AMIGA XL AND AMITHLON Introduktion Systemrequirements To be able to use AmigaOS XL, you need a standard x86 PC with at least 600MHz tact-rate, recommended is 1GHz or more, and 128 Mb main memory, recommen- ded is 256 Mb. The PC and the hardwarecomponents used should be supported by QNX 6.1. A list of supported hardwarecomponents can be found at <http://qdn.qnx.com/support/hardware/platform/index.html> AmigaOS XL needs QNX 6.1 or newer as host-OS. Why QNX? At this time QNX 6.1 is the only operating system whose micro-kernel- and driver- system guarantee a faultless running of the AmigaOS. QNX has many similarities to the AmigaOS. It has a micro-kernel, and the drivers are separate processes which, just as the devices and handlers with the AmigaOS, can dynamically be started and stopped. This leads to a very lightweight system. The user-interface immediately reacts to user-inputs, just as one is used to from the AmigaOS. QNX confirms to the POSIX-standard, meaning that the paths from Linux/Unix to QNX and vice versa are very short and simple. QNX can be run in "Big Endian" mode on a PowerPC, which leads to a clear per- formance increase for the AmigaOS hosted on QNX. 1 Installing QNX is extremely simple, secure and very fast. Within just a couple of mi- nutes the hardware is recognised, all necessary items are copied you can start using it. Credits The executable AmigaXL is based on the UAE-JIT. Thanks to the Following pro- grammers for that (no special order): Bernd Schmidt Bernd Bernie Meyer Alessandro Bissacco Hannu Rummukainen Ed Hanway Denis Sablic Marcus Sundberg Stefan Reinauer Marco Nelissen Oliver Moehrke Olivier Raoul Markus Gietzen Herman ten Brugge Tauno Taipaleenmaki Michael Krause Stefan Ropke Joanne Dow Rodney Hester David Varley Christian Schmitt Brian King Holger Jakob Philippe Gerin Jake Hamby Toni Wilen Patrick Ohly Richard Hoffmann Sam Jordan Christian Bauer 2 What you should know about QNX Multi-user-system Like all POSIX-systems, QNX is a multi-user-system: multiple users can share the system. For this, one has to log in to the system with a username and password at startup. Users can be divided in groups. Usually, for instance all normal users can be found in a group called „user“. It is known for all files in the system which user created them or last changed them. Special user privileges can be set for every file: For yourself, for other users from the same group or for all other users. There can be the following access-privileges: r: Read“. The file can be read. w: Write“. The file can be written to. x: Execute“. The file can be executed as a program. To change the privileges for a file, you will have to be the user of this file, or the „root“. The group „root“ contains all privileged users, normally this will be only one so- called superuser „root“. This superuser sees everything, and can do anything. Most far-reaching changes to the system are privileged to him. This ensure that a normal user can not delete system files or the likes. After you made a clean install of QNX, there is only the superuser without pass- word. So, in the login-dialog, enter „root” for user and leave the password-field empty. Even if you alone only works with the system, it is recommended that you create a user for yourself. As long as there is no tool for this yet in the user-interface, you will have to open the QNX-Shell („Terminal“) for this, and call the following com- mand: 3 passwd <Username> Various IDs are proposed, which you can accept by simply pressing <Return>. Un- der „Real name“ you enter your full name. Under „New password“ you can enter a password, which has to be entered at login. You can however also press the enter- key only, in case you don't need a password. When working with AmigaOS XL, it can happen that a file is not shown, or you can not access it. The reason for this can be found in the access-privileges of the file, which forbids you to read or write to it. With the Shell-command "chmod" you can change the access-rights of a file. With the Shell-command "chown" you can change the user of a file. With "use <Com- mandname>" you can get a short description of both commands (and most other shell-commands). With "login root" or "su root" you can give yourself superuser-rights from a QNX- shell, even if you did not start this shell as superuser. Installation and start Installing QNX Installing QNX is very easy and fast: • If there already is an operating system on the harddrive of the PC, which should be kept, first a free (empty or unused) partition needs to be crea- ted. Sufficient