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As previously reported on AmigaWorld.net, the annual, two day long Amiga event AmiWest was held last Saturday. With the Covid-19 pandemic in mind, this year’s center stage was a live YouTube channel allowing people from all over the planet to follow the presentations that were given by a slew of notable Amiga users.
Click read more to read the rest of the report
The Amiga A1222 Tabor changes name, now in cahoots with ACube
The first presenter was Trevis Dickinson, CEO of Amiga manufacturer A-EON. In a keynote speech, Dickinson focused on the ongoing development of the Amiga A1222, previously known as the Amiga Tabor but now officially named the A1222 Plus. While no launch date was mentioned, Dickinson emphasized that “significant” progress is being made and that the actual manufacturing of the prototype boards - labeled version 1.3 - has been outsourced to none other than ACube - an Italian business known to a lot of AmigaWorld users for its involvement in the PowerPC-based Amiga Sam-series. Apparently, the 1.3 boards will serve as the last internal test bed before the batch of Early Adopter boards will be produced and shipped to the 100 users being part of A-EON’s Early Adopter Program, launched by AmigaKit in January.
Among the other improvements, Dickinson mentioned that the A1222’s Uboot firmware now is on par with the Amiga X5000’s code base and that the boot time from a cold, dark system to Workbench has now been squeezed to around 30 seconds. Allegedly, the improvements made to Uboot has further improved USB compatibility. Furthermore, Dickinson revealed that the A1222 now has working audio courtesy of respected AmigaOS developer Lyle Hazelwood’s efforts. To show off this presumed launch blocker, an A1222 running Kickstart 53.103 was shown and heard playing the introduction to Dickinson’s Amiga documentary movie Viva Amiga. Preparing for the upcoming release, Dickinson also announced that AmigaOS 4.1 has been further fine tuned for the A1222 thanks to AmigaOS developer Tony Wyatt’s work. Likely known to a lot of AmigaWorld users, one of Trevor Dickinson’s side projects involve the ExecSG kernel - the new AmigaOS core meant to replace the current kernel that still relies on a legacy code base. Dickinson said that the ExecSG team, which now consists of 16 people, is making “good progress” not including third party developers involved with some specific parts of the kernel. 24 bug reports are said to have a addressed a wide range of previous issues, improving memory allocation and memory pool management. A more thorough development update was given by AmigaOS developer Steven Solie’s concluding presentation (covered later on in this report).
Before wrapping up, Dickinson finally mentioned that version 2.0 of Enhancer - a suite of software components serving as an unofficial AmigaOS upgrade - is coming together in a promising manner and that release is expected before Christmas. If the promise holds water, 2.0 should appeal to Amiga users kitted with “selected” AMD Radeon graphics cards since it will collect the latest versions of the Warp 3D API (version 1.78) written by respected Amiga developer Hans der Ruiter, the widely used OpenGL 3D API (version ES 2.0) and RadeonHD drivers. It was not, however, explicitly said which Radeon cards will be supported. Moreover, and thanks to a new - and unnamed - video acceleration library, 4K video playback on the Amiga is said to be possible. As previously reported on AmigaWorld, the core portion of the Enhancer 2.0 suite has already been released for free to any Amiga user with an AmiSphere account.
IComp announces brand new Buster chip, employs Haynie and designs a new A1200 with HDMI and Ethernet ports
Just before the lunch break, Individual Computer’s CEO Jens Schönfeld gave an hour long presentation of some of the recent work made by his company. Schönfeld started off by emphasizing that the company will pursue its long term ambitions with the Amiga platform, despite the trademark disputes currently being fought in US courts. With that assurance in place, Schönfeld turned his attention to the company’s recently launched CA-PSU power supply unit, and why a lot of legacy Amigas still using Commodore made power bricks are struggling. It all comes down to power hungry third party expansions and Ohm’s Law, the CEO concluded. In a surprising announcement, Schönfeld then revealed that Individual Computers secretly have been working on a brand new Buster chip. As keen AmigaWorld readers likely know, the Buster chip is a highly sought after custom chip for the Amiga 3000 series, responsible for the Zorro expansion cards subsystem. In an equally astonishing announcement, Schönfeld explained that the new Buster is being designed by ex Commodore hardware engineer David Haynie. When given a direct question from the audience, Schönfeld confirmed that Haynie is in fact now on the company payroll. In further news, Schönfeld stated that work on the A1200 Reloaded - an enhanced Amiga 1200 replica - continues, and that its latest hardware revision now includes native HDMI video and audio output using RTG and scandoubled video modes, Ethernet connectivity and an all new version of AmiTCP with DHCP-support for 99% of all known routers.
