Amithlon Setup Guide

I sorted it out. My Nforce2 board reserved the start of ram for the integrated gfx; grub is not expecting that, hence the problem. I added an AGP video card, and I'm good to go.

Originally Posted by AMIGAZ

I got that error, only have 384mb RAM so I edited the MENU.LST to 384mb instead of 512mb on the kernel launch command and then it works

[AMIGAZ]

Originally Posted by dreadwin

I sorted it out. My Nforce2 board reserved the start of ram for the integrated gfx; grub is not expecting that, hence the problem. I added an AGP video card, and I'm good to go.

Cool

What Nforce 2 board do you have?

I just grabbed one myself to build a better Amithlon machine on...an
ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe with an Athlon 2600+ which will run circles around my old PIII 1ghz

I've got an MSI K7N2GM-V with an ancient Athlon running at 1333 Mhz (before AMD used speed ratings), a GeForce FX 5200, and 512MB of Ram. I am happy to report that the audio (via pciinsmod) and video work well. I haven't tried the network out yet.

Originally Posted by AMIGAZ

Cool

What Nforce 2 board do you have?

I just grabbed one myself to build a better Amithlon machine on...an
ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe with an Athlon 2600+ which will run circles around my old PIII 1ghz

[Charlie]

Hey! Amithlon self-help - groovy

Hmmm, intersting comments. I've never tried to install to an IGP system, though it should be fine in theory.
More stuff to add to an update.

FWIW:
I included the mem=512M on the assumption that most peeps would have more memory than Amithlon likes as a result of dual-booting with OS's that like lots of memory. ( cough - doze )
If you have 512mb: You can remove the command
If you have 1025mb: See if you can remove the command
More = a non-booting system without mem=... ( probably )

If you can it's worth removing with IGP systems as the kernel could get very confused with regard to memory allocation.

Need more memory?
-Live with 1025mb of ram & remove mem=... ( fingers crossed )
-Try larger mem=... ( experimentation needed, mem=768M biggest that's got a fair chance to work )

PS
Sorry the 'guide' is so mind-numbingly loooong. ( The only way I could see for covering the bases without making too many assumptions )
Suggestions as to how to make it more readable would be nice...

It has been deliberately written to take 'followers' on a tour of Amithlon in an effort to improve familliarity. ( Hopefully this will reduce frustrated head-scratching if/when problems crop up in future )

Having done it you can probably see where short-cuts can be made in this process.
These and some deliberate half-truths aside, feel free to point out any mistakes.

[P-J]

Great guide!

Could someone fill me in on the Amithlon situation-- I'm interested as to more detail around the legal wranglings that stopped Amithlon and Umilator. Who fucked who, and so on...

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by P-J

Great guide!

Could someone fill me in on the Amithlon situation-- I'm interested as to more detail around the legal wranglings that stopped Amithlon and Umilator. Who fucked who, and so on...

I'll dig out some specifics when I'm feeling less lazy, but for now:
( Apologies for any inaccuracies - I feel sorry for Bernie & for the loss of this amazing opportunity for the Amiga community when it may have mattered )

The story as I understand it.
A.inc is new + shiny - hopes are high(ish)
Haage&Partner seem to be the main developers of all things Amiga ( OS 3.5 & 3.9 )
Hyperion are looming on the horizon...

AmigActive do a 'sneak preview' of a new Amiga emulator that 'feels' like a high end Amiga only much, much faster - This turns out to be AmigaXL I believe largely written by Harald Frank @ H+P.

Bernie Meyer is also working on a similar but rather more radical version: Amithlon. What to do? Is he about to have his thunder stolen? It seems H+P have the necessary licenses from A.inc to be able to release AmigaXL.

Bill & Fleecy are looking for a quick / cheap way to continue ( cash-in on? ) the general good vibes.

Bernie does a three way deal with A.inc & H+P to release Amithlon & AmigaXL as a combined package. For him this solves several problems:
Distribution - H+P will do that.
Licensing - H+P have licenses from A.inc to use the intellectual property.
Competition - If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
...His hard work gets good backing, while not having to shoulder any risk as a one-man developer-publisher.

