and now …..

Direct !

What happened?

This post is in Wish Lists because I wish we hadn’t got here.

Forking unnecessary!

I think that’s what you’re getting at.

I can’t disagree.

What happened?

Somebody decided it might be a good idea to put together a nicely packaged version of RISC OS intended to “run straight out of the box” ¹.

It’s not so much a fork as a minor tweak. It isn’t going to diverge and wander off to do it’s own thing. (don’t forget, we’ve all been down that road already)

¹ Aaaaargh! – sometimes it’s amusing to take expressions extremely literally.

I don’t see the problem.

4, Six and Select are ancient history. Not relevant.

It is all about version 5, and there are many different ROM and disc image builds for this. Problem?

OK,so maybe the ROOL ‘RISC OS Pi’ distribution is a bit pointless now, but it wasn’t exactly ‘done’ or up to date. I see it as one less thing for ROOL to be worrying about. Just the kind of thing another entity can assist with.

Somebody decided it might be a good idea to put together a nicely packaged version of RISC OS intended to “run straight out of the box”

“Somebody” being the joint owner. I’m afraid we can’t argue with that – a fact!

The fact that it evidently behaves differently from the ROOL version suggests to me that it is effectively a fork.

I subscribe to ROOL financially in a modest way, and find this an intrusion which is only going to make RO life more complicated!

I don’t see why this has to be a separate distribution; why can’t it just be a HD image and set-up command file instead, adapting and customising the current download?

That might be less confusing for everyone!

I agree with Richard.

Yet more pointless hot air being expended about a non story.

We had this sort of drivel going on at the height of the RISCOS “wars” so lets not start it again.

I download the development ROM’s and hardDisc images and update my machines when available and customise that and have also shared that customisation details to others over time so am I starting a “fork” in the oS ..of course not and neither is the Direct download.

It is more up to date than the current 5.24 set up and contains a few more things but to call it a OS fork is nonsense as in that way any of RComps/CJE/RiscOSBits machines running various versions of development ROMs/HardDisc images would be classed as a “fork” on that basis.

Lets not start another pointless and time wasting exercise and lets move forward.

John – you’re looking at it from the perspective of someone who already has his own working Pi setup tailored to his liking. You’re not really the target user for RISC OS Direct, at least, not the primary target (although we do want to encourage everyone).

We’d obviously like you to use it, but suggesting that people download different components from different sources and piece them together on a system/OS that they may not already have running is, erm, needlessly over-complicated for a new user. For Pi (and every other ARM board), it is absolutely normal for OS images to be distributed as disk images, so that the partitons and files are created correctly.

RISC OS Direct’s primary reason for existence is to be accessible for new and returning users, supported by the video series. It will often be distributed as an SD card (eg. at shows or Pi Jams) but thanks to COVID, it is more likely to be a download. We have to meet new users where they are at, which means presenting them with something familiar – an OS image they can write with Etcher – just like Rasbian etc. Remember that episode 1 of the video series explains specifically how to create your card.

You do, however, raise a good point. Time permitting, we may consider making a “zip” edition available that you can piece together yourself. It’d just be a bit tricky given the various partitions that make up a Pi disc, but we could probably concoct something. It is just a bit more work/time for us all to commit on top of all the other things we’re doing for RISC OS (translation – I feel thinly stretched, and whilst I didn’t put RISC OS Direct together myself, I fear expanding the project would inevitably put more work on my shoulders).

Final thought – a “fork in the OS” (like with ROL vs Castle) implies competition, and a sense of “we’re right, they’re wrong”. There’s nothing like that here with RISC OS Direct. It embraces what ROOL are putting out, and expands upon it in a way that we hope appeals to new/returning users. You can happily combine ROOL nightly builds with RISC OS Direct without any risk of breakage (AFAIK). We love what ROOL do, and think everyone should be trying the best version of RISC OS possible, supported by the best software.

The only thing that is effectively made redundant by RISC OS Direct is the 5.24-based “RISC OS Pi” snapshot image from 2018, and frankly, that has no place in a modern Apache-licensed RISC OS world anyway, since it is still covered by the old Castle licensing. In 2020, it doesn’t really make any sense to still be distributing the Castle versions except for historical preservation. That’s why we gave ROOL a copy of the Direct image – we rather hoped that it could replace the Pi image with a modern download for maximum unity and co-operation.

RO Direct doesn’t have all the additional software that was on ROOL’s ePic distribution, though (I.e. what wad previously part of the Nut
Pi collection). However items from this collection do appear to work when transferred across. (I’m moving from a Pi1 with ePic to a Pi 3 with RO Direct.)

Generally though I think “Direct” is a good idea, although the included DOSBOX emulator could do with some relevant documentation—where is the configuration file referred to? It certainly isn’t inside the app folder.

The fact that it evidently behaves differently from the ROOL version suggests to me that it is effectively a fork.

It’s absolutely not a fork, since it’s based on the official code.
But you can call it a distribution, because it’s one.

We have several distributions at RISCOSFR since years.
I even use my own distribution to sell my software as appliances.

However items from this collection do appear to work when transferred across.

Of course, since it’s exactly the same OS.
Distributions proved to be a good thing. And they are.

One for newcomers, one for robotic, etc. Make yours, attract new users, and I will applaud.

Ps: remember the success of Pico, and the number of people who want an update of this distribution and don’t want – at all – to use the classic image.