CT60e with MINT & Netusbee installation

[guibrush]

HI!
I’m trying to understand how to install the Netusbee on my Falcon with CT60e that run currently under MINT. I’m not sure what is the correct way to proceed, as the dedicated page on Lothareck’s web page is now empty. I think that I need to copy the driver somewhere in MINT and then edit some files that are related to the network. I think I found t them in c:/mint/sys/net

https://imgur.com/a/BYTdNBE

I wondered if I could edit them with the shell, but when I launch TOS2WIN, the shell option is greyed out, no idea why:

https://imgur.com/a/vUpSR2K

as you see, I'm not very educated on the subject, I apologize if my question seems stupid (it probably is). Thank you very much if anyone can enlighten me a little?

Thanks!

[Mark_G]

On my Falcon060, I have mint, but installed sting for network and used an original netusbee bought in 2007.

Info to install :
https://web.archive.org/web/20090107172 ... tsting.htm

[mikro]

It seems that you are using Vanilla MiNT, right? In that case just follow its installation guide: https://atari.joska.no/VanillaMiNT and basically just copy the XIF driver to the location specified there.

If you want shell, either install https://freemint.github.io/#snapshots or a full distro like EasyMiNT: https://atari.grossmaggul.de/home.php?l ... e=easymint. Both contain also Qed, a GEM text editor.

[Mark_G]

For Mint + Mintnet, see also :
https://sites.google.com/site/probehous ... t-on-atari

[guibrush]

Hi, thanks all for all your answers!

@mikro: looks like I'm using VanillaMINT, yes (I didn't do the installation, it's an image that come from a friend of mine that has a Falcon too). Your explanation make total sense, thanks!
Now my problem is that I downloaded all the files on the webpage of Lotharek here:
https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=46
but I failed to find this XIF file. Sorry to ask, but is there another place to get it?

Thanks for helping a noob in the Atari world

EDIT:
ha, found it! the file is called NE2KENEC.XIF, I found it in another CF card with a bootable MINT that I know was working with the Netusbee. As you said, I copied it into /mint/1-19-cur/, fired up the "networking" tool, chosen DHCP, and here we go: connection with my Amiga
Many, many thanks for your help, it was very simple, but I was already trying to edit files and everything where it was so simple than that.

https://imgur.com/a/Ddiv7kw

[mikro]

No wonder, the EtherNEC (and clones) drivers are quite tricky to find. As you can see at https://hardware.atari.org/ether (the original hardware project), you have two options: the original driver from Thomas or the new one from Odd.

The former is available at https://web.archive.org/web/20140810182 ... therne.zip (to spare you some reading, take ENEC3.MIF and rename it to ENEC3.XIF), the latter at https://assemsoft.atari.org/ne2k/index.html.

Personally I use Odd Skancke's driver, both the normal and CT2 (CT60) version.

EDIT: Oh nice, you've already made it! :)

[guibrush]

Yes, thanks to your help and very clear explanation : It is much appreciated, thanks! And thanks to Mark_G too!

[guibrush]

@mikro:
Small question: What transfer speed do you get with the Netusbee under Mint? I get around 60-80K/s, both in local FTP download and in download from the WEB. I've tried the two Odd's drivers, NE2KENEC.XIF and NE2KETC2.XIF, the latter is a little faster on the WEB but not in local FTP, and the ENEC3.XIF driver (renamed ENEC3.MIF) doesn't work. It is loaded during boot-up, but I have no connection.

What surprises me is that I've tested UIP-NET under TOS, and now I'm getting just over 500K/s!

[mikro]

The sad truth is that it depends on the client (i.e. the ftp application). UIP-TOOL uses its own TCP/IP stack (!) which is very small and optimised, so it offers the best results.

Then there is command line ftp from SpareMiNT which is perhaps the second-best, especially if downloading to /dev/ram, i.e. without I/O overhead.

Personally I use Litchi, it has been a while since I used it without Svethlana/CTPCI, IIRC it gives about 300 KB/s with NetUSBee. Certainly more than 100.

[guibrush]

ok, so my speed isn't good enough, can reach maximum 80Kb/s. I tried Litchi, AFTP and a direct download from Aminet.net in Highwire, the results are the same, about 80 Kb/s. I tried both Odd's drivers, without change. The old driver ENEC3.INF don't work at all, I have no connection.

Maybe it's related to the problem I have with displaying pics and access some webpage in Highwire...

[mikro]

Download this one: https://freemint.github.io/sparemint/sp ... s/ftp.html (find some tool to unpack rpms, there's plenty) and download something from your local server to /u/ram. It doesn't use gluestik, it should be the fastest possible method.

[guibrush]

okeyyyyyyy, now we dig into the real thing

I'm not sure if I do it right, I assume this muss me launched from the bash, therefore from tosWin2 ->Shell starten option.

I copied ftp in the u:bin directory, unpacked ftp.1.gz and placed ftp.1 in u:share/man/man1 and unpacked netrc.5.gz and placed netrc.5 in u:share/man/man5.
Then I tried to type "ftp" in the console, even changing the directory to /bin but....



But I'm not particulary confortable with Linux in general, it's probably me doing it totally wrong...

[mikro]

Actually, you did nothing wrong, I just forgot about one little detail and that is the need of having /etc configured properly.

I have it set up on my other Falcon so I can't give you a more concrete info but if you feel adventurous and want to extend your horizons ;) you can always install https://atari.grossmaggul.de/home.php?l ... e=easymint and its network package. That will give you many interesting command line tools (ftp included) and true unix environment. But you need an EXT2 (that's a filesystem) partition, installer can create one for you but it will delete all its data.

