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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: takemehomegrandma on January 07, 2004, 04:11:10 AM
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Well, I have passed the #900 comment line now, and I got myself another Pegasos II as well, a G3 this time. And based on my experiences with that, I feel that an update of my Pegasos II review is in place. You will find the update part at the bottom of this post!
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This is my #800 comment here on amiga.org, and I am celebrating this by giving a short review of the Pegasos II G4, based on my first experiences.
I received my Pegasos 2 almost exactly one year after I got my first Pegasos 1! :-) Only one year has passed but I must say that the Pegasos/MorphOS platform has come a long way since then, especially on the OS front. Many people are kind of impatient (myself included) and has perhaps unrealistic expectations on development speeds. But after following the platform during this one year I must say that things are really moving fast. Perhaps it will move even faster now, when a lack of Pegasos motherboards isn’t going to slow things down?
Anyway, I ordered my board from the Swedish Amiga dealer GGS Data (a dealer which I can whole heartedly recommend to everyone) and its deliverance was somewhat delayed because of the holidays. I received it well packed in one of those white boxes you have seen on pictures (http://www.amiga-news.de/archiv03/pegasos/2003_1224Image0024.JPG). The package contained:
1 Pegasos II Motherboard (http://www.amiga-news.de/archiv03/pegasos/pegasos2_9.jpg). The version number on the PCB says it is “Pegasos Dual PPC, Public Release, Rev 2B1”. It looks very similar to the Pegasos 1 motherboard, with one obvious difference; it has another North Bridge (remember that the whole purpose with the Pegasos II was to get rid of the Articia S North Bridge). Related to the new NB, a few other changes can be spotted too, like the DDR memory slots, the 1 Gigabit Ethernet port, etc. Just like its predecessor it’s very neat and compact when compared to any full size ATX motherboard.
1 Backplate for the computer case. It has the holes in the right places, but it lacks any describing symbols or text of what the connectors are. Perhaps not a big thing, but I myself tend to mix up the keyboard/mouse connectors, as well as the audio in/out etc.
1 Pegasos G4 CPU card. The version number on the PCB says it is “Pegasos CPU, Single 744x, Rev 1.1”. As far as my eyes can tell (I haven’t measured it thought), it has the same height as the Pegasos 1 G3 CPU cards (which might be interesting to case modders). The CPU has a small heat sink mounted on it, and on top of that, a fan.
2 User manuals, 1 of a more brief kind in English, French and German, and one more extensive manual in German only. The “brief” one describes the connectors on the motherboard and it guides you through assembling a system (fitting CPU card, RAM, connecting things, etc). It also deals with partitioning the hard drive and installing MorphOS on it (similar, but not as detailed, as the “Pegasos Quickstart Guide (http://www.morphos-news.de/beta2help/)” over at morphos-news.de (http://www.morphos-news.de)). The more extensive manual also contains (a very interesting) section about Open Firmware commands and usage, and things like pin layout on the Pegasos II connectors and slots.
1 CD-ROM with MorphOS 1.4. It’s a CD-R with nice printed Genesi/Pegasos/MorphOS logos on top. It comes in one of these paper “envelopes” that CD’s with drivers etc usually comes in. What’s on it? Well, MorphOS 1.4! There is a new version of the boot.img, obviously adjusted for Pegasos II. The old boot.img is still there but has been renamed to “bootpeg1.img”. As far as I have heard, it also contains an updated radeon driver. In other words, nothing really new, not even a driver for the 1 Gigabit Ethernet.
Besides that I also ordered a 512MB DDR module, a SuperBundle (yes, I now have the box with “Captain Pegasos” on it :-D) and the latest copy of Total Amiga Magazine (to try it out), but GGS Data was out of copies so I got issue #0 of the Amiga Org magazine instead. :-)
Since I already had a Pegasos 1 system going I thought I was going to use that setup, with OS and all, and just switch motherboards. Mounting the motherboard was as easy as ever (if you know how ;-)), and everything was fitted fast and with ease. No problemo!
Then it was this exciting moment when you are about to switch the power on for the very first time, I double checked all the cables one more time, and then let the juice on. It started without any problems! :-)
As opposed to the G3 CPU cards, the G4 has a small fan in addition to the heat sink. The noise from the fan is not too disturbing; it’s actually kind of quiet despite its small size. I don’t know, but a *totally unqualified* guess is that it’s around 15dB, perhaps a little more. But still, the gap between the G3 0dB and this G4 is kind of big. My Peg1 system was actually totally mute (when not using the CD-ROM). The PSU is of an ultra quiet kind, as is the Seagate Barracuda HDD. You would actually have to put your ear to the case to even hear anything at all, and this when the HDD is at heavy work. This is not the case anymore. You can hear the humming from the fan now. Perhaps it’s not too disturbing, but it’s there.
OK, so the power is on, and the Open Firmware greetings come up. The OF in the Pegasos 1 was very sensitive to mouse movements in this phase, but this is not the case anymore. Here comes my first problem. I tried to boot the system from the CD to be able to copy the Peg2 boot.img to the hard drive, but it didn’t work. I then tested to see what would happen with “boot /pci/ide/disk@0,0:0 boot.img”, but as before, it only reported that the device was not available. I tried to list the IDE devices with “ls /pci/ide” and indeed it seemed like there were no units connected to the computer. After checking my cables I thought about master/slave conflicts and such, so I tried every thinkable combination of jumpering and moving units around on both IDE channels in various configurations. Nada! I then got help from the net, and it seems like there is a (known) bug in the firmware that fails to initialize the IDE units when cold booting. So when you switch your computer on you have to push the reset button the first thing you do and then the IDE units will be available. It has been said that this will be fixed in the next OF update.
As a small side note I can mention that the user manual say that you should type “boot cd” to boot MorphOS from a CD-ROM, but for the boards that was delivered in this first batch, you will only get an error message saying: “no such file bsd”. And indeed, when typing the command “printenv” you see that the default boot image file is called “bsd”, probably something remaining from the “Guardian” production run (which uses OpenBSD if I remember correctly). This “bsd” entry can easily be replaced with “boot.img” through the setenv command *if* you have updated your firmware.
