RISC OS on Linux

At 25:30 in this video an audience member claims that they’ve “ported RISC OS to run on top of Linux”. Does anyone have any idea who that might have been?

Timothy Baldwin? https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/2092

Perhaps. I’d forgotten about that. It’s good to know his patches are still available in spite of the mixed response in that thread. Not sure how useful they would be now.

Timothy was still posting on here last year so perhaps we can ask directly. Was it you? ;-)

Just in case it goes unnoticed.

https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/3/topics/9068

Do you know how to impliment the internet using Riscos on the RasberryPi
B+

Are we all agreed that the previous posting is spam?

Probably, but maybe tread carefully, it isn’t advertising anything.

If Brian is a real person – could you please be more specific as to what you mean? Implement the internet?!?

I mean configure by implement. My main OS is Rasbpian and configuring the IP
server is easy as there is a tab in the top right hand corner which gives setting instructions. On the RiSC OS, the configuration instructions are not clear.

Firstly, note that RISC OS has no WiFi support so you will have to plug in an ethernet cable. It should then just pick up its IP settings via DHCP when it boots.

If that is not working, then to check the settings click with the middle mouse button (with a modern mouse this will be clicking the scroll wheel) on the raspberry icon in the bottom right of the screen and choose Configure from the menu. This should open the configuration window which includes a Network icon. Have a poke around in there!

If you are new to RISC OS, note that all menus are context sensitive and popup when you click the middle (known as Menu) button on the mouse.

1. Is anyone using the RISC OS on Linux port as their regular RISC OS implementation? If so, I for one would be interested in their day-to-day experience of it.
2. I make daily use of Thump, DPingScan, Techwriter, Artworks, Paint, Edit, DrawPrint, YTPlay, RiscOSM, OvnPro, NetSurf, PDF and Fireworkz Pro, in the most recent versions (mostly): are these likely to run under RISC OS on Linux?
3. As someone who has never seriously used Linux, but is capable of following reasonably straightforward installation instructions (e.g. I have installed and regularly use RPCEmu on a Wintel laptop), what are my chances of successfully installing RISC OS on Linux? I have a Pi4, and a functional Raspbian Linux SD card.

1.) Not really because at work is WIN and at home I not need but I have a working Port on Pinebook Pro with Manjaro and Pi4 with Raspian. I use to play around with and try my own software.
2.) Thump, DPingScan, Techwriter, Artworks, Paint, Edit, Netsurf, PDF, Fireworks… are working, RiscOSM, OvnPro and Fireworkz Pro I newer try, MuView and YTPlay working not.
YTPlay itself works but ffmpeg, Phyton, mplayer around not.
Same in RPCEmu.
3.) You can use your HostFS from RPCEmu with the Linux port. I have made a zip in WIN and extract insteed of the “standard Harddisc4”. You have to put cmos to Loader.
The Linux Port can use Network from Linux and can access mounted devices as an directory and it run much faster than RPCEmu.
Installation is possible. Is good documented in readme for Debian. In Manjaro the needed packages are different but you can find it easy via software search.

Thanks, Raik; I’ll have a look at installing Debian instead of Raspbian, to get the benefit of the installation documentation which you mention.

Sorry, was not clear what I wrote.
Raspbian is Debian based.You not need an other installation.

No – you were quite clear: I didn’t carefully enough read what you wrote! But thanks for clarifying.

I currently run RISC OS 5.28 on an Rpi3B and 5.27 on an ArmBook. I can also run Raspbian and Manjaro on an Rpi4 and Manjaro on the Arm/PineBook. By using !FTPc in RISC OS and vsftpd in Linux it is very easy to move files between them. That said, I find the idea of being able to run RISC OS from within Linux very appealing, especially if it were possible for each system to exploit what the other can do better. But reading this thread, and the Porting RISC OS to Linux thread, I am left rather confused as to what has been achieved and what is currently available to persons of my level of incompetence.

Let me spell out what I would like – though I should qualify it with all those apologies due to persons who have already worked hard on a problem from one who has not and who probably underestimates the difficulties involved. I would like to be able to do

sudo apt install riscos5_28

Installing RISC OS for Linux using apt is unlikely going to happen in the near future since it relies on DDE tools.
In general apt is related to debian packages and as such require sources to be built with the Linux tools such as GCC or CLang.
On the other hand, there is always the possibility of doing .deb packages manually and storing them as a download on github.
There still is some support for hardware like sound missing and also no Aemulor version that supports that platform.
Having said all that, a deb package that can be fetched using apt is perfectly feasible albeit cumbersome.
It’s quite some time back when i built deb packages and I can’t really remember the magic involved anymore but maybe someone else here knows?

Hello all, I am following this discourse with great interest. I would like to buy a Linux laptop for some functionality I cannot do without. But I do all my work on RISC OS. So a RISC OS emuation on top of Linux seems like a good solution to me. But I am still in doubt about the following points.
1- Can I expect RISC OS emulation on Linux to work as well as the Virtual-RISC PC on my MacBook Pro?
2- Does the network work properly?
3- How do I read and write to USB memory stick?
4- How do I copy files from the RISC OS environment to Linux and back, I read something about HostFS?

