Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga community support ideas => Topic started by: Gulliver on May 20, 2011, 03:36:32 PM
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BetterWB release 2.0 - 20.05.2011
BetterWB is a new workbench pack, much like AIAB, Amikit, AmigaSYS, ClassicWB, etc. but applying a totally different aproach. This is a new version which brings many improvements over its ancestor.
It aims to be much like an enhancement, an updated extension to AmigaOS 3.1, without all those hardware requirement penalties tipically associated with these kind of packs. It is indeed a better 3.1 than 3.1 itself!
http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/BetterWB.htm
This is my pet project, it took me a total of 4 days to assemble. Just voice your opinion, I will be glad to hear your comments, either good or bad.
Thanks
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Thanks for this, I have found it very useful!
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Can you install on top of an older release Gully? Just overwrite stuff.
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I hope so that's what I just did and all appears fine...
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Can you install on top of an older release Gully? Just overwrite stuff.
Yes you can, and it should work, unless you have somehow modified your startup-sequence since version 1.x.
@Zero
I am glad you are enjoying it
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Awesome! downloading now.
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Really need to change it to "Awesomer WB" anyways.
:)
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Downloading...
I love the 3.1 look and feel, and this is so welcome!
:)
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My suggestion would be for an OS3.9 version.
Otherwise, you should include http://aminet.net/game/patch/SetJoyPort.lha or similar, to work around known bugs in that version of lowlevel.library.
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My suggestion would be for an OS3.9 version.
Otherwise, you should include http://aminet.net/game/patch/SetJoyPort.lha or similar, to work around known bugs in that version of lowlevel.library.
Hi James, it is a indeed a good suggestion. Thanks.
I was also thinking on a kind of BetterWB for 3.9 that could include all BoingBags + some BetterWB goodies + some other neat stuff, distributed in an .adf floppy image manner. Just imagine installing 3.9 and then using this set of floppies to automatically have everything updated with some neat added goodies without any user intervention.
Whenever I get a bit more time, I will play with this concept.
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Should the unofficial Boing Bags 3 & 4 be used with this, or are they already included within this betterWB release?
Edit: AFAIR, Boing Bag 3, I installed over AmigaOS3.9, so I guess this is something different just for OS3.1.
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Should the unofficial Boing Bags 3 & 4 be used with this, or are they already included within this betterWB release?
Edit: AFAIR, Boing Bag 3, I installed over AmigaOS3.9, so I guess this is something different just for OS3.1.
This is something different, only for 3.1.
I will start working on something related for 3.9 in the future.
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download page doesn't seem to work?
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download page doesn't seem to work?
@stefcep2
I am sorry but the Amiga user who hosts my website is performing a server change.
Hopefully this wont take much longer.
Meanwhile, use this
http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=757402&postcount=4
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Hi - my A1200 is still WB 3.0. Will "Better--" work on 3.0?
Thanks.
Ernie
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Hi - my A1200 is still WB 3.0. Will "Better--" work on 3.0?
Thanks.
Ernie
Hi, yes it should work. I havent tested it though, but I believe there is no 3.1 specific dependency, so give it a shot.
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Gulliver - your site is down.
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Thank you for reporting that.
Anyway the person in charge of hosting my site is performing a serve change. Hopefully, everything will be back soon.
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Thank you for reporting that.
Anyway the person in charge of hosting my site is performing a serve change. Hopefully, everything will be back soon.
Hot diggety dog! I need to pick your brain on boing bag 3 and 4. I always seem to hose my install after installing them.
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BetterWB 2.1 - Minor update
Many cosmetic changes
Installation requires less disks swaps
The fastest Amiga filesystem, PFS3 and its associated tools are now included
http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/BetterWB.htm
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Great to see that you update this package. I will install one of my Amigas today, and it will be using BetterWB.
Something you should include, if it's not already included, is the diskimage device that can mount ADF among other formats and use them as if they are loaded from the df0: directly. Very useful...
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Something you should include, if it's not already included, is the diskimage device that can mount ADF among other formats and use them as if they are loaded from the df0: directly. Very useful...
Diskimage.device is great, but unfortunately requires a 68020 or better, which is beyond the scope of BetterWB (which is 68000 compatible).
Anyway, thank you for your suggestion.
