Which OS Would Be The Best Amiga Way Forward...

[Franko]

@ Vidarth

I'm not disagreeing with you over just how many "real" apps there are on AmiNet, as to be honest it's been many years since I downloaded anything from there...

Everything I run on a daily basis on my Amiga's are years old and do the jobs required of them and if I can't find something to do a job I simply write my own in 68K Assembly...

My main interest in AROS is that it will finally put an end to all the BS over the "legality" of obtaining Kickstart images. I don't have need to be able to run modern day apps that folk use on PC's or Mac's or have versions of them ported to the Amiga, for me everything that I need for computing has already been written for the Amiga a long time ago... :

It's like the NatAmi, I want to buy one but I'm not looking for it to be some new miracle all singing all dancing machine that will allow me to run the type of things folk use on PC's and Mac's. I see the NatAmi as a way of having new hardware that does all that the Amiga has always done but instead of relying on eBay and the likes to find old hardware at crazy prices, I would be able to purchase a brand new NatAmi instead...

[Franko]

Please don't just take my word for it! Try it out Seeing my old 68k apps (some written nearly 20 years ago) running in AROS on my A1200 is a very oddly emotional expeience

Probably because I've dreamed of a 68k version of AROS ever since I first ran it on a Pentium II back at university, 12 years ago!

Erm... how do I do that... I thought AROS 68k wasn't ready yet and only the developers had it... :confused:

[Franko]

AROS gets compiled during nights and new versions are released to the public for every supported platform every day on www.aros.org. Since 68k is a supported platform, this means that there is a new version for that every day, too.

Follow Wawas instructions if you want to try it on real hardware, although the planar gfx support is not very good yet, so it wont be as fun as emulating with the uaegfx chunky modes for now.

Ok I went to the site and downloaded the following file :-

AROS-20110524-amiga-m68k-system.tar.bz2

Problem number 1:- As seems to be typical these days for things that folk have written or archived using a PC, the filename is TOO LONG for it to be recognised on a REAL Amiga...

Easily solved though (but still ruddy annoying) I renamed it to AROS.tar using my iMac...

Problem number 2: - Unfortunately I can't unarchive it on my Amiga as all un-archiving programs I've just tried just throw up error messages along the lines of "unrecognised" or "this is not a proper xyz archive"...

(I tried UnARJ, UnRAR, UnTGZ etc... that I have on my Amiga but with no luck)...

So have I downloaded the wrong file or do you need too find someone called Gandalf to stand in front of it and mumble some hocus pocus and bang his staff to open the archive...

PS: Who is "Wawa" is he a hobbit that didn't make it into the films... :confused:

[Franko]

Like the filename suggests, this is a standard UNIX-style tarball archive compressed with the bzip2 algorithm. Tools for unpacking this on Amiga have been available since the bzip2 compression algorithm was created in the mid 90's. This is consistent with the standard GNU toolchain that most people developing for the Amiga platform are using nowadays.

Ok even though that's total gobbeldygook to me, I spotted the word ZIP in there so perhaps one of the ZIP unarchivers I have on my miggy will be able to open this mysterious box of tricks, I'll give it a go...

Still pretty dumb though (and just plain lazy) archiving things for a real Amiga and not bothering to make sure the filename is 30 chars or less so that it can be recognised on a real Amiga...

It's like a DVD I once bought on eBAY with some 16,000 C64 games on it, they all had filenames of incredible lengths and I had to write my own program that could handle these long filenames and convert them to 30 chars or less as they were copied across to the Amigas HD...

Why do folk who do stuff on PC's that they hope to be used on a real Amiga forget the very simple fact that the Amiga can't handle these silly long filenames they give them... :rolleyes:

[Franko]

@ Commodorejohn

Thanks, I'll give that a try too...

@ Forcie

I do use SFS but when your transferring something between a MAC and the Amiga it doesn't help as utilities like DirWork (which I use) or DOpus still don't allow for the recognition of these long filenames to be able to read them from the the SD card (in this case) or CD/DVD etc...

It would be much simpler if someone intends their program to be used on a REAL Amiga to remember the 30 Char limitation...

[Franko]

"Real Amigas" did not come with the lha unarchiver either. So technically uploading Amiga software to the net in this format is inconsiderate of people using "Real Amigas"

No, but seriously. This is still adapted to the logic of the more tech-savvy, developer kind of Amiga user. A guy who upgraded his filesystem 15 years ago and got rid of the filename limitation, and is familiar with common industry-standard UNIX tools. It is all bound to be a little cryptic for anyone not familiar with it. Eventually there will be a full distribution of AROS-68k which is easier to install for the run-of-the-mill user.

I hope so cos even as I type here my UnZip utils on my Amiga right beside me are having a hairy fit trying to recognise this thing... :crazy:

[Franko]

Here are the proper decompressors if you are interested in trying:
http://aminet.net/package/util/arc/AmiGNUtar
http://aminet.net/package/util/arc/bzip2_68k

bzip2 might require ixemul.library, I am not sure since I have had it installed on all my AmigaOS installations since the 90s.

