BeeKey Atari on a key and now BeePi

[Faucon2001]

Hi,

I am pleased to introduce BeeKey, a self contained USB key booting straight into EasyAraMint.
It's light (1.5 MB), fast (30 sec boot on USB3 key), fits on a 4 GB key with 2.5 GB of persistent storage and boots on Mac and PC.
I have decided to go with Ubuntu Mini Remix as the base, a lightweight terminal only distro made for USB keys, include EasyAraMint setup with network access, printing capability, and the basic apps to start working and developing.
It should boot on any machine able to boot Ubuntu on a USB key ; so far I have been reported 75% success rate.

It's a first beta, so many things still have to be done, but it's fully workable as it is.
Please read carefully the FAQ which explains the last steps for setting up BeeKey. It can be accessed with Netsurf.

Limitations :
- No autozoom mode as Aranym use the frame buffer. You'd better work at native resolution (no solution)
- Mouse is hardly visible when Aranym setup is opened : it's a limitation of aranym with frame buffer.
- Retina display or 4K screen are working but pixels are far to small to be usable (no solution)
- Bluetooth keyboards and mouse are not recognized (missing driver ; may be fixed) You can use USB wireless dongle instead.
- Track/touchpads are not recognized. (?)
- You need 2 differents installs to boot on Mac and PC (?)
- Not all hardware are supported ; laptops seems to have more issues. (?)
- I have to rewrite the shutdown app which is not working as I need, and write a config app to ease up the setup, so now it's a go between.(Please read the FAQ)
- More that you should discover

The iso and install instructions can be found here : https://sites.google.com/site/emaappsar ... anymonakey

Enjoy,

[Gaiyan]

Good job! Would be great to have this on Raspberry Pi as well.

[Playmobil]

Congratulations Philippe ! Amazing ! Just tested on my PC working great. Net is automatically recognized, sounds working nicely (no problem of "tempo" like with the easyaramint distrib, I have noticed one problem :

Sorry for french language !

Quel travail Philippe ! Impressionnant ! Rapide et stable, j'ai changé le KEYBOARD.TBL pour le français, nickel, par contre impossible pour le moment de changer la résolution d'écran, ma résolution native est 1680x1050, mais là il est en 1024x768 je pense... Ca viendrais plutôt d'ubuntu que d'aranym car l'affichage n'est pas en fullscreen... Mais ca vient surtout de mon PC, car je suis en multiple écrans, et je pense qu'il se base sur le plus petit des 4...
Et second problème, je voulais poster depuis Netsurf, mais impoossible, soit Netsurf se ferme, soit l'ordi se fige complètement... Je n'ai pas essayé encore de poster sur d'autre forum que atari-forum par contre (à voir.) EDIT : Après 1 ou 2 reboot, ca à l'air de fonctionner, j'edite sous Netsurf)

Merci pour ton remerciement sur la page beekey quand on ouvre Netsurf ! ^^

Par contre quel est la touche pour ouvrir le menu d'Aranym ? Sur windows c'est "Pause Break" mais sous Ubuntu ???? EDIT : Alt+F12 (vu dans la FAQ...)

En tout cas Félicitations et merci !!!

[Faucon2001]

Hi Playmobil,

Thanks for your good words.
Atari forum being English, I'll answer in English

Aranym setup menu can be opened with : alt+ F12
Default screen resolution is 1024x768.
You can change it in Aranym setup, screen resolution, enter at the bottom right the customized resolution or 0 and 0 if you want the Aranym to choose max resolution automatically.
Now, everything is explained in the FAQ when you open Netsurf : so please Read The F*****ing Manual.
En Français: lit la pu**** de doc
En cas de soucis avec l'anglais, écrit moi par e-mail.

For Netsurf and Atari Forum, I'll Check to see what is the issue.

[Playmobil]

Sorry for french language, my english is not good enough !

I've read the FAQ after posting here ! For Netsurf and atari-forum, the issue is random, sometimes it's ok, somtimes crash... Not tested yet on other forums...

ScummVM working great, I never can able to use it with XaAes, just with MyAES... Good job ! Idem for Doom & consort ! Nice !

I need to set the clock, and I forgot howto... And after I quit Beekey, and reboot in Windows, my clock is - 2 hours, don't now why...

[qq1975b]

cool! I didn't succeed trying to start Aranym under Ubuntu. I will try this. Thank you.

[simonsunnyboy]

Nice idea! I also support the idea of a Rasp Pi version, for me it would be a reason to buy one.

