OS4 Newbie - any advice?

I'm returning to the Amiga after a 10 year stint with Windows.

I've ordered a SAM440EP and Amiga OS4.1 and they should turn up next week all being well.

I'm technically competent in Windows, but having not used an Amiga in years (since my A1200 which I'd upgraded with a 68030, extra memory and HD - now unused at my folks house) I am an Amiga newbie!

Is there a guide on installing OS4.1 on a brand new HD? I've seen people comment about the OS4.1 install not working (Mircomart) and I also would love guidance on how to partition the hard disk etc. I plan to install 4.1 on a 150GB Raptor HD which I just happen to have lying around not doing much (it was previously used for Windows).

I know the SAM has a PCI slot, what's best to put in it? As the SAM has inbuilt graphics and sound, what have others put in theirs?

I'm also looking to possibly have a dual boot Linux/Amiga set up (Ubuntu 8.10 PPC version) - is this possible? Anyone got any guides on the best way to set it up?

I'm bound to have lots of questions as I get myself stuck into OS4.1!

@tommo1975

There is one somewhere, can't remember who provided it.

I have a copy at home and will either sent it to you or tell you were it can be found tomorrow, if nobody can help you sooner.

(Out into town straight from work tonight)

@tommo1975

Where are you based just out a matter of interest?

Rude!

@Rudei

I'm living nr Leighton Buzzard/Milton Keynes mate.

@tommo1975
The printed manual that comes with OS4.1 has a pretty good guide to installing it on the Sam440 . However there were a couple of small omissions, so someone not knowlegable about AmigaOS might have problems.

Someone kindly created their own guide, which may be worth trying:
http://rapidshare.com/files/188761017 ... _4.1_Sam440EP_English.pdf

edit: The latest version can be downloaded from here:
http://faranheit.dyndns.org:8080/Inst ... _4.1_Sam440EP_English.pdf

@ChrisH

That guide's wonderful - just what I wanted. Thanks for the link.

Two questions follow from reading it.

1. The disk I am planning on using has a Windows installation on it already, will the Amiga recognise that or will it treat it as a blank disk?

2 The guide mentions creating at least 2 partitions:

20GB boot partition showing the screen with SFS/00 filesystem
1GB SWAP partition

I thought SFS/00 was the new file system that you couldn't use for the boot partition?

@tommo1975

Not sure about the windows partitiion. Think it depends on the filesystem it has. The boot partition is too big as the suggestion. 2gig is more than enough! The swap you can have between 1 and 2 gig. Depends on how big your drive is but i have 2 additional partitions and thinking of having set up some more. Since they're about 200gig in size each. HAve a 500gig drive. 100gig partitions are big enough for me. Can boot from sfs parition with no problems. The new filesystem is not bootable but don't remember the name right now(getting old )

@tommo1975

If you would like some help in installing the whole thing, you may wish to consider travelling down to the Amiga North Thames Usergroup Meeting in Enfield, Greater London.


We are meeting up this Sunday 8th of Feb between 1pm to 5pm
Additionally we are having a E-UAE special too! Rudei and Chris will be in attendance.

Hope to see you there, if not, all the best!

@Mikey_C
Quote:
nice to see you own a time machine

@pvanni

Wiseguy

Fixed. Cheers

@tommo1975
1. Amiga will treat it as a blank HD, because Amiga uses RDB (Rigid Disk Block) for organising HDs, while Windows uses MBR (Master Boot Record). edit: You can mount Windows partitions with some effort, but you cannot mix Windows & Amiga partitions.

2. JXF is the new filing system, while SFS is a newer (than FFS) third-party filingsystem. SFS/00 (32-bit) can be used for the boot partition, while SFS/02 (64-bit) cannot. I personally recommend SFS over JXF.


BTW, 20GB is ridiculous for a boot partition - AmigaOS is not Windows, you do not put all your programs & data on the "C" partition. I personally have an 800MB partition, although 1-2GB would also be reasonable.

For AmigaOS you have two common partition arrangements beyond the small OS/Workbench partition:
1. A large "Work" partition, where you put all your programs, games & data.
2. A medium to large "Programs" partition, where you put all your programs (and games), and a large "Data" partition, where you put all your data files.

