AROS Discussion [moved from "AmigaOS 3.1.4 withdrawn from market after Amiga" thread]

[wawa]

i have a whole choice of psus and a whole battery of refurbished at ones i have used while building these amigas into 19zoll video in racks.

[wawa]

riight now id like to check if the a600 ata problem persists with a vanilla a600 without the vampire. kain has volunteered to it.

[grond]

OK, PM me if you have need for the vampirised A600.

[Warty]

Can someone point to the actual 68k download for AROS? I've been checking various sites with google, but everything is ending in a dead end.

I did find this, but it's from 2011:
http://aminet.net/package/misc/os/adf-bin.68k-aros

The link here to AROS vision 68k is to a dead domain:
http://aros.sourceforge.net/download.php

Nightlies here do not include 68k:
http://aros.sourceforge.net/nightly.php

This link has a 285MB (!!) build from 2017:
http://aros.sourceforge.net/snapshots1.php

I'm going to try that out.

This looks promising, but also looks dead maybe?
http://www.evillabs.net/wiki/index.php/AROS_m68k-amiga

(I found that at the top of the 68k AROS sticky thread here. I Haven't gone through all the pages in that thread yet.).

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Originally Posted by Warty

Can someone point to the actual 68k download for AROS? .

http://aros.sourceforge.net/nightly1.php

[wawa]

amigasystem has beat me to it. note that you will need few modifications to get it run on an amiga instead of winuae. refer to my previous post above.

[PeterK]

I've tried out the nightly build of Aros m68k from 5'th of August some months ago and found a lot of bugs. Maybe some of them have been fixed already and I should try again, but here is my bug list:

1.) Wanderer always tries to read and write disk icons simply from/to “dev:” or “volume:”, which is really a big bug, since in AmigaOS the standard is “dev:disk”, “volume:disk” or only “disk” relative to the current directory “volume:”. I’m adding “disk” to the name now.

2.) The already known graphics corruption of the background of dragged icons is probably caused by Wanderer, because it does not occur with DOpus5, which has its own dragging routines. But the icon dragging reacts even under DOpus5 on Aros very slow, with a long delay, which never happens on AmigaOS with DOpus5. This is probably caused by the Aros gfx driver.

3.) Wanderer is not able to successfully copy only icons without a real file per drag&drop.

4.) Wanderer can not rename disks. You get an error: “invalid directory lock”. DOpus5 can.

5.) Wanderer can not snapshot icon positions with “save window ALL”, it only works with “mark all icons” and “snapshot icon positions”.

6.) Wanderer always reserves the same amount of space for all icons in a drawer, which only depends on the size of the largest icon. The result are very bad icon arrangements.

7.) The Icon Info window causes memory trashing and sometimes crashes. You can prevent this by using my command “MemTrailer 96” in the startup-sequence. Nevertheless, you can still see that the title string in the Icon Info window is filled with garbage characters when you click on the desktop, on the title bar or resize the Icon Info window. A similar garbage string appears in the Alert window for the character string of the Guru number. Both might be caused by a bad Printf() formatting or buffer handling.

8.) The Aros icons are not compatible to the AmigaOS standards and are not displayed by AmigaOS 4.0. They have a first image in the OS 3.5 ColorIcon format and a second image in the OS4 ARGB TrueColor format, which is not allowed. I made a workaround in my lib.

9.) The option “Override Zune configuration” in Prefs/Appearance does not support using FastMem for icons. You will get graphics corruption in the tool and application windows. This could also be a bug in Zune or some of the MUI classes.

[Warty]

@wawa and @AmigaSys: thank you.

In case anyone ever stumbles over this, here is my 47 second Mac installation process:

1. Download the boot ISO file from this page:
2. http://aros.sourceforge.net/nightly1.php
3. Double click the .iso file on your Mac to mount it.
4. On your Mac harddrive, create a folder called "AROS" or whatever you want your AROS HD to show up as in UAE.
5. On your Mac, open the AROS Live CD disk image, select all the contents, and drop them into the "AROS" folder you created. Do not drag the actual AROS Live CD icon, you need to get the contents.
6. Click on the AROS folder, and CMD-I (File > Get Info).
7. Click the lock icon at the bottom/right of the info window and authenticate to unlock.
8. Click the gear icon at the bottom of the window, and select "Apply to Enclosed Items". This will make the contents Read&Write, which you need to do because the .ISO cd image has set everything to Read Only.
9. Start up FS UAE launcher
10. Create a new machine configuration. Use Amiga Model = A1200.
11. In the Hard Drive tab, click the orange "Browse to Folder" icon and select the "AROS" folder you created above.
12. Set FastRam to 8MB. I don't know if there are better settings, but this worked for me.
13. On the Additional Configuration tab, set Set CPU to 68060.
14. Name the machine configuration and save it.
15. Click the start button. Done.

[Warty]

Some first impressions:

• Wow. An incredible amount of work went into that. It's an entire OS. With 1/10000th of the resources that go into Linux. (at most). I wonder if people realize the mind-blowing amount of work that had to be done to get it doing what it does.
• Definitely slow. Not a surprise.
• It actually ran my (admittedly very low power) game, which was compiled for KS1.3. Slowly, of course, but it ran. Weird quirks with colors and fonts and stuff, especially when switching screens, but still. Impressive.

