RISC OS 5.07 released | Drobe.co.uk archives

RISC OS 5.07 released

By Chris Williams. Published: 10th Sep 2004, 00:06:50 | Permalink | Printable

nVidia graphics card glitch poked

Castle have issued RISC OS 5.07 to Iyonix users via their online update system, superseding the previously available version of 5.06. A number of "non-critical" software updates will also be made available shortly, according to Castle.

Seemingly being a mostly hardware support related update, RISC OS 5.07 sees the incorporation of the previously mentioned USB beta drivers. In addition, the nVidia graphics card driver has had "significant 'under the bonnet' changes to the initialisation routines" - occasionally, some Iyonixes would reportedly power up into a 'suspended animation' state, and today's upgrade should hopefully address this.

Referring to the Iyonix's ethernet networking driver, Castle CTO John Ballance also added: "EtherK has been synchronised with recent NetBSD sources, and will now cover a greater range of network cards. Self test routines have also been improved."

Users are asked to read the 'read me' file in the 5.07 archive before continuing with the upgrade process.

Links

Iyonix website

Previous: R-Comp update DataPower2, Grapevine2
Next: 'First Steps' book finally in print

Discussion

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Subscribers to the Select scheme shouldn't feel left out by this. As Jeremy Nicoll pointed out on the Select mailing list on 4th September 2004, "it's almost exactly a month since Developer assured us that Paul M'd be along any minute to tell us what ROL are doing."

So it sounds like Select developments will easily be keeping pace with RISC OS 5 developments, fueled by massive investment in popular Virtual RiscPC desktop computers.

All very good news for the RISC OS market.

dgs

dgs on 10/9/04 12:17AM
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An update... delivery of the RISC OS 5.07 ROM image was temporarily suspended by Castle at 7:20am on Friday. This is apparently due to some problems for users who had a slightly different video card in their Iyonix. Castle are checking this out now, with information from those users who had already tried the upgrade.

dgs

dgs on 10/9/04 8:55AM
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Well, that didn't sound like a cheap swipe at the Select scheme / PM. Oh no.

jms on 10/9/04 9:59AM
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The Iyonix downunder/"Chuditch" owners who have installed the latest update have done so without any problems as far as I'm aware.

rmac on 10/9/04 10:26AM
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dgs: Hey? I can't quite work out if you're being sarcastic or not. VRP *has* been a great success, so that bit's genuine. And it's hard to see how you could say this article is bad news, so your last sentence is also true. But then, you link the first (sarcastic?) paragraph to the second (non-sarcastic) paragraph?

The only way I can see it making any sense at all is if the whole thing is genuine. In which case, I really don't understand your logic at all. Ah well.

Adam

adamr on 10/9/04 11:59AM
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I should hope that RISC OS Ltd are currently trying to fix this: "The ROM works OK on our Kinetics. I understand that some people have reported problems but we have not as yet been able to duplicate those."

AndrewDuffell on 10/9/04 12:21PM
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And the ROM image has been updated and is now available again. Works fine on my Iyonix.

Eddie on 10/9/04 1:47PM
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Andrew: perhaps it may be possible to get one available for testing if someone could offer the loan / exchange of one with them?

Another possibility is considering which basic ROM images are in use, just in case that this is an issue (it shouldn't be of course, but there's always a slim chance). I haven't followed the Smartgroups thread, so I'm just passing comment out of the blue there. I wonder whether it's seen on RO 4.03 and not 4.04 etc? Follow-ups for that should be on the Smartgroup of course

.

I'm aware that the Select team are very busy at the moments, recent highly publicised events etc. Therefore I probably wouldn't expect a fix in this round of Select, but it should certainly be fixed for S4 if it can be replicated reliably.

md0u80c9 on 10/9/04 4:58PM
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In reply to Dgs: A typical biased accidental misquote I'm sure. 'Developer' quoted six weeks, not 'any minute'. Not that facts should get in the way of personal predjudice of course. Personally, I'm amazed at the progress of RO5. I'm astounded by the pace of development since it's release. Breathtaking.

kdm on 11/9/04 12:14AM
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kdm>

Agreed RO5 has progressed to a remarkable degree since the Iyonix was launched. It should also be borne in mind that Castle *don't charge* for such updates (unlike in the case of Select). I suspect Castle have (quite likely) decided that having everyone on the same version to be of greater value (in support time saved and so forth) than charging and causing a possible fragmentation in the user base as some users upgrade and some don't.

Judging from the smartgroups comments seems like the problem has been resolved now anyway... so bon appetite guys !

AMS on 11/9/04 2:29PM
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What's new in RISC OS 5 since its release then, other than bug fixes? (Which aren't development, they're maintainance.)

nunfetishist on 11/9/04 6:03PM
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A lot of the development has been in providing support for a wider range of USB devices. There's still plenty more to be done on this front, though.

dgs

dgs on 11/9/04 7:18PM
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dgs Agreed... I've 3 USB memory devices that don't work. They are recognized by !USBinfo.

DaveW on 11/9/04 8:17PM
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USB development is of course important, but has there been anything, err, more spectacular? I mean, the jump in user-visible and useful features between RO 4 and Select was quite profound. Has there been any development of things other than under-the-bonet device improvements?

nunfetishist on 11/9/04 8:25PM
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nutfetishist As regards Select I found no significant advantages to Select from a user perspective over RO4 and a number of disadvantages.

Obviously different users have different priorities. Importantly for me Select hasn't taken RISC OS onto significantly faster native hardware.

Perhaps the biggest jumps in RO5 increments was the implementation of UDMA hard disc transfer and USB mass storage drivers the latter being included with the OS for the first time and not as a third-party add on.

Ignoring the amount of work that has been put into running on new hardware then I suppose there has been relatively little advance in RO5 since its launch. But then again it is at least as reliable (if not more so) than any version of RO4.xx that I have used. YMMV.

blahsnr on 11/9/04 10:43PM
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RISC OS 4 and RISC OS 4 Select/Adjust are great for those using old machines. I've always promoted them as such.

dgs

dgs on 11/9/04 11:01PM
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Anyway, what has this article got to do with RISC OS 4? 5.07 is good. It's the first release of RO5 for a year and a half that works with my digital camera (or at least I'm told it does, I havent got round to trying it yet!!

mrtd on 13/9/04 5:22PM
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