Amideb: An Amiga Emulator System

[giantclam]

Has the image been created as isohybrid?

I tried flashing image to USB drive (balena-etch) but it keeps saying image non bootable...

...what am I missing? =)

[giantclam]

Well, that was more fun than mowing the grass...


Attempt 1 -- this is an Acer machine with dell-like ECS 661FX-M7 mainboard. I'm sure it hates me <grin>...I likely recall the cdrom drive in it being iffy, that's why I headed for USB stick...even using dd to throw the image at the drive, confuses the blinkos out of this BIOS --- it actually detects as USB-HDD, but it tries to boot from the cdrom device hook in bios, and hooking up another cd/dvd drive just made it still there like a stale bottle of piss... so this mobo/bios suxxors for this...


Attempt 2 -- some Dell construct, refuses to recognize the USB drive as being bootable, and strangely wanders off into lollyland in bios ide test and/or boot from CD device selection. Seeing as I've been able to install Debian 10/11 to both machines via bootable USB drive, something really hinky with these mobo's....as in, the iso image format doesn't entertain them....but it >should< work ; both these kits....shrug...


Attempt 3 -- asrock n68-s3 ...boots from cdrom as it should, and completes installation. I'll need attend to post-install stuff for the amiga guest, but it's behaving 'as expected'. Bootsplash is woefully late for some reason, and too short lived before console zaps it with chatter...but you get that.



..avante...

[giantclam]

...rantings of a 60-something year old follow...

The Debian host install works a treat, and PRAISE GRATIS creator included mc, ftpd, sshd ...11.32 out of 10 for that...if you're used to linux cli, you're all set. I'm not sure who would appreciate the samba hooks... =)

I'm likely boofled by the statement of there being a full accessible Debian system 'underneath' as it were. It's obviously true of course, but I'm gunna guess a lot of folks construe that as being 'a debian linux install that I can log into and browse the web with' type of 'underneath'...something like that. AmiDeb is not this ... although you could do it... but it's clear to ppl who read what the case is --- this means the other 85+% of readers don't get it, and you probably need a screenshot (or 3) for the text based frontend...lol...

....if one was going to have a normal debian xsession login, best idea would be to spawn that from an option on the amideb frontend...just saying...

The fs-uae emulation is having happy days all by itself...I think that rig has AM2 phenom x4/4gb ddr3-1600 + gtx730...don't think it's using nvidia proprietary drivers..

I don't struggle so much with a 'usage case' ...I've read all this thread, and what some posters point out as the pros of a desktop environment..ie; the uae emulation ontop of the host OS of your choice ... are solid arguments, however AmiDeb is not that either. I see AmiDeb as the basis for a linux appliance...so to speak. Ebay and the like are littered with cheap, small 'thin client' type boxes with more than enough poke to pull this off. You could make one really snazzy Amiga games console if you took this down a playful path.

That all said, what hardware it ended up installing on, wasn't my first hardware of choice...so I'm gunna go back there...I'm thinking clonezilla 8)

[vk3heg]

Originally Posted by giantclam

Attempt 1 -- this is an Acer machine with dell-like ECS 661FX-M7 mainboard. I'm sure it

Attempt 2 -- some Dell construct, refuses to recognize the USB drive as being bootable,

The newest machine I have access to is a Asus running a I7 3770 cpu.

Originally Posted by giantclam

I'll need attend to post-install stuff for the amiga guest, but it's behaving 'as expected'. Bootsplash is woefully late for some reason, and too short lived before console zaps it with chatter...but you get that.

The bootsplash is just something I added at the end. Not much was done to get it working better.

[vk3heg]

Originally Posted by giantclam

I'm not sure who would appreciate the samba hooks... =)

Samba is there for users that don't know linux enough, and they can put files on the system from a windows machine with the least effort.

Originally Posted by giantclam

It's obviously true of course, but I'm gunna guess a lot of folks construe that as being 'a debian linux install that I can log into and browse the web with' type of 'underneath'
...something like that.

Not one single thing is mentioned of there being a GUI. It states "Boots to a text menu system". I have NO plans to add the extra GUI junk to the default system. If someone want's a fancy GUI, then go install some other linux distro and then add FS-UAE.

The aim of AmiDeb is to be as sleek as possible, and not have the extra processing power that a GUI plus all it's crap ensures.

Originally Posted by giantclam

....if one was going to have a normal debian xsession login, best idea would be to spawn that from an option on the amideb frontend...just saying...

What people do after the install it upto them.

