Annotation of uae/docs/unix/README, revision 1.1.1.5

1.1       root        1: This file documents the details relevant to the Unix versions of UAE. General
                      2: information can be found in the file "README"
                      3: 
                      4: System requirements
                      5: ===================
                      6: 
                      7: UAE will run on most Unix systems, and by now most of the portability issues
                      8: have been sorted out. However, since I am developing UAE using Linux, you may
                      9: encounter problems from time to time. If this happens, let me know as soon as
                     10: possible so these can be fixed in the next release.
                     11: 
                     12: These are the requirements for getting the Unix version to run:
                     13:   - X11, or SVGAlib if you are using Linux.
                     14:   - 8MB RAM (better 16MB) + some swap
                     15:   - The 386 is the only CPU that UAE will not run on. You need a 486 or
                     16:     higher if you want to use an Intel CPU.
                     17:   - an ANSI C compiler. Do not use a K&R compiler, otherwise you risk getting
1.1.1.5 ! root       18:     incorrect code. GCC is _strongly_ recommended, preferrably version 2.95.3.
1.1       root       19:   - Optionally, the gtk library, available from ftp.gimp.org, and a pthreads
                     20:     library.
                     21: 
                     22: 
                     23: Compilation
                     24: ===========
                     25: 
                     26: To build UAE, first unpack it to an appropriate directory (e.g. /usr/src/uae
                     27: on a Linux system). The simple way to proceed is to type "configure; make", 
                     28: after that has completed you should have a working X11 version of UAE. Ignore
                     29: warnings if you get them.
                     30: 
                     31: However, you should probably have a look at some of the compile-time options
                     32: found in "config.h" before you do this. There are some things you can change
                     33: there so that the resulting executable will perform better on your machine.
                     34: Each of the options in that file has a description. You can edit config.h to
                     35: suit your needs; and then do "configure; make" afterwards.
                     36: 
                     37: When running configure, there are a few options that you can use to
                     38: influence configure's decision as to what kind of display should be used.
                     39: The following displays are available:
                     40:   - Standard X11, in a window. This is the default.
                     41:   - X11/DGA. This runs full-screen and is somewhat faster than the normal X11
                     42:     code. You need a recent (>= version 3.2) XFree86 X server.
                     43:   - SVGAlib. This is only available on Linux systems. It is the default if X11
                     44:     is not found by configure.
                     45:   - ncurses character output. This is the last resort.
                     46: 
                     47: Type "configure --help" to get a list of options that configure understands.
                     48: The following are likely to be useful:
                     49:   --without-x        : Don't use X11 as target.
                     50:   --with-svgalib     : Build a version that uses SVGAlib (Linux only)
                     51:   --with-asciiart    : Build a version that uses ASCII "graphics"
                     52:   --enable-sound     : If a sound system is found that UAE knows about, sound
                     53:                        emulation will be compiled in.
                     54:   --enable-profiling : Build a much slower version of the emulator (if you 
                     55:                        don't know what it's for, you don't want it)
                     56:   --enable-dga       : If your X server supports the DGA extension, use it
                     57:   --enable-vidmode   : If your X server supports the VidMode extension, use
                     58:                        it. This enables the emulator to switch to low
                     59:                        resolutions such as 320x256 or 400x300 if you have
                     60:                       defined ModeLines for them.
                     61:   --enable-ui        : Build a user interface if possible (enabled by default)
                     62:   --enable-threads   : Build UAE multithreaded on systems that support it.
                     63:                        Note that there is very little thread support in UAE at
                     64:                       the moment.
                     65:   --enable-penguins  : Enable some additional threads which only make sense on
                     66:                        SMP (symmetric multi penguin) machines. If you have a
                     67:                       single-CPU machine, you don't want to use this option.
                     68: Note that there is a corresponding "--disable-xxx" for each "--enable-xxx"
                     69: option, and a "--without-yyy" for each "--with-yyy".
                     70: 
                     71: Both the SVGAlib and the DGA version run full-screen, i.e. you can't run other
                     72: programs at the same time very well. You also need to be root to run either of
                     73: these two versions.
                     74: Making UAE suid root is _not_ a particularly good idea if you care about the
                     75: security of your system.
                     76: 
                     77: If you are not sure whether you have an SMP machine, you don't have one.
