[News] AmigaOne Update from Alan Redhouse | ANN.lu |
Posted on 24-Jul-2002 22:17 GMT by Douglas McLaughlin | 106 comments View flat View list |
On the AmigaOne mailing list, Alan Redhouse from Eyetech posted the following update:
Many dev board purchasers were clearly motivated by the 10% discount
rather than their ability to contribute to the developer process. The
initial boards were therefore shipped to those who could make a real
contribution to developing drivers etc, and porting Linux/UAE
distributions. Their progress has been astounding IMO with no less
than 5 different linux distributions (SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, Yellow
Dog and TurboLinux) being ported within a couple of weeks. More...
Many dev board purchasers were clearly motivated by the 10% discount
rather than their ability to contribute to the developer process. The
initial boards were therefore shipped to those who could make a real
contribution to developing drivers etc, and porting Linux/UAE
distributions. Their progress has been astounding IMO with no less
than 5 different linux distributions (SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, Yellow
Dog and TurboLinux) being ported within a couple of weeks.
However the Softex open firmware we had originally shipped with the
dev boards (incidently as seen on the Pegasos video) has several
shortcomings (although this has been used to boot the 5 linux
distributions and the OS4 kernel) and we are currently
developing/extending the alternative PPCBoot open firmware for use on
the production AmigaOne boards. This will allow us to build in Amiga-
specific boot etc options, a well as a more comprehensive multi-boot
environment.
We are not shipping the remainder of the dev boards (or any of the
user boards) until this code is complete because of the expense of
shipping update ROMs and chip changing tools. This is anticipated to
be towards the end of August.
This revision to the boot ROM is being undertaken by Hyperion as part
of the work necessary for booting OS4 on the A1.
Meanwhile the Amiga Inc club membership/coupon program results
(coupled with our own market extrapolation processes) means that the
future of the AmigaOne is in no doubt.
Finally several people have asked us why we are not delivering the A1
board to Linux users in advance of the release of OS4. Well there are
two main reasons:
1 - This is a product we are producing for the Amiga market and IMO
it is proper that the Amiga community get their hands on it first.
2 - I still cannot see why there would be a significant market for
Linux on the A1 given that the main focus of Linux is the x86
platform, which - because of sheer sales volumes - will always be an
order of magnitude cheaper than a ppc-based product.
Hope this helps
Alan
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List of all comments to this articleSorted by date, most recent at bottom |
Comment 1 | Alan M Redhouse | | 24-Jul-2002 20:31 GMT |
Comment 2 | Douglas McLaughlin | | 24-Jul-2002 21:01 GMT |
Comment 3 | LOL-troll | | 24-Jul-2002 21:03 GMT |
Comment 4 | Darrin01311 | | 24-Jul-2002 21:06 GMT |
Comment 5 | darklite | | 24-Jul-2002 21:27 GMT |
Comment 6 | Anonymous | | 24-Jul-2002 21:29 GMT |
Comment 7 | TBone | | 24-Jul-2002 21:39 GMT |
Comment 8 | Douglas McLaughlin | | 24-Jul-2002 21:55 GMT |
Comment 9 | Douglas McLaughlin | | 24-Jul-2002 21:58 GMT |
Comment 10 | Timothy De Groote | | 24-Jul-2002 22:05 GMT |
Comment 11 | Joanna | | 24-Jul-2002 22:09 GMT |
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AmigaOne Update from Alan Redhouse : Comment 12 of 106 | ANN.lu |
Posted by cOrpse on 24-Jul-2002 22:19 GMT | In reply to Comment 7 (TBone): I think alot of people fail to understand the time things take , linux wasn't built in a day ( IIRC according to linus' book "just for fun" the first versions took many months of intensive progging , he also considered the amiga before he bought his pc ).
The amigaOne *hardware* certainly looks finished , and the *amiga OS* firmware can only be produced when the Os 4 project is at that stage , if you want to use linux on it any firmware will probaly do , but you have to consider the way in which amiga Os currently boots itself from harddrive ... The point is it *doesn't* AmigaOs is there when you turn the machine on from *rom* and then loads extension type software from the harddrive. Therefor a true port of the amigaOS source is going to need somewhere in the hardware to spring from or a bios that will pull it from the harddrive much like the IA64 platform.
Basically on PC like hardware ( not X86 , but in the structure , e.g. the OS isn't based mostly in a ROM directly implanted on the board ) AmigaOS is going to need a few changes to the way it works , this is on top of porting it to a new CPU and constructing a way of running the old CPU's code amongst other improvements.
Basically it'll be ready when its ready and any bitching isn't going to help and just means the people involved in doing the work decide to not read these places and we loose a way of giving input and ideas directly to the people that count.
If you want the time to go quicker , go and do something !! make something for amigaOs , anything , afterall the watch pot never boils. |
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List of all comments to this article (continued) |
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