You may of course have additional partitions beyond these. I use arrangement 2, but have a separate "Games" partition, and a 1GB-ish "Temp" partition (for big temporary files like ISO images, etc).

@ChrisH

You're far too sensible Chris.


My Partitions are labelled Workbench/OS4.1
Applications
Games
Music
Video

But I don't have one for documents, never thought about it, good idea.

BTW, my WB Partition is about 1 gig, but I have about 800mb free after OS4.x is installed.

@tommo1975

I think you will find yourself comfortable with OS4 if you have had extensive experience with a somewhat expanded A1200.

ot:
My boot partition is 350 MB with 23% free, the only "problem" is that its size is duly exaggerated in Media Toolbox (which is similar to HDToolbox).

@Mikey_C

If I had the hardware all in place (I only have the HD and DVD drive - the case, SAM and OS4.1 are due next week) and if I had more notice of the event I'd have popped on down.

@everyone

thanks for the tips - think after reading them all and considering I have a 150GB disk I'll have partitions something like the following:

1GB boot
1GB SWAP
40GB Programs
100GB Data

I just can't wait for all the parts to arrive now as I'm itching to get started and have a play around!

@tommo1975
While I said "medium to large size" for the Programs partition, I would also say that 40GB is going to be *humongous* for Amiga programs & games:

All the Amiga programs I've accumulated over the years (including a large email folder stored in SimpleMail's program directory) comes to 1.1GB. Similarly, all the Amiga games I've accumulated over 15+ years (inc. Doom & Quake 1 stuff) comes to 2GB.

So IMHO 10GB is probably sufficient for all your needs, although maybe 20GB if you really want to future-proof yourself against ports of huge Windows programs & games.

@ChrisH

Are you see, to a PC user like myself "medium to large" = 500GB to 1TB! There was me fearing a 150GB HD was a little on the small side!

I've usually found that the first config always has, er, "shortcomings" and that once you've gained a bit of experience with a system a reinstall is necessary and some fine tuning of the set-up. I suspect that the same will be true for OS4.1!

Oh, a further question - I have a NAS drive, will my Amiga be able to read off it and access the files? If not, is there a way to enable it to do so? I store all my music and MPEG files on there so ideally want to not be copying them across to the Amiga via DVD unless I have no choice.

@tommo1975

Quote:

If your NAS runs SAMBA then yes you should be able to network to it.
IF your NAS has a USB connection and is FAT32 formatted then possibly, I'm affraid that will be a plug it in and see.

Some Handy Samba Links:-

http://us3.samba.org/samba/docs/man/S ... on/install.html#id2545972

http://www.amigaone.se/site/faq/faq2.php?id=6

http://www.amigaone.se/site/faq/faq2.php?id=8

http://www.birrabrothers.com/tiger/data/samba/download/index.htm

and we cant forget Mikey_c's page

http://homepages.tesco.net/michael.carrillo/amigasamba/

edit

You also may be able to set up a ftp sever on your NAS so worst case you can ftp up and down from it.

Try ftpmount on os4depot

@tommo1975


I'm bound to have lots of questions as I get myself stuck into OS4.1!
Me too, always!

@Jurassicc

Thanks for the great links, they will no doubt come in useful when I get to the stage of configuring my machine to access the NAS.

I do think my WD MyBookWorld does have Samba on it given this article : LINK

* Edited Link Length - Mikey C

@tommo1975
My thinking was that you want as much space for your Data as possible, although that of course depends on exactly what you plan to do with it.

I would also suggest another 1GB partition for a backup *copy* of OS4/Workbench. That way you can easily boot into it if you manage to screw-up your primary boot partition, rather than having to fiddle with the BIOS to boot the OS4 CD. There are programs you can use to occasionally update the backup partition (the fact that it is an OS partition makes no difference).

P.S. I always refer to my boot partition as "Workbench", even though the Workbench is technically just the GUI part of AmigaOS, because historically that was what Commodore called the AmigaOS for users in days gone by.