Hi Steve,
I suspect this may not be the correct thread for your questions, however here in line:

1- Can I expect RISC OS emulation on Linux to work as well as the Virtual-RISC PC on my MacBook Pro?

RISC OS emulation on Linux (via RPCEmu) is better than using Virtual-RPC and this is so for few factors:

1) Virtual-RPC (VRPC) seems to have problems with modern NetSurf releases
2) VRPC is only for 26 bit RISC OS, so no support for RISC OS 5
3) VRPC requires re-activation every time you update the operating systems which can be a show-stop if Aron is away or the automatic service doesn’t responds you.

2- Does the network work properly?

Can you please define “properly”? RPCEmu supports 2 different network configurations:

1) NAT mode, this is super easy to configure, but also “hides” your RISC OS from the rest of the network, which means ShareFS won’t work, while everythign else will
2) Bridge mode, this is more complex to configure, but does not “hide” your RISC OS from the rest of the network, so in bridge mode ShareFS works fine

3- How do I read and write to USB memory stick?

RPCEmu HostFS supports Linux’s SymLinks (symbolic links) so you can simply create a symlink to your USB dongle in the root of your RPCEmu HostFS or in a dedicated directory (for example `devs`) and, when you plug your USB stick on your Linux laptop you will be able to access it via that symlink (just double click on it on RISC OS).

4- How do I copy files from the RISC OS environment to Linux and back, I read something about HostFS?

you have read it correctly, HostFS is a filesystem that allows you to access your linux disc from RISC OS, so yes this is the easiest way to copy files between the two of them in RPCEmu.

Hope this helps and if you have further questions, maybe it would be worth opening a new thread for this in Community Support? Thx :)

Hi Paolo, Thanks for the extended answer. I will have to read thru it for a second time. I do not have time now but I will answer more extensive later. I will define the network tonic “Properly”.

Hi again Paolo.

After you have answered this last question I will delete the two entries I’ve made in this Post.
I did not realize this had nothing to do with RPCEmu.

My final question is the elaboration on the “properly working of the Network”. With Properly I meant, Can I axes the internet with for example Netsurf, FTPc, ore the Iris browser?
I have read in an old article that is tricky to get going and was wondering if this has improved since then?

Thanks, Steve

Hi Steve,

My final question is the elaboration on the “properly working of the Network”. With Properly I meant, Can I axes the internet with for example Netsurf, FTPc, ore the Iris browser?

I have no problems at all with Netsurf, FTPc and other on my RPCEmu (and I am even use it on macOS, I did my own port for macOS M1). The one I use for tests-automation on Linux (OpenSuse Tumbleweed, which is also a rolling Linux distribution, so constant updates and changes) works really well.

One note about Iris Browser: Iris Browser is not a good idea on RPCEmu. RPCEmu (and VirtualAcorn too) are emulators that reproduce the old RiscPC. RPCEmu is indeed capable of running RISC OS 5, but that is as far as it can go. Iris is a modern piece of software that uses a port of WebKit framework, which not only is modern code compiled using GCC 10 with the GCCSDK project, but it’s also quiete heavy, so, even if it would run on an RPCEmu system it would be incredibly slow.

So, if you’re planning to use modern applications on RISC OS 5, then I strongly suggest to buy a cheap Raspberry Pi (at least a 3B+ model, better if it’s a 4 with 2GB RAM, or a Pi 400) and if you really need a laptop, you may want to wait until the port to the PineBook Pro is ready, RISC O S5 performs really well on the PineBook Pro.

I have read in an old article that is tricky to get going and was wondering if this has improved since then?

Not sure how old is the article you’re refering to, I use RPCEmu by many years and I never had problems with it. If you have any issue, you can always ask for help here in the RPCEmu section.

Good luck! :)

Hi Paolo, thanks for answering again. I know all I need to know now, and will go ahead with my purchase of a Linux Laptop.

I will remove my posts after you have read my answer.

Thanks again, Steve

Hi Steve,

I will remove my posts after you have read my answer.

No need to remove :) – Just for the future, there is a full RPCEmu section here, just sayin…

and pleasure, good luck with your fun advneture with RPCEmua nd RISC OS! :)

Hi to all.
Sorry for dropping this in the middle of this conversation but I can not work out how this forums layout works. Cant fiend the button to start an new topic ans so on, there fore I drop my question here (sorry).

I have the pleasure to run RPCEmu on top of Linux Ubuntu laptop. It was a bit of a battle to get it stated not being a Linux user, but the emulation starts up properly in the screen resolution of my laptop 1920×1080. Selecting “Full Screen” I expected it to take the full screen. The emulation takes over the screen but does not center in the middle of it. Therefore I can’t reach the toolbar at the bottom. Does anyone have an idea way it does not center?
Thanks in advance, Steve

Cant fiend the button to start an new topic ans so on

I can’t help you with your question, but starting a new topic is a matter of going to one of the subforums (RISC OS on Linux, for example) and click ‘New topc’. That link disappears though, as soon as you click one of the topics within that forum – which is a bit confusing indeed.