walkero's projects

The last week, plenty of user asked Kyvos to support the new ati-vga driver by Balaton Soltan, which is released at https://zero.eik.bme.hu/~balaton/qemu/amiga/. So, this new version brings it to you.

Some work is needed by the user, as Kyvos does not download and use the driver automatically, as it is preferred by its author the users to visit their website. The only thing that you need to do is to download the driver and copy it inside the kickstart.zip file of your VM. Then select the ati-vga device in the Display tab on Kyvos and save the changes. Finally start the VM and enjoy.

This driver works only with Pegasos 2 and AmigaOne XE emulated systems. I tried that on Sam460, but I get black screens, so Kyvos gives a warning when that driver is selected. I also tested it on Linux, macOS and Windows with QEMU v10.2.1 and it works fine. But the author recommends QEMU v11 which was released just a few days ago.

Furthermore, I updated the manual, adding some missing information, reworked the FAQ section splitting the questions into topics for finding what you are looking for in a more friendly way. Also, added questions about this new ati-vga driver, so make sure to have a read on that if you experience any issues.

The new version of Kyvos can be found at https://ko-fi.com/s/5ce4b719ed. Those who already purchased it, please use the link from the email you received when you bought it. This will allow you to download the new version.

Have fun with this new release.

Kyvos 2.0.0 is a practical update. The main goal this time was to make common tasks easier and remove some of the friction that had built up around setup, testing, and general VM management. The biggest change is a new automatic installation flow for AmigaOS 4 on emulated AmigaOne XE and Pegasos 2 systems, but a lot of the value in this release also comes from the smaller improvements around networking, snapshots, and everyday usability.

The new AmigaOS 4 automatic installation is the clearest example of that. Until now, getting one of these systems up and running meant working through a long sequence of manual steps. In 2.0.0, Kyvos can now handle that process for you when you enable the automatic installation option during VM creation. On the first boot, it installs AmigaOS 4, applies the three system updates, and then reboots into the hard disk image.

You still need the right install ISO, the three update archives, and mkisofs available on the host. But once those are in place, the experience is much simpler. A progress window shows the steps as they run, so it is easy to see where the process is and what Kyvos is doing. When it finishes, the system is ready to boot with network and sound already configured. That cuts out a lot of repetitive work and makes the first run much less of a hurdle.

Another major addition is snapshots. Kyvos can now save restore points for a VM by copying the files inside that VM's folder into a snapshots directory. You can come back to one later if something goes wrong, or remove older ones when you no longer need them. This is especially useful before trying a new driver, changing the VM setup, or updating the guest system.

There is one limit worth keeping in mind: snapshots only include files that are inside the VM folder itself. If a hard disk image or ISO is stored somewhere else, it stays outside the snapshot. Even so, this is still a solid safety net, and it should make experimenting a lot less stressful.

One more important change in this release is support for macOS on Apple Silicon systems. This was something many users had been asking for, and it is now included in the 2.0.0 release. That means Kyvos is no longer limited to Intel-based Macs, which should make it easier for more macOS users to run the app on current hardware.

Networking is also clearer now. The old Network tab has been renamed to Port forwarding, which better reflects what it was already doing. A new Network tab has been added for the VM hostname, so that setting now has its own place. It is a small structural change, but it makes the interface easier to understand, especially if you manage several systems and want each one to have a clear network name.

Several changes in 2.0.0 are there to avoid the sort of small problems that waste time. Kyvos now checks whether a VM is already running before trying to start it again. It also checks that the selected QEMU executable really exists before launch. There is now a stop button in the toolbar as well as a stop option in the VM context menu, which makes controlling a running machine more direct.

The serial output window also got some useful cleanup. There is now a clear button, which helps when you want to focus only on fresh output while debugging. A buffer was also added so that fast incoming text does not scramble the view when a lot of messages arrive at once. If you rely on serial output while watching an AmigaOS 4 guest boot or tracking down a problem, this should make that window much easier to read.

