First RISC OS Distro for Pi?

The download link seems to be 404 at the moment.

Better now.

A minor thing: NetSurf deserves to go in Apps rather than Utilities, don’t you think? Of course, it’s a real can of worms how to organise the applications. I think the packaging project, which got a lot of discussion back in November or thereabouts when we were all busy compiling the list of useful apps, puts things in subdirectories of Apps. I still think it would be good to support packaging for new users.

Keep up the excellent work!

!Boot.Choices populated

Just thought I’d check – you know it’s normal for it (or more specifically !Boot.Choices.Boot) not to be populated on a “fresh” boot sequence? The idea is that its contents are initialised differently depending upon which OS version you’re using.

NetSurf deserves to go in Apps rather than Utilities

I’d agree – the difference between Apps and Utilities is that, while both are Filer_Booted by the boot sequence, the Apps also go in the ResourceFS Apps folder. Utilities is therefore more useful for applications that are primarily launched in response to the user clicking on a file (think ChangeFSI) and Apps is where the user would look when they want to perform a task from scratch (write a letter, do a drawing – yes, I think “browse the web” fits there).

the difference between Apps and Utilities is that …

Funny isn’t it – after using RISC OS since the days of Arthur and I’d always wondered why the separation (given that in RISC OS you never launch an application in order to load a file) but I had overlooked the ‘start with a blank text file’ idea. I always load a previous file (copying it into the directory where I want it first) rub out all text (save it with a new name if necessary) and then compose. Similarly I always edit an existing file on Windows and never create a new file.

Similarly I always edit an existing file on Windows and never create a new file.

Whoah – dangerous.

You do realise that applications like Word don’t actually remove the text you “delete”, they just mark it as deleted so that it doesn’t show so you can pull text from re-used documents that people never intended to let out and about.

I always load a previous file (copying it into the directory where I want it first) rub out all text (save it with a new name if necessary) and then compose. Similarly I always edit an existing file on Windows and never create a new file.

I’m curious as to why you work in this way. Surely it’s quicker just to start a new file than to go through the rigmarole of finding one to copy, finding the correct place to copy it to, copying it, opening it and deleting all the text inside it? By the time you’ve done all that, you could have started with a new, empty file and been merrily typing away for a while.

Or is there something wrong with “new” files that I’m missing?

Or is there something wrong with “new” files that I’m missing?

I used to work for BNFL and creating a ‘new’ document in Word meant that you had to select from a house style and start a blank document. Everything was set up wrong (American spell checker etc etc). It was easier if you were writing a memo (for example) to find a previous memo and just alter the addressee etc etc. Now it’s a habit. It was fun to spot the spelling errors in Powerpoint presentations (‘tire’ for ‘tyre’ was a bit too obvious but otherwise people just accepted what Word wanted because it was easier than fighting it). If Word was really set on formatting something a particular way or capitalising something in a particular way it was usually easier just to let it go. Word is the worst and most badly designed word processor I have ever encountered. It might be fine for secretaries but it was useless for engineers.

OT:

Everything was set up wrong (American spell checker etc etc).

Wherever I’ve worked, there’s been minimal understanding about changing the defaults, although we (usually) do at least get the British English spellchecker. When someone does create new document templates, they’re invariably only stored locally, rather than somewhere automatically globally accessible via the new documents template picker. It must surely be possible to configure Word to behave appropriately, but apparently no one knows how or can be bothered to find out.

You do realise that applications like Word don’t actually remove the text you “delete”, they just mark it as deleted so that it doesn’t show so you can pull text from re-used documents that people never intended to let out and about.

Which is probably how some leaks come about. A friend told me he loved getting sales quotes as word files, because this was a common mistake. He could easily find out what other people had been quoted. (I suspect that sending out such a document is in breech of the data protection act.)

You really should use the template feature.

Well OT:

It must surely be possible to configure Word to behave appropriately, but apparently no one knows how or can be bothered to find out.

Open blank document, make all required changes – default styles (e.g.stop headers floating above the paragraph, change fonts in the styles etc) Change page size, change margins so it doesn’t waste half an acre of paper…
Save as template by doing “save as” and then selecting the format as “document template” – which should show you the existing templates in the Templates directory. Save over the top of the “Normal.dot” file.
IIRC the spill chucker operates off the system settings for territory.

Not that desktop support is my thing and probably not withstanding the high probability of MS having ditched the Office2003, and previous, methods and re-arranged everything in the new tat.

Save over the top of the “Normal.dot” file.

Which was prohibited by the company to ‘ensure we all use the same template’. That’s enuff this is well off topic.

Distro updated again and now added facility to apply incremental updates (see welcome page).

Hiya Chris, I signed up to just say thank you for this project, I installed it and booted it live in an ICT Class so the students could see it working. (I have a pi myself, the school doesn’t as yet!)

The looks on their faces as it came up showed quite a lot of interest into the operating system, and they did ask a lot of questions about the pi, as well as it being very affordable, I know for a fact several of the children present have ordered one now.

