Advent/MS Wind netbook
jet...@googlemail.com
pounds. This mini-laptop is a virtually identical rebadge of the MSI
Wind.
With Aaron Timbrall's advice - as usual first rate - it was very easy
to install a new copy of Virtual RiscPC Adjust SA; see
http://www.jettons.co.uk/Advent/ for an image and details.
I'm finding it's working beautifully. Virtaul RiscPC is running at
(roughly) the same speed as the processor it's emulating - very
satisfactory on a machine this size. I've not had so much fun in
years!
Cheers
Joe Taylor
Doug Webb
ps.com>
jet...@googlemail.com wrote:
> Cheers
> Joe Taylor
Joe,
Why remove the CD drive icon from the RISC OS side?
If the Advent hasn't a cd drive why not see if you can use something
like CDFaker to emulate a drive and then you just need to supply it
with CD images which you could copy over a network an leave on the
Asvent..just a thought.
--
Using an IYONIX pc and RISC OS 5.13, the thinking person's alternative
operating system to Microsoft Windows.
Ned Abell
<4fbef914c2inval...@invalid-domain.co.uk>,
Paul Vigay <invalid-em...@invalid-domain.co.uk>
wrote:
> In a dim and distant universe
> <a98bc2f8-13c6-4fd4...@b1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
> <jet...@googlemail.com> enlightened us thusly:
> > I'm finding it's working beautifully. Virtaul RiscPC is
> > running at (roughly) the same speed as the processor it's
> > emulating - very satisfactory on a machine this size.
> > I've not had so much fun in years!
> I've just installed RISC OS Adjust on a Linux machine and
> was quite surprised at how easy it was. Free too. :-)
More details please Paul
--
besters
Ned
(this email address is unused)
jet...@googlemail.com
domain.co.uk> wrote:
> I've just installed RISC OS Adjust on a Linux machine and was quite
> surprised at how easy it was. Free too.
Many reviewers have, in the last few weeks, been recommending the
Advent/MSI Wind as the current best buy in the sub notebook area. Like
them, I have found the Advent's screen - size and brightness - and
keyboard to be more than satisfactory. These are factors which were
often criticised in competitor machines (such as Asus Eee etc).
The Advent 4211 is a delight (which is why it is currently flying
out of the shops). The size of a moderated hard-back text book it
seems able to do most jobs - and more - which are reasonable to demand
of such a diminutive computer. E.g. it runs Google Earth giving quite
satisfactory output (something my highend - but now five years old -
Toshiba laptop does not). As I have reported, the Advent runs the XP
version of Virtual Acorn well, and I am able to run all my favourite
RISC OS software - in particular Techwriter - without (so far) any
problem.
As Paul is indicating, there is a strong divergence in the sub-
notebook market based on the choice of operating system. I see that in
the last few days some members of the Ubuntu forums have written to
say that they have managed to install Linux on the Advent. For a
review of the Advent 4211, by a Linux-oriented reviewer, see "I've
jumped on the Netbook Bandwagon" (July 14 2008) at
http://www.last100.com/2008/07/14/ive-jumped-on-the-netbook-bandwagon-msi-wind-advent-4211-review/
Cheers
Joe Taylor
jet...@googlemail.com
> Why remove the CD drive icon from the RISC OS side?
>
> If the Advent hasn't a cd drive why not see if you can use something
> like CDFaker to emulate a drive and then you just need to supply it
> with CD images which you could copy over a network an leave on the
Doug's interesting suggestion would be better addressed to Aaron
Timbrell. The only problem I encountered when installing Virtual Acorn
on the Advent 4211 was that an error occurred each time Virtual Acorn
was shutdown. Aaron was immediately able to identify the problem and
offer the solution - remove the CD data from Virtual Acorn's "Plugins"
folder.
Personally, I have not found the absence of a CD player to be any
hindrance. (In fact, I like it for I hate the nuisance of CDs
cluttering up the place). ShareFS works very well between my Iyonix
and RiscPC and, with four USB slots and a four-in-one card reader,
there is no difficulty in attaching external devices (such as a CD
drive).
Cheers
Joe Taylor
jet...@googlemail.com
domain.co.uk> wrote:
> I've not seen the Advent machine yet, but I've got a standard install of
> Ubuntu on my Dell Latitude laptop.
