Disc image

There’s been a lot of noise made about the RISC OS 5.18 ROM image, in both softload and flash forms, but don’t ROOL also distribute a disc image containing disc-based components? Haven’t those been updated as well?

Would the team at ROOL recommend, or not recommend, that everyone who upgrades to the 5.18 ROM should also consider downloading the disc image and merging it with their existing disc to be part of the standard upgrade procedure?

Only it doesn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere on the official announcement.

I observe I still have separate copies of !HForm and !SCSIForm, for example…

The problem with the disc image (or HardDisc4 as it is called on our site) is that nobody has done the requisite testing to declare it “stable”, nor have we thought of a good way of helping the less technically-inclined users to merge what’s there with their existing setup. And to be honest, a lot of our focus is in other areas right now so this isn’t going to be solved any time soon. Hopefully, it will be solved before RISC OS 5.20 comes out!

For the time being, the disc image is in a state of perpetual beta and only the more technically inclined and competent users can pick and chose what they take and how they merge it. This isn’t ideal but we have very limited man power available. Unless you’re volunteering to solve those two issues….? :)

Unless you’re volunteering to solve those two issues….? :)

I may be able to. What would be involved? If it’s limited to merging the disc-based components myself, using them for a certain amount of time, then emailing you to say none of them have crashed yet, you may have some luck with just putting out a public call for beta testers.

Or is the problem more that there’s no one-click solution to upgrading disc-based components the way there is with a ROM? The obvious answer there is “package management” (subject to usual caveats about how a working disc layout is likely to differ substantially from the official one), but even without, given how much software upgrading people do all the time, I can’t imagine that would be any different.

I suppose any changes to boot sequence components would be trickier to sort out, but you’ll need to think of something, otherwise you’ll never be able to make any changes to the boot sequence ever again, which is sure to be necessary sooner or later.

A unified merger may be of some help there… ;-)

I just muddle by with the help of DirSync. The only problem is with the few files that change datestamp daily when content is the same.

DirSync has an option to compare the contents of the files if they “seem equal” (which means they have the same length (and maybe the same filetype? Don’t remember). This might help with your datestamp problems, although the comparing might take somewhat longer.

The problem here is that the files appear different but are in fact equal (apart from the date). Thanks for the prompt though. I realise that I haven’t really explored the options available fully.

Hah! Just clicked – you’re the author. So thanks for a useful tool.

Hmm, DirSync has the option for identical files with different dates and I already have that selected. Curious.

Perhaps they’re not as identical as I supposed.