I strongly recommend to backup your whole C: beforehand. ;)

[guibrush]

ok, make sense now. I will try to test that, but on a scratch installation, I don't want to mess up the actual one, and I'm not a big fan of having a EXT2 partition.

Too bad that there is no faster ethernet card available for the Falcon (and a Supervidel)

[mikro]

Perhaps you already know it, SuoerVidel offered its own (Svetlana) and then there's CTPCI with the cheap RTL8139 cards. Both exceed 2 MiB/s on my setup.

[guibrush]

yes, this is why I badly want a Supervidel + Svetlana. Let's hope that Centuriontech can achieve this!
I don't want to go the route of the CTPCI, because I would like to have the falcon closed.

[guibrush]

I just read on the Exxos web page that if a Falcon don't have the clock patch installed, then in order to avoid cracking sound and instability one have to check that a 330R is soldered on R2216, R221 and R222.
I checked my motherboard and I have a 0 resistor value soldered on R221.
Can it be the cause of my problem?
Beside the problem with Highwire, the Falcon is stable and can run hours with more than 12 programs opened and with MP2 playback in continue.

Sorry, I only found the French version, but I think you get the idea




EDIT
I found something about adding a resistor on C302096 to a trace on the PCB in this video:
https://youtu.be/-4RtB7mLBPI?si=OzYp5BJFelPbezfT&t=2492



and I found a program apparently used by Atari to check if the Falcon called DMA2DSP-PRG. I run it and have only green on the screen:



In this case, is the replacement of the 0 Ohm with a 33 Ohm caps and/or the addition of the resistor on the PCB needed?

Thanks

[stormy]

0ohm is correct. Don't go messing with clock patches to get Highwire working. Clock patches are only needed for DMA sound issues. And don't install that termination resistor either, it's the worst clock patch available.

[stormy]

By the way there is another option for internet on the Falcon. Get a BlueSCSI V2 with a Pi PicoW (for WiFi) which not only gives you lots of awesome SCSI drives but also Daynaport Wifi support.

I get about 120k/s using my BlueSCSI.

[mikro]

@mikro:
Small question: What transfer speed do you get with the Netusbee under Mint? I get around 60-80K/s, both in local FTP download and in download from the WEB. I've tried the two Odd's drivers, NE2KENEC.XIF and NE2KETC2.XIF, the latter is a little faster on the WEB but not in local FTP, and the ENEC3.XIF driver (renamed ENEC3.MIF) doesn't work. It is loaded during boot-up, but I have no connection.

What surprises me is that I've tested UIP-NET under TOS, and now I'm getting just over 500K/s!

Since I'm a curious fellow with terrible memory, I wanted to try it on my machine, too.

So I used the identical setup I have for CTPCI (latest/last Litchi, latest FreeMiNT, latest gluestik) where I get over 2 MB/s, just with Lotharek's NetUSBee.

NE2KETC2.XIF - download 330 KB/s, upload 290 KB/s
ENEC3.XIF - very, very slow start but when it did finally start, download was slowly crawling to about 25 KB/s (hard to say precisely because Litchi is averaging the whole time it is downloading and it was stalled in the beginning ... but certainly it wasn't flying in later stages, the whole download took about 9 minutes while with Ozk's driver took less than a minute). Surprisingly, upload was pretty close to Ozk's driver, around 290 KB/s.

One thing to remember with ENEC3 is that it uses "en0" interface while Ozk's drivers use "ne0" so you have to change that in the cnf file.

Since you get about 500 KB/s with UIP-TOOL, I'd say your hardware is fine, just your setup isn't. As recommended in some other thread, my only advice would be to make a backup, erase everything from your C: except hard disk driver and start anew: that way you can compare what and how works in VanillaMiNT (and its provided tools) and latest FreeMiNT snapshot and most importantly what changes you have been doing and how that influences your experience.

[guibrush]

ok, thanks for testing. Can you maybe quickly test if you can reach www.atari.org and www.apollo-core.com forum section with high wire on your setup?

I will do a totally fresh install as you recommend, now I feel more confident to make it.

About the clock patch, @stormy, thanks for your reply

@mikro: meanwhile, I found your excellent page about this mod

https://mikrosk.github.io/clockpatch/

and your other page about the different motherboard revision

https://mikrosk.github.io/clockpatch/history.html

I could find out that I have the motherboard CA401332-003 (but strangely with a French keyboard) and more specifically a rev H D/C, what is according your infos the latest Atari revision and was sold as the first C-Lab MK1 falcon.



So, this mean that the clock patch revision 0 is applied




So, can I assume that the clock patch 0 is in this case enough and nothing else is required?

[mikro]

I don't have any browser installed on Atari, sorry.

As for the revisions, don't rely on them to the letter. You never know what the previous owner did with the machine, what an Atari dealer did with the machine etc.

Just open the machine and check for yourself if you are curious what clock patch do you have. However if you are not experiencing any issues (sound crackles during sample playback, SCSI errors), let it be.

[guibrush]

ok. Yes, I checked my motherboard, there is no external fix (I mean, no wires and additional chip mounted), R21 is 0Ohm, so shorted, and C208 isn't present. So to me, it's look like Atari applied this first patch on the latest motherboard.

I don't have anything on the SCSI, and sound playback sounds ok to me. So I will call it a day and let it like it is.

[mikro]

Ha, I have accidentally realised that there's a fourth ethernec driver available: enec6.xif from the CT60 package. Maybe coincidence, maybe not, it started better than enec3.xif but... the download speed was basically the same (26.5 KB/s on average) and so was the upload speed (290 KB/s). So I'd say ENECx.XIF drivers aren't exactly the thing to go for and Ozk's drivers are a clear choice here.

[guibrush]

ok, good to know. Thanks