Amithlon Setup Guide

[croupier]

Originally Posted by dr.zeissler

You can install Amithlon ontop of freedos and start it via "loadlin xxx" but you can also install QNX and Amithlon ontop of this right?
Interestingly how many gfx-cards are supported. 3dfx-cards are also shown with lot's of acceleration.
How can this be if Amithlon should only work with VESA on 3dfx? Something wrong here?

https://web.archive.org/web/20011226...orm/video.html

I think that the QNX alternative runs the Amiga OSXL...and not the Amithlon itself....both options are on the original 'Amithlon' CD...but never played with the QNX....not a Linux expert but I think in both cases the 'base' of the emulation is Linux....FreeDOS is needed just to boot the PC and start the 'emulation'...there is no FreeDOS in the background anymore once Amithlon starts...


But guess other more experienced users will now more about this...

[freakofnature]

As croupier said: AmigaOSXL requires QNX as underlying os, while Amithlon is based on Linux.

[freakofnature]

Todays afternoon i'd played around with VirtualBox 7. Runs Amithlon at an incredible speed.
Best thing is the virtual iso. That's a folder mounted as disk. You can boot from it and change
kernel and all parameters for isolinux on the fly. Adding files and folders to the "iso" gave me
access to all amiga related stuff on my hard disks. Amithlon on VBox has never been easier.

Config tested:
Hardware: Ryzen 5 3600 , Gigabyte B450, 16 GB
OS: Linux Mint 21
VirtualBox 7

/home/user/isolinux is the "boot device" (copied from Amithlon CD)

FYI, VBox itself creates only the basic .viso file, that contains the directory structure of a selected folder or disk.
The first two lines are generated by the iso creator.

To make the .viso file bootable, you need to add the options as below:

--iprt-iso-maker-file-marker-bourne-sh 2f93f914-b0e1-458d-9389-53e310145232
--volume-id=Aminew
--eltorito-alt-boot
--eltorito-boot=/isolinux/isolinux.bin 
--no-emulation-boot
--boot-info-table
/isolinux=/home/<yourusername>/isolinux

Adding additional files and folder goes like this:
/Amigastuff=/mnt/somedistantpartition/distantfolder/Amigastuff

Have fun

[SnkBitten]

No, Amithlon doesn't do anything with QNX, that was for AmigaOS/XL or whatever it was called that was bundled with Amithlon. When H&P was shipping/supporting Amithlon they bundled it with their own amiga emulator that ran on QNX. The supported hardware is for the QNX OS and then you run an emulator in that OS that runs Amiga OS....very similar to any other operating system running an Amiga emulator.

Originally Posted by dr.zeissler

You can install Amithlon ontop of freedos and start it via "loadlin xxx" but you can also install QNX and Amithlon ontop of this right?
Interestingly how many gfx-cards are supported. 3dfx-cards are also shown with lot's of acceleration.
How can this be if Amithlon should only work with VESA on 3dfx? Something wrong here?

https://web.archive.org/web/20011226...orm/video.html

[dr.zeissler]

Thx, I am a bit confused about the different kernels and the supported hardware.
If I had to choose from these machines, which one would work with which kernel.
https://archive.shuttle.eu/2004/en/xpc.htm#xpc

I still have an Quadro FX700 card here which should be a FX5900.
Has anyone ever tested if those quadro cards do work?
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-spec...o-fx-700.c1351
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/nvidia-nv35.g18

Thx
Doc

[dr.zeissler]

Sorry to bother you again, but I don't get it. I would love to test my machine described above with amithlon.
If I boot the AmigaXL CD it works just fine. I can only choose 640x480 256colors but it works.

If I install FreeDos 1.0 and want to start via "loadlin @AMITHLON" I only get some OPCODE-Errors that I can't understand.
Does Amithlon have other restrictions when starting via harddisk?
My Harddisk has 160GB but it's only partitioned for 120GB or am I doing something wrong?

I already installed Amithlon via CD but I can't boot because of that OPCODE Failure.

Best regards
Doc

[croupier]

The freedos partition should be your booting partition C:....and it should be a Primary type....not a logic drive

On the pics I see that your C: partition called Amithlon is FAT formated....what OS you have there?
The partition where you will install AmigaOS should be formated with FDISK as a Type 76 partition....

[dr.zeissler]

Thx!

