@kas1e

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It crashed! That version looks really old. V1.0. You should have at least amigaboot 53.21 (13/06/2016).

Lately this is taken by AEON but either one should be better. I'll find a USB stick I can scrap. And do some testing later on.

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Yeah that's normal. I didn't see it much because I left a USB stick in my Apple keyboard that was detected when I wanted to boot Linux from it. So a work around could be to use a hub or it could really be that CFE only scans the USB keyboard port which is why it worked for me. So you may need a hub connected to keyboard port so it detects it. Yes another annoying quirk.

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Because if you boot a standard CD, like FE, you will get a black screen if you have something like a HD6000 or newer.

I don't recall what model breaks, I had a HD5450 that worked, but at some model they won't work. Because the RadeonHD lite driver is depreciated and isn't updated anymore. Unless you have an old card, that also lacks 3d support in the process, it won't boot.


I fail to find a specific list of supported cards in the lite driver. All I know is my FE CD doesn't with my R7 250.

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You could, but only if your HDD breaks. You could also just let it load amigaboot.of off HDD and then find USB. Of course if no amigaboot scans for USB then the whole idea is pointless and it really then cannot boot off USB no matter what you do.

The easiest way to test would be to copy a boot volume to a USB drive formatted as FFS2. Yes it will be slower over FFS2, unless you enable caching with the now old FFS cache commands. But CFE can load a binary off FFS2. Anything else is not Amiga format so complicates it.

You must be annoyed by now at searching for X1000 USB boot and only getting result X5000 USB boot or how easy it is to create a USB booter.

@kas1e

It should be able to autoboot USB if you modify the boot commands. Just like on the XE. But that is a different beast.

As standard it's set up to boot from either CD or HDD with no user intervention.

You could add boot commands to the main boot line. That tries to boot USB, then HDD. And just fallback or in this case if the USB boot falls it will just execute the next command.

But try this. Grab a spare USB stick you can wipe, then using RawWrite or any USB image writer, write the OS4 CD image directly to the disk. Now reboot and enter this:


You will of course need updated drivers. So a CD image would need to be rebuilt for that to work. In that case, another way, use an Amiga format to simply copy files too. So format a USB stick as FFS from the USB commodity (fastest) or from MTB (slowest). Then copy the Workbench files and updated drivers to it. Reboot and try this:


If it doesn't like that combination of mixed media and filesystems you shouldn't need two USB sticks to do it. Just partition a stick with boot volume and main volume. So FFS for boot with bootloader and SFS for main with Workbench.

CFE does support FAT32 but it has it's quirks. As stated before it can be picky and files go missing or it gives errors. It's also old so it may not support FAT32 on a 64-bit size disk since an 8GB stick is 64 bit range.

As to CFE not having help for amigafs. It probably wasn't updated internally. But they are supported as without it Amiga OS4 wouldn't boot!

@kas1e

You have a long memory. I thought about this last week, yesterday and now today! What you are likely referring to could be something from ten years ago on my XE. In simple terms it would be obsolete. I recall something from a July 2007 update and being unable to fully use that or some other update, as it broke some 68K software. So had to leave an older OS install to use that particular software. This was not unusual in the early days.

However, since then, I moved over to the X1000. And set up my volumes again in the process. As you would be aware I'm also a beta tester so do have a few volumes with different OS4 versions. I have test volumes I keep clean though tend to only test system software on them. I do find it would help if developers tested software on a base system as I find some software can easily break on a base install and can tell if it was only tested on the developers full system.

My personal Workbench would not be fully up to date. Because I still need to run the Update 2 Quckfix as I call it, with an Update 1 kernel and Update 2 components. This is not by choice, but simply because Update 2 is incompatible with my Sapphire R7 250, and compositing freezes my system. Until the conflict is found there is not much else I can do about this on top of the months I've been investigating it. My other options are going back to a HD5450 with no 3d support or disabling compositing. I don't like either of these options and just like to get work done on my system. So until the problem is found my own Workbench will remain in this quantum state.

@walkero

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I tested it fresh. I didn't use an old config. What I did was fairly simple and this may give a clue. I do it with all new and updated software I test. I simply extract the archive to my RAM disk. And run it from there!

I checked and I don't have a HOME folder variable set.

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That would be "RAM Disk:LiteXL2".


I'll submit a report on git. I also found in the OS4Depot crash reports that TearsOfMe also has a crash on his X1000. But the crash is different.

@kas1e

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Yes I saw that. That would be the easy way if you have a CFE binary. Otherwise if you are checking CFE from a live X1000 you can dump the firmware to find the build.

Ranger can also show firmware information. Not sure but it may also be able to find the build date. It can list NVRAM settings.

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I'm usually afraid of loosing settings when changing battery. Only done it once on my X1000 IIRC. I've not tried the jumper as my settings have not corrupted.

It's slight manual setup but there is one way you could do it. After you "clean the slate" you could save settings and write a batch script to restore it. Using a serial debug grab the NVRAM settings. Now convert all the settings into a batch file that can reset them with setenv commands. Best to set them all of them locally then on the last line issue command to save to NVRAM.

