RISC OS Direct 5.31 upgrade with Wifi and Web Browser

RISC OS Developments is pleased to announce the release of RISC OS Direct
5.31, complete with wifi and a JavaScript/CSS web browser to deliver what
we believe to be the best possible experience of RISC OS 5 on Raspberry Pi
4 and below.

The new version is initially available as an easy to apply upgrade to
existing copies of RISC OS Direct, whilst a complete, fresh disc image
will follow after the show. The upgrade weighs in at around 300 MB (when
zipped up) so users should be aware this is quite a large download… for
RISC OS.

Key features of RISC OS Direct 5.31
============

• RISC OS Operating System (ROM) is updated from 5.29 to 5.31 with many new features and fixes representing several years of work.

• Includes RISC OS Developments’ new TCP/IP stack with Wifi capability for all applicable Pi models. This includes support for network profiles, IPv6, Wifi portal login protocols (ie. hotels and restaurants) and more.

• First time setup software introduces RISC OS Direct, helps users configure it to their liking and choose network settings. It also introduces users to some of the software included in RISC OS Direct.

• RISC OS Developments’ Pinboard 2.0 software powers a new, more useful desktop. Save files to you desktop, make folders, create sticky notes, set up wallpaper slideshows, use many formats of image, and even make your iconbar transparent to blend with your background.

• Includes RISC OS Developments’ new JavaScript, CSS and HTML 5 compliant web browser (“Iris”) to deliver a modern web experience to RISC OS. This can be used in conjunction with the Wifi portal support to log in to wifi networks, as well as normal web browsing duties.

• Support for MP4, MKV and MPEG2/DVD video for improved media playback.

• Improved photo and graphic display when viewing you images.

• Enhanced audio options including revised radio streaming.

• Network printing and PDF print support.

• Ovation Pro DTP system included allowing the creation of complex documents, brochures, leaflets and more.

• Programming updates to various languages including the latest RISC OS Python 3 which now works well alongside the Iris browser.

• Full, writable version of the SparkFS zip/archive software.

• New version of ScummVM allows many older DOS adventure and role playing games to work on RISC OS.

• Smaller updates to most applications and components of RISC OS Direct, improving them and/or fixing bugs.

• Includes an “offline” mode for users who value an operating system devoid of popups, online connections, constant updates and “noise”.

About RISC OS Direct
=========

RISC OS Direct is designed to provide a comprehensive, friendly yet
powerful way to run RISC OS on the Raspberry Pi family of computers (5
excluded). It provides a “ready to use” experience out of the box, with a
huge range of software, resources and configuration elements pre-set for
users to deliver the best RISC OS we can.

RISC OS Direct is offered by RISC OS Developments, owners of the RISC OS
IPR, to showcase the operating system to new, returning and existing users
alike. It builds on the work of our partners at RISC OS Open Ltd who
maintain the Apache 2.0 licensed RISC OS 5 source tree, to deliver the
best of both open and closed source RISC OS software in a user friendly
manner.

The new version introduces RISC OS Developments’ Iris web browser which
unlocks the modern web on RISC OS, coupled with the conveniences of
wireless internet connectivity.

RISC OS’ famously low resource requirements make it well suited to the low
power Raspberry Pi family of single-board-computers, and the new version
unlocks more functionality from these tiny powerhouses than ever before.

RISC OS Direct can be used “as is”, or updated with on-going updates from
RISC OS Developments and RISC OS Open Ltd downloads.

Raspberry Pi is a trademark of Raspberry Pi Ltd.

Does this include Wi-Fi support for the RPi 400?

I have a new RasPi 4B, bought several months ago but not yet used or tried. I got a new SanDisk 32GB micro SDHC card in the post today. I unzipped the V2 image using 7zip on Ubuntu – the unzipped image is about 16GB – and used Etcher to write the card.

Power on: nothing. No video, no flashing LED.

I substituted a micro SDHC card previously used in a Pi 3B+. This gave video, with text complaining that it wouldn’t work because some stuff was out of date (or something). I didn’t expect it to work properly, of course, because the image doesn’t have the 4-specific files, but it proves that the Pi is operational and not broken.

Since I can’t get the V2 image running, I can’t update to V3.

I have tried updating start4.elf, fixup4.dat and bootcode.bin from the Git repo, but it makes no difference – there seems to be no activity at all.

Can anyone suggest what I might have done wrong?

Power on: nothing. No video, no flashing LED.

Is the disc bootable? I seem to remember *Opt 4, something was necessary in the olden days.

How am I to get it to a state where I can enter *Opt 4?

The image boots in an older model Pi. Bizarre, innit?

So it’s bootable, but it appears incompatible with a Pi 4B. That can’t be true, though, can it?

Looking at the ROD website v2.0 works with the original Pi4. V2.1 has upgraded firmware for the newer Pi4s.

Try doing the upgrade to v3.0 on an older Pi.

Ralph

So it’s bootable, but it appears incompatible with a Pi 4B. That can’t be true, though, can it?

It would appear that it is true.

My RPi4B has USB boot set. V2 will start up in a USB SD card reader once start4/elf has been updated. The colours are wrong but that is to be expected with OS5.28. The card does not start at all in the card slot, and I do not know why.

@Dave I recall needing to update the Pi 4’s firmware in a similar setting using the foundation’s Imager program.

An update to the post above

The V3 update was applied to the V2 card with the card in the USB reader. V3 OS5.31 did startup fully from the card reader. Somewhat disappointingly on moving the card to the SD slot it did not start up at all. It did, however, startup in an RPi3. I do not know why this should be.

The next thing to try would be to create a fresh disc image with SystemDisc.

