Amithlon Setup Guide

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by RolyAmiga

Hi Guys.

I did try it use 2GB RAM Memory But Wont Show on Screen Logo Boing Ball

and try with mem=768M Still Wont Work.

You Don't Need It 1.5GB RAM or 2GB RAM And More To Over 3GB RAM on Your PC!

Unfortunately, I cannot remove 1GB from my machine - I am stuck at 2GB. It's a laptop. Looks like I'll have to wait until someone figures out how to boot this with 2GB or more

D.

Hi guys.

Well you need add to HIGHMEM and HIGHMEM4G or HIGHMEM64G patch it

for amithlon kernel update ??

But I try it add HIGHMEM and HIGHMEM4G or HIGHMEM64G from .config cofig.old include/linux/autoconf.h

then building it new kernel amithlon then boot PC still wont work,

But need it patch fixed for highmem kernel source amithlon !

[tero]

The very first amithlon kernel used on original cd has no problem with 2gb ram. I use this one on my 2x2ghz 2gb athlon machine.
maybe it's possible to find out what is broken with a .diff
the first official updated kernel was broken too

i didn'T read the whole thread, sorry if it's mentioned before

greetz
tero

[HeZoR]

Originally Posted by Ratte

The magic behind this is the prometheus-voodoo driver.
Modify the promtheus-voodoo driver to use the "powerpci.library" ...
Could be done with a fileeditor ...
(prometheus and powerpci are api-compatible)

Voodoo3 3000 AGP won't even boot at a hardware level, I tried it.
Maybe a PCI Voodoo could do the trick, with picasso96.

But how is supported more than one gfx card in amithlon environment?
P96 Prefs will see one board installed, usage of Mediator or Prometheus drivers may help?

[sayasupacrew]

woaaaa !

with my laptop intel core dual toshiba tecra7, i 've not good color with ati graphic card :-(

[blasterreal]

Hp ML350 g5 2 quad core xeon 2.5ghz and ati rage graphisc card not work with kernel 4.0

A new Amithlon kernel, I didn’t think that would ever happen!

This rekindled my interest in Amithlon, so for the last couple of days I have been testing the new kernel on my two Amithlon systems (one dedicated, the other is actually my HTPC) and a number of graphic cards.
Sadly Kernel4 didn’t bring any improvements over 3.10 in my case, instead it broke SATA CD-rom support on the HTPC. But maybe later versions will.

My systems:
Dedicated Amithlon
MB: Asus K8N (nForce3-250) with Sempron 2800+, 1GB ram
HD/CD-rom: ATA
Net: MB built in works!
Sound: SB Audigy PCI
Graphics: AGP (see below)

HTPC
MB: Asus M2NPV-MX (nForce430) with Athlon X2 BE-2400, 1GB ram
HD/CD-Rom: SATA
Net: Realtek rtl8139 PCI
Sound: Nope.
Graphics: PCI-e (see below)

Tested graphics cards:
GeForce 2mx 200 AGP: Full HW acceleration and surprisingly fast!
GeForce 3 Ti200 AGP: Full HW acceleration.
GeForce 4 Ti4400 AGP: Full HW acceleration.

Geforce 6150 (integrated on MB): HW-acceleration works with the exception of rasterscroll.
Geforce PCX 5300 PCI-e: HW-acceleration works with the exception of rasterscroll.
GeForce 8400GS PCI-e: HW-acceleration works with the exception of rasterscroll.

The missing rasterscroll acceleration have a very noticeable impact, it makes scrolling in a CLI-window unbearably slow (When the HW acceleration works it is lightning fast.)

The question is, can this rasterscroll issue be fixed in the kernel or does the problem lie somewhere else?
It would be wonderful to have it fixed (almost as good as breaking the 1GB barrier) because it would make a lot of graphic cards usable in one single stroke!

[HeZoR]

The question is, can this rasterscroll issue be fixed in the kernel or does the problem lie somewhere else?
It would be wonderful to have it fixed (almost as good as breaking the 1GB barrier) because it would make a lot of graphic cards usable in one single stroke!

You should try an AGP x8 FX5900 Ultra 256mb. It's the best there is for amithlon.