Anyway, I booted from the MorphOS 1.4 CD, and the familiar Ambient screen became visible. At the “About” requester I could read that it is indeed MorphOS 1.4, that the processor is a 7447 running at 1GHz, has 32kB L1 cache and 256kB L2 cache. The bus clock is running at 133 MHz.
I replaced the old peg1 boot.img file on the HDD with the new one from the CD, and then I rebooted. The Pegsos II booted nicely from my Peg1 setup. :-) IMO, this shows that it’s quite easy to move MorphOS to a new system. The boot.img file was all I changed and everything worked just as before, but everything felt a little faster. To be honest, I thought that the speed from the 600MHz G3 was already fast (IMO fast enough for general usage), but in certain moments you will notice the increased performance, like when scrolling a very complex web page in Voyager – that was kind of smooth before but it’s *really* smooth now. Also, there is no sound corruption when moving windows any more (and I am still using the same old drivers here as I used on the Peg1. I have read somewhere that the updated Radeon driver now reduces this problem on Peg 1 a great deal too, but not completely).
I will not give you a lot of performance benchmarks, but I did try QuakeMOS (http://www.morphos-news.de/software.php?lg=en&md=game&sd=shoot) on both the Peg1 G3 and Peg2 G4. Speaking of performance, I read somewhere that the current configuration (in bios/drivers?) is kind of “conservative” and that there will be room for overall speed improvements in future SW updates. I guess they made this “safe” setting for a start, and that they will make various optimizations later (or perhaps I interpreted that wrong). Anyway, as I said, I ran the timedemo on quakeMOS. The default settings were used and no hardware 3D accelerator at all was used. All rendering was done in software at 8bit colour depth. The graphic card was exactly the same, a Radeon 7000, and so was everything else.
At 320x240 the Peg1 scored 73.9 fps, the Peg2 125.7 fps.
At 640x480 the Peg1 scored 27.7 fps, the Peg2 51.1 fps.
At 800x600 the Peg1 scored 19.2 fps, the Peg2 36.6 fps.
Perhaps this isn’t the best program for testing purposes, perhaps it’s old, perhaps it isn’t optimized in any way, I don’t know. Perhaps this “test” is kind of worthless, but it’s still the same program used in on both systems with exactly the same OS setup (except the boot.img). Also, it might be too early to make serious benchmarks; improved settings might be available later on.
Well, now it was time to flash the firmware with the update available from b-plans website (http://www.bplan-gmbh.de/update_e.html). I simply downloaded it to my boot partition, restarted my computer, and typed “boot /pci/ide/disk@0,0:0 update” at the OF prompt. A few seconds later it was finished! I have flashed many bios’s on x86 motherboards, and the process can be a bit more complicated than this. You may have to download several files (at least a flash program and the ROM image), you may have to produce a special clean DOS boot disk with no mem handlers, you may have to switch off the CPU caches in BIOS etc. That might scare people away from trying. On the Pegasos II, anyone who can download a program and run it can do it, because it’s really that easy. So b-plan, don’t be shy to make new firmware updates available as soon as you have them ready (perhaps with different levels of tweaking and optimizations) because we can handle it! :-)
Perhaps there were some small updates on the new MorphOS CD that I hadn’t heard about? ;-) Just to be sure, I updated the OS on my system with the one from the supplied CD. That was as simple as ever. :-) Then it struck me that the system clock (the real time clock) behaved strangely. I set the time and saved it correctly, but when I rebooted, it showed a different time. I have tried this several times, but it’s still the same. I really hope that this is a SW problem, or that it could be fixed through SW updates (firmware or OS code).
I have also noticed a problem to boot MorphOS. Sometimes, on what seems to be totally random occasions, it simply stops booting after displaying the “Quark/OpenFirmware” text. It just freezes. Perhaps this occurs on my system only, otherwise I suspect it to be an OS related thing, and I expect a bug fix for this ASAP (or in the next OS release, which I also expect ASAP :-D).
Summary and Conclusion
I (and many others) have waited for this machine to arrive for quite some time now, and I am very happy I got it up and running now. And I like it a lot (and Open Firmware grows on me all the time). :-)
Do I like the speed increase? Sure, but as I said before, the G3 was kind of enough for me. Anyone who tried MorphOS can testify on its great speed and responsiveness. And the G3 has a lower price and is totally silent. Programmers and renderers of different kinds can’t get enough of CPU power, and they will probably appreciate the increased performance more than me. The main difference between the G3 and the G4 is the Altivec unit, but AFAIK, this is only used in a RC5 client on MorphOS so far. Perhaps the demo coders will make better use of it? :-) I like the performance, but I like silence even more. To me, silence is a major point of the Pegasos, I get both performance and noise from my PC. But I wish there would be a way to make a G4 card with a passive heat sink only. However, the increased weight of that might require the use of the stays seen on this Peg1 picture (http://www.bplan-gmbh.de/gfx/pegasos/right2.jpg). The Peg2 is prepared for that but it’s not included as standard.
Was this first release somewhat premature? Well, that depends on the target audience I would say. It has a usable but buggy firmware. Some other SW related bugs in the Pegasos/MorphOS is annoying, but does not make the computer unusable. The manuals were not entirely synced to the boards in this release, and I miss an English version of the extensive user manual (they both should merge IMO, and should be available in several languages, I have volunteered to translate the manual to Swedish, and I will do that as soon as I get the original files). On the OS front, only MorphOS is available (Linux will follow shortly), but that version is half a year old, and while it works on the Pegasos II (with the new boot.img file); it doesn’t support one of the key features of the Pegasos II – the 1Gigabit Ethernet. There also seems to be some overall optimizations and tweaking left to get maximum performance out of the board (but I might be wrong on that). So for a general “Joe User” outside this community, it might be too premature, but for us geeks inside the community the tolerance level is somewhat higher. I myself am very glad that I got my Pegasos II right here, right now, in the state it’s in. :-) I expect that any problems will be fixed ASAP through SW upgrades.
