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

[bloodline]

Tried all sorts of things, waiting for up to 5 minutes, being as quick as possible taking the floppy out, inserting another bootable floppy as quickly as possible, tested it using two different A1200 motherboard revisions, tried it with 3.0 & 3.1 ROMS...

Strange thing is there is no sign of life on the floppy drive at all (ie: no lights or even the faintest of motor sounds or clicking noises) just the green flash then nothing... :confused:

I'll upload a newer build for you later.

[Fats]

@ 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)...

Which file systems are loaded from the boot disk ? Some seem to cause problems for AROS.

greets,
Staf.

[Tripitaka]

IMHO any question should qualify the terms used in the question first.
If I asked you all for example "Do you believe in God? " I would expect a different reply depending upon how I defined the word "God". If I said "Do you believe in a giant man who sits on a cloud?" or "Do you believe in a conscious universe?" for example.
This being the case, I ask, what do you mean by "forward"? and how are you defining "Amiga"?
Tell me this and I can give you an opinion, until then I say PANCAKES!

[Iggy]

IMHO any question should qualify the terms used in the question first.
If I asked you all for example "Do you believe in God? " I would expect a different reply depending upon how I defined the word "God". If I said "Do you believe in a giant man who sits on a cloud?" or "Do you believe in a conscious universe?" for example.
This being the case, I ask, what do you mean by "forward"? and how are you defining "Amiga"?
Tell me this and I can give you an opinion, until then I say PANCAKES!

VERY well put (I believe in a conscious universe). Frankly, i don't see one way forward. I'm glad there is a multiplicity of choices.

[NovaCoder]

@aros supporters:
now, that aros unquestionably leads the way (at least on this site) how about to factually support the development where possible? im talking about testing and contributing, whatever you can think of. would be great to have it somewhere along the way to where mos currently is.

This is quite funny really; most people here seem to feel the same way that I do on this subject but don't actually feel compelled to jump onboard the AROS bandwagon for some reason.

Or maybe only AROS user's like voting in polls?

[Franko]

I'll upload a newer build for you later.

Cheers Bloodline that would be much appreciated if you get the chance...

[Franko]

Which file systems are loaded from the boot disk ? Some seem to cause problems for AROS.

greets,
Staf.

On most of my Amigas it would be FastFileSystem V45 & SFS that are stored on the RDB...

But that doesn't seem to be the problem as the same thing happens when tested with Amigas with no HD connected...

[Franko]

IMHO any question should qualify the terms used in the question first.
If I asked you all for example "Do you believe in God? " I would expect a different reply depending upon how I defined the word "God". If I said "Do you believe in a giant man who sits on a cloud?" or "Do you believe in a conscious universe?" for example.
This being the case, I ask, what do you mean by "forward"? and how are you defining "Amiga"?
Tell me this and I can give you an opinion, until then I say PANCAKES!

Nah... it was a simple enough question really...

I leave talking about this Gawd geezer, thingy, wotsit for the Coffee House as he/it seems to pop in there quite often...

As for "forward" read "future"...

As for "Amiga" read "Whatever you consider to be an Amiga"...

As for "PANCAKES" then that'll do nicely...

[HotRod]

The problem with AROS is lack of so many things. There isn't enough software. The looks aren't very slick at all, it feels more like OS 3.9 than a NG AmigaOS. Offcourse no way to run old software other than through UAE, at least with icaros there are folders, within folders, within folders to find an application.

I think that they got a long way to go before it will be good enough to compete with AOS or MOS.

Also different kind of icons everywhere makes it feel like something that was put together with bits and pieces from everywhere. It feels like a bad Linux distro.

[Franko]

The problem with AROS is lack of so many things. There isn't enough software. The looks aren't very slick at all, it feels more like OS 3.9 than a NG AmigaOS. Offcourse no way to run old software other than through UAE, at least with icaros there are folders, within folders, within folders to find an application.

I think that they got a long way to go before it will be good enough to compete with AOS or MOS.

Also different kind of icons everywhere makes it feel like something that was put together with bits and pieces from everywhere. It feels like a bad Linux distro.

Erm... I'm getting right confused here... :confused:

I was under the impression that I have simply been trying to get AROS to work on my Amiga's and it was nothing more than basically a ROM image file to replace the Amiga's real ROM into fast memory... :confused:

So if it is meant to be just that then why would It need to run UAE (as this would make the whole thing pointless on a real Amiga), I thought the whole point of AROS was to replace the original Amiga Kickstart ROM with a version that is copyright free and freely distributable and not some totally different version of the Amiga's OS like OS4 and MorphOS are...

If AROS 68k is going to be like OS4 or MorphOS then I think I'll give it a miss as I don't want my Amiga's looking like either of them... :confused:

[wawrzon]

aros 68k is going to be/is binary compatible, any other aros platform - certainly not. (transparent) emulation would have to be used (which is in works as far as i understand) which is exactly how mos and os4 dealt with it.
@franko: so there is no need for uae on aros68k of course. that wouldnt make sense.
@hotrod: whats wrong with os3.1 as base? i dont see that much that os 3.5-3.9 added to that, except some minor functionality that aros provides nevertheless and some ugly icons. besides the looks of os4 are not that much better too, the icons and the default skin especially. and the functionality of its workbench reminds me of the times of 3.x as well. not that it was sooo bad.

[hardwired]

Erm... I'm getting right confused here... :confused:

I was under the impression that I have simply been trying to get AROS to work on my Amiga's and it was nothing more than basically a ROM image file to replace the Amiga's real ROM into fast memory... :confused:

So if it is meant to be just that then why would It need to run UAE (as this would make the whole thing pointless on a real Amiga), I thought the whole point of AROS was to replace the original Amiga Kickstart ROM with a version that is copyright free and freely distributable and not some totally different version of the Amiga's OS like OS4 and MorphOS are...

