Does Linux have an Amiga feel?

[commodorejohn]

Well, I'm gonna disagree with you slightly, John. Is Amiga directly derived from Unix as Linux is? No. But TripOS, AmigaOS' predecessor, was designed in '76, and the best example of OS design at that time was Unix.

That's a fair point - then again, what I've seen of TriPOS looks a lot more like a seriously expanded RT-11 than Unix.

But that's what I like about AmigaOS, instead of, as Linux did, copying Unix directly, TripOS took the major concepts of that day and improved on them. Instead of anally sticking to what was, they took a step forward and improved it all.

Of course, that to me is what makes Amiga "Amiga." They didn't give us  what they could, they improved on it all and gave us quite a bit more.

Right on.

[psxphill]

But that's what I like about AmigaOS, instead of, as Linux did, copying Unix directly, TripOS took the major concepts of that day and improved on them. Instead of anally sticking to what was, they took a step forward and improved it all.
 
Of course, that to me is what makes Amiga "Amiga." They didn't give us what they could, they improved on it all and gave us quite a bit more.

Actually, they did only give us what they could.
 
"As most of you know, AmigaDOS was not the first choice for the top-level OS/DOS on the Amiga computer. What we now call AmigaDOS was really the backup DOS, based on an already existing OS known as Tripos"
 
"Once in a while, someone suggests that the original DOS be written according to the original specs. This was even proposed by some members of the Amiga team, but Amiga management decided that it wouldn't be possible to complete the DOS and still launch the Amiga on time, especially since the software guys had already given up weekends at home. And going home. And sleeping."
 
"CAOS stands for the Commodore Amiga Operating System"
 
"CAOS was contracted out, for the most part, to a company that felt Unix was a better choice and didn't buy into my design. They became history when they started using their Sun development systems for other projects, not the Amiga higher level OS functions."
 
So we know that before Commodore came along, there was nothing resembling dos.library. They found a cheap 68000 compatible operating system that was similar to what they wanted, even though there were a lot of things that it didn't do that were spec'd for CAOS.
 
They appear to only have done the bare minimum of work, to integrate TRIPOS with exec and make it callable from C. They should have done something about BPTR, so that when BCPL was removed it wouldn't have left an annoying legacy.
 
CAOS actually has some limitations that weren't in TRIPOS, like a 1mb maximum file size, which would have had to be removed for it to have achieved similar success.
 
Some of the concepts in CAOS were similar to unix though, like /dev for devices and access to operating system structures using special files in /exec
 
What made it an Amiga is that they took an old unheard of OS (TRIPOS had been around since 1978), written in an old forgotten language (BCPL came out in 1966). The hardware also wasn't revolutionary, it was an evolution of the Atari 8 bit.
 
Microsoft and Apple got caught with inferior products, but their business skills allowed them to survive long enough to catch up.
 
Atari pretty much followed the same path as Amiga, but went cheaper on everything (CPM/GEM/graphics chip/sound chip).

[Nostalgiac]

just imagine where it could have gone if it *was* based on UNIX... we might have had a superb desktop with a UNIX underneath... and not KDE/Gnome/foo/bar/etc .... (at least MacOS got it right these days; no flames please, concentrate on the Amiga bit)

Tom UK

[psxphill]

just imagine where it could have gone if it *was* based on UNIX...

It wouldn't have survived, unix is too bloated for the hardware available at the time. I believe what they did was really the best compromise for performance against functionality. Anything they had done differently is likely to have made things worse.
 
WindowsNT has more in common with AmigaOS than unix does.

[Mrs Beanbag]

But there was UNIX for the Amiga, that was sold with some A3000s, but requires an MMU so wouldn't have worked on the original 68k machines.

Plus X Windows is terrible even today.

[XDelusion]

This conversation reminds me of how much I want to see Haiku succeed.

[commodorejohn]

This conversation reminds me of how much I want to see Haiku succeed.

Hear, hear. Not that it's all that similar to Amiga OS, either, but it's probably the closest thing being actively developed right now in terms of being designed as an integrated, user-focused desktop OS...

[Mrs Beanbag]

I wonder if something like Microsoft's Singularity OS could work on Amiga, it wouldn't need an MMU.

[commodorejohn]

Theoretically, but what would you gain from it? Singularity has no software and runs on a VM, which is never good for performance. The only really interesting thing about it is its eschewing memory protection for some kind of static analysis that prevents access of out-of-process memory at the code level, which is incompatible with Amiga-style message-passing anyway.

