Amix in WinUAE

[Amiga_CDTV]

I wrote a short re-creation of the previously lost article AMIX in WinUAE in Amiga Unix Wiki: http://amigaunix.com/tiki-index.php?...E+installation

The lost article suddenly re-appeared as an earlier revision of this page (click 'History' on the bottom of the page) after I created the article (with the same name), so both versions are now availabe again.

I quoted some pieces by Noth from this thread, I hope it's Ok.

All suggestions for improvements are welcome.

[Noth]

No problem on quoting me, I post to share!

You might want to amend the section on hard drives though. I've tested 2Gig HDFs without any issues, the critical thing is to make sure the partition is less than 1023 megs. You can have multiple partitions that large (handy when you've trashed the X11R4/5 install yet again), and you need tons of swap (256M is a decent size I find) if you're trying to compile anything.

[Toni Wilen]

Cycle-exact mode does not support MMU emulation. Neither does "more compatible". Only "fastest possible" or "approximate" work.

[ma693541]

I got AMIX to work following the guide Installing AMIX in WinUAE I even got it patched from version 2.1 to 2.1c, but i wish there was a GUI for it, but for a OS as old as AMIX, there's only command's. It's a nice OS and almost forgotten on the behalf of the now better Linux OS.

[Amiga_CDTV]

Originally Posted by ma693541

i wish there was a GUI for it, but for a OS as old as AMIX, there's only command's.

There is: run 'olinit'

[ma693541]

Thank you.

[Noth]

'tvtwm' should work too.

[vintageBytes]

Hi everyone!
I'm playing with Amix now about one year and I am currently preparing a german information and installation tutorial about the system on my homepage.

I've created a hardfile for UAE with Amix 2.1 patched to latest patchlevel. Nothing else done there, there is no root password, it's just the full installation without any changes.

To change settings try amixadm or sysadm. X-Server is working, but only b/w.

It can be downloaded here:
http://www.vintagebytes.de/amix/amix_hardfile.7z

I also recreated the first Amiga Unix manual, Learning Amiga Unix to a more readable and searchable PDF. It can be downloaded here:
http://www.vintagebytes.de/amix/LearningAmigaUnix.pdf

My main problem is the X server: I have a Merlin RTG in my 3000T which should be supported via third party drivers. I can't get this running...

I am trying to setup the hardfile with a working driver. I think it should be possible to write the hardfile back to a real SCSI drive and use it in my 3000T then.

[Noth]

Originally Posted by vintageBytes

My main problem is the X server: I have a Merlin RTG in my 3000T which should be supported via third party drivers. I can't get this running...

I am trying to setup the hardfile with a working driver. I think it should be possible to write the hardfile back to a real SCSI drive and use it in my 3000T then.

Are you using X11R5 or X11R4 for your card? Yes you can copy the hardfile back without any problems normally.


I'm trying to telnet in via the serial port (it's setup to listen on 0.0.0.0:1234 in Wine) but I never get a login prompt... getty does appear to be listening on the serial port according to sysadm. Has anyone managed to get this working at all?

[Amiga_CDTV]

Hi vintageBytes: excellent work!

Originally Posted by vintageBytes

I think it should be possible to write the hardfile back to a real SCSI drive and use it in my 3000T then.

I bought a cheapo USB-SCSI adapter from eBay. I managed to add a real SCSI hard drive to WinUAE thrue it and installed Amiga Unix on the disk (worked).

I know the following is a bit off-topic, but I think here we have some great Amix experts around and I am not quite sure where else to ask this:

However plugging the disk into my A3000T I got only a Guru Meditation (C14D 454D). Also I haven't managed to get Amix to install on that 3000T even with the dual HDD way (one holds the install media, the other is where I am trying to install). I can get into the install script and it sees the SCSI drives Ok etc. but during the "Making filesystems" I usually end up with a PANIC: KERNEL FAULT (or forever screen-felling and scrolling NOTICE: User Bus Error at DC72C102". It has never gone beyond the making filesystems -part (it has not tried to copy anything yet). Also everytime the installation fails the root floppy seems to get corrupted and I need to re-write it.

As far as I know, A3000T should be Amix- compatible. The only upgrade believe this machine has over the standard config is that there are Kickstart 3.1 ROMs installed (boot-screen shows 40.068). Any ideas?

[Noth]

You could try manually formatting the drive... boot the floppies the usual way then choose repair instead of install and from there mkfs should work. Maybe it's a scsi chip problem?

