A-Eon Ubuntu Remix on X1000 - Part 1

Today I wanted to take a look at the recently released Ubuntu Remix DVD released for AmigaOne X1000, available for purchase from AmigaKit.

This is part 1 of a two part blog entry covering this, as I found it would be too long for just one entry.

Here I am looking at using the Ubuntu Remix Live DVD on the X1000. The next part will cover the installation of it to hard disk and more.

I am not a complete Linux newbie, but certainly very very far from a Linux expert. I have been installing and using Linux since 1994 (my University days), when I used to download the old alphabet packages (A, AA, D, K, L, etc) disk image files via 9600 baud modem off the University internet service (anyone still remember these?) to dozens of blank floppy disks.

It used to take so long to download and then to install from floppy disks, with endless disk swapping taking many hours. In those days I was using Slackware Linux on a 386DX-40 and 486DX2-66. For these Linux distributions you had to re-compile the kernel and edit make files every time you wanted to add a new device driver like a sound card, and that required you to then manually configure X Windows video config files through vi before you could use X-Windows. I installed and used Red Hat, SCO Unix and AIX Unix in the 2000's too, all commercial Unix variants.

Fast forward to 2014 and these days I have tried to run Ubuntu and Fedora Linux distributions on laptops, desktops and virtual servers. I build and support Ubuntu 12.04LTS servers running various application services for the company I work for.

The newer Linux distributions are a big improvement over the old slackware and commercial distributions of old - I don't miss having to recompile kernels to listen to music or use X-Windows. However....Linux modern video graphics driver support still sucks on home desktops and laptops. It sucked in 1994 too.

I found for example last year that I couldn't boot the normal Ubuntu Live DVD (not the A-Eon one) on my Core i7 PC with a bog standard modern Geforce GTX680 installed. Plenty of people had the same problem and I had to use the forums to fix it. I found I had to bypass the graphics based startup, do a manual text based install, and then when the installation finished, on reboot break to command prompt before linux loaded, and then modify the boot parameters in GRUB boot loader to not load any graphics modes.

I then had to reboot, and download via the internet from command line the multiple packages for the fixed geforce drivers, apply them via command line and then reconfigure Ubuntu display to use them.

I could then finally get a desktop to work with. I had similar issues with Intel GMA video drivers on the laptops I use for Ubuntu linux - the display would glitch and not display correctly after Ubuntu installation, and the screen would blank out after a few minutes and show nothing until powered off and rebooted...

While typing this I was reminded of the old story someone said on the internet many years ago (I forget where) that if Linux was an airplane, when you checked in at the airport you would be given your airplane seat in a DIY flat pack with installation instructions that were complicated, lengthy and basically incomprehensible to normal people. Once you built it and installed it in the airplane and sat down, it was the most comfortable seat you ever sat in - but tell anyone else about it and they say "you had to do WHAT with the seat??" :-)

Anyway, I digress a bit. I guess Linux fans out there will dismiss me as an inexperienced and dumb linux user, that they would use proper reference hardware, perhaps point to the need to read the Ubuntu hardware compatibility lists and forums for any devices I have installed before trying to install it. Perhaps I did give in too easily on Linux at home, and didn't try enough forum based solutions to fix issues. But seriously, who needs this hassle to install an operating system? Sorry for the small rant but Linux installations generally frustrate me...

For a while now I have quietly watched the complicated installation processes on Amiga NG internet forums for the various Mint, Debian, Lubuntu distributions of Linux on the X1000. I read the various forums troubleshooting many installation problems with it and decided I wanted nothing to do with Linux on the X1000. I had enough bad memories of previous Linux installs. Besides, I bought the X1000 so I could run AmigaOS4.

So this is why I was very nervous about trying this newly released Ubuntu Remix DVD on the X1000.

I then saw the various promises from A-Eon and AmigaKit that this distribution of Ubuntu would be different, designed to be easy to install on the X1000 side by side with AmigaOS4, and included a live DVD to try it out on the X1000 without risk and so I decided I would buy it and give it a go.