The Articia is finally gone. Any plans can move on forward now. My impressions from the Pegasos II is that it’s a great computer and I like it a lot. This is indeed a great step forward for the Pegasos platform, that is – the right foot has taken a great step (the Pegasos II HW), but the left foot (drivers, fixes, optimizations, OS's, etc) now has to catch up. And it will, I have no doubt in Genesi here, they have a fine track record in this regard.
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[color=FF0000]UPDATE[/color][/b]
2004-03-07
It turned out that I was right when not doubting Genesi about the "catching up" with things in my last sentences above! :-). In late February Genesi made another production run of the Pegasos (earlier than expected), and those are now (or will soon be) available at dealers. I received my latest Pegasos (actually my fourth in order :-o) from GGS Data last Tuesday. I ordered a G3 this time. In addition to that, MorphOS "1.4.2" was released this other day.
Let's start with the G4 CPU processor card. I wrote in the review that the noise from the fan was not too disturbing, but after using it for a while I changed my mind about this and made some changes (http://www.morphzone.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1574&forum=11&32). As I said, I myself ordered a G3 this time, but Gunne Steen from GGS Data has posted this image of the new cooling solution on Pegasos G4 cards …
(http://www.ggsdata.se/Pegasos/Bilder/Photo_030sm.jpg)
… and reports that the noise level from these compares to a whisper. He also say that it's now possible to switch between the G3 and G4 CPU cards. A big improvement in other words, and certainly good news! :-) The 1GHz G4 speed is certainly welcome at my home, as long as it’s silent. On the G3 cards there is still a completely passive cooler (a nice aluminium colour one).
The firmware in the Pegasos has been updated to v1.1 (from 2004-02-24), and some differences are easily spotted. First, that annoying bug that made it necessary to reset the computer the first thing you did after cold boot to be able to access your IDE devices is now removed :-). In other words, it’s just to power up and play now!
I mentioned in the review that I randomly couldn’t boot MorphOS. For some reason that problem went away when I put both the HDD and the DVD as masters on their own respective IDE channels. On my updated Pegasos motherboard I have no problem in using the DVD and HDD on the same channel. I can also now use a DVD-ROM drive that previously didn’t work. It seems to me that some improvements has been made in peripheral tolerance! :-)
If you type the printenv command you will see some new variables as well. I haven’t researched this a lot, but it seems like it's possible to boot from networks.
A lot has happened on the OS front as well. Several Linux distributions are now available, and so is OpenBSD. A minor update of MorphOS with some (not so "minor" IMHO) bugfixes has also been released. The changes are:
- The IDE lockup bug in MorphOS has been fixed. :-)
- Real Time Clock load and save problems on Pegasos 2 have been fixed.
- The system clock no longer drifts on Pegasos 2.
- The Exec MEMF_REVERSE memory fragmentation bug has been fixed.
Needless to say, these fixes were very much welcome! Now we are waiting for MorphOS1.5 which is supposed to be a major update, including a PPC MorphOS native TCP/IP stack, Altivec, 3D for radeon 7xxx, etc.
To sum things up:
None of the “aber’s” I wrote in my review above remains now. According to my experiences, everything now works fully as expected right from the start, without any need for fiddling and workarounds. The Pegasos now also feels more tolerant to hardware peripherals, but I have not measured this “scientifically” in any way, it’s only my feelings based on my experiences.
The stability is excellent! I would now for the first time dare to claim that the Pegasos II with MorphOS is running more stable than *any* Amiga I have *ever* used. And it flies! :-D
In the review above I insinuated that the Christmas release of Pegasos II might have been a bit pre-mature. But that certainly is not the case anymore. In my opinion, the Pegasos II is definitely ready to hit the streets in the “real world” in this condition. I can whole heartedly recommend this to everyone! :-)
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I then got help from the net, and it seems like there is a (known) bug in the firmware that fails to initialize the IDE units when cold booting
Hmm.. sounds like Peg2 starts a little too fast and needs a small pause after power-on.
Nice that you're happy with the boards.. me wants one too :)
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@takemehomegrandma
Thanks for the well-written and balanced review.
My experience seems to mirror yours almost exactly; the biggest setbacks
were related to the documentation, everything else was/has been remarkably
smooth. The instructions in the smaller manual did not work as written to
boot the system, but the directions in the larger German book and at
morphos-news.de are correct.
There are only two exceptions: I don't seem to be experiencing neither clock,
nor the lack of drive detection at cold boot problems. :-? I wonder what the
Pegasos firmware performs differently at resets, as the startup speeds between
"cold" boot and reset is identical. Perhaps the current firmware probes
the IDE chain before some drives are ready for operation? Now how ironic
would that be...;-)
While we are at this subject...I think it would be a nice implementation on
future boards, if the results of the initial device probe/init by the open
firmware could be stored in some type of temporary buffer space, so that
reboot speeds could be drastically improved. It's a real shame for an OS
which takes 4 seconds to load...to be held up by something which really
should only occur once during the machines "on" time. I suppose with future
versions of the OS this may be less necessary, but it would really aid matters
during testing of all those old amiga apps, where constant reboots are the
norm...
Concerning the issue of added noise, I have no idea what brand, mounting, or
flow characteristics are assosiated with the fan on the G4 Pegasos cards
(mine is a G3), but here are some fans which may be easily fitted, and should
be much more quiet. Might affect warranty terms, but who cares about that? :-)
quiet fans (http://silentmaxx.net/catalog/index.php?cPath=31)
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This is my #800 comment here on amiga.org, and I am celebrating this by giving a short review of the Pegasos II G4, based on my first experiences.
You call this short ? ;-)
Congrats on the 800 comment milestone.. And with getting a Peg2..
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It seems that peg+MOS is still only for advanced users.
And it's a disappointment to hear that the G4 of Peg2 does not have 512k L2!!!! I though it was announced last year that it will have 512k.