Some of the remaining changes are smaller, but still worth mentioning. MorphOS systems can now use an emulated SM502 graphics card. The About entries were moved under the Help menu, the first menu is now called Project, and Windows users should see fewer extra console windows appear during VM creation. There was also a lot of internal refactoring in this release, which should help keep the codebase manageable as Kyvos grows.

The manual was also updated for this release. It now covers all of the new features and changes, includes refreshed screenshots, and has grown into a 122-page guide. It explains how Kyvos can be used day to day, but it also includes important information for setting up and emulating AmigaOS 4.1 FE, MorphOS, and AROS with QEMU.

Kyvos 2.0.0 is not about adding complexity. It is about smoothing out the work people already do in the app. The automatic AmigaOS 4 install will probably be the first thing most users notice, but the release is really held together by the smaller improvements around safety, clarity, and control. Put together, they make Kyvos feel steadier in regular use.

I hope you like this updated version, that I spend many days and nights working on. It can be purchased and downloaded from my shop at https://ko-fi.com/s/5ce4b719ed . My monthly supporters will automatically get a price reduction when try to purchase Kyvos v2, as a thank you for their constant support.

The first update for Ko-fi Stats was released with the following improvements:

Added¶

• Added a macOS version for Apple Silicon based systems

Fixed¶

• Fixed issues with CSV files having less or more columns
• Fixed an issue with graphs not clearing when a new CSV file was loaded
• Fixed the icon for Windows

It can be downloaded at https://ko-fi.com/s/03b11c4657

Since I opened my account in Ko‑fi back in 2021, I shared with all of you plenty of posts and images of my creations and plans. One thing that I am missing all these years was an easy way to understand what is actually happening with subscriptions, donations, and product sales.

I had many unknowns, like, how many subscribers did I have in every month? How much are the donations I provide to other users and how many subscriptions did I have on each month? Of the applications I develop and provide as donationware, how many were sold, and what was the percentage of the people who paid for them against those who got it for free?

These and a lot more of unknowns needed to be clarified, if I wanted to take decisions for my next steps. Unfortunately, Ko‑fi itself doesn't provide that information, but it provides a CSV file with data that could be useful.

So, the last few days I worked on a cross-platform application that could help to answer as many questions as possible. And the Ko-fi Stats tool was born, which I made available today to everyone. I hope that more people will find it useful.

I would like to clarify here that Ko-fi Stats is an independent third-party application. It is not an official Ko‑fi product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Ko-fi.

It already has plenty of features, which can be found in detail at this wiki page, but more will be added in future versions. Currently, it works on Linux x64, macOS x64 and Windows systems, with more to be supported in the next releases.

Ko-fi Stats processes your CSV file locally on your computer, and it doesn't share any information with any online service or website. It can even be used when you are offline, as long as the Transactions CSV file is available.

The application can be found in my shop. Please do not hesitate to contact me, whether you find it useful or not. I would love to hear what you think about it.

The application is developed with Hollywood created by Andreas Falkenhahn, and the icon is created by Streamline, used under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.

I am thrilled to announce that today I released a new version of Vault, with plenty of new features that, I believe, can be useful. Now, let me share a few thoughts with you.

I believe that it is necessary for those users who do not know where to start with an operating system, to have a way to find useful applications that help them experiment, and create wonderful stuff. And at the end have fun. That's why I created Vault. But a simple list of applications becomes frustrating, especially as it grows more and more.

So, from this new release I introduced the Highlighted section, that is the first showing up when Vault starts, and proposes applications that can be a good starting point. It doesn't have to do with them being the best or the worst, or anything. They are, let's say, the first page of a book, if I can say that. For example, one of the first things that someone might want to download is a good browser. There are two there, and they also have Download buttons, to get them right from Vault, save them anywhere the user likes and then extract and install them. The last parts have to be done by the user for now, as Vault just downloads the archive.

Having the new Highlighted section, required the left sidebar to change, and have the new section first in the list and all the categories grouped, sort alphabetically. But this new structure gives me plenty of space to add more stuff in the future. Maybe add options of listing websites, or online sources for documentation. I do not know yet what I would like to add, but it is good to have options, isn't it?

