Upgraded to RiscOS 5 - Config App Problems

Hi I need some help with the Configure App,

I have just upgraded my RPC 3.7 with IMOD softload to RO5 using the files from here. No problems did the system merge for pre riscos 5 machines as its a old RPC 600.

Desktop boots fine but the ‘Screen’ config app in Configure is playing up, it wont save changes and errors…

‘ADFS must be given a filename!’

It will change monitor def and screen mode fine but next boot obviously I loose the screen settings as they are not saved.

Any ideas how I can sort this? else RO5 is pretty useless otherwise and ill have to boot into 3.7.

Also the !Internet config doesn’t work it just errors…“Application has gone wrong” not very helpful I know.

This was clean boot from the Harddisk4 download and using the PlingSystem merged in.

I’m using SD card system in my RPC, works great and had no problems with other stuff so I don’t think this is a cause for these problems.

thanks in advance,
Aidan

ADFS must be given a filename […and…] Application has gone wrong

It sounds like you might have fallen into the trap of thinking the universal boot sequence adapts itself every time the OS starts – it doesn’t, nor has it ever. This is alluded to in the info page for the softload, but I note that text has been omitted from the ReadMe in the ZIP file which looks like an oversight.

Therefore, if you booted a fresh install of !Boot from a ROM based 3.70 it will have copied over all the supporting files for 3.70 which will have numerous things in it which wont work on RISC OS 5 (from the error message, it sounds like the VRAM config and possibly Patch module).

The IOMD RISC OS 5 softload is really there to help developers with testing, and the above limitation assumes that the ROM is RISC OS 5 too (so that the fresh install of !Boot copies the RISC OS 5.xx supporting files over).

Your options are

• Fit the RISC OS 5.20 ROMs as a baseline so the contents of !Boot.Choices and the softload are from the same era
• Move the !!Softload to much much earlier in the boot sequence (by manual means) delete then manually copy the contents of RO520Hook.Boot into !Boot.Choices.Boot to fool the boot sequence into thinking it saw RISC OS 5. The !!Softload needs to be early enough that nothing inside !Boot.Choices gets used prior to softload starting.

If you’re wanting to toggle between two OS versions released 16 years apart

• ROOL disc image + pling system updates + 3.70 ROM = fine
• ROOL disc image + 5.xx ROM = fine
• ROOL disc image + 3.70 ROM softloading a 5.xx image = lots of manual twiddling

This is alluded to in the info page for the softload,

Which reminds me¹ – the linked page has three links to downloads of Ethernet drivers, except the links actually end up at the Miscellaneous downloads page which doesn’t have those drivers as available download packages.

The EtherB drivers are available on the paid for products page and all three are on the CD (which obviously should buy to put some money in the coffers²) Bit of editing required I think.

¹ Noted it ages ago just as I was going on holiday and forgot to write about it when I came back
² Got a copy thanks

ROOL disc image + 3.70 ROM softloading a 5.xx image = lots of manual twiddling

Not so much. You only need to switch the content of Choices$Dir.Boot at Boot. It would be better if the OS could dynamically map this directory to Choices$Dir.Boot520, etc. But it’s not the case yet (IMHO, it would be better than copying the content of RO520Hook.Boot if Choices$Dir.Boot is empty: it’s not useful).

The ROS5 disc image is almost compatible with dual boot :)

It would be better if the OS could dynamically map this directory to Choices$Dir.Boot520, etc.

see what you can break? or not. :)

Been running RO4.02/5.xx for a few years on a RPC.
One of your problems with RO3.7 is HD short names.
Since you were try Internet – do you have a Network card fitted.
If so you may be able to Flash in a RO5 module giving you long file names.
I would try loading the 32bit CLib from !Boot !run file.
I wonder if RO3.7 would boot from a dos format disk – like having two formats on the same HDrive.

$.!Boot.Utils.SetChoices

Good idea…

I figured it out in the end, you have edit the System.Run file to omit the Toolbox load check.

Then there is a problem with the old configure being loaded which is why all these problems…

so if you delete ProgInfo from the modules folder. Then source an older copy from say uniboot add that to Choices.Boot.Tasks folder it wont beef on boot and hey presto the when clicking on !Boot in desktop I get the new configure panel. The Screen app then works fine etc.

I have no working scsi cdrom i noticed, I need a 32bit CastleScsi2 module as the 24bit one wont work :(

After some experimenting on rpcemu, in preparation for setting up RO5 on my RISC PC (with Adjust ROMs):

1. I have decided not to try running a single !Boot for all purposes, but to maintain “520Boot” and “439Boot”, renaming one of them to “!Boot” as appropriate

2. 520Boot is made up of a clean Harddisc4 !Boot with addition of two lines to Run at the very beginning; the first line checks for the presence of SharedCLib 5.46 and loads it if needed (it won’t be, as my EtherH card has reflashed firmware), the second checks for UtilityModule 5.20 and if it is not present, !!SoftLoad.Loader is invoked (I don’t need “prompt” as this Run will only be executed when I want RO5) – once the softload ROM is in place, !Boot runs again but these lines have no effect.

