I read the docs in the OS4 installation CD about this variation of ye olde RAD device (which is apparenty what RAD was). I found an excuse to use it (see further below), but it doesn't work exactly as described the docs. More specifically:

• In the UBoot parameters, I can not set the amount of memory in KB using "K"; I have to set it in bytes instead.
  
• If I try to use a relatively large amount, e.g. 32MB, the system gets stuck just after loading kickstart.
  
• The block size of the resulting device is 488 bytes instead of 512.

Last edited by mwoof on 31-May-2008 at 10:10 AM.

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@mwoof

In the uboot os4_commandline variable I added:

radmem=10M so it's probably the same thing for kilobytes with "K" instead of "KB".

You probably can't set it to 32MB because the total address space available to the kickstart (including RESRAD) is limited to 20MB or something, so try with 16M and if that fails try less until it boots, but next time you update or add kickstart modules, if it doesn't boot anymore remember to check if it's your radmem size.

It also reports 488 bytes per blocks here, I guess it's okay, it works anyway.

You can't mount RESRAD from a dos driver but you can mount the traditional RAD: device and use larger sizes. I'm not sure if the current public version of ramdrive.device already has the fix but at some point there was a bug which caused the RAD disk to vanish upon reboot.

Note that neither RAD nor RESRAD survive a reset, only warm reboots.

With older versions of the OS4 kickstart, more specifically before update #4, you could also use VDisk.device, and that one even survives resets and allows larger sizes like 64MB.
It would be possible to recreate a similar device but the new kernel would have to allow accessing memory at the end of the address space the way VDisk does.
At least on the XE if you don't hold the reset button for 10 seconds or more, the memory doesn't get cleared so your data would still be there if you allocate the same memory area without clearing it.

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@AlexC

488 bytes per block sounds like OFS (DOS\0) is being used... You checked that it's using some form of FFS?

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@AlexC

Using "M" worked here too!

So it's limited. I'll keep this in mind. I set it to 4M now, it should be sufficient.

RAD does not survive a warm reset apparently... but that is the expected behaviour according to the docs.

@AlexC, olegil

It seems that RESRAD uses OFS by default; I had to format it so that it used FFS. Am I missing some parameter(s) perhaps?

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@mwoof

Always been like that, afaik.

Maybe you can edit the mount file to include an option like "DosType = 0x444F5301" (DOS\1) or whatever you use these days. DOS\7 is it now?

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil
Er, there isn't a mountfile for RESRAD...

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AmigaOne G3-SE, OS4 Final (July 2007 update), Debian Sarge, 512 MB RAM, 20 + 80 GB hard disks, NEC 3540 DVD writer, LG DVD reader, Radeon 9250, SB Live, Intracom Netfaster router, PCI USB card (NEC - OHCI/EHCI)

@mwoof

How is it mounted then?

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

Through UBoot and Kicklayout. It's described in the installation CD - Documentation/Kickstart/ramdrive_dev.doc.

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@mwoof

Given that I no longer have a working AmigaOne, expecting me to look it up on a CD I don't know where is is kinda overdoing it

So you're on your own on this one. If there are no options for dostype, you need to check it after boot and if it's an empty DOS\0, reformat as whatever you needed... Or something.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

Not sure which block size if right.
WBInfo reports 488, Scout and PartitionWizard both report 512.

Anyhow they all agree on one thing, the dos type is DOS\6.

Formatting it has no effect on the block size and dos type.

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AlexC's free OS4 software collection

AmigaOne XE/X1000/X5000/UAE-PPC OS4 laptop/X-10 Home Automation

@AlexC

I think you're looking at two different things. PartitionWizard looks at the device, WBInfo looks at the filesystem. Devices always use power of two block sizes. Filesystems as well, but OFS stores 24 bytes of metadata per block, therefore reducing 512B to 488 useable by us.

But if it says DOS\6 for you, then that's fastfilesystem with directory cache. OFS would be \4 or \0... All in all, VERY strange

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@mwoof

I have my resrad set to 15M (radmem=15M). Remove the B from MB.

Resrad was a disappointing "improvement" in my view. The size appears to be limited to about 15-20MB and it slows down the booting process because it clears the allocated memory before mounting the device. Previously, I used a 48MB "RAD" drive for compiling, extracting archives and downloads. The old RAD drive no longer survives a reboot and is no more useful than "RAM". The limited size of RESRAD makes it useless for my purposes too.

I have begged for the old RAD drive to be reinstated on the OS4 ML and was told that it was under consideration but I'm still waiting to get it back. Alternatively, a larger RESRAD with an option not to zero the memory would be acceptable to me.

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@Xenic

I agree that ye olde style RAD was far more convenient. It could be removed and remounted without a cold reboot, and didn't disappear with warm reboots.

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@mwoof

Quote:

I agree that ye olde style RAD was far more convenient. It could be removed and remounted without a cold reboot, and didn't disappear with warm reboots.

In addition, you can mount a RAD drive that's the same size as an Amiga floppy and extract UAE disk files (adf) directly to said RAD drive without the need for a real floppy.

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@Xenic

Indeed, and in fact that's the default setup in the icon!

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Hi @mwoof

Also, I'm not that clear if I can set the size from a dos Driver instead of UBoot.

?? There's none, it's mounted as an empty "BOOTRAD" disk - ramdrive.device 100.
I took a Catweasel DD disk image and installed it in Sys:Kickstart/BootRAD.adf and set the Kicklayout to read it. The 'NewRad' didn't work until I did a machine reset! I played with editing the "Sinisrus Theme" and left it in the new RAD disk and warm rebooted and everything was restored. See here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11367727@N07/2548742930/

RAD does not survive a warm reset apparently... but that is the expected behaviour according to the docs.

You don't use RAD or a DosDriver.I think the problem in OS4 is the RAD DosDriver in Sys:Storage* $VER: RAD 40.1 (31.8.93) should have be removed when the new memory system was implemented.

BOOTRAD is auto mounted via Kickstart for floppy emulation and RESRAM for ram partitions. You use Kickstart, "BootRAD.adf", and Kicklayout for auto floppy. You set UBoot Prefs [Kernel/OS4 Arguments section] "Debuglevel=0 radmem=5M" for a 5MB ram partition. For first time use, you have to use 'Quick Format'.

EDIT)
Oh, there's something about using the parameter with loader instead. Does this mean the "EXEC Kickstart/loader" line in Kicklayout?

No, use UBoot Prefs parameters (see above).

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@Snuffy

Thanks!

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AmigaOne G3-SE, OS4 Final (July 2007 update), Debian Sarge, 512 MB RAM, 20 + 80 GB hard disks, NEC 3540 DVD writer, LG DVD reader, Radeon 9250, SB Live, Intracom Netfaster router, PCI USB card (NEC - OHCI/EHCI)