Hi.

I bought recently an Efika computer, it comes with MorphOS 2.0 (Demo) and Debian, and i found some problems with MOS. I used a usb wireless mouse + keyboard that works, but when i plug another usb device MOS comes very unestable, it sometimes hangs when an usb pendrive is plugged, or trying to copy files from pendrive to harddisk.

I received yesterday so, i didn't made a lot of test, but it seem that using a normal usb mouse, usb pendrives are more stable, but i'm not totally sure, maybe the Wireless keyboard and mouse cause unstability on MOS. And i can't test usb on Debian, since it was installed on the shop and i didn't have the user and password to login.

There are stability issues with USB on MorphOS 2.0? Or could be the Efika board don't working correctly?



[ Edited by BalrogSoft on 2009/2/18 10:13 ]

you should give a try at MorphOS 2.2

you can download the demo here : http://www.morphos.de/downloads.html

I had similar problems with 2.0, it was slightly better with 2.2. Add to it that there was no sound driver for the efika on MorphOS 2.0, it was added on MorphOS 2.1
Worth trying.


[ Edited by SoundSquare on 2009/2/18 10:24 ]

Thanks you, i will try MOS 2.2 Demo, but sound was working yesterday, i tried Vice emulator and sound was working, maybe i have 2.1 or 2.2 MOS demo installed, now i'm not sure about it.

right click on the ambient bar -> ambient -> about morphos

it should give you the version you are running.

now about USB, it's a bit of a problem, some USB devices doesn't work well or at all under MorphOS2, i gave up on using 2 usb stick, a keyboard and an external usb drive because of that. It's still uncomplete and unstable. One of my keyboard was even making MorphOS crash often and it became stable again when i changed it. I had no problems at all with these devices under Debian.

When I first built and configured Efika/Morph system, I too, experienced a large degree of instability. All of my instability was related to USB devices and a botched install of Morph2.2. For the record, I run a powered 7port hub off primary Efika USB port.

1) USB keyboard and mouse do not seem to have trouble running off USB hub. However, when setting machine up for first time I do have thumb drive containing critical install files plugged directly into Efika USB port. I ran a USB to PS2mouse/PS2keyboard adapter to get me through OS installation. After that I dumped this adapter and ran these devices through the hub directly.

2) CD seems to work better plugged directly into Efika USB port. Never worked well when attached to hub.

3) I have intermittent success with external USB storage devices (thumb drive, hard drive). They seem to work better when directly attached to Efika USB port as opposed to running on the hub. It is hit or miss. When I experience trouble I usually restart and the problems go away.

My first Morph2.2 installation had a hangup so I reinstalled and everything went smooth. I then left machine on for several days straight. Call it a burn-in if you will. Since then, my system has been more stable. I still have troubles with CD at times but I attribute this to slow USB interface.

The other thing I try to do is not overload the system with too many tasks at once. I am guessing this has more to do with memory limitiations of Efika than MorphOS itself.

I clicked on About MorphOS, i have installed MorphOS 2.2 (Demo), i'm using an usb keyboard and mouse instead a wireless mouse/keyboard with an usb hub, and pendrive connected directly on second usb port, then the mouse was dead, and i had to plug in again. After that i clicked on my pendrive unit, and clicked to open a directory, then the mouse pointer changes to waiting for a lot of time, but now MOS doesn't hangs, after the pendrive was unplugged system recovers. I tried with an external 2.5" hardrive, and it works perfectly.

EDITED:

External hd works better, but also hangs sometimes finally. After make some tests, and try with any hardware i have, i got some conclusions, using Hub usb and pendrive is unstable on my system. Using the wireless keyboard and mouse, and a usb pendrive works fine. There is another condition that i must to check, some of the pendrives used, have linux installed, and are bootable. I have working mouse, keyboard and pendrive, when pendrive was a Memory Stick Micro M2 card reader, and wasn't bootable, maybe it also affects...

There are the hardware tested:

NGS Wireless Mouse and Keyboard + MS Micro M2 card reader = OK
NGS Wireless Mouse and Keyboard + Kingston Pendrive (Bootable) = Unstable
Genius Mini traveller Mouse + Apple Keyboard (And Apple usb hub) + Kingston Pendrive (bootable) = Unstable
Genius Mini traveller Mouse + Apple Keyboard (And Apple usb hub) = Depend of combination Keyboard or Mouse must be unplugged when MOS boots to get working both.
Conceptronic USB Hub + Genius Mini traveller Mouse + Apple Keyboard (And Apple usb hub) = Depend of combination Keyboard or Mouse must be unplugged when MOS boots to get working both.



[ Edited by BalrogSoft on 2009/2/19 0:13 ]

[ Edited by BalrogSoft on 2009/2/19 10:48 ]

After some days of tests, hard disks, pendrives, and a psx usb adapter, are totally unstable it works 1/20 being optimist.

I tried pendrives directly to usb ports of efika, i tried to copy through shell, some friends suggest it, but is unstable also, i tried to boot using these parameters: "boot boot.img 2D RD RDS 0", a friend suggested it to gain some memory, and maybe also affects to stability, but is unstable.

When this occurs, the system hangs, until usb devices are unplugged, then MOS slows down a lot, and usb devices aren't recognized until the system is rebooted. Today, after system hangs, MOS showed an error after unplug usb devices (2 or 3 minutes after unplug devices):

FATFilesystem Error:
Malformed cache buffer found at 0!

Another problem, found after usb problems, when system reboots, between quark starts and the mos boot picture, the screen is black about 20 or 30 seconds, this also occurs when pendrive is plugged from boot.

[ Edited by BalrogSoft on 2009/2/20 21:56 ]

with the usb drops, it helps to boot in 2d rather than the normal 3d layer of 2.2
press esc at open firmware
type boot boot.img 2d
return

now it should boot in 2d and not drop mouse/keyboard as much
it it hangs reset and do again, sometimes usb devices attached will cause this particularly drives.

Is this inconvenience will be corrected in version 2.3 of MorphOS ?