X11PicassoII

Thanks to Jeff at amiga.org for documenting this process! See the original thread.

The default install of Amiga UNIX, even with the capabilities of ECS, allows only a black and white X display without additional hardware, whether that hardware is a NIC providing for use of X over the network or a graphics card such as the ridiculously hard to find A2410. With the use of drivers from the Gateway UNIX CD, certain other graphics cards are supported which may be easier to find (see the hardware page or the readme in the archive for a complete list). Among them is the Picasso II/PicassoII+, both of which are relatively easy to find on eBay and the like — especially compared to the A2410. Before Jeff's attempt however, no current installations were known.

This has only been tested with a Picasso II+ board using a fully patched 2.1p2a installation. Other supported boards should use the same or very similar procedure.

In order to complete the installation you will need the following:

• Supported Amiga UNIX Hardware
• Picasso II or Picasso II+ RTG card
• Fully patched Amiga UNIX 2.1p2a installation (not tested on unpatched and/or HD hack installations)

These actions must be performed as the root user.

1. Install your Picasso II or supported graphics card. Look in the archive documents to see a complete list of supported boards.

2. Start with a working patched Amiga Unix 2.1p2a installation; uname -a should return UNIX_System_V amix 4.0 2.1c 0800430 Amiga (Unlimited) m68k

3. Run olinit and xinit to make sure they are set up on your machine and working. You should be able to bring up the hideous black and white display.

4. Download the SVGA Drivers, uncompress them using bzcat AMIX.tar.bz2 | tar -xf - and gunzip the file X11R5_bin.tar.gz using gzip -d X11R5_bin.tar.gz to end up with a file named X11R5_bin.tar . Write this file to an empty tape on your A3070, don't forget to retension/zero out if necessary (see this page for more info on working with tape in AMIX): dd if= X11R5_bin.tar bs=512 of=/dev/rmt/4h

5. Copy the file install.svga from the drivers archive to the AMIX machine (put it in your home directory or /tmp) and run it: sh install.svga You can use an MS-DOS formatted 720k floppy to copy the file. On AMIX insert the disk and execute the command mcopy A:INSTALL.SVG /destinationdirectory/install.svga

6. This should have left 3 files in /var/tmp. These will be deleted later so copy them to /home or somewhere else if you want to save them. The only file you will need at this point is named installR5. This needs a quick edit with vi to comment out the command on the 5th line that reads mt fsf. The tar command will not find the file on your tape if you do not do this. The modified file should look like this;

#!/sbin/sh

cd /usr
mt rew
#mt fsf <-- COMMENTED OUT
tar xf /dev/rmt/4h 2>/dev/null
sync
sync

ln -s X11R5 X

cd /usr/include
ln -s /usr/X11R5/includeX11 X11
cd /usr/bin
ln -s /usr/X11R5/bin X11
cd /usr/lib
ln -s /usr/X11R5/lib X11

ln -s X11/libX11.so.5.0 libX11.so.5.0
ln -s X11/libXaw.so.5.0 libXaw.so.5.0
ln -s X11/libXext.so.5.0 libXext.so.5.0
ln -s X11/libXi.so.5.0 libXi.so.5.0
ln -s X11/libXmu.so.5.0 libXmu.so.5.0
ln -s X11/libXt.so.5.0 libXt.so.5.0
ln -s X11/liboldX.so.5.0 liboldX.so.5.0

cd /usr/X/bin
rm X
ln -s Xsvga X

echo "Edit XsvgaConfig in your home directory for approriate ViewMode!
Make sure /usr/bin/X11 is in your path or the X-Server could not be found."

7. Run the modified installR5 script with the command sh installR5. This will copy the files from the 30 meg .tar file that you put on the tape to your hard drive. The binaries will go in a new directory named /usr/X11R5/bin

8. cd /etc and back up your profile (cp profile profile.bak) and use vi to modify the path statement to include /usr/bin/X11:/usr/X11R5/bin It should look something like this;

PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/etc:/usr/ucb:\
/usr/amiga/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/X11R5/bin:/usr/public/bin:/usr/hosts${Xb}

9. Change to the directory named /usr/sys and run the command make. This will compile a new kernel with the changes needed to run the linked-in "Xsvga" X-server. The new kernel file will be in the /usr/sys directory and it will be named "relocunix". Copy the new kernel file to your /stand directory and run the command make bootpart KERNEL=relocunix Shutdown and reboot the machine to load the new kernel and all the rest of the changes: shutdown -i6

10. Edit the file named ~/XsvgaConfig with vi and do a quick edit to select the screenmode that you desire.
WARNING: do not choose a frequency or resolution that is higher than the capabilities of your monitor, there will be "no sanity checks".

11. Congratulations! Grab a well deserved cup of coffee and start playing around with some of the binaries in the /usr/X11R5/bin directory.

Note from Jeff: A couple of last minute thoughts. The keymap seems to be screwed up now, but only in "X". The "y and z" keys are swapped, and a "/ is now SHIFT-8", there are several others. Does anyone know how to fix it so the standard American Amiga keyboard layout is correct? Although I have a strong Amiga backround, I am not a Unix person. Even with the directions provided in the Gateway drivers it took me a couple days to figure this out and get it running. Let me know if you have any comments, or spot any errors. Thanks to Klaus, Failure, and everyone else for providing the files, drivers, and information to get it all running.

Check out Jeff's screen shots on amiga.org to see what it looks like. You will find them here: Sorry, screen shot links to amiga.org were broken in the amiga.org upgrade. Will replace once new gallery online.

---