RO5 New User

I’m a fairly new user of RO5, recently moved from RO6, and got myself a fairly snappy Titanium Machine from Elesar, My trusty Castle Kinetic RiscPC is still going and is still a wonderful machine but the lack of development from ROL and the 6 Branch and also when i tried RO5 in my RiscPC as nice and snappy as RO5 is on a RiscPC with Kinetic 300 CPU, it lacks the function of podule support like my Vpod, Unipod and Simtec USB, so when ROOL says “Safeguarding the Past, Present and Future” it didnt take into consideration of the RiscPC, it might be a 30 Year old machine, but still very functional, Anyway ive upgraded and happy with how far RO5 has come. Im slightly confused by the RiscOS Direct and Rool builds and why we have seperate funding for stuff, ROD has a New TCP/IP Stack and ROOL seems to be have a bounty for the same improvements, so slight confusion over why both parties couldnt of worked together with bounties and developers to get this done quicker. Also would someone explain why we have 2 parties looking after Risc OS now, this seems very familiar to when we had Castle and Risc OS Limited doing their own thing.

Anyway politics aside the Wish List

1.Better Browser support with G-Streamer and Plugin Support (Youtube etc…)

2.Webcam Support for Google Meet etc… (Better USB Video Support)

3.Lots of talk of 64 Bit on this forum but i know thats going to be hard work
so can we settle for Multicore support for now? and maybe Hypervisor Layer on new hardware until the time comes when 64Bit is ready?

4.Maybe Filer improvements similar to that an explorer style interface where favorite places are down the left side of a window for easy access to folders

5. A Big Ask! could we somehow bring the nice features of SIX into 5 such as the Recycle Bin and some older features like memory management from RO3 where we can control the memory mapping for certain things like font’s, sprites etc in one place.

6. Multicore related (Copying files is slow and slows the system down and prevents you from doing other things smoothly, could we not get filer to operate on a seperate core for background work for newer hardware?)

Thanks!

On No5. through this forum I discovered !Transient with TrapDelete and it has been a relevation for me on RiscOS.

You can set auto delete schedules (Expiry timescales) and it sets up a folder per day so you can go back and look for the file.

Better Browser support with G-Streamer and Plugin Support (Youtube etc…)

No browser has supported plugins for years. It’s considered a security risk. All features are implemented using standardised functionality.

2.Webcam Support for Google Meet etc…

Are these protocols (like Google Meet) open?

4.Maybe Filer improvements similar to that an explorer style interface where favorite places are down the left side of a window for easy access to folders

Which window? RISC OS doesn’t have a CommonDialog, all of the save windows are implemented individually by the app in question.
I would say the typical RISC OS method for this would be to drop the “usual directories” onto the pinboard so they can be easily opened.

5. such as the Recycle Bin

There’s a third party app that does this. Transient? It was discussed here recently, a quick browse through the fora ought to find it.
[edit: Andrew got in there while I was writing this ;) ]

and some older features like memory management from RO3 where we can control the memory mapping for certain things like font’s, sprites etc in one place.

Do you mean TaskManager? That’s still around, icon on the far right.

If you mean the old !Configure app, well, that’s still around but maybe not so evident that you should run (double click) the !Boot folder in your root directory.
Or click Menu on the TaskManager icon and choose “Configure…”.

6. could we not get filer to operate on a seperate core for background work for newer hardware?)

I think this may need to be looked at for future work, but as far as I recall, FileCore is not reentrant. It is a bounty-in-course so maybe the newer FileCore will work better in this respect?

Having said that – and please don’t take this as negativity – I’m not sure that it’ll change that much. There is no concept of “busy” on RISC OS. If one opens a file and GBPB’s in a big wodge of data, the program is suspended while the filing system goes and loads the data. Even if the low level filing stuff ¹ happens on another core, the program will still be waiting until the data is loaded in. It can’t busy-wait while other stuff happens, as there’s no mechanism by which that can happen.

That being said, it is something to consider for the longer term future.

¹ There’s FileSwitch, FileCore, various xxFS modules (like SDFS), and the part that actually talks to the hardware (which may be part of the xxFS module (like ADFS) or something else (like SDIO)).

No Browser has supported plugins for years…

Did not realise that, reminiscing about ActiveX and NSAPI

Im aware theres taskmanager, but that needs adjusting everytime, when we had RO3 that used to have a memory plugin built into !Configure, its now gone, as for transient yes i know that exists but that isnt the same as having the feature built into the OS like it was when Gerph added it into Select/Adjust. i think my issue really is unification of the feature set plus development on the everyday stuff that makes the OS Modern. better USB functionality like USB Video support, and sorry i should of said a browser that is more chrome or safari like.

If I can add something…

• GPU support – one of the reasons that it isn’t practicable to do anything with video on RISC OS is because it has to be decoded in software.

Technically didnt we have GPU Support with the viewfinder? and Iyonix? with Nvidia cards

2.Webcam Support for Google Meet etc…

Are these protocols (like Google Meet) open?