In due course I then received my Ubuntu Remix DVD package in the post from AmigaKit:

The Ubuntu Remix package cost around GBP19.99 plus postage, and included the Ubuntu 12.04LTS Live DVD for the X1000, and a single sheet guide to do the Live DVD boot on the X1000 from the CFE (Basically the Bios on the X1000). 

To do the booting of the Live DVD from the X1000, you need to press the 'F' key on boot up when the boot menu appears. You then get the CFE prompt as below (as I have two displays this appears on the Radeon 9250 PCI card):

You then type in the boot command to tell CFE to boot the Linux kernel located on the DVD drive which is batch -fs=iso atapi0.1:bootdvd0.1 as shown below:

Linux then starts booting from the DVD, this process takes a few minutes:

Eventually you are presented with the Ubuntu 12.04LTS Desktop, using the ATI Radeon HD video card and a nice suitably themed AmigaOne X1000 backdrop - very nice:

Here is a zoomed out view showing the X1000 running Ubuntu Remix live DVD:

On the desktop is a shortcut folder that contains the installation instructions, and the icon to start the Ubuntu 12.04LTS installation onto hard disk. I am not ready for that phase just yet (I will do this in Part 2).

First I wanted to take a look at the Live DVD Ubuntu environment, as booted. Below are some screenshots from it (click to expand), starting with the Installation guide PDF:

The installation guide contains some good information about the installation process, although some sections are incorrect at the time of writing (eg. the Amistore is not available yet to download updated kernels).

There are some warnings not to use both of the network ports on the X1000 at the same time under Ubuntu. AmigaOS4 doesn't recognise the onboard network card at the moment (driver is a work in progress), so the PCI network card is the one I am using:

 You do need quite a bit of space to install Ubuntu - as below you need around 8GB to install it. I intend to install a separate 1TB drive in the X1000 for running Ubuntu on the X1000 (more on this later in part 2):

The guide goes on to explain about installation types, partitioning, how to boot the installed Ubuntu from CFE (via USB stick or CF card), etc.

In Ubuntu the dock is on the left hand side of the desktop, and contains pinned regularly used programs, actively open programs and the rubbish bin to delete stuff. In addition the top left Ubuntu icon in the dock provides the ability to search for other installed applications, which you can launch or pin to the dock to save searching for them again.

There is a setting icon on the top menu (right side) which allows you to log out, shutdown and restart.

As a nice touch when shutting down the Ubuntu live DVD it makes sure to eject the DVD and prompts you to press Enter before powering off the X1000.

Below I ran Firefox and noted multiple shortcuts already created for common Amiga related forum websites, A-Eon's website and Trevor's blog (click to expand):

Next I ran Rhythmbox, the Ubuntu Music player included with it, to test play back an MP3 which worked well.

Note that on the Live DVD you can't read the Amiga drives installed in the X1000, so I attached a USB disk with music files on it for testing music and videos:

Next I tried out Libre Office:

Here is the Ubuntu Software Centre, where you can download additional software - most are free, and some are commercial:

If you click the Settings icon on the dock, you can then select Details to see overview information about the X1000 system, showing the 4GB ram (the first time I have seen it as AmigaOS4 only sees 2GB of it!) - interestingly this version of Ubuntu 12.04LTS is the 32bit version:

Displays settings shows just the one display - evidently the other Radeon 9250 card in my X1000 is not detected by the Live DVD and is not used. I had to chuckle that the original name for LG (Goldstar) is used as the manufacturer identifier for the LG monitor:

Unicode support works fine in Linux (unlike AmigaOS4), so displaying filenames with unicode Japanese characters works fine (Click to expand):

However, in my testing, videos do not play at full speed on the live DVD on the X1000, nor anything like full speed. 720p or 1080p videos are played back as static screens updated every 5-10 seconds, with audio stopping also.