Nice to see the QuakeMOS test. It provides some concrete information of what kind of speed improvements people can really expect.
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@ksk
And it's a disappointment to hear that the G4 of Peg2 does not have 512k L2!!!! I though it was announced last year that it will have 512k.
7447 has 512KB L2 cache, just like 7457.
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It seems that peg+MOS is still only for advanced users.
To a certain extent I agree, but not entirely. The setup
can be a bit tricky, but that's mainly due to *detail*
issues, and not really anything fundamental. Most of them
are fixed already. Setting up a PC from scratch can be
equally (or more!) unnerving.
On the software end the deficiencies are greater, the
biggest being the lack of a solid networking program and
office suite. But once again, this should be resolved
within the next few updates.
A member of my family was on the system earlier, and
after several hours of surfing and playing around on
the machine - with no crashes - he was quite impressed...
and that really goes to show how capable the Pegasos can
actually be for the "average" PC user...
Of course it crashes on me constantly, but that's becasue
I spend all my time trying to get old 68k CGX demos to
run...:P
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Nice and objectif review, thx :-)
About, the Peg II G3, how is it running? do you feel it's faster than a Peg I ?
It may be possible to replace the small fan by a big heat seek.
About, "MorphOS as a geek OS", maybe :-)
But, After some explanation, my girl-friend success to use it without much problem (listening to music, Playing Divx, Internet ...). She also told me that it's much faster than the computer she is used to use.
Nevertheless, I had never use so much IBrowse because "normal" people go on funky site !!!
Also, a word-processsor is needed.
Bye
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Takemehomegrandma:
Thanks for review.. I have been having Pegasos bit over a week and I agree with you..
For realtime.clock.. It's been fixed for next release.. For now, just add setclock load to your s:user-startup,
I have not seen any booting problems on my machine, so they may have some realtion on those problems on recgognization of your drives ...Dunno, this one needs more testing.
For other comments.. System stability is definitely real high.. I have four day uptime, while using programs like Simplemail, Amirc, Voyager (!), Apdf etc.. even played a bit K&M and tried to learn how to use ImageFX-lite (thanks Cecilia).
For speed inscrease. well.. I've not much use to it either at this point.. But as this G4 cpu came bundled with Pegasos2 upgrade I may well use it.. And even though I too like silent machine, most of the time I can't hear this Cpu.cooler anyhow cause I'm having my Work-PC at this same room.. and compared to it, allmost anything is silent :-D
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Having spent the last two weeks in a cave (well, not really, but no internet access)...
The Peg II is available?
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Hooligan_DCS wrote:
I then got help from the net, and it seems like there is a (known) bug in the firmware that fails to initialize the IDE units when cold booting
Hmm.. sounds like Peg2 starts a little too fast and needs a small pause after power-on.
That's what I thought too!
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-D- wrote:
@takemehomegrandma
Thanks for the well-written and balanced review.
Thank you! :-)
My experience seems to mirror yours almost exactly; the biggest setbacks
were related to the documentation, everything else was/has been remarkably
smooth. The instructions in the smaller manual did not work as written to
boot the system, but the directions in the larger German book and at
morphos-news.de are correct.
There are only two exceptions: I don't seem to be experiencing neither clock,
nor the lack of drive detection at cold boot problems. :-? I wonder what the
Pegasos firmware performs differently at resets, as the startup speeds between
"cold" boot and reset is identical. Perhaps the current firmware probes
the IDE chain before some drives are ready for operation? Now how ironic
would that be...;-)
I believe I read posts from someone other that does not have these problems too. Perhaps it has to do with the models of IDE devices being used or surch? Mine is a seagate barracuda hard drive and a lite-on DVD player.
While we are at this subject...I think it would be a nice implementation on
future boards, if the results of the initial device probe/init by the open
firmware could be stored in some type of temporary buffer space, so that
reboot speeds could be drastically improved. It's a real shame for an OS
which takes 4 seconds to load...to be held up by something which really
should only occur once during the machines "on" time. I suppose with future
versions of the OS this may be less necessary, but it would really aid matters
during testing of all those old amiga apps, where constant reboots are the
norm...
Interesting thoughts. But what if you add/remove some hardware? If the system does not "probe" it, it won't work! Perhaps a "probe" command in Open Firmware ;-) Or are you talking about probing/initializing hardware once on cold boot, and then re-use that when reseting the computer?
Concerning the issue of added noise, I have no idea what brand, mounting, or
flow characteristics are assosiated with the fan on the G4 Pegasos cards
(mine is a G3), but here are some fans which may be easily fitted, and should
be much more quiet. Might affect warranty terms, but who cares about that? :-)
quiet fans (http://silentmaxx.net/catalog/index.php?cPath=31)
I believe that most of the noise from the cooler may come from the airflow, and not from the fan itself. I think that the fan itself is kind of quiet (even the most quiet fans are not totally silent). The heat sink is very small and compact, and the air needs to travel through very thin gates.
The fan is blowing the air straight onto it, which is the normal thing, but here are CPU cooing systems where the fan sits on a "plastic tube" with an angle, and those gives better cooling at lower rpm's.
Sure, one could try and change the fan, perhaps replacing it with a bigger one. But the power wires to the fan are soldered directly onto the PCB, there is no connector, so that means you will have to unsolder it or cut the wires, which *definitely* affects warranty! ;-)
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seer wrote:
This is my #800 comment here on amiga.org, and I am celebrating this by giving a short review of the Pegasos II G4, based on my first experiences.
You call this short ? ;-)
Congrats on the 800 comment milestone.. And with getting a Peg2..
Thank you, thank you! :-) :pint:
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takemehomegrandma wrote:
Interesting thoughts. But what if you add/remove some hardware? If the system does not "probe" it, it won't work!
Wow !!! So your one of the courages expert that exchanges cards/drives
while the system is still powered on ?
[color=FF0033]RESPECT !![/color][/b][/u]
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ksk wrote:
It seems that peg+MOS is still only for advanced users.