                     78: 
                     79: 
                     80: Run-time options
                     81: ================
                     82: 
                     83: The X11 version (without DGA) of UAE understands these special command-line
                     84: options:
                     85:   -L     : Use "low-bandwidth" mode, which can reduce the amount of data
                     86:            transferred between UAE and the X server. That's particularly an
                     87:           advantage when these are running on two different machines in a
                     88:           network.
                     89:   -T     : Use the MIT-SHM extension. This may not be available on all
                     90:            machines, and it will not work if UAE and the X server are not
                     91:           running on the same machine.
                     92:           In all other configurations, turning on this option will give you
                     93:           a huge speed improvement.
                     94:   -x     : Turn off the X11 mouse cursor for the UAE window. Personally, I
                     95:            find that seeing the X cursor helps, but that's a matter of taste.
                     96: 
                     97: The SVGAlib version understands the following command-line option:
                     98:   -x     : Turn off linear frame buffer support, even if it is available.
                     99:            Unless linear mode doesn't work properly, you don't want to disable
                    100:           it, because UAE is much faster if it can draw into a linear
                    101:           frame buffer.
                    102: 
                    103: 
                    104: Keyboard mappings
                    105: =================
                    106: 
1.1.1.3   root      107: 
                    108: You can exit the SVGAlib version by pressing the F12 key.
1.1       root      109: PgUp/PgDn emulate the right/left Amiga keys. In the SVGAlib version, F11 will
                    110: bring you back to the user interface screen so you can change disks during the
                    111: emulation.
                    112: 
                    113: The X11 version needs some help to figure out how to map keys: You'll have to
                    114: tell it the keyboard language with the "-l" commandline option. Several
                    115: languages ("us", "se", "de", "fr", "es", "it") are supported. If you have
                    116: a different keyboard, patches to make UAE work with it are appreciated.
                    117: 
1.1.1.3   root      118: In the X11 version, there are several key combinations that invoke some
                    119: behaviour:
                    120:   F12+'q': Quit the emulation.
                    121:   F12+'g': "Grab" the mouse, so it won't leave the UAE window.  Use the same
                    122:            combination to ungrab the mouse.
                    123:   F12+'i': Toggle graphics updates on/off.  Same as ScrollLock.
                    124:   F12+'p': Toggle sound interpolation method.  This is useful for determining
                    125:            the differences between interpolation methods.
                    126:   F12+'m': Toggle between alternative mouse pointer emulation methods; either
                    127:            follow-mouse or dont-care.
                    128:   F12+'+' (keypad plus sign): Increase frame rate (fewer frames displayed).
                    129:   F12+'-' (keypad minus sign): Decrease frame rate (more frames displayed).
                    130: 
1.1       root      131: 
                    132: Mouse and joystick emulation
                    133: ============================
                    134: 
                    135: The X11 (non-DGA) version has one problem: There are two mouse pointers, the
                    136: X11 mouse pointer and the mouse pointer in the emulator window. You can work
                    137: that way, but you get confused quickly.
                    138: The solution in previous (0.6.8 and before) versions of UAE was a small piece
                    139: of code that looked at the position of sprite 0 on the screen and tried to
                    140: generate mouse movements in an emulated hardware port. That worked reasonably
                    141: well, but had several problems.
                    142: The new solution is to use a small Amiga program which is called "mousehack".
                    143: You will find this in the "amiga" subdirectory. Put it into the directory that
                    144: you use for harddisk emulation so that you can run it from the emulator. Then
                    145: put the command "run >NIL: mousehack" at the top of your startup-sequence. UAE
                    146: will detect when this program is running and use the improved mouse pointer
                    147: positioning method. (Don't run this program on old versions of UAE)
                    148: If the program is not running, you get the old behaviour - almost. By default,
                    149: the emulator will no longer try to keep Amiga and X mouse pointers at the same
                    150: position, because that led to problems in the past. You can toggle this
                    151: behaviour with F12.
                    152: (If you just added "run mousehack" to your startup-sequence, that would have
                    153: the effect that the initial CLI window would be impossible to close.
                    154: Unfortunately, redirecting output to >NIL: disables all error messages that
                    155: mousehack can give you - so if it does not work, try running it by hand
                    156: without the >NIL: redirection.)
                    157: 
                    158: If you find a program in which the mouse pointer does not move at all if you
                    159: use the X11 version, start that program with mousehack _not_ running
                    160: (Magnetic Scrolls adventures are known to need this, for example).
