Skip to content

First Login & a Quick Tour

You've finished the install walkthrough and rebooted into /unix (or relocunix) off the SCSI hard disk. This page gets you from a blank login: prompt to a working shell, a second virtual console, and an X session, and points at where the interesting files live.

Amix is AT&T System V Release 4 (SVR4) ✅ — if you've used a SunOS-era SVR4 box it will feel familiar. The Amiga-specific surprises are the virtual-console keys, the pre-POSIX /bin/sh, and the two very different ways to start X (mono vs. A2410 color). Each is covered below.

All console keys, paths, and shell behavior on this page assume Amix 2.1 / 2.1p2a (the last retail release plus the definitive patch). Earlier SVR3.x precursors differ and are out of scope.

Logging in

At the console you get a standard SVR4 login: prompt. Log in as root for first-time setup.

Amiga UNIX System V Release 4.0

login: root
Password:
  • The post-install root password is reported to be wasp 🟡 (community-reported; this is the value seen on pre-built emulator disk images, not something the installer hard-codes). On a system you installed yourself, the password is whatever you gave the first-boot system.setup at the end of the install, or none at all if you declined its password questions. Change it immediately with passwd.
  • If wasp doesn't work and you didn't set a password, try an empty one: the stock files ship root without a password (below).
passwd          # change root's password right away

Once logged in as root you're in the default shell (ksh — see Shells). The prompt is #; a normal user gets $.

Accounts and remote logins on a stock install ✅

The stock 2.1 system files ship every system account without a password and the network login services switched on ✅ (read from the stock tree, amigaux/amix-system):

  • /etc/shadow has an empty password field for root, daemon, bin, sys, adm, uucp, nuucp, sync, amiga, lp, listen, the menu logins setup, sysadm, powerdown, checkfsys, makefsys, mountfsys and umountfsys, and guest.
  • /etc/default/login sets PASSREQ=NO and leaves its CONSOLE line commented out. On SVR4 an unset CONSOLE lets root log in on any terminal, network logins included 🟡 (the SVR4 meaning, not tested on Amix).
  • The service access controller starts inetd at boot, and /etc/inet/inetd.conf enables telnet, ftp, shell (rsh), login (rlogin) and exec (rexec), all running as root. Out of the box only the loopback interface is configured, so they answer on the LAN once the network is set up 🟡.

What the first boot asks ✅. /etc/sysinit runs Commodore's system.setup at every boot while the script is executable. After the node name and the date it asks "Would you like to assign a password to all of the system accounts? [y]". Yes (the default) runs passwdall, which sets root's password with passwd and copies the same hash to root, daemon, bin, sys, adm, uucp, nuucp, sync, amiga, lp, listen, setup, powerdown, sysadm, checkfsys, makefsys, mountfsys, umountfsys, games, news, x and nobody. guest is not on that list: a second question sets its password, defaulting to yes only if the first answer was yes. Declining both leaves the accounts as shipped, without passwords. When the summary is accepted the script clears its own execute bit and never runs again; interrupting it (^C is allowed inside it) leaves it executable, so it asks again at the next boot. Afterwards amixadm option 6 runs passwdall again, and passwdall -d empties them all. No Commodore text on securing these accounts is on record here beyond that question.

Closing a stock box 🟡 (ordinary SVR4 practice, not measured here): make sure every account in the lists above, guest included, has a password or is locked; uncomment CONSOLE=/dev/console to keep root logins on the console; and comment out the inetd.conf services you don't use (the r-services first), then send inetd a SIGHUP.

Virtual consoles (Alt+F1 .. Alt+F8)

Amix gives you eight virtual consoles, switched with Alt+F1 through Alt+F8 ✅. Each is an independent getty/login session on its own tty, so you can be logged in several times at once without networking or a window system.

Key Console
Alt+F1 first virtual console (the one you boot into)
Alt+F2 .. Alt+F8 additional virtual consoles

This is the SVR4-standard multi-console feature wired to the Amiga keyboard. It's the quickest way to keep a root shell on one console while you work as a normal user on another, or to watch logs on one screen while editing on the next.

Note: the X server takes over the console it starts on; switch to another Alt+Fn console to get back to a text login while X is running.

