The Icon Bar: News and features: RISC OS 5.20 released, free Portsmouth show in planning
Posted by Jeffrey Lee on 20:15, 30/7/2013
| Hardware, Open source, RISC OS, RISC OS Open Ltd, Shows
RISC OS 5.20 releasedFirst seen at the recent Midlands show, RISC OS Open Limited have now officially released RISC OS 5.20 into the world. This stable release of the operating system is available for the Iyonix, ARMini/BeagleBoard, and for the first time for RISC OS 5, RiscPC and A7000/A7000+ IOMD-based machines, including Kinetic RiscPCs. In addition, a stable version of the base hard disc image is now available as well. All users of RISC OS 5.20 are required to at least upgrade to the new version of !Boot as the 5.1x era !Boot will refuse to run on the newer OS.
There are far too many changes for me to attempt to cherry-pick the interesting ones to list here, so to find out what's changed between this release and the last I suggest you check out the change summaries that ROOL link to from their press release above.
This new release can be downloaded free of charge from the ROOL downloads page, or you can purchase physical ROMs (for IOMD machines) or installation CDs (for other machines, or for Kinetic cards with flash ROMs) from the ROOL store. And if you go down the download route, please consider donating to one of the open bounties to help reward ROOL and the RISC OS developers for all their hard work.
The Raspberry Pi and OMAP4 ports are yet to reach "stable" status, so are still only available in the form of (potentially) unstable development builds and (for Raspberry Pi) official beta releases available from the Raspberry Pi Foundation website. In particular, the latest Raspberry Pi release, RC11, has been updated to RISC OS 5.21 and so is roughly equivalent to the stable 5.20 release that's available on other platforms. Portsmouth show in planningNot content with just managing the OS source code, ROOL are planning to host a free RISC OS show in Portsmouth, to be held on one of the Saturdays in September (most likely the 21st or 28th). The show is to be free to both visitors and exhibitors, but in order to make it happen ROOL need to know who can turn up and when - so whether you're a visitor or an exhibitor, please get in touch with ROOL and let them know your availability.
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RISC OS 5.20 released, free Portsmouth show in planning |
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Zarchos (12:37 31/7/2013)
Jacko (08:49 19/8/2013)
flibble (09:28 19/8/2013)
tlsa (10:14 19/8/2013)
Phlamethrower (12:41 19/8/2013)
flibble (13:26 19/8/2013)
Phlamethrower (13:35 19/8/2013)
riscknight (19:52 19/8/2013)
Jacko (06:57 20/8/2013)
riscknight (13:20 20/8/2013)
Jacko (17:15 20/8/2013)
asm1 (20:32 20/8/2013)
Phlamethrower (23:21 20/8/2013)
asm1 (18:54 21/8/2013)
Jacko (08:30 22/8/2013)
Bucksboy (10:40 19/8/2013)
flibble (12:29 19/8/2013)
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Xavier Louis Tardy |
Message #122517, posted by Zarchos at 12:37, 31/7/2013 |
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Posts: 47
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Fantastic news.
ROMs ordered for my RPCs ! |
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David Jackson |
Message #122555, posted by Jacko at 08:49, 19/8/2013, in reply to message #122517 |
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Posts: 84
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I've got mine up and running - shame half the progs fail "26bit modules" |
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Peter Howkins |
Message #122556, posted by flibble at 09:28, 19/8/2013, in reply to message #122555 |
Posts: 892
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I've got mine up and running - shame half the progs fail "26bit modules" Yes, there really isn't a good reason to run risc os 5 on a rpc ... |
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Michael Drake |
Message #122557, posted by tlsa at 10:14, 19/8/2013, in reply to message #122556 |
Posts: 1097
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I've seen claims that it "feels quicker"[1], but no numbers to prove or quantify that.
[1] In this case, compared to RO6: ROOL forum post |
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George Greenfield |
Message #122558, posted by Bucksboy at 10:40, 19/8/2013, in reply to message #122556 |
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Posts: 91
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How about:
1. It's still being developed;
2. No 28MB memory limit (useful for a surprising number of camera jpeg>sprite conversions);
3. No 2GB Filer limit.
5.20 certainly flies along under RPCEmu compared to 4.02, but I appreciate that's to do with emulation factors not native speed. |
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Peter Howkins |
Message #122559, posted by flibble at 12:29, 19/8/2013, in reply to message #122558 |
Posts: 892
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3. No 2GB Filer limit. Correct, there's now a 4GB filer limit. And in changing from 2GB to 4GB every BBC Basic and C program now has entirely undefined behaviour when opening 2-4GB files. Due to there not actually being in place any API for dealing with > 31bit file sizes.
Great. |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #122560, posted by Phlamethrower at 12:41, 19/8/2013, in reply to message #122557 |
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I've seen claims that it "feels quicker"[1], but no numbers to prove or quantify that.
[1] In this case, compared to RO6: ROOL forum post I don't have any hard numbers either, but from when I was developing Kinetic support I found that (prior to Kinetic support being implemented) a RISC OS 5 softload was able to get about 33% better performance running ArcEm than RISC OS 3.7 running from ROM. But those figures may be skewed a bit by the fact 3.7 had the UniPod drivers active but 5 didn't.