Also, I've purchased Gary's same Abit mobo, but I can't figure out why the onboard gigabit ethernet isn't working with kernel 3.1 nor 4.0 and the updated linux drivers. I've read that you can't have more than one ethernet card installed. Anyone having this mobo can help me out.

Yes, but the FX5900 is AGP and there are many quite modern motherboards that you can use with Amithlon but then you need a PCI-e (or PCI) graphics card that works.
Actually I'm so satisfied with the speed of the GF2mx 200 that I'm using it instead of the Ti4400. It uses very little power and is fanless so it's dead silent and all that without being noticeably slower than the Ti4400!
But for the motherboard with PCI-e I have yet to find a card that works perfectly.



Since onboard net and sound devices aren’t included in the kernel but uses loadable kernel modules the first thing to check is that the module (driver) gets loaded (with pciinsmod). If not it is probably because the device-id is not listed in S: pci_modules
I actually just got the onboard Ethernet on the Asus M2NPV-MX (nForce430) working by adding the following to pci_modules:
10de 0269
Net/forcedeth.o

You can use the pcilist command to list all devices and their device-ids, then it is just the matter of finding out which device-id belongs to the Ethernet device and which module to use…
There really needs to be an up to date pci_modules file to accompany kernel4, so if anyone has the time to do it… Please?

Originally Posted by HeZoR

I've read that you can't have more than one ethernet card installed.

I believe that you can't have two natively supported and working Ethernet cards installed at the same time.
But if you happen to end up in that situation (because of a buggy driver for the onboard Ethernet for example) you can simply comment out the device id of the onboard card from the s: pci_modules file to prevent it's driver from being loaded by pciinsmod and use a pci Ethernet card.

If you for some reason need two ethernet cards at the same time you can use one native amithlon device and one RTL8139 through OpenPCI.

[amigoun]

I didn't use Amithlon in the past, but after spotted news of a new kernel a gave it a try.
After some time I made a good working Amithlon environment on my quite old laptop w. Athlon-M 2000+, VIA sound (working native), VIA net (thru drivers), but the graphic card S3 Twister works only in VESA mode which is quite slow.
Would it be possible and not so hard work to add support for HW acceleration for this graphics in the kernel? I unfortunatelly have little knowledge of linux and compiling..

[milanca]

Hello guys,

I was away for some time so i am sorry if i missed anything addressed at me. I am glad if kernel 4 is working fine for those who are using it. I am using it for the last six months and it's working just fine.

I am also very proud to say that the first donation has been received to support it. Please do not get me wrong that by mentioning it i want to encourage people to donate. No, i am just happy to say that someone appreciates the work and effort and i just want to share my moment of happiness. It really means a lot. Thanks guys for your understanding.

NMI, yes, the list of pci modules is missing. I didn't have time to create such a list but it can be really useful, indeed. I will see if i can make such a list when time permits. Also there are some things regarding hw acceleration that could be tried and tested to extend the list of supported chips with hw accel. If there is anything new, it'll be on the forum very quickly.

amigoun, i am glad you have your amithlon working fine. S3 cards sucks in amithlon now. I have so many cards, 3 or 4 matrox cards both agp and pci and two S3 cards. One is S3 virge which has native amiga drivers for mediator boards. But i simply couldn't make it work under amithlon, not even in vesa mode, i simply can't boot with it. It has an awful vesa support. I also have one S3 savage which works in vesa mode only. There is a driver for some S3 cards that could bring 2d hw acceleration but it's for 2.6 kernel. It can be backported to 2.4 but it requires some time and work which i unfortunately don't have right now. I will see when i have more time to do anything i can to bring more hw support into kernel4.

-milanca

[ChrisUnionNJ]

Been looking for Amithlon for awhile any hints here guys were to find it..

Chris

[TheCyberDruid]

Seems like you can't buy it anymore... Will wait for someone to confirm that and then put it on the file server.

[amigoun]

milanca: thankx for the info, the card is a Savage variant. I thought its probably not easy to implement the acceleration support. Best is to build the Amithlon from the supported cards, which is unfortunatelly possible for laptops. And having a "amigaized" amithlon laptop is great.
I have another question, when I use your Kernel 4, I lost the external drivers support, and the pciinsmod command says: "Could not find/create /insmod on linuxside" "Error code: 1". On the other hand with the kernel 3.10 it works fine..

