OS4 Install in 25 mins ?

Hi

Just wanted to know why OS 4 install takes 25 mins ?

Why not use disk imaging ?

My 20 GB Acronis True Image image takes 5- 10 mins at most.

Surely imaging an install will be quicker than file-by-file copy ?

Then tweek the setup for networking etc.

just some thoughts :)

@angelheart

Just a guess: The way the CD is now, the :System directory is used both for booting from the CD and for copying to the HD during installation.

To follow your suggestion and still be able to boot from the CD would require two copies of all the system files, one in the disk image and one unpacked on the CD. And the worst consequence of this would be the problems and risks in trying to keep the two in sync during final testing up to going gold. A true playground for Murphy


Best regards,

Niels

@angelheart

Quote:

If you think 25 minutes to install OS4 is a long time, you've obviously never tried to install windoze.

@angelheart

AOS4.1 or AOS4.0 ? I think it took only 5 mins (AOS4.1) (if I can remember). Maybe you guys haven't enabled DMA for a CDROM and a hard drive ?

@TSK

why isn't DMA enabled by default?
Are there any problems with DMA and AOS4.1/Sam?

nexus

@angelheart

Sounds like a hardware issue to me.

AOS4 took about forty mins on an A1200.
AOS4.1 took about 5 mins on a Sam (If even that)

@RacerX

I install windows XP when I need to :) like I said via true image ghost.

I can get my system up in 5 mins for a 20 GB ghost Image.

10 mins if I want to validate.

I guess you havent used imaging software.

@TSK

Amiga OS 4.1 review

Quote:

over at http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/amigaos41-ars.ars/3

I think he is using A1 not SAM.

@angelheart

I guess your time is so precious that 25 minutes costs too much money?

Rude!

@Rudei

of course time is money. Didnt you know that ?

@all others

Thanks for the answers. I just wanted to know why the differences in install times for people.

Have there been any non Amigan reviews of SAM / OS 4 yet ?

Would be good to see.

Hi @TSK

Huh? My Adaptec0680ide at DMA3 took 15-20 minutes for a new install. Show me 5 mins please. ?

@nexus

Quote:

No, there aren't any DMA problems on the Sam.

As far as I remember, DMA is turned on by default. There have been reports of some CD-ROM drives that were incredibly slow with AmigaOS, but the reason for that is unknown.

I have one of those drives, too, and the problem I see is that usually, the disk doesn't spin up to full speed. It probably is an incompatibility with the CD-ROM's firmware.
Therefore, installation takes 20 minutes on some machines, and 5 or less on others (or 30 seconds when I did the test installs from RAM disk)

And as Niels said, it's not an image because it's using the files on the disk to boot.

@nbache

Interesting. Is it possible to boot off the cd then load the image, decompressing to ram for a live cd.

But if someone wants to install to harddrive, decompress to the harddrive ?

We really should try aim for the same experience and a recomended drive listed on retail stores - all the same model.

just some thoughts...

@tfrieden

Quote:

Thanks for clarification! But DMA is turned off by default.
("idetool -l sii3114ide.device" shows PIO-Mode
and "nvgetvar" shows that the variable "sii311fide_xfer" is not set.
)

After finding out how to check/enable uboot-env-variables, i was able to enable DMA by issuing the command:

"nvsetvar sii3114ide_xfer G00G"

Now the above idetool-command shows for my HD:


Xfer mode : best pio 12 (PIO 4, 16 MB/s) / best dma 70 (UDMA 6, 133 MB/s) / current 70 (UDMA 6, 133 MB/s)

and for my CD:

Xfer mode : best pio 12 (PIO 4, 16 MB/s) / best dma 66 (UDMA 2, 33 MB/s) / current 66 (UDMA 2, 33 MB/s)


I tested the "speed" by backuping my HD with Diavolo 2000.
I have the impression that it is now 4 times faster than before But perhaps I just want to believe (like Amiga users always do!)

@angelheart
If you are only doing the install once, then 25 mins is nothing. OTOH, if you are installing lots of machines, then you might wish to look at cloning the HD of the first machine - OS4 even comes with a suitable tool IIRC.

@nexus

I don't know much about DMA.
The benefits apear to be speed but what are the negatives?
I assume there is a reason it not set as default?

@angelheart

Quote:

I have used Acronis True image, but, when I needed to restore from a backup, it failed. It seems that it cannot handle backup files over 3GB via a network connection (the backup was on a Linkstation). Needless to say, I was not happy. What's the point in having a backup if it fails to restore?

To answer your original question, imaging software is for restoring from a backup, not installing a new system. The installer is supposed to handle whatever hardware and configuration that the user has/wants; a disk image is for only one hardware/software configuration.

I don't recall my installation of 4.1 taking that long.

Hans

@TiredOfLife

Quote:

If you are talking about the Amigaone XE version, there is a known bug on the motherboard that causes trouble with DMA and the on-board IDE ports. There is a hardware fix for this, but most people don't have that. Thus, it's disabled by default for safety. Using a PCI IDE card bypasses this issue.

Personally I think that it should be enabled on PCI IDE controllers by default, and only disabled with the on-board VIA controller.

For the SAM 440ep motherboard, I'd expect that DMA is enabled by default. If it isn't then this is something that should be changed, IMHO.

Hans

@Hans

It was for the Sam, apparently DMA is not on by default.
I will enable it in that case.

Cheers.

@Hans

I seem to recall that the amigaos 4.1 CD gives poor results on some CD/DVD devices. It does on the two that I have compared to the burned CDs of AOS 4.0 that I have and I think that it might be the reason?