At first, I was daunted by the amount of code needed to do basic things.
After a while, I began noticing that most of it can be re-used again in your next, totally different project.
The fact that I came from a BASIC and, more importantly, AMOS Pro background made this harder than it needed to, since those take care of everything for you.

I'm learning to like C, but, unlike someone wrote here, it's certainly NOT easy to learn. It would be easier if I was about 15 years younger and had more time on my hands, but for a "regular" adult", it's hard work.

@Chris

Every variable needs to be declared in C, which was not the case in BASIC, for example.
But the major confusion is clearly handling pointers.

@Atheist

The basic C is the same, but there are some OS4 specific stuff that changed in between, making "blind-copying" the examples a bad experience.

My advice would be:
1-read a book
2-if you can afford, enlist a live course
3-after getting the ropes, you can gather info from the net

Having said this, I'm NOT a coder, bu any means. Just starting out and facing major stumbling blocks, especially free time. C is very demanding in this respect, unlike BASIC, that I learned in a few days, when I was younger.

@jahc

Learning solely from stuff found on the net is supposedly one of the worst ways to learn C. This seems a general opinion on the C mailing lists I subscribe.
If you're really into it, entering a C course or buying a couple of good books is the best way to learn.

I did it both ways and I'm still stuck at "basic" level. :(

Example: I tried a couple of GUI examples from the net, but they were outdated (relating to OS4). The good out of this is that I managed to update them myself, which made me quite proud. Not sure if my fixes were clean, though.

C is a blunt object, you really have to learn it well.

The "double-click anywhere to bring up lister" should be a native feature of OS4. Or any other OS, really.
Huge time saver and shouldn't be that hard to implement.

Just my opinion.

@Antique

The machine "seemed" to be working fine, but the mouse stopped on its tracks. The keyboard reset combination worked, though.

In the meantime, I'm getting used to the CLI version. Better than nothing.

One more question: is 20k/s (the best I managed so far...) a sensible speed for this kind of operation?

@Antique

Looked promising, but... locked up the mouse on the very first torrenty file I tried... :(

I've recently tried to use Transmission and was pleasantly surprised. It worked fine and had a nice interface.

But...

after trying to download anything, I got multiple lockups.
Searching for info, I found the "blame" was placed on SFS partitions. Had to create a FFS partition to be able to use torrents.

So, my question is: is this true? And if so, can it be solved?

Thanks in advance.

Nuno

@rwo

Scanner, first and foremost. ;)

@Ferry

Right now, I'd be happy just to know what is wrong.

Anyway, it seems my main problem is related to IBrowse Network (I'm getting DSI erros) and not SFS, since I tried to copy the suspect partition and reformat, but nothing changed.

@Raziel

Well, as a matter of fact, I had a pretty bad crash a few days ago.
I can't see how I find out if something is wrong with my partitions. I tried SFSCheck, but it reports everything as fine.
PartitionWizard seems useless here.

I've been having some annoying problems with my OS4 system lately.
Pinpointing the cause has not been easy.
Today, I noticed something very weird, that I wanted to know if anyone else experienced.

While copying a few files with DiskMasterII (to an empty partition), I got a message asking if it was ok to over-write a file. Since the partition was empty, said file wasn't there, obviously. This has happened before, but I never gave much importance.

I have SFS 2.264 on my Kickstart dir.
Tried a more recent version, but reverted, fearing that was causing problems...

@TSK

To really know what DOpus Magellan is and feels like, it's necessary to actually use it.
I was sceptical at first, but after buying and installing it, I was hooked. It makes almost everything easier, especially "house-cleaning" tasks.

It's the tool I miss the most from my 3.9 days.

To whom this may be of interest:

My problems seem to point to DepthToFront. Not sure if this tool is buggy or if it only happens in conjunction with other program (mainly IBrowse), but since removing it, I no longer get recoverable errors (knocks on wood...).

Anyone using DepthToFront without trouble?

@Elwood

I'll give it a try. Since the crash is intermitent, it may take a while. Basically, I'll stick with a slower system until I catch the damn cause.
Is it just a case of changing the line where it says "kernel" to "kernel.debug" or do I need to do anything else?

This problem is really annoying me, I want to go to the bottom of it! ;)

@TetiSoft

The card initialization bits were (I think) from a couple of soundcard files I had on DEVS:, for some reason. I removed those now.

And about the debug kernel, I'm not very experienced using it. Can you give me some pointers on how to proceed?
On Grim Reapers, I used to have lockups when trying the debug option (doesn't seem to happen anyomre after OS4Final, though).

@ZeroG

IBrowse is already blacklisted. Previously, I also had quite a few Grim Reapers. Black-listing it solved that, but had no effect on the damn "recoverables"... :(

The crashlog has been posted on AW now.

