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Author Topic: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)  (Read 3433 times)

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Offline SACC-guy

Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #14 on: October 28, 2017, 10:16:17 PM »
Quote from: wawrzon;832292
i have set up amiga emulation on every system i use, inclusive the laptop im currently posting from. it isnt complicated at all. and it is free, just take winuae for windows and fs-use for linux. i even tend to use fs-uae under a linux vr to have direct access to my development builds from the emulation.

also setting up the software should be no brainer. you can copy your working setup over, just watch for things like the correct cpu libs in case of 040/060. as i usually use aros anyway, i literally do not have any problem to set up amiga anywhere. i just decompress aros iso to a directory that is used as system drive by uae, edit one or two lines of scripts, and fire it up, optionally adjusting few settings.
I still stand by my statement.. for me this is a good idea

As I am less gifted than you.

Maybe you should write up a real step by step on how to do this as you described.
With the "scripts" completely written out.

Just to help us who don't have your knowledge.

Thanks in advance
 

Offline bison

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Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #15 on: October 28, 2017, 11:54:24 PM »
Quote from: kolla;832293
I always thought much of the appeal of AmigaOS was that it is small and easy wrap your head around, so anyone can install it and configure it to their hearts will :)

I bought AmKit out of curiosity, but sadly, after having tried to use it for some time, I realised it takes away everything I like about AmigaOS and leaves me with the same type of frustrations that I have when someone puts me in front of Windows, so... I dropped it.


I've used UAE and its descendants a lot, but not AmiKit, so please expound on this -- what is frustrating about the experience?
"Unix is supposed to fix that." -- Jay Miner
 

Offline Oldsmobile_Mike

Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #16 on: October 29, 2017, 01:28:50 AM »
Quote from: kolla;832293
I bought AmKit out of curiosity, but sadly, after having tried to use it for some time, I realised it takes away everything I like about AmigaOS

+1  From what I've seen, it looks and acts absolutely nothing like the "AmigaOS of yore".  :(
Amiga 500: 2MB Chip|16MB Fast|30MHz 68030+68882|3.9|Indivision ECS|GVP A500HD+|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|Cocolino|SCSI DVD-RAM
Amiga 2000: 2MB Chip|136MB Fast|50MHz 68060|3.9|Indivision ECS + GVP Spectrum|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|AD516|X-Surf 100|RapidRoad|Cocolino|SCSI CD-RW
 Amiga videos and other misc. stuff at https://www.youtube.com/CompTechMike/videos
 

Offline SACC-guy

Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #17 on: October 29, 2017, 02:01:09 AM »
Quote from: Oldsmobile_Mike;832326
+1  From what I've seen, it looks and acts absolutely nothing like the "AmigaOS of yore".  :(
You are thinking of Amiga forever. (classic in my eyes)

Amikit has all the eye candy. (NG)
 

Offline IanP

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Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #18 on: October 29, 2017, 10:16:29 AM »
The first portable machine I owned was a Linux netbook. I found Linux a pain to configure and maintain. This was replaced by a dual boot Windows 7/Android netbook, the Android environment was rarely used as again it would have taken time to install and keep apps up to date. Now I have a Windows 10 Laptop with WinUAE. A Laptop with Windows, Linux, AmigaOS 4 and a classic Amiga environment with the associated emulation, configuration and enhancement software sounds like a nightmare. I don't follow OS 4 development closely so I don't know if updates are frequent but just Windows updates are frustrating enough.
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #19 on: October 29, 2017, 12:23:06 PM »
Quote from: SACC-guy;832317
Maybe you should write up a real step by step on how to do this as you described.
With the "scripts" completely written out.

i have done it repeatedly for everyone seriously interested. its trivial. to run aros on your amiga computer drcompress nightly to your boot partition and edit the s-s adding at the beginning:
arosbootstrap boot/amiga/aros.hunk.gz

and optionally appending the p96 drivers along with paths in this line just behind, juts like that:
cirrusgd542x.chip picassoii.card

simple. isnt it?
 

Offline cgutjahr

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Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #20 on: October 29, 2017, 12:52:54 PM »
Quote from: wawrzon;832333
simple. isnt it?

So is mowing your lawn or walking your dog - yet some people chose to pay a neighbour's kid to do that for them.

I don't see the point of this discussion? I'd never pay for a product like that, for the same reason you wouldn't. But I understand some people are simply not interested (anymore) in figuring out low-level computer setup problems. We're all getting older - and computers are mostly plug-and-play these days.

It would be more useful to give this a good review, so everybody who's about to pay hundreds of dollars for a novelty knows what he's getting into.

The 'rabbit hole' functionality is completely useless for everyday tasks, for example. As somebody already mentioned, it's not ALICE specific - and it was never meant to be used like that. Note that all of the promotional videos are carefully constructed to hide this problem: Most likely, you can only run one Linux application - and it will always be the top window, you can't really switch back to an AmigaOS program while the Linux app is still running. So it's basically "open Firefox, watch a website, close Firefox, run Wordworth". Maybe they found a way around that, but their promotional videos seem to suggest otherwise.

