AROS Vision on Amiga 4000T Part 1

It occurred to me that I have not yet tried AROS Vision 68k on my Amiga 4000T, and with the announcement of an updated version recently I thought I would give it a go!

Currently AROS Vision 68k has two versions for Real Amiga systems - a PAL barebones version, and an RTG version for 060 Amiga systems like my Amiga 4000T. The website to download them from is here.

Here is the contents of the AROS Vision PAL barebones archive:

Logically though I wanted to try the RTG version, which was 1.6GB archive and almost 2.6GB when uncompressed as it included a lot of software in it already configured for use in AROS Vision and apparently supports Mediator PCI cards too. This appealed to my Australian laziness gene :-)

To use this RTG version of course meant I needed to have a 4GB partition for it.

Given I installed Amikit Real 8.5 on a MicroSD card in the Amiga 4000T recently (Part 1, Part 2, Final), I thought it made good sense to use a new 4GB MicroSD card in my IDE to SD Card converter for the test, removing the AmiKit setup temporarily so I could try it out.

This means I needed to prep a new 4GB MicroSD card in the Amiga 4000T for use by AROS Vision. So I fired up my older AmigaSYS4 OS3.9 build on the 127GB IDE hard disk still in my Amiga 4000T so I could do this.

I ran HDToolbox, which picked up the 4GB MicroSD card ready to prepare the RDB for it:

I didn't need to modify the detected size, so I installed the disk, with the obligatory warning of course:

HDToolbox then auto partitions the MicroSD into 3 partitions as below:

I blew this away and started fresh with one 3.6GB partition using all the disk, calling it AROS0:

I then went into Add/Update to add the SmartFileSystem to the RDB for the MicroSD card:

Now I have the Smartfilesystem (SFS) partition support on the MicroSD RDB.

I could then modify the partition AROS0 from Fast File System (International) - called Standard File System in the dialog box below) to use CFS\00 which is SFS, and adjusted the block size to 512 as recommended:

Changed and ready to save:

The warnings about destroying the existing partitions comes up of course:

I then had to reboot:

After the reboot I then got the uninitialised AROS0 ready for formatting:

I quickly formatted the disk and labelled it AROS:

The formatted disk ready:

I copied the AROS Vision RTG archive zip to a USB stick and unzipped from the usb stick directly to the new AROS partition using the shell:

This took a long time. I let it run through the evening and it finished late at night:

I then moved all the drawers from the AROS_Vision drawer to the root of the AROS partition.

The AROS partition now has the files copied and moved to the right place as you can see below:

Having got this far, I was excited to try it out, so I rebooted and went to the early startup menu to select the AROS0 drive to boot from (I set it to be a lower boot priority than AmigaSYS4 so I need to select it each time this way when I reboot). As you can see the drive appears, ready to select:

However I hadn't read the instructions on the AROS forums here - apparently some customisations needed to be made first to the startup-sequence and other things to boot AROS Vision on a real Amiga. So I booted back into AmigaSYS4 to make the changes needed.

I needed to copy across the Picasso96 .card and .chip files for the graphics card I am going to use with AROS Vision - in my case Voodoo.card since I am using a Voodoo3 PCI card in my Amiga 4000T.

I then went into the startup-sequence on the AROS:s/ location to disable the Poseidon PsdLoadModule (as I have it preloaded in the Deneb USB card flash rom on booting):

Next I needed to move the Setpatch QUIET command to occur after the AROS bootstrap load command, which I also had to change to reflect the location of the AROSbootstrap and picasso96 drivers I copied across earlier:

For some reason the AROSbootstrap location in the startup-sequence is wrong, so I had to change it as shown above.

The next problem I ran into was that the files in C and elsewhere were not set executable as extracted from the archive file. I don't know why this would be, so I set about changing the settings on all the files in the partition to be executable.

After this I could boot from the AROS Vision drive, but only to a point:

It freezes at this point every time. I can't cancel or do anything with the mouse. Hmmmm.

