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Atari OS on other hardware


jhd

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I have read that the Atari VCS OS is now running on other hardware. 

 

As a non-expert, I have to ask is there any practical purpose in doing so? Is it anything more than Linux (with some small customizations)?

 

 

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8 hours ago, Wizzard said:

I think it is good for the people to try that OS on PC before buying actual VCS, like some kind of demo version. I wish they relased that OS to the public. It would be fine if it was an open system.

The Atari OS is based on Debian; doesn't that mean it has to be open source.  The atari dashboard doesn't have to be open source.

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So the OS image was released on that youtube channel and I tried it right away. It works. I can boot it on my laptops, just integrated wifi does not work, neither sound does not work. I had to use my Edimax nano USB adapter. First the adapter speed was not enough, apparently, so I had to use ethernet connection for initial Store load and to install some games, later I was able to use even my Edimax adapter. So I installed all the free games and apps and now trying to play it. Some games does not work with keyboard, so I have to use some external controller. I like playing with that, I feel almost like I had my own VCS. It could be possible to use some driver/tweak to enable integraded wifi and sound cards, I am sure someone will be able to do that. Btw, writing this post in Chrome in VCS OS.

Edited by Wizzard
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If you're interested in judging what the R1606g chip can do with another operating system, see:
https://www.cnx-software.com/2020/08/10/amd-ryzen-embedded-sbc-review-with-ubuntu-20-04/
and
https://www.cnx-software.com/2020/06/11/dfi-ryzen-embedded-r1606g-sbc-review-part-2-windows-10-enterprise-ltsc/

This even smaller boards shown here also has the Ryzen R1606g like the VCS. :-D An option...
There are some very interesting benchmarks shown on the written review, above, for the chip.

There's also a related video.

 

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I did not check those review or video yet, but i was not able to find that SBC factor board with R1606G for a reasonable price.

 

Also, it seems to me that some games, like Atari Vault, have not so great controller latency, including the keyboard and USB controller. Maybe it is because my hardware (intel M3-7Y30 CPU).

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20 hours ago, pacman000 said:

Does that mean Atari tried to optimize it somewhat?

 

They didn't really do any optimization that I've seen.

Digging through the OS I've seen they rebranded a distro called Apertis.

https://apertis.org/

 

They have it configured to automatically start XWayland with Dashboard on boot.

They have several profile scripts setup so when you create a user account in Dashboard it will run the script to setup a profile in the OS for that user.

If you copy out the scripts to another Linux OS with their applications, and place them in the correct folder structure, you should be able to run Dashboard on there.

 

I tried running Dashboard on Slackware without the scripts.

The guest access worked, but it couldn't find the games I copied over.

It does load the AtariVCS store, and you can browse and watch videos, but without it creating the profile you can't sign in to download.

 

Also, the default button setup for the controllers in KDE didn't work right.

I ended up needing to use the joystick controller to press the menu button to get it to detect the controller, then swap to the gamepad for navigating.

The default controller setup detects the axis for the joystick wrong.

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I tried also to buy Atari Vault 2 on my laptop in VCS OS and it worked.

 

Still trying to copy that OS image to smaller USB than 32 GB, but without success. When I resize that data partition, I am not able to burn whole disk to smaller disk, cause I can only use DD for it to work. When I try to copy the partitions one by one, the system does not boot correctly, it has some problem with mounting system or data partition.

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On 12/30/2020 at 6:40 AM, Wizzard said:

Still trying to copy that OS image to smaller USB than 32 GB, but without success

 

If you shrink the 9th partition, the /home drive (which takes up 25GB), you should be able to fit it on something smaller.

 

The OS uses two 1.3GB partitions, and there are three EFI partitions, and two Verity partitions.

The last one is the only one you could shrink and probably make it work.

 

Shrinking the /home might get it down to fit on a 8GB drive if you don't want to put much on it.

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I tried to shrink it, but I was not able to copy whole disk with all the partitions to another drive. Now, I looked the latest video of Stenstorp and finally am able to fit it to 16 GB USB, cause the recovery image from Atari is less than 16 GB.

Edited by Wizzard
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1 hour ago, Wizzard said:

I tried to shrink it, but I was not able to copy whole disk with all the partitions to another drive. Now, I looked the latest video of Stenstorp and finally am able to fit it to 16 GB USB, cause the recovery image from Atari is less than 16 GB.