[milanca]

amigoun: Yes, it would be nice to have nicely supported laptop. Many of the older laptops come with variants of S3 cards like Chrome etc. Driver from 2.6 could be backported as i said. No promises for now but we'll see what can be done.

Which module did you try to load ? Was it one of modules from kernel 3.10 or one compiled from kernel 4 ? I think i tried loading 3.10 module with kernel 4 and there were no problems. I will investigate it, just confirm please what did you try to load. With 3.10 kernel things were well done, automated, so with insmod script will load module(s) required only for the certain hardware. With kernel 4 you should load module you need manually (not automated cause i didn't make modules list, sorry). Point is that you should know which module you need than load it manually.

-milanca

[amigoun]

I have installed orig. amithlon, than the official newkernel and from the amithlon side the AmithlonUpdate.lha from Aminet. Then I updated to Kernel 3.10 and installed drivers from kernel 3.10 - They worked fine automatically. Then I replaced kernel with the Kernel 4 and updated the drivers I use with the drivers provided with Kernel 4. I left the pci_modules file from the 3.10 only checked if the provided driver is listed and have path for the module. After that the command pciinsmod states: "Could not find/create /insmod on linuxside" "Error code: 1". The same for the insmod..

[HeZoR]

Hi, i was wondering what parameters should i use/remove for amithlon to work on DVI mode on my AGP GeForce FX5950 Ultra 256mb, as I can only work it at VGA mode. Also is there any usage of the s-vhs connector?
Can it at least output dual clone view?

Could someone post all the optional boot startup parameters with a small description and valid values like a mini amithlon guide?

[milanca]

@ amigoun,

I believe there was sort of conflict. You don't have to copy all the drivers. They are an additional support, drivers for some network cards, serial drivers etc, which are not covered by the kernel. You can (i am pretty sure) use even drivers provided by the kernel 3.10. Don't copy all of them, its better only to use modules you need for particular hardware. This conflict may occur due to some audio modules in pci_modules_list from kern310. I don't see any other reason but what ever the cause is just don't copy all of the drivers, only for the hardware which is not supported and there is a modules compiled from kernel 4. I will see in the future to create a propriate modules list for automatic modules loading.

@ hezor, yes it is a pretty strange issue. I don't know what the reason is, maybe someone else does. Did you try this FX5950 card on VGA port? Does it work on VGA connection with hardware acceleration enabled ? If it works fine on it, then you should try with correct boot parameters. There is everything explained in Charlie's guide, the first page here. In boot archive file (don't know the exact name but you can find it easily) in grub.cfg there is everything explained. At the end of the same file you have also screen modes tables. Charlie did it just great.

Cheers,
Milan aka milanca

[HeZoR]

@ milanca, yes it's hardware accelerated. Gary's kernel doesn't autodetect DVI on Geforce cards. I will try using 'video=riva:640x480,flatpanel=1' and see if it works. Here's some more info:

For GeForce DVI:
The GeForce driver won't use the DVI port unless you tell it to. Add the string 'video=riva:640x480,flatpanel=1' to the end of the kernel arguments in you bootloader to force DVI support.

For ATI DVI:
Radeon DVI support is a bit buggy right now and simply doesn't function on some cards. Generally the driver should auto-detect a monitor connected to the DVI port, but you can try forcing it by using the kernel arguments 'video=radeon:640x480,dfp'.

Charlie's guide covers only some of the boot parameters, on the grub/boot/MENU.LST having a little description. Most are general linux options, but the amithlon kernel related options aren't documented, like the hw acceleration hex codes. These can also be parsed in the startup-sequence (like hsync/vsync). A clear list with all command line parameters would be gladly appreciated.

[milanca]

@ HeZoR,

Aha, i see. Yes, what i also meant is to try using flatpanel argument to see if DVI connection works. Let us know how it was.
Regarding horizontal and vertical sync options to be used in boot line, i will see what i can find in kernel and let you know. I think it can be useful but on vga connection, on crt panels. If i am right (correct me if i am wrong) on flatpanels, dvi connection, it is a different story.

