Workshops / background reports / book introductions
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Workshops / background reports / book introductions
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»I think about Linux on the Amiga for some time and wrote multiple articles regarding this theme in the "Amiga-Magazin". In one of the last editions of Amiga aktuell international there was the request for a Linux report and I offered to write such an article. After talking to Carsten I report first about RedHat Linux 5.1 for the Amiga.
In the future I want to bring more reports regarding Linux in a small "Linux corner" in Amiga aktuell international. But that also depends on your feedback, because I don't like to write anythings, if it isn't read by anyone. But more to that in the end of the report.
I already reported about RedHat Linux in the "Amiga-Magazin", but this is a totally rewritten report only for the Amiga-aktuell international. ;-)
What is it?
RedHat Linux for Amiga is an inoffical port of RedHat Linux by Jes Sorensen. Inofficial means, that RedHat doesn't offer any support for this distribution. Also Jes Sorensen is not available for support requests. But there is a very good installation FAQ in HTML format - unfortunately in English only - and a RedHat m68k mailing list, on which you can ask questions. In the installation FAQ there is a section "References", which offers a good overview about Internet resources regarding Linux m68k and also offers the mailing list address. For users, who know the German language the newsgroup de.comp.sys.amiga.unix might be interesting.
In my first report I'd like to report my impressions of RedHat Linux. I will also write about my experiences of the installation. But this report isn't a step-by-step-installation manual. If you'd like to have something like that, contact me.
Where can I get it?
RedHat Linux can be purchased from Schatztruhe (http://www.schatztruhe.de) for 39.00 DEM (approx. 19.90 Euros) or in the OS bundle with NetBSD and p.OS pre-release for 59.00 DEM (approx. 30.11 Euros). Also delix Computer GmbH offers RedHat for Amiga (resp. m68k). Delix Computer GmbH (http://www.delix.de) distributes the Rough Cuts CD-ROM collection from RedHat. This contains the distribution for PowerPC - no, unfortunately it can't run easily on Amigas with PowerPC boards;( for MIPS, Sparc and, at last, also for m68k.
A printed manual isn't included either from Schatztruhe nor from delix. But there is the brilliant installation FAQ included on the CD in a newer version than on the CD-ROM I own. Schatztruhe also offers a telephone hotline with installation support in the German language.
Who wants, can download RedHat Linux for Amiga also from one of the multiple RedHat mirror FTP sites in the Internet: http://www.redhat.com/mirrors.html.
But before buying a Linux-CD-ROM you should find out, if Linux would run on your Amiga configuration. Your Amiga needs an MMU - a Memory Management Unit - in any case, at least 8 MB of RAM, a supported IDE or SCSI controller as well as a supported CD-ROM drive. How you can find out, if Linux would run on your Computer I' tell you in one of the next reports.
The installation
I installed RedHat Linux on an Amiga 4000 desktop with a CyberStorm MK II 040/40 with a CyberSCSI MK II controller and 48 MB of Fast RAM as well as two hard disks with 1.5 GB overall capacity as well as a CyberVision 64 graphics board with 2 MB of video RAM. A configureation, that should result in problems. They are all parts, that are supported by Linux m68k for a quite long time.
I put the RedHat Linux CD of Schatztruhe and thought "Just read the FAQ and start the installation routine." So I read the FAQ and learned, how the installation could be started directly from the CD-ROM. Unfortunately there aren't any icons like with Eagle Linux m68k Amiga, so I opened a shell and entered the command line, mentioned in the FAQ. With that I started "amiboot", which then loaded the Linux kernel from the CD-ROM. During this operation it installed a RAM disk for Linux and loads a just compressed, but bootable Linux system into this RAM-Disk. Then the kernel boots, decompresses the Linux system in the RAM-Disk and boots it.
