AMIX installation made easy...no tape drive!

[Failure]

I've been busy :-)

I made a new version of the install disk that allows you to select the SCSI ID and partition to get the install media from.  Now it is possible to install using only one drive!  I haven't updated the documentation yet, but it's pretty easy, basically make a partition (I recommend at the front of the drive) as FFS but do not format it.  AMIX ignores AmigaOS partitions, so it won't get zapped.  dd the cpio archive to the partition, reboot using the AMIX floppies, and tell the installer where you put it...and off it goes.  When the install finishes, you can wipe out that partition and install AmigaOS on it if you like, or use it for UNIX.  I also had the script copy cpio to the hard disk and use that for extraction, as constantly going back to the floppy for it slows the install down.

I stuck 3.1 ROMs in the 3000UX and AMIX still booted fine, so that works.  The 3000 the ROMs came out of is apart for soldering...

And LocalH (pack up the cats!) is right, the window gadgets were...weird for that 1.4 beta.  I dumped a ROM image for posterity.

Finally, I did locate dd for AmigaOS on Aminet, as dd.lzh.  So it should definitely be possible now to install AMIX using only AmigaOS to prep for it.

I'll update the docs time permitting.  I'd love to hear about someone doing this with just AmigaOS.

[Trev]

It should be possible to write s5 and UFS filesystem handlers for AmigaOS, but they would cause a conflict if BSD or Linux were installed, as they all use the UNI\? partition types to mean different things. But I think it goes like this for AMIX:

UNI\1 s5
UNI\2 swap
UNI\3 UFS

Can anyone confirm?

Does AMIX recognize SCSI CD-ROM drives on /dev? If so, it should also be possible to port and/or compile the SVR4 Filesystem Survival Kit for AMIX to provide ISO9660 support. But I'm not a UNIX guru, and I don't know how AMIX handles kernel changes.

EDIT: I may be way off on my s5/UFS talk. I'm just going on what I've read here and there. I haven't actually used AMIX. ;-)

Trev

[Dalamar]

YEY!  I have Amix 2.03 running on my A3000 using your guide Failure.  Fantastic.  I created the "Tape" image on the hard drive from Amiga OS, and I'll write up what I did.  Thanks for you efforts on this.  Now to find more stuff to load on it.  Look forward to hearing from me Soon(tm).   :-D

[odin]

Just curious, are there any actual differences between a bogstandard 3000 and a 3000UX :-? (apart from a decal on the case and the tape drive).

[Dalamar]

any actual differences between a bogstandard 3000 and a 3000UX

nope

[Dalamar]

So for the Amiga OS install here is what I did:

Started with:
-two blank Harddisks in the system, each 2GB
-CDROM containing the extracted cpio files, floppy images, and dd utility for AmigaOS from Aminet
-AmigaOS 3.9 Emergency Boot Floppy for this system

I booted the system with the Emergency Floppy and put the CD of the AMIX source files in the drive.  I followed the instructions on Failure's site to create partitions.  I then copied the files to the first harddisk (SCSI 0) and replaced the AmigaOS3.9 CDROM when it was complete.  Ran Shell and changed to the folder where the files were copied to and ran:

dd -c145834496b -wCDH0 amix-2.03.cpio

I went somewhere else for 2 hours while the raw write hit the CDH0 drive (SCSI 1, the "Tape" for the install of AMIX in my system).  When this was complete I used transdisk to write the two floppy images from Failure's web site.

I followed the install instructions on the web site and it worked great!  I will say that my root file system is on a 1GB partition and I know Failure reported it didn't boot on his with a 1.3GB partition.  The 1GB boots.  The root file system installed on SCSI 0 disk which is the same disk that I copied the files to temporarily during the raw write phase.  I allowed AMIX to overwrite all the data on that disk.  

I'm happy.  I've been trying to get this loaded for months.  Many thanks again Failure! :-D

[MrZammler]

Damn, Amix is way cool, but that would mean I have to get rid of the cyberstorm 040 (wont boot on it, right?) and the 128MB of ram on it... So, I'll stick with NetBSD on that miggy for the time being, unless I can get my hands on another A3000...

[Failure]

Congratulations Dalamar, I am very happy that this can be accomplished with AmigaOS :-)

Someone had requested pics of X running...getting xdm going was tricky/archaic.  Once I figured out what was wrong, finding the solution didn't take too terribly long.  But look at this user-friendly way to enable xdm:

pmadm -d -p screens -s con10
sacadm -a -p xdm -t xdm -v1 -c /usr/X/bin/xdm

pmadm is "port monitor" admin tool...I found a lot of posts from bitter Solaris users about this gem.  sacadm, couldn't tell you.  In addition, the /usr/X/lib/xdm/Xsession file was not set executable, so logins would give you a crappy xterm and no window management.  Making the file executable got twm going, but without the never-gonna-find-one-A2410 card the display is so small, and in 1-bit color, so that the experience is fairly "meh".

Behold the xdm login screen in all its 1-bit glory:

Ta-daah!

Yeah not so exciting.  But this is X, so we don't have to be limited by that video hardware since we have the network.

xdm in 24 bit color!

