What's the easiest way to boot from CD these days?

[Malakie]

Hi again,

What's the easiest way to boot from CD today? Back when it was a pain in the ass to get configured. I want to boot from the SCSI CD drive on an A2000 stock machine. It has a 3.2 kickstart and WB 3.2 as well. The drive works fine but is there a way to make it boot from a CD easily now with these new KS and OS's?

What I want to do is try to now install 3.9 over the 3.2 install. But when I run the installer from the CD direct, it crashes the installer so I have to either suspend or reboot. I am thinking if I boot from this CD, I will then be able to run the installer?

Or am I missing something that has not come back to me yet from all these years ago?

[Matt_H]

Unfortunately, it's still the same old PITA to boot from CD because the requisite drivers/filesystems are not in ROM. The basic methodology is to mount CD0: as early as possible, transfer SYS: and all related system assigns to their CD counterparts, and execute CD0:s/startup-sequence.

Have a look for CDBoot by Thomas Kessler, which automates all of this. Very easy to use. I think it will still work on 3.2 without any changes.

But the broader goal of what you're trying to achieve may not be possible - 3.9 has some components with 68020-specific code, so running on a stock 68000 won't work. If there are bits from 3.9 that you want it's better to copy/test them manually.

[Malakie]

Originally Posted by Matt_H

Unfortunately, it's still the same old PITA to boot from CD because the requisite drivers/filesystems are not in ROM. The basic methodology is to mount CD0: as early as possible, transfer SYS: and all related system assigns to their CD counterparts, and execute CD0:s/startup-sequence.

Have a look for CDBoot by Thomas Kessler, which automates all of this. Very easy to use. I think it will still work on 3.2 without any changes.

But the broader goal of what you're trying to achieve may not be possible - 3.9 has some components with 68020-specific code, so running on a stock 68000 won't work. If there are bits from 3.9 that you want it's better to copy/test them manually.

Ahh that may be the issue then, if 3.9 required an 020 board. Damn, wish I had known that because I wasted some time before I hooked up the CD, trying to get 3.9 installed via an HD that already had it installed...and it constantly would crashed. Was going to try a clean install figuring something was corrupt. But if 3.9 requires an 020, then there is no point.

What about 3.5? is that worth updating to or should I just stick with 3.2?

[Jpor]

Originally Posted by Malakie

Ahh that may be the issue then, if 3.9 required an 020 board. Damn, wish I had known that because I wasted some time before I hooked up the CD, trying to get 3.9 installed via an HD that already had it installed...and it constantly would crashed. Was going to try a clean install figuring something was corrupt. But if 3.9 requires an 020, then there is no point.

What about 3.5? is that worth updating to or should I just stick with 3.2?

Stick with 3.2
3.5 was released before 3.9. With 3.9 being the last release by Haage and Partners and was basically an upgrade to 3.5

3.2 now has a few things that 3.9 has except for AmiDock. As Hyperion has acquired some key parts from the 3.9 release.

I’ve done something similar but installed 3.9 then updated to 3.1.4 but retaining the AmiDock.

[Malakie]

Originally Posted by Jpor

Stick with 3.2
3.5 was released before 3.9. With 3.9 being the last release by Haage and Partners and was basically an upgrade to 3.5

3.2 now has a few things that 3.9 has except for AmiDock. As Hyperion has acquired some key parts from the 3.9 release.

I’ve done something similar but installed 3.9 then updated to 3.1.4 but retaining the AmiDock.

I remove amidock completely. I also won't use Dopus. Reason is, I am the designer and author of WMS - Workbench Management System. I had a small Amiga dev company after my time at Commodore and before I went back active duty US Navy. Without going into major details, let's just say back then copying someone else's ideas was common.

So it sounds like sticking with 3.2 is the way to go then if there is nothing really in 3.9 that is worth upgrading to then.

[Daedalus]

Besides, you don't boot from the OS 3.9 CD. Instead, you create an emergency boot floppy (which includes the required CD support), and then boot from that as noted in the installation instructions. Installing an older version over a newer one is asking for trouble. CPU requirements aside, the safest approach is to just copy over the desired elements without overwriting newer core components.

3.9 has a number of components that are nice to have and still lacking in 3.2, though the gap is much narrower now than it was with 3.1.4. The ones that come to mind are Amidock, UnArc, WBClock, THE, and ones like IconEdit and HDToolbox that are lacking features or otherwise lagging behind their 3.2 counterparts. I'm sure there are more... ViNCEd is nice too, but there are newer versions available.

[Jpor]

Originally Posted by Malakie

I remove amidock completely. I also won't use Dopus. Reason is, I am the designer and author of WMS - Workbench Management System. I had a small Amiga dev company after my time at Commodore and before I went back active duty US Navy. Without going into major details, let's just say back then copying someone else's ideas was common.

So it sounds like sticking with 3.2 is the way to go then if there is nothing really in 3.9 that is worth upgrading to then.

Good stuff

Yeah 3.2 now has ReAction that was with 3.9. As Daedalus has said, if there are things you need from 3.9 then 3.2 now has CD/DVD ROM support so you should be able to mount a CD/DVD drive with 3.9 and have a look around in what you need.

[Malakie]

Ok thanks.. yea the CD runs fine.. just thought booting from it would be the next option but I can do without and just copy the few files over.