The installation routine just starts and presents a menu, in which you can select from which installation medium you want to install. I chose CD-ROM and from that point it didn't work. Then I learned, that the CD-ROM contains an error. The installation routine from the RAM-Disk wants to execute the Linux commands directly from the CD-ROM. But these have the wrong protection bits set. The "x" bit, which marks under Linux, if a file is executable hasn't been set. To the installation routine cannot execute the Linux commands.
So there is only the possibility to wait for a patched installation RAM-Disk, that avoids the problem of copying all the files of the CD-ROM on an Amiga partition - where I didn't have the space - or to use another CD, which doesn't have this bug. Fortunately I got a copy of the RedHat Rough-Cuts-CD-ROM collection without delay.
With that it worked then, But also then the CD-ROM wasn't recognized with the first try. If you do the desired step of the installation routine again, it usually worked. At least a progress, because earlier Linux kernels didn't recognize my Pioneer 24x Slot-In-CD-ROM drive.
In the meantime Schatztruhe should offer a patch for the installation RAM-Disk resp. a version of the CD-ROM without this bug. Unfortunately I didn't get an answer on a question regarding this problems, so I cannot say for sure, if they do.
After the CD-ROM has been recognized you can select from sections - there are some for common Internet clients like eMail, FTP etc., X11, X11 games, printer support, additional documentation etc, which software packages to install or if you want to install just everything. Who likes can select or de-select any package later, too.
I chose an installation with X11, any of the important standard programs, but without most of the developer tools, to get everything on a 260 MB partition. In addition I entered on which partition the root file system should be installed. I didn't define a swap partition, because I didn't have a free one. But usually it is better to name one - as I learned later, when XView didn't want to save a screen shot due in PNG format to a lack of free memory. ;-)
After this was done the installation routine began installing the software packages and was surprised. As I was used to low speed of Debian Linux I was really surprised to see, how fast the rpm packages were being installed. Within 16 minutes everything was ready and more than 200 MB of software packages have been installed.
Maybe I have to give a small explanaition about the package management under Linux: Many Linux distribution offer a package management. That means, that the software to be installed is organized in archives. But different as the lha- or lzx archives on the Amiga the archives also contain informations about the What and How of the installation. The package contains informations about the packages that have to be installed to make this software run - so called package-dependence. In addition it contains the information, which files have to be installed where, eventually an installation script etc.
This system makes it easy to de-install already installed software packages, because a central database knows at every moment, which files belong to which software package. There are two different package management system in Linux: The debian package management system of the Debian distribution and the RedHat package management system of RedHat. It seems, that the RedHat system is much faster as the installation shows.
After that the installation routine asked for some informations like mouse, network (LAN), time zone, which system services like e.g. inetd should be started automatically and which printer should be supported. Then you have to define a password for the user "root". Then the installation is complete and the system was rebooted.
After booting you can boot the Linux kernal on the just installed Linux-root partition directly from AmigaOS. This worked fine with a desired kernel option on a 1024x768x8 screen on my CyberVision - more in this manner in one of the next reports. Entered the root-password, and then "startx" and then I had a graphical user interface with a nice start menu and a configuration tool.
But the keyboard layout was still English. Unfortunately this hadn't been asked by the installation routine. But I quickly found the desired command to map the keyboard layout: "kbdconfig". I just selected the keyboard "amiga-de" and that's it. But you can also start the program "setup". From there you can start other configuration programs like the mouse and keyboard preferences.
Unfortunately this information isn't included in the FAQ. But the FAQ contains informations to some other things, you should adjust manually, because the installation routine overlooks some things. E.g. there is a bug in the »et/resolv.con« and »etc/fstab«, that contains informations, which drives should be mounted - like the file DEVS:Mountlist or the files in DEVS:DosDrivers - unfortunately doesn't contain all the drives specified in the installation script. Just the root drive is included, everything else has to be edited manually with the editor.
What does RedHat Linux m68k 5.1 offer?