Schönfeld briefly mentioned that Individual Computers were minutes from release version 3 of the Amiga RTG system P96. Schönfeld suggested that the update can be thought of as major, and that one of its new features include screen dragging - a classic user interface functionality unique to AmigaOS. Users having bought P96 the last 12 months will be upgraded to version 3 for free, Schönfeld concluded. The new version of P96 can now be bought from Individual Computer’s store. Finalizing the presentation, Schönfeld reassured any fans of the Catweasel floppy controller that the project isn’t forgotten, despite being unavailable to buy for several years. Schönfeld explained that Individual Computers are currently swamped with work - perhaps a solid confirmation of what last year’s Amiga trade shows in Europe have suggested; despite the judicial proceedings churning thru the justice system and the negativism propagated on some fora, the Amiga community is teeming with activity.
ExecSG multicore support now running, memory protection may come down the road
Saturday’s line of presentations included a mini workshops covering Python and REBOL development, and ended with Amiga heavy hitter Steven Solie giving an update on ExecSG. Solie started by giving a brief introduction to ExecSG and its sub components, and then started addressing the development that has been made since the Amiga Ireland event back in January, when a similar presentation was made. ExecSG currently runs on eight different kinds of PowerPC-powered Amigas, ranging from Blizzard’s old PowerUp cards meant for the Amiga 1200 and Zorro based big box Amigas to brand new Amiga X5000 and Amiga 1222 setups. Solie underlined that one of ExecSG’s key features - multicore support - is now effectively working, and implied that improvements are expected down the road.
In an unforeseen announcement, Solie continued by revealing the ExecSG roadmap - a rare move in the Amiga community, where profound secrecy is usually the norm. Although no dates were given, the plan shows that last remaining percent of the A1222's FPU-emulation needs further polishing, that the A1222's audio driver needs optimization and that video RAM management needs tweaking to properly allow for 4K video playback. Solie also said that work on a new "preloader" will help speeding up the OS boot process further, and that internal 64 bit addressing support intended for graphics drivers is planned for the kernel. Tying to Dickinson's keynote, Solie elaborated a bit further on the planned ExecSG multicore support, referring to it as half of the planned workload. The multicore support will eventually include so called load balancing, allowing the Amiga to divert calculations to the CPU core that is best suited for the job at hand. Solie regretted not having a visual demo to show, but assured that both cores are "active" and "reported as running" on his Amiga X5000/20 workstation.
Looking for additional help, Solie re-emphasized that the ExecSG team is welcome to new members and encouraged anyone interested to contact him by e-mail (steven at solie dot ca). With an evident nod to the legal red tape, Solie jokingly claimed that the team is "100% lawyer and lawsuit free". When asked by the audience, Solie explained that while proper memory protection for AmigaOS is not currently on the roadmap, it's still on the team's radar. "We have so much else to do", Solie laughed, revealing that a limited memory protection is actually planned for with each OS task having its own protected memory space. When asked by moderator Bill Borsari, Solie acknowledged that multicore support is the team's top priority right now. Just like the Amiga A1222 project, the launch date for the ExecSG update remains unclear. Solie did, however, confirm that ExecSG is currently planned to be released "along with the official ISO" without going into any details about what the image file will contain, and what party will actually release it. Appearently frustrated by how slow the top brass decisions are made, Solie stated that he does see progress being made within the higher ranks and that he and the rest of the team are eager to let the Amiga users enjoy their work.
Wrapping up his own presentation, Solie described the current Amiga A1222 preformance is "great" albeit "rocky", and that it's expected to get "much more stable" once the FPU emulation issues have been sorted out. These problems are expected to be resolved with an overhaul of the Amiga's math IEEE libraries.
Break out the sunglasses and the sunscreen - you're gonna need them
Summarizing the first day of AmiWest and its presentations, it seems evident that the recent surge of interest in the Amiga and the laborious efforts invested in the OS, its hardware and applications bode for a bright future. The Amiga’s best days are certainly yet to come. |
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| Poster | Thread |  bison
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 26-Oct-2020 14:53:59
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Elite Member
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Joined: 18-Dec-2007
Posts: 2112
From: N-Space | | |
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| It was a great show! 
I especially liked the presentations by Francois, Sam and Jamie. I missed George's talk; I'll have to go back and listen to that.
_________________
"Unix is supposed to fix that." -- Jay Miner
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| | ssolie
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 26-Oct-2020 20:40:53
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Elite Member
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Joined: 10-Mar-2003
Posts: 2755
From: Alberta, Canada | | |
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| @all
I'd be happy to clarify anything ExecSG related.
Kudos to the AmiWest 2020 team for delivering in the midst of a global pandemic!
