash drive, etc.

[ Show youtube player ]

Puppy linux has many useful setup guis that perform network, sound, video config and they all work very well. It may be possible to create a setup gui to import the ROMs from an AmigaForever disk to ensure a legitimate source.

Another idea is to have a couple of pre-configured base systems for FS-UAE, for example;
- Low End or Basic System; Amiga500 with 1Mb Chip RAM, used to play majority of ADFs
- Intermediate or Amiga1200 with 2Mb Chip RAM, used to play AGA games on ADFs
- Advanced or A4000 with Max everything and HDD, TCP/IP and Picasso96

These can then be launched very easily from a system menu, or desktop icons.

[AmithlonGuy]

Hi ESC that's sounds great.
Yesterday I recompiled FS-UAE without the menu to give the system a more Amithlon like look and feel. Not that bad in the moment.
Also I will try to mount a real hdd. With a direct point to hda this should be possible.
For the Configs I don't see a real usage for it. We have WHDLOAD.
Another Question. Wouldn't it be easier to use AROS 68k in the first place? With this solution the whole distro could be free.

[AmithlonGuy]

So everyone. A first update.
I've installed a minimal netinstall of wheezy and removed a lot of unneccery packages. With the stock kernel the basic system system ist 400Mb. This includes a minimal xorg and the fluxbox windowmanager. boottime takes about 15 sec to uae.
The next step will be a more stripped down kernel where i will remove real obselute hardware.

[amadama]

The kernel is not too big.
You may be able to clear up some more space by cleaning the package cache.
Run:
sudo apt-get clean

[kire_online]

This is exactly why Puppy Linux is awesome - will run on virtually any hardware and the ISO is under 200Mb, I have built one with FS-UAE and will share shortly.
Just looking for ways to share this, and also strip out the ROMs.
Don't want to get accused of piracy for forgetting to strip out the ROMs ...

[amadama]

Originally Posted by kire_online

This is exactly why Puppy Linux is awesome - will run on virtually any hardware and the ISO is under 200Mb, I have built one with FS-UAE and will share shortly.
Just looking for ways to share this, and also strip out the ROMs.
Don't want to get accused of piracy for forgetting to strip out the ROMs ...

Would love to see your efforts on this. Puppy is a great base since it's all in RAM. Incredibly fast application load times!

[Retrofan]

Have you seen AmiPUP (Puppy for AmiKit)?

Here Ken Lester: http://watchkendraw.com/?tag=amikit

He makes Puppy look like an Amiga (AmiKit) environment.

and here the download: http://www.amikit.amiga.sk/#!store/cx9q

I'm missing an Amiga game launcher without entering on the AmiKit emulation.
But remember that to make an OS look like an Amiga you need some graphic work like Ken has already done.

[kire_online]

This is awesome - never come across AmiPUP, downloading now and will test it out.
What I wanted is along the same lines - very small, loads fast into ram and boots straight into a FS-UAE environment.

[kire_online]

I have this so far, it's quick to boot and I have FS-UAE installed with a few config files;

http://i.imgur.com/W61TuPV.png

[kire_online]

Not too fussed about the GUI looking Amiga like, don't get me wrong AmiPUP looks cool.
I'm more interested in a small, fast linux to boot and run in RAM to act as a host for FS-UAE. Puppy Linux seems like a good option with the hardware support it offers and the minimalist approach. I'll try and get the first iteration of what I have out shortly.

[AmithlonGuy]

wow kire nice work.
Maybe a small bootup menu could make it more clean. I've done something like this under windows to reach multiple config-files.
This small programm acts like this:
It blanks the screen.
You have a time window of 5 sec.
In this timespan you can press F1 to F8 to reach the needed config.
For example by pressing F1 you will start a cycle exact A500.
When no F-key ist pressed it will boot up a real beafed up A4000 with all the nasty high performance stuff.

Hmm maybe I should port this little tool to Linux.
Another step would be to implement a config menu in which you can edit your config files.

What's your opinion about this?