Clean booting UAE x86 Amiga

[arnljot]

I have been back on the Amiga for about two monts now after an almost 10 year break. And to the amigas credit, it's like riding a bike... Everything is as it should be.

For one exception. Hardware.

I've realised that it'll take months, if not years before a dream amiga pops up on e-bay or the marketplaces.

So UAE to the rescue!

So I'm currently pondering the following alternatives:

(A) Minimal XP by BartPE with WinUAE (PEBuilder Home)
(B) Minimal XP by nLite with WinUAE (nLite Home)
(C) Minimal XP by RyanVM with WinUAE (RyanVM Home)
(D) Minimal XP, *custom* (tips...)
(E) Linux with E-UAE
(F) Amithlon (amiga on a small linux)
(G) AmigaXL (amiga on QNX)

To my knowledge there are no examples of options A to D.
Linux Amiga:
Fraccy aka Amir Ansari: X-Amiga 'How-To'
It uses a minimal Gentoo with DirectFB

KXLite: Product page(on installing... )
It's based on knoppix.

Amithlon:
Lots of guides on the net.
One new and updated on EAB, it includes a link to the old (big) PDF

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Requirements:
* (SUP1) It has to run on my hardware. Geforce, Pentium4
* (USE1) Easy to configure and swap setups
* (USE2) Fast boot, I loved my amiga which booted in less than 30s
* (SUP2) USB (drives) and joystick support (Logitech and Saitek)
* (SUP3) Support for Catwasel mk-iv (I plan on buying)

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The Contenders:

Where they shine:
A to D: Top score on all support issues and USE1
E: Top score on USE2, probably good score on SUP1 and SUP2
F: Top score on USE2

Where they suck:
A to D: Weak on USE2 (assumption comparable to linux alternatives)
E: USE1, E-UAE is still compareably new.
F: SUP1&2, probably USE1 too.

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Now, what do you think folks?

Since I've boutght AmigaForever2006 with KXLite (waiting for media to arrive in the post), and more proficient in XP I think I'll go the minXP way. Also, I don't think I can live without F12 in WinUAE....

What are your experiences?

[arnljot]

Gulliver wrote:
I used server 2003, because it reported the fastest booting time on my PC compared to win2k and winxp.

I've got licenced access to the MSDN developer package, so 2003 is an alternative for me too.

What kind of boot times did you achieve?

@all
Like it's been pointed out. I have paid for the MS stack of OS's so I can consider it.

Also WinUAE is a superrior product. But if I wanted a static install, ie just emulating one amiga and make a setup that was aimed at redistribution I'd consider more carefully.

But my UAE needs are of the nostalig variety. I want to play Pinball Dreams, Megalomaniac, Populous, Putty, Pusover, SuperFrog, Operation Stealth, Cruise For a Corpse.... etc etc...

I have a lot of gear at home, a few laptops, three desktops, a mini and a ps3.

The only times that I really enjoy myself and have a genuine good time is when I play Detroit AGA or Syndicate on my A500 which recently fell into my hands, or old classic titles downloaded from the PS3 store or UAE on my PSP...

Just today I was at two major game outlets to see if I could trick myself into "spur of the moment" purchases for my PS3, but I could not...

So I have found that I need more than just one Amiga.

Of course I could edit the UAE settings file on WinUAE and use them on E-UAE, but that doesn't seem optimal to me.

Or I could install X11 on the box, and use a 3rd party tool. But I find X11 to bloat and add unwanted clutter to a linux install.

Thats what piqued me with the X Amiga based setup on gentoo and directfb. It seemed like no X, which is music to my ears...

[arnljot]

Gulliver wrote:
@arnljot
I remember uptimes were less than a minute. Like 40 seconds since i pushed the power button. Take into account that almost 15 seconds are lost in the bootup phases due to the nature of this hardware and the disgusting bootlogo that Compaq wanted you to see.

I suppose you mean a boot time of 40 secs. Now thats nice

I'm not planning on using Virtual PC like you suggested, but rather VMWare, but that shouldn't make any difference, should it?

[arnljot]

Gulliver wrote:
Simple, i first did a real server 2003 full install on my pc. Used a tool called doubledrivers, that backs up your currently used hardware drivers that i included in my modded server 2003 WinUAe setup.

Ah, Smart!

Gulliver wrote:
No it shouldnt make any difference to VMWare. But remember the hardware it will emulate will not be exactly the same as the one you will afterwards install for real!

**EDIT**
BTW, I cannot find the tool using google. Is it retired or something?

Oh, so VPC em ulates what you got. And VMWare emulates something else?