Exciting but cryptic announcement for AMIX enthusiasts

[Failure]

Here's all I will say about this for now, until I know whether I should really be excited or not :-D

Code: [Select]


failure@kos-mos:~/amix_2.1/Tape_Amiga_Unix_2.1$ file 00
00: ASCII cpio archive (SVR4 with no CRC)
failure@kos-mos:~/amix_2.1/Tape_Amiga_Unix_2.1$ cat 00 | cpio -i
5 blocks
failure@kos-mos:~/amix_2.1/Tape_Amiga_Unix_2.1$ ls
00  02  04  06  08  10  12  14  16  18  20  22  24  26  28    Version
01  03  05  07  09  11  13  15  17  19  21  23  25  27  List  seglist
failure@kos-mos:~/amix_2.1/Tape_Amiga_Unix_2.1$ cat Version    
Amiga UNIX Version 2.1
failure@kos-mos:~/amix_2.1/Tape_Amiga_Unix_2.1$ cat List  
pkg=core     size=27124  name="Amiga Unix essential components"
pkg=bsd      size=3406   name="Berkeley compatiblity package"
pkg=Cdev     size=21182  name="C Development system"
pkg=lp       size=4536   name="Lp print spooler"
pkg=man      size=13702  name="On-line manual pages"
pkg=net      size=6138   name="Networking commands and daemons"
pkg=public   size=15498  name="Shareware and public domain utilities"
pkg=sysadm   size=13668  name="System administration utility"    zcat=y
pkg=terminfo size=4780   name="Support for non-Amiga terminals"
pkg=text     size=3278   name="Text processing tools"
pkg=uucp     size=1894   name="Uucp networking software"
pkg=Xcore    size=16562  name="X Window System essential components"
pkg=Xbasic   size=1536   name="X Window System basic components"
pkg=olcore   size=4774   name="Open Look"
pkg=Xtras    size=18816  name="X extras"                         zcat=y opt=y
pkg=Xdev     size=5870   name="X Window System development tools"       opt=y
pkg=oldev    size=4330   name="Open Look development tools"             opt=y
pkg=conf     size=6140   name="Kernel configuration package"            opt=y
pkg=emacs    size=15906  name="GNU Emacs editor"                 zcat=y opt=y
pkg=games    size=4726   name="Games"                                   opt=y
pkg=amigasrc size=2516   name="Amiga source code"                zcat=y opt=y
pkg=emacsrc  size=22956  name="GNU emacs source code"            zcat=y opt=y
pkg=gnusrc   size=44578  name="Other GNU source code, part 1"    zcat=y opt=y
pkg=gnusrc2  size=76224  name="Other GNU source code, part 2"    zcat=y opt=y
pkg=pubsrc   size=37782  name="Shareware and public domain source" zcat=y opt=y
pkg=Xsource  size=102364 name="X window source code - X11R4"     zcat=y opt=y
pkg=X11r5src size=127432 name="X window source code - X11R5"     zcat=y opt=y
failure@kos-mos:~/amix_2.1/Tape_Amiga_Unix_2.1$


Could be an interesting weekend here...

[mjg59]

Ooh, excellent. I don't suppose you have copies of the drivers from the Gateway! CD as well, do you?

[Matt_H]

Finally found one, I see! ;-)

[Failure]

Yes, finally found it.  A nice German visitor to the Wiki asked me some questions, and I found out he had a copy of the 2.1 tape...I helped him out with the 2.1c patch disk, and he helped me out in kind :-)

Right now I am being thwarted however, I have no working SCSI drive to hook to my Linux box to transfer the install image.  So I am going to have to yank one out of one of the 3000s :-/  Hopefully it'll be worth it.

[Failure]

More problems.  Turns out my PCI SCSI controller was bad, so I need to use an Amiga to write the image to disk.  I elected to use the AMIX box, so I started to copy the cpio file I made over only to get this message much later:

[color=0000ff]rcp: ./amix_2.1.cpio: File too large[/color]

Here is what was on the AMIX box:

[color=0000ff]# ls -l amix*
-rw-r--r--   1 failure  other    268435456 Jan 15 00:07 amix_2.1.cpio[/color]

Turns out that is precisely 256 megs.  So rather than start over I did this:

[color=0000ff]failure@kos-mos:~/amix_2.1/Tape_Amiga_Unix_2.1$ dd if=amix_2.1.cpio bs=1024k of=amix_part_2.cpio skip=256[/color]

...and I'm going to dd them onto the drive one after the other.  I hope I don't make a mistake.

[Failure]

And another reply to myself.  Installation was successful (I let it go overnight).  I think that anybody using AMIX will be very pleased with this upgrade.  Having used it a whole 15 minutes now, these are the additions I have noticed so far.

* bash shell (!!! tab completion woohoo!)
* perl4
* netnews
* sources for x11r5
* sources for gcc2.0 (default compiler still 1.4)
* audio driver present in kernel

I have also noticed that the system is more responsive under load than before, particularly during heavy network I/O.  NFS transfers seem to be taking place much faster.  Things that took nearly an hour to copy now take minutes.

I have attempted to install the 2a patch disk (brings AMIX up to the latest so-called "2.1c" revision, if I am reading Usenet correctly).  This depends on package management to be present.  I changed all the checks for packages to true in the patch script, and was able to install the software updates, but kernel compilation failed.  I am right now working on restoring the package management system so I can use the disk properly, but I am able to use the updated software just fine.

After using this for such a short time, I can already agree with the statement that 2.03 is buggy as hell in comparison to 2.1.  2.1 is indeed very pleasant so far.  Glad that a piece of history won't be lost forever.

*edit* network speed test just finished, I am getting 160KB/sec now via nfs, before it was between 50-60KB/sec.

[Dalamar]

YEY!  Trying to Download now.  Seems to be a problem with the download.

[patrik]

@Failure:

Great work making it publically available!


/Patrik

[Failure]

Thanks :-)  I've been inspired to get back to work on the wiki site as well, so I have been cleaning up things and adding new info and files lately.  Since mmhart.com is down I'm the only one left.

I'm mostly happy that AMIX did not suffer the fate of, say, Xenix, and vanish completely.  The only media that seems to be lost is the original 1.0, and 1.1.  And having used 1.1, no big loss there!

[gregthecanuck]

Wow this is pretty cool!

I have an A3000UX lurking in the closet somewhere.  I don't think it had the latest 2.1 but when I get a chance I will dig it out and see.

C= screwed up big time dropping the ball on this product.


Cheers!

[patrik]

@Failure:

Do you know what has happened to mmhart.com?


@gregthecanuck:

You might have heard this already, but it never hurts talking about it - if you haven't checked the RTC battery in your A3000UX, you better dig it up from your closet ASAP and make sure it havent leaked and started corroding the motherboard.

Here are some more information about this issue:
link 1
link 2



/Patrik

[Karlos]

Stop it all of you! Your'e making me want to try unixy stuff :-x

[Failure]

@patrik:

No, I do not know.  I looked at netcraft for an outage or if the server info changed, but uptime info wasn't available.  I sent an email to Mark inquiring as to the status of the Amiga UNIX info, but haven't received a response.

@Karlos

Do you fear the UNIX?  ;-)

[Karlos]

Failure wrote:

@Karlos

Do you fear the UNIX?  ;-)

I phear it fully! Actually used to use an old BSD back at Uni on some of the NMR hardware, but never had to tinker too much.

MacOSX's bash shell is about as close as I get to it nowadays.

[Matt_H]

Hey, is the 2.1 version of SetClock still Y2K non-compliant?