Status of Raspberry Pi native support

[nikos]

Great to hear there is progress. Does this meen that AROS Pi will first of all be for Pi 4?
I guess it is no point fighting more with the USB interface on the older Pies.   

[BSzili]

I'm thinking about getting a Raspberry Pi for AROS, but I'm not quite sure which models will be supported. I don't really need the performance (or the heat  ) of the RPi 4 so an RPi 2B would be better for me, if AROS will run on it. Any advices?

[nikos]

I'm thinking about getting a Raspberry Pi for AROS, but I'm not quite sure which models will be supported. I don't really need the performance (or the heat  ) of the RPi 4 so an RPi 2B would be better for me, if AROS will run on it. Any advices?

I would go for model 4. There are something with the USB hardware on earlier models that are very difficult to deal with.
I know Mschulz have model 4 now. It is still best to hear it from him. He have not said anything official about it.
I'm also looking forward to the Pi port. It is the most exiting Amiga like project in my opinion. Let's hope it will be a success.

[BSzili]

I know about the USB ordeal, I was following the Patreon updates about it. According to this post it's almost there, so it would make no sense to throw it all away because of the Pi 4 is there:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/raspi-code-in-24407450
This is why I'd like to know which versions of the Pi will be supported.

[nikos]

BSzili: I sent message to Mschulz. He say there will be AROS for Pi4.  It will be much faster than previous Pi versions too. From what we know maybe there will never be AROS for more early Pi versions cause of the problem with the USB controller. It is a no brainer if you ask me.

[BSzili]

Then there's no question, I have to get a Pi4 for AROS. I'll wait for the new Flirc case is released for it, because it doubles as a heatsink, so you don't need any additional fans. I hope it won't dampen the WiFi signal too much, although I have a pretty beefy router at home.

[nikos]

Then there's no question, I have to get a Pi4 for AROS. I'll wait for the new Flirc case is released for it, because it doubles as a heatsink, so you don't need any additional fans. I hope it won't dampen the WiFi signal too much, although I have a pretty beefy router at home.

Does Pi4 generate much more heat than previous versions?

[Argo]

Yeah, the Pi4 has thermal throttling issues under heavy loads   Even with the recent patch to adjust voltages
Quite a few YT videos on it

[BSzili]

How much memory will the native Pi port of AROS support? Since the 68k integration is planned, will it be limited to 31-bit addressing (2 GB), like MorphOS?

[nikos]

How much memory will the native Pi port of AROS support? Since the 68k integration is planned, will it be limited to 31-bit addressing (2 GB), like MorphOS?

That is a good question. As you say for classic integration it must be 31-bit.

[x-vision]

How much memory will the native Pi port of AROS support? Since the 68k integration is planned, will it be limited to 31-bit addressing (2 GB), like MorphOS?

Hope that doesnt happen. 68k apps will run fine through the 64bits emulator (specially if it has jit) for most cases, so it would be an absurd to throw away 2gb just to run old apps a tiny bit faster.

We are always saying that Pi must be reference platform for Aros, so it would be a bad referece distro.

[nikos]

The problem here is that is if we want to run classic stuff as it was native. That was the plan, but I don't know if Mschulz have taken any final desition about this. As we all know classic stuff can also be hit and miss regarding different amiga models, extra ram, more powerfull 68k CPU and so on. All this can be adjusted within the GUI of some emulator. Sure the binary compatible AROS arm version could also have some emulator where these things can be adjusted. What I'm afraid of is as everything go 64-bit it will be difficult to port future Amiga emulators.
There are hit and miss for any options. Loosing 2GB memory is not as bad as loosing 3 cores.
Even if AROS has proven to run multicore it will break most compatibility with software from what I learned.

The way I see it.

1. Be binary compatible with Amiga classic + easy to recompile NG Amiga software. Will have limitation of max 1 core + 2 GB memory.
2. Fork AROS and start something new. Will be 64-bit, multicore and maybe even have memory protection. Run classic in an emulator like WinUAE and maybe it would even be possible with some AROS classic emulator.
3. Use AROS-64 as is with limitation of 1 core.

Option 2
We might atract a lot of intrest from outside Amiga land. I still think the development time before we have something usefull will be years. It is for sure more future proof.