-milanca

[HeZoR]

@milanca:

Thanks, DVI works fine! The boing ball spins red, leaving traces with the backdrop and incorrect pallette colors but when workbench boots all colors are normal.
I forgot to mention that I connected wirelessly now with amithlon!
But I have one problem: It doesn't like my deathadder mouse: if I don't move it before boot, it's not moving; if i do move it until amithlon workbench shows up, the mouse y axis is inverted!
Any solution to this? I tried older mice with no probs, seems that something is bugging the amithlon usb ps2 emulation?

[milanca]

@HeZor,

Great, so DVI is working fine. Regarding boing ball animation, on some cards it doesn't work well so you'd better use console level 4. On some ATI cards it doesn't work at all.

I use usb keyboard, sometimes usb mouse. But it's highly recommended, if the mouse is usb, to connect it to PS2 port via adapter. Keyboards can be used on USB port, i never had problems with it on usb port. But some mice, very probable like yours, require only usb connection. It is a very high speed mouse. What does it say, is it ps2 compatible? Usually they all can be used via usb->ps2 adapter but if there are problems i think compatibility is the cause then, nothing else.

-milanca

[HeZoR]

@milanca,

It won't work with a ps2 adaptor, it's a high speed mouse and it needs usb power to work. I tried it.
Is there a workaround for the inverted axis? maybe a software hack could to the trick here.

Does any PCI Express work with h/w acceleration?
A Compatibility list would be grateful.

[amigoun]

Even if I delete S: pci_modules , insmod still gives me the error of not being able to find/create /insmod on linuxside. Strange, as with kern310 inserting modules works fine with on the same pc..

[amigoun]

finally I managed insmod to work with kernel4 (changed the -leavepages from 5500 back to 5200). But drivers give me other errors, f.ex. net - eepro100.o, soundcore.o does not work either. So not much luck there.

[Xytec]

So didn't Charlie mention doing an ISO (once permission given?), any chance of one on way, with all new Kernals etc?

Please

[prowler]

I remember Charlie doing an .ISO update, but it wouldn't have included the latest kernel update.

I suspect that more testing and experience with the new kernel will be required before it will be included in any future .ISO update.

[milanca]

@ amigoun

I tried to recreate and come to the error you had "Could not find/create /insmod on linuxside" "Error code: 1" and I couldn't. I am using kernel4 for almost a year, works flawlessly, and never had such an error. I do trust you, of course, and i am willing to try to find out what the cause is. Amithlon is very very hardware picky, but regarding kernel modules and the issue you have, if it is a bug we will track it down. What is the video card you're using (i know why i am asking, trust me on that), is it nvidia, if not, which one? Will you tell me please your hardware info, motherboard, chipset controllers, ethernet, sound? When inserting the modules try not to mix them, previous versions with the modules i compiled. Which module did you exactly try to insert/load ? You can not unpack them all and just insert. You have to know which module is required for your hardware and load that particular one, or multiple ones. But only those modules required for your hardware otherwise you'll have a conflict. Kernel 3.10 has an utility for inserting module, it was all done automatically, and only modules listed by device id's after scanning. Some modules were blocked from loading cause those id's are supported by amithlon's core engine. I didn't create such a list and a small utility, we talked about it earlier here, i will if i have time.
Please send me the hardware info I asked and i will try to make a dedicated kernel for your hardware (what is possible to work within kernel) after testing i hope i can find whats blocking modules from inserting.

@ prowler,

I provided 'kernel4' AS IS. Everyone is free to use it if it works for that particular hardware and distribute it. If its found as not usable then it shouldn't be used. I take no responsibility. Hope you understand me.

Kind regards,
-milanca

[prowler]

Originally Posted by milanca

@ prowler,

I provided 'kernel4' AS IS. Everyone is free to use it if it works for that particular hardware and distribute it. If its found as not usable then it shouldn't be used. I take no responsibility. Hope you understand me.

Hi milanca,

Thanks for clarifying the "terms of use". No problem.

And thanks also for your work on this project.