Originally Posted by giantclam

I see AmiDeb as the basis for a linux appliance...so to speak. Ebay and the like are littered with cheap, small 'thin client' type boxes with more than enough poke to pull this off. That all said, what hardware it ended up installing on, wasn't my first hardware of choice...so I'm gunna go back there...I'm thinking clonezilla 8)

That is what I was aiming AmiDeb at. Amulator was/is a great way of doing it, but it was very limited. I wanted to have a machine that could be updated, and customized. A machine that booted right into the Amiga environment (I added the menu system as a stepping stone)...

When I sort out some other things going on here, I'll be moving my current Amiga based bbs of Amilhlon to AmiDeb.


If you want to collaborate on the project then reach out.





Stephen

[giantclam]

So I've been thinking about the words 'the Amiga experience', and what exactly that means...it'll differ from person to person...

...how-so-ever ...one aspect of the Amiga experience I recall all too well, was game or demo floppy disks...if you were poor you only had df0: and all aspired to buy an external df1: to save some disk swapping, and everyone dreamed of owning having a harddrive (A590...I actually built a Scram500 scsi/fastram card)... but I'm perhaps referencing the days before whdload, wherein having a hard drive was ostensibly useless, because there were oh so many titles that had to be on floppy disk instead....

...these demos/games are largely OS agnostic..even rom agnostic....and this whole booting to OS (emulated or not) is one kind of Amiga experience...ie; Workbench....the 'stick the floppy in the drive and boot the machine' experience is gone....

Of course, we're abstracted 1 level...ie; the linux host has to boot, to run the emulator...so contextually, when AmiDeb boots to it's text menu, you are at the point of Amiga power on...so to speak.

Now...one could modify the text based menu, that launches a fs-uae config that's preconfigured for a specific (disk based, .adf file) to load into that game directly ; this can get old/tiresome in short order if you have many games 8) You have to do it, because many of these titles are fussy about chipset, kickstart, machine config...all true Amigans know the drill =)

I had a bit of a search about ~ 'amiberry' is another Amiga emulator, it's been ported to x86-64, and I just built it here on this Deb10, and it runs fine. What it also supports, is whdboot ....hmmm... I wonder..

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by vk3heg

The newest machine I have access to is a Asus running a I7 3770 cpu.

The bootsplash is just something I added at the end. Not much was done to get it working better.

Ahh, ok.. I'm wondering where 'floor' is...ie; minimum requirements ; a lot of the time it comes down to what one annotates 'old' with when saying 'old computer' =)

I've likely got enough machines here to find out...<grin>

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by vk3heg

Samba is there for users that don't know linux enough, and they can put files on the system from a windows machine with the least effort.

Haha....I see it more like "don't know midnight commander enough"...or norton commander from way back when....

Originally Posted by vk3heg

Not one single thing is mentioned of there being a GUI. It states "Boots to a text menu system". I have NO plans to add the extra GUI junk to the default system. If someone want's a fancy GUI, then go install some other linux distro and then add FS-UAE.

Ahhh... I sometimes think 'reading' is going to be outlawed as being 'woke'...when I was doing linux DAWs, it was the same aim ; keep every clock you can for the application(s) ; I still reckon if you got 2bob for every user who downloaded it, burnt it to disk, got it installed...gets to the point of seeing the text based menu...select an option..expecting it to boot 'an amiga'...your commbank piggy bank will be full in no time 8)

Originally Posted by vk3heg

The aim of AmiDeb is to be as sleek as possible, and not have the extra processing power that a GUI plus all it's crap ensures.

It is that, sleek as possible ~ we used picogui back in the day...

Originally Posted by vk3heg

What people do after the install it upto them.

There's a linux credo if I've ever heard one B)

Originally Posted by vk3heg

That is what I was aiming AmiDeb at. Amulator was/is a great way of doing it, but it was very limited. I wanted to have a machine that could be updated, and customized. A machine that booted right into the Amiga environment (I added the menu system as a stepping stone)...

I found the menu system useful ~ I fear to others it looks like a tiny rock to step on, in a fast flowing river 8)

Originally Posted by vk3heg

If you want to collaborate on the project then reach out.

Ever thought about putting up a wiki? I've got time to help fill it =)

In my mind, a lot depends on 'target audience' ... lets just say I've read all posts to this thread ; we know the answers -- Debian wiki ; FS-UAE wiki... you get your AmigaOS answers any way you can (I use my wetware memory =) In a perfect world, AmiDeb would boot to a base WB 1.3 install or something, when selecting that option in the menu ~ it's not a perfect world.

