Installing Software

Hi everybody.

It’s been a while since I used RISC OS, but the USB sticks are tempting me to return. I am now predominantly a Mac user and was running VRPC on my iMac. When I decided to buy a MacBook as well I had to decide if I used RO enough to justify buying a second copy of VRPC. I decided I couldn’t justify the cost – the only RO software I was still using regularly was Techwriter. Which brings me to my question:

If I buy a USB stick is it easy to install software such as Techwriter on it? I would have thought it would simply be a matter of loading the stick under Mac Os and dragging Techwriter on to it. Am I right?

What size are the sticks? And, more importantly, how much space is left over for users to install software/save files?

Alternatively, am I completely misinterpreting the way the sticks work? I am assuming that the user loads the stick and runs RO from it. Is this correct or does the user load the OS on to hard disc from the stick and then put the stick in a drawer and forget about it?

Thanks in advance for any guidance you can give me.

Hi. The sticks are currently only 512MB because they really never needed to be more than that. The idea is you copy the stuff off the stick and onto your Mac. The filing system in RISC OS uses HostFS so it’s looking through at a folder on the Mac’s file system. This means you can shove as much in there as you have disc space on that drive…

I’m not sure what the installation procedure is for TechWriter, but in general, RISC OS apps are a self-contained bundle in the folder starting with the ! character (e.g. !TechWrite) and often it’s just a case of copying that somewhere and double-clicking it to launch the app. However, more complex apps might need other dependencies so your mileage may vary.

Also note: RISC OS 5 runs in what’s called “32 bit mode”, unlike older versions of RISC OS which are “26 bit”. Software which is built to the old 26 bit standard more than likely won’t run on RISC OS 5. However, I’m sure you could buy an upgrade to the latest TechWriter, which is 32 bit, for not a great deal of money.

@Mark: !Techwriter works fine under RPCEmu/RO5 on a Windows 7 (64-bit) PC, and I’m sure it would on Mac OS. As Steve says, you install RPCEmu, including HostFS which is RPCEmu’s virtual hard drive, on the host system. Disc space is not an issue: mine has 14GB of data in it for instance, and could have ten times that. I have !Artworks (which for me is a must-have*), OvationPro, !Variations, !KinoAmp and !Thump also installed – the process is straightforward and if an app needs a particular missing module it will generally tell you (one advantage of RO5 compared to earlier versions is that many of them are already there). The RPCEMu archive http://www.riscos.info/pipermail/rpcemu/ is well worth a look for Mac-specific issues. Best of luck anyway!
(*If you’ve been away for a while !Artworks2 is also well worth a look – IMHO it’s terrific).

Marvellous – I’ve finally got an Iyonix laptop!

Set RPCEmu up on my MacBook and connected to the iMac over the home network. Dragged techwriter and some other programs (including Artworks2) into the Apps directory, started RPCEmu and the programs worked first time. It doesn’t get easier than that.

Mark