[milanca]

Hi prowler,

I actually do owe you an apologize. I didn't mean my post to sound like an official one (when i read it now, it actually might sound like that). I am sorry, it was not my intention. I worked on this project, and still working, and my goal was to contribute to the community so there shouldn't be any terms of use. Something like that has never been in my vision of this project. Hope you understand me on this. Also, as we all know what amithlon is like, how hardware picky it is, and what it is like when you release something as free and open source stuff then it should be released 'as is'. Because of the numerous and various reasons. I don't want to go into details and bother, but you can trust me, there are really many reasons why something comes out as is. Hope you can understand me here also. I am just giving my best to contribute, for the community, amiga and amithlon fellows. All the best buddy!

@amigoun,

I have managed to recreate the error and splash screen you had troubles with, error code 1. What it means is: nothing to load or/and a version module mismatch. Kernel4 is just fine, i did a ton of tests again and it will remain as it is. This error was caused by pciinsmodule somewhere in startup-sequence (or user-start up, i will explain it later). This small utility inserts the module (or multiple modules if required) via pci_modules list, as it depends on this list file. That file actually makes the module inserting process automatic. I didn't create that file to follow kernel4 modules so pciinsmodules shouldn't be used. If you installed all the amithlon updates, contrib3/3b or drivers pack that came with kernel310, you might also have pciinsmodule call somewhere in user-startup. All the previous module drivers, contrib3 and later, are compiled from 2.4.19-pre4 kernel and are compatible to use either with new_kernel from Bernie M. or kernel2 to 310 from Garry C. Kernel4 is the latest 2.4 kernel and you should only use drivers that follow it.
I see now that it can be very difficult to use (mainly sound) modules that i provided without pci_modules list. Network modules can be used with 'insmod' but you have to know which module to load by device and vendor id of your hardware. Much easier but it can be also a problem for an average user. Amithlon itself can be enough tricky to install and setup. So i decided to create pci_modules file and recompile all the modules. It will be, the loading process, as it was with previous kernel versions, automatically with pciinsmodules.

NEWS

New drivers, sound, ethernet and serial with the pci_modules list are on their way. I already compiled all of them and I am half the job done creating the list file for auto loading with pciinsmodules. There are bunch of new drivers, many sound chips are in there and many network chips; realtek 8169 gigE is one of them, etc. I will update the topic here when it is available to download (sourceforge). Please do not use the modules which are actually on the site, you can use network drivers though. Just wait a bit as it will be online anytime soon.

Regards,
-milanca

[amigoun]

@ milanca

Very good News You bring, and thanks for the time You put into looking in that matter. As soon as the drivers are available for download I'll test and report how it works for me.
Thanks again and keep up the good work!

[prowler]

Originally Posted by milanca

Hi prowler,

I actually do owe you an apologize. I didn't mean my post to sound like an official one (when i read it now, it actually might sound like that). I am sorry, it was not my intention. I worked on this project, and still working, and my goal was to contribute to the community so there shouldn't be any terms of use. Something like that has never been in my vision of this project. Hope you understand me on this. Also, as we all know what amithlon is like, how hardware picky it is, and what it is like when you release something as free and open source stuff then it should be released 'as is'. Because of the numerous and various reasons. I don't want to go into details and bother, but you can trust me, there are really many reasons why something comes out as is. Hope you can understand me here also. I am just giving my best to contribute, for the community, amiga and amithlon fellows. All the best buddy!

Hi milanca,

There really is no need to apologize. I fully understand the compatibility problems you are facing.

Your continuing effort on this project is appreciated by us all.

[fishyfish]

Just wondering if anyone can offer me any suggestions as to why my pcx 5300 card will crash Amithlon ? I have a dedicated amithlon system which works very nicely (core2duo@3.86ghz, sblive, 2x512Meg (1gig) ddr2@1200, g31 based mobo, etc.). It absolutely flies and its quite cool to be able to watch high res/high quality video files at full speed and use aga software full speed/full framerate in 68k e-uae, but Im restricted to using my matrox g200 based pci card (8 meg, but some of the vram chips are a bit dodgey and I can only access 2 meg properly). I found a pcx 5300 pci express card on ebay, but trying to boot amithlon with it will make the system crash heavily. I believe it's a kernel crash as it does it as soon as pc post screens are finished. I've tried the card with another os (AROS) on the same machine and it works fine, and I've tried another pci express card with amithlon (gf9600gt), which also works, albiet in vesa modes. Seemed a bit strange that a card that has no support will work, whereas a card based on a gpu that is supported crashes the system heavily.
Any advice/suggestions would be appreciated. Im this one problem away from being very content with Amithlon and I'd rather not have to go back to my old athlon64 for it, (or use up a pci slot) as while it's still fairly decent on that system I do still have to make a few compromises (no full speed aga euae, no full speed FPSE (playstation emu), and a few other bits and pieces).
Oh, Im using kernel 3.10 by the way. Kernel4 doesnt work for me.

