COMMON PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS


REGARDING OS 3.5 AND HINTS 'N' TIPS


By Craig Daines (aka Hercules)


Is OS 3.5 worth buying? Some might say Dopus Magellan does most a lot of what OS 3.5 does, but at the end of the day it is in my view an essential purchase. Running patches on a bogstandard OS 3 or 3.1 Amiga is fine, but OS 3.5 makes much deeper changes, the Workbench is revamped in an OS legal way (unlike a stock 3.0 or 3.1 Workbench running multiple patches to obtain a similar result). With OS 3.5 you get:-
Reworked Workbench.
Enhanced Glow (TM) Icon system.
New Style Preferences and Tools.
Modern BOOPSI gadget set.
New GUI resource system (courtesy of the new Reaction interface).
TCP/IP Stack (via Miami).
4HTML WEB Browser (via AWEB)
E-Mail library and Client (Amiga Mail)
Supports Hard Disks over 4.3 gig
New HDToolBox
New Printer device
Support for modern printers (limited)
True Colour Support when painting
CD-ROM Support (ISO 9660, Rockridge, Joliet and MAC HFS compatable).
Audio CD Player
Power PC (TM) Co Processor Support
Hardware Independent
Amiga-like Implementation
Major bugfixes over older versions of Amiga OS.
You can run all that lovely new software which requires v44.2 of the operating system.
More and more software requires v44.2 of the operating system, so unless you upgrade you won't be able to run all those lovely new programs. In my view, you can't call yourself a 'true Amigan' if you don't have it. As for those people who like pirating software, you have no right to moan when the software market dries up. You'll only have yourselves to blame. It means the honest users (like myself) who have actually purchased it will suffer because *YOU* are killing sales. Show Amiga Inc your support *NOW* by purchasing the upgrade. In purchasing OS 3.5 you will be showing your appreciation and prompting Amiga Inc to continue development. Recent polls in Amiga Active Magazine show a lot of users would like to see OS 3.5 further developed !
This trouble shooting guide I have written is dedicated to the 'honest' people out there who have *actually* purchased it. I have detailed solutions to some of the most common problems that I have managed to fix myself and some tips as well. I hope this addresses some of the major problems some of you might be experiencing.
If you've installed OS 3.5 and your machine won't boot the operating system after installation, then chances are there is no support for your buffered interface. Generally speaking, on startup the new version of Setpatch loads the Amiga OS Update file in your DEVS: drawer, reads the NSD.config file to patch the appropriate device controller and resets. This patches the operating system's scsi.device in ROM to use hard disks over the 4.3 gigabyte limit. The new version of 'Setpatch' only supports a limited number of device drivers. This can be checked by typing Setpatch from the shell.
If you are having problems rebooting your machine after installation of OS 3.5 then:-
1) Delete the 'Amiga OS Update' file in your DEVS: drawer (you may need to switch off the Amiga for 30 seconds and turn it on again. You will need to do this as the patch stays resident in memory and soft booting your machine will not work. You can then hold down both mouse buttons, to access the 'Early Boot Menu' and boot with 'no-startup-sequence' in order to delete the Amiga OS Update file in your DEVS: drawer). This will allow your machine to now boot if you`re having problems, but will mean you cannot update your partitions to the new version of the Fast-File-System. If you have these problems (as described above) install 'IDEFix' to enable channel 2 of your buffered interface install it as before.
2) You DO NOT need to install the NewIcons package with OS 3.5, since it is already capable of displaying NewIcons!
3) Arq (the replacement system requester program) doesn't work properly with OS 3.5 either. Use ReqAttack instead! (available from Aminet). ReqAttack is much nicer than the drab 'Arq' anyway.
4) If you have an Amiga equipped with one of DCE's Cybervision graphics cards (like myself), on the Cybergraphix installation disks, it states 030/040 users should install 'Enforcer'. This is not valid for 040 users. According to the author of Cybergraphix: (http//www.vgr.com/v3/v3faq.html). Modern versions of Setpatch on 68040 systems always installs a MMU table at Setpatch point (via 68040.library) for reserving the Zorro 2 space, so if you have an Amiga equipped with an '040 accelerator, you should *not* install 'Enforcer'.
