Amiga n00b with some questions

[Calab]

I have a rev 6a Amiga 500 with a Romulator and a TF536 installed. It came with a preloaded 8GB CF card that works well.

I have my own 8GB CF card that I'm trying to set up from scratch. Not knowing very much about the Amiga, I have several questions about setting this card up.

1. The preloaded CF card contains a single 8GB partition. When I try to set up a partition on my CF card I can only fill 4GB of the card. What I'd like is a 500MB Workbench partition and a 7.5GB user partition. How can I do this?

2. The preloaded CF card boots to a PAL screen mode. On my CF card I only have NTSC modes listed. Since the preloaded card works on my display, I should be able to use the PAL modes. How can I enable them on my CF card?

3. My CF card is set to use 16 color mode and has GlowIcons installed. The display seems much slower than the preloaded CF card, which uses 8 colors and does not use GlowIcons. I'm not sure what icon set is installed on the preloaded card. Is using 16 color mode really that more taxing on the system?

4. Is there a "file manager" software for the Amiga that lets you browse through the contents of you disks? Something that lets you see all the files, not just the ones with .info files?

5. Is there any kind of "Introduction to the Amiga" FAQ around that might answer some of these, and similar, questions?

I've tried to examine the preloaded CF card that I have, but since I don't know what to look for, or where to look, it is not going well.

[rjd324]

3. I think it is quite a lot more taxing. I think there is an option somewhere to use fast mem instead of chip mem for icons/graphics. Somewhere in prefs, someone else will have to elaborate.

4. You will want DirectoryOpus. You can also just use the normal windows and select "show all files" from the icon drop down menu.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Calab

1. The preloaded CF card contains a single 8GB partition. When I try to set up a partition on my CF card I can only fill 4GB of the card. What I'd like is a 500MB Workbench partition and a 7.5GB user partition. How can I do this?

You need a new operating system. The original Os (up to 3.9) can only manage partitions up to a 4GB boundary.

Originally Posted by Calab

2. The preloaded CF card boots to a PAL screen mode. On my CF card I only have NTSC modes listed. Since the preloaded card works on my display, I should be able to use the PAL modes. How can I enable them on my CF card?

You need to load the PAL monitor on startup. Typically by dragging it into DEVS:Monitors.

Originally Posted by Calab

My CF card is set to use 16 color mode and has GlowIcons installed. The display seems much slower than the preloaded CF card, which uses 8 colors and does not use GlowIcons. I'm not sure what icon set is installed on the preloaded card. Is using 16 color mode really that more taxing on the system?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Calab

4. Is there a "file manager" software for the Amiga that lets you browse through the contents of you disks? Something that lets you see all the files, not just the ones with .info files?

Yes, it's called "workbench" and it is usually loaded during startup. Select a window, click on "List all files", and "Show by name". But that requires 3.9 at least.

[SpeedGeek]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

You need a new operating system. The original Os (up to 3.9) can only manage partitions up to a 4GB boundary.

http://www.haage-partner.de/amiga/ao...features-e.htm

OS3.9 FFS supports > 4GB partitions but only the OS3.9 included scsi.devices are NSD64 compliant. This means any other devices must be NSD patched first to support > 4GB partitions.

So, you would boot from a < 4GB partition first, then NSD patch and late mount the > 4GB partitions.

But there are even better reasons to always limit the boot partition to < 4GB. They can take a very long time to validate and validation can fail on low memory systems.

NOTE: The above applies only to Commodore's aging FFS. PFS or SFS have implemented their own solutions for both issues.

[Thomas Richter]

FFS (since 3.1.4 and up) can clearly access data beyond the 4GB boundary, it was very kludgy in 3.9 due to unnecessary political issues. SFS I would no longer recommend, the system is out of support since a long time and has some known issues.

[Calab]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

You need a new operating system. The original Os (up to 3.9) can only manage partitions up to a 4GB boundary.

You need to load the PAL monitor on startup. Typically by dragging it into DEVS:Monitors.

Yes, it's called "workbench" and it is usually loaded during startup. Select a window, click on "List all files", and "Show by name". But that requires 3.9 at least.

The preloaded CF card has OS 3.1 and a single 8GB paritition and it works fine. KS is 3.1 as well on my machine. It's working somehow.

Found it, thanks! Got it running at PAL resolutions now.

I didn't realise that Workbench had the option to show all files. Works well. Thank you.

[Calab]

Originally Posted by rjd324

3. I think it is quite a lot more taxing. I think there is an option somewhere to use fast mem instead of chip mem for icons/graphics. Somewhere in prefs, someone else will have to elaborate.

4. You will want DirectoryOpus. You can also just use the normal windows and select "show all files" from the icon drop down menu.

Thanks! I will see what I can find regarding the icons, and will download DirectoryOpus when I have time.

[Calab]

Originally Posted by SpeedGeek

http://www.haage-partner.de/amiga/ao...features-e.htm

OS3.9 FFS supports > 4GB partitions but only the OS3.9 included scsi.devices are NSD64 compliant. This means any other devices must be NSD patched first to support > 4GB partitions.

So, you would boot from a < 4GB partition first, then NSD patch and late mount the > 4GB partitions.

But there are even better reasons to always limit the boot partition to < 4GB. They can take a very long time to validate and validation can fail on low memory systems.

NOTE: The above applies only to Commodore's aging FFS. PFS or SFS have implemented their own solutions for both issues.

I was considering the latest OS 3.2.1 with an OS 3.2 ROM. Does that help me get closer to using larger drives?

My boot partition for Workbench will only be about 500MB. The rest of the CF card would be used as a user partition, so 7.5GB on an 8GB card. It's odd though, the 8GB card that I got preloaded with my TF536 is a single 8GB partition and it boots.

[Calab]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

FFS (since 3.1.4 and up) can clearly access data beyond the 4GB boundary, it was very kludgy in 3.9 due to unnecessary political issues. SFS I would no longer recommend, the system is out of support since a long time and has some known issues.

So, it should be as simple as installing a new file system, like PSF3AIO? I'm not sure how I would go about installing that.

I assume that you also need an HDToolbox that will create an 8GB partition.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Calab

I was considering the latest OS 3.2.1 with an OS 3.2 ROM. Does that help me get closer to using larger drives?

Yes, the FFS in 3.2.1 (actually, already the version in 3.1.4) supports large disks, regardless of the language the underlying device speaks. You don't need a boot partition for that anymore. However, I suggest to use larger blocks (e.g. 4096 bytes per block, not 512 as by default) as this will speed up things considerably for the FFS.