User manual
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1. 1 17 cur for the current alpha or beta of FreeMiNT 1 17 This will allow you to have one system folder for the latest beta and one for the release version Warning since version 1 16 0 FreeMiNT ignores multitos folder in the root of your boot drive done for backward compatibility with MultiTOS 7 Configuration 7 1 The boot menu Hold down the left shift key while booting FreeMiNT to enter the boot menu There are nine options in this menu all of them can be toggled by pressing the key next to the menu entry Start up FreeMiNT Would normally be set to yes for obvious reasons If you don t use a boot manager you can use this feature when you don t want need to boot FreeMiNT Load external XFS Normally set to yes If set to no filesystem drivers are not loaded You will then not be able to access other filesystems than FAT and FAT32 Load external XDD Normally set to yes If set to no no device drivers will be loaded Execute AUTO PRGs Normally set to yes If set to no FreeMiNT will not execute programs located after FreeMiNT itself in the autofolder e Memory protection If yes then memory protection will be enabled recom mended Init step by step If set to yes booting will be paused after each step until you press a key Useful when debugging the boot sequence e Debug trace level Applies only to debug kernels Sets debug level e Debug output dev Applies only to debug kernels Select debug outpu2. User manual January 8 2011 by created by w2u from User_manual xml http wiki sparemint org index php Main_Page Contents 1 What is FreeMiNT 2 How does FreeMiNT work 3 Installation 4 The unified filesystem u 5 Memory protection 6 The MiNT system folder 7 Configuration 71 The boot menu a e ene ee d ERA A ee ee ee a 7 2 The configuration files 2 0 2 0 2 0 0 000 7 3 Keyboard layout 2 224 oe ee eee EGA ER ee eee 8 Filesystems and filesystem drivers 8 1 VEA T and FAT32 c oS 4 wit ed cio ee ein Se A A eee eS Bie VERT 2 Ce tE in D BL a AT ath gid Waa Yo ial Pac Pac NOLS E wed othe A ae ar BTL E Side MMINIK Yee PS ae eA BAAR Bk hyo larang K aa T E E SAA 1 Pe Bale orig Sk alga i Be hembra ied MERE AL Ms a 3 dh dnd dy way vy On 9 Device drivers 10 System extensions TOM MIN Thet o afe 4 4 4 fo hee bbb dob eek ed Yad 11 XaAES 12 Special considerations DQ ow eR ww w C3 1 What is FreeMiNT FreeMiNT is a free open source operating system for 16 32bit Atari computers and clones It is compatible with TOS but adds a lot of new functionality not available in any other TOS compatible operating system e Allows any number of GEM with XaAES running and TOS programs to run concurrently e Has memory protection to improve security and stability Has built in network support and drivers for all existing networking hardware Multi user support Has a wide array of system exte
3. ble with memory protection FreeMiNT has to be compatible with TOS soft ware Unfortunately some TOS programs especially older applications and MIDI software tend to enter supervisor mode and do things beyond the system control Under TOS it is perfectly okay However under FreeMiNT there s a risk for a conflict with the resource protection mechanisms This can cause the program or even the entire system to crash Memory protection is on by default but can be switched off in the boot menu Fine tuning and troubleshooting memory protection 6 The MiNT system folder FreeMiNT expects to find a folder named mint in the root of your boot drive This folder contains the various config files modules and tools required by MiNT Optionally this can be located in subfolders named after the kernel version number For example FreeMiNT 1 17 0 will look for the subfolder 1 17 0 and if this folder doesn t exist it will load the config file and modules located in the root of the system folder This allows the user to keep separate system folders for different versions of the kernel So if your boot drive is C and you boot FreeMiNT 1 17 0 it will look for the following folders c mint 1 17 0 c mint It will load it s config files and modules from the first folder it finds Exception If you re using a beta or alpha version of the kernel it will look for a special beta folder This will have the suffix cur e g
