Linux hosted, refresh problem.

 

From AROS home page:

Note

Unless you are running XFree86 3.x or earlier, you may notice that the AROS window does not refresh properly (for example when a different window passes over it). This is due to the fact that AROS uses the "backingstore" functionality of X, which is turned off by default in XFree86 4.0 and later. To turn it on, add the following line to the device section of your graphics card in the X configuration file (commonly named /etc/X11/xorg.conf, /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 or /etc/X11/XF86Config):

Option "backingstore"

A complete device section might then look like this:

Section "Device"
    Identifier      "Matrox G450"
    Driver          "mga"
    BusID           "PCI:1:0:0"
    Option          "backingstore"
EndSection

I don't want, or have time go get into detail. I just had some trouble last days with Lubuntu. Problem is that no matter what I did it I could not get the backingstore function to work.

I had to try other Linux distributions. Ubuntu works nice but is slow as hell with my old laptop. Other lightweight Linux distributions like "Absolute Linux" or "Bodhi" gave me other problems. End of story is that I finally found a Linux distribution that works great with AROS64. The Linux distro is called "Peppermint". It even got the the Amiga colors and the logo look Amigaish :)

Other good news is that you don't have to use the "backingstore" option. It works out of the box. Now it is time to play around with AROS64 again.

 

 

AROS 64 Linux, hosted

AROS 64 worked fine hosted, but the contribution archive did not. Kalamatee had to fix something in the build system to make it work. This is another step in the right direction.

 

Installing AROS 64

I downloaded AROS64 http://www.aros.org/nightly1.php

I burned the ISO to a DVD-RW disk, booted from my trusty "DELL Latitude D520" and everything seamed good. I Played around with it but as you know a OS is not much worth running from optical disk. It was now time to install to a real drive where I could realy use it.

I inserted a USB drive, 4GB, started the AROS installer.
From there the first thing to do is to create partitions. I did and everything seamed ok.
It was not! After I restarted the OS from optical disk AROS 64 showed me the USB
drive just as it was before I wiped it! That means nothing happend. I tried again, but the same.

I then got the idea that maybe I could create the partitions from some i386 AROS version like AspireOS. I did and now I got the AROS partitions, everything seamed good. It was time to boot AROS 64 again from DVD. After boot I inserted the USB drive. The partitions showed up and using AROS installer I installed AROS 64 to it. Everything seamed ok again, but again it was not.

I booted the USB drive and I got the GRUB menu. I then selected my screenmode and off we go. I could see some debug but the screen went black and nothing more happend. I could see that the last thing AROS detected was my optical drive.
Me and Nostromo talked about it. I had some weired ideas that Nostromo just denied. He is way more technical than me.
All the same we could not figure it out. I then got hold on AROS main developer, Kalamatee.
Good thing is that he knew about this problem. For some reason AROS 64 don't like to boot any further if a optical drive is present, even without any disk in it!

There are 2 solutions. Get into the boot menu or change boot priority of your system disk. They way you do get into boot menu is to hit the "space button" right after you selected your entry in Grub menu. The boot menu have some options. One is to select your boot device. I got into there and you will see that optical was the main selected boot device. Changed that to my USB drive and whoila AROS 64 boots. Other way is to open HD-Toolbox get into your disk and click you way to the you find you system volume. Default it is set to 0. Change to 10 and you are safe it will be priority nr. 1 when you boot. Be sure to save and you have a permanent solution. Little more tricky but much better.
  

As the world move forward and it is time for www.aspireos.com and www.aros.org to go 64-bit.

Most will use this OS hosted, under Linux or simply as a second operating system using VMware Player or other alternatives. If your main OS is 64-bit it is quite advanced to get a 32-bit OS running on top of that. We can say that 32-bit is fading out. In the future we also like to be compatible with most hardware so you can run this OS native. The good thing is that with selected hardware it is already possible.

The transformation to 64-bit is not plug and play. I'm now testing what we have and trying to create a AROS 64-bit distribution called AspireOS 64.

From my friend "Nostromo" he suggested that I blogg about the progress. He will also help out with what he can regarding problems on the way.