I have seen reports indicating that Dell intends to make its entry
into the sub-laptop market this August with a new range which they
have provisionally named the 'Mini-E' series. Like Advent/MSI the Dell
computers are to be based on the Intel Atom Diamondville 1.6 GHz
processor. The proposed specs, I have seen, are to initially have a
choice of two machines - one with an 8.9" screen (which will clearly
be a competitor for the Asus Eee PC 901) and another with a 12"
screen.
The Asus Eee series has created/revitalised the interesting market of
sub-laptops (netbooks) which are physically bigger than the
pocketbooks - of which the Psion series was my favourite - but smaller
and less-powerful than conventional laptops. It's encouraging, too,
that Microsoft isn't getting to dominate this market - for many of the
sub-laptops are being sold with Linux as the native OS. It would be
nice if the RISC OS community had a powerful Linux emulation of RISC
OS to run on them.
Cheers
Joe Taylor
george
ups.com>
jet...@googlemail.com wrote:
> On 15 Jul, 14:52, Paul Vigay <invalid-email-addr...@invalid-
[snip]
> It's encouraging, too,
> that Microsoft isn't getting to dominate this market - for many of the
> sub-laptops are being sold with Linux as the native OS. It would be
> nice if the RISC OS community had a powerful Linux emulation of RISC
> OS to run on them.
Indeed. Unfortunately there is no sign of any such emulation being
developed, at least commercially. Virtual Acorn's stock response is to
cite the impossibility of supporting the numerous versions of Linux
extant. OTOH, why not pick one of, say, Debian, Ubuntu or Red Hat and
develop for that? It seems to me that a considerable opportunity is
being missed here.
George
--
Dave Higton
george <george.g...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
Or, as I've suggested before: run the Windoze version under Wine
under any version of Linux, as Wine should offer a standardised
interface.
Dave
Chika
Ned Abell <ne...@weatherpost.org.uk> wrote:
> In article
> <4fbef914c2inval...@invalid-domain.co.uk>,
> Paul Vigay <invalid-em...@invalid-domain.co.uk>
> wrote:
> > In a dim and distant universe
> > <a98bc2f8-13c6-4fd4...@b1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
> > <jet...@googlemail.com> enlightened us thusly:
> > > I'm finding it's working beautifully. Virtaul RiscPC is
> > > running at (roughly) the same speed as the processor it's
> > > emulating - very satisfactory on a machine this size.
> > > I've not had so much fun in years!
> > I've just installed RISC OS Adjust on a Linux machine and
> > was quite surprised at how easy it was. Free too. :-)
Lucky you! I've managed to get it running with 4.02 but getting the thing
to run double disc, or getting it to read an ISO is pretty much impossible
as it just dies. From the notes, I get the feeling that the Linux version
isn't exactly stable.
> More details please Paul
:)
--
//\ // Chika <miyuki><at><crashnet><org><uk>
// \// Mitsuo... Menda... naha naha...
... Take care of the pennies and the Inland Revenue will take care of the rest.
David Pitt
[snip]
> The Asus Eee series has created/revitalised the interesting market of
> sub-laptops (netbooks) which are physically bigger than the pocketbooks -
> of which the Psion series was my favourite - but smaller and less-powerful
> than conventional laptops. It's encouraging, too, that Microsoft isn't
> getting to dominate this market - for many of the sub-laptops are being
> sold with Linux as the native OS. It would be nice if the RISC OS
> community had a powerful Linux emulation of RISC OS to run on them.
>
Virtual Acorn, with all the foresight and wisdom one comes to expect from
RISC OS companies, has said a Linux VRPC will not be developed. Too many
distros to support was the reason given but I would guess no developer
effort might also apply. A fully Vista compliant VRPC would be nice.
I have tried RPCemu on Linux, it took two days to build and ten minutes to
fall over.
RISC OS activity is now firmly back on the Iyonix here, but then it would be
rather nice to see a more powerful one of those.
It is pleasing to see Linux get more public exposure via these small
laptops. Linux, like RISC OS, does not need the processing muscle that
Windows must have to perform well. There are plenty of distros for
manufacturers to chose from rather than the 'one size fits all' Windows.
