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second edition - 11-Feb-2000
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based on hints, tips and discussions on the mailinglist at Onelist
amigaOS3_5@onelist.com (subscribe via amigaOS3_5-subscribe@onelist.com)
This FAQ is not meant to replace the "official" version at www.amiga.com,
it is an addition to provide answers to questions that appeared on the
mailinglist irritatingly often :) or are worth being mentioned in an FAQ.
If you have additions or corrections to the FAQ, please write to
neurodancer@gmx.de (current FAQ maintainer).
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Abbreviations that may have been used & explanation of some terms:
S-S = Startup-Sequence. A batchfile in S: that is executed when you boot
your Amiga the normal way. You shouldn't make changes to this file
until it is really necessary. Put your own additions to...
U-S = User-Startup. Another batchfile in S: which contains additions,
either by the user or some installer script, to the S-S. If it
exists, it is automagically =) ran by S-S.
W-S = WBStartup. A drawer on SYS: where "autostart" files reside. Those
are ran when the Workbench is first loaded.
RTG = ReTargetable Graphics. Usually a software driver kit for a
graphic chipset - mostly for graphic cards, but not necessarily
(There's a CGX AGA driver set for PowerPC Amigas [thanks Tony]).
P96 = Picasso96, shareware RTG software kit
CGX = CyberGraphics, commercial (v4) RTG software kit
HDD = Hard Disk Drive (oh really =)
RDB = Rigid Disk Block. The first few blocks of a HDD which contain the
vital information for the drive, e.g. partition(s), filesystem(s).
John Wasilewski said: "No, that's wrong. Its an acronym for 'Disks
Regularly Buggered', with the letters rearranged, so that you can't
read them. Like the disks." =)
NSD = New Style Device. See FAQ entry below for details.
FFS = Fast File System. The standard Amiga filesystem. The AmigaOS 3.5
version is v45.
NOTE: "TD64" FFS v44 is a *patched* v40 and no official update!
[Heinz Wrobel]
PFS = Professional File System. A commercial third party filesystem,
not compatible with FFS.
SFS = Smart File System. A currently freeware third party filesystem,
not compatible with FFS either.
TLA = Three Letter Acronym :)
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The Frequently Asked Questions
("Q" - Questions, "A" - Answer, "N" - Note)
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Q: I have a GFX board and/or RTG software installed. When I open a window
with a lot of icons, a large amount of chipmem is used. Why is that,
and how can I avoid it?
A: By default (and for compatibility reasons), OS 3.5 uses chipmem for
the new icon system. It is possible to use fastmem, the option is
built into the OS - but in order to flick the switch, you need a 3rd
party tool, e.g. WBC or WBCtrl (in the "Contributions" drawer of the
CD - more recent version however on Aminet).
The most common tool is WBCtrl by Stephan Rupprecht, GFX board owners
just have to add "WBCtrl IMT=FAST" somewhere in their U-S, et voila.
[these two tools are NOT HACKS, no patching is done. "WB2Fast" however
is the one program that hacks into the OS instead of using the legal
built-in methods]
N: WB will *still* use a small portion of chipmem whenever you open a
window, copy files etc. etc. - why? We don't know either. This can
only be avoided by using WB2Fast.
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Q: I don't have a GFX board - can I render the icons in fastram anyway?
A: Yes, if you have an AGA Amiga, install "FBlit" and you can use
WBCtrl, it is aware of the FBlit patch as of v1.3 (from Aminet, not
from the CD!), and your icons will use fastram then. John Wasilewski
originally compiled a summary of what to do and where for the list,
please credit him. Here's the "how to" in short:
Add to your S-S after the "copy ENVARC: etc." line:
FBlit
WBCtrl IMT=ICONFAST
And then add "SIMPLEGELS" to the LoadWB command, so that the last two
lines look like this:
LoadWB SIMPLEGELS
EndCLI
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Q: What does "LoadWB SIMPLEGELS" do?
A: It reverts the system to the old OS 3.1 style of selecting and
dragging icons, solid and positioning one at a time. The new OS 3.5
way is greyed or dotty icons and positioning all at once. On my
A1200T, SIMPLEGELS prevents the 300K Chip RAM loss when using FBlit
and WBCtrl on AGA. [Michael Rye]
Robin Hueskes reported his system (using a BVisionPPC with CGX4) was very
unstable until he used the "SIMPLEGELS" option, if you are experiencing
problems you might give it a try, even if you're using a GFX board.
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Q: DOpus5 does not display the new 3.5 icons, why?
A: The icon format of WB 3.5 is different to previous icon formats, it is
not the NewIcons format either. You need to download the update patch
for DOpus from the website of GP Software.
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Q: What are the programs in the "Converter-Scripts" directory for?