Well, that's only really 4 colors but it *could* be displaying millions if it really wanted to!  That's an X server on a Linux box talking to the xdm on the Amiga.  I was actually surprised how responsive this was.  For graphical applications (to use the term loosely, I'm talking about xeyes here) the network was faster at rendering than on the Amiga locally.

X session over the network

For some reason applications that generate color do not display at all, but color is working since I set the background color in AMIX and you can see the windows are a different color.  I think it might work if I run at 8-bit depth.  I had similar problems with old Solaris apps.

Fun stuff.  You have to respect open standards like X11.  These two machines talking to each other, it would be like Windows 3.11 displaying applications natively on a Windows Server 2003 machine, in terms of the age difference.

[Dalamar]

Thanks for your work on making this go.  X is my next project.  It's been quite some time since I made X work the "manual" way.  I must admit I'm confused that X can only display 1 bit color given the builtin Amiga graphics.  I would think it would be capable of more, but then again I'm not an expert in AMIX.  

Have you tried to upgrade the C compiler?  I'm trying to find a build of PERL to put on there and I think a newer compiler might be a good idea.

[Failure]

Yeah I am trying to go about that now.  I had to get the screen utility first so that I can log out during the few days this process is likely to take ;-)  Screen didn't compile under 1.1 but it did fine with 2.03, happily.  There is actually one included with AMIX but it doesn't work, at least from a telnet session.

I figure on attempting gcc 2.95-ish since that is widely regarded as "stable", and if that works maybe try the 3.x.x.  I wonder though if I have enough HD space, I might need to reinstall on that 4GB drive with the 1GB partition that you found works.

Matt_H gave me some more info to chew on regarding installation from AmigaOS, including a possibly easier dd alternative.  Maybe he will chime in later :-)

For now I am considering creating some kind of mechanism on the AMIX site to prevent duplication of effort on compiling things, since it takes such a long time on these machines.  Not sure what to do yet.  But I made a new file gallery and stuck screen in there, pre-compiled.

*edit* it goes without saying, but really don't forget to strip the binaries...it shaved 1.4MB off of screen, which goes a long way with 8MB memory!

[Matt_H]

*Chime*

Here follows my massive AMIX install report.

Main Hardware:
Amiga 3000, 030/16MHz+881
1.4 BootROMs, Kickstart 2.04 on hard drive
2MB Chip, 12MB Fast
~1GB Fujitsu hard drive
a whole mess of external SCSI devices

Support Hardware:
Amiga 1200 060/50 w/ SCSI Kit
3.1 ROMs
2MB Chip, 96MB Fast
Q-Drive CD-ROM Drive

Software:
Clean install of Workbench2.1 + DOpus 4.11
Replaced 2.1 HDToolbox with one from 3.1

Following Failure's report of a working AMIX box, I was inspired to bring the spare A3000 that had been sitting in my basement into service again. My initial search for information came from the mmhart site. I downloaded various sets of boot disks, tape images, and the AMIX manuals.

Reading further, I discovered that this would be a lot harder than I thought. I decided to put the software aside for a while, and familiarize myself with UNIX a bit more. I started reading the manuals. Thankfully, they contained information about a possible default partition table.

AMIX's rdb program for repartitioning the drive looked very intimidating to a non-UNIX user like myself, so I decided to take care of partitioning under AmigaOS. The HDToolbox that shipped with 3.1 thankfully has a preset filesystem option for UNIX (UNI\01). From the start of the drive, I created a 449MB Unix_Root partition, an 18MB Unix_Swap partition, and a 10MB Unix_Boot partition. I then added a 40MB WB_2.x partition, and a 512MB Work partition.

I decided to boot up the floppy images from the mmhart site. They worked, but of course would not do anything without a tape drive. I read more and more information from Usenet, and the possibilities of getting AMIX installed with my hardware seemed to dim.

I tried writing a kernal image to Unix_Boot with dd, but ended up destroying the RDB. Thankfully, putting the exact same settings back into HDToolbox restored my data. Having to reinstall AmigaOS wouldn't have been terrible, but it would have been annoying.

Then Failure reappeared on the scene with the shiny, new, single-file install image. Hooray! I broke out a spare SCSI hard drive, and wrote the image to it. Or rather, I tried. Something about this drive caused the 1200 to hang, so I don't even know if the image was successfully written. No problem, I said; I'll just use a cartridge drive.

Unfortunately, the install image was juuuuuust slightly too big for my SyQuest 135 drive. I found a Nomai 750 drive to use, but due to some SCSI cabling issues, I had to daisy-chain it off the SyQuest.

I connected the SCSI chain to the 1200. While browsing around the Gateway! CDs earlier, I came across a raw-write program called dcp, with the same functionality of dd, plus a few more perks, and a lot more user-friendliness. I had it write the image to 1230scsi.device, unit 1. It didn't work, saying I didn't specify a unit number. Ah, clearly I did, so there must have been a bug in the program. Thankfully, it's also bundled in bffs.lha (a filesystem to read UNIX drives on an Amiga) on Aminet, and at a higher version. New version worked perfectly. I connected the SCSI chain to the 3000, and booted from the install disks.