I am looking forward to the development of RISC OS primarily for the use in classroom development, especially with python, as it seems to be a good direction!

I was amazed how fast the pi was with RISC OS compared to the linux distros, 12 seconds to boot vs 48 to an Arch linux with LXDE interface.

I have been brushing up on my old ARM programming books, some dating back to the late 80’s, and I hope a lot of the old favourites from the Archimedes days will be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

Thanks again

Daz

I am looking forward to the development of RISC OS primarily for the use in classroom development, especially with python, as it seems to be a good direction!

I’m afraid you’ll have to port Python to RISC OS first if you want that. Keep brushing up!

There is, or soon will be a new version. I had to ‘port’ Python 2.7.2 to RISC OS to get gemrb working. I’m working on adding PyGame at the moment then release soon after.

Nice work Chris!

I just got my Raspberry Pi today and I am amazed how good it is using this port, well done to all involved. :)

Now a question, I connected a 8Gb USB pen drive and the drive size showed less than 4Gb, is this a to do feature or do I need to format the drive in some way to use the full 8Gb size.

Many thanks,

Graham

New suggestion for Chris’s welcome page: Prominently mention the fact that RISC OS cannot read FAT formatted discs of larger than 2GB.

do I need to format the drive in some way to use the full 8Gb size.

Yes – the program you want is !HForm. Bear in mind that this will render the drive unreadable on non-RISC OS computers, so if you want to use it for data transfer you’d be well advised to get a sub-2GB one.

Alternatively, there’s a program called Fat32Fs which circumvents the 2GB limit, but I don’t know if that’s been tested on the RPi yet. It can’t be distributed as part of the ROM because it’s GPL licensed, but maybe Chris could add it to his distro?

It can’t be distributed as part of the ROM because it’s GPL licensed, but maybe Chris could add it to his distro?

Unfortunately I cannot add it to the distro if it is GPL licensed as the alpha distro is simply the SD card distro that is being developed. I can add it to the ‘user downloads’ bit of my distro – i.e. just the web link and an explanation of what it does. I have added Netsurf as that licence was OK (so far as I can tell reading a ridiculously long and complicated text) provided I included the various copyright statements with things like UnixLib and Tinct etc.. However I have made sure that the distro is only distributed via the ROOL site so that any requests for source code (which is available on the web anyway) will go through them.

Chris, I’m not sure if you have the wrong end of the stick regarding GPL stuff in the official distro. GPL things can’t be put in the ROM image because that (according to one interpretation) is statically linked, and the GPL requires distribution of the source for anything that is statically linked against GPL code. But the SD card image is a filesystem – there’s no problem with putting GPL things in there as long as we have the source (strictly, we can do it without the source if that’s available elsewhere, but trouble may ensue if ‘elsewhere’ disappears from the net). The GPL requires a ‘written offer’ to supply the source code – that could be a text file saying that the source code may be found at http://some.url/ or in the ROOL CVS.

Or am I missing something?

Testing the RISCOS image on ‘Video Out’ mode reveals that it is rescaling the existing ’1080’image (complete with blank area below the Icon Bar – I’m using the image from about 1 week ago with Netsurf etc included ) to 480i with NTSC 3.58MHz subcarrier (revealed nicely by selecting ‘S-video’ on a Scart input)

Can this be changed to the 576i / PAL option, or does this need to be done prior to creating the image, as a whole – I suspect the latter, unless the config or other blob-associated file is identifiable – ‘Power On’ doesn’t give any clues 8-)

Re-edit, of re-edit 8-)
=======
For some unknown reason, I can’t find/access a FAT partition on my (now full) 2G RISCOS SD card – so no chance of accessing the config file if there … my WinXP is reporting the SD card as ‘not formatted’ …
However, a friend’s copy, made at the same time (but without being filled up on the RISCOS side), is still readable on a Win PC – and the config file etc is all there and presumably the appropriate TV standard can be inserted to change it form the default ??

Can this be changed

Please upgrade to the 13 July alpha distro. This will be stable as further updates can be applied under RISC OS on the Pi. Hence the 13 July alpha disto for an SD card should not need to be changed until it becomes something beyond alpha (or the ‘additions’ become so large that it seems a good idea).

But the SD card image is a filesystem

But so is ResourceFS where it would have been put. Now very puzzled.

Alternatively, there’s a program called Fat32Fs which circumvents the 2GB limit, but I don’t know if that’s been tested on the RPi yet. It can’t be distributed as part of the ROM because it’s GPL licensed, but maybe Chris could add it to his distro?

Has anyone tried FatFS32 in combination with the normal USB filesystem access?
For me, running Fat32FS on a beagle simply locked up the machine as soon as a drive access was attempted. Unless the differing HAL has a bearing, or possibly some aspect of the zero page changes that occurred just before I tried the module…

Has anyone tried FatFS32 in combination with the normal USB filesystem access? For me, running Fat32FS on a beagle simply locked up the machine as soon as a drive access was attempted.

Fat32FS appears to work perfectly on both my Raspberry Pi and on my Beagle XM. It’s installed as past of my !Boot sequence without any issues.