4. but a safer way of remapping the keyboard is to let FreeMiNT do it by loading a keyboard layout file during boot If the file key board tbl is present in the system folder it will be used as the default keyboard layout in FreeMiNT This has a few advantages over the traditional TSR solution e Clean and safe e The ALT key can be used as a modifier e On the Milan and under ARAnyM the AltGr key can also be used as a modifier e Deadkeys are supported very handy if your language has more than a handful of accented characters Keyboard tables can be generated with the mktbl utility If you prefer a GEM tool KeyEdit can create edit and install FreeMiNT keyboard tables Since kernel 1 17 0 keyboard tbl files for several different keyboard layouts ready to use can be found in the FreeMiNT build e Read more about the Keytable file format 8 Filesystems and filesystem drivers Filesystems are implemented as kernel modules Filesystem kernel modules can be identified by the xfs file extension Usually you just have to place the filesystem kernel module into the system folder to enable support for an specific file system Currently supported filesystems e ext2 ext2 xfs e minix minix xfs e fat vfat fat32 integrated into the kernel e nfs nfs xfs When you partition a hard drive for use with GEM all partitions are usually set up with the FAT filesystem If you want to use other filesystems you have to do two thing
5. extension to something else than xif The following network hardware drivers are included in the FreeMiNT project ethernat xif Network Driver for EtherNAT hardware de600 xif Driver for the DE600 ROMport ethernet adapter lance xif pamsdma xif biodma xif Driver for the BioData ACSI ethernet adapter riebl xif Suite of drivers for the various Riebl ethernet adapters rtl8012 xif Driver for the Genius ROMport ethernet adapter sesilink xif Driver for Daynaport SCSI ethernet adapter nfeth xif Network driver for ARAnyM slip xif Driver providing SLIP and PPP over serial links plip xif PLIP driver for the parallel port Allows two Ataris to be networked over the printer port NB This PLIP protocol is not compatible with the PLIP protocol as implemented under Linux Third party network drivers 10 System extensions 10 1 MiNTnet 11 XaAES XaAES is a FreeMiNT kernel module which replaces the AES 12 Special considerations How to run MiNT on odd hardware
6. nsions to ease porting of unix programs 2 How does FreeMiNT work FreeMiNT is a TSR that replace the GEMDOS part of TOS It also replace most of BIOS and XBIOS The ROM AES can be replaced by the FreeMiNT kernel module XaAES or by some other AES like N AES FreeMiNT implements all features from TOS It also adds a lot of it s own like networking multiuser support process control and most importantly the ability to run several programs concurrently 3 Installation See the installation guide for details on how to install FreeMiNT 4 The unified filesystem u 5 Memory protection A feature of FreeMiNT that is new to TOS like systems is the concept of protecting the program s memory space from unauthorized intruders Such an intruder is usually another program that went bad due to its bugs NOTICE The memory protection mechanism works only on machines equipped with processor 68030 or newer The hardware memory protection is implemented at the CPU level on a per process basis so that any memory a process hasn t allocated is considered invalid for that process Virtually such memory does not exist and starts to do just after the process requests it from the system The memory protection serves for preventing an errant process from destroying other programs running in parallel or even the system itself At least that s the theory In practice apart from running Un x software which usually is perfectly com pati
7. s 1 Copy the required filesystem driver to the system folder 2 Initialize at least one partition with the new filesystem Case sensitivity File and Path name Lengths 8 1 VFAT and FAT32 Support for these FAT extensions is integrated in the kernel no separate driver is necessary VFAT is an extension to the FAT filesystem that allows long filenames to be used This can be used on all existing FAT partitions one needs to allow VFAT extension for each drive in mint cnf though It s not recommended to use VFAT aware drives later in TOS as this can lead to filesystem corruption FAT32 is similar to FAT 16 but can handle much bigger files and partitions You need to initialize at least one partition using mkfatfs or HD Driver The partition type must be set to F32 using a partitioning tool to use this filesystem FAT32 partitions can not be accessed from TOS VFAT FAT32 in FreeMiNT is fully compatible with Windows VFAT FAT32 so if you use a harddisk driver that understands PC partitioned disks you can directly attach a disk formatted under Windows as FAT32 to Atari and read write files from to it MagiC offers similar option but it s much slower with accessing such drive Limits maximum partition size FAT16 2 GB FAT32 gt 16 TB maximum file size 2 GB block size 512 byte 32 kb physical blocksize must be smaller or equal to logical blocksize yes 8 2 ext2 This filesystem is used by linux It has several advan