free space on an existing partition is not enough: QNX needs its own partition to be used in a useful way. If your harddrive is full, and you can not empty an existing partition and then delete it, you can use a tool like PartitionMagic by PowerQuest to reduce the size of an exi- sting partition. You can get PartitionMagic in PC-software-stores. • Configure the BIOS of your PC so that it can boot from CD-ROM. 4 • Insert the QNX CD and boot the PC. • Follow the installation-prompts. If you have an empty partition, you can enter this as destination-partition. If not, you can delete a full partition for use with QNX. Ensure that there are no vital files on this partition, of which you don't have a backup-copy. Should there be problems when booting QNX, you can search for help here: http://get.qnx.com http://www.qnxstart.com http://qdn.qnx.com Installing AmigaOS XL Installing AmigaOS XL is even easier and faster: • Insert the „AmigaOS XL“ CD-ROM. • Start the QNX Package Installer (in the „Start“-menu under „Software“ or the command pkg-installer in a Shell). • Double-click „CD-ROM Repository“. • Check the line „AmigaOS_XL“. • Click the „Install“-button. After the installation the AmigaOS XL environment is located in the directory /usr/ amiga. The Workbench Sys: partition will be shown in the directory /usr/amiga/Sy- stem and the Work: partition in the directory /usr/amiga/Work. To ensure correct performance of the AmigaOS XL environment, you should not change these de- fault settings. 5 Starting AmigaOS XL There are multiple ways to start AmigaOS XL. Important is, that the graphical user interface of QNX ("Photon") must already be running. STARTING FROM SHELL: Open a Terminal (a shell). To start the AmigaOS XL you simply enter /usr/amiga/ AmigaXL and press the enter-key. STARTING FROM THE SHELF: The user-interface of QNX contains the so-called "Shelf" to start programs in a quick and easy way. After installing QNX, this Shelf can be found at the lower-left border of the QNX environment. To enter AmigaOS XL in the Shelf, you have to start the configure-tool for the Shelf. To do this, click the right mousebutton inside the Shelf, and select the option "Setup". Next, search for a suitable position for AmigaOS XL in the list. Click "Before" or "After", select "Launch Application" as Type, and confirm with "Apply". Enter "AmigaOS XL" as "Name", and under "Command to launch" "/usr/amiga/AmigaXL". Now click "Apply" and "Done". AUTOMATIC START AFTER LOGIN: If you wish, you can have AmigaOS XL started automatically after your login. To do this, create a file called phapps in your $HOME/.ph-directory (for instance with touch $HOME/.ph/phapps. Set the "x"-flag for this file chmod a+x $HOME/.ph/ phapps. Use an editor to write the command /usr/amiga/AmigaXL to this file ped $HOME/.ph/phapps. Deinstalling AmigaOS XL Should you want to remove AmigaOS XL from your system: • Start the QNX Package Installer (in the "Start"-menu under "Software" or the command pkg-installer in a Shell). 6 • Select "View My Software". • Double-click "User Repository". • Select from the area "System", sub-area "Emulation" the item "AmigaOS_XL". • Click "Remove". • Click "Apply". Your AmigaOS XL installation and the directory /usr/amiga will be completely re- moved. Changes you made there, or any files you stored there, will be lost. General stuff about AmigaOS XL preboot-Script AmigaOS XL executes the shell-script /usr/amiga/.preboot before booting the Amiga-environment. As a default this sets • the general read-rights for the CD-ROM drives (/dev/cd0 .../dev/cd3) Otherwise, only users with „root“ rights can use the AmigaXL Blockde- vice to access the CD-ROM drives. • sets the general read-rights for the floppy-disk drives (/dev/fd0 ... /dev/ fd3). Otherwise, only users with „root“ rights can use the AmigaXL Blockdevice to access the floppy drives. • starts the joystick-driver. 7 The above operations must be executed with „root“-rights, which is why only „root“- users can change this script (see Multi-user-system). Virtual memory With the AmigaOS XL it is possible for the first time to transparently make virtual me- mory available for the AmigaOS. Neither the AmigaOS nor Amiga-programs need to fulfill special requirements to use this extra memory. With the AmigaXL-preferences you can choose whether AmigaOS XL should use virtual memory or not. You will find these under AmigaOS XL in the prefs-drawer of your Workbench. If the virtual memory is deactivated, any memory-usage in the Ami- ga will be taken from the work-memory of the host OS.