_________________
ExecSG Team Lead
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| | nbache
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 26-Oct-2020 23:37:13
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Super Member
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Joined: 8-Apr-2003
Posts: 1034
From: Copenhagen, Denmark | | |
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| Just a small clarification:
Quote:
| AmigaOS 4.1 has been further fine tuned for the A1222 thanks to AmigaOS developer Tony Wyatt’s work. |
While not wanting to belittle the work of Tony, in this case it is about putting together an OS4.1 installation ISO for the A1222 (and not least the tools to do it again). The contents (AmigaOS 4.1 itself) was created by lots of developers (among them also Tony) over a long period, but this item is about collecting it into an installable form.
Best regards,
Niels |
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| | evilFrog
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 27-Oct-2020 0:28:41
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Regular Member
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Joined: 20-Jan-2004
Posts: 397
From: UK | | |
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| There’s some really cool stuff in here, great to see it!
I remember Dave Haynie saying that the R11 Buster is the best we’d ever get. It sounds like he’s in a perfect position to make that statement wonderfully wrong. I can’t wait to see what he gets up to.
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"Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard, be evil."
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| | Petah
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 27-Oct-2020 0:30:09
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Regular Member
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Joined: 10-Mar-2003
Posts: 432
From: EU <3 ❤️ | | |
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| Quote:
| I'd be happy to clarify anything ExecSG related. |
Thanks! The stream mentions that ExecSG is supposed to be delievered on an ISO, but there's no in-depth talk about who will be responsible for the disc and what else, if anything, it will contain.
Is ExecSG supposed to be released by A-EON? If not, will Hyperion manage the distribution? If that's the case, will ExecSG ship as part of the first OS update released since 4.1FE?
_________________
That'll Put Marzipan In Your Pie Plate, Bingo
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| | asymetrix
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 27-Oct-2020 12:45:40
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Cult Member
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Joined: 9-Mar-2003
Posts: 868
From: United Kingdom | | |
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| @thread
It would be interesting to see how ExecSG currently performs, especially with high load.
The Load balancer is interesting as one could switch the scheduler depending on its job.
BFS vs DFS: Know the Difference
This old post talks about different schedulers, some prefering BFS.
The Linux Scheduler: a Decade of Wasted Cores
It would be nice to see how it compares with an AmigaOS equivelent of the :
"The linux kernel responsiveness benchmark"
This then leads to a new converstion - multi user access.
A good stress test for the core system: running an AmigaOS XDMCP server with 340 diskless AmigaOS NFS clients should be achievable on a 2 core, 2GHz machine with 4GB memory.
We have no benchmark/information about Kernel API vs Linux :
Linux, FreeBSD equivalent - Usage
enqueue_task, sched_add for new threads / sched_wakeup for woken up threads - Enqueue a thread in a runqueue
dequeue_task, sched_rem - Remove a thread from a runqueue
yield_tas,k sched_relinquish - Yield the CPU back to the scheduler
pick_next_task, sched_choose - Select the next task to be scheduled
put_prev_task, sched_switch - Update statistics about the task that just ran
select_task_rq, sched_pickcpu - Choose the CPU on which a new (or waking up) thread should be placed
How does the new memory allocation compare with the Linux new TTM memory allocator ?
Address space layout randomization , compression and encryption ?
From MuQSS to The LLREF scheduler, to a new scheduler - the interest now is for flexible real time scheduling algorithms - so alot of work ahead :D
The most important thing is to keep the API small, clean and lean and relevent to lower the tasks for maintanance of older code.
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| | ssolie
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 28-Oct-2020 19:22:23
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Elite Member
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Joined: 10-Mar-2003
Posts: 2755
From: Alberta, Canada | | |
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| @Petah
ExecSG is still planned to be delivered as part of the official AmigaOS ISO which Hyperion is producing. ExecSG is an integral part of AmigaOS 4.x after all.
_________________
ExecSG Team Lead
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| | number6
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 28-Oct-2020 19:42:52
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Elite Member
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Joined: 25-Mar-2005
Posts: 11619
From: In the village | | |
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| @all
I've checked other reports of a bug in using the "reply" button for posting in "news" only.
If you experience this, use the "post comment" button directly after the news content at top.
#6
_________________
This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*
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| | Rob
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 28-Oct-2020 19:58:51
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Elite Member
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Joined: 20-Mar-2003
Posts: 6385
From: S.Wales | | |
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| | tekmage
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 28-Oct-2020 20:54:43
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Regular Member
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Joined: 23-Mar-2005
Posts: 443
From: San Francisco | | |
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| @Petah
Thank you for putting together this great summary. The biggest item for me was the Buster 12 announcement. I really hope Jens can pull that together in the next year or two.
