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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 set during the amixadm finish step at the end of the install. Change it immediately with passwd.
  • If wasp doesn't work and you didn't set a password, you're looking at a fresh install that expects you to set one during amixadm.
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 $.

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 two completely 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 🟡

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 — a community X11R5 server (Xrtg) running on a Zorro II framebuffer card such as the MNT VA2000. That's a development effort, not a stock-disk feature; 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 (and the amixpkg wrapper). Standard SVR4 location; this is where the system tracks what's installed. 🟡
/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 system date is capped at 1999 by a kernel Y2K limitation; the patched setclk works around it ✅. Don't be surprised if naive date-setting refuses years ≥ 2000. See the quirks checklist.
  • Man pages on 2.1 are pre-formatted only (the nroff sources were dropped) ✅ — man works, but you can't reformat.

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

  • 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 date 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