The only caveat is it won't remove newer variables set up. But the method can be used to reset standard ones or even save what you have. Yes pulling battery easiest to do!

As is becoming common NVRAM can only be read from OS4 and not written. Don't know why. Makes the XE look like a luxury given it can write from OS4. So not an OS4 app could be written to reset NVRAM.

I suppose if it was known what's needed to write to NVRAM from OS level this restriction could be removed.

Didn't see this mentioned but while on the CFE subject.

Strange CFE errors:
Sometimes you may see strange or non-sensible errors pop up in CFE. A common one is CFE dropping out when booting and saying it has "Insufficient memory" when failing to load amigaboot.of.

This can be caused by a glitch in SATA cables. It was a common error in the early days. The rest of us are used to these quirks by now.

It's also covered below in the X1000 wiki guide:
https://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/AmigaOne_X1000

@walkero

Thanks. Unfortunately it still broke again. Same thing. Reaper gave me an 81000009 free mem twice guru again.

I thought it may be a missing HOME variable but I don't see it look for one.

I got out Snoopy. The last thing it does is UnLock("lite-xl") and then Reaper takes over. Up to then it goes fine opening and examining files. Suppose I should grab a full log.

@kas1e

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You're right, there is another way from inside CFE. You can examine a hex dump of the firmware using the "D" dump command. But I forget the details. If you dump 0x80000000 you should see it but I forget where the ROM is. I don't know where to find the info other than it should be at the standard PPC boot ROM location wherever that was.

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1. AFAIK OS4 will only output to serial 0.

2. Not that I know of. The only way is the physical way. Pulling the battery. Or jumpering CMOS clear as detailed in section 8.2.3. of TRM:
8.2.3 CMOS Clear
To clear the CMOS RAM, fit a jumper link to P11 pins 2-3 momentarily before returning it to pins 1-2
for normal operation

3. I think it is. CFE can be buggy. I've found CFE will crash and reboot, when caused by either CFE, a faulty binary, bad SATA connection and bad RAM. It will either stall on a black screen or go into a reboot loop trying to boot. But I would have expected a reset command to actually work.

Following on some more info.

Keyboard issues:
Depending on your keyboard you may experience drop outs. I frequently have keyboard drop outs. The keyboard is still lit up but goes dead including the mouse. The USB log usually has some unknown key code error if it relates, but I also see the error when the keys still work. I have an Apple keyboard with hub and mouse plugged in so it's possible it does have a power issue and is sucking too much power for the USB ports.

However, this is a frequent occurrence on other machines like the Sam series where it is common. Commonly annoying more like. It's not unusual to boot up and find the mouse or keyboard must be removed because it doesn't work. No wonder people think the USB stack should be replaced.


Fatty issues:
You can configure the bootloader to load from HDD, USB or CF. A few people have it setup from CF card. This can be good for a backup in case there is a HDD error. But it isn't need for booting normally off HDD.

For USB and CF you can use FAT32 or FAT16. You can encounter FAT problems from CFE when it doesn't see any files. Sometimes FAT16 is best because CFE has an issue where it cannot find files after new files are written. I'm not entirely sure, but this may relate to writing files from OS4 which does not correctly dismount the filesystem and leaves it invalidated. Yes, the infamous FFS issue affects FAT drives, in exactly the same way. And it also affects Android phones, as a crash and reboot corrupted my SD card, and Android refused to mount. Doesn't even have basic tools to check and clear filesystem. How quaint. FAT16 appears to be more robust when new files are written.

Boot filesystems:
Aside from choosing which medium to load the boot loader from you can also choose file system. This can be FFS, FAT or Ext2. With an Amiga formatted drive with RDB this can be limited to just FFS as a compatible boot block will be needed. So sometimes another HDD is needed if you have Ext2 or FAT partitions with an MBR so CFE can understand it.

Something to add. USB keyboard issues.

KVM issues:
Issues with KVMs include stopping it from booting, no being detected from CFE, crashing the USB stack, disrupting keyboard and mouse from early startup like blocking mouse movement and corrupted keycodes being sent.

Amiga Alted:
There used to be support for a proper Amiga and Alt placement of keys, which is Amiga keys adjacent to space bar, the Amiga way. For keyboards that were labelled this way but sent the codes backwards, that is sent them the PC way with Amiga as Alt and Alt as Amiga there used to be a CFE variable called keymap_swapaltamiga as mentioned in the X1000 boot guide.

For some reason they removed this and forced users to wait until AmigaOS has fully booted. This is unacceptable. For the following reasons. Some users understandably want to use a keyboard in a proper Amiga layout and not in the common PC or Microsoft way.

If they boot to the early start up screen and try to soft reboot from a Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga combo the X1000 will fully reset instead!

So you have a keyboard that is configured correctly in CFE, breaks in AmigaOS shell and startup menu, but then only works correctly if prefs are later loaded. How is that user friendly?