@ZeroG

I didn't know about that command. It will be very useful in the future (that's what I get never reading all docs...):

Here's the log, which is chinese to me. Maybe you can sort it out. ;)


a1ide.device 52.1 (09.12.2006)
[a1ide/ata_read_drive_properties] After-reset signature invalid for unit 1
it8212ide.device 52.1 (09.12.2006)
lsi53c8xx.device 52.1 (09.12.2006)
sii0680ide.device 52.1 (09.12.2006)
sii3112ide.device 52.1 (09.12.2006)
sii3114ide.device 52.1 (09.12.2006)
sii3512ide.device 52.1 (09.12.2006)
Mode 1280x1024x 8@75 79.976khz out of range
Mode 1280x1024x24@75 79.976khz out of range
Mode 1280x1024x16@75 79.976khz out of range
No SB128 found!
FILESAVE DriverInit
[VIA-AC97] Debug: AC-Link reset, primary codec not ready!
[VIA-AC97] Error: sorry, you don't seem to have the AC'97 codec!
Unable to initialize Card subsystem.
****************** Recoverable Alert ******************
Error: 0100000F Task: 0x6BA4EDA0
********************************************************
WARNING (UHCI Driver)!! Host controller 0 stopped (status=28)!
****************** Recoverable Alert ******************
Error: 0100000F Task: 0x6BA4EDA0
********************************************************
Dump of context at 0x01C86EE0
Trap type: DSI exception
Machine State (raw): 0x0000F030
Machine State (verbose): [ExtInt on] [User] [FPU on] [IAT on] [DAT on]
Temporary stack trace:
#0: in module Kickstart/kernel+0x000155AC (0x014155AC)
#1: in module Kickstart/kernel+0x0002FD00 (0x0142FD00)
#2: in module Kickstart/kernel+0x0001794C (0x0141794C)
#3: in module Kickstart/kernel+0x00017548 (0x01417548)
#4: in module Kickstart/kernel+0x00015F74 (0x01415F74)
#5: in module Kickstart/kernel+0x000160D0 (0x014160D0)
#6: in module Kickstart/dos.library.kmod+0x00001394 (0x014D9714)
#7: in module Kickstart/dos.library.kmod+0x000160A4 (0x014EE424)
#8: in module Kickstart/dos.library.kmod+0x0001615C (0x014EE4DC)
#9: in module Kickstart/dos.library.kmod+0x000165B0 (0x014EE930)
#10: 0x7FF555B8
#11: in module Kickstart/dos.library.kmod+0x00006BBC (0x014DEF3C)
#12: in module Kickstart/dos.library.kmod+0x00025E04 (0x014FE184)
#13: 0x800003EB
#14: 0x24404A80

Crashed process: IBrowse (0x6B25A1D0)
0: 00000000 65041F00 00000000 65D3CFDC 65D3CFDC 00000000 000000A0 00000000
8: 6B55129C 00000003 014189F4 65D3C5A0 28422024 00000000 00000000 FFFFFFFF
16: 194D2E81 01DA0000 00000000 00000001 01DA3B4A 00000000 00000000 00000000
24: 00000010 01DA0000 00000000 EFFF9B50 00000000 65D3CFDC 65D3CFD0 01C927D0
CR: 88222048 XER: 20000000 CTR: 014155B8 LR: 01429E00
DSISR: 42000000 DAR: 00000007
DSI verbose error description: Access not found in hash or BAT (page fault)
Access was a store operation
a1ide.device 52.1 (09.12.2006)
[a1ide/ata_read_drive_properties] After-reset signature invalid for unit 1
it8212ide.device 52.1 (09.12.2006)
lsi53c8xx.device 52.1 (09.12.2006)
sii0680ide.device 52.1 (09.12.2006)
sii3112ide.device 52.1 (09.12.2006)
sii3114ide.device 52.1 (09.12.2006)
sii3512ide.device 52.1 (09.12.2006)
Mode 1280x1024x 8@75 79.976khz out of range
Mode 1280x1024x24@75 79.976khz out of range
Mode 1280x1024x16@75 79.976khz out of range
No SB128 found!
FILESAVE DriverInit
[VIA-AC97] Debug: AC-Link reset, primary codec not ready!
[VIA-AC97] Error: sorry, you don't seem to have the AC'97 codec!
Unable to initialize Card subsystem.

I'm getting some sporadic recoverable errors (OS4 Final). They are not very recoverable, though, since they appear again and again. The solution is a reboot.

My question is: shouldn't the Grim Reapers appear, instead of these old school requesters (that never appeared on previous updates)?

I have a strong feeling these are internet or MUI-related, since they appear mainly when using IBrowse (having said that, I use IB all the time, so it could be other thing...).
The text on the requester seems to always be the same. Is that info important in anyone helping me track out what's happening?
It's more annoying than serious, since it only happens every other session, but I'd like to see it solved.

Any hints or sugestions?

@Snuffy

Well, the PPC patch helped, but with a removed powerpc.library I don't know anymore.
It's not easy and I can't really remember, but I sure hope you have the fixed CD, otherwise you'll have (more) problems. If I find out I'll report here.

And the game is actually quite good!