Amithlon Setup Guide

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by DavidT

If I boot with @amithlon the video works and everything is grand,
but booting with @small I get some way jacked up video...I have
everything setup just as it is described in the documents...


(Sorry for the video, I hope you will be able to help me...)

Haven't looked at your video but if it is a purple-ish screen completely out of sync it is the "Insert Workbench" screen animation which means your boot drive is either not set to bootable after you installed AmigaOS 3.9 or Amithlon is not seeing the drive you installed on.

A little more detail:
@amithlon loads up the bigird.gz file that contains a 9 mb workbench partition (amithlon_hd). So launching loadlin.exe @amithlon will give you a non-persistent workbench that you can't do much with.
@small loads the smallird.gz file that is the same as above minus the 9 mb workbench partition. It is looking for your partition that you installed AmigaOS 3.9 on. This of course has to be an AmigaOS partition and set as bootable.

[SLD-SNaKe]

I was replying with some explanation saying that hehehe.


That's it, the video shows the "floppy screen" out of sync.
It seems that an Amiga drive partition is missing.

[DavidT]

How do I resolve that?

Thanks!

Oh yeah, your information is the bomb!!!

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by DavidT

How do I resolve that?

Thanks!

Oh yeah, your information is the bomb!!!

If you've created a AmigaOS partition and formatted it and then installed OS3.9 to it.......did you go back into HDToolBox and make the partition bootable?

If you didn't do the above, you need to create an AmigaOS partition. If you are using a separate HD for AmigaOS, just partition it with HDToolBox. If you are using a Type 76 partition you created on your DOS boot drive, use HDToolBox to partition that fake "HardDrive" and then install AmigaOS3.9 on it. Don't forget to make it bootable when done.

1 HardDrive in your system.....initial setup make a primary partition using only a small amount out for DOS, then create a type 76 partition with xfdisk for use in AmigaOS. Don't do anything with that partition in DOS. Boot Amithlon using @amithlon so you have a functional Workbench......use HDToolBox to add that type 76 partition to your "Amiga" likes it's a hard drive. Then partition it, install the OS to it and make it bootable.

AmigaOS will see a Type 76 partition as a harddrive which you can use HDToolBox to install to the system and then partition as you like. Example, you made a Type 76 partition DOS (xfdisk) of 2 GB, Amiga OS will see a 2 GB HD you can then partition however you want in HDToolBox for installing the OS and your other Amiga software.

[DavidT]

On it in the morning
Thanks again!

[ElectroBlaster]

I stumbled upon an Amithlon install cd I made many many years ago!

Never did anything with it though, but now you are saying it will run on a VM, I am tempted to give this a shot. I am confident working with Linux so I can give this Amithlon a shot.

I am using Oracle Virtualbox so assuming that is what has been used already hence why it all works

[SnkBitten]

Yes, I use it under Windows 10 and Oracle Virtualbox.

Linux knowledge isn't really going to help you much with Amithlon. There is no linux presented to the user or accessible to the user. It is only using a stripped down linux kernel to boot the Amithlon code, kicking out any other OS in the process, an using the Amithlon code to run 68k Amiga emulation. That's why you can launch from a Linux boot or Dos boot of the host hardware.

I just use VB to create a Dos system with 1 GB ram, single CPU, vboxvga 16mb, IDE drives ICH AC97 audio and intel Pro/1000 MT desktop nic (bridged) and OHCI, ECHI USB. Using kernel 4 on the Amithlon boot.

Originally Posted by ElectroBlaster

I stumbled upon an Amithlon install cd I made many many years ago!

Never did anything with it though, but now you are saying it will run on a VM, I am tempted to give this a shot. I am confident working with Linux so I can give this Amithlon a shot.

I am using Oracle Virtualbox so assuming that is what has been used already hence why it all works

[SnkBitten]

Probably a Windows 10 update that is causing this.....Virtualbox doesn't seem to work anymore. I cannot get Amithlon to initialize. It freezes on the soft-reset it does at boot or right before it gets to that. No kernel panic on the Amithlon side, just a complete hosed VM.

I launched Virtualbox and there was a new version available, I skipped that and tried to launch one of my Amithlon test systems. It failed to even start the system so I installed the updated Virtualbox. This allowed me to launch the VM but Amithlon booting would freeze. I booted to DOS and made a few changes in the init, reset (lowered settings) a few VM configurations...still Amithlon would freeze when trying to init the system after it's soft-reset at boot.

I'll build a new VM....same thing. Very frustrating as I loved testing stuff on the VMs before attempting it on my physical system.

With a few updates from Microsoft (Win10 v2004 Pro x64) and the update from Oracle, I'm not sure who to blame...probably both.

[amigamia]

Originally Posted by SnkBitten

Probably a Windows 10 update that is causing this.....Virtualbox doesn't seem to work anymore. I cannot get Amithlon to initialize. It freezes on the soft-reset it does at boot or right before it gets to that. No kernel panic on the Amithlon side, just a complete hosed VM.