Correct, there's now a 4GB filer limit. And in changing from 2GB to 4GB every BBC Basic and C program now has entirely undefined behaviour when opening 2-4GB files. Due to there not actually being in place any API for dealing with > 31bit file sizes. I thought the 2GB limit was a FileCore restriction, and FileSwitch and related OS SWIs have (theoretically) been able to support 4GB files for donkeys years? |
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Peter Howkins |
Message #122561, posted by flibble at 13:26, 19/8/2013, in reply to message #122560 |
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I thought the 2GB limit was a FileCore restriction, and FileSwitch and related OS SWIs have (theoretically) been able to support 4GB files for donkeys years? It comes down to types available in languages and their APIs.
Take C's fseek() function. You can only search 31 bits forward and 31 bits backward from a position. Before the OS basically ignored 2GB+ files so this would never cause any issues.
Then take BBC Basic, which only has a signed 32bit value as a numeric type. Commands such as EXT# now return negative numbers for files in the 2-4G range. PTR#, basically any # command in basic could have issues that before were never seen.
Whilst it's good that an assembler API is available, Unless BBC Basic and the C library are modified to reject >2GB files data loss is entirely possible with this recent change.
This of course goes away when a properly implemented 64bit file API appears, with relevant implementations in the C library and BASIC64. |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #122562, posted by Phlamethrower at 13:35, 19/8/2013, in reply to message #122561 |
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Whilst it's good that an assembler API is available, Unless BBC Basic and the C library are modified to reject >2GB files data loss is entirely possible with this recent change. BASIC hasn't been modified, but the shared C library has:
http://www.riscosopen.org/wiki/documentation/show/Migrating%20C%20software%20to%2064-bit%20file%20pointers
I'm not sure of the current state of UnixLib - I know it's supported the large file C functions for a while now, but I'm not sure if the implementation has been updated yet to take into account the fact that files >2GB are now supported by the OS. |
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riscknight |
Message #122563, posted by riscknight at 19:52, 19/8/2013, in reply to message #122562 |
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I'll stay with RO 5.16 & 5.18 for now on the IYO PCs; there will be "issues" with 5.20 & Aemulor for example and I don't have the time now for something like that.
I kept 2 RPCs in order to replace the 4.39 ROMs with 5.20 and work on them with 5.20 for a couple of months or so. I can always go back to Adjust if I am not pleased.
Time will tell... |
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David Jackson |
Message #122564, posted by Jacko at 06:57, 20/8/2013, in reply to message #122563 |
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Posts: 84
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I went back to 4.39 ROMs - and get "DataAbort (error 80000002) on the RiscPC. |
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riscknight |
Message #122566, posted by riscknight at 13:20, 20/8/2013, in reply to message #122564 |
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Posts: 9
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I went back to 4.39 ROMs. I can only assume you gave up too fast on RO 5.20 May I ask why?
- and get "DataAbort (error 80000002) on the RiscPC. Which is an invalid data access.
Could you please be more specific and give details about what steps you followed in order to upgrade to RO 5.20?
I believe your !Boot is messed up. |
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David Jackson |
Message #122567, posted by Jacko at 17:15, 20/8/2013, in reply to message #122566 |
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Posts: 84
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1) Half the programs use 26-bit modules
2) It all came up OK in RO 5.20 (with the new !Boot)
I was just trying to get back to 4.39 to use 26-bits (and softload 5.20)
May stick with 5.20 ROMs and try softloading 4.39 |
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Andrew |
Message #122570, posted by asm1 at 20:32, 20/8/2013, in reply to message #122567 |
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Posts: 122
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Would bee interested in having a Play with this on my RPC BUT I'd like to know if it supports the following:
1) Kinetic (I believe so)
2) VPOD Graphics
3) Unipod (Again I think so but not sure)
Then I would happily dump 4.39 /6.20.... |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #122572, posted by Phlamethrower at 23:21, 20/8/2013, in reply to message #122570 |
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Posts: 15100
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Yes to Kinetic, No to VPod and Unipod. |
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Andrew |
Message #122573, posted by asm1 at 18:54, 21/8/2013, in reply to message #122572 |
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Posts: 122
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Yes to Kinetic, No to VPod and Unipod.
Ugh... oh well it stays on my OMAP board then for now. |
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David Jackson |
Message #122574, posted by Jacko at 08:30, 22/8/2013, in reply to message #122567 |
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Posts: 84
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Managed to find my RO 3.7 ROMs, which boot but don't like the original HardDrive - reformatted (initialised) an old one and loaded the new boot, which worked OK (after uploading new !System from web)
I then Softloaded RO 5.20 and can see new disk OK
Putting my original HD as slave I can see it in RO 5.20, but not RO 3.7 mode?
Now the long task of copying everything across to my clean HD
(PS I think my RO 4.39 must be faulty - they're the ones on headers with SMC chip and overhang the motherboard crystal)
[Edited by Jacko at 09:32, 22/8/2013] |
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The Icon Bar: News and features: RISC OS 5.20 released, free Portsmouth show in planning |
