Amithlon Setup Guide

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by Falke_34

@Milanca
Hast du zufällig einen 3.10 Kernel Source der sich kompilieren lässt?
Do you happen to have a 3.10 kernel source that compiles?

I have never found kernel 3.10 sources available. Some of the earlier beta 3.0 sources are out there but not the final version.

[dr.zeissler]

Originally Posted by milanca

Could someone please, with a little amithlon experience, test out this kernel for me?
This is a base kernel, bare metal, with only required amithlon patches (no graphics).
You would need to have a nicely supported graphic card which can boot in VESA mode.

I'd like to know if it boots to workbench with `bigird` using /dev/ram0
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c45...ew?usp=sharing

Thx, I will report the next days. Could you please tell me what the intention of this kernel41 is?
It would be pretty nice to get the intel igp working native/accelerated like i815e (framebuffer no such device...)

Do you have any clue why on some of my older machines only the original kernel is working, every newer kernel leads to two blinking lights on the keyboard, regardless what I do. There must be something different on the later kernel from bernie and every other one that came later.

The FSC-E600 muted AD1980 problem could not be fixed. the crazy thing seems that sbemu that fixed it for my FSC-E600 seems to break the other implementation of the AD1980 of the FSC-C100...that bug/false wiring is really the pain in the ass.

so thank you for your work. I will report later...

[Vipersan]

So...working with Milan...I am very close to completing my Amithlon/Epia Kernel4 build.
I have 4 functional USB ports and the Epia onboard Ethernet card is working.
at some point I will also have AC97 sound.
In the meantime I have created a top cover for the Hush case...with a strategically placed sink drainer plug hole directly above the cpu fan..not that it generates an excessive amount of heat anyway.
Never had a cover for the Hush it was aquired without it.
I'm in 2 minds as to spraying the whole cover grey/silver ...but looks ok in white ?
Also ..having built the Amithlon OS on a 120gb IDE hard drive...I took an image with HD clone..and wrote this to a micro SD card (128gb) ..and fitted an adapter in place of the Hard drive.
This gives a a bit more space to play with..reduces power loading of the pico psu...a gives me space to fit a single PCI card with a right angled riser pcb.
Pleased it is I am.
..and a big THANX to Milan for taking the time to help me.

[dr.zeissler]

Originally Posted by 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

S3 savage is a nice retro-card. unfortunately without 2D-HW-acc. I am better of with my matrox-mystique 4MB.

[dr.zeissler]

Choosing a graphics card for Amithlon Posted on July 5, 2018 by snkbitten There are a limited number of supported graphics cards for Amithlon. NVidia, Matrox, ATI and even Voodoo. Some better than others, though it still revolves around older linux 2.4 framebuffer support. Going through the kernel and gathering what we can find, this is the support breakdown for acceleration with each card type. This is information based on kernel 4.

Acceleration options defined in the kernel:
(1)FILL_RECT / (2)COPY_RECT / (3)BLIT_TEMP / (4)COPY_RECT_COMPLETE / (5)DRAW_LINE

nvidia:
(1)FILL_RECT / (2)COPY_RECT / (3)BLIT_TEMP / (4)COPY_RECT_COMPLETE / (5)DRAW_LINE

matrox*:
(1)FILL_RECT / (2)COPY_RECT / (3)BLIT_TEMP / (5)COPY_RECT_COMPLETE / (5)DRAW_LINE

radeon:
(1)FILL_RECT / (2)COPY_RECT / (3)BLIT_TEMP / (4)COPY_RECT_COMPLETE / (5)DRAW_LINE

voodoo:
(1)FILL_RECT / (2)COPY_RECT / (3)BLIT_TEMP / (4)COPY_RECT_COMPLETE / (5)DRAW_LINE

We can definitely see that overall nVidia has the most enabled acceleration functions with the Matrox and Radeon cards each dropping a different function. The Voodoo is the least supported and would be close to standard VESA framebuffer. I’ve not had a functioning PCI Radeon card, I believe AGP cards are the ones that work in Amithlon (based off a few laptops with AGP Radeon cards known to work). Matrox has both PCI and PCIe cards that work and nVidia has both AGP and PCI cards working. I have no feedback from anyone using a Voodoo card with Amithlon.
Still working through what we can, hopefully gaining more insight in to how Amithlon functions with as much specifics/details as possible.

------------
* for matrox there should be a difference between mystique/millenium and G100/200/400/450/550. btw. I did not get amithlon working with the G100, for G200 and up everything is OK, the G100 seems to be broken because VESA is broken in this one and the early matrox cards require "video=matrox" and "video=dovesa".

Has anyone tested witch ATI and other cards are supported by this kernel ?
http://aminet.net/package/misc/os/newkernel2

This is an alternative updated kernel from the archive "newkernel.lha" which can be found on the aminet. Only try this kernel if "newkernel.lha" does not work for you. It was derived from the same kernel sources as the kernel found in the archive "newkernel.lha". ie. Linux version 2.4.19-pre4

It supports some ATI series graphics cards and some other graphics cards.This kernel does *NOT* support nVidia cards, Matrox cards, or the generic VESA BIOS driver.

I can't find anything about what cards are meant here and how they perform e.g. whitch acceleration they offer. perhaps it would e helpfull to see what gfx-cards this linux-kernel supports, perhaps this indicates what is meant here.

for me as a retro gamer the older stuff is much more interesting as the very latest that is supported.