5) OS 3.5 uses a different way of dragging and positioning icons that causes havoc with Cybergraphix 3, e.g. upon attempting to click or drag an icon the system will immediately 'lock up completely', even with just a bare OS 3.5 installation and no OS enhancements. To remedy this, edit your Startup-Sequence so the LOADWB line reads:
LoadWB SIMPLEGELS
This reverts to the OS 3.1 way of dragging and position icons. You should now find Cybergraphix 3 no longer locks up when clicking an icon.
6) By default, OS 3.5 has no direct support for graphics card users: e.g.
OS 3.5 uses 'Chip-Ram' for displaying icons, which is rather impracticable when running Cybergraphix. An OS legal patch has been developed called 'WBCtrl' which is available on Aminet which can remedy this. Install WBCtrl to your C: drawer and include the following in your 'User-Startup' file:
WBCtrl IMT=FAST
Now all icons are rendered to Fast Ram thus, saving precious chip memory.
7) Cybergraphics 3 requires you to edit some settings via ENV variables using a text editor (which can be somewhat fiddly). You can use a program called 'MUI-Cyberprefs' (again from Aminet) which provides you with a simple MUI interface preference editor which allows you to do this quickly and easily (it saves the hastle of changing your Cybergraphix ENV variables with a text editor manually).
8) Do you have a Cybervision or Picasso graphics card (such as myself ?). Why not install Warp3D. It's a revolutionary new 3D engine designed to make use of that lovely Virge 3D chip on your graphics card. There are also lots of new applications that use Warp3D as well, such as the way Quake ports that are doing the rounds at the moment! Warp 3D also includes some demonstrations on what the new 3D engine is capable of (they are amazing!).
9) If your using AHI (the retargetable audio system), then AHI sometimes has problems with Cybergraphix 3 when booting. This can be solved by adding ACTIVATE=1 in the AHI icon tooltype. Or alternatively, you might also like to try upping the stack in the startup-sequence (preferably at the top) to 20000 or around there.
10) To get Wordworth running on a Cybergraphix screen, ensure you set the tooltype PICASSO=TRUE in Wordworth's icon.
11) Directory Opus Magellan doesn't display the new colour icons that OS 3.5 uses. There is an upgrade patch on GP Software's website to fix this. This patch has also been featured on a past Amiga Active CD.
12) OS 3.5 does not have the DefIcons feature as with the NewIcons package. If you want to use DefIcons, then you will need to use DefIcons44 which has been produced especially for OS 3.5 (available on Aminet).
13) A last minute update for OS 3.5 has been released entitled 'Boing Bag 1'. This can be found on Amiga's web site. It fixes a few minor bugs, and gives you the chance to use theme animated GIF's on your desktop complete with sound (Now lets see Microsoft Windows do that)!
14) If you want to convert NewIcons into OS 3.5 colour icons, then simply load them into the Icon Edit program. There are also numerous convertor scripts for converting icons under OS 3.5. Some of which you can obtain these programs from Aminet. They need to be used from the Shell and perform the following:-
ClockIcon: Tests a new AppIcon feature: in v44 workbench.library. Allows the owner of an AppIcon to render the icon image itself. This allows for a clock display to be updated in an AppIcon image (NB: check out the new tool "Animated Icon" as included in the OS 3.5 Boing Bag update !
CondenseIcons: This reads an icon, drops the planar image and any associated NewIcons tooltypes and writes the image back to disk. This will result in space savings.
Convert8ColourIcons: This reads an 8 colour image, attaches a default 8 colour palette to it and writes it back to disk.
ConvertMagicWBIcons. This reads a MagicWB icon and writes it back to disk in the new v44 icon.library format (including the matching palette).
ConvertNewIcons: This reads a NewIcons format icon and writes it back to disk as a colour icon (in the new v44 icon.library format)
GlowIconImage: This reads image files, applies the glow effect and writes the result to disk as a colour icon (v44 format icon).