A: These tools were not intended to be on the CD; Olaf Barthel
provided the mailinglist with the following answer:
ClockIcon: Tests a new AppIcon feature: in V44 workbench.library
allows the owner of an AppIcon to render the icon image itself. This
allows for a clock display to be updated in an AppIcon image (NB:
check out the new tool "AnimatedIcon" from BoingBag1)
CondenseIcons: This reads an icon, drops the planar icon image and any
associated NewIcons tool types and writes the icon back to disk. This
will result in space savings.
Convert8ColorIcons: This reads an 8 colour image, attaches a default
8 colour palette to it and writes it back to disk.
ConvertMagicWBIcons: This reads a MagicWB icon and writes it back to
disk in the new V44 icon.library format (including the matching
palette).
ConvertNewIcons: This reads a NewIcons format icon and writes it back
to disk in the new V44 icon.library format.
GlowIconImage: This reads image files, applies the glow effect and
writes the result to disk as a V44 format icon.
ImageToIcon: This reads an image file and writes it to disk as a V44
format icon.
LayoutIcon: This tests the new V44 icon.library LayoutIconA() code.
StripIcons: This reads an icon, removes the NewIcons tool types or the
V44 palette information and writes it back to disk.
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Q: Is there a way to make "DefIcons" work with OS 3.5?
A: You can use "DefIcons44" (from Aminet), its the replacement for OS
3.5, even comes with a prefs editor, and is yet another useful tool by
Stephan Rupprecht - Stephan, we all really owe you a big one. =)
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Q: My AWeb toolbar buttons are wrecked, can I fix them?
A1:This is mentioned in the original FAQ as well - with the note "there's
no way around it", but you can fix this very easily, and we on the
mailinglist were the first to discover it: load the toolbar image into
a GFX converter and save it as GIF.
A2:Remove the "transparent" tooltype from the .info file, a user reported
this helps as well.
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Q: What do the (new) C: commands "CAPrefs", "Group" and "Owner" do?
They aren't covered in the manual.
A1:CAPrefs is replaced by a dummy file, see next FAQ entry.
A2:Group and Owner let you alter the owner/group flags in filesystems
that support this. They used to be part of AS225 and Envoy. Note
that the OS3.5 "List" command now also supports users/groups options.
[Kolbjørn Barmen]
N: There are more new features in other shell commands: List now has
a sort option: List sort N = sort name
List sort S = sort size
List sort D = sort date
[Martin Steigerwald]
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Q: What happened to "CAPrefs" and the "ClassAct" prefs editor?
A: They are replaced with dummy files by the 3.5 installer and are
needed no longer. OS 3.5's "ReAction" is the successor of ClassAct,
and the prefs are initialized via the normal "IPrefs" command that is
in your S-S anyway. You can safely remove the "CAPrefs" command from
your S-S or U-S and dump the "ClassAct" prefs editor.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Ever since I'm using DefIcons44/TweakWB, my ENV: has grown really
big due to the lot of def_xxx.info files - can't I reduce the memory
usage somehow?
A1:Optimize the icons using Stephan Rupprechts "CondenseIcons" (from
Aminet), it can remove the old planar image from the icon, convert
any NewIcons "tooltype image" :) into an OS 3.5 image, and save an
optimized result. That can reduce the size of icons upto 50%.
CondenseIcons can enter directories recursive, so you can convert
A LOT of icons in one go (highly recommended for your HDD's as well,
unless you intend to switch back to OS3.1 =)
A2:Install HappyENV (Aminet), it copies files from ENVARC: to ENV:
only when they are actually requested by an application, speeding up
booting, and saving some RAM as well, as it is optimized for very
small files.
A3:Remove default icons you really don't need ("def_tar" etc. might
be a good candidate)
A4:Occasionally browse through ENVARC: - often there's a lot of old
config files and crap still rotting there, from programs you've
deleted almost ages ago. :)
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Q: Why do other FAQ's still mention that RAWBInfo doesn't work with
3.5 correctly?
A: Because they're poorly maintained =) - the latest RAWBInfo does indeed
work GREAT with OS 3.5 and supports *all* of its features, plus a lot
more that you may know from old "SwazInfo". Just install it, its ok!
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Q: How do I put the new FFS into my HDD's RDB?
A: * Start HDToolbox & select the device that controls your HDD,
then the drive in question.
* Click the "Partition drive" gadget. In the lower right corner is
a section labeled "File System", below it a line that shows the
filesystem in use on the selected partition.
* Click the "Add/Update" gadget. From the listview that is now shown,
select the filesystem you want to update (it should *really* read
"FastFileSystem")
* Click the "Update File System..." gadget. From the filerequester,
select the new FFS (L:FastFileSystem).
* Click the "OK" gadget, and you'll be returned to the partition
drive window.
* Click on the "Save" button, then Exit HDToolBox.
Done. To make the change actually happen, reboot your Amiga.
With these steps you *copy* the filesystem *into* the RDB, it is not
just a link or pointer to the filesystem that was installed with the
OS 3.5 installer.
