Not a happy bunny!!

[Lord Aga]

:rant: alert!

You are absolutely right. I feel for you and volunteer to take the burden of Amiga off of you. I will happily pay the postage and package costs.

Cheers !

[djos]

Well I must say how disappointed I have been with my Amiga 1200.

I'll give you $50AUD for it and it'll never disappoint you again!

[tone007]

:rant: alert!

Go play with your ST, lamer!

[Robert17]

Cor blimey everyone calm down, the guy is new and frustrated as things aren't working.

we've all been there haven't we? :-)

[itix]

:rant: alert!

Well I must say how disappointed I have been with my Amiga 1200.

I  bought it off Ebay just before Christmas 2011 and it came with a 4GB CF  Hard Drive fitted. This is my last Amiga computer EVER!

I have never used such a frustrating OS before and I fail to see why so many owners rave about them.

Admittedly I have been 'spoiled' with easy-peasy PC's for the last 15 years....but that may explain my gripes with the Amiga.

I  cannot for the life of me understand why so many of the fanboys seem to  think it's a great idea to make it such hard work to do such a simple  thing like install a new desktop replacement, such as ClassicWB, etc.  Why not make a straight forward download (or even a zip download) of it,  that can be installed from floppy/CF card direct to an Amiga, without  having to use WinUAE? Not all PC's can run WinUAE and what about if you  have used a modern mobile phone to download ClassicWB?

Why the  need for .adf/hdf files? Most modern PC's have large enough storage  space on them, that they don't need compressed files anymore.

I,  like many people, don't or can't be bothered with faffing about with  emulators, for whatever reason -- and it's not a crime not to want to  use one. If I want to download a certain program on my PC, it comes with  an EXE file that I just click and install.....Simples!!

On the  Amiga?......Oh yes, install WinUAE, find a copy of some ROM's, either  legally, or not. Then use some archaic looking decompression software to  extract the program with. What's wrong with not having to use an  emulator?! Why not not just allow a direct install to real hardware?

Amiga  fanboys remind me so much of Linux fanboys........they seem to think  that there chosen OS is the most superior in the universe and have never  considered moving with the times and making life easy for themselves.  And no, I'm not preaching that they should ditch their Amiga's for PC's.  Just that they acknowledge the Amiga as being old hat and deservedly so  and that if they want to keep the platform alive for the next  generation who fancies a bit of retro action, then at least make life  simple for them when it comes to installing stuff.

I have tried  installing AmigaSYS, ClassicWB (various versions), and MagicWB on mine  and only the latter worked satisfactory enough to use. The rest of them  had such arse about face install routines, that I gave up on them in the  end.

Only hardcore veterans use real Amiga these days. The OS is too outdated for casual user and I am not surprised you are frustrated. I would be if I had to use Amiga 1200 as a desktop again. For gaming experience it is better have vanilla Amiga 1200 or Amiga 500 and leave desktops for those few hardcore users.

[gertsy]

1992 OS Choices: Mac System 7,  Windows 3.1 on DOS or maybe OS2.  Or you could have Amiga WB3.1.  As mentioned previously you can't compare a 20YO computer and OS with today's stuff.
As for fan boys, I'm thinking you have unrealistic expectations.  I don't think N E one on this site thinks an Amiga can compete with modern kit.  Keeping the memory alive, reliving the classics, that's what it's about for me.
Look at all the people who have tried to help you in this thread....That's what amiga is about!
Go to the windows technet forums and you'll find sanctioned contributors offering mind numbingly stupid workarounds in the guise of assistance:  "Just disable power saving if your system wont come out of power save"  Ahh der !  

Sorry I'm ranting now, time for sleep.

Stick to the ZX81, you only have to push one key to get a command up!

Here's a ZX81 program I wrote for you to try out:

10 N$=","
20 PRINT "HELLO ";N$;" IM THE ZX81 WHO ARE YOU?"
30 INPUT N$
40 IF N$="LLAMAMAN" GOTO 60
50 GOTO 20
60 PRINT "HMM, I HOPE YOU DONT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM ME NOW "; N$
70 GOTO 10

Yawn......

[Cammy]

Hi Llamaman, I understand your frustration. Unfortunately AmigaSYS and ClassicWB were made by WinUAE users for WinUAE users. They require WinUAE to install them and there is no other choice. I found this pretty annoying when I wanted to try them because I don't even use Windows. I think a Workbench distribution should come as a LHA file which you can copy to a SD/CF card to put in a PCMCIA adapter and extract directly to your Amiga's partition, then boot from it.

A few online friends and I have been working on a new Workbench distribution which caters to real Amiga users, and has been built from scratch on real Amigas only. We will distribute it the way I described, as a single file which is unpacked directly to the Amiga. Once it's installed and running, you will be able to easily add new software by loading the package manager, which lists plenty of programs, utilities and games which are available, you simply select the ones you want and click and install button, the package manager takes care of downloading and installing the files for you.