Overall, what are the problems you are finding out? Sound? What else?

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It has been shown the AtariOS can be booted on hardware, images and videos have been shown it booting on laptops and desktops with various degrees of success, meaning issues with networking, sound etc, sound is sometimes fixed plugging in a USB audio device etc. ??more surprises, while the AtariOS USB stick I created worked on my desktop and a up laptop to various degrees it didn’t work on my old bedroom desktop, due to no no uefi boot options. I also imaged this Sata drive, plugged into 2011 MacBook Pro and held down option key when booting, displayed a drive called efi and it booted, Bluetooth even seems to be working though I have no Bluetooth controller, no network though I am sure it would be fine if I plugged in Ethernet. Figured would not hurt to try ?Nice use for the old recycle bin find MacBook! I had yet to see this done on Apple hardware so thought I would share.

 

77AAB2E9-E7EC-4861-85FE-404C84E53726.thumb.jpeg.aadeecd6fa01ab989f1da534fec55f9c.jpegFC3CA925-6F24-408C-9BEF-60C792106AC2.thumb.jpeg.dde12264d538b5299d27be8ee9319a48.jpeg

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Edited by OldSchoolRetroGamer
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An update: Used the AtariOS boot image (though running off a 32 gb Sandisk stick this time) and worked the same on a couple other of my machines, my older Hp Pavillion 4 gb laptop with AMD A-6 CPU (see images) again no networking. Cooler though was booting it on my main Desktop (16gb ram/ Ryzen 1500x CPU) this machine has no Blutooth BUT it is hooked up to internet via Ethernet so was glad to see it was recognized by AtariOS and so offered access to the Store front, updates etc ? obviously running great on that hardware. 

 

Sadly I have no images of the Desktop PC as it was 3 am in the morning and it was a spur of the moment thing I was unprepared for (I may do it again just to get pics) but I have the images below from the Hp laptop boot. FYI though I am showing an old MADCATZ wired PC controller I had lying around interacting, to be clear I plugged it in when prompted for a controller however it went to the config screen but did NOT seem to recognize it afterwards. All my interactions with the AtariOS interface was done with the laptop Keyboard. 

NOTES for those interested. I definitely know of two people doing the same things as me on their own PC's and laptops that solved the lack of audio issues using some sort of USB external audio device though I do not know the specifics, also one fellow had his wireless working on his Asus laptop right off the bat, it seems his specific Wifi internal adaptor is very similar or perhaps identical to the one built into the actual AtariVCS consoles, Realtek if I recall as shown in a recent AtariVCS teardown video on YouTube. 

 

1.thumb.jpg.da2dc0ce2506cd37c6bd24ec5c12aa4d.jpg

3.thumb.jpg.b449fe0d189bae2afebfcf1c92207e5a.jpg

 

2.thumb.jpg.453c106015c1f1ffeb34c08007d7a1e5.jpg

 

3.thumb.jpg.b449fe0d189bae2afebfcf1c92207e5a.jpg

 

4.thumb.jpg.f19ccecc2110f2248a741a778e3b52fc.jpg

 

 

 

 

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It's crazy that you managed to find a Mac in a recycling bin. I wish I'd be that lucky, just once. ? 
In The Netherlands, a 12 year old Macbook still sells for $400+. (Private sellers want more than retail.)
My supplied by work Macbook Pro is even >5 years old, and I work for a listed company with a USA parent.

It's interesting that you can get the software running on various hardware. Now we need some... benchmarks! :-D 
Just comparing Steam games running on the VCS, my laptop, and another mini-PC, I am impressed by the GPU.

Personally, as I work in computing, I would be concerned at the legal aspects of connecting to the VCS Store,
so I would not, but I have not gone through the legal T&C. I just could not afford to take the risk with my work.
Yeah, not everybody has such concerns.
For me, this is also why I am happiest to use legally licensed emulators and ROMS, and pay for video streaing.

However, it is also good to run up the software on a different PC (if it has equivalent specifications) to run and
develop home-brew. Knowing that the same libraries are there, and software will be compatible, is a big help,
until Atari provide a home-brew box on the console itself. They encourage open development, so it's sensible.

Finally, I expect the O/S will be majorly updated and encrypted in a future release, leaving the game data as
an unencrypted volume. Thus, I'd be careful about applying any future updates to the "fake" Atari VCS setup.