Right now, the only pita has been that iso image versus the 2 ix86 boxes... that installed latest Debian x86-64 from isohybrid image burnt to USB drive, but failed miserably here...I think it's been 2 decades since I held a cdr in my hand, but the moment I saw how things turned ugly, I recalled these BIOS fights with isohybrid.

That said, it'd be a moot point redoing the image, if the hardware in question isn't up to the task...I'll prolly look at this on the morrow.

[giantclam]

* ECS 661FX-M7 mainboard (attempt 1 above)....I ended up with several of these machines over the years, as ppl upgraded ...as is typical with these acer/compaq/dell/hp peeceez, you end up replacing the whole machine, because of some funky proprietary nonsense that means you can't squeeze a standard factor mainboard in the case or some other issue (front header pinout usually) ~ I stick them to one side, they sit around for years (literally) until I triage them...

...this one was pentium D 820/4gb ddr-400...I found an ati 9400 AGP card to stick into it. After I realized I was having a dumb moment with syslinux versions, I was able to get it to boot the AmiDeb image from USB flashdrive... but the machine started to misbehave (kernel oops wrt processing preseed.cfg) ...worse, upon reboot, I started getting garbled artifacts onscreen. Looked the world like the video card had bitten a bullet, as even it's BIOS load output was garbled. Hunted about in boxes and found a geforce mx400 in AGP, put it in the machine and tried again ~ booted, got further along in the install process, and kernel crashed again ...sigh... rebooted, artifacts on the screen again...wtf...uttered the words "I wonder how hot the northbridge is?"...lol, burnies..it's dead jim...

So how had I installed deb11 to this system, and not come across this before trying AmiDeb? Simple, with deb11 I wasn't worried about offloading graphics to the AGP port, and was only utilizing the IGP instead ; like this, it works ok and the northbridge doesn't cook, but the moment an AGP card is in slot, the northbridge transmogrifies into a frypan....sigh.. oh well, save the sillycon & drives, the rest heads for ewaste... one down.

Next...the Dell box (attempt 2 above) ... I do have a purpose here ; I'm trying to find 'minimum hardware spec' that can run AmiDeb comfortably/effectively =)

[giantclam]

*Dell Dimension 3000 ...best summarized by a review of the day ...'The Dell Dimension 3000 is based on Intel's 865G chipset, which offers plenty of benefits, such as support for dual-channel, 400MHz DDR memory and Intel's Extreme Graphics 2 technology. But we were miffed to see that the motherboard does not provide an AGP slot for graphics card upgrades'....so that sux ; it's also really fussy about ram sticks ~ this machine isn't going to cut it, but it did boot from USB and got all the way to an isolinux failure warning...found i686, need x86-64....so the pentium D should've worked, but this pentium 4 is not an F rev so won't work...

So looking like circa 2010 hw onwards, generally speaking.

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by OldAmigan

Any likelihood of an x86 version of AmiDeb, as you have with Amilator?

Seeing as you asked this, is there a particular host setup you're entertaining here?

As you can read, I'm going through all the old hardware here...I just found another 'candidate' that fits this supposition ~ an intel D865GLC board, Pentium 4 with 1/2/4x AGP port ...this would need an x86 (march=i686) build, as opposed to what AmiDeb is now. I'm unsure if vk3heg has the inclination/time to sus this out, but I can probably look into it...as in, if it's even worth doing ...ie; it might run like a 3 legged dog 8)

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by vk3heg

Beta Version for i386.

NOTE: I have *Not* done any testing yet, & this is only the ISO file.

https://amiga.vk3heg.net/?page_id=239

I just adjusted the build scrip to pull down the i386 files.

Just tested this image on the intel D865GLC mobo with 2.8GHz Pentium 4 (i686) / 1GB DDR400 using IGP (intel 82865G).

Image prepared with isohybrid & dd to USB drive ; booted from USB. all installed & worked 'as expected'...no issues. Good to see image has it's own vol_id now 8)

Runs better than I expected (considering IGP sliced with 64mb ram) ~ I'll set about testing it further tomorrow, move to AGP videocard & a full amigaOS for fs-uae to swallow.

Board can go faster, but I need to find some matching DIMMs (it's fickle about what ram it'll run with)

@vk3heg - nice job mate =)

[giantclam]

*intel D865GLC mobo with 2.8GHz Pentium 4 (i686) ...there are multiple revisions of these, the later 'AA' rev is the best, this one is a rev.3 ... initially it didn't power-up, it turned on but didn't beep...even after removing the ramfield, and I'd noted it wasn't responding to power switch ~ dead cpu? Then the fun started...