Thinking it might be a USB read performance related issue, I tried copying the movie files from USB disk to the music folder, but this made no difference to playback performance on the live DVD. At this point I was a bit disappointed, as this performance is no better than AmigaOS4 MPlayer playback on the X1000. Perhaps it improves when it is installed on hard disk - I will reserve judgement until then.

I then also checked the X1000 Linux Support forums and I ran the glxgears test Trevor suggested to make sure it was using the altivec drivers for playback. You run this from the terminal, which you need to search for via the Ubuntu icon in the dock to run:

The test appears to work correctly, so at the moment I am not sure why 720p/1080p video playback doesn't work well on the live DVD - perhaps it works better when installed on hard disk:

The positive points is that graphics, sound, USB and networking support all worked out of the box with Ubuntu on the Live DVD with no setup needed, and I was able to easily play around with the Ubuntu OS and common applications without affecting my existing AmigaOS4 installation.

Thanks to everyone involved in building and testing this live DVD, as using the Live DVD does make using Ubuntu on the X1000 simple and doesn't affect anything else running on the X1000 to try it out.

Which of course nicely brings me to the next step of installing Ubuntu Remix onto a X1000 hard disk and setting up dual boot capability, etc. I have not done this yet but will shortly!

When I have completed it, I will cover in a separate A-Eon Ubuntu Remix on X1000 - Part 2 entry soon!

DigiBooster 3 on X1000

This week saw the long awaited release of DigiBooster 3 for AmigaOS4 by APC-TCP. I bought the download version yesterday from their webshop, so lets took a look at it on the X1000.

DigiBooster Pro 2 was originally released many years ago for AmigaOS 3.X Classic Amigas. It is a module music tracker for writing music, in the same vein as Protracker, Octamed, Milkytracker, etc.

I used to write module music in Protracker as part of the demo scene group The Experience in the late 1990's. I had a lot of experience using module tracker software, mainly Protracker and Octamed on the Classic Amiga, and later using Impulse Tracker on PC (as a side note Impulse Tracker was written in 100% assembly code by a local Adelaide person called Jeffrey Lim - these days you can run this program as Schismtracker for AmigaOS4). I uploaded my Impulse Tracker era album to Soundcloud a while back if you interested in listening...Anyway, I digress!

I had Digibooster Pro 2 for Classic Amiga, but didn't use it much then because of it's propietary DBM format modules, which not many players at that time could play.

When it was announced that Digibooster 3 would be released for AmigaOS4, I was interested but the development time was dragging on and ended up taking 4 years!

Anyway, it is now here in 2014 for AmigaOS4, MorphOS and AmigaOS3!

I decided to buy it, even though the price was quite steep in my opinion (EUR59, around AUD$100)  for a module tracker in this day and age.

However I am keen to support ongoing AmigaOS4 development so I got it. You can download a demo here if you want to try it out first, which I recommend doing.

Once purchased (I bought the download version), you can download the archive from the website and extract to RAM: and select the AmigaOS4 folder to find the Install program.

However, the install program doesn't work under AmigaOS4 on my X1000! It generates an error on the catalog section of the install and it then closes (incomplete). There doesn't appear to be a catalogs drawer in the source folder so I guess that is the issue:

For software that costs as much as it does I am disappointed with this - the installer really should have been tested more thoroughly.

Update: The author of DigiBooster has advised me that this was indeed a problem that was missed and has now been fixed. For those downloading the archive from now on apparently this will no longer be an issue.

Fortunately the installer does not appear necessary for it to work as there are not many files in the archive and it seems self-contained - I just manually copied the AmigaOS4 Digibooster3 subfolder structure to SYS:Utilities folder and run the program from there.

