Today I am taking a look at the relatively recently released AmiCygnix 1.4 update for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition on my AmigaOne X5000. Due to moving house I had to delay this blog post from December 2018 until I was set up again!
AmiCygnix is a X-windows implementation for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition that allows you to run some Unix applications under AmiCygnix (separate screen) or standalone windows within AmigaOS 4. The advantage of this is access to Unix applications that are not yet available under AmigaOS 4!
I have looked in detail at Amicygnix in the past on this blog, covering a number of versions since 2012!
I installed the last 1.3 version update on my X1000 too but didn't cover it in the blog.
It has been a number of years since it was updated, and this update in late 2018 fixes the issue introduced in AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition and updated Radeon HD drivers prevented Amicygnix working on my X1000 with a Southern Islands Radeon HD card installed.
Slightly off topic - Since my last update I have made good progress on setting up my computer rooms, with my Next Gen AmigaOne A1222, X1000 and X5000 all setup.
Here is the X5000 up and running:
I decided to try out Amicygnix on my X5000. Since it has my X1000 setup copied over, it already has AmiCygnix 1.3 installed.
I downloaded the latest AmiCygnix 1.4 from os4depot.net - the base packages is
here and the tools package is here. Once downloaded you get the drawer contents (once extracted) of the base package as below:
The installation works much the same as previous versions:
There is a installation readme that pops up to warn that you need significant space and it should be installed on a SFS2/SFS partition. In my case it is installed on SFS2 so we are good to go:
The installer picks up my previous 1.3 installation and offers to upgrade it - which of course I want to do!
I then grab a coffee while the files copy across:
Along the way it asks you to set the screen resolution for AmiCygnix. Since I am using a 1080p screen I choose 1920x1080x16:
The installer then asks for language and character set options - which I leave as default:
The installation then asks me to set the location, and automatically opens the drawer showing the countries and cities inside each:
Glad to see Australia and Adelaide are there, and I input them according to the instructions on the installer.
You also get the option to map unix Ctrl-X Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V keys to be usable under Amicygnix in addition to the usual Amiga+key combinations for cut, copy and paste functions. I choose to enable this:
I leave the next few options as per defaults:
The installer also reminds me that the MyX11Setup program allows customisation of Amicygnix from AmigaOS 4 as needed:
Some libraries needed are copied and caches and databases updated - I won't bore you with those screenshots!
With that done the installation is completed!
After a reboot, I then installed the new Amicygnix tools v1.4 package as well:
The installer works much the same:
As before, it detects my older 1.3 Amicygnix tools installation and offers to upgrade, which I do:
Eventually the installer completes:
With the installation all done, I fire up AmiCygnix using the Start_Amicygnix program in the installed drawer - I then get the main Amicygnix desktop appear as a separate screen under AmigaOS 4:
I fire up Audacious audio player to play some MP3's under Amicygnix 1.4:
I previously installed Gimp 2.6 image processor/editor/viewer and a number of other packages too, all available on os4depot for Amicygnix, which work well. Here is Gimp:
I then tested the standalone functionality of Amicygnix 1.4, by running Gnumeric as a 1024x768 window under the AmigaOS 4 Workbench screen:
You can drag the window around the AmigaOS 4 workbench as with any other window, and click inside the window to use the application running under AmiCygnix.
In Gnumeric you can save in Excel .xls format which is great as it means you can work on spreadsheets on the X5000 under Amicygnix 1.4 and then transfer easily to use on Mac or PC systems with Microsoft Office.
I look forward to the day when Libreoffice is available for AmigaOS 4 and we can do this natively, but this is still a good thing in 2019 that we can work on common Word and Excel documents with any Mac and PC owning friends!
As an aside I had to fix an issue with the X5000 when using MUI patched requesters like WinAmp, Odyssey, etc, which is related to the last version of MUI5 I installed in September 2018. It causes Grim reaper errors (which you can ignore) when opening drawers in the requesters, but getting them every time you use another program is quickly annoying. I disabled the patchasl MUI command from the s:user-startup added by the MUI installer and the issue went away. I should check if there is an MUI update to fix this...anyway, for now back to Amicygnix.
We can run Abiword under standalone mode in Amicygnix too, allowing us to edit and save Microsoft Word formatted documents under AmigaOS 4:
AmiCygnix has a start menu in the bottom left corner to launch games, utilities, applications and settings, and a taskbar for quick launch icons and running applications can be selected to switch focus as needed.
Under settings in the start menu you can customise the look and feel of Amicygnix. It is already set to mimic AmigaOS4 look and feel, but you can change this if you want to:
Of the cool features of AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition which is carried over from the Classic Amiga earlier versions is the ability to "pull down" the workbench screen from clicking and holding the left button on the title bar, revealing the other opened screens behind.
For fun I did this again with Amicygnix 1.4 running on the rear screen, and AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition on the front. For good measure the standalone Gnumeric is running as a window within AmigaOS 4 as well! Very cool, and smooth operation while doing it too:
There is a lot more to explore with Amicygnix 1.4, and many applications available for it on os4depot so please give it a try!