Also, Ken seems to have given a honest run-down of the product at Amiwest - including its drawbacks. Apparently, there's a reason ALICE comes with an emergency boot stick. I didn't see the presentation, but from what little I heard Windows overwrites parts of the harddisk occasionally, making the entire setup unusable. The user then has to rewrite the HD (or the Linux/Amiga parts? no idea) using the emergency boot stick. Not my idea of a "consumer grade product that adds an edge of professionalism and seamlessness", as BozzerBigD put it.
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #21 on: October 29, 2017, 01:20:34 PM »
Quote from: cgutjahr;832334
So is mowing your lawn or walking your dog - yet some people chose to pay a neighbour's kid to do that for them.


if you bought a dog only to have some neighbour kid to walk it out, then i think you money might have been better spent.
 

Offline psxphill

Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #22 on: October 29, 2017, 01:24:39 PM »
Quote from: wawrzon;832335
if you bought a dog only to have some neighbour kid to walk it out, then i think you money might have been better spent.

Yeah, we should charge them for the privilege of walking it, because that is the only reason to own one.

Also why buy a million pound mansion if you're just going to pay someone to clean it.
« Last Edit: October 29, 2017, 01:27:06 PM by psxphill »
 

Offline SACC-guy

Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #23 on: October 29, 2017, 06:15:26 PM »
Quote from: wawrzon;832333
i have done it repeatedly for everyone seriously interested. its trivial. to run aros on your amiga computer drcompress nightly to your boot partition and edit the s-s adding at the beginning:
arosbootstrap boot/amiga/aros.hunk.gz

and optionally appending the p96 drivers along with paths in this line just behind, juts like that:
cirrusgd542x.chip picassoii.card

simple. isnt it?
Now I'm really confused...
Why did you say to run on your amiga, I thought we were talking about ALICE (a pc )?
edit the s-s, You mean startup- sequence?
why would I add picasso96, I already have this on my amiga

Again, I thought this was for how to setup a pc laptop to run win/linux/3.1/4.1 maybe AmiKIt or Amiga forever

No, not so simple!

BTW, I don't have a dog
 

Offline SACC-guy

Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #24 on: October 29, 2017, 06:46:53 PM »
Quote from: cgutjahr;832334

It would be more useful to give this a good review, so everybody who's about to pay hundreds of dollars for a novelty knows what he's getting into.

The 'rabbit hole' functionality is completely useless for everyday tasks, for example. As somebody already mentioned, it's not ALICE specific - and it was never meant to be used like that. Note that all of the promotional videos are carefully constructed to hide this problem: Most likely, you can only run one Linux application - and it will always be the top window, you can't really switch back to an AmigaOS program while the Linux app is still running. So it's basically "open Firefox, watch a website, close Firefox, run Wordworth". Maybe they found a way around that, but their promotional videos seem to suggest otherwise.

Also, Ken seems to have given a honest run-down of the product at Amiwest - including its drawbacks. Apparently, there's a reason ALICE comes with an emergency boot stick. I didn't see the presentation, but from what little I heard Windows overwrites parts of the harddisk occasionally, making the entire setup unusable. The user then has to rewrite the HD (or the Linux/Amiga parts? no idea) using the emergency boot stick. Not my idea of a "consumer grade product that adds an edge of professionalism and seamlessness", as BozzerBigD put it.
I would like to read your complete review.
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #25 on: October 29, 2017, 08:07:53 PM »
Quote from: SACC-guy;832353
Now I'm really confused...

BTW, I don't have a dog


alright. its a waste of time, go, get your alice laptop.
 

Offline EugeneNine

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Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #26 on: October 29, 2017, 08:37:14 PM »
Quote from: cgutjahr;832334


Also, Ken seems to have given a honest run-down of the product at Amiwest - including its drawbacks. Apparently, there's a reason ALICE comes with an emergency boot stick. I didn't see the presentation, but from what little I heard Windows overwrites parts of the harddisk occasionally, making the entire setup unusable. The user then has to rewrite the HD (or the Linux/Amiga parts? no idea) using the emergency boot stick. Not my idea of a "consumer grade product that adds an edge of professionalism and seamlessness", as BozzerBigD put it.

Why does it have windows and Linux on it, whats the point?
 

Offline cgutjahr

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Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #27 on: October 29, 2017, 09:19:08 PM »
Quote from: EugeneNine;832370
Why does it have windows and Linux on it, whats the point?

Well, it needs to have one of these as the underlying (hidden) OS running UAE anyway - they probably chose Linux for that job, since it's a lot more configurable.

But to get stuff done - which is sort of the whole point with a brand new notebook - you can't solely rely on AmigaOS these days, so they also had to include a more "modern" option. Since Linux users aren't exactly the target group for this kind of product, it makes sense to also include Windows, doesn't it?

(note that "makes sense" refers to their point of view, obviously. Personally, I think admitting that you have to use some other OS to get actual work done and then offering a system that has a "boot into an AmigaOS only environment" option is kind of weird)
 

Offline SACC-guy

Re: Unboxing A.L.I.C.E. (A Laptop Incorporating a Classic Experience)
« Reply #28 from previous page: October 29, 2017, 09:38:41 PM »
Quote from: wawrzon;832365
alright. its a waste of time, go, get your alice laptop.
Thanks,
You could have just said..
I don't wish to share my knowledge with you.

Wait! That's what you said!

Maybe someone else can step up to help?