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Q: I have a HDD that was prepared with SCSIConfig from phase5. When I try
to access it via HDToolBox, something seems to be wrong, ie. HDTB tells
me there have been changes to the drive which need to be saved.
A: You should *never* mix SCSIConfig and HDToolBox when it comes to
editing/preparing one and the same harddisk. Never, never, never.
Stick with the program you initally used to prepare your HDD.
SCSIConfig has a different opinion about how to calculate geometry than
HDToolbox; even if you only enable the "synchron" flag in SCSIConfig,
it actually does write its own new geometry calculations to the RDB,
causing a *big* MESSUP when you add new partitions to the drive; you
may get overlapping partitions!
Never ever combine the usage of these two programs for the same drive.
AFAIK this is valid for all versions of SCSIconfig as of 4-Feb-2000.
[Martin Steigerwald]
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Q: What is this NSD, NSDPatch and the NSDPatch.cfg stuff?
A: "NSD" itself is a guideline on how an exec device driver should be
designed, so that its capabilities can be identified. "NSD" is a
textfile with instructions for developpers - not a program. The idea
is a unified exec device system (exec device means eg. "serial.device"
as opposed to "SER:", which is a DOS device).
"NSDPatch" however is a program that can make old devices (that were
created before the definition of NSD) look NSD compliant. In addition,
it fixes some bugs and broken devices. It can also add basic 64bit
functionality for trackdisk-like devices to break the 4G barrier of
old HDD device drivers.
NSDPatch, as Heinz Wrobel put it, "emulates" NSD on old devices by
adding a header on top of them. In "NSDPatch.cfg" (which is installed
to DEVS: by the OS 3.5 installer), the definitions (that would be part
of a New Style Device anyway) are written down. Don't mess with the
configfile if you don't really know what you're doing.
"NSDPatch" is integrated into SetPatch as of OS 3.5, you don't need to
install it additionally.
For more information, you can download the original NSDPatch archive,
it comes with a good .guide, and the original NSD definitions from the
website of Amiga Inc.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Where does my boot partition have to be when I'm using a HDD which
is larger than 4G on the Amiga's internal HDD connector?
A: When you're doing a COLD boot (you switch on the machine), you have
neither the NSDPatch 64bit functionality, nor have you the "AmigaOS
ROM update" activated yet.
Don't get confused, COLD boot only!
The following statement is valid for *ALL* Amiga models that have an
internal "SCSI" connector, be it a real scsi.device (A3000/T, A4000T)
or the pseudo IDE_scsi.device (A600, A1200, A4000):
* YOUR BOOT PARTITION MUST BE IN THE LOWER 4G RANGE! Even if you have
FFS v45+ installed in the RDB of the HDD. FFS v45 alone can NOT use
its 64 bit commands on the old v40 scsi.device!
Furthermore, the v40 IDE_scsi.device has an internal *unchangeable*
limit of 8G, which means:
* If you're using a filesystem that has "direct scsi" or "TD64"
support (e.g. PFS, SFS) on an A600/A1200/A4000, YOUR BOOT PARTITION
MUST BE WITHIN THE LOWER 8G.
[thanks to Colin Wenzel, who first came up with this problem,
and to Heinz Wrobel for a lot of answers]
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Q1:I'm having problems with the ROM updated "scsi.device" (the machine
won't boot or similar), can I skip the "ROM update" and use NSDPatch
to apply 64bit functionality to the old scsi.device (from the 3.1 ROM)
to use a >4G HDD?
Q2:Isn't the NSD patched v40 scsi.device the same as the v43 scsi.device
from the "ROM update"?
A: An NSD-patched scsi.device has *simple* 64bit functionality, its an
emulation via HD_SCSICMD, nothing more. The complete, working stuff
with internal control, retries, error handling etc. is ONLY available
via the "ROM update" to scsi.device v43 that is applied via SetPatch.
And don't forget: if you have an A600/A1200/A4000, you're still stuck
with the internal 8G limit of the v40 IDE_scsi.device. You can use a
HDD with no more than 8G if you apply the NSD patch to the internal
ROM IDE_scsi.device v40 - 8G, nothing more.
Filesystems like PFS and SFS which have e.g. a "direct scsi" version
must use the IDE_scsi.device as well, so the 8G limit applies here
as well (the docs of e.g. PFS are a bit vague on this topic).
* YOU CAN *NOT* PATCH THE INTERNAL 8G LIMIT OF THE OLD IDE_scsi.device
with NSDPatch, nor can you avoid it with a third party filesystem's
"direct scsi" version.
* If you want to use a HDD larger than 8G on the internal IDE_scsi
connector of the A600/A1200/A4000, REGARDLESS OF THE FILESYSTEM (!),
you MUST use the IDE_scsi.device from the ROM update.
Thank you, Heinz Wrobel, for clearing those things up with short and
precise answers to my nerving emails :)
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