...whatever heatsink compound had been used, had stuck the cpu IHS to the heatsink. I had to dremel a hole in the goofy intel custom heatsink mounting shroud, to get something in there to release the zif socket lever, to lift the heatsink&amp;amp;cpu out ~ it still sounded like I was pulling teeth, and had to hope the zif socket was ok. To that end, I grabbed the P4 from the Dell and stuck it in the socket, sat a lump of metal onto it for temporary heatsink and powered on ~ board immediately beeped about empty ramfield, and now responded to power switch, so diagnosis confirmed...but I still needed to get the dead cpu off the heatsink, as the goofy intel custom heatsink mounting BS necessitated using their heatsink. This process did not bode well for the dead cpu...remember 'intel inside'?...swap the words around..



Had to stick it on the stove hotplate, take it north of 200C and grab it with a welding glove, then twist the IHS off the heatsink with a big shifting spanner..geez...the things we do to 20yo hardware to emulate a 30yo platform..lol..

Anyhow, as per above, installed the AmiDeb suite, and today have a muck around to see how it goes...I'm still on the IGP at the now, and with fs-uae running the A500 config, substituting the floppy image with SoundsOfGnome.dms ...



The music disk in emulation is running smooth as butter ..caveat I haven't configured sound yet, but all seems fine in alsamixer, and I'm expecting it to work...this demo disk used to near cripple xxxuae in times past, with either glitching graphics or stuttering sound ; just looking at the display though, and using the rubberband mouse effect of this demo, graphics are identical to real Amiga hardware.

If I look at that process usage mapping ..as it were considering it as being a linux appliance.. that's actually encouraging for a single 1GB stick of DDR-400 ; it's a dual core i686 and fs-uae is utilizing around 1.25 leave three quarters of a core idle...ergo it still stays nice and responsive at the ssh shell/console level when fs-uae is fulltime busy. There's 32MB sliced off for IGP usage, but it's still well within ram needs/utilization...(this is where the beancounters come in, and say use a cheaper cpu and less ram B^)...and as it's a single stick, ram bus is @400mhz...so if I can spread the 1gb to 2 x 512mb and both channels, the ram bus will clock to 800mhz...whether that's a gain or not is polemical..I'll see if I can retrain the stoopid intel bios into accepting a less picky ram timing map ...groan..

I mentioned target audience previously..iirc correctly, there was a post in this thread wrt having some instructions on how to get around on the linux host. I would have to wonder about that...so I did ~ you see above, the machine headed out to swap ..I know where, when and why that happened. What I did, was pretend to be a totally ignorant user, who knows nothing about fs-uae &amp;amp; linux, but is conversant with AmigaOS...and what I've just learnt, is I can use ctl-alt-F1 to get back to the menu...m'kay? So it becomes possible for folks like this, to screwup the launched fs-uae config, and end up at a grey screen ...not knowing how to quit the emulator, they switch the menu VT, and then..of course..try again, or more likely try a different config...YES!...lol...that's what happens, and you end up with multiple fs-uae instances being run...and if you look at it real close, it's likely the default Amiga testdisk included that spawns this, as it's not really clear how to exit that thing...?...might just be me, or maybe I turned to dumb up too much... B)

...so when that happens and the machine turns to mud (and hits swap), I wander back in here to a shell...laugh, and issue a 'sudo killall -9 fs-uae' ... command not found. M'kay, psmisc mustn't be in the install list...as I've installed multiple times, about the first thing I do logging in over ssh, is apt install proftp psmisc ...makes things a bit easier in mc, and I didn't know killall wasn't installed...possibly while the menu system caters for those not familiar with the linux terminal environment, those who are think...ie; you know X will spawn on VT7, menu on VT1..I think at the local terminal, it'd be nice to have VT2 active, so one can ctl-alt-F2 instead of going thru the menu to cli...

..more l8r...

[giantclam]

Always worth tinkering with this stuff....this is the same test conditions as above (sounds of gnome running in fs-uae), however this time the board is fitted with AGP nvidia NV18 [GeForce4 MX 4000] & 2 x 256MB dimms (1 in each channel for double data rate), so with ram bus @800mhz and half the ramfield size...



I recall playing with these boards years ago trying to increase thruput...like this, it regains 6% cpu time on X, and although 160% on fs-uae looks high, it is rock solid..about +/- 2% ; previously it was much more dynamic at +/-25% -- anectodally, I used to wish they made an AGP ethercard for these things (gpus make for good packet switchers B). I'm not sure if there's a lot more to gain...hmmm.. does debian still carry supports for these old nv chips?...hmmm...

