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IcarOS Goes 64 Bit

Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
09 Oct 2019 21:05


Most famous AROS distro is now 64-bit (AMD64)
   
    Its experimental and not all x86 feats yet work
   
    See Current Status
    EXTERNAL LINK   
    Intresting hope and note
   
    "it will bring real advantages like big size memory handling, better filesystems, updated system software and, hopefully in a near future, also multiprocessing support, to speed up multithreaded operations. But, pay attention! ABIv1 64bit AROS can't run ABIv0 32bit software, so all applications must be properly adapted, corrected, recompiled and bundled. For further information about the need for this little revolution, please read the following post:"
   
    Pros and Cons of 64-bit
    EXTERNAL LINK   
PIC  Same AROS as always, just first Amiga to go 64 under the hood!
  EXTERNAL LINK 
-------------------
  Yes, you've read it right. It's time to enter the 64-bit Amiga era by the front door, taking advantage of modern x86-64 processors like Core and Ryzen. But beware: this is pre-alpha, un-stable, un-finished, un-reliable software. It's good to see it in action, to check what's working and what's not, to get familiar with latest AROS development, but it's definitely no good yet for everyday's use (which also means that if you didn't consider 32-bit Icaros Desktop ready for this scope... well, this is even worse).
-------------------------

  Extreme Alpha Download
  DOWNLOAD ICAROS 64 PRE-ALPHA WIP ISO
  (785 MB, .zip file format)
  EXTERNAL LINK 
1. you can't install it natively onto a hard drive. Or, better, you can, if you manually run InstallAROS from a shell (icon has been removed to avoid temptation). Problem is that it won't boot afterwards.

2. you can install it onto a 64bit Ubuntu/like distribution. Just sh linux-hosted-install.sh from the Linux shell. For now, we've limited memory size to 8 GB. Edit the environment variable Icaros/hostedmem to add more memory.

3. Many programs, drivers, games etc won't run. Or they will crash. Or produce weird errors. Remember: x86-64 AROS is still work-in-prog alpha software, with some parts barely mantained

4. gcc isn't working at this stage. I know you're eager to compile your software for 64bit AROS, but the only way to do this, for now, is using the AROS build system on a Linux machine.

5. We need help. We absolutely need help. We disperately need help. Please, don't send flowers, but help improving 64 bit AROS and 64 bit software ports as much you can. I talk expecially to you, my brave coders!

6. Have I told you we need your help? For the rest... Enjoy!

SPECIAL THANKS
I (Paolo Besser) would like to thank everyone who helped me reaching this stage, which include all AROS and 3rd party developers I bugged and asked help for. They patiently explained me how to compile, how to use AROS build system's metamakes, they fixed my mmakefile.src files when I could not understand what to do, they even patiently built their programs and sent them to me for inclusion. ALB42 sent me a working executable of Leu this morning. Without your help, I wouldn't be writing these lines.

PROBLEMS?
Please head to this topic on AROS-EXEC if you need to file a bug report or to ask help for this pre-alpha release:
> Icaros 64 PRE-ALPHA WIP discussion


Sebastian Blanco

Posts 148
13 Oct 2019 02:55


What is the point of aros being 64 bit ?, there no memory protection no smp i suppose ?.



Steve Ferrell

Posts 424
13 Oct 2019 04:01


Sebastian Blanco wrote:

What is the point of aros being 64 bit ?, there no memory protection no smp i suppose ?.
 

The point of 64-bit is being able to access more than 4GB of RAM, large disk access and manipulating files that are larger than 4GB in size.



Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
13 Oct 2019 05:59


Sebastian Blanco wrote:

What is the point of aros being 64 bit ?, there no memory protection no smp i suppose ?.
 

"it will bring real advantages like big size memory handling, better filesystems, updated system software and, hopefully in a near future, also multiprocessing support, to speed up multithreaded operations."


Xan X-vision
(Needs Verification)
Posts 35/ 1
13 Oct 2019 13:12


Sebastian Blanco wrote:

  What is the point of aros being 64 bit ?, there no memory protection no smp i suppose ?.
 
 

 
  Yes, there is a kind of alpha version of SMP working for some time now, and a basic control of memory.
 
  EXTERNAL LINK 
EXTERNAL LINK


Mike Kopack

Posts 268
13 Oct 2019 13:23


Off topic, but apparently there was also a VERY preliminary version of MorphOS running on x86-64 (AMD64) shown at A34...


Renee Cousins
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 142
14 Oct 2019 23:26


Steve Ferrell wrote:

Sebastian Blanco wrote:

  What is the point of aros being 64 bit ?, there no memory protection no smp i suppose ?.
 
 

 
  The point of 64-bit is being able to access more than 4GB of RAM, large disk access and manipulating files that are larger than 4GB in size.
 

How does the data or addressing width of the CPU have anything to do with the logical disk addressing on the hard disk?


Nikos Tomatsidis

Posts 66
14 Oct 2019 23:32


Renee Cousins wrote:

Steve Ferrell wrote:

 
Sebastian Blanco wrote:

  What is the point of aros being 64 bit ?, there no memory protection no smp i suppose ?.
   
 

 
  The point of 64-bit is being able to access more than 4GB of RAM, large disk access and manipulating files that are larger than 4GB in size.
 
 

  How does the data or addressing width of the CPU have anything to do with the logical disk addressing on the hard disk?

I would rather say the point is to be able to run AROS on 64-bit systems hosted. Every PC now is 64-bit. As noticed MorphOS team boot on AMD64 and run PPC emulated. If you are interested in NG Amiga systems I think that is the most interesting.



Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
14 Oct 2019 23:46


Renee Cousins wrote:

  How does the data or addressing width of the CPU have anything to do with the logical disk addressing on the hard disk?
 

 
  If I understand it well, none directly. But both has to be 64-bit (as opposed by not being in current AmigaOS implementations) to be able to handle it. Could be implemented separately, but seems to work best in conjunction too.

Mike Kopack wrote:

Off topic, but apparently there was also a VERY preliminary version of MorphOS running on x86-64 (AMD64) shown at A34...

Congrats on MOS going AMD64. Interest to hear about needed
board chipset and gfx. Hope AMD will be supported.
 


Steve Ferrell

Posts 424
15 Oct 2019 18:29


Renee Cousins wrote:

 
Steve Ferrell wrote:

 
Sebastian Blanco wrote:

What is the point of aros being 64 bit ?, there no memory protection no smp i suppose ?.
   

   
The point of 64-bit is being able to access more than 4GB of RAM, large disk access and manipulating files that are larger than 4GB in size.
   

How does the data or addressing width of the CPU have anything to do with the logical disk addressing on the hard disk?

 
 
A 2TB disk limit applies to all 32-bit operating systems because the largest number that can be represented by using 32-bits is 4,294,967,295. This translates to 2.199 TB of capacity by using 512-byte sectors.
 
In layman's terms, if a CPU is unable to count high enough, it can't access all the installed RAM above 4GB nor make use of all the hard drive storage space that may exist above 2TB.
 
Learn more here.  It's Windows-specific but the principals apply to other operating systems as well:  EXTERNAL LINK 


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
18 Oct 2019 08:31


Note that IcarOS 64-bit currently cannot be booted, but hosted e.g. in Linux
  EXTERNAL LINK 

posts 11