This initial release, yes. Not everyone is prepared to deal with these kind of problems the first thing after buying a brand new product. But this will change shortly, I am confident about that.
Also, not all general users are prepared to sit down and learn the AmigaOS/MorphOS way of doing things. I tried to discuss this in this thread on ANN (http://www.ann.lu/comments2.cgi?view=1070417446&category=rant&start=1&79). So perhaps the AmigaOS/MorphOS is more suited for the advanced (desktop) users, looking for alternatives, at least in their current incarnations ...
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sounds like 1 guy got the stuff as it should be atleast , shame not everyone is as lucky as this guy...
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Piru wrote:
@ksk
And it's a disappointment to hear that the G4 of Peg2 does not have 512k L2!!!! I though it was announced last year that it will have 512k.
7447 has 512KB L2 cache, just like 7457.
That's what I thought too! I got the numbers from the "about" requester in MorphOS.
Perhaps there is some bug in the "probe" that either reports wrong cache size of the 7447 CPU (http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC7447&nodeId=03C1TR046708718653), or simply the wrong CPU (the 7445 (http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC7445&nodeId=03C1TR046708718653) has 256KB, the text on the CPU module PCB says 744x, so perhaps it's a 7445)?
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Nice review pegasos 2 board looks good. :-)
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@StevenJGore
FFS is too old and PFS is not free so download SFS which is FREE.
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eally goes to show how capable the Pegasos can actually be for the "average" PC user...
Funny, from his review it wouldn't pass my "Parents" test. Thus not ready for prime time. Of course, Windows 98 didn't pass either and forget Linux. XP pass with a satifactory grade. It's a hard test.
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Argo wrote:
eally goes to show how capable the Pegasos can actually be for the "average" PC user...
Funny, from his review it wouldn't pass my "Parents" test. Thus not ready for prime time. Of course, Windows 98 didn't pass either and forget Linux. XP pass with a satifactory grade. It's a hard test.
Out of interest, have you tried then with AROS?
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NicoPPC wrote:
Nice and objectif review, thx :-)
About, the Peg II G3, how is it running? do you feel it's faster than a Peg I ?
I have no idea about the Peg II G3, I have a G4. I read somewhere that someone tried to use a Peg I G3 in their Peg II, but it didn't work. Someone else speculated that it might be because of the different FSB speeds and CPU multipliers used on the two systems/CPU cards (which would cause the G3 to run at insane overclocking speeds provided that the FSB is set by the motherboard and the multiplier is set on the CPU card, or something like that). This is only speculations, but I would advice anyone curious NOT to try the Peg1 G3 card in their Peg2, it has been reported that it doesn't work anyway.
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JoannaK wrote:
Takemehomegrandma:
Thanks for review.. I have been having Pegasos bit over a week and I agree with you..
For realtime.clock.. It's been fixed for next release.. For now, just add setclock load to your s:user-startup,
Good to hear!! I will try the setclock in the meantime! :-)
I have not seen any booting problems on my machine, so they may have some realtion on those problems on recgognization of your drives ...Dunno, this one needs more testing.
This is what I suspect too, even if the drives are being reported to be present in OF. Once it boots, there is no problems whatsoever, but it's not allways that the boot process is that smooth ...
For other comments.. System stability is definitely real high.. I have four day uptime, while using programs like Simplemail, Amirc, Voyager (!), Apdf etc.. even played a bit K&M and tried to learn how to use ImageFX-lite (thanks Cecilia).
:-o :-D
Things are better, that's for sure! But regardless the hardware, IMHO MorphOS itself has still some way to go here. It will be interesting to see drivers and core OS components move out from the A-box and into their own quark handled memory protected spaces. Perhaps that process has started with MorphOS 1.5 already?
For speed inscrease. well.. I've not much use to it either at this point.. But as this G4 cpu came bundled with Pegasos2 upgrade I may well use it.. And even though I too like silent machine, most of the time I can't hear this Cpu.cooler anyhow cause I'm having my Work-PC at this same room.. and compared to it, allmost anything is silent :-D
Exactly the same situation as here then! :-) However, when not working I like to switch the PC off and enjoy the cool, fast, and silent Pegasos experience. :-D
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Karlos wrote:
Having spent the last two weeks in a cave (well, not really, but no internet access)...
The Peg II is available?
You bet! :-D
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Kronos wrote:
takemehomegrandma wrote:
Interesting thoughts. But what if you add/remove some hardware? If the system does not "probe" it, it won't work!
Wow !!! So your one of the courages expert that exchanges cards/drives
while the system is still powered on ?
[color=FF0033]RESPECT !![/color][/b][/u]
Well, have you never hot-swapped BIOS chips? :-D
Nah, seriously, I read that again, and I think I got the point the second time!
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bloodline wrote:
Argo wrote:
eally goes to show how capable the Pegasos can actually be for the "average" PC user...
Funny, from his review it wouldn't pass my "Parents" test. Thus not ready for prime time. Of course, Windows 98 didn't pass either and forget Linux. XP pass with a satifactory grade. It's a hard test.
Out of interest, have you tried then with AROS?
Out of interest, how is AROS for Pegasos 1 going? You guys might need a Pegasos 2 too, later on ...
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takemehomegrandma wrote:
bloodline wrote:
Argo wrote:
eally goes to show how capable the Pegasos can actually be for the "average" PC user...
Funny, from his review it wouldn't pass my "Parents" test. Thus not ready for prime time. Of course, Windows 98 didn't pass either and forget Linux. XP pass with a satifactory grade. It's a hard test.
Out of interest, have you tried then with AROS?
Out of interest, how is AROS for Pegasos 1 going? You guys might need a Pegasos 2 too, later on ...
I think it's currently wating for a timer so that it can task switch :-)
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It seems that peg+MOS is still only for advanced users.
The initial setup is a bit tricky for non advanced users but non advanced users can get a full configured systems from Pegasos 2 resellers.
