[uae] Re: Will there be a upcoming E-UAE release?
- From: Andrew 'Truck' Holland <truck@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: uae@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:18:59 +0200
This gets long, and I think it would just be better if I wrote it up entirely
differently. I will do so.
On Mo, 24 Nov 2008, Keith G. Robertson-Turner wrote:
> Verily I say unto thee, that Andrew 'Truck' Holland spake thusly:
> > On So, 23 Nov 2008, Keith G. Robertson-Turner wrote:
> >> Verily I say unto thee, that Bernd Schmidt spake thusly:
> >>
> >>> Needed for what? What's the goal, or to repeat my question, what
> >>> do you need that UAE or E-UAE don't already have?
> >>
> >> Does (E)UAE support the creation of hardfiles yet?
> >
> > You can create a working hardfile using various methods.
>
> Well I've never actually tried this with Amiga filesystems, but I'm
> guessing the following would be along the right lines:
>
> 1. modprobe affs
Not technically neccesary, especially if you're using Smart Filesystem or the
like. Also won't help with the RDB portion, as it's a filesystem.
> 2. dd if=/dev/zero of=Workbench.hdf bs=1M count=1024
> 3. losetup /dev/loop0 Workbench.hdf
I've never needed to use losetup. I simply mount devices to loop devices.
This works on BSD, Linux, and osX; it may be needed in some Linux 2.4 cases or
something; but it's not neccesary on any of my systems. And I have several (:
I would leave it as an 'optional' step if the mount goes bad. Mind you, I'm not
actually mounting mine in the host system, due to the aforementioned smart
filesystem situation.
I _seem_ to recall someone was talking about making a smart filesystem driver
for Linux, but I haven't read anything on that lately.
> 4. use fdisk to create an AFFS RDB ???
gnu parted, rather than fdisk or cfdisk.
** I really wish the people behind gnome wouldn't call their frontend gparted.
(Ok it may not technically be a frontend, but it isn't needed, and I keep
calling gnu parted gparted.)
> 5. mkfs -t affs Workbench.hdf
> 6. mount -t affs Workbench.hdf /mnt/Workbench -o loop=/dev/loop0
Again, I don't do this, not only because of the icky nature of the Amiga
filesystem, but also because my systems are UTF8, and copying files that have
different encodings (like the Amiga files with names like '
>
> As an alternative to step 4 (which I haven't yet worked out how to do):
>
> 7. Use HDToolbox in the host to partition the new hardfile
>
> Also, I just tried step 5, and it failed with:
>
> mkfs.affs: No such file or directory
Depending on your Linux distro, it may or may not work. That particular
command hasn't been maintained in a while. I woudln't bother either, as the
Amiga Filesystems are not exactly crash resistant.
> Even though the affs module loaded successfully.
>
> I read through the kernel docs for the module, but it doesn't seem to
> have any info about actually creating RDBs:
>
> http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/filesystems/affs.txt
No, the module is for the filesystem, the RDB isn't part of the filesystem.
It's part of the partitioning scheme (:
> Then there's the question of actually /using/ the hardfile in UAE, since
> AFAICT the GUI lacks the means to add such a filesystem, and it needs to
> be added manually to the config, like this:
>
> hardfile2=rw,HD0:$(FILE_PATH)/Amiga/Workbench.hdf,0,0,0,512,-1,
> hardfile=rw,0,0,0,512,$(FILE_PATH)/Amiga/Workbench.hdf
>
> I'm not entirely clear if both these lines are necessary, or if one is a
> legacy left over from a previous version of the program.
The documentation indicates that one is legacy, yes. Also, Hi-toro's generated
configurations contain only the hardfile2 line.
hardfile2=rw,:/Users/truck/work/amiga/hdf/system.hdf,0,0,0,0,0,
(This is one of my NON-rdb disk files.)
E-UAE can handle BOTH situations; the RDB and non-RDB diskfile.
> So I went ahead and added the unpartitioned and unformated hardfile to
> uaerc, like this:
>
> hardfile2=rw,HD1:$(FILE_PATH)/Work.img,0,0,0,512,-1,
> hardfile=rw,0,0,0,512,$(FILE_PATH)/Work.hdf
>
> But when I ran uae, HDToolbox could only see HD0; HD1 was missing.
Yes, as it didn't have the RDB. Try gnu parted; Well that's what I'm going to
do right as soon as I have a chance to test this at home.
>
> Clearly this process is non-trivial, and needs some serious work to be
> actually usable.
Well, depends. First of all, the biggest issue is the mkfs.affs item, which is
not part of E-UAE or UAE or WinUAE, it's a separate unmaintained item.
I, myself, don't use the Amiga filesystem, I use smart filesystem, on rdb
files, so...
Now, this is getting long, but you can have a working hardfile doing the dd,
and entering it's path as a hardfile in the config as shown above.
Then just format it on the Amiga side and start copying your files over.
(Typically I do this with my mounted Amiga Forever disk. Because it's a lovely
setup to start from (: )
- I also have the advantage of having a nice frontend, that is, Hi-Toro, on my
osX boxen. As the configs from one E-uae work on any other E-uae... so it's
LESS of an issue for me, as I have osX boxen.
So yes, a nice frontend would be very helpful for Linux and BSD only users. I
do remember once finding a frontend for MorphOS, but quite frankly the last
time I mentioned it on this list I could NOT find it again ):
And by 'nice frontend' I mean 'small, efficient' not 'requires the Gnome or KDE
Windows Emulators.' I don't care for them, so I don't consider their
requirements 'nice.'
Also, those who would clamor for the frontend to be 'fixed up' in E-UAE:
MorphOS doesn't have Gnome or KDE. It has an entirely different mechanism for
gui stuff; as does Amiga OS 4.x (of which we have one user at least on this
list.) Inserting a bunch of code that gets ignored by these other platforms
isn't helpful - just as having a mac-only "kick ass" frontend isn't helpful to
you Linux-only folks.
So let's avoid that discussion and just go over whether a frontend needs to be
created, and who might have time to do it. The last guys who came in who
wanted to do a frontend dissappeared a year ago or so.
> The hardfiles I use currently were created by WinUAE many years ago, and
> simply cloned and repartitioned/reformated over the years. If I had to
I have several that are like that. Mind you, I have others that contain the
stuff that I've purchased from Cloanto and similar, and then there's Louise's
development hardfile, which has an RDB version and a non-RDB version.
> make new ones from scratch then I'd be stuck, because I'm Linux-only
> these days.
Not entirely (: I'll write my bits up as soon as I've done them.
> Meanwhile, any pointers to get this to actually work, would be most welcome.
I hope this cleared up some of the confusion and didn't make it worse, I think
it may make it worse. I'll write it up properly as soon as I've tested some of
the bits.
I _have_ done this, using Linux tools only, in fact, using just a Knoppix disk,
once. (The RDB method.)
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