                    161: 
                    162: The SVGAlib and DGA versions are not affected by any of this (and pressing F12
                    163: exits those versions).
                    164: 
                    165: If you use Linux and have the joystick driver kernel module, "configure"
                    166: should automatically enable support for it. UAE calibrates the joystick
                    167: automatically. Turn it a few times on startup to get the calibration done. 
                    168: 
                    169: 
                    170: Harddisk emulation
                    171: ==================
                    172: 
                    173: Please read the appropriate sections in the file "README" on how to use the
                    174: filesystem emulation. There are a few Unix-specific things about it, though.
                    175: 
                    176: If you want to execute files located on a native filesystem, they need to have
                    177: the x permission bit set. That can be done in Unix by "chmod +x file" or in
                    178: AmigaDOS with "protect file rwed".
                    179: You should set aside a whole directory tree for AmigaOS files, and not use it
                    180: from Unix in any way if you can avoid it. Changing permissions/owners,
                    181: creating symbolic links and doing other stuff that AmigaOS does not know about
                    182: is a good way to confuse the emulator and the emulated software. E.g. it's
                    183: possible to have a symlink pointing at a mounted CD-ROM. The emulator would
                    184: see that as a directory inside which it gets "read only filesystem" errors,
                    185: and wouldn't know what to do about it. Avoid this sort of thing. It's best to
                    186: start with an empty harddisk emulation directory and install software there
                    187: only from within the emulation.
                    188: The following setup can also lead to problems:
                    189:   -m dh0:/foo -m dh1:/foo/bar
                    190: Please take care that the filesystems you mount don't overlap each other
                    191: (another great reason not to use symbolic links within them).
                    192: 
                    193: 
                    194: Printing
                    195: ========
                    196: 
                    197: If you give UAE the "-p lpr" option, output for the parallel port will be
                    198: piped to lpr, which will in turn print it. You should use the Postscript
                    199: printer driver on the Amiga side (since UAE relies on the ^D character at
                    200: the end of the Postscript output).
                    201: Note that I never tried this myself, so you're on your own.
                    202: 
                    203: 
                    204: Transferring things over the serial port
                    205: ========================================
                    206: 
                    207: There's an easy way to use a null-modem cable without terminal software if
                    208: you use Linux (and probably other Unices). You can do
                    209: 
                    210:   transdisk >SER: <options>
                    211: 
                    212: on the Amiga to copy the data directly to the serial port. Before that, do
                    213: 
                    214:   cat /dev/ttyS1 >df0.adf
                    215:   
                    216: on your Linux box to receive the data (it may be ttyS0 on your system, or
                    217: another number, depending on which serial port you are using). When the Amiga
                    218: is done transferring, hit ^C on the PC to interrupt the cat program. To make
                    219: this work, you need to use the same settings for the serial port on both
                    220: sides. This is done with the Preferences program on the Amiga (this is split
                    221: into several programs from Kickstart 2.0 upwards, you'll find a program called
                    222: "serial" in the Prefs directory of your Workbench disk). On the Linux side,
                    223: use the stty program. "man stty" will give you the manpage describing how to
                    224: use it.
                    225: To be on the safe side, set the speed to a low value (2400 baud). Turn off
                    226: Xon/Xoff, but enable RTS/CTS.
                    227: I use the following command myself:
                    228: 
                    229:   stty 19200 parenb -cstopb cread clocal crtscts -istrip -inlcr -icrnl -opost
                    230:     -onlcr -parodd -isig -icanon -iexten raw cs8 </dev/ttyS1
                    231: 
                    232: which is probably overkill, but you never know :)
                    233: This maps to 19200 baud, 8 bits, even parity, one stop bit, which you have to
                    234: set in the Amiga preferences.
                    235: 
                    236: 
                    237: Using the Linux AFFS filesystem
                    238: ===============================
                    239: 
                    240: If you use Linux with a kernel version >= 2.0.7 and version 2.5k of the mount
                    241: program, you can do
                    242:    mount df0.adf /mnt -t affs -o loop
                    243: to mount disk image df0.adf at the mount point /mnt. This is much more
                    244: convenient than using the "readdisk" program.
                    245: 
                    246: You'll need to enable support for the Amiga filesystem and the loop device
                    247: when configuring and compiling the kernel (say yes to the "Ask about
                    248: experimental drivers" question at the start).

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