RC12

I notice that a new beta rom image for the Pi has appeared.

Without the updated RC12 SD card image I cannot tell what new software will be there on the HardDisc (as there is so much provided in RC11 over and above the vanilla HardDisc4 stuff). Neither can I tell what effect (if any) I would see by updating just the rom on my Pi but otherwise sticking to RC11. This gives me choice but no basis on which to choose!

It seems that my understanding of what ‘RC12’ would be (fundamentally I viewed it as a new HardDisc image rather than a new rom) may have been wrong.

I still think that the RC11 SD card image is excellent though. It just seems premature to release the RC12 rom image before the SD card image.

The ROM image from ROPi RC12 is on our download site as a test of the packaging system back-end, which is the thing that converts stuff off our downloads pages into PackMan packages and adds them to the index of available packages. Once that’s in place, we can install it into the FAT partition of the RC12 SD card image and finish making our full RC12 release.

Unfortunately, the packaging back-end stuff failed, so that’s a shame! We’ve completed the full RC12 release and will be selling it exclusively at the South West Show (now in just a few hours). After that, we’ll be releasing it more widely – via the sales page on our site. At that point, you’ll get the full release notes in our announcement.

Getting it onto the RPi site itself as an SD card image download is more problematic, because doing so needs co-ordinating with their NOOBS release cycle so we will have to wait a while for that.

and finish making our full RC12 release.

…

We’ve completed the full RC12 release and will be selling it exclusively at the South West Show

Gosh, quite a lot has changed from RC11 to RC12 (available on the RISCOSPi SD card from the ROOL stand at the SW show). Updated firmware, updated rom image.

Disc applications updated:
internet setting is on by default vice off
package information updated
Modules updated: from ABCLib to ZLib (too many to list) but including SpriteExtend, SCSIFiler, SCSISoftUSB, etc.
Modules downgraded: SharedULib from 1.12 (04-Jan-2011) to 1.10 (10-Apr-2006)
Apps added:
!PipeDream
Apps updated:
!Maestro
!NetSurf (version 3)
!Store
!PackMan
!SciCalc
Diversions updated:
!Meteors added
Documents.Welcome updated
Printing.!FontPrint updated
Printing.!Printers updated
Programming.charm updated
Programming.RiscLua added
Sources.DDE added
Sources.NetSurf updated
Sources.rlua.. added
Sources.unTarBZ added
Utilities.!ChangeFSI png added
Utilities.!ChangeFSI.Documents updated
Utilities.!Manuals updated
Utilities.!NutPi added
Utilities.!Usage updated
Utilities.Caution.!HForm updated

That’s what I can notice anyway from a 55 page list of changed files, compared using the application !Cat to list all files on the SD card with their CRC values so that any changes can be identified.

I am having a strange problem with RC12. The variable ALias$@RunType_3d6 is being set to a non-existent location ($.Apps.Utilities.!StrongHelp) but I can’t see where this is being done. The upshot is that StrongHelp manuals give an error message rather than useful help.

I do not have rc12 but in a previous release the alias was set, IIRC, in !Boot.Resources.!Packages.SetVars. It did in that case point to a valid location, the error did not occur until I did my own thing.

Ah! The culprit is, indeed, that Obey file which helpfully states that it is automatically created by !RiscPkg and therefore any changes will not be preserved! So I can’t solve this one. !StrongHelp is now in $.Apps in the disc image so I suspect that you don’t see the error until !PackMan does an update…

The solution would be to make sure that !Packman updates itself before trying to update anything else…

Doubly irrittating as my programme (!Cat) specifically tests to see whether the RunType for 3d6 is set and, if not, displays a text help file instead of a StrongHelp manual. All it does now is to produce an error message on the Pi if you seek help!
Edit RC12 Sd card image now seems not to suffer this problem any longer.

Has anybody try to write the RC12-Image to a SDCard? I’m to stupid?
I try any 2GB Cards and wrote via CloneDisc, SDCreate und Linux DD. In between I got them overwritten with zeros. All the same. No errors and the card’s booting RISC OS but the FileCore access failed. No ADFS device aviable. Via FAT32FS I can see the Partiton in the “list” but non usable. With a external Cardreader I have also nothing to use.
If I try the same things with RC11… no problems. All is working fine.

No problems with the RC12 image here; I’m using a 4 GB card but I’d be amazed if your 2 GB card is the issue. I created the card by using dd.

Ok, I will try a new download in the evening.

I do not know what the problem was. I never got an error message.
RC12 downloaded again and written with Clone Disc and SDCreate (two cards). Now it works. I have not done anything different.