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BetterWB 2.2 - Another small update
New Exchange commodity replacement with lots of features (CX)
ToolAlias, added as a new commodity
Replacement for the C:Version command with four digit year field
Pure bit omision corrected on the default 3.1 install
http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/BetterWB.htm
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BetterWB 2.2 - Another small update
New Exchange commodity replacement with lots of features (CX)
ToolAlias, added as a new commodity
Replacement for the C:Version command with four digit year field
Pure bit omision corrected on the default 3.1 install
http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/BetterWB.htm
Nooo I just installed 2.0 on my A1000. :) Do you keep a change log at the site, with links to what was added? Maybe an update disk could be done?
Thanks again
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Nooo I just installed 2.0 on my A1000. :) Do you keep a change log at the site, with links to what was added? Maybe an update disk could be done?
Thanks again
No need to worry :)
If you didnt modify your startup-sequence after the 2.0 install, Just put 2.2 on top of 2.0.
If not, just backup the startup-sequence, and then re-apply it after putting 2.2 on top of 2.0.
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BetterWB 2.3 - The bugfix update - 25.08.2011
Macintosh floppy format (HFS) and proper mountlist (MAC0) implementation
Highly enahnced and optimised cdrom filesystem with many new features such as: Long filename support, Macintosh HFS, multiple session, hybrid (audio+data), and iso 9660 cdrom support
Rexxsyslib.library got bugfixed (WaitDosPacket)
Mathieeedoubbas.library has now the MathIEEE comparision fixed that was broken in its earlier version
IPrefs features now an increased stack to avoid stack overflows when loading worbkench backdrop pictures
Mfm.device got a stack increase to avoid problems with some programs
New and powerfull workbench system format
http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/BetterWB.htm
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First and Odamex update, and now this!
What a great day for me thus far! :)
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This sounds really interesting.
My machine is an A500-Plus mind, so I won't waste my breath asking if it will work. But would love to see some screenshots if any are available.
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BetterWB 2.4 - 20.10.2011
-Some minor components got updated
-Compact disk player with lots of great features (ACDPlay)
-SetJoyPort is a program that improves the chances of using a CD32 style joypad with all games
-ClickNot commodity prevents floppy drives from issuing those excessive clicking sounds
-Break command can now accept multiple targets, find a program by CLI number, command or task name, etc
-Copy command has increased its functionality quite a lot
-Sort command uses standard I/O channels as a default, which makes Sort quite useful in I/O pipes. It will sort as much text as fits in your RAM
-Join command has been heavily enhanced and includes lots of new options
-Avail command now has a few more options
As usual, you can grab it from http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/BetterWB.htm
@Reptile
Sorry for the late reply.
BetterWB is not designed for eye candy, there is nothing remarkable to be "seen", as it bares a high resemblance with a default 3.1 system from a visual standpoint.
Most of the changes, and there are quite a lot, are internal and mean more stability, bugfixes and enhancements to AmigaOS.
It is just a better Workbench than 3.1. Just read its feature list on its webpage and you may have a better understanding of it.
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Thanks Gulliver for keeping it going. :hammer:
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Hey, perfect timing. Thanks for the update, Gulliver! I am just starting some fresh installations of Workbench 3.1 and was about to apply BetterWB to them, so a brand new version is great news.
It gives me an idea I've wanted to do for a while, to write an article that discusses and compares the different Workbench packs and boot disks like this, Amiga 911, Hombre, and any others I can find.
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@Gulliver
Thanks for the update. I use BetterWB on my 1.5MB Minimig (A600 clone).
Now for a small bug report the resent versions of lha use a default buffer size of 128K for file I/O which is to large for Amiga's with 1.5MB or less such as a standard A600 so all file extraction operations fail with lha unless you add the -b32 option to all operations or set the LHAOPTS envarc: variable to -b32 so LHA sets this automatically as detailed in the lha.guide file.
It would be nice if this could be fixed for future releases and thanks again for all your hard work.
Now for a feature request could you add a version of ppmore to betterwb is I still find it the best way to read simple text files.
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I use BetterWB on one of my Amigas and its great! Does exactly what it says on the tin.
Thanks Gulliver for your continued work on this project! :D
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Just found time to switch on my A600 for the very first time since I have it (couple of months) and building in its expansions (ACA630, A604, Indivision ECS, 4 GB Transcend flash drive).
I installed OS3.1 on it this weekend and was looking around for necessary updates and stuff, but was slightly discouraged by the shear size of other Workbench enhancement packs. I love the speed of OS3.1 on my expanded A600 and don't want to compromise this with unnecesary eye candy.