If AROS 68k is going to be like OS4 or MorphOS then I think I'll give it a miss as I don't want my Amiga's looking like either of them... :confused:

@Franko

AROS is an AMIGA LIKE NG-OS for any platform - it's not an AmigaOS 3.9  or AmigaOS 4.x - it's a more modern rendition of AmigaOS 3.1 but with  support for standard modern hardware straight from the box and not  requiring multi-patches.
It was always the plan to bring it to the Amiga original hardware as a  replacement of the ROM and OS, but keeping binary compatibility - So it  will replace the kickstart and that should be enough.
That's how it currently works, and that's how it will be for Classic  Amiga HW.
Running E-UAE does not make much sense, and I can't see where would you get that idea!... Only if you wished to run very specific software (very tied to one specific processor/ROM/custom chip) from OS. Even then there's whdload which is reported to work (AFAIK)...


I've only run on WinUAE, and I have to say that it works wonderfully.  Never run on Amiga HW directly (none of my A1200 or A4000 are working),  but reports have been made, and work is being done to get it working on  all possibilities and at a decent performance - right now, AFAIK, it's  not brilliant but it's getting there.

As for the future, Classic hardware will perish (simple fact of life),  but other architectures will exist and hopefully AROS will embrace most  of them.
Maybe someone will add support for PPC cards for Amiga Classic hw, but  even these are very few, and not produced any more - so not much life  expectancy there (except if someone starts producing PPC accelerator  cards in the near future)...

Natami is the only project with some interesting prospects, but even  this has to fill its niche and then time will tell about it's evolution.

AROS is not tied to PPC or 68k or even X86... that's a good IMO - Other  options are tied to what seem dead platforms architecture.

[Franko]

@ Wawrzon & Hardwired

I thought so, it gets a wee bit confusing though when folk start talking of AROS & UAE together (I have to keep in mind that my main/only interest in AROS is on the 68k side of things)...

Having disassembled the real 3.1 ROMS years ago and modifying them for my own use it became clear to me that although the code in them was pretty efficient there was still quite a bit of scope left in them to be optimised a touch further...

For example there a couple of hundred lines of code in the 3.1 ROMS like these...

$f8e00 bra.l $f8e04
$f8e04 rts

or

$f8e00 bra.s $f8e02
$f8e02 rts

Now by simply changing all of these bra.l & bra.s to rts, then the cumulative effect (all be it in milliseconds) produces a very slight speed increase in the day to day execution of the ROMS routines (as SysInfo verifies) but just changing these also leave the the ROM 100% backward compatible...

There are other things I've changed in the ROMS I use including some patched with BlizzKick modules which all lead to an overall system speed increase when using ROM images and every bit of extra speed you can squeeze out of any Amiga system can only be a good thing...

But I believe AROS 68k is more aimed at producing a copyright free ROM image and adding/updating extra features into the ROM image that although this might not make it 100% compatible with all old programs/ games that make direct calls to specific ROM addresses the simple fact that it will be copyright free and may include improved/new features make it a very worthwhile way forward indeed especially for the like of the NatAmi which I really hope make it into production...

[smerf]

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:

Hi,

@Franko,

Well Franko old friend, have you tried to talk to today's youth, ever ask them if they heard of an Amiga, well 1 out of 10 remembers it, the other 9 says I thought it was some Spanish word, and didn't have a clue.

Now if we take all this new info and examine it, that is why people who use PC's give it long file names. The other 90% do it because if you remember back in the old days when the PC's had 8 character file names with 3 character identification files, we always told them to upgrade their file names,

Well payback is a MF

smerf

[bloodline]

@Franko

Yeah, on a Real Amiga (tm) AROS is simply a free Kickstart replacement. That is Toni's (one of the two key AROS68k developers) aim.

If one wishes, then they can use AROS's extra features, but that is optional, and I expect most users of AROS68k will just use it as a free alternative to the old Commodore ROMs.

Feel free to download the AROS sources and build yourself a custom Kickstart to suit your own needs.

The issue we need to workout now is, why doesn't it boot your machine?

You have AGA.
You have 020.
You have 4+Meg of fast RAM.

I can't see why your machine doesn't work... Are you using an Amiga International or a Commodore A1200?

[Kesa]

@ Wawrzon & Hardwired

I thought so, it gets a wee bit confusing though when folk start talking of AROS & UAE together (I have to keep in mind that my main/only interest in AROS is on the 68k side of things)...

Having disassembled the real 3.1 ROMS years ago and modifying them for my own use it became clear to me that although the code in them was pretty efficient there was still quite a bit of scope left in them to be optimised a touch further...

For example there a couple of hundred lines of code in the 3.1 ROMS like these...

$f8e00 bra.l $f8e04
$f8e04 rts

or

$f8e00 bra.s $f8e02
$f8e02 rts

Now by simply changing all of these bra.l & bra.s to rts, then the cumulative effect (all be it in milliseconds) produces a very slight speed increase in the day to day execution of the ROMS routines (as SysInfo verifies) but just changing these also leave the the ROM 100% backward compatible...

There are other things I've changed in the ROMS I use including some patched with BlizzKick modules which all lead to an overall system speed increase when using ROM images and every bit of extra speed you can squeeze out of any Amiga system can only be a good thing...

But I believe AROS 68k is more aimed at producing a copyright free ROM image and adding/updating extra features into the ROM image that although this might not make it 100% compatible with all old programs/ games that make direct calls to specific ROM addresses the simple fact that it will be copyright free and may include improved/new features make it a very worthwhile way forward indeed especially for the like of the NatAmi which I really hope make it into production...

Whinge, Whinge, Whinge.

If your so smart Franko maybe you could make your own and show them how to do it properly?