Complete System

The Amiga Workbench is not just a pretty game starter. Various applications and tools are installed that you can try out. AmigaAMP, for example, is an MP3 player that works like the classic WinAMP or its Linux clone XMMS.

The version of Workbench used by PiMiga is more modern than the official Workbench shipped by Commodore, and it takes advantage of the greater power of current systems. (If you want to take a look at older Workbench versions, you will find a live simulator online [12].)

Folders with icons on the desktop can be opened by double-clicking. By the way, Amiga computers use a different nomenclature than the rest of the world. The desktop is known as the Workbench on the Amiga, and disks have hierarchical filesystems, folders are known as drawers, and subfolders are subdrawers.

The default file manager for PiMiga is Directory Opus. The program offers a two-column view and supports various file operations on the selected file(s) from buttons at the bottom. In this way, you can copy, move, or delete files quite comfortably. The operating principle is somewhat reminiscent of Norton Commander (MS-DOS) or its clone Midnight Commander (Linux).

By default, Directory Opus creates a second workbench on which it then runs in full-screen mode. You can change this if necessary by right-clicking on the menubar and selecting Configure | Screen | Screen mode | Display mode… Workbench: Use. You can switch between the two screens at any time with Ctrl+Alt+Shift.

The way program windows are handled is similar to other graphical user interfaces: You can move windows from the upper window border and change window size by grabbing the handle in the lower right corner. Clicking once on a window shifts it into focus, but you need two clicks (again on the titlebar) to bring it to the front. One of the icons on the right edge of the titlebar alternately moves the window all the way to the front or all the way to the back; to close a window, single-click in the upper left corner.

Internet

If the Raspberry Pi is connected to the network over Ethernet, the Amiga programs will have access to the Internet. Whether or not this is useful depends on which services you want to use. For example, the standard AWeb browser in the version installed on PiMiga is not SSL-capable and therefore does not work with sites that no longer provide an unencrypted version.

The browser can nevertheless be useful for some tasks. For example, you can access Aminet [13], which offers a comprehensive software collection. As a test, I downloaded an Amiga version of the C shell as an LHA archive, unpacked it in Directory Opus, and finally launched it from the terminal program (Figure 7).

Figure 7: You can download additional software from the Aminet server with AWeb and then unpack and start the program.

Login and SSH

The Raspberry Pi does not start a classic Linux desktop. The Workbench interface is a fixed part of the emulation and cannot run Linux applications. However, you can get this to work with a trick that lets you install a VNC server on the Raspberry Pi.

First you need a Linux shell. If you are running another computer on the network with a secure shell (SSH) client, log in to the Raspberry Pi with

ssh pi@pimiga400

and the login password pimiga.

If name resolution is not working, you need to find the IP address of the Raspberry Pi. The fastest way to do this is to press F12 to open the Amiberry menu and click Quit at the bottom. You will then end up in text mode, where you are logged in as the pi user. Enter the command:

$ hostname -I
192.168.178.118 192.168.178.117 2001:16b8:a43:ff00:ed90:df20:397b:bfda 2001:16b8:a43:ff00:bf02:667c:59db:93c6

The first address shown in the output that follows the command is the IPv4 address assigned to the network card. Another IPv4 address (for WLAN) and the associated IPv6 addresses might follow.

If you have already quit the Amiga emulator, execute the steps directly in the shell on the Raspberry Pi; you can do without the remote login from another computer in this case.

To begin, install the required packages:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install tightvncserver xfce4 xfce4-terminal

Most important is the TightVNC server [14], and you need some kind of window manager; the Xfce lightweight desktop works well in this case.

Alternatively, a simpler window manager (without a desktop environment) will do the job. The obvious candidate is AmiWM [15], which mimics the Workbench; unfortunately, it is not available as a ready-to-use package for Raspberry Pi OS, and I was not immediately able to compile it from the source code. Working as the pi user, the commands

vncserver
vncpasswd

let you assign a VNC password and start the server. If you had to quit the Amiga emulator for these steps, you can restart the emulator now:

cd; sudo ./amiberry.sh

On the Amiga workbench, open the System, Internet and TwinVNC drawers in turn; then, double-click to launch the TwinVNC program and enter the address localhost:5901 for Server and the password you just set for Password. Now click Connect (or press Enter): TwinVNC opens the connection to the locally running VNC server.

Initially, the Xfce desktop prompts you to set up the panel (Welcome to the first start of the panel). Next, click Use default config. After that, you can work with the desktop (Figure 8), much like any other Linux installation, but with a few limitations. Scrolling with the mouse does not work in all programs, and the middle mouse button is not supported; therefore, you have to resort to keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V for copy and paste actions or Ctrl+Shift+C and Ctrl+Shift+V in the terminal window. Alternatively, you can use menu items (e.g., Edit | Copy). Copy and paste between Linux and Amiga programs did not work in our lab.

Figure 8: Running a full-blown Linux desktop on the Raspberry Pi 400 next to the Amiga emulator does disturb the retro look a bit, but it is practical.

On the running Linux desktop, you can also start a state-of-the-art browser like Firefox, although you need to install it first:

sudo apt install firefox-esr

By the way, to grab a screenshot of the Workbench, install the Linux raspi2png [16] tool. Every time you run the program, it then stores a screenshot in the current folder as snapshot.png. This command also works on another computer if you are logged in over SSH.