A bright idea occurred! I did note that the V2 FAT partition has some extra files in it that are not part of the usual Pi image so they were deleted and would you believe it V3 does now boot on the RPI4B from the SD card slot!! I should have noted what the filenames were but two of them were update files.

@Dave
Shouldn’t the image and the destination card be the same size?

Shouldn’t the image and the destination card be the same size?

The standard Pi distro iamge is 1875Mbytes, designed to fit all SD cards 2GB and larger.

Shouldn’t the image and the destination card be the same size?

ROD recommend 32GB but say 16GB might work. The image is about 16GB.

I did note that the V2 FAT partition has some extra files in it that are not part of the usual Pi image so they were deleted and would you believe it V3 does now boot on the RPI4B from the SD card slot!! I should have noted what the filenames were but two of them were update files.

The extra files are intended as updates for Pi4/400, see IMPORTANT/TXT in the Loader partition. Currently they appear to stall the start up.

On the Mac the V2 img file can be opened, the extra files removed then start4/elf must be updated. fixup4/dat was also updated but may not be strictly necessary. The flashed card will then work directly in the RPi4 SD slot.

I’m not having a good time here. I made the mistake of unzipping the V3 upgrade with 7zip. All the file types were lost. I didn’t realise until after I’d done the upgrade.

To be safe, I’m going to start again with a fresh V2 image, and then do the upgrade over ShareFS from a copy unzipped with SparkFS.

If its any conlsolation – I did this too last week when I was installing ROD 5.31 onto an SD card. I unzipped the files on my RPi5, and then copied them over the top of the v2.0 folders. Ahhhhh !

I also started again, after wasting a couple of minutes manually setting filetypes.

A rookie Risc OS user error …

Off-Topic Note: I have recently started using my RPi5 for imaging Risc OS SD cards. I use an SSD as the main drive for my RPi5, so the SD card slot (mmcblk0?) is usually empty. I use something like “sudo dd if=filename.img of=/dev/mmcblk0” from the RPi5 command line. Usually quite quick. Also you can copy (say) a 16GB Risc OS image file onto a 4GB SD card without any problem (so long as that extra space was unused). YMMV.

Ralph

Would help then to at least have a line ‘Extract this update under RISC OS’ on the https://www.riscosdev.com/direct/ site

I think the site needs several lines added!

Still no activity whatsoever from the Pi4 when the fully upgraded SDHC card is plugged in.

I ran the upgrade on a Pi1 (full size SD card slot, needs an adapter) and it appeared to go exactly as it should. The Pi1 subsequently booted, albeit with an error message in a text-only window that takes 3 clicks to clear.

I’ve had enough for now. The lest few hours have been rather unrewarding. I’ll attack the problem again, another day, when I’ve recovered a bit of determination.

Still no activity whatsoever from the Pi4 when the fully upgraded SDHC card is plugged in.

I have been round the loop for a second time.

On the Mac remove the ‘aberrant’ Loader files from the V2 img, flash the card which now does work in the RPI4B’s SD card slot. The V3 upgrade was then applied in situ.

It could be that the RPi4’s eeprom version is relevant.

*vcgencmd bootloader_version
2024/05/17 12:26:58

remove the ‘aberrant’ Loader files

Bleedin’ ’ell. It boots. There is life!

I’ve removed lots of files – everything with a name unlike what’s on earlier Pi’s. Maybe too many, because there’s no sign of any network. I’ll work on it.

It could be that the RPi4’s eeprom version is relevant.

I came across a recent YouTube of an installation of Direct v3 on an RPi400. Having had Direct v2 fail to start up on the RPi4B I was interested to see how well this went. It went very well, the installation completed on the RPi400 without issue.

Time for a take 2. A newly created v2 card again failed to start here on the RPi4B but did start on the RPi400. The RPi400 has an older eeprom than the RPi4B.

*vcgencmd bootloader_version
Jan 16 2021 14:10:13

Another possibility is that the RPi4B is rev5.

Other than the RPi4B issue, whatever that might be, Direct v2 and v3 both work out of the box, the v3 upgrade is entirely painless and even offers to install the ROD internet stack.

Sadly the YouTuber was not impressed with RISC OS, it is not as capable as Raspberry Pi OS. I think he missed the point, we use RISC OS for what it is not what it isn’t.

It could be that the RPi4’s eeprom version is relevant.

One further point, the card once updated to v3 does startup in the RPi4B, where v2 had failed. The ‘extra’ files now are not a stopper.

Sadly the YouTuber was not impressed with RISC OS

Unfortunately coming from other more mainstream systems, people are going to hit the long list of expectations that it cannot do, rather than what it can do.

These days most people’s experiences are around playing videos and social media, content heavy websites, and so on. There’s a reason that I do most of my internet stuff on a phone or tablet. RISC OS is good at what it can do (I still use OvationPro, for example, and create diagrams for my blog in DrawPlus) but it’s very much of its time and things have moved on dramatically since then. I’m not even going to bother comparing it with the likes of Windows as my machine still runs XP and I haven’t found a use case that justifies the outlay of buying a new PC. My Android devices do what I want, and what I do on RISC OS is more for pleasure than anything else. It’s just a different world to how it was in 1998.

Oh, and if we’re talking about things that aren’t impressive, can I point out how abysmal the RISC OS recordings were? Whatever he was using often failed to keep up with the mouse pointer, and the bit of BASIC at ~11m25s was an absolute horror show.

Interesting that he points out BASIC being case sensitive in that KEYWORDS must be in CAPITALS.
Isn’t that how most traditional BASICs are, with VisualBasic famously being different with it’s case insensitivity.
[note – I’m talking keywords, not variables]

Even more widely used languages, like C, are case sensitive. printf() isn’t PrintF().

I can’t help but feel that case insensitivity may be a feel-good idea that is ultimately less than useful. Case preserving, yes. But not case insensitive.