Google Meet isn’t a protocol. It uses standard browser features (WebRTC).

Technically didnt we have GPU Support with the viewfinder? and Iyonix? with Nvidia cards

IyonixMesa supported the Geforce 2 MX, but not the Geforce FX that shipped with later iyonix systems iirc

GPU support – one of the reasons that it isn’t practicable to do anything with video on RISC OS is because it has to be decoded in software.

This is probably something that can be split into three separate parts – display controllers (which we support already), 3D GPUs (which has been ported to RISC OS in the past, but never with a standard API that can be used across different devices) and hardware video decoding. On the Allwinner A64 for example, these all seem to be separate components within the SoC.

This thread may be of interest regarding OpenGL on RISC OS: https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/2/topics/19417

Technically didnt we have GPU Support with the viewfinder?

I’m not aware of anything using that uses the ViewFinder for anything other than accelerating the framebuffer display. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible to use it for full GPU functionality, though.

it lacks the function of podule support like my Vpod, Unipod and Simtec USB

This would be very nice to have on RISC OS 5, but I think the main barrier is the lack of open source RISC OS drivers or technical documentation on the podules that can be used to write new ones.

5. A Big Ask! could we somehow bring the nice features of SIX into 5 such as the Recycle Bin

Andrew pointed out the existence of Transient with the TrapDelete module, but forgot to give a Link to Transient (and other utilities)
Transient has the benefit of having an active developer, as well as good feature set.

Are these protocols (like Google Meet) open?

Open up innumerable TCP/UDP ports to wherever Google point things this week, and handover most of your bandwidth.

Open up innumerable TCP/UDP ports to wherever Google point things this week,.

It’s peer-to-peer, so not exactly. The video doesn’t go to Google.

and handover most of your bandwidth

Of course it does. It dynamically adjusts the video quality to your bandwidth. That’s by design, and seems eminently sensible, to me.

I would love for more podule support especially for vpod and the simtec USB which wouldn’t make a riscpc seem so useless. most people want to leave them deep into history, but they are still capable machines with a 32Bit OS. Sadly the FSB is an issue for these aging machine, but cleave people are finding ways to expand the memory on these with kinetic style SDRAM expansions.

as for the viewfinder i’ve never had one so not sure how they function, I would also like to run Risc OS Direct on my Titanium but that seems to be limited to R-Comps range of computers or Pi Only for download, i always get the impression R-Comp gets special privileges over certain things when it comes to Risc OS. Because Iris comes bundled with ROD, and if you want access to Iris on another platform you have to contribute £50 to its development, and considering theres not been an update to the browser since January 2024 i’m a little reluctant to buy it.

And of course to access Iris to buy you have to buy via the Plingstore, again an R-Comp product. essentially i see a lot of conflict of interest here, not trying to be rude to anyone but from an outsider looking at the overall picture. thats what i see.

You can pay £99.99 to R-Comp for access to their software for your Titanium system.

Unfortunately not all software is free, and something like !Iris isn’t going to be an easy program to maintain and produce.

That’s by design, and seems eminently sensible, to me.

I’m okay now I have fibre, but before with ADSL that, in the end ¹, struggled to keep much above 2.7Mbit down and 0.7Mbit up…
…one security camera adapts it’s streaming to the bandwidth available and this worked. The other didn’t, and, well, luckily it had a rubbish SD mode that sort of worked.

Adaptive bandwidth is a good thing.

especially for vpod and the simtec USB

You’d need to contact the manufacturers, if they’re still around, and ask if they are able to make a 32 bit version or would be willing to release the source code…if they even still have it.

Simtec is at http://www.simtec.co.uk/index.html but the site says copyright 2009 (sixteen years ago). And…you’re probably not the first to ask. ;)

R-Comp gets special privileges over certain things when it comes to Risc OS. Because Iris comes bundled with ROD

RISC OS Developments and R-Comp are the same guy (hi Andrew!) wearing different hats.

and if you want access to Iris on another platform you have to contribute £50 to its development

Oh, come now. Burn RISC OS Direct onto a spare SD card. Put it into whatever you have that will read SD cards. Mount it. Enjoy. ;)

[I’ll do this myself once I have a spare SD card lying around and the wherewithal to fire up the PC to write it]

¹ I used to be able to get ~3.7 to 4.5Mbit from a 4.7km line, but alas that was 4.7km mostly overhead so plenty of places for the local farmers to tear it down with carelessness, and Orange to subcontract to the cheapest outfit who would do a butcher job that was “technically functional”. The fibre is also airborne. It’s only a matter of time…

Yeah see its the one guy and different hats im not too sure about, and as for Simtec and vpod, i know the developer and i can contact him not an issue, not sure how willing he would be to help with 32Bit for RO5, the problem with Vpod is it uses RO6’s new graphics layer which isnt part of RO5, so my question is, since Mr Rawnsley and Mr Brown, purchased Castle Technology in 2018 and acquired the rights to risc os, why hasn’t the 2 branches been merged yet?

since Mr Rawnsley and Mr Brown, purchased Castle Technology in 2018 and acquired the rights to risc os, why hasn’t the 2 branches been merged yet?