--
David Pitt
David Pitt
> In a dim and distant universe <f7af72bf4f...@dsl.pipex.com>,
> Dave Higton <daveh...@dsl.pipex.com> enlightened us thusly:
>
> > Or, as I've suggested before: run the Windoze version under Wine under
> > any version of Linux, as Wine should offer a standardised interface.
>
> There's no need to run the Windows version anymore. RPCemu works perfectly
> well natively under Linux. It's faster than a StrongARM Risc PC too, so
> speed shouldn't be an issue.
I am not so sure about RPCemu, as I have just said further up this thread it
took me two days to build it and it fell over within ten minutes. To be fair
that is the sort of luck I have, if there is a flaw in anything I will find
it PDQ. Due to a Vista intervention, know what I mean, and an Ubuntu upgrade
I no longer have RPCemu on Linux.
The catch might be that one has to fix bugs oneself, RPCemu is open source.
I also need to work out how to build the SVN latest for Windows. The source
has been updated to enable the RISC OS clock to run but as far as I am aware
the built download has not been updated. I expect the clock not to run on
the Linux version as that needs updating in the source.
Building RPCemu was one of the most interesting computing things I had done
for a while. It is time to revisit this and give RPCemu a longer work out.
--
David Pitt
David Pitt
> In a dim and distant universe
> <gemini.k433xt0...@pittdj.co.uk>,
> David Pitt <ne...@pittdj.co.uk> enlightened us thusly:
> [Snippety snip]
>
> > Building RPCemu was one of the most interesting computing things I had
> > done for a while. It is time to revisit this and give RPCemu a longer
> > work out.
>
> Yes. That's why I was thinking of writing an article on it. It took me
> about a week to get it working the first time. It needed dependencies my
> laptop didn't have. ISTR I had to install some other stuff before it would
> compile cleanly. Even after compilation there are a load of little tweaks
> you need to do (such as the HostFS directory having the wrong filename,
> preventing it from working at all).
I am making notes as I go this time which could be posted somewhere.
The required bits and pieces do need rounding up. So far that has meant gcc
libraries and subversion itself. I am just off to checkout the source. I do
recall Allegro being required for the build.
--
David Pitt
Chika
Vigay <invalid-em...@invalid-domain.co.uk> wrote:
> In a dim and distant universe <4fbf741c...@no.spam.here>, Chika
> <miy...@spam-no-way.invalid> enlightened us thusly:
> > Lucky you! I've managed to get it running with 4.02 but getting the
> > thing to run double disc, or getting it to read an ISO is pretty much
> > impossible as it just dies. From the notes, I get the feeling that the
> > Linux version isn't exactly stable.
> Why would you need it to read an ISO? Couldn't you use Linux to read the
> ISO?
> I've only really used it for stuff that I require RISC OS for - such as
> editing web pages using Zap or editing OvationPro files etc. For those
> type of purposes, it's not crashed on me yet.
I should explain what I was trying to do.
Having installed RPCemu, I started trying to set up the system itself, but
found that it refused to read the HostFS area, probably because it needed
to soft-load the module to do it. I managed to get a copy of HForm into an
ADF file and loaded that (though the two floppies defined by default
switched places so that, if I attached the ADF to drive 0, I had to click
drive 1 to see it!) and formatted drive 4. All seemed OK at that point but
I still couldn't get to the HostFS area and realised that there was no way
other than laboriously porting in through ADFs or finding a way to get it
to see a CDROM in some way to get the Uniboot on.
Then I tried a minimal Uniboot ADF but that kept hanging every time I
tried to copy it across to the main drive.
I then tried downloading the RO4.02 ISO and tried attaching that but every
time I tried to do that, the whole thing aborted.
The last thing I tried was downloading the HD image from the RPCemu site
which worked OK but, as it is fairly small, I felt that I needed more
space somewhere. On the plus side, I now had a HostFS icon but, on the
minus side, it didn't seem to work in that I had already copied files into
the area reserved in the RPCemu distro for HostFS but these didn't show
when I clicked on the icon for that, and I couldn't save anything into it
either (I checked the permissions but all seemed fine there). I then
attached the first ADF I created with HForm in it and tried to format disc
5 but again it failed as it couldn't identify the drive.
As for why, it's more of a curiosity right now, though it could take over
as a backup system if it works. The current backup is a Red Squirrel setup
on a PC that I'm trying to remove some of the applications from.