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18 hours ago, justclaws said:

It's crazy that you managed to find a Mac in a recycling bin. I wish I'd be that lucky, just once. ? 
In The Netherlands, a 12 year old Macbook still sells for $400+. (Private sellers want more than retail.)
My supplied by work Macbook Pro is even >5 years old, and I work for a listed company with a USA parent.

It's interesting that you can get the software running on various hardware. Now we need some... benchmarks! :-D 
Just comparing Steam games running on the VCS, my laptop, and another mini-PC, I am impressed by the GPU.

Personally, as I work in computing, I would be concerned at the legal aspects of connecting to the VCS Store,
so I would not, but I have not gone through the legal T&C. I just could not afford to take the risk with my work.
Yeah, not everybody has such concerns.
For me, this is also why I am happiest to use legally licensed emulators and ROMS, and pay for video streaing.

However, it is also good to run up the software on a different PC (if it has equivalent specifications) to run and
develop home-brew. Knowing that the same libraries are there, and software will be compatible, is a big help,
until Atari provide a home-brew box on the console itself. They encourage open development, so it's sensible.

Finally, I expect the O/S will be majorly updated and encrypted in a future release, leaving the game data as
an unencrypted volume. Thus, I'd be careful about applying any future updates to the "fake" Atari VCS setup.

We have a Electronics Recycling bin on on condominium community property. I check it, I should probably check it more, who knows what I have missed but over the years yeah, a variety of stereos, tv's, vcr dvd players, ancient tablets etc. Now there are also a lot of things like kitchen appliances like blenders, toaster, pots pans, irons, all kinds of things that I just leave or we have better ones. I have even found so many strong working batteries of all types and even rechargeable to the point I have not had to buy batteries in years. Typically of course most computers laptops tend to be 10+ years or older which is fine as I repurpose them wipe the hard drives and where possible upgrade the ram or storage. If I find one truly beyond or not worth repairing I scavenge anything worthwhile in hope of upgrading another one. The cool thing is I suspect at least many here know I do this because most of the time when I find a laptop it is gently placed inside the bin right on top with the power supply and most things work and are in great condition. We are actually some of the "youngest" people here being in our 50's but I would say the average residence age he is 60+. I have found in past an oriignal iPAD or iPAD 2 (those tend to be really not much more use then for an electronic frame) and even some old iPhone 4 or earlier. I kept a couple iPhone 4's since batteries were still good but I mostly use them as cameras ?

AS FOR THE MACBOOK, honestly, that was still a big surprise I admit, it is a 2011 early 15' in beautiful condition, it came with a hard drive and I THINK MacOS LION? Sadly no matching power supply and obviously none of the various laptop power supplies I had was going to be any use to me so I just held onto it. I know you might think just by a replacement off Ebay but see this hobby and the things I find being retired I cannot justify spending money frivolously like I use to back in my collecting days ? so I decide to wait patiently and it paid off! After checking the bin regularly about 2 months later I opened the bin one day and seen this white brick I thought no way! Then I seen the Apple logo and the very specific connector and I knew that was it, I rushed back upstairs, grabbed the Macbook and plugged it in and it booted right up to a beautiful screen ? Now, I am totally a PC guy (though my wife loves her iPOD so I had learned all about IOS to help her with frustrations) and I tend to dive right in and learn all about any new to me tech that I get so I learned all about the Macbook very quickly and in no time I even updated it to MacOS High Sierra the last properly supported version for this Macbook. I upgraded the RAM from 4 gb to 8 gb I had in supply and swapped the hard drive with an extra SSD I had (I imaged the OS and restored it to the SSD) these things made a big difference. It even still received security updates still from Apple up to a couple months ago, so all in all I was really happy to find it but also that I held onto it until I found the matching power adaptor. 

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Today I wanted to try some gaming with my new xbox360 controller on a real TV, but with no luck. I connected my corporate laptop to TV via HDMI cable, but the GUI was not doubled on my TV. It was rather extended, so I saw the mouse pointer when I moved the touchpad, but the TV screen was just black and empty. I run Atari Vault and it was started on my TV while laptop display stayed black. After exiting Atari Vault I saw GUI only on my laptop screen again. Apparently this system is not made for laptop with HDMI out, obviously :)

I also tried my non-FullHD TV, Atari vault was not started on that TV, but I was able to see the mouse pointer there. So, it seems it will be a problem to use a laptop for real gaming on a TV. I did not try on my other laptop, I do not have a mini HDMI cable.

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