Cheers,
Bill |
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| | ssolie
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 28-Oct-2020 22:42:51
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Elite Member
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Joined: 10-Mar-2003
Posts: 2755
From: Alberta, Canada | | |
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| @Rob
The only U-Boot firmware you need comes directly from the board manufacturer (A-EON) and includes "aeon" in the version string. The new U-Boot will be released after beta testing has been completed.
Simple. 
_________________
ExecSG Team Lead
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| | TrevorDick
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 28-Oct-2020 22:53:48
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Elite Member
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Joined: 30-Dec-2004
Posts: 2678
From: Wellington | | |
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| As I just posted on Morph.Zone,
>>Mark,
Not sure why you posted on a public forum but I can assure you that uboot firmware updates for the X5000 have not been circulated outside the ExecSG team.
The excellent work you did for me on uboot helped the ExecSG team create a standard uboot build process. As I assured you at the time, I will ensure that any and all future uboot updates for the the X5000/20 and X5000/40 will support MorphOS. I have a vested interest since I run MorphOS on my X5000/20  The ExecSG kernel work will not impact on MorphOS support.
_________________
No, I don't need no reason, I'm just breezin'
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| | TRIPOS
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 29-Oct-2020 1:36:22
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Super Member
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Joined: 4-Apr-2014
Posts: 1205
From: Unknown | | |
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| @Tripos
None of the answers seen (here or otherwise) actually address the concerns raised.
[very sorry: bad bug in this Xoops meant your message was editted] Last edited by amigakit on 29-Oct-2020 at 02:34 PM.
Last edited by amigakit on 29-Oct-2020 at 02:28 PM.
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| | amigakit
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 29-Oct-2020 14:32:37
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Amiga Kit
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Joined: 28-Jun-2004
Posts: 2595
From: www.amigakit.com | | |
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| A-EON Technology is not affiliated to the "ExecSG" team as Trevor has pointed out.
The private branch of the firmware is used for testing and developing the ExecSG projects and has nothing to do with the consumer release of the firmware.
The official X5000 firmware that is distributed on X5000 systems and board is the version that BigFoot has worked on for A-EON over some years.
He is the official maintainer of the firmware for A-EON. A-EON is happy for this relationship to continue going forward and presumably BigFoot is too (his schedule permitting).
_________________
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| | Gregor
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 29-Oct-2020 16:32:51
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Regular Member
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Joined: 12-Sep-2011
Posts: 213
From: Unknown | | |
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| @ssolie
Will the new UBoot version allow to have a bootable Kickstart partition on the BootSD?
And will there be possibility to customize the bootmenu titles and organization (e.g. to add submenus for different Linux distros)? |
| | Status: Offline |
| | pgovotsos
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 29-Oct-2020 20:07:17
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Member
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Joined: 15-Oct-2016
Posts: 12
From: Unknown | | |
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| Will the X1000 receive these updates also? |
| | Status: Offline |
| | ssolie
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 29-Oct-2020 21:47:06
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Elite Member
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Joined: 10-Mar-2003
Posts: 2755
From: Alberta, Canada | | |
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| Quote:
| Will the new UBoot version allow to have a bootable Kickstart partition on the BootSD? |
No it will not. There are plans to add more to the SD card but they are just plans so far.
Quote:
| And will there be possibility to customize the bootmenu titles and organization (e.g. to add submenus for different Linux distros)? |
The menus may change but that is not a priority. U-Boot is open source GPL software so you can do what you want with it. However, the only official version of U-Boot will be coming from A-EON as always.
Quote:
| Will the X1000 receive these updates also? |
I don't know what "updates" you are referring to. Keep in mind the X1000 does not use U-Boot.
_________________
ExecSG Team Lead
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| | klx300r
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 29-Oct-2020 22:05:35
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Elite Member
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Joined: 4-Mar-2008
Posts: 3846
From: Toronto, Canada | | |
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| kudos to the AmiWest team for streaming a great show during these pandemic times...I enjoyed playing Deluxe Galaga for the game competition while listening to the show 
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| | davidf215
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 29-Oct-2020 22:07:07
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Member
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Joined: 14-Feb-2010
Posts: 98
From: Texas | | |
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| Thanks for this report! It's definitely nice to see work progressing in the Amiga community. |
| | Status: Offline |
| | DiscreetFX
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Re: AmiWest 2020 Show Report
Posted on 30-Oct-2020 2:43:23
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Elite Member
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Joined: 12-Feb-2003
Posts: 2543
From: Chicago, IL | | |
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| Great report, thank you.
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