What TOS do I want? FireTOS, EmuTOS, Mint ?

[macsociety]

Confused on which of these TOS, I think all 3 will run on the FireBee, would someone like myself want to use.

I am an old Atarian from Mega 2 ST days with TOS 1.02 or 1.04 Rainbow TOS. My TT has 3.06.

Been ages since I really used Atari so now in 2011 thinking of buying a FireBee, what TOS would I want to run on FireBee?

Is there Pros and Cons for each of the 3 offerings?

And what are the Pros and Cons?

TJ

[Dark Willow]

Confused on which of these TOS, I think all 3 will run on the FireBee, would someone like myself want to use.

I am an old Atarian from Mega 2 ST days with TOS 1.02 or 1.04 Rainbow TOS. My TT has 3.06.

Been ages since I really used Atari so now in 2011 thinking of buying a FireBee, what TOS would I want to run on FireBee?

Is there Pros and Cons for each of the 3 offerings?

And what are the Pros and Cons?

TJ

MiNT Is Not TOS (as they used to say). It won't ship on the ROM with the Firebee, and you still will have to have a TOS in ROM for certain things.

AFAIK the Firebee will have three different TOS versions (a patched Falcon TOS 4, EmuTos and FireTos) and can configured by the user to use/boot any of them, so you don't have to pick one or the other from the factory - just use which ever you want and change between them as you wish. I find the idea of FireTOS v. interesting, as if/when I get a Firebee, I prob. wouldn't bother with MiNT, and the idea of a modernised TOS with native support for things like ethernet, modern graphics modes and USB seems pretty sweet

[macsociety]

Is FireTOS MultiTasking? Therefore running multiple apps at same time?

TJ

Confused on which of these TOS, I think all 3 will run on the FireBee, would someone like myself want to use.

I am an old Atarian from Mega 2 ST days with TOS 1.02 or 1.04 Rainbow TOS. My TT has 3.06.

Been ages since I really used Atari so now in 2011 thinking of buying a FireBee, what TOS would I want to run on FireBee?

Is there Pros and Cons for each of the 3 offerings?

And what are the Pros and Cons?

TJ

MiNT Is Not TOS (as they used to say). It won't ship on the ROM with the Firebee, and you still will have to have a TOS in ROM for certain things.

AFAIK the Firebee will have three different TOS versions (a patched Falcon TOS 4, EmuTos and FireTos) and can configured by the user to use/boot any of them, so you don't have to pick one or the other from the factory - just use which ever you want and change between them as you wish. I find the idea of FireTOS v. interesting, as if/when I get a Firebee, I prob. wouldn't bother with MiNT, and the idea of a modernised TOS with native support for things like ethernet, modern graphics modes and USB seems pretty sweet

[Dal]

No - if you want multitasking, then you will need FreeMint or Linux (when it's available)

[christos]

Isn't Firetos the patched TOS 4?

[Mathias]

Well, FireeTOS is a patched 4.04 Falcon TOS (with official licence). We have two modes of FireTOS - selectable at bootup: "full TOS 4.04" with the new goodies like SFTP folder mounted network capabilities for onboard ethernet, and full USB. "TOS for MiNT" has disabled network to use m0n0s new MiNT-Net driver etc.

These two are pretty the same, just with things that are done by MiNT disabled.

[m0n0]

Btw. I tested my network Driver with freemint under "Full TOS 4.04" - it seems to work ok, it doesn't conflict with the existing drivers, because they are shutdown.

[joska]

AFAIK the Firebee will have three different TOS versions (a patched Falcon TOS 4, EmuTos and FireTos) and can

The Firebee comes with two TOS versions - EmuTOS and FireTOS. You select between these either with a DIP-switch or using a boot-menu.

Currently FireTOS is the one you'd want to use. It's a heavily patched 4.04, with much of it replaced with open source alternatives tuned to work on the Firebee. It has a lot of features not seen in any other TOS version:

- It can run 68k programs on the Firebee.
- It has network support (STiNG compatible).
- AC97 sound support through a GSXB/Milanblaster compatible XBIOS API.
- It supports USB mice, keyboards and mass storage devices (with FAT16).
- It supports SD-cards (with FAT16).
- It has an integrated debug console available through the serial port. This will allow debugging of the OS itself.
- It has integrated TFTP client and server, as well as an integrated HTTP-server with debug/disassembling features.
- It has built-in support for Radeon PCI-cards. Just connect a Radeon, no drivers necessary.

FireTOS is a really fantastic achievement by Didier Mequignon.

change between them as you wish. I find the idea of FireTOS v. interesting, as if/when I get a Firebee, I prob. wouldn't bother with MiNT, and the idea of a modernised TOS with native support for things like ethernet, modern graphics modes and USB seems pretty sweet

Believe me, you'd want to use MiNT as well. With MiNT, you can access almost any SD-card and USB stick/disk straight out of the box, as it supports DOS FAT32. It also has proper networking - FireTOS has a lightweight implementation. Not to mention stuff like multitasking and a lot of tools that simply doesn't work under TOS.