To help users find an application, although they might not know in which category this might be, I added a Search field at the top section of the window. Typing the name, or even a part of it, will list all the applications that match. Even I needed it sometimes, especially when I add new applications. I need to double-check if I already have one in the list, and a search field is quite useful for me.

Finally, a change that was requested by a few users, is having a way to see a bigger version of the screenshot for an application. Now that image is also a button, and when it is clicked a new dialog open with a bigger version of the image. All the images are saved under the cache drawer, inside the Vault drawer. It is recommended to delete that folder, so that new images can be downloaded, especially for the icons, since they slightly changed in size, from 32px to 46px. This will make them look better and more clear.

This new version will be available from OS4Depot, from this official website and also from AmiUpdate, since I added that feature as well, making it even easier for the users to track new versions.

Slowly, more applications will be added in the Vault list. If someone would like to help make this list bigger, please contact me. Even for proposing which applications should be added.

Hope you find these new release features useful.

Just a few days after the first release, we have the first update. I am thrilled that people loved this little application of mine, and found it useful. Of course, I got plenty of feedback, for which I am thankful. And this release is about making some feature requests and fixes come true. So let's see what we have.

The first and most impactful change is that I moved the cache drawer placement. In the first release, I used the T: drawer, which resides in the ram disk. As a result, after a reboot all the cached little icons that Vault downloads were getting deleted, making the user to download them again whenever they are needed. These icons do not change frequently, if ever, so I moved the cache drawer inside the PROGDIR:, which is the same path where Vault is started from.

The second thing a few asked for was the wrong sorting order in the software list. I admit that this was making finding an application a little bit harder. The problem with that is in Hollywood and the way a column is sorted when it has an icon. That doesn't seem to work correctly on AmigaOS 4. It does on Linux, where I am doing my initial development, though. So, I imagine there is some kind of limitation or bug. As a workaround, I put the icons in their own column and not as part of the title. Problem solved.

In this release, I added a new status bar at the bottom window. This is the place of showing some messages about when Vault retrieves data from IntuitionBase, letting the user know what is going on, as well as having a busy bar that shows activity. This was necessary so that it is clearer to the user that something is happening and Vault didn't crash.

Finally, further adjustments were done in this new release, like the new help menu, where more links for Vault's Roadmap and news website were added, some fixes in the HTML parser for a better text representation were done. Furthermore, now when an application doesn't have a screenshot, the default image is presented.

The new version will soon be available from OS4Depot .

Today I released a new application for AmigaOS4, called Vault, which is a utility that lists the most compatible and well-tested applications for our systems. Some people would call it an app store, but it doesn't have so many features. At least not for now.

Vault is a tool that could be used by anyone to find software to run on AmigaOS 4. There are nine different categories, and clicking on each one of them, a list of application is presented. Selecting an application, more information appear at the bottom half of the window, including an extensive description, the developers and distributors, a small screenshot and a list of links to follow using their browser.

Some applications are able to have a direct download button as well, but for now only IBrowse has this option. Clicking on the "Download" button, an ASL requester appears, asking the user where to save the downloaded archive. Then a progress dialog appears, showing the download progress. After that, the user can extract it and follow the installation guidelines.

So, Vault does not make automatic installations nor updates of the selected applications. Consider it more like a featured applications catalog. Actually, it retrieves that list of the applications from the "Featured software" section of IntuitionBase.com, and it has the same information. That means that the application list will grow as soon as more added in IntuitionBase.

What is the purpose of this application, I hear you asking. Well, new users that join our community, do not know which applications are available and what they should download and where. Or even how to set them up. With Vault there is a good chance to find an app to try, and using the links to find articles around it if there are any. For example, if you check the MediaVault application, under the "Audio & Video" category, there is a link for the download page on OS4Depot, but also a link to ktadd's review where users can find more information.

The list of applications is not that big right now, and a lot are missing, but more will be added in the following days. If anyone would like to help make this list bigger, please contact me.

The first release of Vault is available to be downloaded from OS4Depot. Looking forward to hearing your feedback. You are welcome to share in the comments below what would you like to see in the next releases.

Hope you find Vault useful.