I guess it might be too late now since you may not keep your Amiga, and it could be a while before our distribution is ready to release but I hope you'll try it if you still have your A1200 when we bring it out, I think you would find it easier to try.

[dreamcast270mhz]

@Cammy

So you use Amigas 100% of the time? I have to commend you, that takes some patience. The closest to a real Amiga I have nowadays is my PowerMac G4, currently on my shelf.

@OP
I completely understand, I had both a 3000 and an A1200 and I was expecting much more. But it was fun while I had them, I may pick one up again I just need TIME and MONEY. Amiga, however, was the driving force that eventually drove me to Macs, as I bought PPC macs to wait for the ports to MorphOS. I found Macs to be infinitely better than windows.

But I know you can install AmigaSYS and Amikit on Amithlon, not that I ever endeavored to try, but people have succeeded.

[commodorejohn]

Only hardcore veterans use real Amiga these days. The OS is too outdated for casual user and I am not surprised you are frustrated. I would be if I had to use Amiga 1200 as a desktop again. For gaming experience it is better have vanilla Amiga 1200 or Amiga 500 and leave desktops for those few hardcore users.

I quite disagree; the Amiga is easily the simplest computer of its era to get up and running, and hardly any more trouble than modern OSes to install. The only real issues I had were getting large files onto the system (which I could've solved by springing for a CF->PCMCIA adapter, and eventually did) and getting networking setup (which was mostly trouble because I breezed through the settings and missed some important stuff.)

That said, I do understand the OP's frustration at having to use such a roundabout method to do the initial install - even for UAE users, you'd have to think that having a functioning disk image that could just be written to a hard drive or CF card would be handy. But I hope it doesn't deter him; ClassicWB really is amazingly nice once it's on there, and there's plenty of people here who can help him through the rough spots.

A few online friends and I have been working on a new Workbench distribution which caters to real Amiga users, and has been built from scratch on real Amigas only. We will distribute it the way I described, as a single file which is unpacked directly to the Amiga. Once it's installed and running, you will be able to easily add new software by loading the package manager, which lists plenty of programs, utilities and games which are available, you simply select the ones you want and click and install button, the package manager takes care of downloading and installing the files for you.

Ooh, nifty. Looking forward to this!

[runequester]

The problem is that the classic WB packs are needlessly complex to get running. I had to set up winUAE in friggen WINE to make it work.

In the end though, it was far easier than hunting down patches and tweaks by hand, and I'd have grown old before getting SCALOS figured out and configured.

[Darrin]

The problem is that the classic WB packs are needlessly complex to get running. I had to set up winUAE in friggen WINE to make it work.

In the end though, it was far easier than hunting down patches and tweaks by hand, and I'd have grown old before getting SCALOS figured out and configured.

The ClassicWB setup is simply because they're avoiding including any files that might get them into trouble with Amiga.inc.

I agree that it is a pain in the backside at first to get ClassicWB to work, but once you have done it once or twice using WinUAE and set up a profile to re-use then it is a breeze.

[Thorham]

The ClassicWB setup is simply because they're avoiding including any files that might get them into trouble with Amiga.inc.

You should just be able to copy the original Workbench disks to a partition, and then copy ClassicWB over it. Don't see why this can't work.

[Borut]

Look at his other posts, he already sold his setup.

[billt]

I don't understand, are you complaining about a real A1200 or are you complaining about WinUAE?

If you have an A1200, what do you need WinUAE for?

If you are using WinUAE, what do you need the A1200 for?

ADF files are rips of floppies. WinUAE doesn't have an Amiga floppy drive, so you connect these ripped ADF files instead to pretend that you do have a floppy drive. ADF files contain floppy disk data.

HDF files are the hard drive equivalent of ADF, HDF files giev you a virtual hard drive. Much like VirtualBox uses VDI files that pretend to be hard drives or VMWare uses VMDK files that pretend to be hard drives.

If you have an A1200, then you have an Amiga floppy drive. What do you need ADF files for?

If you have a real 4GB CF card connected to your real IDE bus acting as a real hard drive in your A1200, what do you need an HDF file for?

I'm really sorry, but it sounds like you're jumping back and forth between two very different things, and I really don't understand the connection between them nor the reason for both.

[Azryl]

The problem is knowledge, to be a successful Amiga user you need some basic knowledge about Amiga itself...  catch22 situation.

Without this knowledge you will be frustrated because you will stumble upon problems you do not have the knowledge of the system to use correctly/install correctly. Or make assumptions about Amiga based on other OS's.

Amiga is a unique OS, so appreciate its differences more than lament them!

Simply...  do not whine or whinge to REAL Amiga users if you do not have the knowledge to use the hardware you have to its potential, and please do not have a public whine on an Amiga forums and expect too much sympathy from us

Az

[Azryl]

Look at his other posts, he already sold his setup.

Good!