And the installer hung when it tried to read what devices were on the SCSI bus. Several hours later, after declaring that the problem could not possibly be a termination issue, I threw a switch on the drive to disable synchronous transfers, and I finally was back in business. Note that before throwing the switch, ENABLING synchronous transfers using SCSI Prefs under AmigaOS, did not help.

Finally I was ready to boot. I selected my install media drive, and the drive to install to. The installer found my partition table, pronounced it usable, and started chugging away. And failed. I tried again. And failed. I rewrote the image to the Nomai, and THEN it worked. Apparently I had accidentally clobbered it while fiddling with HDToolbox.

It finished installing sometime later and told me to reboot. So I did - to a purple "Insert Workbench Disk" screen. Throwing in a SuperKickstart disk allowed me to reach 2.04's Early Boot Menu. My hard drive had vanished. I powered down, disconnected the external SCSI chain, and tried again. Back in business.

The AMIX post-install completed nicely, but the install script's clock-setter choked on a >2000 year, and set the date to 1970. Thankfully the normal clock command is Y2K compliant. The script also asked me about network settings and node names. I don't have a network card for the 3000, so figured it didn't matter too much what I filled in for these values. It also offered to create user and guest accounts for me, a welcome addition, since the AMIX manuals only mention how to add users manually, and as a UNIX beginner, I wasn't looking forward to that. These same scripts can also be run again later to easily change settings.

So the system is up, though I get a strange "date: bad conversion" reminder whenever the system boots. Very odd, though it doesn't seem to have any ill effects that I can notice.

I also got BFFS going today, which allows the Amiga side to play with UNIX partitions. If you've installed AMIX or dealt with UNIX before, you'll definitely be able to configure BFFS. Don't change the filesystem identifier, though. It doesn't work. For the record, I installed AMIX with ufs, I don't know how well BFFS works with the s5 filesystem. The readme says it should, but it's not really tested.

As a final note, no, I did not get AMIX installed using only one system, though I did get it going with only one platform :-). With a slightly more up to spec 3000 (3.1 ROMs, 030/25+882, 16MB Fast, internet access), this could easily be done on one machine.
Thanks to Failure's updated (v2) Install floppies, at this point I could now dump the AMIX image to a spare partition on the 3000's drive (thinking of reducing Work:, as I already have primary and secondary Amigas and probably won't need the space here). That'll make reinstalling VERY easy if the need arises. I've broken several Linux installs to a level beyond my expertise to fix in the past, so it's only a matter of time before I mess up AMIX. ;-)

[Dalamar]

Very nice Matt_H,

I'm doing a reinstall now to test a theory (which I'll keep to myself until it works :-) ) but I just wanted to *ring* in and say that I tried the v2 method and made a BIG mess.  Be cautious.   :-o

[LocalH]

I just want to say very good work on the part of all of those involved - I can remember when the only info one could find on AMIX, was a JPG photograph of the install media, and nowhere was there a dumped version available.

Then, I (as did many others) came across mmhart's site, which was the first place I actually saw AMIX for download. And now, we actually have people who have gotten it installed. Perhaps if I can get my A3000 to recognize all its RAM (right now it only sees it's 1MB chip, none of the fast), I'll attempt to get this stuff set up. Too bad that X doesn't seem to support more than 1-bit color (as I am completely unfamiliar with non-XF86 X servers, I would have no idea where the equivalent of XF86Config is located). Still, this is quite interesting. I wonder if that MMU-enabled version of UAE might be sufficient to install it...unlikely, but who knows.

Once again, congrats to all, you're preserving history, and I applaud you for it.

A question - has anyone tried to see if standard SCSI CD-ROM drives work, either for use as an install medium (unlikely, I would think), or simply after a successful install?

[Dalamar]

Just to share, I installed on a 2GB root partition and it works.  I'll post my configs later.

[Failure]

gcc 3.4 series will be the last that possibly compiles on AMIX:

http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-3.4/changes.html#obsolete_systems

:-(

Struggling to get 2.95 compiled; the version of make with AMIX segfaults and dumps core so I am trying to get a newer version of make compiled.  It's like a kind of version hop-scotch here.

*edit* got GNU make 3.70 to compile (none newer I tried would compile), and it handles the gcc makefile...it's on its way...

*edit2* gcc 2.4.5 compiled, is now compiling itself again :-)

[Matt_H]

Update on the clock issues mentioned in my report:

AMIX is not setting the clock correctly. I booted into the Amiga side yesterday and found the hardware clock set to 3:00AM in 2010:-o. Apparently the "date: bad conversion" error is more serious than I thought.

I rebooted into AMIX today and found the clock set to 5 minutes before midnight yesterday (If that makes sense...). From what I can tell, date is executed (incorrectly) in the AMIX equivalent of the startup-sequence (before the login prompt appears), though I don't know what that file is.

The other possibility is that AMIX is a lot more sensitive to a bad clock battery than AmigaOS is. As mentioned in another thread, my A3000 battery is near-death (keeping an eye on it in case it starts leaking), and I'll be replacing it shortly. Hopefully a few problems will resolve themselves.