Well as I've just tried every unarchiving util I have (including PPC versions) and got more errors than can be found in a CUSA press release, I'll download those ones and give them a go (although I'm pretty sure bzip2 I've already just tried)...

If that fails then would someone please email in whichever year that AROS finally becomes available for it to be un-archived easily on an Amiga, I can be found in the usual place (just under the big yellow mushroom)...ta ...

[Franko]

:cry:

Wibble...

AmiGNUTar (sounds like some sort of wee Russian fishwife) no luck there... (and it's "help" option has obviously been written by a PC junkie high on meths or Swahili, hard to tell really)... :crazy:

Bzip2, only contains the archiver it tells you to use Bunzip2, which just happens not to include in the archive (gawd geeza brek)...

ME... I'm going back under the mushroom for now... so I'll just read about AROS for the time being until someone decides to archive it in usable manner... :insane:

I used to be normal once upon a time, long, long ago in the far off distant future...

Why do turtles even bother being turtles...

Me dog aint died today, but there's time yet...

[Franko]

But ok, I get it. Perhaps you should not dabble too much with this for now.
I or someone else might create an easier install solution for you later.

That would be neat if you could as I would really like to give AROS a go myself to see just what it is capable of so far...

[Franko]

@Franko

Very odd, I can't find the boot 68k disk on the AROS website... here is my build:

http://www.cutiemish.com/bootdisk-amiga-m68k.adf

Thank you very much for that Bloodline, just download it and gonna try it now, much appreciated...

PS:I'll be back in a while to either...

Let you know how good it is...

or

How bad it is...

Or

Just to say something that makes no sense at all...

Place your bets now...

[Franko]

right, its sometimes difficult to find a right tool on amiga. still i managed to download full svn repositories, so it should be possible to unarc a tar.gz or whatever it is on an amiga. lemme take look.


i go by nicks like "wawa" or "wawrzon" on a number of amiga sites, just for a clarification. i bet you will recognize me when met another place.

Cheers Wawrzon, I'll give the ADF Bloodline kindly supplied first...

PS: Wawa... hmm... sounds more like an ewok than a hobbit now that I think about it, need to have a look through me Star Wars collection and see if I can find you...

[Franko]

Ok... First off thanks to Bloodline for the AROS ADF to let me see for myself just what this thing is all about...

I thought I'd mark the occasion of me actually using a different OS on me miggy by making a wee video of the whole process from start to finish...
(felt a bit like christmas actually)...

However... It didnae wurk...

Nowt but a quick greenish flash and a never ending black screen...

Oh well you've read the posts, now watch the movie...

(popcorn is optional)...

AROS (Not) on me A1200, a story of adventure & excitement that ended in tragedy and epic failure...
(soundtrack not available on any good record labels... thank gawd)...
[youtube]Vtg1412W48Q[/youtube]

[Franko]

@ Bloodline

Tried all the things you suggested in the PM but still no luck...

Just realised from your post there "that I'm a diddy" spent all last night trying to get it to work on my Blizzard 060/PPC for the simple reason of the ".elf" in the filename which always make me automatically think that this is PPC software and therefore I needed to run it on my PPC board (which is pretty dumb of me cos the whole point is that this is the 68k version). doh...

Now I'll give it a try one my plain Blizzard 060 or my plain Blizzard 030 (or any of the others I have around) and see if it works on those, cos I think myself it has something to do with the BPPC board... oh well... if at first you don't succeed put in ra boot and then ra heid...
 
@ Wawrzon

I'll need to try downloading one the other versions again and see if my mac can unarchive them instead...

[Franko]

@Franko. I don't know what's scarier. The Amiga crashing or the commentary :roflmao:

That's nothing you should try listening the bugger all the time, never shuts up so he does...

[Franko]

We Interrupt This Thread To Bring You An Important News Flash...

[youtube]ylwHVczjdyQ[/youtube]

We Now Hand You Back To Your Normal Viewing...

@ Bloodline & Wawrzon

I didn't get a chance yet to try out Bloodlines ADF on one of my other miggies yet but I'll be testing it out shortly on an plain 030 & 060 A1200...

Hopefully this time it'll work and I'll let you know what the results are...

[Franko]

@ Bloodline & Wawrzon

Ok just tried to use Bloodlines ADF on the following setups but all with the same results:- Green Flash followed by a black screen, no floppy activity at all (not even a click in the floppy)...

Blizzard060/PCC 256MB RAM
Blizzard060 60Mhz 128MB RAM
Blizzard030 MKIV 50Mhz 64MB RAM
Blizzard030 MKIII 50Mhz 32MB RAM
GVP30 MKIV 50Mhz 4MB RAM
VIPER030 28Mhz 32MB RAM
MBX 1200z 4 & 8MB RAM
A1207 4 & 8 MB RAM

Thought I'd take a pic of me boards seen as I had dug them all out...

(just realised I've lost one me 4/8MB RAM boards, can't find it anywhere, how the frig can you lose a RAM Board... )