Aside from the program itself, also included in the Digibooster folder above is a Docs folder:

The docs folder contains a few Amigaguide format help documents to get you started with the basics of tracking, the effects that can be applied, etc:

For those new to module tracking the tracker basics and loading and saving files section is quite useful, as below:

The first time you run the program it prompts for a product key. This key is emailed to you as part of the download purchase. (I assume if you buy the cd version it comes with the package). Once entered the window closes with no acknowledgement that the key was correct or running the program. I kind of expected it to launch the program, but unfortunately it doesn't. You need to run it again....it would be nice if a dialog box told you this after putting in the product key....

Anyway, after launching the DigiBooster 3 program again it tells you to do a first time configuration of the audio settings, which pops up for you to configure as needed.

I recommend bumping up the Priorities slider setting to 1 for Program and Player - this is for less choppy audio when multitasking DigiBooster 3 (it mentions this in the documentation too).

Let's take a look at the other setting tabs of interest in the configuration screen window while we are here. The Theme tab allows you to select themes that change the appearance of the DigiBooster window, the skins used for the level meter when playing back songs, and options for the scopes.

The Paths tab you definitely want to configure, as you need to specify the default locations for your modules and also your instruments (samples) you plan to use when making modules in DigiBooster.

There is also an option to let DigiBooster adjust the volume boost to modules automatically when loading, to avoid manual fiddling later if it is too quiet.

Moving on to the Hotkeys tab, here you can configure the keyboard shortcuts for navigating patterns in your modules you create, to speed up editing and navigation between patterns and within patterns.

Finally, on the Editors tab you can change the colours used within the editor, and which sound file format the external clipboard uses.

So I made the changes and clicked Save. The main DigiBooster 3 program window then appears, ready to go:

To load an existing module, click on Disk Op. button which then gives you the option to load or save modules. For Protracker users this interface will be instantly familiar.

I loaded up the example DigiBooster module by Krashan (who also programmed the DigiBooster 3 program) - the song was called M2, which I downloaded from the DigiBooster website here:

Once loaded I played it and was instantly transported back twenty years with a very Classic Amiga style song:

I thought it would be good to load some normal MOD modules I have previously worked on in Protracker to save out the samples so I could work on a song.

I immediately hit a problem with this - Digibooster doesn't open MOD files, or indeed any other format MOD files except it's own DBM format files. This was very disappointing for me. Using freeware Module tracker software on AmigaOS4 such as Schism Tracker I can do this. Why can't I do it in a commercial tracker?

I then decided to download some other DBM format modules from Modland to get some samples to play with a song. While doing this I found Jazzcat's collection of wonderful DBM files - I got somewhat distracted listening to them, and then forgot all about tracking my own song for now!

I then wanted to set up DigiBooster to run on it's own screen, so I could utilise the dual display setup on my X1000.

As DigiBooster uses MUI, I needed to configure MUI to add the extra screen in first - for some reason I hadn't previously done this for other MUI applications either!

To do this configuration, right click on the title bar and from the Settings Menu in DigiBooster, select the MUI Settings.

As an aside MUI has recently been updated to v4, which I updated via AmiUpdate recently. So when you open MUI settings program as above, you can see the updated MUI version information too:

I noticed a message that a bunch of MUI libraries are no longer needed in the new version and can be removed. If you scroll down the right pane, you can see a button to remove these no longer needed files for you, which is nice!

On the left pane, we need to go to the Screen settings. On the right side select Workbench and select the Copy button. A window will then come up with >Workbench as the new screen - Rename to whatever you want - I chose Radeon 9250 Workbench:

In the settings for the screen, uncheck Like Workbench, and select the other video card's desired screen resolution (Radeon 9250 for me). I hate the default background Workbench grey, so I change this to black by clicking on the Background box (which allows you to choose the colour you want - click to expand pic):

Click Use, and then select Radeon 9250 Workbench as the screen by clicking on it. It should then automatically move DigiBooster onto the other screen (and the preferences window you are working in too).

You then click Save on the MUI Preferences window. This setting only applies to DigiBooster, not other MUI applications. They can be configured individually to your needs which is very flexible!

After this I closed DigiBooster as I want to change it so it runs full screen when it opens, now that it has it's own screen to display on.

