Bash on TOS

[LuigiThirty]

I’m trying to install the last version of GNU bash from the UMich Archive on my ST since VBCC doesn’t work with gulam’s environment variables. I have drive F: set up as a GNU drive with /bin, /etc, and /usr folders. I put bash in /bin. When I run it, I get a fork error. No commands work. Do I need to install a library? The readme doesn’t specify and it only came with a binary. I’m running TOS 2.06 on a 68000.

[mikro]

I'd imagine you need a MiNT version to make it work as it provides a fork() implementation.

[BlankVector]

Yes, bash can run on TOS, but due to the lack of fork() you can't do anything with it. It only makes sense with FreeMiNT.

As an alternative, if you need a simple shell for TOS, you can give a try to EmuCON. It is shipped with EmuTOS, but it is actually a small TOS program which can run on any version of Atari TOS. Get emucon-0.9.9.1.zip there. Note: EmuCON does not support environment variables (yet).

[arf]

I’m trying to install the last version of GNU bash from the UMich Archive on my ST since VBCC doesn’t work with gulam’s environment variables. I have drive F: set up as a GNU drive with /bin, /etc, and /usr folders. I put bash in /bin. When I run it, I get a fork error. No commands work. Do I need to install a library? The readme doesn’t specify and it only came with a binary. I’m running TOS 2.06 on a 68000.

Maybe "Mupfel.ttp" (part of the Gemini desktop project, but also runs standalone) helps. It is quite capable and runs on SingleTOS.

[LuigiThirty]

I found the slightly older bash-1.10 package on the archive and it works on vanilla TOS. I’ll look at the other shells too.

[LuigiThirty]

I also found some recently-ported tools to MiNT over here that claim to also work with TOS through MiNTlib. I downloaded its nano package and ran it in bash. It runs and everything but... the CTRL key doesn't do anything, so it's pretty useless. Does anyone else use these that got it working on plain TOS 2?

[BlankVector]

I also found some recently-ported tools to MiNT over here that claim to also work with TOS through MiNTlib.

That's my page.
Indeed, that software also run on plain TOS, because it is compiled with MiNTLib. MiNTLib is smart enough to use MiNT features if available, or fall back to TOS features otherwise (i.e. long vs. short file names). But MiNTLib can only fail on plain TOS for advanced functions like multitasking fork().

About the Control issue, that's probably a Nurses problem. The terminal definition file must be put somewhere, I'm not sure if it is even possible on plain TOS.

Really, all that software is mainly designed for full FreeMiNT environment. Experience will be poor on plain TOS, in any case.

[mikro]

About the Control issue, that's probably a Nurses problem. The terminal definition file must be put somewhere, I'm not sure if it is even possible on plain TOS.

Really, all that software is mainly designed for full FreeMiNT environment. Experience will be poor on plain TOS, in any case.

Just for the record, it is possible to have a curses-based app even on plain TOS -- see PARCP for example. One way is to specify so called fallback mode and embed the mode definition directly in the library.

[LuigiThirty]

I also found some recently-ported tools to MiNT over here that claim to also work with TOS through MiNTlib.

That's my page.
Indeed, that software also run on plain TOS, because it is compiled with MiNTLib. MiNTLib is smart enough to use MiNT features if available, or fall back to TOS features otherwise (i.e. long vs. short file names). But MiNTLib can only fail on plain TOS for advanced functions like multitasking fork().

About the Control issue, that's probably a Nurses problem. The terminal definition file must be put somewhere, I'm not sure if it is even possible on plain TOS.

Really, all that software is mainly designed for full FreeMiNT environment. Experience will be poor on plain TOS, in any case.

It’s a cool project! Most of the command line tools I tried work fine in plain TOS.

The emacs 18.57 package I installed from UMich came with a vt52 termcap, plus Geneva comes with an ST termcap as well. I did notice that the package requires the .emacs file to bind a bunch of keys (including control) on start. It functions well enough and having a working emacs is pretty cool in TOS.

I combined the emacs and Geneva termcaps, then ran your ported tic to create an /etc/terminfo database which the nano port picks up (since it recognizes TERM=geneva). If I can figure out the right way to bind CTRL I can at least get nano working, which would be neat. I’ve tried TERM=st52, vt52, and Geneva.

I haven’t used FreeMiNT but it presumably doesn’t work very well on an 8MHz ST with 4 megs of RAM.

[BlankVector]

If I can figure out the right way to bind CTRL I can at least get nano working, which would be neat. I’ve tried TERM=st52, vt52, and Geneva.

I'm not sure to understand the issue with Ctrl key. Ctrl is a dead key, it can't be used alone (at least with TOS/MiNT functions). Maybe you have trouble with combinations such as Ctrl+X. I don't know if such combinations are supposed to be supported by Ncurses for TOS.

I haven’t used FreeMiNT but it presumably doesn’t work very well on an 8MHz ST with 4 megs of RAM.

That's the contrary: it works very well. It is just a matter of putting MINT.PRG in the AUTO folder.
However I didn't do that with FreeMiNT on ST recently. Except a recent bug, it should work.
Maybe you will have to tweak MINT.CNF a bit.
Other people may have more information regarding to plain ST.

[LuigiThirty]

If I can figure out the right way to bind CTRL I can at least get nano working, which would be neat. I’ve tried TERM=st52, vt52, and Geneva.

I'm not sure to understand the issue with Ctrl key. Ctrl is a dead key, it can't be used alone (at least with TOS/MiNT functions). Maybe you have trouble with combinations such as Ctrl+X. I don't know if such combinations are supposed to be supported by Ncurses for TOS.

Sorry, yes. CTRL+X does nothing. I did figure out though that CTRL+C will abort a ported program... so I guess it's no good in plain TOS. Old emacs 18.75 is unaffected - Ctrl+C works as it should instead of exiting the program.

I haven’t used FreeMiNT but it presumably doesn’t work very well on an 8MHz ST with 4 megs of RAM.

That's the contrary: it works very well. It is just a matter of putting MINT.PRG in the AUTO folder.
However I didn't do that with FreeMiNT on ST recently. Except a recent bug, it should work.
Maybe you will have to tweak MINT.CNF a bit.
Other people may have more information regarding to plain ST.

Huh. I'll give that a try then. I just got an UltraSatan for my ST so anything more than TOS+patches is new to me.

[LuigiThirty]

Hmm. I got MiNT 1.18 going with MultiTOS but I can't seem to get it and the included XaAES cooperating. It loads the 68000 version of the XaAES kernel module then crashes with a bus error.

Similarly, MiNT + Geneva results in TOS freezing at the Geneva splash screen with the busy bee.

I can still load TeraDesk if I want to see the MultiTOS desktop behind my TeraDesk desktop.

[mikro]

I'd recommend to try the official / preconfigured snapshot from here: https://github.com/freemint/freemint.gi ... master/new ... just unpack on C:, setup your desktop in xaaes.cnf and give it a go.

[LuigiThirty]

Aha! Perfect. I'll give that a try.

[LuigiThirty]

I got it installed and working! I have a tcsh window running microemacs on my ST. It's usable on 8MHz but the main complaint is only having 4MB of RAM. Gotta save up a thousand bucks for a TT030 or a Falcon! Pretty neat curiosity on a stock ST, at least.