What does it offer after the installation? Well, basicly I own a fully functional Linux system with all the important programs;-). Using the graphical configuration interface you can adjust the printer support, set the time, the boot process, the modem and to configure the network. The installation routine itself can only configure a local network. Who wants to connect to the internet whith Linux can define a new "interface" with "PPP" protocol in the "Network Configurator". If your provider does the authentification via PAP/CHAP, there shouldn't be any serious problems. But I haven't tested it yet.
The config tool is quite useful, but quite slow, no wonder - it seems its python scripts, that build
Responsible for the stolen colours is the configuration tool, that seems to need some colours for its symbols which you need for starting the other configuration program. So it is better to quit it after the configuration has been completed.
Most of the programs can be started via the start menu. XEMacs, GIMP, XView, GhostView - everything works as it should. And many programs run on an 68040 in acceptable speed. These are two screen shots:
On the first one you see XView in action. With this program I made the screen shots. On the screen shot you can see Gimp in the picture display window from XView. Gimp is a fine picture editing program, which builds on the gtk - the gimp toolkit interface. Unfortunately I don't own the screen shot in large, because I downscaled it and XView unfortunately saved it in this small size. So it tricked me ;-)
On the second picture you see EMacs running. And you also see the xfm, the X11 File Manager, at the bottom of the picture. It's not as nice as the Workbench or even Directory Opus, but KDE isn't on the CD and the Gnome desktop of the CD has no file manager.
Onfortunately not all the programs work: glint - a graphic user interface for installing and de-installing packages, linuxconf - a graphical interface for configuring Linux exit with error messages. Also the installed Gnome system (http://www.gnome.org) is quite old. I didn't find any useable Gnome programs except the configuration interface. The Gnome interface is the equivalent to KDE based on free sources. RedHat supports Gnome for some time with own programmers. Unfortunately the versions for Intel and PowerPC systems are later than for Linux m68k. As from KDE there aren't any new m68k binary archives for Gnome. But Debian has the same problems. Who likes can download the SRPM's for Gnome and compile it himself. But I think, you need patience for that. I didn't test it, because the Linux hard disk was too full.
RedHat Linux contains everything a good Linux needs - but unfortunately not in the latest versions! The source package (SRPMs) is also included on the CD-ROM. But then the CD is already full. Another CD-ROM would have been fine to allow a better choice.
Conclusion
RedHat Linux is a fine working and easy to install Linux for the Amiga. All the important programs are included, so you can just start. But they are not the latest versions and the choice of software packages could be better - but you get a stable Linux distribution without serious problems.
A RedHat-CD, which allowed starting of the installation routine directly from the CD with a double click on an icon as with the Eagle Linux update CD would be fine.
Meanwhile Jes Sorensen ported RedHat 5.2 to the Amiga - on the tested CDs was revision 5.1 - and made a public beta version available. This can be found in the Internet on:
ftp://SunSITE.auc.dk/pub/os/linux/680x0/redhat/beta/redhat-5.2
I can't hardly wait for the next RedHat Linux-CD by Jes Sorensen. Then the Schatztruhe-CD will no longer have the bug with the protection bits.
And how does it continue?
So, now to anybody who read up to this point and still has a question. As I mentioned before I'd like to offer a small Linux corner. I cannot guarantee, that I can write an article every month, but I can imagine more articles about Amiga and Linux. What themes are you interested in? If you ask me I would name these:
1. Step-by-step-installation manual for RedHat or Debian or Eagle. But at least for RedHat I think this is not necessary.
2. Help for installation. How can I partitionate my hard disk in the HD-Tool box? What traps are there with a Linux installation?
3. Eagle Linux update CD incl. KDE (older than 1.0) and QtScape 5 beta
4. For RedHat: Mozilla and KDE 1.0
5. Download and install the RedHat 5.2 update. If this doesn't take too long ;-)
I don't know, what is interesting for you. So you just contact me. Of course, I would be happy about feedback regarding this article. It is always good to know, if the stuff I write is being read- I needn't to read it anymore, it's for you! ;-)
Martin Steigerwald <steigerw@stud.uni-frankfurt.de>«