To do this, click on the DigiBooster program icon in SYS:Utilities/DigiBooster3 (in my case), and type Amiga-i to bring up the Icon information screen. As I am using DOpus 5.9 at the moment it looks a little different to the standard AmigaOS 4.1 Icon properties display - sorry - but the options are the same anyway:

We need to select the Tool-Types section where it says (FULLSCREEN) and edit it so it says FULLSCREEN and then press ENTER:

Click on Save. Now DigiBooster 3 will open full screen and use the Dual Displays on the X1000, allowing me to use AmigaOS4.1 applications at the same time as DigiBooster is running without them getting in each others way, as shown below:

Here is a better view of the separate DigiBooster 3 screen view on it's own (click to expand):

DigiBooster 3 supports a lot of channels and bigger samples (some of Protracker's main issues), and the interface is easy to navigate and use for anyone used to doing module tracking on the Classic Amiga. There is apparently no changes in the Digibooster DBM module format files between the old version 2 and this version, just a change to v3 in the header of the file. It looks slick and professional.

However I couldn't yet find a way to export a DBM format music file as a WAV or MP3 file, which really is needed functionality to allow the music to be shared or sold on the internet in a way people can easily listen to these days.

Update: The author of DigiBooster 3 has informed me that the Mixer button allows exporting of the DigiBooster files to WAV format - thanks for this!

One other issue I found is DigiBooster 3 doesn't multitask well under AmigaOS4 and playback audio stutters when other programs are running or moved around the Workbench screen. This is in Single screen or dual display modes. The X1000 is more than fast enough for running a module tracker program so I am not clear why this happens - I adjusted the priorities setting to the recommended +1 setting as outlined in the manual which improved it but it still happens from time to time.

Update 17/2/14: I found the source of multitask issue was the priority I set in Dopus 5.9, once changed DigiBooster 3 works ok with no audio playback issues.

The core of the product is excellent, and maybe further enhancements will be added in the future to address some of these things I have mentioned.

DigiBooster 3 does run under AmigaOS4 natively, looks terrific with an interface nice and familiar for Amiga Protracker music composers. For any remaining DigiBooster musicians running AmigaOS4 (or indeed MorphOS or AmigaOS3) this will also be a very welcome upgrade.

DOpus 5.9 Updated on X1000

A few months ago I started playing with the new Dopus 5.9 Magellan II Beta for AmigaOS4 on the X1000. Work has continued on a daily basis on improving the software, with kas1e and others working hard on it! I downloaded the latest nightly update version of Dopus 5.9 this week and played around with it this weekend to see what has improved:

I am pleased to report that a number of bugs and issues have now been addressed, with this process ongoing - you can see the progress in this forum thread on amigans.net here. There is also some good tips on how to get things some things working better.

You can always download the latest daily build of DOpus5.9 from www.dopus5.org.

My initial blog entry here explains the installation process and initial configuration needed to get it up and running. Once this is done, I have done some more stuff with Dopus 5.9 to make it integrate a bit better with AmigaOS 4.1 on bootup, without losing the functionality of AmigaOS 4.1 by running DOpus in Workbench Replacement Mode. I can simply close DOpus 5.9 at any time that I want to return to standard AmigaOS 4.1.

In order to do this, first it is necessary to tell Dopus 5.9 to use the Workbench screen. To do this, right click on the Settings Menu at the top of the DOpus screen and select Environment. This will then bring a screen which you need to select Display on the left hand side. You should then see a window like this:

Make sure Workbench:Use is selected, then click on Save.

When you run DOpus 5.9 in this way, the AmiDock will disappear whenever you open DOpus 5.9! There is a fix for this (thanks Severin for the tip on the amigans.net forum thread I linked earlier), which I will show you now.