[milanca]

hi fishyfish,

it's really strange that pcx-5300 doesn't work for you, it should work fine. I compiled my last version of kernel 4 on similar configuration, Core2Quad and P35 motherboard and when i use my amithlon i'm also on PCI matrox card. What is the crash like with kernel4? Is it the same as with kernel3.10, immediately upon first kernel instructions? Kernel 4 is available to download at sourceforge, final version.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/amit...4.zip/download
If you boot internal amithlon hd make sure you change 'ram0' to 'ram1' in grub boot line. It doesn't matter for hdd installed os3.9. You could also try with increasing 'leavepages' a bit. Let us know how it was.

Regards

[fishyfish]

Yeah, Im running an hdd installed os3.9. I'd actually tried increasing leavepages in small increments up to around 7,500, but it made no difference. As for kernel4, yep, same problem as with kernel 3.10

[milanca]

Hi fishyfish,

will you try with this kernel:
http://www.mediafire.com/?xvsi3gluqpa9swg

Try with internal image, bigird.gz:

kernel /amithlon/kernel4 console_level=4 init=/linuxrc root=/dev/ram1 mem=512M vga=769 ramdisk_size=12010 leavepages=8200 cachesize=65536
initrd /amithlon/bigird.gz

If you try hdd installed os3.9 please try with several options also. Adding video=dovesa, try also with video=riva... etc to see if its going to work for you.

I wrote a reply post a couple of mins ago but when i hit post looks like my net connectin was lost, or i don't know, and entire text was lost so this is a quick reply and i will write it once again but if you'd like you can try with the kernel i attached first.

regards,
-milanca

[fishyfish]

No idea what's going on, but amithlon simply refuses to co-operate with me anymore. Out of frustration Ive tried going back to my old athlon64 box that I used amithlon with for about 2 years, and now even that crashes (kernel). The only times I can get it to work now are with vesa gfx drivers. I cant even get my old gf5200 agp card to work now.
Really starting to piss me off. Ive been using amithlon pretty heavily for 6 or 7 years, so I know my way around it, but for some reason it just wont co-operate anymore for me.

[milanca]

Hi fishyfish,

Really strange issue. It should work just fine with your older configuration and agp fx5200 at least.

Have you tried the kernel i compiled for your intel chipset motheroard G31 and core2duo from my previous post? it is to be used on intel based motherboards only.

Regards

[fishyfish]

I never got around to trying your newer kernel again, and Ive actually downgraded my amithlon box to my trusty old athlon64 system. I found my old geforce3 card and it works happily with that again, so that'll do me. Bit of a shame to have to downgrade it, but Ive recently acquired an a1200, so Im not too bothered. The main reason I used such a system with amithlon was for good speed with 68k euae for aga stuff, but that's not a priority anymore. It seems a bit strange though that I cant use either my gf5200 agp card with my athlon64 or pci express pcx5300 with the core2duo/pcx5300 without amithlon kernel crashing, but I lost patience with it. That machine is my media centre box now anyway (as of tonight). I suspect once I upgrade my main pc amithlon will once again inheritt the core2duo/g31 based system (current main pc will end up media centre system, media centre system will end up amithlon box, amithlon box will end up doorstop.. 1 upgrade tends to upgrade everything down the line for me), so Im sure it'll drive me batty enough to warrant me asking for help again in a month or two
One thing I am curious about though,.... I read recently that pcx 5300 only has partial hardware acceleration anyway ? Is this true? If so I'll probably end up buying a better supported pci card once Im using a system without agp for amithlon again anyway.
One more quirk I noticed though that's eliminated solely by switching back to the athlon64 over the core2duo/g31 system is that I no longer get gfx corruption in the top 1/4 of the display. It was minimal, and mostly occured when moving solid/opaque windows, and was fixed by simply refreshing Workbench, but a little irritating still.