ROMS, ROMS, ROMS

You’ll probably want to create an MDF using the settings here – http://www.riscosopen.org/wiki/documentation/show/OMAPVideo

I’ll backup and replace my !Boot file at some point over the next few days.
Dave, perhaps we could work together on improving the !Boot file available on this site?

instructions somewhere in these fora

Dave, you’ve probably found what you wanted now… but if not, was it Beagle XM Network or BB usb ethernet?

You’ll probably want to create an MDF

Oh, I’ve got the original one OK. And the configuration plug-in sees it, and can read it, and allows me to set the colours, and the resolution, and try them; they work. Not surprisingly. The only bit that doesn’t work is the saving of the settings when I click “Set”. A few seconds later, back comes this nonsense error message. When I reboot, the settings are lost.

Dave, perhaps we could work together on improving the !Boot file available on this site?

Gladly. I suspect there is more to do on instructions (how to use it starting from scratch; how to preserve your settings if you replace the !Boot sequence, as I’ve just done) than there is to the !Boot sequence itself.

Dave, you’ve probably found what you wanted now

I thought I had; however, now my BBxM is booting up without EtherUSB being loaded. I think there should be an Obey file somewhere to do that.

One of the general problems we seem to have is that there are fragments of information all over the place. EtherUSB is but one example. We can find it (though IMHO it should be in the !Boot sequence or in ROM), but it comes without instructions on how to install it. My guess is that the instructions it does have are appropriate for a developer rather than an end user. And then there’s this one which says “You should have a file called EtherUSB in InetSetup.AutoSense” – hang on: what type of file, and what is it supposed to contain?

From the point of view of an end user, s/he should only need to go to a maximum of one place to get all files and all necessary related information. But preferably zero places because s/he’s already got it.

Apple and Microsoft have it right: stuff should “just work”. In the early days of RISC OS, it was the OS that most nearly approached that principle. Nowadays we have some catching up to do. We should be in no doubt that that’s what we will have to do with the RISC OS distribution for the Raspberry Pi, otherwise there’s no good reason that anyone should persevere with RO on RPi.

Dave, perhaps we could work together on improving the !Boot file available on this site?

Gladly.

It’s probably worth bearing in mind that "it’s probably unsafe to go tinkering with it before the RPi release", although you’re probably referring to the longer term.

There’s also this thread which has instructions for setting up EtherUSB and EtherGEP on the IGEPv2 (I put the latter there, as at the time it seemed like a good place.) Perhaps the knowledge in that thread that’s still current should be moved onto a Wiki page?

And then there’s this one which says “You should have a file called EtherUSB in InetSetup.AutoSense” – hang on: what type of file, and what is it supposed to contain?

That sounds weird. I think you should only need a single obey file inside the AutoSense directory, name unimportant, that contains the Set InetSetup$Driver$USB line. But the instructions in the thread you quote imply there would be two files in there. Not sure that’s right, but I’m no authority on this… It should be enough to have the module itself inside !System.

How about this obeyfile?

moved onto a Wiki page?

Configuring Networking, perhaps?

I’ve given up trying to make the !Boot work, and restored a backup I took a few weeks ago.

Lest anyone should get the impression that I’ve been trying solidly and failing these last few days: I haven’t. The family has been down to stay for a few days. Taking care of a 3 year old and a 6 year old is consuming of time and energy :-) Never mind, though – the elder one shares my love of trains, so I took him out train-spotting :-)

The backup appears to be working fine. So far, so good!

As of today, the ROM builds on my site are now at RISC OS version 5.19
http://www.robheaton.co.uk/riscos/roms

Yes, as you can probably guess, we’re working on testing the ‘official’ 5.18 builds so we’ve incremented the OS version to 5.19 in CVS. I’ll update the 5.17 archives on our site soon to be 5.19 archives.

Right. Many updates to the ROMs and Sources downloads pages have been made. Thanks to Sprow for the suggestions. Someone might need to fix up some of the wiki pages that are linked to from the “Information” icons because the names of some archives have changed so those links are now broken.

Can I ask if a ROM which is included in a ‘softload’ release is the same ROM as that included in the ‘flash’ release? Or are they built differently?

If they are the same, could the two release files be combined? Personally, for a new release I would tend to try it softloaded for a while, then flash it. It always seems silly to have to download another 2MB, when the bulk of that would seem to be the same, and I would prefer to flash the rom I have tested by softloading!