Next, let's go into the SYS:Prefs folder and double click on WBStartup:

When WBStartup Prefs launches, it should look a bit like this (you may have other things in your wbstartup so it probably won't look identical):

Highlight the SYS:Utilities/Commodities/AmiDock module, and select Information. You should then get the screen below:

Click on the Icon tab:

We need to change the Start priority of AmiDock to make sure it loads AFTER DOpus5. This allows AmiDock to load correctly when DOpus 5.9 is placed in WBStartup (which we will do shortly). To fix AmiDock, click in the Start Priority section, and change 0 to -128 and click on Save:

OK, now we need to add Dopus 5.9 into the WBStartup. You should still have the WBStartup window open - select Add to add a new module. You need to browse to where you installed Dopus 5.9 on your X1000, browse to the WBStartup folder underneath and select Opus5_Startup - in my case this is located in SYS:Utilities/Dopus5/WBStartup/Opus5_Startup. WBStartup prefs should now show a new module as below:

Make sure the new module is highlighted as above, then select Information. In the window that appears, click on the Icon tab, and modify the Start Priority field to from 0 to 127 as below:

This will now ensure that Dopus will run at start higher priority than AmiDock. Click Save, and then click Save again to save the settings in WBStartup prefs.

(I know there are other ways to do DOpus5.9 loading via Workbench replacement mode via loadDB, renaming loadwb etc - but I like this way the best as I can easily close DOpus and return to AmigaOS4 if needed - the amigans.net forum details some more details of these other methods if you are interested)

Now the next part, we need to add an assign for DOpus5: to our installed Dopus 5.9 folder location (in my case SYS:utilities/DOpus5) to the s:user-startup file. This is so the Opus5_startup program knows where to find the main executable for Dopus 5.9. I use Notepad to edit s:user-startup and inserted the lines as highlighted below near the top of the file to ensure it exists before DOpus is run:

Once this is saved, we are then ready for a reboot! After rebooting, I get the following Workbench screen, now running Dopus 5.9, with AmiDock loading correctly (click to expand):

(Note that I also subsequently modified the start priority setting for FuelGauge in wbstartup to -120 so it would run after DOpus too - you will see Fuel Gauge working in screen shots later on)

Next I wanted to modify the boring default Workbench Titlebar display in Dopus 5.9 to include most of the information I was using on the normal AmigaOS 4.1 Workbench screen before. To do this, go into the Settings Menu (right click on Workbench title bar) and select Environment. Scroll down the items on the left hand side and select Miscellaneous.

If you click on the gadget next to Custom Screen Title in the Miscellaneous as above, you can see the codes shown on the right. You can then type these codes into the Custom Screen Title field to display versions of Workbench, DOpus, free memory, etc, in your title bar. Simply insert what you want into the Custom Screen Title field, pressing Enter when done. Then select Save and the Workbench title bar should update with your changes - mine looks like this (click to expand):

Now you can use DOpus 5.9 on the X1000 as your Workbench! If you encounter trouble you can always right click on the title bar, Select Opus Menu, then Quit to go back to standard AmigaOS4.1. It is still a BETA version and as such is not completely stable, although I have not encountered any issues so far. I am not a big DOpus 5.9 customisation guru and I haven't scratched the surface of what this powerful file manager can do...

The main issue I found so far is that large hard disk and USB partition sizes are not displayed correctly in Workbench windows. This is a known issue and hopefully should be addressed soon. It doesn't appear to affect file operations in limited testing so far.

Below is another screen shot of Dopus 5.9 on my X1000 in action, showing source and destination windows in name and icon mode, floppy disk window and cd image windows older icons rendering correctly, A-Tunes, TuneNet, SMTube and DiskImageGUI (click to expand):

As I have mentioned previously, it is great to be able to run DOpus 5.9 Magellan II on AmigaOS4.1 and I am very grateful for the efforts of kas1e and the testers for all their hard work in making this happen for all X1000 and AmigaOS4 computer owners. (I know it is being worked on for MorphOS, AmigaOS3 and AROS as well)

It is stable enough to try out and decide if it works for you, so if you are interested please give DOpus 5.9 a go!