amiga-news.de - Tutorial: Updated installation guide for AmigaOS 4.1 under QEMU 8

20.Apr.2023

Tutorial: Updated installation guide for AmigaOS 4.1 under QEMU 8
About four weeks ago we published Rene Engel's Installation guide for AmigaOS 4.1 under QEMU 8, which he had created in collaboration with the Amiga QEMU developer Zoltan Balaton and which at that time still referred to the first release candidate of QEMU 8. The manual had not only triggered a lively discussion, numerous tests and a lot of feedback in our (German) forum, but also beyond. As a result, further problems and pitfalls could be concretised, analysed and partly solved. Since the official version 8.0.0 of QEMU has been available since yesterday, Rene Engel has revised his installation instructions on the basis of this and the feedback from the users. A big thank you to all those who have contributed!

By adding the line "-cpu 7447", it is now possible to emulate or use a G4 PPC CPU with Altivec support, which also results in the error-free use of SFS (screenshot). Overall, the new CPU and SFS have increased the emulation speed enormously (YouTube video).

Those who would like to deal with the topic even more intensively, please refer to Zoltan Balaton's homepage, which now also contains a bugtrucker. There you will also find an installation guide.

1. Preparations

1.1 What is required?

AmigaOS 4.1 Pegasos 2 version (available e.g. from Alinea Computer)

The CD must be available as ISO file, which can easily be done under Windows, for example, with the free tool ImgBurn.
AmigaOS 4.1 Update 3 is also required, which can be downloaded free of charge from the Hyperion Entertainment website after registering and entering the CD key supplied. Since owners of the AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition do not have access to the AmigaOS 4.1 Update 3 anymore, you would have to find another way to get the required files. Alternatively, you could also buy the AmigaOS 4.1 Sam460 version: this also contains the files.

QEMU 8:

If you are running an Apple computer equipped with an Apple M1 chip, the package manager Homebrew and Xcode should be installed beforehand, as described in this article. You can then install QEMU via the terminal as follows:

brew install Qemu

Flash Update für Pegasos 2

Download the file "up050404" either from the bplan homepage (only working under macOS with "Save as...") or via Wayback Machine. The file "extract_rom_from_updater" (direct download) is available on the Qmiga project page and is needed to extract a Pegasos2.rom from it. There is also a description of how to use the "updater".

an unarchiving tool that can unpack LHA-packed files, such as 7-zip. There are similar tools for Linux and macOS that can do this.

the freeware tool UltraISO (Windows), a tool that can open and edit ISO files. There are also similar tools for Linux and macOS that can do this.

1.2. Creating a QEMU hard disk image

Via Console/Shell/Terminal under Windows/Linux/Mac:

qemu-img (.exe) create -f raw -o size=2G hd.img

2G here stands for 2 gigabyte hard disk size and can be individually adjusted depending on how large the virtual hard disk is to become. For the beginning, I recommend not going higher than 2GB. Important: to create the hd.img, you must be in the QEMU directory.

1.3 Adaptation of the installation medium

Before we can boot with the Pegasos 2 emulation under QEMU, the installation medium must be adapted. First you should unpack the archive AmigaOs4.1 Update 3 and search for the file "siliconmotion502.chip" in the unpacked folder "Files_Sam460ex/Kickstart".

Now copy the file "siliconmotion502.chip" to your AmigaOS 4.1 FE Pegasos2InstallCD.ISO with the help of UltraIso into the directory /System/Kickstart. Then you only have to open the file "Kicklayout" in the Kickstart and /System/Kickstart folders with a text editor and add the following line without "":

for the Kicklayout in Kickstart directory: "MODULE System/Kickstart/siliconmotion502.chip"
for the Kicklayout in System/Kickstart directory: "MODULE Kickstart/siliconmotion502.chip"

It is best to add the entry under MODULE System/Kickstart/PCIGraphics.card. Save the changes under UltraIso. The bootloader should not be affected by the changes and the Pegasos2InstallCD.ISO should still be bootable.

2. Booting QEMU

This is a pure basic command line to be able to boot from the Pegasos2InstallCD.ISO under QEMU. The paths to pegasos2.rom, hd.img and also to Pegasos2InstallCD.iso must be adjusted accordingly. Make sure you are in the QEMU directory and type in the following command line:

qemu-system-ppc -L pc-bios -M pegasos2 -cpu 7447
-bios /pfad/zum/pegasos2.rom -vga none -device sm501
-drive if=none,id=cd,file=/pfad/zum/Pegasos2InstallCD-53.54.iso,format=raw
-device ide-cd,drive=cd,bus=ide.1
-drive if=none,id=hd,file=/pfad/zu/eure/hd.img,format=raw
-device ide-hd,drive=hd,bus=ide.0
-device rtl8139,netdev=net0
-netdev user,id=net0
rtc base=localtime -serial stdio

Under MacOs, the line -display cocoa or -display sdl must also be entered, otherwise no window will open. If everything has worked, QEMU welcomes you with the Pegasos2 SmartFirmware.

Now simply enter the following command:

boot cd amigaboot.of

The SmartFirmware should now boot AmigaOS 4.1. The installation of AmigaOS 4.1 will then proceed as usual: partition the hard disk, install the boot loader, etc.
An illustrated pdf instruction can be found on the pages of Amedia Computer France.

After the installation on your virtual hard disk and after ejecting the installation CD (ISO), the command

boot hd:0 amigaboot.of

under the SmartFirmware to boot from your virtual hard disk:

For some reason, which is not yet known, the first boot process after installation starts in Pal-LowRes mode and there is incorrect screen display. However, the problem can be easily solved by simply calling System/Prefs/Screenmode and selecting a 16-bit screen there.

Known problems:

Using -cpu 7447 with Altivec support will not display the GUI/window output correctly for some SDL applications, use -cpu g3 instead.
After update FE 2 it is possible that your network connection becomes unstable, if this is the case please copy the older rtl8139.device from the Pegasos install.iso to system/devs/Networks on your installation HD.
Nvram is not yet emulated, so the firmware's environment variables are not preserved, so the boot command must be entered at every startup
Currently, the maximum resolution is limited to 1440x900 16 bit under the Qemu Pegasos2 emulation.

(dr)

[News message: 20. Apr. 2023, 21:24] [Comments: 3 - 20. Jul. 2023, 10:58]
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