I noted that the AROS Vision RTG archive had Picasso96 driver files for Picassoiv setup already, so I assume the author was using a PicassoIV. I took apart my Amiga4000D to get the PicassoIV card out to try this possibility:

The PicassoIV is a great card, and I am very glad to have one - it supports true colour screen modes and also scan doubles all standard Amiga screen modes through the same card, meaning only one screen is needed to see either:

The Amiga4000T has two video slot expansion ports in it, so I can add the PicassoIV in addition to the Indivision AGA and Voodoo3 PCI without changing anything! :-)

Having switched the primary output from the indivision aga to picassoiv (actually both output at the same time, I just move the vga cable between them), I then tried to test AROS booting. First though I updated the startup-sequence to use the PicassoIV.card instead of Voodoo.card.

Unfortunately, no go with the Picassoiv either - same errors as before!

Not sure why env: is complaining. It comes up before the machine freezes at the "Debug info" line. I even tried moving the ENV: declaration near the top of the startup-sequence as well without any change.

Perhaps AROS Vision doesn't like SFS on a real Amiga - does it need to be FFS? Might try that next time.

I ran out of time at this point, so I put the AmiKit Real 8.5 MicroSD back in while I have a further think about how to get this working.

Hopefully some helpful tips from some AROS guys out there who might know what the problem is...more to come.

Amiga 600 CF AmigaOS Setup Part 1

Sorry for the delay between entries, but work has been very busy of late. Today I am starting a multi-part blog post following the installation of a CF Card with AmigaOS on the Amiga 600.

For those following along my blog previously you would know that I already put a IDE HD running AmigaOS3.9 on my Amiga 600. However, I did cheat a bit - I had already prepped that hard disk on an Amiga 1200 previously, and then adapted it to work on the Amiga 600.

This was so I could quickly check everything with my expansions worked as I wanted it to.

But now, I need to do it properly from scratch, using a CF Card to to IDE converted Hard Disk, purchased from AmigaKit. You can buy it from here.

It is a 4GB CF card, already prepped for Amiga use, running Fast File System (FFS).  Here is some photos of the CF to IDE converter card and cable. I opted for the longer two connector version of the IDE cable, which allows me to add another IDE device later.

Here is the back view - it shows the CF card is 4GB:

Here is the card installed in the Amiga 600, ready for power on:

After power on, the CF Card boots (although it is not lit on the Hard disk light on the the Amiga 600 for some reason) and the AmigaKit logo is shown:

AmigaKit has put a bootable assisted Workbench installation program already on it, ready for installation into the Amiga 600. The initial screen is here:

After clicking Next, the installer needs a version of AmigaOS to be installed, and asks you to tell it which version you have:

In my case, I have the original disks for AmigaOS3.1 as below:

So I selected AmigaOS 3.0/3.1 and clicked Next:

It will then work through the installation, copying files from disks and prompting to insert disks as needed. Copying the Fonts disk contents:

Moving on to the Locale Disk:

Finally, we move onto the Storage disk:

Now, we have to choose our language and locale:

Now we need to configure the keyboard:

Now, since I swapped the original US keyboard (damaged) with the replacement British Keyboard, I need to make sure I select the British keyboard here. I also turn on Acceleration for the mouse to improve the mouse movement speed:

And we are done, ready for reboot:

On reboot we now have a basic AmigaOS3.1 standard Workbench. I note that AmigaKit sets up 3 partitions on the CF Card - a 500MB System partition (ADH0), and two data partitions HDD and HDD2 (ADH1: and ADH2:) making up the 4GB available space:

You can see above that the ACA630 and A604n expansion previous installed in my Amiga 600 here and here. These are giving me the 68030 accelerator, 2MB Chip RAM and 34MB Fast Memory, amongst other things!

I next install the IDE-Fix 97 software included by AmigaKit on the HDD: partition:

I hit a problem when running the Install program, the same when I tried the DOpus 4 install program too, displaying 'Unable to open your tool Installer':

Clearly the AmigaKit AmigaOS installation program does not copy the Installer program from the Install Disk, part of AmigaOS3.1.