I launched Virtualbox and there was a new version available, I skipped that and tried to launch one of my Amithlon test systems. It failed to even start the system so I installed the updated Virtualbox. This allowed me to launch the VM but Amithlon booting would freeze. I booted to DOS and made a few changes in the init, reset (lowered settings) a few VM configurations...still Amithlon would freeze when trying to init the system after it's soft-reset at boot.

I'll build a new VM....same thing. Very frustrating as I loved testing stuff on the VMs before attempting it on my physical system.

With a few updates from Microsoft (Win10 v2004 Pro x64) and the update from Oracle, I'm not sure who to blame...probably both.

Have you tried QEMU-KVM and AQEMU? I was toying around with the settings to install AROS in a VM because it just refuses in VirtualBox and VMware player complains about not supported CPU. As a quick test I loaded Amithlon from the Alpyre 1.4 CD and to my surprise it booted. in VirtualBox just refused no matter the version or what settings I used.

[Dannyboy1981]

Hey everyone,
I'm looking at this motherboard, Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3, it supports South Bridge ICH10, however the North Bridge is P43 Express Chipset. My question is can Amithlon only support up to P35 Express on the North Bridge?

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by Dannyboy1981

Hey everyone,
I'm looking at this motherboard, Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3, it supports South Bridge ICH10, however the North Bridge is P43 Express Chipset. My question is can Amithlon only support up to P35 Express on the North Bridge?

I don't know as no one has reported to me if a P43 Express Northbridge works. I've used a ICH10R Southbridge with an Intel X58 Northbridge with some success though I had a lot of difficulties with it and even with a newer i7 than my Core2Duo, it paled in performance comparison.

I use the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L which uses the Northbridge: Intel® P35 Express / Southbridge:Intel ICH9 chipsets and has been my favorite system (and current).

If you have access, try it and let us know. I would probably use Kernel 4 to setup and install. The Northbridge is CPU/RAM and some PCI Express while the Southbridge is going to be most of your I/O (PCI, Audio, BIOS, DMA, etc..).

[croupier]

Just playing with an old Dell Latitude laptop....and a question came up....any use of PCMCIA on Amithlon? Anyone ever tried/played with it? Is Amithlon able at all to use these cards?

[Pyromania]

Anyone have an Amithlon VM image handy. I would like to try it out.

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by croupier

Just playing with an old Dell Latitude laptop....and a question came up....any use of PCMCIA on Amithlon? Anyone ever tried/played with it? Is Amithlon able at all to use these cards?

I have never investigated PCMCIA under Amithlon and I'm not sure if there is any binding of that hardware between Amithlon/Linux kernel and AmigaOS.

Everything I have done has been PCI, Mini-PCI (laptop) and PCI-e. I have a Mini-PCI wi-fi adapter in one of my Amithlon laptops (had to go through a number of mini-PCI wi-fi cards to find one that works).

PCMCIA......no idea.

[croupier]

Thanks!

As for the mini-PCI Wi-Fi adapter.....is just the Intel model that is mentioned in one of the threads or are there also other types/models that are recognised by Amithlon?

Did you have to install something on Amithlon or is the correct device driver selected in Genesis the only thing required?

[Pyromania]

I guess it’s a no on the VM image? I have an original Amithon CD but it won’t work in a Virtual Machine for some reason.

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

I guess it’s a no on the VM image? I have an original Amithon CD but it won’t work in a Virtual Machine for some reason.

It's kind of a double whammy. One, sharing the VM would include Kickstarts and OS 3.9 which is frowned on. Two, latest updates to Virtualbox and/or Windows 10 has made all my Amithlon VM setups no longer function.

I have not tried any other virtual processes though it was posted just a few posts back that QEMU-KVM and AQEMU at least booted.

[mikk]

Originally Posted by SnkBitten

Two, latest updates to Virtualbox and/or Windows 10 has made all my Amithlon VM setups no longer function.

Did you update VirtualBox to 6.1? I've recently updated Windows 10 x64 to 2004 but kept version 6.0.22 of VBox and my Amithlon VM still works.

Originally Posted by SnkBitten

I have not tried any other virtual processes though it was posted just a few posts back that QEMU-KVM and AQEMU at least booted.

Also, it is possible to install AmigaOS XL (the QNX-based solution) inside VMware, though it isn't as fast and funcional as Amithlon.

[SnkBitten]

Yes, I updated to 6.1 as none of my virtuals would start for some reason. Taking the update allowed them to start but they all hang during the initialization of the linux kernel/AmigaOS hand off. I may uninstall and re-install the older version to see if that resolves the issue...

I see there is a 6.0.24, I'll download it and 6.0.22.

[SnkBitten]

I uninstalled 6.1 and re-installed 6.0.22. This brought me back to getting an error on launching the virtual Amithlon. A quick google search said I needed to disable hypervisor (which I must have enabled at some point). "bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off" as admin from a command prompt, a restart and my Virtualbox Amithlon systems launch again.