I use the XFDISK Bootmanager and of course "AMIGA" is the "freedos" partition.
It's not required to have the type76 partitions as primary.
I don't think that the problem is the partition-map because I use this on every machine (sometimes with other/different os's)

[croupier]

Which is your boot partition when you want to start Amithlon? What files do you have on the above shown C:? Based on the pics you shown...you are starting Amithlon from D:...which doesn't look as a boot partition (at least not on the other pic you showed with your partition list)...

I used to have a lot of issues starting Amithlon if I booted differently than from a 'clean' Freedos partition....so I'm not playing with it anymore....just a clear FreeDos as C: and streight to Amithlon...

[dr.zeissler]

On my normal setup's I don't use a primary partition for freedos in order to startup amithlon. On these machines I do use a freedos-floppy in order to boot and the autoexec.bat roots to D:AMIGA in order to loadlin-the kernel...that works with no problems.

On this setup I will do a direct-boot via primary freedos partition and within that you are right, I do not need the loadlin and the kernel to be on drive D within the AMIGA folder. I will do a fresh format of the primary freedos partition and make new screenshots.

Doc

[dr.zeissler]

Here you can see why freedos does not work when booting of a LOGICAL partition, because it always roots to that C: drive and that C: drive is what you started of last via bootmanager...forget this this is not the topic here, but you can see the boot of the floppy here. On this setup I can boot amithlon but this lowend machine is not what I want to use for amithlon...that is why my AthlonXP with FX700 is my new attempt.

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[croupier]

As a start I would create 2 partitions on your AthlonXP.....a small bootable Primary C: for FreeDos where only the Amithlon files are located and the second partition Type76 which I would format and setup from Amithlon (when started from the CD)....with a bootable DH0: and any additional Amiga partitions as required by your planned set-up....you can then boot your Amithlon Amiga from this new partition by selecting it as a boot partition from the early sturtup boot screen (by pressing both mouse bottoms during Amithlon boot)....and then just get the Freedos C: partition correctly setup in order to be able to start Amithlon also from there.....once all starts OK just replace the bigird file with the smallird in your 'Amithlon' text file called by loadlin command....

[dr.zeissler]

I checked with another machine...and got it working, but I have to check that AthlonXP machine again.

Can you give me an advice how to install native drivers on my working setup. The machine has a G550-AGP and Onboard SC97 from i845 Chipset.

Kernel310 or Kernel4 ? Hopefully I will not destroy the working setup.

What comes first?
Installing drivers and updates on working amithlon with stand-kernel and then replacing the kernel oder the other way round.

Thx!

[dr.zeissler]

It's working on both machines...now I will go for drivers and other software! THX!

[croupier]

'Native' drivers are part of the kernels....Kernel310 is older while Kernel4 is the most recent...you have to (or it makes sense to) install the additional drivers (different for Kernel310 and Kernel4!!) only if the kernel doesn't recognize all the installed cards on your PC....if all is up and running you don't have to install the extra drivers...

You 'install' the extra drivers by running (or adding into startup sequence) the command 'pciinstmod' (all 'Amithlon' commands are present in c:AmithlonC folder....you can play with all of them in order to get the idea....good to use the SNKBitten's gudielines for this...as there you get also a couple of 'Linux' commands that come handy inside Amithlon....xcat, etc...)...it also lists all the installed components....

[dr.zeissler]

https://paranoicb.wixsite.com/theami...mithlon-laptop

That also sounds promising and it's based on snk's list. I'll check. THX

[dr.zeissler]

Ok, I got Amithlon installed on both machines. None of the tested kernels provide everything (graphics and sound-support) it's either or...I need more testing...

[SnkBitten]

With each kernel you have to install the appropriate drivers for for pciinsmod to do anything. Following the install guides walk you through this process. Also, do not mix kernel 4 and kernel 3 driver modules, they are compiled specifically for their respective kernel.

Graphic cards are ONLY in the kernel and there are no kernel modules to enable hardware accelerated graphics. Soudcards, network cards, i/o on the motherboard are typically. Copying the appropriate files for the kernel modules is very important and then pciinsmod can insert those modules into the environment.

A basic install of Amithlon with all the patches will not allow all the compatible hardware function until the modules are loaded and running.

You can do the install and patching on kernel 3 and then do a pciscan to see what hardware it detects. Shutdown and switch to kernel 4 and do a pciscan to see if more or more accurate hardware is detected. Check each respective kernel modules for drivers for what hardware was detected. Continue using the kernel that works best and then install the kernel modules for that kernel to your system so that pcisinmod will be able to load those modules and initiate the hardware.

[dr.zeissler]

Sound like a plan, thx!

[dr.zeissler]

never saw such a thing...
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