Option 1
More safe. We will have lot's to play with from day 1.

Option 3
Same as Option 1 but not binary compatible with classic. 

I'm pretty sure we could make a poll and Mschulz will take that into consideration.

Personaly I think I'm for option 3 with a port of recent WinUAE to run classic. Someone with enought knowledge like Mschulz should explain the technical advantages, disadvantages.

If option 1 could run most classic. games, demos, programs like native I'm for that one. 

I understand people want different things from AROS. Some want it to be everything OS like Linux or Windows.
For me I like it to be a fun platform like Amiga was. Trackers, pixel gfx and old school games. Not realy any need
for multicore or 4GB of ram for any of that.
8MB of ram is plenty to run any whdload game from Amiga 1200
Most Amiga games every made ran on 500k memory

I know things changed but even today 2GB of memory will do for most. I don't see that as a huge limitation
 

[x-vision]

The problem here is that is if we want to run classic stuff as it was native. That was the plan, but I don't know if Mschulz have taken any final desition about this.

First of all, althought the poll thing is a good idea, I won't go for any option, because we are just talking, while very smart people is programming it, so I will respect their decision (agreeing to it or not). I just wanted to remember to take some perspective and express my dissapointment if we are not taking into account what Aros really is, and what purpose an eventual Pi4 version could serve.

I understand people want different things from AROS. Some want it to be everything OS like Linux or Windows.
For me I like it to be a fun platform like Amiga was. Trackers, pixel gfx and old school games. Not realy any need
for multicore or 4GB of ram for any of that.
8MB of ram is plenty to run any whdload game from Amiga 1200
Most Amiga games every made ran on 500k memory

I know things changed but even today 2GB of memory will do for most. I don't see that as a huge limitation

We have already a very powerful and superfunny Amiga on Pi with Amiberry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3DRZQHZMPw

Which drive us again to my previous question: What will be the point in porting an Aros version which will offer very little advantages and a lot of inconveniences against that?? it's kind of pointless.

We said a thousand times that Pi 4 can be a platform to attract new developers to Aros, but it will not attract any new developer if you tell them: No, you cannot use all the memory. No, you cannot use all the cores. No, you have these and those limits. And also this list of issues. And this and that is 90s stuff. Imagine what they will think and do...

Now that the work on ABI 1, 64 bits and multicore (and even OpenGL) is going somewhere, it seems like the perfect moment to create a "clean" version of Aros with all these features, with a minimal distro as base to start porting apps, which surely will take some effort, but not too much, and soon will have a lot of the already existing software ported. With a decent IDE and a browser, it will be the ONLY way to attract new developers (or returning old ones) and users.

[BSzili]

Let me turn that question back at you: what would your "clean" AROS port that has virtually no software available offer compared to Linux? People with nostalgia would play around with it a bit, and then go back to Linux and Amiga emulation. An x64 port of MorphOS would face the same issue. On the other hand, if it offers the same level of 68k integration as MOS or OS4 currently on PPC, then you have an NG Amiga OS that can run system friendly Amiga programs out of the box, and could potentially offer more features for native software (access to more memory, set the processor affinity for threads, etc.). This is why Michal decided to target big endian ARM to begin with.

[nikos]

Let me turn that question back at you: what would your "clean" AROS port that has virtually no software available offer compared to Linux? People with nostalgia would play around with it a bit, and then go back to Linux and Amiga emulation. An x64 port of MorphOS would face the same issue. On the other hand, if it offers the same level of 68k integration as MOS or OS4 currently on PPC, then you have an NG Amiga OS that can run system friendly Amiga programs out of the box, and could potentially offer more features for native software (access to more memory, set the processor affinity for threads, etc.). This is why Michal decided to target big endian ARM to begin with.

+1

You can not make a new 64-bit system supporting multi-core etc. etc. and think that you can port back any classic software like DOpus. A fork of AROS "Amiga OS structure" would require new development suite, it would require so many developers and time that it will not very likely ever be a success.

Amiberry is nothing more than a classic 68k emulator that sucks. At least compared to WinUAE.

AROS for Pi will be a mix of classic and NG.