--
//\ // Chika <miyuki><at><crashnet><org><uk>
// \// Mitsuo... Menda... naha naha...
... While the Lunatic dreams the Earth changes.
jet...@googlemail.com
> I am not so sure about RPCemu, as I have just said further up this thread it
> took me two days to build it and it fell over within ten minutes.
Hi David. I sympathise. Last night, I went to the bother of
installing (Windows) RPCemu on the Advent/MSI Wind netbook and it took
me an hour of blindly 'messing about' - with many crashes - before I
could get it to work in full screen mode. RPCemu's limitations when
used with *netbooks* - which is the area I intended should be
addressed by this thread - became immediately clear. The Advent 4211
has no internal floppy or CD drives while (windows) RPCemu has -
apparently - no network or USB ability. This means that the PC side
has to be used for data transfer to HostFS - with attendant filetype
issues (to say nothing of the tedium!). Even discounting questions of
instability and slow speed, in present form, (windows) RPCemu is of
*very* limited use on *NET*books such as the Advent.
On the other hand, as I have reported in the original email of this
thread, Advent 4211 + Virtual Acorn can be strongly recommended as a
very good way of obtaining a netbook which runs RISC OS in an
acceptable and satisfactory manner.
Cheers
Joe Taylor
Chika
Vigay <invalid-em...@invalid-domain.co.uk> wrote:
> In a dim and distant universe <4fbfc4dc...@no.spam.here>, Chika
> <miy...@spam-no-way.invalid> enlightened us thusly: [Snippety snip]
> > minus side, it didn't seem to work in that I had already copied files
> > into the area reserved in the RPCemu distro for HostFS but these
> > didn't show when I clicked on the icon for that, and I couldn't save
> > anything into it either (I checked the permissions but all seemed fine
> > there). I then attached the first ADF I created with HForm in it and
> > tried to format disc 5 but again it failed as it couldn't identify the
> > drive.
> As mentioned previously I discovered that there's a typo in the HostFS
> stuff. The HOSTFS directory on the Linux hard drive has to be called
> "hostfs" (lower case instead of upper case). Once you change that, you
> can then use HostFS to copy files to/from Linux - which does make it a
> lot easier to get stuff over.
Hmm... must have missed that one.
Mind you, the readme seems to be at odds with some of what I'm finding
anyway, so I'm not surprised.
--
//\ // Chika <miyuki><at><crashnet><org><uk>
// \// Mitsuo... Menda... naha naha...
... 2400 Baud makes you want to get out and push!!
Chika
Vigay <invalid-em...@invalid-domain.co.uk> wrote:
> In a dim and distant universe <4fbfc4dc...@no.spam.here>, Chika
> <miy...@spam-no-way.invalid> enlightened us thusly: [Snippety snip]
> > minus side, it didn't seem to work in that I had already copied files
> > into the area reserved in the RPCemu distro for HostFS but these
> > didn't show when I clicked on the icon for that, and I couldn't save
> > anything into it either (I checked the permissions but all seemed fine
> > there). I then attached the first ADF I created with HForm in it and
> > tried to format disc 5 but again it failed as it couldn't identify the
> > drive.
> As mentioned previously I discovered that there's a typo in the HostFS
> stuff. The HOSTFS directory on the Linux hard drive has to be called
> "hostfs" (lower case instead of upper case). Once you change that, you
> can then use HostFS to copy files to/from Linux - which does make it a
> lot easier to get stuff over.
Actually, I just tried it. Very slow to boot, but it seemed to work, at
least at first. Then, having opened the HostFS filing system for a second
time, RPCemu suddenly collapsed in a similar way to when I tried to attach
to an ISO.
I did eventually manage to get the system drive into working order,
however, by making hd5 an exact copy of hd4, then configuring the system
to boot from disc 5 and formatting 4 to the size I wanted before moving
everything back again and killing off hd5.
--
//\ // Chika <miyuki><at><crashnet><org><uk>
// \// Mitsuo... Menda... naha naha...
... No new mail - start whine-pout sequence (Y/N)?
David Pitt
I can but agree with the recommendation for VRPC on WindowsXP. The position
is not quite so clear cut on Vista, at least not on the machine I have. I do
have RPCemu on Vista, I stopped proceeding with that when it became clear
that the RISC OS clock did not work and the implication for date stamps sunk
in. That has been fixed in the source. It is time for another look at that.