What also doesn't make sense is that officially supplied AmigaKit keyboards configured in the proper Amiga layout are also broken. This change should not have happened. It broke proper working behavior and there was no need to drop it. In the years since users have been frustrated because the OS doesn't consistently map the reset combos. So two wrong keys are being misinterpreted by the OS. Two wrongs do not make a right!

@amiganuts

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Looks like you bought the new Radeon V5 when you needed the SI 3D driver but only found months after the fact. That's a shame. But I can understand as when I bought drivers for my X1000 a few years back I was confused as to what I did and did not need. I ended up just buying Enhancer Plus but looks like I didn't try any Warp3D or MiniGL software as I didn't notice. Spencer worked so I was happy.

@walkero

That's good. Does it work on the X1000 yet?

Hello everyone.

Finally I'm here.

So a few subjects...


CFE version:
There is no obvious way to check exact CFE version. All versions report same version number from CFE. The only sure way to check for latest is boot image as reported earlier. Another way is trying to boot a modern CD like OS4.1 and see if it breaks. There weren't many updates.


USB booting:
USB booting can work but it doesn't support it automatically. For comparison, the XE can autoboot USB, but it needs some manual setup. Looks like the Sam already has set up as standard. There are a number of ways to do it, depending on if you load amigaboot from USB, or from HDD as normal and let it scan and find your USB drive. Though I can't find any info on if amigaboot scans USB drives so that may be a showstopper. CFE can load any binary from USB needed to boot.

So, you will need to script it, or enter boot commands manually to do it. Described in the manual. This brings another issue, CFE has no ability to autoboot drives, unlike UBoot. It cannot even scan for drives. It must be scripted. The boot set up relies on it. Technically, it could be scripted to scan drive ports with a rigid script checking internal ports, but they didn't do that. By default, it expects a CD in one SATA port and HDD in next. It may be CD in 0 and HDD in 1. I forget. Some people change it. I left it to avoid trouble. Like Uboot, you can enter boot commands in env vars, and use them as commands for booting. So it's similar in a way. Unlike X5000 there is no USB booting standard. You could automate by loading a batch file from USB. You can save env vars in CFE containing boot commands. So, you could create a custom "usbboot" command that executed a few boot commands, or even off loaded to USB and ran a batch file from USB drive. I used to do that with Linux.

If you keep all files on one partition then the USB drive will need formatting as FFS. As amigaboot needs to load from it and then locate it as boot media. Otherwise you can install amigaboot to a FFS boot volume and add another for Workbench as SFS, for example. It may be easiest to set up a boot menu to do it. So on to the next part.


Boot menus:
The X1000 can be customised with user boot menus. Like most things on X1000 it has to be set up by hand on a cryptic command line. So, once you managed to create a USB booter, including commands needed to boot it you can then manually set it up in CFE. Saving it to NVRAM in the format outlined on the boot guide for adding a boot menu. Then a fancier looking one will appear on boot up.


CFE warning:
A word of warning. You cannot use CFE after a binary executes! Example: aborting amigaboot and exiting to CFE. It will crash and reboot within one minute or seconds later! So if you need to use CFE make sure to do it from the menu before amigaboot loads or you will find it will suddenly reboot.



Amiga booting:
Okay, so the amigaboot.of boot loader is in a file, against SLB in a bootblock. In a perfect world Media Toolbox would set this up and hide it from the user. Be it SLB boot block, or amigaboot partition file, it doesn't matter, it simply needs to part of the Media Toolbox HDD install procedure. Installing a boot block, or creating a hidden boot partition, as part of the process, is the obvious solution. But unfortunately Media Toolbox doesn't do this. There was a BOOT: volume standard idea but it came too late and not even the updaters support it and force you to do it manually because all systems might be different. It would have helped to define a standard first rather than a later. And if MTB did the job it would be a moot point.


Boot media:
Following on. You don't need a CF card or USB or whatever to boot from. It can boot from the HDD. Both Linux and OS4 can boot from HDD. I only found Linux even can a few years back. You just need to plonk an amigaboot.of file on a FFS boot volume, first volume best, on your HDD then forget about it.

A bit about Linux. The convention is to boot the kernel from CF or USB in my case, as it would not load from HDD. I found out why. X1000 kernels are commonly 30MB uncompressed. This loads fine from FAT formatted drive. But breaks from FFS for some reason. From FFS CFE can only load a binary up to about 11 to 12MB. Like XE UBoot. So I could never get Linux to boot off HDD. I only had one HDD so had no FAT volume I could load from. But, when I found the X1000 kernals are abnormally uncompressed, I GZipped one up and got it to load off FFS HDD! Problem solved! The X1000 kernals are also abnormally released as GZip you must install by hand. I say abnormal because normally kernels are released as installable packages. All the XE kernals are in packages since years, it's part of the PPC build script, so I don't know why it's not packaged for the X1000 releases.

However, if you have a hankering for Linux, for any possible reason what so ever, and manage to install it, then I fully recommend my X1Boot Manager! This will allow you to manage Linux installs and kernels from within Linux without needing to touch CFE. Using amigaboot so can boot from Linux using a standard shared menu.