Any updates about RiscOS on the Raspberry Pi?

One minor thing though (I know I’ve seen a fix for the overscan issue somewhere else, so I’ll go find that) – if I try to boot the pi with no network cable attached, it hangs at the DHCP stage

When you get to the DHCP “hang” – hit escape. The boot sequence will continue, but will report an error. Cancel that error window. The double click on the !Boot application in the SD Hard Drive, and use the Network icon to switch off any networking options that are on.

OK all the open windows, shut down and reboot. On restart, the DHCP check should be skipped and your RISC Pi will boot properly.

Is there something I can set to limit the time DHCP waits for a response, or a way of skipping the stage? Would be nice to be able to boot without a network connection. Or have I done something wrong?

It’s a function of the way DHCP works at the moment. You could avoid DHCP altogether and set a fixed IP address. There are some brief instructions here

This problem has come up a few times in the past. See here. So hopefully a solution will be forthcoming.

The Welcome page – is there some duplication of effort there with the guys working on the updated Welcome Guide?

Hopefully not – I am concentrating on a simple ‘welcome’ that will be on disc (that can easily reference any other guides in digital form that might appear).

Updated in line with comments here (no new distro as this is all I have changed so far).

Also, you really shouldn’t have converted all those application icons to JPEGs

Back to PNGs now.

Now, I know it’s Alpha, but it seems to me here that people are updating to the latest build and carrying on, rather than having to start from scratch again.

You can now update to the latest rom by simply downloading the Raspberry Pi rom image, unzipping it, renaming it to ‘riscos.img’ and copying it to the FAT partition of the SD card which you put the Alpha distro onto.

I am working on the RISCOS disc image, adding various bits at the moment, so inevitably will be uploading revised images. I will consider a ‘bits that have changed’ zip file that can be downloaded from within RISC OS on the Pi and copied over the existing disc – but first I need to write the instructions how to do it and put that on the build. Thereafter …

How come the brown fox has metamorphosed into a cat? ;-)

Thanks for the responses – I’ve raised the question in a more appropriate place :0)

One more thought, now I’ve finally managed to view that page on RISC OS: considering NetSurf’s seriously dubious frames support (not exactly the finest part of the RISC OS desktop experience!), it might be a good idea to avoid them.

might be a good idea to avoid them.

I tried using the CSS property ‘position: fixed’ for the left hand bit in a DIV to stop it scrolling but Netsurf just lets it scroll anyway. So I went to frames in a very simple way (that it still doesn’t get quite right but it’s acceptable). It seems OK at the moment using frames in this simple way.

You can now update to the latest rom by simply downloading the Raspberry Pi rom image, unzipping it, renaming it to ‘riscos.img’ and copying it to the FAT partition of the SD card which you put the Alpha distro onto.

Just to confirm (though I think I’m right here), it’s the Raspberry Pi download on this page?
https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/other-zipfiles

I am working on the RISCOS disc image, adding various bits at the moment, so inevitably will be uploading revised images. I will consider a ‘bits that have changed’ zip file that can be downloaded from within RISC OS on the Pi and copied over the existing disc – but first I need to write the instructions how to do it and put that on the build.

That would be really helpful, though I understand that this is a fairly big task (it sounds like it to me, anyway). If it’s a case of just the ROMs changing, then I think I have enough to be getting on with. However, if there is more in the disk image that RISC OS reads when it’s booted, then clearly it’s a case of more info needed.

This does beg the question about updates to both ROMs and supplied software (!Boot, modules, other bundled software) when the OS is out of Beta and fully live. I guess there are already ways to apply updates to images for other systems, and that there will be ways to help those of us less familiar with the “bare metal” side of computing to apply updates.

I’ve just been playing with Bluetooth (strictly experimental stuff only) on the RPi with the distro from Chris Hall’s site on Sunday.

The good news is that the Bluetooth dongles I have seem to work just as well on the RPi as on the BBxM or Iyonix.

The bad news is that USBInfo seems to get stuck almost every time I add or remove a device. Version 0.60 (08 April 2011) which seems to be the latest one available.

This does beg the question

This incremental updating is just while the alpha image is changing rapidly…

develop !Cat to offer ‘Find’ function for names, ‘Launch’ option for displayed file, save dialogue for stored draw file

Most of the requests now accommodated, developing !Cat took the longest but was the most fun!

I tried using the CSS property ‘position: fixed’ for the left hand bit in a DIV to stop it scrolling but Netsurf just lets it scroll anyway. So I went to frames in a very simple way (that it still doesn’t get quite right but it’s acceptable). It seems OK at the moment using frames in this simple way.

Personally, I’d avoid frames – or any kind of fixed navigation. People are used to websites that scroll these days, and having a menu at the top or bottom of the page would be fine.

It’d probably help (and make the page look less “intimidating”) if the pages were split up more. Since the files will be on disk, there’s no network latency to worry about. And that allows the complexity in Application Directories to be hidden behind the front page (which should be more of a cover/splash/index/gentle introduction, IMHO)

Finally, there’s a typo in the anti-aliasing section: “anit-aliaising” :-)

Tank – thanks, I had a good go at your GPIO module, and once I worked out it was the on-board LED I was meant to be toggling with the BASIC app, I was really happy!! Are you looking tp update your other software so that the GPIO pins can be toggled, or is it already staring me in the face???
Again, thanks and it will make my update demo much better!!!