Shells

The default login shell is the Korn shell, ksh ✅. Amix also ships sh, csh, and tcsh ✅, so you can change a user's shell with chsh 🟡 or by editing /etc/passwd.

echo $SHELL     # whatever your login shell is
ksh             # you are almost certainly already here as root

The /bin/sh caveat — it is pre-POSIX

This is the single most important gotcha for anyone scripting on Amix. Amix /bin/sh is a pre-POSIX Bourne shell ✅. Modern shell idioms you take for granted do not work:

  • No $(...) command substitution. Use backticks instead.
  • No grep -q. Redirect to /dev/null and test $? instead.
# WRONG on Amix /bin/sh — modern POSIX idioms:
ver=$(uname -v)
if grep -q '^2\.1' /etc/foo; then ... ; fi

# RIGHT on Amix /bin/sh — pre-POSIX equivalents:
ver=`uname -v`
if grep '^2\.1' /etc/foo >/dev/null 2>&1; then ... ; fi

This bites driver builders constantly: the install scripts shipped with community drivers (for example the VA2000 framebuffer driver) were written specifically to avoid $(...) and grep -q ✅. If you're writing a script that the kernel build or a driver install will run under /bin/sh, stick to backticks and explicit redirection. When you want a modern shell interactively, use ksh.

The patch-disk header script also predates POSIX: it is a #!/sbin/sh script and uses backticks and uname -v matching. See the patch ADF anatomy for the decoded script. ✅

Starting X

Amix has different X paths depending on your graphics hardware. Pick the one that matches your machine. For the full picture (window managers, OpenLook, keymap quirks, RTG alternatives) see X11 and the desktop.

Mono X (built-in graphics)

On a plain A3000UX / A2500UX with no graphics card, X runs against the built-in mono framebuffer and the window manager is tvtwm ✅ (a virtual-desktop twm variant). Community reports describe the mono server as "slow as molasses" 🟡 on a 25 MHz 68030 — usable, not snappy.

The default X release is X11R4 🟡 (amigaunix.com, the most authoritative community source, says R4 is the default; an X11R5 upgrade is available via the Gateway! Vol.2 CD). Start a session the SVR4 way:

xinit           # brings up X with tvtwm on the built-in mono display 🟡

AGA machines (A4000, A1200). The stock mono X11R4 server also runs on AGA, and the third-party hmlio/amix-x11-aga Xaga back-end adds colour X on the native AGA/ECS chipset (16 colours on the stock kernel, 256 with its console-driver patch) 🟡 (author-reported; not reproduced here).

A2410 color X (TIGA)

If you have the A2410 "Lowell" color graphics card (TMS34010, 1024×768) ✅, X runs through TIGA with a dedicated launcher:

olinit -- -tiga          # start X on the A2410 via TIGA
olinit -- -tiga -tm 3    # ... with an alternate TIGA mode (-tm 3) 🟡

The window manager in the color/OpenLook world is olwm / olwsm ✅, which needs the Xol fonts on the font path. (If you upgrade to X11R5 the font path breaks and you must re-add Xol with xset fp+ .../Xol ✅ — detail on the X11 page.)

A third option: RTG cards

A modern alternative to both is the RTG path. On a Z3660, the amigaux 1.0 card ships a ready-installed RTG X desktop ✅: the X11R6.3 Xzz9000 server on the card's onboard graphics through the jusii/amix-z3660rtg driver; the same server runs on an MNT ZZ9000 — see the x11r6.3-amix case study. The older community route is an X11R5 server (Xrtg) on a Zorro II framebuffer card such as the MNT VA2000; see the Xrtg case study and VA2000 driver case study.

X keymap quirks

Whichever path you take, the X keymap has known oddities ✅/🟡: y and z are swapped, and / is produced by SHIFT-8. xload crashes, and the X11R4 server leaks memory over long sessions. Keep these in mind before you assume the keyboard is broken. Details on the X11 page and the quirks checklist.

Where things live

Amix is laid out like any SVR4 system, with a few Amix-specific spots worth knowing. These are the directories you'll reach for most.

Path What's there Tag
/usr/sys The kernel source/object tree. Compiled object libraries, per-driver subdirs, the master.d/kernel.c switch-table config file, and the makefiles you run to relink /unix. This is where all driver and kernel work happens. ✅
/stand Standalone / bootstrap area. You copy a freshly built kernel (relocunix) here, then make bootpart KERNEL=relocunix writes it to the boot partition. ✅
/var/sadm SVR4 software-administration database — the package install records used by pkgadd/pkginfo. install/contents is the master installed-object DB; pkg/<PKG>/ holds each package's metadata. Standard SVR4 location; where the system tracks what's installed (see package management). ✅
/dev Device nodes (major/minor). E.g. /dev/console (char 0,0), /dev/dsk/c0d0s1 (block 18), /dev/par (char 21), /dev/fd0 (block 16). ✅
/etc/inittab init run-level config — controls the virtual consoles' getty lines and run levels. ✅
/unix The running kernel. Always keep the old /unix as a fallback before installing a rebuilt one. ✅