RPCemu is not afflicted by the Vista-isms that nobble VRPC.
On Linux it is RPCemu or nothing. I have just persuaded RPCemu to run on
Linux, the gotcha was that the cmos.ram seemed to be corrupt, I pinched a
copy from the RiscPC and that is sorted now. The clock does not work, as
expected, which is a pain. I can only get to 800*600 at 16M colours, it
crashes at 1025*768 32k. Anyway building from the SVN source was most
satisfying.
--
David Pitt
Theo Markettos
> Actually, I just tried it. Very slow to boot, but it seemed to work, at
> least at first. Then, having opened the HostFS filing system for a second
> time, RPCemu suddenly collapsed in a similar way to when I tried to attach
> to an ISO.
A silly question, but are you using the latest revision from subversion? I'd
try that to start with, as that's where the development's happening. Make
sure you configure with --enable-dynarec if you want the dynamic recompiler
(see ./configure --help to check that's the right spelling as ICBW)
Recent changes:
http://www.riscos.info/websvn/log.php?repname=rpcemu&path=%2Ftrunk%2F&rev=0&sc=0&isdir=1
Theo
Chika
<theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Chika <miy...@spam-no-way.invalid> wrote:
> > Actually, I just tried it. Very slow to boot, but it seemed to work,
> > at least at first. Then, having opened the HostFS filing system for a
> > second time, RPCemu suddenly collapsed in a similar way to when I
> > tried to attach to an ISO.
> A silly question, but are you using the latest revision from subversion?
> I'd try that to start with, as that's where the development's happening.
> Make sure you configure with --enable-dynarec if you want the dynamic
> recompiler (see ./configure --help to check that's the right spelling as
> ICBW)
Downloaded the latest version I could find on the site and yes, I set
dynarec too.
Ta.
--
//\ // Chika <miyuki><at><crashnet><org><uk>
// \// Mitsuo... Menda... naha naha...
... Don't worry, I'm fluent in weirdo...
David Pitt
> Chika <miy...@spam-no-way.invalid> wrote:
> > Actually, I just tried it. Very slow to boot, but it seemed to work, at
> > least at first. Then, having opened the HostFS filing system for a
> > second time, RPCemu suddenly collapsed in a similar way to when I tried
> > to attach to an ISO.
>
> A silly question, but are you using the latest revision from subversion?
> I'd try that to start with, as that's where the development's happening.
> Make sure you configure with --enable-dynarec if you want the dynamic
> recompiler (see ./configure --help to check that's the right spelling as
> ICBW)
How does one build the subversion source on Windows. I have done this on
Ubuntu.
I have Cygwin on Vista and have downloaded the source from the svn
repository. ./configure ends with "Unsupported host system".
--
David Pitt
Theo Markettos
> I am making notes as I go this time which could be posted somewhere.
>
> The required bits and pieces do need rounding up. So far that has meant gcc
> libraries and subversion itself. I am just off to checkout the source. I do
> recall Allegro being required for the build.
Please do post them somewhere - the RPCemu page on the riscos.info wiki
might be one sensible place. In particular it's handy if you can post the
package names for your particular Linux distro as it's not always possible
to work this out unless you have an installation in front of you.
Theo
David Pitt
I have now built the Linux version and so far it has behaved itself. The
build was easy, I did cheat slightly in that I downloaded all six allegro
libraries offered as it was not obvious which were required. The hard bit
was getting RPCemu to run, but I got there in the end.
How much real interest is there in RPCemu on Linux. I would think that might
be considerable given that VRPC on Linux is not going to happen.
The position with building a Windows version is not so good. The substantive
problem is that there are no makefiles for either Cygwin or MinGW. RPCemu
can be built on either of those two but it does require one to really know
what one is doing which at the moment lets me out. As far as I can see
RPCemu is not currently supported on Windows though there are older builds
which in my view do RPCemu's reputation no good.
--
David Pitt
David Pitt
> In a dim and distant universe
> <2bddeefa-4252-4cf8...@r66g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
> <jet...@googlemail.com> enlightened us thusly:
> [Snippety snip]
>
> > As Paul is indicating, there is a strong divergence in the sub-
> > notebook market based on the choice of operating system. I see that in
> > the last few days some members of the Ubuntu forums have written to say
> > that they have managed to install Linux on the Advent
>
> I've not seen the Advent machine yet, but I've got a standard install of
> Ubuntu on my Dell Latitude laptop.