This seems to be exactly what I was looking for: updates to standard OS3.1, no bloat, easy install.
Will try this out tonight! :-)
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Good, let me know your impressions once you get to play with it a bit.
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I would like to see a video of it running :D. I haven't found in Youtube.
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There's not much to see...it's the inside that counts! :D
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Yes, I know. I was thinking to try it with my ACA 1230/56. Just want to see how fast BetterWB is, how much memory uses with what amount of colors, how it goes with internet and what browser to use, how fast it shows the icons and what type of them ... just to take a look.
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In reading the 'lilliput' archives we find os3.9 boing bags; links to official -unofficial versions that go beyond original 2, how to make workbench 3.1 equivelant to 3.9, and also BetterWB. An excellent overall website, hands down.
My question...Other than the various higher end upgrades listed in making 3.1 equivelant to 3.9, how does BetterWB play into this? In looking at the BetterWB specifications, it seems that not much fundamental stuff is left out. I am all for a non-3.5/3.9 solution to fundamental upgrades.
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@Rodomoc
I am happy you find the website usefull :)
About your questions:
BetterWB is not related to the other content of the website. It is just my personal view on how to improve AmigaOS 3.1
And the reason for going this specific route was to empower unexpanded Amigas to be able to run something better than a bare AmigaOS 3.1 which is really old (18 years!), as this was the only available option until now for for lets say for example, an A500/A1000 with a harddrive and 3.1 kickstart with only 512KB of chipmem.
If you have a higher end system, you will probably have much more hardware resource power to spend on other distributions or even higher versions of AmigaOS that will probably give you some added functionality and eye candy. It is up to you to choose then to try BetterWB, if you have a better system.
This BetterWB distribution/add-on pack, is meant for all Amigas, in order to provide them with something better than a bare 3.1 whilst keeping the bloat to a minimum so that any Amiga has the potential to run it as long as they have kickstart 3.1 and some form of harddrive (Yes, 512KB of chipram will be just enough for it to run).
Then, the final goal is to provide a much better experience than 3.1 by incorporating bugfixes, updates and enhancements, somehow following what I feel should have been the path that Commodore should have chosen if they were alive just a little bit longer.
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Gulliver, I do not have a real powerful Amiga; A3000-A3640 accelerator-2mb/16mb-GVP video card-XSURF ethernet card w/ clockports-Subway usb. I have run a full tilt 3.9 installation in the past. I am saying screw doing this anymore. A simple updated Commodore 3.1 is good enough for me at this point. Years ago I had a hopped up 3.1 based on the this old workbench series. The machine ran excellent. It is time to return to this sort of sanity.
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@ Gulliver : maybe you could add the new icon.library to your pack ? the requirements are WB3.0/3.1 so ideal for BetterWB !
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Gulliver, I do not have a real powerful Amiga; A3000-A3640 accelerator-2mb/16mb-GVP video card-XSURF ethernet card w/ clockports-Subway usb. I have run a full tilt 3.9 installation in the past. I am saying screw doing this anymore. A simple updated Commodore 3.1 is good enough for me at this point. Years ago I had a hopped up 3.1 based on the this old workbench series. The machine ran excellent. It is time to return to this sort of sanity.
PM me your email address and I'll send you a 3.9 install tweaked for max performance on an A3000. :)
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@ Gulliver : maybe you could add the new icon.library to your pack ? the requirements are WB3.0/3.1 so ideal for BetterWB !
The problem is the new icon.library requires a 68020 and BetterWB is targetted at 68000!
When and if PeterK releases a 68000 version (he has said it is on his low priority list), I will not hesitate to include it.
Thank you for your suggestion.
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The problem is the new icon.library requires a 68020 and BetterWB is targetted at 68000!
When and if PeterK releases a 68000 version (he has said it is on his low priority list), I will not hesitate to include it.
Thank you for your suggestion.
Nah Gulliver...at this point you're supposed to say:
"I have just released a version of BetterWB for 68020+, downloadable here:"
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020 version would also gief MANY extra features to be put on.
I think that's why Gulliver made BetterWB 68k orientated as ClassicWB version can fill most 020's user needs :)
Seriously if you have 020+, you can use ClassicWB and get some neat stuff from BetterWB and have the best of both worlds or do a mix custom system based on your own taste :)