[vk3heg]

Originally Posted by giantclam

Image prepared with isohybrid & dd to USB drive ; booted from USB. all installed & worked 'as expected'...no issues. Good to see image has it's own vol_id now 8)

I've got a original first gen P4 1.6Ghz, 256Mb RDRAM, AGP TNT64!

The thing runs Amithlon beautifully, I wonder how much it would break with AmiDeb now that there's a 32Bit version...

[vk3heg]

Originally Posted by giantclam

...so when that happens and the machine turns to mud (and hits swap), I wander back in here to a shell...laugh, and issue a 'sudo killall -9 fs-uae' ... command not found.

I've now added psmisc to the list of installed utils. So it'll be in the next release.

Originally Posted by giantclam

mc, and I didn't know killall wasn't installed...possibly while the menu system caters for those not familiar with the linux terminal environment, those who are think...ie; you know X will spawn on VT7, menu on VT1..I think at the local terminal, it'd be nice to have VT2 active, so one can ctl-alt-F2 instead of going thru the menu to cli...

alt-f6 will get you to the next terminal. I can't remember if that goes straight to the login prompt or runs the menu.. Either way then just go to the "Utilities" menu and choose the shell option.

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by vk3heg

I've got a original first gen P4 1.6Ghz, 256Mb RDRAM, AGP TNT64!

The thing runs Amithlon beautifully, I wonder how much it would break with AmiDeb now that there's a 32Bit version...

You gotta poke at it most times to find out ~ there's a voodoo2 sitting nearby ...glide fs-uae?.... lol..

...late night computing via incandescent light...

[giantclam]

AmiDeb vs 'legacy' proprietary nvidia drivers ... I really doubt it's worth it ~ the linux nouveau driver is more than good enough for purpose, but just for the record to save others a journey...

Wrt Debian bullseye, the unified driver for the older legacy nvidia chipsets has been obsoleted ~ this package is/was known as 'nvidia-legacy-340xx-driver', supporting older nvidia stuffs...

https://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree...rtedchips.html

The reasons you don't go here are many, but the sanity check would be.. "Use of the 340-series driver is strongly discouraged. It is not included in stable releases of Debian anymore, has serious unfixable security vulnerabilities, and may not be updated for new kernels in a timely manner. You are highly recommended to use the built-in Nouveau driver if security is a priority."

So that means if the setup you use has a nvidia chipset/card, is has to appear on this list for easy proprietary nvidia driver install -> https://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree...rtedchips.html ...and you can just 'sudo apt install nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver firmware-misc-nonfree' ..and it should work (famous last words.. 8)

https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphi...s#Installation

Like I say though, I doubt there's much to gain here ~ it'll take someone with a legacy (supported) nvidia chipset/card to find that out =)

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by vk3heg

I've now added psmisc to the list of installed utils. So it'll be in the next release.

Thanks ~ possibly menu.sh should check for another running instance of fs-uae, before launching the emulator ...hmmm... maybe just testing for existence of the .Xlock file in /var is enough?

[giantclam]

*intel D865GLC mobo with 2.8GHz Pentium 4 (i686) ...and...it's dead =^)

Was running sounds of gnome again, this time with audio output (was missing jumpers on audio FP header), and it looked & sound great ~ no jitter/stutter in the audio at all. Then the kernel hurled and it all went quiet ; when I checked local console, it'd crashed hard with the oops sprayed all over the display. If you don't know what a linux kernel crash looks like, here's an example..



I think the P4 is ok, but it no longer recognizes the ramfield (beeps with no ram, but won't initialize any ram) ; could be another northbridge failure, but my hunch is the zif socket suffered due to that extraction boofle...like, maybe the FSB has become disconnected...shrug...maybe the ram power phase has failed, but it's not worth effort.

I suppose I'll just consider myself fortunate, I got some testing done with AmiDeb in x86 guise and not x86_64 --- possibly P4@2.8ghz/512mb is somewhere near 'minimum spec', seeing as it needed to hit 160% cpu utilization, to run the sounds of gnome demo more or less perfectly...as always, depends on what you want the thing to do.

Pretty much gone through all that circa junk around here, so I can't do anymore (hw) x86 testing ... that said, I want to plug that installset into the n68-s3/AM2 mobo, just to compare AmiDeb x86 vs x86_64...

l8r