Fun with MorphOS

[humppa]

So how are you getting on with Ambient? Have you tried the more recent version?

Is it wise to update Ambient on a MOS PUP installation? I read somewhere that it might crawl on BPPC since it still has debugging mode enabled.

[humppa]

@motorollin

He's using a Peg, not PUP.

I know, i know, but I just thought I could jump in with a little OT question, sorry. ;-)

So could anyone tell me if the Ambient nightly builds still have debugging enabled? If not, I would give it a try and update.

[humppa]

I have a very recent Ambient nightly build installed on my PegII and it has debug menus. Not sure whether that means it is actually debugging or not. It would be nice if this was an option!

I read somewhere that nightly builds might have Debugging enabled, which slows down Ambient. This shouldn't be much of a problem on a fast Pegasos 2, but it might seriously affect performance on a rather slow BPPC.
From what I read, the only possibility is to do a manual recompile without debugging.
Does somebody have some more info on this?

[humppa]

itix wrote:
Nightly builds have debug enabled. To get rid of debug one must change debug flag in source code (config.h) and recompile.

Thanks for the info, itix! I think i'll better get 1.43.0 CVS instead then. Is it advisable to install that also on the Powerup version of MOS?

[humppa]

Honestly I dont know. It is probably better than ancient Ambient SE on MorphOS CD - more features and less bugs.

Alright, I think I will give it a try then. The version from the PUP-ISO is lacking many features that are hopefully introduced in later versions (e.g. easy snapshot and copy functions for icons and something like a "refresh" function by right-clicking). But since I am a MOS-noob, I also could have just missed a way to activate them.

Btw where you got your nickname?

I bought it from the crazy Finns. :-P

[humppa]

Don't forget that if you install the latest versions of Ambient you will also have to install MUI4 which is also debug enabled and afaik you can't disable this.

I did that yesterday. First installed the latest MUI4 beta, then the Ambient binary 1.43.0 CVS with the installer script.

The speed is fine, I don't see much of a difference really. So  if there is debugging enabled in either MUI4 or Ambient, it doesn't slow down the system too much.

However, I have stability problems now. After a certain time playing around with the desktop, Ambient freezes and the "is meditating"-message is displayed.
Further, I get an instant freeze when selecting any of the "About" options in the titlebar menu.

There seems to be a problem with MUI4, since it still shows up as version "3.9" in the Prefs. Is there a tutorial somewhere how to install MUI4 properly and which of the old 3.9-files should be kept?

[humppa]

Regarding debug, the 'ramdebug' boot flag is your friend! (Don't know if PowerUp versions have it though) MUI4 stuff is a lot faster with it set.

Yep, 'ramdebug' is even set as default in the PowerUP-startup-sequence.
Finally got to install MUI4 beta properly (is there any more recent version than 20060605?) and Ambient is working fine so far. No odd freezes like before. :-)
Now I only need to get some network-hardware (8139 from my Mediator is not supported of course, only option is PCMCIA now I guess?).

[humppa]

Matt_H wrote:
@ humppa

I've actually got the one from April. Could you point me to that one?
EDIT: Nevermind, found it.

Not too stable actually: I always get crashes when I try to switch between "List" and "Icon" view mode in windows. I already had this before with other Ambient beta versions.
Can anybody recommend a "stable" beta release, or does somebody have a link to a recent release with debugging disabled?

[humppa]

This behaviour is definitely not normal, it looks like a bad mui4 installation to me. CVS versions are most of the time stable, and such obvious crash bugs don't stay long on cvs. Ultimately, if mui4 is well installed, you may try to delete ambient prefs (sys:prefs/ambient/ambient.prefs[.bak]]), in case you ran into some prefs conflict.

Thanks, I will try that. Is there any known difference in stability between the two different MUI4 alpha versions (2005 and 06/2006)?

And a non-debug version won't change anything about your stability issues.

Yes, I know. This question was somewhat unrelated to the other ones. I was just thinking, because since the majority of MOS-users seem to be using recent CVS versions, it would be nice if there could be an intermediate non-debug version now and then.  :-)

[humppa]

Ok, some further testing. MUI4 is up and running fine. I then tried different Ambient-versions.
1.41: no crashes
1.42: no crashes when switching between Icon-view and List-view
1.43: tried several nightly builds and always Ambient crashes.
I really would like to try out the "official" 1.43 (non nightly), but the link to GGS doesn't work.

Does anybody have a working link to "Ambient_1.43.tar.gz"
The one on   this site doesn't work. Thanks!

[humppa]

@Blade
Thanks so much!  :-)

[humppa]

@Blade

This version is working perfectly so far! It's the first 1.43 compile that doesn't crash when changing between "List" and "Icon-mode". Further, speedwise it's great on my PowerUP-install since debugging is disabled. Again, thanks a lot!  :-)

[humppa]

I don't know if this means anything or not, but if you version the new mui systems files, you will see a DEBUG indication.

It's actually also visible from MUI-Prefs when you select the "About" menu (DEBUG in red letters).

I assume that we are talking about this version?: http://www.sasg.com/mui/mui4alpha_mos_20050714.lha

Yes, that's the last non-debug version that I know of. Actually, I happen to have different newer versions, but I think they are all DEBUG if I am not mistaken. The 20060605 surely is DEBUG.

[humppa]

Btw, i have found that directories which has an old Amiga icon are not clickable! You can double-click them, move them or anything. You have to do a RMB and select "open". Do you have this problem?

Yes, I have the same problem with old WB2.04-style icons (e.g. the drawer of Sysinfo). Are you using the Ambient-version that Blade posted? You *can* double-click those icons, but you have to click something like 20 pixels above, then it works. I wonder if later Ambient-builds have the same problem.

[humppa]

This offset bug for click area (easily visible with old magicwb icons) was recently introduced after some changes in icon layout code and has just been fixed.

Cool. I would just love to have a non-debug compile of that. ;-)

By the way, mui4 from july 2005 was also a debug version, so i'd suggest you stick to latest version as many bugs were fixed since.

Really? There is no debug-info in the Prefs and the file-sizes are a lot smaller. Is there any non-debug version that became available after July at all?

edit: according to this thread you are right. I really wish there would be at least one non-debug version every few months. Don't forget the PowerUp users! ;-)