Workbench Replacements

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Scalos and Magellan can be difficult to understand as for configuration.

Yes Scalos and Magellan are similar in configuration, which are then also similar to the configuration of Dopus4,the latter however simpler and more intuitive.

If you have to develop and test software OS3, I would advise you to do it with the standard Workbench 3.1/3.9/3.2, this is to have maximum compatibility.

[OlafS3]

The Raspberry Pi 3A+ arrived. It's so small. 

Just waiting a few days for the Pi Storm32 Lite from Amikit.

Then let the configuring and OS testing begin with an initial emphasis on workbench replacements such as Magellan and Scalos and although not a workbench replacement some testing of 68k versions of FileMaster file manager.

If you have questions about Magellan or Scalos in future then ask here. I have plenty of experience with magellan and currently work on a distribution based on Scalos

Thanks. That's good to know. 

Scalos and Magellan can be difficult to understand as for configuration.

If you know how not  they are way more powerful than workbench or wanderer

[terminills]

The Raspberry Pi 3A+ arrived. It's so small. 

Just waiting a few days for the Pi Storm32 Lite from Amikit.

Then let the configuring and OS testing begin with an initial emphasis on workbench replacements such as Magellan and Scalos and although not a workbench replacement some testing of 68k versions of FileMaster file manager.

If you have questions about Magellan or Scalos in future then ask here. I have plenty of experience with magellan and currently work on a distribution based on Scalos

Thanks. That's good to know. 

Scalos and Magellan can be difficult to understand as for configuration.

If you know how not  they are way more powerful than workbench or wanderer

That depends on the version of wanderer you run

[AMIGASYSTEM]

If you know how not  they are way more powerful than workbench or wanderer

When we test AROS x86 software here, we do it with the reference Build, this is for the correctness of the test.

Same thing on OS3, testing is done with the system for which OS3 software is born, ScaloS or Magellana may have "better" or "worse" variants, but they are not the most appropriate tools for testing software correctly.

Many ClassicWBs use Scalos, there are numerous discussions on EAB about how many applications or games do not work as they should.

https://classicwb.abime.net/classicweb/bugs.htm

[cdimauro]

But if you are running AROS, then it doesn't matter: Workbook, Wanderer, Scalos, Magellan, they are all the same level, because they are all Workbench replacements and they were born from scratch from independent (from Commodore & co.) developers.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Yes but you cannot test a new AROS buil "designed" with and for Wanderer, with Magellan Scalos that have not been updated (libraries) for decades !

[OlafS3]

The Raspberry Pi 3A+ arrived. It's so small. 

Just waiting a few days for the Pi Storm32 Lite from Amikit.

Then let the configuring and OS testing begin with an initial emphasis on workbench replacements such as Magellan and Scalos and although not a workbench replacement some testing of 68k versions of FileMaster file manager.

If you have questions about Magellan or Scalos in future then ask here. I have plenty of experience with magellan and currently work on a distribution based on Scalos

Thanks. That's good to know. 

Scalos and Magellan can be difficult to understand as for configuration.

If you know how not  they are way more powerful than workbench or wanderer

That depends on the version of wanderer you run

how many versions are there?... if you talk about Kalamatees secret version on his harddrive I can only use or judge what is available

[OlafS3]

If you know how not  they are way more powerful than workbench or wanderer

When we test AROS x86 software here, we do it with the reference Build, this is for the correctness of the test.

Same thing on OS3, testing is done with the system for which OS3 software is born, ScaloS or Magellana may have "better" or "worse" variants, but they are not the most appropriate tools for testing software correctly.

Many ClassicWBs use Scalos, there are numerous discussions on EAB about how many applications or games do not work as they should.

https://classicwb.abime.net/classicweb/bugs.htm

if you want to test fresh compiled software it makes sense to test it on a basic system. Scalos and Magellan are alternative desktops for high-motivated users and distribution creators

[miker1264]

@OlafS3

"if you want to test fresh compiled software it makes sense to test it on a basic system. Scalos and Magellan are alternative desktops for high-motivated users and distribution creators"

That's true. It would also be best to have more than one test environment. And if you're testing Scalos or Magellan then you must run Scalos.or Magellan.

It's a good idea to setup more than one computer for development and testing. For example I recently spilled coffee on my programming laptop, the only laptop I use for AROS and C# programming! Luckily not much harm was done and it's still working. How's that for "Caffeine OS" ?!

I was reading the blogs about Emu68 development. It seems that Michal Schultz is doing a great job! But one day he accidentally fried his CM4 module he was testing. I wouldn't be surprised if he spilled homemade beer on it. (Just kidding - but that's another story).

So that's why I constantly make backup copies of all my source files ( 4GB+ ). I'm also setting up more computers for testing and development rather than a single laptop.