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"A few seconds later it was finished! I have flashed many bios’s on x86 motherboards, and the process can be a bit more complicated than this. You may have to download several files (at least a flash program and the ROM image), you may have to produce a special clean DOS boot disk with no mem handlers, you may have to switch off the CPU caches in BIOS etc.
On Gigabyte’s Dual BIOS X86 motherboards; the BIOS flash software is built-in into the Dual BIOS, thus a clean boot disk is no longer required with this line of X86 motherboards.
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Hi takemehomegrandma
#
I believe I read posts from someone other that does not have these problems too. Perhaps it has to do with the models of IDE devices being used or surch? Mine is a seagate barracuda hard drive and a lite-on DVD player.
-----
Dont take the below as exactly info, but just what I feel myself about it.
Usually we supply machines with Hitachi harddrives, but you wanted a Seagate, because its more quiet, and it is. And some people like Seagate better because of this, you are not the only one :-).
But I feel also that Seagate-drives more often fails by coldboot (not showing up), then Hitachi, and needs a reset before showing up. This might also change when connected together with other different devices. I have no good solution on it, just that it might vary depending on configuration. So it might change if changing some else device you also have connected.
Nice review by the way.
Have a good time !
Mvh
Gunne
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Bloodline;
Your just a glutton for punishment.
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I believe I read posts from someone other that does not have
these problems too. Perhaps it has to do with the models of IDE
devices being used or surch? Mine is a seagate barracuda hard drive
and a lite-on DVD player.
That sounds likely.
Or are you talking about probing/initializing hardware once on
cold boot, and then re-use that when reseting the computer?
Exactly! :-)
-
Funny, from his review it wouldn't pass my "Parents" test. Thus not ready for
prime time. Of course, Windows 98 didn't pass either and forget Linux. XP pass
with a satifactory grade. It's a hard test.
Argo I agree 100%.
-
But I feel also that Seagate-drives more often fails by coldboot (not showing up), then Hitachi, and needs a reset before showing up. This might also change when connected together with other different devices. I have no good solution on it, just that it might vary depending on configuration. So it might change if changing some else device you also have connected.
It sounds like the Peg2 is probing the IDE channels before the Seagate drive starts up . Most current PC BIOS'es allow the user to configure a boot delay in seconds for this specific reason.
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On Gigabyte’s Dual BIOS X86 motherboards; the BIOS flash software is built-in into the Dual BIOS, thus a clean boot disk is no longer required with this line of X86 motherboards.
My AOpen AK79G motherboard works in a similar way. No need for a boot disk, you just double click on one exe file in windows and it will upload the new BIOS to a separate memory area in the BIOS chip, does a CRC check on it and then it reboots itself and copies the BIOS from the separate memory area to the main BIOS flash area before it does anyhing else.
You can even access the BIOS settings from within Windows with this motherboard (you see the familiar BIOS screen in a window).
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Thanks for that review Takemehome, I'm looking forward to getting my Peg2 shortly too!
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Argo wrote:
Bloodline;
Your just a glutton for punishment.
hehehe :-)
I'm sure they can figure out how to set up a C compiler and... ;-)
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@ Gunne (and others)
Perhaps the seagate drive needs an exceptional amount of time to get ready when coldbooting, I don't know. But I have also tested without the hard drive at all (just the DVD), and also with a maxtor drive. No difference. Anyway, this is said to be a known issue, and a fix is on its way.
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I suppose you have ATA100/133 cable ? Shouldn't work at all if not.
Blue connector to motherboard, black to master, grey to slave.
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GGS wrote:
I suppose you have ATA100/133 cable ? Shouldn't work at all if not.
Blue connector to motherboard, black to master, grey to slave.
Absolutely. I have also tried several different cables, all which I know works on other computers. Everything is connected correctly, and all jumpers are correctly set.
I don't really mind pushing the reset button for now, until the fixed firmware arrives. But I am more worried about the fact that MorphOS freezes randomly when booting, just after displaying the Quark/OpenFirmware text, because I have not heard anyone with that same problem. That makes me think that there might be something wrong with my system. But I will wait to the next OS and firmware release before I do anything about it.
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Casper wrote:
On Gigabyte’s Dual BIOS X86 motherboards; the BIOS flash software is built-in into the Dual BIOS, thus a clean boot disk is no longer required with this line of X86 motherboards.
My AOpen AK79G motherboard works in a similar way. No need for a boot disk, you just double click on one exe file in windows and it will upload the new BIOS to a separate memory area in the BIOS chip, does a CRC check on it and then it reboots itself and copies the BIOS from the separate memory area to the main BIOS flash area before it does anyhing else.
Your references;
http://english.aopen.com.tw/tech/techinside/DieHardBIOSLite.htm
http://english.aopen.com.tw/tech/techinside/DieHardBIOSII.htm
(Depending on AOpen motherboard model)
AOpen's 'DieHard BIOS II' is similar Gigabyte’s Dual BIOS in relation to its core functionality. There’s a minor difference between AOpen’s ‘Die Hard II’ BIOS vs GigaByte’s “Dual BIOS” i.e. mostly on BIOS's GUI and the way you switch between BIOS versions.
Gigabtye's Dual BIOS has integrated the 'BIOS flash software' within the BIOS itself.
Most modern X86 motherboards has Windows BIOS flash access i.e. ASUS (e.g. A7N8X series), Gigabyte (e.g. GA-7N400 series, GA-7NNXP, GA-8NNXP) and ‘etc’.
Comparing nForce2/nForce3 motherboards can be a boring exercise due to the competitive nature of the market (AMD motherboard market).
References;
http://tw.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/FileList/NewTech/tech_dualbios_setup.pdf
(Gigabyte's Dual BIOS).
You can even access the BIOS settings from within Windows with this motherboard (you see the familiar BIOS screen in a window).
For supported nForce2/nForce3 motherboards, BIOS settings (e.g. memory controller timings, FSB, AGP and ‘etc’) can be change from NVIDIA’s “System Utility” (free download). GUI is typically NVIDIA i.e. titanium look.