[vintageBytes]

I've tried R4 and also tried to install a R5 X-Server. Both does not work. I simply get a frozen system. I can switch between the consoles, but cannot enter anything anymore. On the console, where I tried to start X there are lines on the left side of the screen, but nothing else.
After the installation, the R4 is working (b/w of course) but I've never managed to get a R5 installation working. So maybe I'm stuck with R4 which would be okay if I could use my RTG there

Is the serial port you are trying to connect disabled in Amix? Maybe it needs to be activated with the pmadm command.

Some time ago I've tried a connection via puTTY and this worked. These were my first connections from the outside...
But now I'm using a NetBSD Notebook and rlogin to connect to my real A3000 via network.

[Noth]

Good and bad news. First the good news, slirp port forwarding now allows you to telnet in (or use other protocols) to access AMIX. Check the latest beta and follow instructions in the slirp thread. Finally working on packages etc will be userfriendly, not like the terrible amix default console or a broken X11.

Bad news is something's gone wrong on the floppy side, I can no longer patch 2.1 to the 2.1c level after a fresh install using the 2.7.1 beta series. Can someone else check this please?

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Noth

Bad news is something's gone wrong on the floppy side, I can no longer patch 2.1 to the 2.1c level after a fresh install using the 2.7.1 beta series. Can someone else check this please?

At least "Amiga Unix 2.1 Patch.adf" installed without problems. (Installed 2.1 from tape, installed patch, didn't notice any errors)

[ma693541]

@Noth, read my post here; http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...&postcount=124 and i used the latest 2.7.1 beta version of WinUAE at that point, so it worked for me too. Try to use b7 or b8 of WinUAE even if they are obsolete now. When you have the patched AMIX working, change WinUAE to the latest beta version.

[Toni Wilen]

I did install and patching using version that added slirp redirection. There is no need to use older versions

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by Noth

Bad news is something's gone wrong on the floppy side, I can no longer patch 2.1 to the 2.1c level after a fresh install using the 2.7.1 beta series. Can someone else check this please?

Is the WinUAE config you used PAL or NTSC? Could you post any floppy-related error messages (both output by AMIX and in the WinUAE log).

[Noth]

Originally Posted by mark_k

Is the WinUAE config you used PAL or NTSC? Could you post any floppy-related error messages (both output by AMIX and in the WinUAE log).

Well I tried both in NTSC and PAL, not that I can see what that would change for UNIX... The error message within AMIX is :

# sh /dev/dsk/fd0
/dev/dsk/fd0: /dev/dsk/fd0: cannot open

and the WinUAE message is:

fixme:shell:IPersistFile_fnSaveCompleted (0x6110310)->(L"C:\\users\\noth\\Recent\\amix_patch_2.1.adf.lnk"): stub

Apart from a blurb that the floppy is inserted when selected, it doesn't print a thing. Anyway I tarred the script/adf image and imported it via the scsi device, as usual when dealing with uncooperative stuff.

Mhhh I also noticed that with beta9 the CPU indicator goes over 200%, even 300% at times, never used to do that, usually was 166% on average. Does that mean anything? AMIX is damn sluggish despite WinUAE running on an i7 with 8 gigs of ram...

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Noth

Well I tried both in NTSC and PAL, not that I can see what that would change for UNIX... The error message within AMIX is :

# sh /dev/dsk/fd0
/dev/dsk/fd0: /dev/dsk/fd0: cannot open

and the WinUAE message is:

fixme:shell:IPersistFile_fnSaveCompleted (0x6110310)->(L"C:\\users\\noth\\Recent\\amix_patch_2.1.adf.lnk"): stub

.lnk?

Sounds like you gave shortcut link to winuae which winuae tried to resolve but wine refused to handle it (was unsupported operation).

Mhhh I also noticed that with beta9 the CPU indicator goes over 200%, even 300% at times, never used to do that, usually was 166% on average. Does that mean anything? AMIX is damn sluggish despite WinUAE running on an i7 with 8 gigs of ram...

Not my problem unless it happens on real Windows too, sorry
(but try to switch Direct3D/DirectDraw mode in misc panel)

[Amiga_CDTV]

Originally Posted by Noth

You could try manually formatting the drive... boot the floppies the usual way then choose repair instead of install and from there mkfs should work. Maybe it's a scsi chip problem?

I just got my A3000T into copying files from the installation-image-HDD! After Noth's suggestion, I checked that I had a WD33C93A, 00-04 PROTO SCSI- chip on my board. I replaced it with a AM33C93A-P16 (from my CDTV-SCSI board!). Still no go.

I finally got it working by inserting an active SCSI terminator to the external SCSI -port (and removing the terminator resistor networks from the motherboard). Looks like the active termination was the problem after all (don't know, but at least it's working now!).

It's still installing 2.01 as I type this (I had only a 230 MB SCSI hard drive available for the install image and couldn't fit newer version) but I should be able to get 2.1 into this machine soon. Finally I can get this machine set up!