So it's released with much fanfare from A.inc & H+P - everybody is happy. ( nearly )

While A.inc tell all how wonderful it is ( if only by chance, Bill has to be right occasionally ) Hyperion go on record as being the loudest detractors of Amithlon/AmigaXL. With hindsight & some 'speculation' it seems Hyperion were already in-bed with A.inc over development of AOS4 & weren't happy with where a 'classic' x86 OS could leave them.
Hyperion: 'Bloody-hell! We've just done a deal with these people to write a new OS but here they are telling the world they don't need anything new!'

Of course the 'classic OS' running on x86 hardware would be more compatible; a cheaper & less risky buy for the end-user; and have a simpler development path than AOS4 - which would be years in development.

Hmmm...

It's not clear what happened next but it seems A.inc & H+P had a row over who had the rights to what...

In a nutshell:
A.inc: 'You're distributing this thing when you haven't payed us any royalties for our included IP.'
H+P: 'We wrote the included IP you daft buggers! The existing licenses we have with you are good enough.'
Bernie: 'Um, is there a problem?'
A.inc: 'Give us our money or we'll sue you & your developers for millions!'
H+P: 'Take us to court if you want - We're in the right, besides our pockets are deeper so you'll go under before us!'
Bernie: 'Hey, I'm one of the developers & my pockets aren't too deep!'
A.inc: 'See you in court!'
H+P: 'See if we care!'
Bernie: 'I care! I can't afford to go to court. I certainly can't afford to loose!'
A.inc & H+P: 'Shut up Bernie!'
-Bernie takes legal advice.
Bernie: 'My solicitor has told me to exercise my right to withdraw from this deal, taking my IP with me.' This includes nearly all the code in Amithlon & some of the code in AmigaXL so rendering both products unmarketable & in the process getting Bernie off the hook.

A.inc don't seem to be that bothered & instantly drop the whole 'isn't AmigaOS on x86 great' idea. They have AOS4 to fall back on which will also be under much closer control than Amithlon/AmigaXL would have been. It may well be that A.inc were in part acting under pressure from Hyperion.

H+P: 'Bollocks to that! We've spent a fortune on marketing & distribution. We're going to keep selling.'
Bernie: 'No you can't I've withdrawn my agreement with you including MY IP.'
H+P: 'So sue us! Har, har, har...'

I think it's at this point Bernie & Harald Frank fell out, Bernie got so pissed-off that he gave up on things Amiga.

So... no more Amithlon development.

But worse... Umilator ( the MUCH better ) follow-up to Amithlon was finished & running on Bernie's PC before he deleted it in disgust!

Worse still... Umilator was to be the first step in integrating x86 support with the Classic OS and over time make it wholly x86 compatible - rather like Apple did with their move from 68k to PPC, or if you like an official AROS.

There's more... Bernie was also the original author of the 68k-JIT engine in our beloved (Win)UAE. He was planning a 64bit follow-up which did some very clever things with the huge address space available & virtual look-up tables. The up-shot would have been much more speed, also a cure for the lingering timing & compatibility issues inherent in the JIT core. Needless to say he gave up on that too.

Thanks A(_._).Stink!

[Zetr0]

Indeed, a woe-full sad story....

but on a plus note, i made a small break-through on a project or two

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

Indeed, a woe-full sad story....

but on a plus note, i made a small break-through on a project or two

You up late too?

but on a plus note:

[Zetr0]

indeedy!!! thank you... this guide will come into much handyness this weekend

[Charlie]

Hmmm, a thought occurs:
I haven't had too much in the way of complaints about the 'guide' I wrote - I hope this means I did a better job than I realised

A loooong time ago I posted a 'How to hack the ...ird.gz files' guide on the amithlonopen list that went down quite well @ the time.
You can:
-Bugger about with the included rom image ( my included ...ird.gz files have rather hacked roms )
-Roll your own more useful VirtualHDD image for 'rescue purposes'
-Try to fix the broken Fat95 support ( though an Amithlon update does this anyway if you're too daft to use a newer version from Aminet )
-Mess about with the inner workings of Amithlon ( more Linux experience than me will be required for that one )

It was a how to do this from Windoze guide, but the principles are the same if you're a Linux fan-boy.

I tried to look for it on the amithlonopen list but couldn't find any of my old posts - I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I had one of those burning your bridges rants that probably explains why.

Would anyone be interested in a 'way of the ninja' path to totally destroying your Amithlon setup guide?

[Aral]

Thanks very much, have had Amithlon running on a P3 1GB Compaq SFF for a couple of years now and cant remember of the life of me how i installed it anymore I've been wanting to upgrade the machine so this will help lots.