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GGS wrote:
Hi takemehomegrandma
#
I believe I read posts from someone other that does not have these problems too. Perhaps it has to do with the models of IDE devices being used or surch? Mine is a seagate barracuda hard drive and a lite-on DVD player.
-----
Dont take the below as exactly info, but just what I feel myself about it.
Usually we supply machines with Hitachi harddrives, but you wanted a Seagate, because its more quiet, and it is. And some people like Seagate better because of this, you are not the only one :-).
But I feel also that Seagate-drives more often fails by coldboot (not showing up), then Hitachi, and needs a reset before showing up. This might also change when connected together with other different devices. I have no good solution on it, just that it might vary depending on configuration. So it might change if changing some else device you also have connected.
Nice review by the way.
Have a good time !
Mvh
Gunne
I just wanted to tell you all (and also to "BUMP" up this thread after the update :-P) that I have two different kinds of Seagate Barracuda drives, and both are working absolutely perfect with the Pegasos. No problems! They are the most silent drives I have come across, and they are my favourite because of that reason! If you are building a *silent* computer you should definitely consider these drives IMHO ...
:-)
-
Hmm, I forgot about the "backwards" viewing order in the new Xoops version (I made the update as an edit to the first post, the actual review), but here it is also:
[color=FF0000]UPDATE[/color][/b]
2004-03-07
It turned out that I was right when not doubting Genesi about the "catching up" with things in my last sentences above! :-). In late February Genesi made another production run of the Pegasos (earlier than expected), and those are now (or will soon be) available at dealers. I received my latest Pegasos (actually my fourth in order :-o) from GGS Data last Tuesday. I ordered a G3 this time. In addition to that, MorphOS "1.4.2" was released this other day.
Let's start with the G4 CPU processor card. I wrote in the review that the noise from the fan was not too disturbing, but after using it for a while I changed my mind about this and made some changes (http://www.morphzone.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1574&forum=11&32). As I said, I myself ordered a G3 this time, but Gunne Steen from GGS Data has posted this image of the new cooling solution on Pegasos G4 cards …
(http://www.ggsdata.se/Pegasos/Bilder/Photo_030sm.jpg)
… and reports that the noise level from these compares to a whisper. He also say that it's now possible to switch between the G3 and G4 CPU cards. A big improvement in other words, and certainly good news! :-) The 1GHz G4 speed is certainly welcome at my home, as long as it’s silent. On the G3 cards there is still a completely passive cooler (a nice aluminium colour one).
The firmware in the Pegasos has been updated to v1.1 (from 2004-02-24), and some differences are easily spotted. First, that annoying bug that made it necessary to reset the computer the first thing you did after cold boot to be able to access your IDE devices is now removed :-). In other words, it’s just to power up and play now!
I mentioned in the review that I randomly couldn’t boot MorphOS. For some reason that problem went away when I put both the HDD and the DVD as masters on their own respective IDE channels. On my updated Pegasos motherboard I have no problem in using the DVD and HDD on the same channel. I can also now use a DVD-ROM drive that previously didn’t work. It seems to me that some improvements has been made in peripheral tolerance! :-)
If you type the printenv command you will see some new variables as well. I haven’t researched this a lot, but it seems like it's possible to boot from networks.
A lot has happened on the OS front as well. Several Linux distributions are now available, and so is OpenBSD. A minor update of MorphOS with some (not so "minor" IMHO) bugfixes has also been released. The changes are:
- The IDE lockup bug in MorphOS has been fixed. :-)
- Real Time Clock load and save problems on Pegasos 2 have been fixed.
- The system clock no longer drifts on Pegasos 2.
- The Exec MEMF_REVERSE memory fragmentation bug has been fixed.
Needless to say, these fixes were very much welcome! Now we are waiting for MorphOS1.5 which is supposed to be a major update, including a PPC MorphOS native TCP/IP stack, Altivec, 3D for radeon 7xxx, etc.
To sum things up:
None of the “aber’s” I wrote in my review above remains now. According to my experiences, everything now works fully as expected right from the start, without any need for fiddling and workarounds. The Pegasos now also feels more tolerant to hardware peripherals, but I have not measured this “scientifically” in any way, it’s only my feelings based on my experiences.
The stability is excellent! I would now for the first time dare to claim that the Pegasos II with MorphOS is running more stable than *any* Amiga I have *ever* used. And it flies! :-D
In the review above I insinuated that the Christmas release of Pegasos II might have been a bit pre-mature. But that certainly is not the case anymore. In my opinion, the Pegasos II is definitely ready to hit the streets in the “real world” in this condition. I can whole heartedly recommend this to everyone! :-)
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Very good takemehomegrandma!!!
If I'd get a G4 Pegasus, it would probably to replace the aging P233MMX (mobo is dying) that's currently serving (FTP, eMule, Torrent Tracker, etc...) the whole house. And replace the Internet Gateway (router) duties (DHCP, uPnP, NAT, etc...) has well.
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@ angrybrit
That's about what I plan to use my newly aquired Peg2 for too! :-)
I forgot to mention that there still are no driver for the gigabit ethernet in MorphOS (the latest updates has been bugfix updates). I have not yet tried Linux at Pegasos II at all, so I can not answer if it's supported there yet. Perhaps someone else can tell?
(It really *should* be there in Linux; isn't Linux what most OEM manufacturer's choose to support for their products? There should be Linux support from Marvell themselves ...?)
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Jammin' comments, Granny! Makes me want a Peg2 all the more!
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Also posted on ANN.lu
Does any of the 2 supported Linux distros (Debian and Gentoo) support the more recent Kernel, 2.6?
Also I would like to know if all Linux x86 console apps/services work on the PowerPC/Pegasus? (Any problem recompiling with endianess issues to know? Keep in mind that a server I need to replace would need uPnP NAT Translation services to the 3 XP clients. I want to replace my flaky D-Link Internet Gateway as well.)
:-(
-
Excellent review! I'd like to see a bit more comparison on the software and how compatible it is. Keep them coming...