8. t device e Remember settings If set to yes the selections you ve made in the boot menu will be saved to mint ini The boot delay the amount of time FreeMiNT waits for the user to enter the boot menu can not be set in the boot menu If you want to change this delay you must edit mint ini with a text editor 7 2 The configuration files There are three configuration files in FreeMiNT All of them are located in the system folder These files are only read when the system starts so for any changes to take effect the system must be restarted mint ini This file is automatically created by FreeMiNT and contains the settings in the boot menu It can be manually edited but any comments will be deleted the next time FreeMiNT saves it s boot settings mint cnf This file contains a set of commands and variables that determines how FreeMiNT will behave when started The installation tool will set up some usable defaults but if you want to tune your system this file is where you start xaaes xaaes cnf Similar to mint cnf this file contains settings relevant to XaAES 7 3 Keyboard layout If your language is not directly supported by TOS or if you use non standard key board e g a PC or Mac keyboard you will probably need to modify the keyboard layout in FreeMiNT to match the physical layout of your keyboard Traditionally this has been done by a small auto folder TSR that installs a new keymap This will also work with FreeMiNT
9. tages over FAT and if you want to install e g EasyMiNT it s mandatory To use this filesystem perform the following steps 1 Copy ext2 xfs to the system folder 2 Use a partitioning tool to set the partition type for the desired partition to Inx or raw 3 Create the filesystem with mke2fs 4 Reboot Limits maximum partition size gt 16 TB maximum file size 2 GB block size 1 2 4 kb physical blocksize must be smaller or equal to logical blocksize yes 8 3 minix Made obsolete by ext2 If you want to use this filesystem anyway the procedure is similar to ext2 1 Copy minix xfs to the system folder 2 Use a partitioning tool to set the partition type for the desired partition to mnx or raw 3 Create the filesystem with minit 4 Reboot Limits maximum partition size 2 GB maximum file size 2 GB block size 1 kb physical blocksize must be smaller or equal to logical blocksize yes 8 4 nfs A networking filesystem Copy nfs xfs to the system folder to enable it This filesystem is used to mount NFS or Samba shares on a network 9 Device drivers Device drivers are kernel modules that provides the operating system and or user applications with an interface to a specific piece of hardware The drivers are located in the system folder Currently there are two types of hardware drivers Hardware drivers These drivers are recognized by their xdd filename extension One driver usuall
10. y supports one specific piece of hardware and installs a device for it in the u dev directory This device can then be accessed by user programs It is advisable to only enable the drivers for installed hardware To disable a driver rename the filename extension to something else than xdd The following device drivers are a part of the FreeMiNT project e inet4 xdd TCP IP Networking for FreeMiNT audiodev xdd dev audio for all Ataris dsp56k xdd Falcon DSP Device driver flop_raw xdd Raw floppy access lp xdd Parallel interface driver mfp xdd MFP Serial Port driver for systems having MFP serial ports ST Mega ST Mega STE Hades FireBee scc xdd SCC Serial Port driver for systems having SCC serial ports Mega STE Falcon TT uart xdd 16550 UART Serial port driver Milan xconout2 xdd implements u dev xconout2 This must be installed if you use TosWin2 s console window dummy xdd Just a test driver no need to install inet4 xdd TCP IP interface This is an exception from the other drivers It does not provide a hardware driver directly but implements the TCP IP networking protocol Network hardware drivers These drivers are recognized by their xif filename extension They are loaded by the inet4 xdd hardware driver and provides driver routines for various networking hardware It is advisable to only enable the drivers for installed hardware To disable a driver rename the filename
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