Source files and development tools and any type of valuable test equipment is a terrible thing to lose!

[miker1264]

"how many versions are there?... if you talk about Kalamatees secret version on his harddrive I can only use or judge what is available"

Hehehe!

Wanderer the way it is now is perfect in my opinion. Just remove Named View so it is more like the original workbench. It's already highly compatible and relatively fast. It also gives us the option of using our favorite text-based file manager whatever that may be.

Wouldn't it be great if we could simply launch our chosen file manager from the Wanderer menu using "File Manager" option? Just store the path in the tooltypes of the Wanderer app icon. Wanderer will do the rest. I'd like to try that. 

We don't especially need a newer, better Wanderer but we do need more drivers for graphics, sound, internet, USB, Nvme, etc. A new driver for the graphics chipset for Intel Atom motherboards would be great.

 Someday maybe we will have a new driver and a library of functions and a user interface for AROS to use Rob Smith's Drawbridge Amiga Floppy reader/writer. So why do we need to be able to read and write Amiga floppies on AROS ? Anything that makes AROS more attractive to new users is a good thing. Besides Drawbridge just lacks OS support.

When you plug in the floppy drive in an AROS PC it is detected as "USB UART DEVICE". I suppose UART means it uses Com Ports. So we can detect the hardware. It just needs a driver and a way to access the data from the Com Port. Someday maybe...

[miker1264]

If you haven't noticed I'm excited about the possibilities of Pi Storm32 Lite and Pi Storm32 for the CM4 with the expansion module. For RTG operation it would be great and super fast.

We are at an exciting time for AROS/Amiga/MorphOS development for hardware and software. It seems like old Amigans are getting older and wiser. More and more people are deciding to do great things for 68k development especially. It's the revival of 68k. New accelerators, graphics cards and other modern hardware appears almost daily.

The Apollo Team has done some great work with their FPGA accelerators. Imagine if they added an ARM co-processor to their accelators. It would add hardware FPU, super fast RTG performance and lots of horsepower!

Better yet if Apollo Team made a small 68080 compute module with other small support components on a board the size of a RPI 3 equipped with a 68080 FPGA CPU as a drop-in replacement for the dwindling and ever more expensive 68060 CPU's - wow! Sell those to vendors who are interested in making new 68080 accelerators. 

So what does that have to do with AROS development? AROS runs quite happily on the 68080 CPU.

[cdimauro]

Yes but you cannot test a new AROS buil "designed" with and for Wanderer, with Magellan Scalos that have not been updated (libraries) for decades !

Why not? You're saying that Magellan and Scalos have outdated libraries, so why not updating them and solve this problem?

[cdimauro]

We don't especially need a newer, better Wanderer but we do need more drivers for graphics, sound, internet, USB, Nvme, etc. A new driver for the graphics chipset for Intel Atom motherboards would be great.

Actually creating AROS drivers for new devices looks like a bigger challenge than creating or updating a Workbench replacement...

[cdimauro]

The Apollo Team has done some great work with their FPGA accelerators. Imagine if they added an ARM co-processor to their accelators. It would add hardware FPU, super fast RTG performance and lots of horsepower!

Well, actually the FPGA that they have chosen has at least one ARM processor (I recall having two, but I'm not 100% sure now), but they (which means Gunnar: the project lead) don't want to use it.

They are "orthodox": anything which isn't "68k" is... heretic!

Better yet if Apollo Team made a small 68080 compute module with other small support components on a board the size of a RPI 3 equipped with a 68080 FPGA CPU as a drop-in replacement for the dwindling and ever more expensive 68060 CPU's - wow! Sell those to vendors who are interested in making new 68080 accelerators. 

PiStorm has already severe problems interfacing with the slow (in terms of operating frequencies) Chip Mem, so I don't think that a drop-in replacement for 68060 could be feasible, since it works at higher frequencies.

So what does that have to do with AROS development? AROS runs quite happily on the 68080 CPU.

Yup. Because it supports 68k, and 68080 is almost fully compatible, so it's easy.

[miker1264]

@cdimauro

"PiStorm has already severe problems interfacing with the slow (in terms of operating frequencies) Chip Mem, so I don't think that a drop-in replacement for 68060 could be feasible, since it works at higher frequencies."

The V4SA uses modern faster memory as chip mem. So Pi Storm32 and other accelerators with a 68060 replacement cpu (68080) will have to wait for a Re-Amiga 1200 carrier board or something similar with new old custom chips, modern peripherals and DDR3 chip mem on the board. 

But we are at an exciting time for AROS/Amiga/MorphOS with new re-manufactured boards and new accelerators and add-on boards/adapters becoming available at regular intervals.