They are the same ROM, but I don’t like the idea of putting both into one archive because someone is bound to get confused/not understand the distinction and get themself into a pickle. I also really don’t like the idea of making people fish around inside one thing to dig out a file for something else.

Anyway, this is 2012 – what’s a 2MB download, really? Even on dial-up back in the Stone Age, that wasn’t too bad (under ten minutes)!

fix up some of the wiki pages that are linked to from the “Information” icons

Is this a case of redirecting (by ticking ‘Change page name’ when saving)?¹ E.g. ARMv7 software compatibility list currently redirects to Cortex-A8 software compatibility list.

Or are there any new components which need copy/paste then amending?

¹ Incidentally, I’ve found here that editing Cortex-A8 software compatibility list (the original title) lands on the Documentation HomePage, whereas editing ARMv7 software compatibility list seems to work as expected.

I don’t think I’ve put anything there which wasn’t already there – aside from the !System release. I mostly got rid of stuff that was of no value. So I think redirection would be fine.

Mostly now redirected.

• The (automatically placed via ‘Change page name’) [[!redirects]] code has been manually moved from the top to the end of the pages because it left an ugly blank line. If this is likely to cause errors, it’ll need correcting.
• Pages are now added to the Help category.
• It’s good to see the HardDisc4/HardDisk4 issue tidied up.
• Should ‘5.16 Stable (flash prog)’ and ‘5.16 Stable (softload)’ redirect to Iyonix Flash and Iyonix ROM respectively?

• aside from the !System release

  • Does the new one at ROM image releases replace that at Boot sequence?

Does the new one at ROM image releases replace that at Boot sequence?

The !System on the ROM image releases/other zipfiles page is for machines running 26 bit OS’s. The one on the boot sequence page is for machines running RISC OS 5 (although chances are it’ll work on ROL’s 32bit OS as well)

They are the same ROM, but I don’t like the idea of putting both into one archive because someone is bound to get confused/not understand the distinction and get themself into a pickle. I also really don’t like the idea of making people fish around inside one thing to dig out a file for something else.

But they have to make the decision sometime! Indeed, the information given on the download page is rather sparse for making the correct decision, and refers to a news page that is now 5 pages back on the News pages.

I was not suggesting that people should ‘fish around’. I was suggesting that there should be one !App downloaded, which should offer users the choice, with sufficient information and checks to help users make the correct decision. Within that !App it could be much the same as at present, except only one copy of the ROM.

Anyway, this is 2012 – what’s a 2MB download, really? Even on dial-up back in the Stone Age, that wasn’t too bad (under ten minutes)!

Yes, ok. But I would have thought it would be easier for you to only generate a single file per ROM release per machine type, and would reduce the amount downloaded from your server.

But it was just a suggestion, and I am aware you have a heavy workload at the moment.

The !System on the ROM image releases/other zipfiles page is for machines running 26 bit OS’s. The one on the boot sequence page is for machines running RISC OS 5 (although chances are it’ll work on ROL’s 32bit OS as well)

Thanks. They’re now both included, although their content could be elaborated on.

• System
• System resources

Should ‘5.16 Stable (flash prog)’ and ‘5.16 Stable (softload)’ redirect to Iyonix Flash and Iyonix ROM respectively?

Yes. Except the wording of those pages should probably be changed to say it’s the ‘stable’ release for the Iyonix, as tested by Castle Technology. This is because we plan to have the 5.18 release available on the downloads page along with the 5.16 release – so they might as well end up pointing to a generic page for a “stable” release rather than an “official” release with a specific version number.

But it was just a suggestion, and I am aware you have a heavy workload at the moment.

Noted. It’s actually simpler for us to keep things the way they are than to change them at the moment. Your suggestion, if executed correctly, would be a Wimp GUI app which offers a path through to running the softload installer or the flash programmer, along with suitable Help files, interactive help, etc. That’s more work than I’m prepared to do on something which isn’t a high priority. Someone else would be welcome to though.

Installed the latest 5.19 ROM today on my BB xM because I started getting freezes with 5.17 as mention earlier in this thread. I stuck with 5.17 because I wanted the save CMOS to SD facility. It still works – presume it was re-instated?