Because they have the rights to OS 5. They don’t have 6, which I believe is owned by 3QD.

…one security camera adapts it’s streaming to the bandwidth available and this worked. The other didn’t, and, well, luckily it had a rubbish SD mode that sort of worked.

If both were trying to adapt then one could drive the other into a corner. I can’t find the story now, but I remember reading about a system running an app that needed a lot of RAM, but tried to keep 20% of the system RAM free. All was well until the user opened another app that only tried to keep 10% free. It immediately grabbed half of the free chunk, causing the first app to back off so as to restore the 20% buffer, only for the second one to then grab more, and so on until the first app was backed up against the wall, using as little RAM as it could possibly get away with.

I suspect that the same sort of thing would happen if two systems tried to adapt to limited bandwidth.

so then they don’t have Intellectual rights to Risc OS in its entirety then, only RO5, Which now makes sense to all the gaps

I would love for more podule support especially for vpod and the simtec USB which wouldn’t make a riscpc seem so useless. most people want to leave them deep into history, but they are still capable machines with a 32Bit OS. Sadly the FSB is an issue for these aging machine, but cleave people are finding ways to expand the memory on these with kinetic style SDRAM expansions.

Same here, although I’d argue that just having network and storage upgrades make most of the difference in terms of usability – the Kinetic and video upgrades are things I’d like to have some day, but the RiscPC is perfectly usable without them in my experience.

as for the viewfinder i’ve never had one so not sure how they function

I don’t have one either, but the impression I get from reading the documentation is that the hardware provides two things – a way of accessing the AGP registers from RISC OS, and a way of quickly swapping the Red and Blue components to match what RISC OS expects. It’s possible that there’s enough in common between AGP and PCI graphics cards that it would be viable to develop RO5 drivers by starting on the Iyonix and adapting it to support the Viewfinder later on. This is just speculation, though.

the problem with Vpod is it uses RO6’s new graphics layer which isnt part of RO5

It’s not so much that RO6 has a graphics abstraction layer, it’s that IIRC it’s a completely different graphics abstraction layer to the one that was created for RISC OS 5, so supporting it will likely require writing a brand new driver.

That’s also why it wouldn’t be trivial to just merge RO5 and RO6, even if all the legal issues with ROL/3QD were cleared – because the two branches have diverged quite a bit in incompatible ways, and reconciling the differences would likely result in a lot of additional work.

i know the developer and i can contact him not an issue, not sure how willing he would be to help with 32Bit for RO5

Do let me know if anything comes of this – I’m not an expert with the hardware side of things, but I am somewhat familiar with RO5 graphics drivers from doing stuff with the Pinebook, and would be interested in seeing VPod support on RISC OS 5 some day.

Oh, come now. Burn RISC OS Direct onto a spare SD card. Put it into whatever you have that will read SD cards. Mount it. Enjoy. ;)

That is a bit of a faff compared to downloading a standard archive, though. :-)

If both were trying to adapt then one could drive the other into a corner.

Oh, no, not connected to both at the same time, my ADSL wasn’t up to that!
No, one adapted and worked, one just shovelled out a predetermined bitrate and didn’t.

because the two branches have diverged quite a bit

A read of Gerph’s rambles should give an idea of how much the divergence was. http://gerph.org/riscos/ (if you’ve not seen that before, take some time)

That is a bit of a faff compared to downloading a standard archive, though. :-)

Oh, I fully agree. Unfortunately there are “issues” regarding the behaviour of the embedded FAT partition that allows machines to even boot.

But, yes, a big zip file would be nice for those of us who like a pick’n’mix approach (feel free to add all the dire warnings about what shared libraries go with what).

[thinks] Hmm, is there such a thing as an image mounter that might be able to access the SD card image? It’s surely just going to be a FileCore “partition”?

I’ll have a discussion with the developer tomorrow about the vpod and report back if i get anything from him., its all well and good getting the go ahead its if ROOL would be willing to implement it into the build, i know a couple of vendors are having issues with ROOL cherry picking certain drivers for RO5 and they are having to softload it for there hardware, and this was my issue with R-comp because they seem to get priority. i wont mention any business names but i’ve had conversations with them.

as for the viewfinder i’ve never had one so not sure how they function

The ViewFinder software was probably the dirtiest hack in to the bowels of RISC OS there has ever been, but by god did it work well, John Kortnik was a genius. The acceleration was pretty good, limited only by how fast the RISC PC could get data to the AGP card across the podule bus. I pitted it against an Iyonix at the same 2048×1536×32bpp resolution and some of the accelerated graphics ops were faster, but of course the Iyonix’s faster bus won on anything involving bitmaps.

Because they have the rights to OS 5. They don’t have 6, which I believe is owned by 3QD.

One word; Aaron Timbrel (that might appear to be two words, but not when I say it).