3. These lines come before the line that executes Run, so the problem with “CallASWI not found” is avoided.

4. 520Boot will never be used fully as !Boot – in particular Utils.BootVars will not take effect – until the 5.20 ROM-image is in place, so first time round !Boot is set up from 520Hook. With this approach I am confident (albeit as yet without much evidence) that I will not need PlingSystem so the Toolbox problem is avoided, because !Boot should look exactly* the same as !Boot on, say, an Iyonix – in that respect I found the comments about running RO5 on IOMD hardware on https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/common (alongside Harddisc4) confusing and inconsistent with that on https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/riscpc (“Distribution of !System for use with pre-RISC OS 5 machines. RISC OS 5 users should download HardDisc4 instead since it contains the complete boot sequence.”)

The other day I saw a posting (I thought in the ROOL forums, though I cannot find it now) to the effect that RO5 softload cannot be used with an emulator set up with an earlier ROM. I have a rpcemu installation with a 3.71 ROM-image in “roms” and the above RO5 !Boot in “hostfs”. On starting rpcemu, I get magenta, blue, red screens, black screen with info showing the soft-load happening followed by booting into RO5 that looks the same as booting from a separate rpcemu installation that has the RO5 ROM-image in “roms”. So for rpcemu 5.20-over-3.71 works fine (no long filenames obstacle in HostFS). Hope I can find the other post to see if that was looking at the same set-up.

• well, not exactly as there is a directory “!Boot.Choices.1stboot” to hold CLib,Loader,riscos; the new lines at the start of Run point to that directory. Starting from scratch, 1stboot is the only thing in Choices, but Boot, Internet, etc get added by BootVars and !InetSetup.

The other day I saw a posting (I thought in the ROOL forums, though I cannot find it now) to the effect that RO5 softload cannot be used with an emulator set up with an earlier ROM.

Probably Colin having problems with loading of a RO5.21 image in RedSquirrel.
The suggestion from Sprow was that RS is a bit ancient and RPCEmu might be a more useful / modern install.

Thanks for the suggestion, but Colin reports success softloading 5.21 in !Boot over 5.19 in “roms” (but failure if 5.21 is in “roms”), whereas I thought I’d seen a post about setting up rpcemu/RS/VA as a RO3.7/4.x system then trying to softload RO5 (i.e. emulating what you have to do with a real RISC PC). It might have been a csa newsgroup post, on Iconbar or elsewhere. Must start bookmarking these things!

What are you trying to achieve?

You should be able to duel boot with rpcemu 3.71 in ‘roms’ dir and offer a option with softload with (5.xx) – I suggest first getting 3.71 working.

Might be worth trying 5.19 first as a softload – as it seems the later versions offer less in screen/colours/res – no *VIDCBandwidthLimit command.

RedSq offers the advantage of separate ‘cmos’ files per rom – but doesn’t load 5.21 direct from HDisk – so has to softload after 5.19 or 4.02.

RedSq I find more stable than RPCEmu – RedSq seems to catch errors from Windows on my machine – alt/Rtn twice and recover – RPCEmu quits.

Might be worth trying 5.19 first as a softload – as it seems the later versions offer less in screen/colours/res – no *VIDCBandwidthLimit command.

Drop the AnyMode module into the start up and then use any resolution that fits the screen

Colin,
No probs getting 3.71 working, but rpcemu-with-3.71 is merely a substitute (with what was available to download from the net before a train journey with time to experiment) for my real RiscPC and Adjust ROMS. So choice of emulator is of passing concern here, though the comparison you make is interesting in itself.

My approach – two separate !Boots – stems from difficulties emerging when I tried a dual-boot setup with one !Boot and a prompted softload, as there is more in the Select-enhanced !Boot of 4.39. The !Boot in Harddisc4 may have evolved by now to make it viable, though I note that RO420Hook and RO430Hook do not yet appear (and maybe never will despite the aspiration to make this a more or less universal boot.

I wanted to remove the prompt – redundant in a dedicated RO5 !Boot – and get the new ROM-image in place as early as possible so that this !Boot would itself be set up correctly from RO500Hook, so avoid “CallASWI is missing!” and similar errors. The softload mechanics in “prompt” and “loader” were simpler than I had anticipated and the process does not seem to be affected by embedding the relevant commands in !Boot. !Run* and bringing them forward in the sequence; it’s nothing out of this world but seemed worth sharing with the OP (also using real RPC hardware). It’s not the most elegant solution – lots of duplication in the short term, which I may be able to prune in due course – but progress compared to no RO5 at all!

[[ * odd – without a space between !Boot. and !Run, “” disappears leaving just “Run”, but I cannot see “!” or “.!” as modifier in the Textile help list ]]