Are there are any tricks one could use to get it performing a little faster, without actually re-writing code? Simpler icons, less colors, that sort of thing?

[AMIGASYSTEM]

The system is not slow is just a graphic card problem, you have to configure WinUAE 060/JIT/512/1GB-RAM and you do not have to use the Rom preset to WinUAE ma what you find in the ISO (Directory Boot).

[ Show youtube player ]

[wawa]

Originally Posted by PeterK

I've tried out the nightly build of Aros m68k from 5'th of August some months ago and found a lot of bugs. Maybe some of them have been fixed already

unlikely. there is more, wanderer prefs dont save settings in correct endian resulting in that you cannot influence a number of options, as example. (i tried to fix it once but couldnt deliver a correct solution)

but thanks a lot about your list,very appreciated. i will try to forward it or sidcuss with the devs, or if someone helped me we might try to fix it, i have access to aros repo.

for starters i dont understand this very well, but thats probably due to my ignorance towards the system:

1.) Wanderer always tries to read and write disk icons simply from/to “dev:” or “volume:”, which is really a big bug, since in AmigaOS the standard is “dev:disk”, “volume:disk” or only “disk” relative to the current directory “volume:”. I’m adding “disk” to the name now.

ideally i might invite you to slack, where among others kalamatee is posting. he did a lot of work on wanderer, and should know it in and out.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by PeterK

7.) The Icon Info window causes memory trashing and sometimes crashes. You can prevent this by using my command “MemTrailer 96” in the startup-sequence. Nevertheless, you can still see that the title string in the Icon Info window is filled with garbage characters when you click on the desktop, on the title bar or resize the Icon Info window. A similar garbage string appears in the Alert window for the character string of the Guru number. Both might be caused by a bad Printf() formatting or buffer handling.

i think it is an endian issue. i kind of hope, that if none else, michal schulz might be looking at a number of forgotten or ignored endian issues emerging wih aros, while progressing with his big endian raspi port.

[wawa]

@peterk
just quoting some kalamatees comments on slack:

"9.) The option “Override Zune configuration” in Prefs/Appearance does not support using FastMem for icons. You will get graphics corruption in the tool and application windows. This could also be a bug in Zune or some of the MUI classes." .. wtf does that even mean

override zune configuration _only_ loads the themes "zune" configuration rather than the normal global one - nothing more
1> "isn't" a bug - its observed behaviour where on amigaos both VOL:.info and VOL:disk.info are used in "Amiga" land
8> who cares - we aren't os4 or trying to do what os4 does - our png icons have been around much longer.
6> depends on the advanced options you have specified
3/4/7 are already known about … and 5 is probably a bug that has been introduced since it used to work.

but its difficult sharing information between sites. best thing would be to talk directly. this is also haw things might finally get fixed instead of forgotten.

[PeterK]

Many thanks to wawa for forwarding my list, and to kalamatee for giving some first comments.

Now I should download the current nightly build first and recheck all again and then discuss that directly with the Aros m68k developers, although I'm not really an Aros user. I just wanted to ensure that my library can be used on Aros m68k, too. I had the best results with using DOpus5 instead of Wanderer, in spite of not being a fan of DOpus5 at all.

[Warty]

Originally Posted by AMIGASYSTEM

The system is not slow is just a graphic card problem, you have to configure WinUAE 060/JIT/512/1GB-RAM and you do not have to use the Rom preset to WinUAE ma what you find in the ISO (Directory Boot).

I edited the list to remove the bit about ROMs.

When you say the system isn't slow, I just need an 060 and a graphics card, I think maybe we just come at it from different places. I think there are 2 distinct use cases here:
1) I want to have an OS that runs on modern-ish hardware, has some modern features like USB and internet support.
2) I want to have an OS that runs on legacy hardware, let's anyone use old hardware, provides a base around which the community can develop and share new programs, etc.

#1 is for people who want to use an AmigaOS-like thing for what we might call "daily activities".

#2 is for people who like using the old hardware, and have no ambition beyond doing "hobbyist" type activities.

I'm in camp #2. I don't personally believe it's possible to make an OS that will be better than OS X or Windows 10. There's a reason those systems are supported by massive infrastructure. Modern Ones are incredible in the depth of features they have, compared to even ones made in 2000.

So what I'm wondering is: can we support both camps in AROS? Is the tent big enough? Can we gin up enough interest in 68k AROS to interest developers in some optimization with the goal of running on stock hardware? To be a 3.1 replacement OS? Could that optimization also benefit the part of AROS community using it on more advanced hardware? I think so. Just as AROS code has apparently benefited AmigaOS 4.x and MorphOS.

I just want to reinforce that this isn't criticism. I am in awe of the amount of work done.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Originally Posted by Warty

1) I want to have an OS that runs on modern-ish hardware

What modern hardware you are talking about, there is no modern 68k native hardware? what you ask this can only be done with AROS x86

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by AMIGASYSTEM

What modern hardware you are talking about, there is no modern 68k native hardware? what you ask this can only be done with AROS x86

The RasPi 2 and 3 have big endian modes and Dr. Michael Schultz is going to work on a JIT to make it run 68k code.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Thank you Samurai Crow, this is good news, there is some link where to follow the development ?

[Samurai_Crow]

https://www.patreon.com/michal_schulz/posts

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Thank you