[joska]

Btw. I tested my network Driver with freemint under "Full TOS 4.04" - it seems to work ok, it doesn't conflict with the existing drivers, because they are shutdown.

There are other stuff that's disabled too, like the RAM-disk (MiNT has it's own).

[Dark Willow]

AFAIK the Firebee will have three different TOS versions (a patched Falcon TOS 4, EmuTos and FireTos) and can

The Firebee comes with two TOS versions - EmuTOS and FireTOS. You select between these either with a DIP-switch or using a boot-menu.

Currently FireTOS is the one you'd want to use. It's a heavily patched 4.04, with much of it replaced with open source alternatives tuned to work on the Firebee. It has a lot of features not seen in any other TOS version:

- It can run 68k programs on the Firebee.
- It has network support (STiNG compatible).
- AC97 sound support through a GSXB/Milanblaster compatible XBIOS API.
- It supports USB mice, keyboards and mass storage devices (with FAT16).
- It supports SD-cards (with FAT16).
- It has an integrated debug console available through the serial port. This will allow debugging of the OS itself.
- It has integrated TFTP client and server, as well as an integrated HTTP-server with debug/disassembling features.
- It has built-in support for Radeon PCI-cards. Just connect a Radeon, no drivers necessary.

FireTOS is a really fantastic achievement by Didier Mequignon.

That is very impressive, I didn't know about the "out of the box" support for Radeon and SD-cards, that's awesome! Brings up a few questions (doesn't every answer do that?) to:

* Will STing itself no longer be needed, and we basically get a TCP/IP stack built into the new TOS? If so, does that mean we get DHCP support "out of the box"?

* Does the FAT16 ability also include hard-drives - 2gb partitions?

* If using a Radeon, can FireTOS take advantage of the hardware acceleration for MPEG-2, H.264, and the likes or is it more basic? (BTW: What models are supported?)

Either way, I agree Didier has done everyone proud. Fantastic work!

Believe me, you'd want to use MiNT as well. With MiNT, you can access almost any SD-card and USB stick/disk straight out of the box, as it supports DOS FAT32. It also has proper networking - FireTOS has a lightweight implementation. Not to mention stuff like multitasking and a lot of tools that simply doesn't work under TOS.

Yeah, I'm just a TOS die hard, and I really like the whole concept of no-thrills embedded/ROM OSes

[joska]

* Will STing itself no longer be needed, and we basically get a TCP/IP stack built into the new TOS? If so, does that mean we get DHCP support "out of the box"?

STiNG will not be needed. I don't even thing it will work. FireTOS has the STiNG/STiK network API built-in. But there is no DCHP. If there is a DHCP client for STiNG it will probably work on the Firebee too.

* Does the FAT16 ability also include hard-drives - 2gb partitions?

I think the limit is 2Gb. FireTOS understands DOS partitioning, so you can partition the disk/CF-card/SD-card/USB-stick on a PC and it will work fine on the Firebee.

* If using a Radeon, can FireTOS take advantage of the hardware acceleration for MPEG-2, H.264, and the likes or is it more basic? (BTW: What models are supported?)

Maybe it will be in the future. You'll never know with Didier, he's a wizard. But currently there's no support for video decoding. I don't know which Radeon cards are supported. The same as in CTPCI I guess.

Yeah, I'm just a TOS die hard, and I really like the whole concept of no-thrills embedded/ROM OSes

I find working with TOS extremely limiting. But I've heard that someone has tried Geneva on the Firebee with success, that's pretty cool. TOS+Geneva is probably the most light-weight, usable TOS around.

[Dark Willow]

STiNG will not be needed. I don't even thing it will work. FireTOS has the STiNG/STiK network API built-in. But there is no DCHP. If there is a DHCP client for STiNG it will probably work on the Firebee too.

Shame about DHCP (AFAIK there isn't anything, but I've been out of the loop so...) but having basic network functionality right there should be good.

I think the limit is 2Gb. FireTOS understands DOS partitioning, so you can partition the disk/CF-card/SD-card/USB-stick on a PC and it will work fine on the Firebee.

That's exactly the sort of thing I had in mind...

I find working with TOS extremely limiting. But I've heard that someone has tried Geneva on the Firebee with success, that's pretty cool. TOS+Geneva is probably the most light-weight, usable TOS around.

Oh gods, I had forgotten all about Geneva. That takes me waaaay back! If that runs on Firebee, that could be a good idea. Will have to see if I can dig up more info on that.

Should give it a try on my STe when I get the chance too...

[joska]

Shame about DHCP (AFAIK there isn't anything, but I've been out of the loop so...) but having basic network functionality right there should be good.

If you need DHCP you can use MiNTnet.