Theo, I got my rough draft of the new icons done. I will do a little more tweaking, and I have found a package of really great backdrops and textures which show off the Pi hardware and are sympathetic to RISC OS look and feel. There would need to be some checking of licensing on images but I would love to contribute to the work with a nice package of icon updates. I’ll bundle them up and send to you and Chris for a first opinion if I may???

New icons? Have I missed something?

I don’t know, I’m confused too! What new icons are we talking about?

I’ve been doing some user-level playing with the current image:

SparkFS should be Filer-booted by default, as otherwise Zip files aren’t double-clickable.

Sunfish doesn’t work, giving ‘Task not known’ and then a postmortem devoid of function names. Not sure why, since it works on BB. RiscPkg doesn’t work (a postmortem from the function that tries to put something on the iconbar) – suspect these are alignment related. What mode is alignment support set at the moment?

Firefox doesn’t work (segfault). That backtrace gives disassembly of the getenv code that’s failing – it’s trying to LDR r12,[r0,#0] from r0=&4f6d2223 – an alignment fail. OpenSSH’s sftp (from riscos.info) fails in exactly the same code (r0=&5c48d). Nettle (riscos.info) runs but then falls over with alignment errors when you try to connect to something.

PackMan works and is really handy for installing new software in bulk, but complains about a conflict with the SharedUnixLib already installed in !System. A new user asked about how to install new software post-installation in one of the threads here. Perhaps it might be worth integrating PackMan into the disc image with no actual managed packages, but set it up so that packages can be advertised after release to people who want to use that as a delivery system. That probably means a new repository containing vetted packages, since many of those on riscpkg.org and riscos.info are either not ARMv7 safe or just plain confusing – eg for SSH you want to use Nettle not NettleSSH these days.

Thoughts on including a few freeware helper modules like double-click-select-all in icons, cut’n’paste in icons, drag-icons-to-save-contents, etc? RISC OS feels quite clunky in that respect – eg to clear an icon like the address bar in NetSurf you either use Ctrl-U (a shortcut that nobody knows), or click at the end and hold down delete lots. The natural reflex of double clicking the icon to select it doesn’t work, and icon cut’n’paste doesn’t work either.

ArcEm works. riscos.info SDL games like Tutris and Starfighter work.

Tank – thanks, I had a good go at your GPIO module, and once I worked out it was the on-board LED I was meant to be toggling with the BASIC app, I was really happy!! Are you looking tp update your other software so that the GPIO pins can be toggled, or is it already staring me in the face???
Again, thanks and it will make my update demo much better!!!

Alex, if you look at the BASIC program , the first line sets which GPIO pin is affected.
All 54 pins can be accessed, but only the expansion header pins are useful !!

Thoughts on including a few freeware helper modules like double-click-select-all in icons, cut’n’paste in icons, drag-icons-to-save-contents, etc? RISC OS feels quite clunky in that respect

Better check the licensing on these – I’ll try to do so over the weekend. There are probably dozens which could be considered. Another one which comes to mind is double-click and hold to shift-open application directories: this would be handy for those demonstrating the system to an audience.

(Changing icons is easy, and I agree is worth doing. Anyone feel like designing some new icons?)

7. on my list – done :)

All 54 pins can be accessed, but only the expansion header pins are useful !!

I currently have 3 LEDs and 3 Switches connected up via GPIO and I’m in the process of writing a simple ‘Simon Says’ type game in BASIC for the Cambridge Rasberry Jam this weekend (Its been ages since I last wrote a BASIC program!). Once that is complete I’ll upload the code somewhere for people to play with/alter.

We’re on OS NEWS:
RISC OS for Raspberry Pi aiming for a beta release in September
http://www.osnews.com/story/26178/RISC_OS_for_Raspberry_Pi_aiming_for_a_beta_release_in_September

I would like to see packman as part of the distro, and everything that is included that is already a package should be installed on the distro via packman (as has been previously suggested.)

I would like to see packman as part of the distro, and everything that is included that is already a package should be installed on the distro via packman (as has been previously suggested.)

Jess – can you educate me on this and I’ll include it. Email chris at svrsig dot org

SparkFS should be Filer-booted by default, as otherwise Zip files aren’t double-clickable.

I’ll add this to the list – a change to !Boot.Choices.Boot.Desktop to add the lines:
|Start Acorn BootBoot 0,01 Boot
IfThere Boot:^.Third Party.!SparkFS Then Filer_Boot Boot:^.Third Party.!SparkFS
|End
should do it?

I’ve just been playing with Bluetooth (strictly experimental stuff only) on the RPi with the distro from Chris Hall’s site on Sunday.

The good news is that the Bluetooth dongles I have seem to work just as well on the RPi as on the BBxM or Iyonix.

Interesting – can you let us know what ones you have? I have a spare BlueTooth and mouse (both Apple) keyboard kicking around, and these would remove the trilling wire from the TV to the keyboard & mouse I currently am using. Despite the nice retro feeling of having a keyboard trailing a wire to the TV, I’m aware that others here are finding it bothersome. It will be worth giving this a spin. I can then effectively hide the RPi behind the TV and leave it there.