A typical "where's the kernel work" orientation:

ls -l /unix                  # the running kernel
ls /usr/sys                  # driver subdirs + master.d/kernel.c
ls /usr/sys/master.d         # kernel.c lives here (switch tables)
ls /stand                    # staged bootable kernels (relocunix)
pkginfo                      # what's installed (reads /var/sadm)

Naming note 🟡: the kernel image is called rdbunix in the 1990 Ditto paper but relocunix on 2.1/repo-era systems — a historical rename. On a 2.1p2a box you build, you'll see relocunix. See the kernel build page.

A first look around

A few harmless commands to confirm the system is healthy and learn its identity:

uname -a            # should report System V Release 4.0, m68k
uname -v            # version string; on 2.1p2a it matches ^2.1.* 08004..$ ✅
df -k               # mounted filesystems (your UFS / and others)
who                 # who's logged in, on which tty/console
ps -ef              # SVR4-style full process list
  • uname -v matching ^2\.1.* 08004..$ is exactly the test the patch disk runs before applying ✅ — if your string matches, you're on a patchable 2.1.
  • The kernel accepts any year, but the stock date tooling does not ✅ (corrected 2026-09-29): the 2-digit date form reads yy as 19yy, amixadm accepts only ≤ 1999, and the stock setclk cannot set a year ≥ 2000 from the battery clock (date: bad conversion at boot). Set the date by hand with the 4-digit form date MMDDhhmmCCYY, or install the community-patched setclk — see quirks §7.
  • The SVR4 base man pages ship pre-formatted only (in /usr/catman) ✅; the Amiga-specific sections (1A, 1X, 3A, …) ship as nroff source and man formats them on first view with /usr/ucb/nroff ✅. MANPATH takes one directory, and lookup goes through its whatis file — see man pages.

When you're ready to do real work, the next stops are the commands cheat-sheet and, if you want to build kernels or drivers, the driver model and kernel build pages.

See also

Sources

  • The stock accounts, login defaults and first-boot questions (read 2026-11-02) ✅ — amigaux/amix-system (761a82e): etc/shadow, etc/default/login, etc/saf/_sactab, etc/inet/inetd.conf, etc/inet/rc.inet, etc/sysinit, and usr/amiga/bin/system.setup, passwdall and amixadm; the system.setup reading also made in the Installer-NG project. The CONSOLE meaning and the closing steps are SVR4 convention 🟡.
  • The 2026-09-29 Y2K correction ✅ — date 092912002026 accepted on a stock 2.1c box; the stock setclk boot run ending in date: bad conversion; the patch disk's 103-member cpio carrying no setclk (quirks §7; first-party record, 2026-09-29).
  • Master research brief, §4 (kernel architecture: virtual consoles Alt+F1..F8, /usr/sys, /stand, kernel.c), §8 (default login password "wasp" 🟡), §11 (default shell ksh, pre-POSIX /bin/sh; X11R4 default, tvtwm mono, A2410 TIGA olinit -- -tiga, OpenLook olwm/olwsm, keymap y/z + /=SHIFT-8), §12 (Y2K — corrected 2026-09-29: a setclk bug, not a kernel cap; /bin/sh pre-POSIX), §3/§9 (/stand, make bootpart KERNEL=relocunix, rdbunix→relocunix rename), §5 (/dev major/minor examples)
  • asokero/va2000-amix install-script gotcha (Amix /bin/sh has no $(...), no grep -q) — https://github.com/asokero/va2000-amix (brief §6)
  • amix_21_patch.adf analysis (#!/sbin/sh header, uname -v ^2\.1.* 08004..$ match) via tools/inspect-adf.sh (brief §10)
  • amigaunix.com DokuWiki pages: x11, networking, tips-tricks, y2k-dst — https://www.amigaunix.com/doku.php/home
  • The amigaux 1.0 RTG desktop — Installer-NG (not public) docs/release-notes-amigaux-1.0.md ("a ready-installed Amix desktop (RTG)") and docs/releases/1.0.md (k1-desktop-rtg.hdf); the amigaux.org first-boot page (startx-rtg, OPEN LOOK on the Z3660's RTG); jusii/amix-z3660rtg README.md (the Z3660 target and the cross-built Xzz9000).
  • X on AGA — hmlio/amix-x11-aga README.md and docs/design.md (stock X11R4 mono runs on AGA; Xaga 16/256 colours) 🟡, third-party, not reproduced here.