>
> This is the one I've now got RPCemu (from
> http://b-em.bbcmicro.com/arculator/download.html ) running on.
>
> It took a bit of tinkering around and fine tuning (I'll write an article
> for www.riscos.org when I get the time) but I've now got a 128MB StrongARM
> Risc PC with 1.2GB drive running RISC OS 4.39 nicely within Ubuntu. Works
> very well and quite nipppy too (although I've not done any proper speed
> tests yet).
>
> Maximum resolution appears to be 1024x768 though as it crashes if I try to
> go higher (the laptop itself is 1920x1200) but I find this works very well
> without taking up too much screen real estate.
To my surprise I find I can get 1920*1200 in full screen mode on my laptop
running Ubuntu 8.04 and an RPCemu build from SVN. That is with OS4.39. It is
down to 256 colours with only 2MB VRAM. This build from the latest sources
is looking rather pleasing, though best not to say much and tempt fate.
I have done a performance comparison using !DeskBogo that comes with VRPC.
VRPC Vista Toshiba laptop 383
RPCemu Linux ditto 34
RiscPC Kinetic300 147
Ubuntu on this laptop is a Wubi installation http://wubi-installer.org/ as
opposed to being in a separate partition.
--
David Pitt
Theo Markettos
> How much real interest is there in RPCemu on Linux. I would think that might
> be considerable given that VRPC on Linux is not going to happen.
I think there's a fair bit of interest, especially from non-RISC OS
developers - people who haven't written RISC OS software, but want to
emulate their old machine.
RPCemu is /almost/ to the point of serious usability... the only things I
can think of are networking (which exists in some form - I haven't tested it
recently) and CPU usage (there's a CPU ceding program but it doesn't work
too well).
> The position with building a Windows version is not so good. The substantive
> problem is that there are no makefiles for either Cygwin or MinGW. RPCemu
> can be built on either of those two but it does require one to really know
> what one is doing which at the moment lets me out. As far as I can see
> RPCemu is not currently supported on Windows though there are older builds
> which in my view do RPCemu's reputation no good.
I may have completely the wrong end of the stick, but I think it's roughly
that Tom does Windows development and everyone else seems to be doing Linux
development. 'Everyone else' here means people submitting random patches.
That means that Tom's changes occasionally break the Linux version because
there's no-one maintaining that version directly - it just depends on when
someone submits a patch to fix the breakage. Meanwhile I don't think there
are too many eyes other than Tom's looking at the Windows version, so if
your build environment is different from Tom's then it might be a bit flaky.
(And there are at least three main Windows build environments: MSVC++,
MinGW, Cygwin)
(Tom, tell me to stop talking rubbish if you like :)
If someone wants to get involved with documentation and/or build systems I'm
sure that would be most welcome.
Theo
David Pitt
> David Pitt <ne...@pittdj.co.uk> wrote:
> > How much real interest is there in RPCemu on Linux. I would think that
> > might be considerable given that VRPC on Linux is not going to happen.
>
> I think there's a fair bit of interest, especially from non-RISC OS
> developers - people who haven't written RISC OS software, but want to
> emulate their old machine.
That is the point, as I perceive it at the moment RPCemu is a development
project for the competent. It needs to break out of that niche to become a
usable proposition for mere users of RISC OS. This is important because I
see the big problem for RISC OS is a lack of platforms to run it on in the
future.
> RPCemu is /almost/ to the point of serious usability... the only things I
> can think of are networking (which exists in some form - I haven't tested
> it recently) and CPU usage (there's a CPU ceding program but it doesn't
> work too well).
I have yet to build the svn latest for Windows but I will say that the 0.7
build on the website is not usable, it is too unstable, at least it was
here. The latest on Linux does look much better so I would hope that the
latest on Windows would be good too.
> > The position with building a Windows version is not so good. The
> > substantive problem is that there are no makefiles for either Cygwin or
> > MinGW. RPCemu can be built on either of those two but it does require
> > one to really know what one is doing which at the moment lets me out. As
> > far as I can see RPCemu is not currently supported on Windows though
> > there are older builds which in my view do RPCemu's reputation no good.