:pint:
-
@ angrybrit
I am obviously not the best person to answer Linux questions, but ...
angrybrit wrote:
Also posted on ANN.lu
Does any of the 2 supported Linux distros (Debian and Gentoo) support the more recent Kernel, 2.6?
Mandrake 9.1 Bamboo and Yellow Dog are also supported (have a look at the image installer site (http://www.amipeglin.de.vu/)) as well as the the Crux Linux PPC distro (http://cruxppc.sunsite.dk/index.html). Suse can also be installed.
About the kernel, this is from http://linux.pegasosppc.com (http://linux.pegasosppc.com) (the official Linux for Pegasos site):
"The Pegasos uses a PowerPC kernel of the CHRP subarchitecure. As of 2.4.22, a small Pegasos specific patch is still needed, but work is underway for integration in the official kernels. Work on porting the pegasos patches to the 2.6.x kernel series is underway. "
I think the latest versions of the kernels usually appears here (2.4.25-2 is the latest): http://people.debian.org/~luther/ (http://people.debian.org/~luther/).
Also I would like to know if all Linux x86 console apps/services work on the PowerPC/Pegasus? (Any problem recompiling with endianess issues to know? Keep in mind that a server I need to replace would need uPnP NAT Translation services to the 3 XP clients. I want to replace my flaky D-Link Internet Gateway as well.)
:-(
I sure hope that all Linux PPC console apps/services available in the distros will work! :-)
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Hi again :-)
> I just wanted to tell you all (and also to "BUMP" up this thread after the update) that I have two different kinds of Seagate Barracuda drives, and both are working absolutely perfect...
---
So, do i get you right if it seems you suggest us to supply Pegasos with Seagate harddrives forward :-)
Im smelling on it for a while. Seagate are with no doubt very good and silent drives.
As for Linux, as I also see you do write about, it works very fine on the Pegasos II, and also DRI is working if i got everything right, have not tried this myself yet.
But I believe Sven Luther and the other Linux-gurus... :-)
Greetings !
Gunne
-
Hi TMHG & GGS,
Thanks for the tip about the Seagate drive. I'm also into "quiet" computing so I'll remember that!
@TMHG
Were you going to write about your experiences upgrading your first Peg2 to the new firmware version?
I also have a first-run Peg2, but because I'm still waiting for some bits for it (a cool tower case) I don't have it up and running yet, and so I'd like to hear about other people's experiences in upgrading.
-
@ GGS
IMHO, Seagate Barracuda are great, especially if you want silence. And
many of us likes silence, so ... :-)
-
@ smithy
I could write it right here, but unfortunately I have not yet seen any
firmware upgrades for the already released Peg2's (except that old
update that fixes the bug that renders the computer unbootable if you
uses the setenv command).
So my "old" Peg2 still has the old firmware ... :-(
-
Samsung is also manufacturing some killer drives these days,
I recently bought one, and am 'overall' more than satisfied.
It's probably not as quiet as the Barracudas during idle, but
they're definately faster...I'd say a solid middle ground between
the silence of "some" Barracudas, and the performance of a
WD/Hitatchi.
Article at StorageReview.com (http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200401/20040112SP1614N_1.html)
Also, maybe of notable interest to some here, the Samsung uses a
Marvell hard disk controller...you can check that out here (http://www.marvell.com/products/storage/soc/88i5520.jsp), and view
a picture of (most of) that chip "right here" (http://www.explosivelabs.com/reviews/samsung_sp1604n/memory.jpg).
Piece,
-d
-
Kent wrote:
I'd like to see a bit more comparison on the software and how compatible it is. Keep them coming...
There is just so many things to cover here, it's much easier to say what doesn't work than does. While it would seem negative, it really wouldn't be. Basically, most things that run on amithlon will run on morphos. There are a few things that will run on one, but not the other. Basically, if it doesn't hit the chipset, it'll run. :-)
With 1.4.2, I noticed a increase in speed in my favorite archive/unarchive utility (X-Arc). Vapor isn't taking registrations on it any more :-( but I love it... (another topic entirely)
Some versions of CManager do not work, so if you get a peg, be careful about which version you get My biggest complaint software has been OpenURL which didn't work under 1.4.1 (haven't tried under 1.4.2 yet).
Some other stuff that works: Magellen (although it seems to have an annoying bug after closing), IBrowse, FinalWriter97, AmIRC, MD2, Yam, SimpleMail, amtelnet, voodoox, atc, amftp, imagefx, snoopdos, V, Miami, weather-experience, and a heap of other things :-D
-
GGS wrote:
Hi again :-)
> I just wanted to tell you all (and also to "BUMP" up this thread after the update) that I have two different kinds of Seagate Barracuda drives, and both are working absolutely perfect...
---
So, do i get you right if it seems you suggest us to supply Pegasos with Seagate harddrives forward :-)
ATTENTION! ACHTUNG!
As I said, my "old" Peg2 was a G4, and my "new" Peg2 is a G3. My "old" Peg2 didn't work well with Seagate, but my "new" Peg2 did. Unfortunately, I wrongly assumed that this was becase the updated firmware, but now I have switched CPU cards (which worked fine :-)) so that the old G4 card is in my new, OF1.1 Peg2, and then I still have the cold-boot problem. It seems like the problem is more Seagate-related than it is OF-related. I have only been using seagate drives for my Pegasos computers, allways, and they have always worked fine with my previous (and latest) Pegasos computers. And they were all G3!
I am sorry about this error in my review and I hope that it hasn't caused anyone any trouble. It seems like the Seagates are a little bit slower in cold-start than other HDD's, but it can't be very much. IMO, this should be fairly easy to fix in a coming OF update, and I hope it *does* gets fixed, because the seagates are so QUIET! :-)
Again, sorry about this ...
-
1.4.2 is out now? I'll have to download that one! :D (of course, I still want 1.5 :)
what are the main differenced BTW? (I only used 1.4.1 for the updated Radeon driver)
-
@ iamaboringperson
It sure is! :-)
Please look a couple of posts up for the main differences (bugfixes),
or on other websites where news about it were posted last week ...