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by Aral

Thanks very much, have had Amithlon running on a P3 1GB Compaq SFF for a couple of years now and cant remember of the life of me how i installed it anymore I've been wanting to upgrade the machine so this will help lots.

You're very welcome.

smallird.gz and bigird.gz includes the "fake" 3.5-rom
(a replaced exec -> "pirus 44.1" and modified copyright-text)

Your Warp3D-hack should work with S3VirgeDX - PCI cards, too.

But I heard rumors about a solution for "normal" GFX-Cards (GF,Radeon).
?!

AmithlonUpdateV1.31

includes all contribs/updates and some more
its the latest (unreleased) update

[Charlie]

Thanks Ratte - I think with your points I've now got enough to warrant an update.

Fake 3.5 Rom eh? You could well be correct, I honestly can't remember what I based the roms in the 'hacked' ...ird.gz's on. ( I thought it was the original shape.rom images - memory )
As you say the main change was pirus 44.1 ( which I found faster & more stable under Amithlon than 3.9's exec... ) Also, it has powerWindowsNG support built in for those who use that. ( me )
Did you find anything else? Can't remember what I did - too long ago.

S3VirgeDX too? Yes, why not? I have a feeling there is native rather than framebuffer support for this card built in to Amithlon if you use CGX drivers!
( again that could be my dodgy memory talking )
I've not heard about 'other' gfx cards but it wouldn't suprise me. If a card has a native P96 or CGX driver, then in theory it should be possible to 'hack' that for Amithlon - well beyond me TBH.

Kick3.5
I found 4 differences between 3.1 and your 3.5.
Exec, 3 mods & the checksum.
Are you sure, that it is not the famous Kickstart3.5 ?

Warp3D
SoftwareRenderer for "normal" gfx-boards.
Stéphane Guillard made it for Amithlon and didn´t released it.

Modern Amithlon & CGFX
!!! Read the WinUAE-Docs !!!

New in Ipswich Town Release:
* Ability to use PCI S3Virge cards in the host's PCI bus with the
free CGX3 Virge drivers (see README.pci) ...

All we need are the IpswichTown SP1 or newer - sources from (Linux)UAE ... any idea?!

[Charlie]

Hmmm, lots of dodgy-memory-itis on my part no doubt!
( My job requires I retain huge amounts of information that I can bring forth at a moment's notice in a coherent & professional manner ready to be applied to the problem @ hand. An impossible task! The result is often a sort of realistic bullshit! Sometimes it's hard for me to tell what's genuine memory & what's 'creative extrapolation'! )

Psst!
I've got a copy of just about every Amiga rom there is - including some the more famous fake ones.
Of course, I own all the relevant hardware.

I vaguely remember wondering why Amithlon used a 16bit A2000 rom, so decided to see what others may work - tried quite a few. All 3.1's work with the exception of 40.70's.
My main reason for this was to add a few patches to the rom for speed / stability / experimentation reasons. I patched a few different base-roms to a greater or lesser extent. Some well known stuff & some Rom/Remus fiddling too.
I thought I'd left it @ the original Amithlon rom with the patches I've mentioned, but could easily have gotten confused.

The other stuff - yes it's coming back to me now you mention it.
IpswichTown SP1, eh?
The only person I can think that may have that is Bernie Meyer - probably long-since deleted...
How you would then get that back into Amithlon would be way beyond me!

ftp://ftp.coresystems.de/pub/uae/

Did you own a Walker-ROM Image?

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by Ratte

ftp://ftp.coresystems.de/pub/uae/

Did you own a Walker-ROM Image?

Sadly not that!
If my ( poor ) memory serves there's only two semi-functioning Walkers in the wild. Both owners are on record as having dumped the roms but have no intention of sharing!
-Understadable I suppose given the litigious nature of 'our parent company'-

Originally Posted by Charlie

IpswichTown SP1, eh?
The only person I can think that may have that is Bernie Meyer - probably long-since deleted...
How you would then get that back into Amithlon would be way beyond me!

ftp://ftp.coresystems.de/pub/uae/patches/

Open up "uae-JIT_IT2.patch.tar.gz", unpack, and read everything in the docs/jit folder. It describes a way to get a Virge card working with old (unavailable?) versions of the mediator driver and CGFX 3.