[MM41]

Merci Philippe

[wongck]

Rasp Pi 3 +1

[Faucon2001]

-> Playmobil : Il n'y avait aucune critique de ma part, ton niveau d'anglais est bien supérieur à beaucoup sur ce forum. Continu dans ce sens !
The clock is setup by synctime from wongck and it uses Mint Timezone definition. By default it's Mexico
To change the time zone,
go to u:/etc
Show Info of locatime (it's a link)
At the bottom of the form, line "To : ", Double click the link to open the file selector.
Go to u:/usr/share/zoneinfo and choose the right timezone file (in your case /europe/paris )

Rasp Pi 3 : I had in a short period of time 5 requests for a Pi 3 key port, out of 10 users : it sounds like a strong demand
Seriously I didn't thought about it before as I don't have a Pi.
Now, the idea sounds interesting to me, it's not so complicated to do as most of the work has been already done, I have found an Ubuntu distrib for Pi similar to the one I use, Aranym has been ported to Pi : so, it's feasible and as it is a cheap solution it can be interesting for more persons.
I first have to find a Pi and then a bit of free time ; I'll keep you posted.

By the way, how do Aranym perform on a Pi? I have no idea of the real perf.

[wongck]

Been wanting to get a Pi 3 but no use case for it... This may be the use case for me.

[qq1975b]

Yes, great idea. Pi is perfect for this purpose.

[Faucon2001]

I have ordered a Raspberry Pi3. It should arrive next week. So eventualy there will be a Pi version

I have been reported an issue with screen resolution: Aranym autozoom is not working and therefore on very big screen it's barely visible.
If I remember well readings, it seems to be a limitation of Aranym in framebuffer mode.
So the only option I see, would be to modify Linux boot resolution, and let the screen do the scaling, but I haven't found a way to force it.
I have tried to pass "vga" parameter to the kernel at boot, but it doesn't help.
Grub is not used to manage the boot on this Ubunut version, so no solution from this side.
Any idea how to do that?

Sent from Netsurf

[ctirad]

Well, if someone will fix JIT on ARM it would be interesting, indeed. I could crosscompile a lightweight underlying linux OS.

[Faucon2001]

I didn't there was an issue with JIT on Pi.
What is the problem?

[ctirad]

On the Pi3 and Ubuntu mate 15.10 aranym-jit crashed immediately after start. I had no time to try it on the 16.04 or to build it myself, though.

[vido]

This is great idea to have Aranym booting USB key!
I just wanted to install it on the key but I cant download it
It downloads up to 200KB and then connection aborts.

Is there any other source to download it?

[Faucon2001]

Thanks Ctirad : I should receive the pi3 tonight. I hope we can find a solution to this issue.
Vido: humm strange. I have tried in the morning and it downloaded the 1.1GB archive in 4 min without problem. May be the site was down for maintenance. Could you try again please? If it still doesn't work I'll find another way to send it.

[vido]

Faucon2001: It seems there is a problem with my Chrome browser. I tried right now again and it is still the same. But later I tried with wget under CentOS and it worked as it should. But it is strange that downloads from the other sites works in my Chrome browser.

[Faucon2001]

Strange indeed. I am using Firefox and have no issue.
May be a security parameter?
At least you have it now

[wongck]

Vido: humm strange. I have tried in the morning and it downloaded the 1.1GB archive in 4 min without problem. May be the site was down for maintenance. Could you try again please? If it still doesn't work I'll find another way to send it.

Tried downloading it and the time needed hovers between 9-12 hours. Gave up after couple of minutes.

[Faucon2001]

I have received the Raspberry Pi3 tonight and I couldn't resist doing a quick test.

I installed Minibian 2016-03-12, Aranym 1.02, an old AFROS I had on the server : linux side boot in 21 sec, 9 more for Aranym and AFROS : not bad !
Aranym standard runs well, with a raw processor power 30% a CT60 100-25, but with a 10x video bus, 4x VDI and 44x disk access.
It's not the big deal, but it's enough for a very compatible TOS 4.04+NVDI + Magic system.


Aranym JIT gives much better results : 2,26x raw processor power vs a CT60 100-25 but a slower FPU and 3D processing. A whooping 55X video bus, 8x VDI and 50x disk access. Aranym-jit has been rock solid during all the tests and a regular editing use ... but once I set up the bridge for internet, things have started to go wrong with numerous crashes. I will have to look deeper into that.


So, not bad at all for a 35$ machine. Looks like a good option for a dedicated Atari machine.

[Faucon2001]

Humm, seems like my provider is giving trouble
Wongck : I sent you a direct link via PM

[Gaiyan]

Oh sweet! Can't wait. This is awesome.

[vido]

Strange indeed. I am using Firefox and have no issue.
May be a security parameter?
At least you have it now

Wongck reported the same issue.
But yes, I got it and it works great. Really good job!!!