Normally, this Install disk is used to boot and install AmigaOS3.1. Because we used the included AmigaKit installer on the CF Card, the Install disk was not used and the installer program was not copied across. Here is the Install Disk:

I put it in the Amiga 600 and copied the Installer program to C:, using the Shell:

Now I can run the installer, and get IDE-Fix 97 installed. This is needed to provide the large partition size support (over 4GB).

You need the registration information for this program as well, released by the original authors on an Amiga Format cover disc many years ago - it is also available from a number of forum sites and shown here to save searching for it:

Get the install of IDE-Fix 97 underway:

If the install freezes at the point below, just reboot and run the installer again, and select not to start IDE-Fix during the installation. Note that I didn't setup the CD drive, since I don't have a CD drive in the Amiga 600 (I did install the software needed for it though):

After this I rebooted, and then installed DOpus 4, also included by AmigaKit on the HDD partition on the CF Card:

Install completed:

Here is DOpus 4 running on the Amiga 600:

From the AmigaOS3.1 Workbench screen, you can turn off the annoying window frame on the desktop from the Workbench > Backdrop option:

I then installed the final program included on the CF Card by AmigaKit, WHDLoad (Non-registered version):

WHDLoad install completed:

I then copied my registered whdload key file to the s: location.

Having got this far and having a working AmigaOS3.1 install on the Amiga 600, I also installed sgrab from Aminet so I could start taking screenshots of the installation work instead of having to use a camera to do it!

Next, I installed MUI 3.8 from disk. MUI is needed for lots of software to work. I used the MUI 3.8 installer I have on a Delfina driver disk:

Install is fairly standard fair:

MUI install finished, reboot needed:

After the reboot, here is the AmigaOS3.1 workbench on the Amiga 600 - long way still to go on the setup!

I then setup Poseidon 3.3, so I can use USB to make installations and copying files to the Amiga 600 much easier.  This is using the A604n and Subway USB device I previously installed in the Amiga 600. I did cover this install in some detail here so I won't cover too much of it again:

Installer is reminding me that I need to upgrade the Installer version from Aminet - I will get to this later on, but it doesn't prevent the installation working:

Installation of Poseidon completed. Reboot time:

Before I rebooted I also installed the fat95 archive which was extracted to RAM: as part of the Poseidon installation. Make sure you install this, otherwise you can't read the FAT formatted USB flash drives!

Next, after the reboot I needed to copy the updated subwayusb.device driver from Individual Computers to the DEVS:USBHardware location, so that Poseidon can find the Subway USB device. I did this via floppy disk.

After this, I ran the Trident Prefs program so I can configure Poseidon to use the Subway USB driver:

Trident Prefs screen - at this stage the driver is not in use, but I have specified it:

After saving the settings and running it again, the Trident prefs show the subway USB device is active and ready:

Next I plug in a USB flash drive which works straight away:

Poseidon maps the USB flash drive to Device UMSD, shown below by running info from the AmigaShell (not vol which I typed by accident!):

Here is the USB flash drive contents, working well on the Amiga 600 using the Subway USB device:

I then modified the screen resolution of AmigaOS3.1 Workbench to 640x512 interlaced with 8 colours. This is needed for the next software I plan to install, MagicWB:

Here is the MagicWB2 disk - Magic WB transforms the AmigaOS3.1 standard Workbench with gradient icons, fonts, backdrops, patterns and more to make the Workbench look fantastic:

Here is the MagicWB install program:

This install process takes a while, so patience is a virtue. Be sure to copy the hard disk icons to the other partitions too when prompted in the installer:

After the installation is complete, a reboot is needed, and here is the new look AmigaOS3.1 Workbench with MagicWB installed. Looking good:

Hopefully this shows what is needed to get a Classic AmigaOS3.1 setup up and running from scratch.  The AmigaKit supplied pre-configured AmigaOS CF Card with built-in software does make it easier!

Still a lot more to do of course, but I will continue work on this in the next part!