ImageToIcon: This reads image files, applies the glow effect and writes the result back to disk as a colour icon (v44 format icon). Handy for converting brushes to icons!
LayoutIcon: This tests the new v44 icon.library LayoutIconA() code.
StripIcons: This reads an icon, removes the NewIcons tool types or the v44 palette information and writes it back to disk.
15) OS 3.5 can display Windows 95 icon files! Simply install ico.dataype by Stephan Ruppreccht. This is a special datatype that is able to display Microsoft Windows Icons (Windows Icons have the extension '.ICO' on the end of the filename). Once you have this datatype installed, you can load any Microsoft Windows icons into any art package which supports datatypes to convert them to a v44 colour icon. However, I've found probably the easiest way to convert them using this datatype is to load the Windows icon you wish to convert into 'Multiview', (the icon will now be displayed), copy it to the Clipboard, and paste the icon straight into the 'Icon Edit' program and save it out. Voila! A converted 'Windows' icon saved as a colour icon. You can even add the Glow effect to the icon too, using IconEdit if you wish!
CAN I GET MCP WORKING WITH OS 3.5?
Yes you can! Looking at the OS 3,5 mailing list it seems a lot of you are having problems getting MCP running. Some versions of MCP work with OS 3.5, others do not. The only version of MCP I could get to work was included on Amiga Active CD-ROM 1 (version 1.32). This was the only version I could get to work!
If you are trying to run MCP with Cybergraphix 3 and experience problems, you should run MCP as a separate process in your startup-sequence. To do this, alter your line for launching MCP to:
C:Run >NIL: MCP
If you still have problems, try placing 'C:Run >NIL: MCP' *after* IPrefs in your startup-sequence.
The following patches via MCPPrefs should be turned off when using Amiga OS 3.5:-
NewToolTypes:-
This provides you with the opportunity of specifying various tooltypes to disable caches, etc to get older software to run. It does however cause problems with running some programs under OS 3.5. Turn it off !
NoIconBorder:-
Turn it off. It is not required. Icon borders can be switched on and off using the new Workbench program (which comes with OS 3.5) in your prefs drawer.
PatchOpenWB:-
This is primary to stop programs that start with a negative priority from crashing/locking up.This bug has been fixed in OS 3.5. Hence, turn this off!
PowerSaver:-
Be careful with this one. It offers DPMS (direct power management system) to switch off the screen of your monitor after a preset interval. If you`re unsure whether your monitor supports DPMS then turn it off! Otherwise, you risk damaging your monitor. You have been warned!
QuickDrawer:-
This uses the system function Rectfill() (which fills triangles) to draw horizontal and vertical lines. It offers a 50% speed increase, but can upset some programs running on Cybergraphix screens. I prefer not to use it.
QuickLayers:-
This results in all Window operations being accelerated. Layers.library is patched with a faster routine for a higher speed of opening, closing, moving, and enlarging windows. It does work, but can cause problems with some programs. Turn it off.
Screenmanager:-
This is very flakey under OS 3.5. Ensure it is turned off. The only solution is to use an alternative screen promoter (I use ModePro for promoting multi-tasking programs to Cybergraphix).
WBAbout:
This normally allows you to display the programmers of your Amiga's kickstart version and offers you an option to flush out unused libraries. It doesn't work with OS 3.5, so turn it off!
WBGauge:-
Not required when using OS 3.5 so turn it off. OS 3.5 automatically gives you a window gauge showing how full your disks are anyway.
Hope this lot helps,
If I've helped anyone with any of the above problems, then please send me an e-mail. It would be nice to know that I've helped somebody out. However, please DO NOT bombard me with e-mail asking for help as I don't have the time to answer them. The OS 3.5 FAQ mailing list is for that (see below).
If any of you have any other problems regarding OS 3.5, you should subscribe to the OS 3.5 FAQ mailing list. The URL is:
http://www.amiga.de/amigaos3.5/support/-faq2-e.html

Many thanks,
Craig Daines (aka: Hercules)
craigd@thedoghousemail.com

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