aranym_from_scratch
We, ARAnyM developers hear many horror tales about ARAnyM installation, configuration and setup by beginners, or even people which know a lot about Atari computers.
Maybe we should share knowledge about how we got a working configuration using ARAnyM and pure Atari software? So let's start.
If you are skilled enough to compile sources, you don't need any help, except for knowing which elements you need to enable at configure time. See ARAnyM compile-time configuration for that.
For now, I consider you got a binary for ARAnyM (either .exe or anything else that can be launched).
If you do a fresh start (no existing configuration file), you'd better launch ARAnyM from a console window (the black/white thing where you type mystical commands), whatever your OS (Linux, win32, or MacOSX). It will be easier for you to know what prevents ARAnyM from working.
$ aranym
ARAnyM 0.9.2pre1
Config file '/home/patrice/.aranym/config' not found.
The config file is created with default values. Edit it to suit your needs.
TOS image '/usr/local/share/aranym/ROM' not found.
EmuTOS image '/usr/local/share/aranym/etos512k.img' not found.
No operating system found. ARAnyM can not boot!
Visit http://emutos.sourceforge.net/ and get your copy of EmuTOS now.
Couldn't protect ROM
So what do have? First, it does not find its configuration file (the path to this file is OS-dependent, it should written somewhere in the doc). On any Unix system, it is '${HOME}/.aranym/config'. As the program says, it creates a default one, so you only need to read where it is created, and then you'll have to edit it to suit your needs.
You'll also get a default nvram setting, which is VGA monitor, 320x200x16 colors boot screen and some other default setting for date format, keyboard and country. You can change it by using a nvram utility like bootconf (5).
ARAnyM is only the hardware platform on which the Atari software will run. And the first software to run before you can run an application is an Atari Operating System:
Original Atari machines and clones have an operating system residing in a ROM chip on the motherboard: the TOS. ARAnyM supports only the 4.04 version of the TOS, which is the latest produced by Atari for the Falcon 030. There are some dumping software that can read it from your Falcon for use with ARAnyM.
You can also use a more recent license-free operating system ROM image, that is EmuTOS (13).
The latest possibility is to use Linux/m68k kernel as an alternative OS. Running it requires ARAnyM to be compiled with MMU (so you'll get no JIT, and using MMU slows down the m68k emulation a lot) and Lilo (Linux loader) support.
If your system does not have a floppy drive, or the direct floppy usage is not supported on your system - i.e. not win32 and Linux/Unix (correct me if it's wrong -, then your only option to start some Atari software is by using floppy disk images.
The floppy image can be selected in Aranym GUI, press Pause (or the OS-dependent key which has this feature, read the doc), and go to disk submenu. This is the topmost feature on this screen. Or you can edit the configuration file, line Floppy= in [GLOBAL] section.
But we must create one first, before ARAnyM can use it.
Under Linux and maybe other Unix-like systems
Under Windows you can use
VFD to create and
mount floppy images like normal drives.
I won't explain how to use a real hard disk from your old Atari computer, it is safer to use a blank disk image to test. So, I will make it using TOS.
Partition the hard disk image from Atari side
Partition the hard disk image from host side, under Linux
Create and format ext2 filesystem in a disk image
Now that you have a big hard disk image you can use and boot from, it is time to install ARAnyM specific drivers to improve your user experience with top experimental un-seen features. The reality is that these drivers help ARAnyM by using direct host features without passing it to the hardware emulation layer.
All ARAnyM drivers are present in the atari subdir in ARAnyM archive. They come in various forms: TOS residents, Metados drivers, MiNT drivers, LDG libraries, and so on.
MetaDOS drivers (.BOS and .DOS) requires installation of MetaDOS (2) (4) (17), BetaDOS (6) (2), Spin (2) (4) or ExtenDOS (11) in AUTO folder on boot drive. MiNT drivers (.XFS, .XDD and .XIF) requires installation of MiNT kernel. The OSmesa library 'osmesa.ldg' requires LDG (14) installation. All the other drivers must be run from the AUTO folder, before the MiNT kernel if present.
MiNT is an open source multitasking kernel for Atari systems. It provides many modern services to applications, like networking, device drivers, new filesystems, and so on. Using it under ARAnyM gives you more power, because some ARAnyM specific drivers requires MiNT to be used.
Copyright (c) 2005 Patrice Mandin, ARAnyM dev team