>
> I may have completely the wrong end of the stick, but I think it's roughly
> that Tom does Windows development and everyone else seems to be doing
> Linux development. 'Everyone else' here means people submitting random
> patches. That means that Tom's changes occasionally break the Linux
> version because there's no-one maintaining that version directly - it just
> depends on when someone submits a patch to fix the breakage. Meanwhile I
> don't think there are too many eyes other than Tom's looking at the
> Windows version, so if your build environment is different from Tom's then
> it might be a bit flaky. (And there are at least three main Windows build
> environments: MSVC++, MinGW, Cygwin)
My impression was that all that was missing for a Windows build was a
makefile. MinGW is the environment Tom uses. I failed at the first hurdle,
it did not take me too long to come to the view that whoever manages the
MinGW website really did not want anyone to actually use MinGW, pages were
missing and what was there bore little relationship to the downloads
available, another experts only job! Clearly there is more learning curve
needed here.
>
> (Tom, tell me to stop talking rubbish if you like :)
It will be me that is more likely to be talking the rubbish, but then we
must all play to our strengths.
>
> If someone wants to get involved with documentation and/or build systems
> I'm sure that would be most welcome.
I would be happy to get involved in opening up RPCemu to wider usage but I
am not going to do that if I am the only interested party and if RPCemu is
sufficiently stable.
--
David Pitt
druck
> I have done a performance comparison using !DeskBogo that comes with VRPC.
Probably the least useful benchmark ever developed, and very easily
spotted by emulator writers, to return inflated results.
---druck
--
The ARM Club Free Software - http://www.armclub.org.uk/free/
The 32bit Conversions Page - http://www.quantumsoft.co.uk/druck/
David Pitt
> On 18 Jul 2008 David Pitt <ne...@pittdj.co.uk> wrote:
> > I have done a performance comparison using !DeskBogo that comes with
> > VRPC.
>
> Probably the least useful benchmark ever developed, and very easily
> spotted by emulator writers, to return inflated results.
Now who would do a thing like that!
DeskBogo did not do RPCemu any favours.
Not that it matters, RPCemu on Linux has gone haywire here. If I ever get
RPCemu sorted out I may report on it performance, or then again I may not as
someone will moan about the benchmarks used.
--
David Pitt
Ollie Clark
> I have now built the Linux version and so far it has behaved itself. The
> build was easy, I did cheat slightly in that I downloaded all six allegro
> libraries offered as it was not obvious which were required. The hard bit
> was getting RPCemu to run, but I got there in the end.
>
> How much real interest is there in RPCemu on Linux. I would think that might
> be considerable given that VRPC on Linux is not going to happen.
I, for one am very interested, although I've already got it installed
anyway. :-) I'd imagine that quite a few RISC OS users moved to Linux
(more than moved to windows even) so I'd imagine there's just as much
interest as there is in VA.
> The position with building a Windows version is not so good. The substantive
> problem is that there are no makefiles for either Cygwin or MinGW. RPCemu
> can be built on either of those two but it does require one to really know
> what one is doing which at the moment lets me out. As far as I can see
> RPCemu is not currently supported on Windows though there are older builds
> which in my view do RPCemu's reputation no good.
I think they're right to concentrate on a Linux version. VA is available
on Windows whilst Linux can be used on any hardware that runs windows so
if you really want a Free emulator, you can just install a Free OS.
Alongside windows if you must.
Theo Markettos
> I think they're right to concentrate on a Linux version. VA is available
> on Windows whilst Linux can be used on any hardware that runs windows so
> if you really want a Free emulator, you can just install a Free OS.
> Alongside windows if you must.
Not that I speak for anyone, but I don't think 'they' are concentrating on a
Linux version. Tom (the main developer) is a Windows person. Everyone else
(who submit patches) are Unix people. I think the main interest in the
Linux version is because that's where the ex-RISC OS developers have gone
and that's what interests them. I can't think of any ex-RISC OS developers
who have gone Windows-only - if they exist then they perhaps don't have much
contact here or elsewhere.
Unix is a more pressing need at the moment, but I think a Windows version
isn't too far behind - most of the work is shared between the two in any
case. The Windows version just doesn't have as many developers.
Theo