[psxphill]

But there was UNIX for the Amiga, that was sold with some A3000s, but requires an MMU so wouldn't have worked on the original 68k machines.

It didn't sell many though, it's unlikely that commodore would have survived as long as they did with just that.

[desiv]

Unix. Linux was designed by a bunch of geeks that speak an entirely new, difficult language

Which I believe would be a fair description of the guys who designed the Amiga.
And a lot of other tech out there..

For me, there are some definite and obvious similarities...

The way that the GUI and the shell complement each other was something I liked about Linux.
You got your best use out of the system when you understood both and where each was valuable.
The goal of the GUI isn't to replace the shell, it's just to do what makes sense in a GUI.

Scripting is not your enemy...
With Windows, you script when you have to...  When I write scripts in Windows, people are always talking about what GUI tools we can look at to eventually "fix" that.  In Windows there is (or was, power shell is helping a bit here) a feeling that if you have to use a script, it's because something isn't finished.

In AmigaDOS and Linux, you use the tool that most makes sense...

Are they the same, no...
Are there some similarities, of course...

I think that's why I preferred Windows to the early Mac OS.
At least Windows has DOS and config files and things to tweak.

The Macs goal seemed to be that you, as a user, should NEVER see that.
I'm not saying that's bad, there's a lot that makes sense in that; but it's not what appeals to me...

So jumping from Amiga to Linux was fairly easy for me..

And the early versions of X/Windows were easily as (more?) painful as the early versions of Workbench..  ;-) :-)

Of course, there is a big difference..
When I first started using the Amiga, I believed (still do) that it was the best OS out there at the time.  It had the best combination of power and ease of use and configuration and flexibility...
I felt that this was something that was better than anything out there...

I love Linux, and it's great at certain things, but I can't honestly say that I always think it's better than anything else out there...

When I set up my first filtering WEB proxy on Slackware (back when it was standard to install Linux from floppies.. ;-), it was cost effective and it worked.  But when there was budget for another product (BESS?  Can't remember, it's been awhile), we did that..

So, an Amiga feel?  In some ways..  Yes.. But it's not totally the same..
For me..

desiv

[ElPolloDiabl]

Modern Linux has the option to both. Use the CLI, or pretty much anything can be done in the menu.
 The ability to customize is about the only thing it has in common with AmigaOS.

  I would imagine a fully loaded Amiga would be a pain to fix if anything goes wrong. Unless you just go for a reinstall. Linux is just as complicated.

[smerf]

Gentlemen!!

Amiga OS and Linux are both off shoots of Unix, no they aren't exactly the same, but underneath in the hardware they use the same principles, they give instructions to the hardware to do certain stuff while the processor only comes into use when the hardware is over run with instructions. You have to remember back in the old days Unix was the only OS that was multi tasking and it did that by instructing the hardware to handle functions like video and sound. Other systems that said that they were multi tasking actually were time sharing where the cpu gave out the instructions or commands and time shared between programs. This is what made windows so slow at first compared to the smoothness of the Amiga.
Don't know if I really explained that right, I am tired from working on a roof all day putting up a TV antenna, yep out with the new (cable) and in with the old ( Airwave) I came down to the point where I got sick and tired of paying for commercials and infomercials when I receive better movies and shows on antenna TV.

[Kesa]

My friend gave me a rope on the weekend and i'm having a blast with it. It's black and static and it's all mine.

[commodorejohn]

smerf, you are in rare form today: wrong on absolutely every single count.

For one thing, as previously discussed, Amiga OS is not an offshoot of Unix; if they do share similarities, it's from Amiga OS being based on TriPOS, which spawned in the same pools of primordial mainframe ooze that Unix did. The notion that the processor (on either Unix systems or Amigas) only does things when the peripheral hardware is too busy is patently ridiculous because A. they have distinct and only partly overlapping sets of capabilities, and B. the entire point of the processor is to run software. "Time-sharing" is multitasking (often preemptive) and multiple mainframe OSes implemented it years before Unix even existed.

You have no idea what you're talking about...

[smerf]

smerf, you are in rare form today: wrong on absolutely every single count.

For one thing, as previously discussed, Amiga OS is not an offshoot of Unix; if they do share similarities, it's from Amiga OS being based on TriPOS, which spawned in the same pools of primordial mainframe ooze that Unix did. The notion that the processor (on either Unix systems or Amigas) only does things when the peripheral hardware is too busy is patently ridiculous because A. they have distinct and only partly overlapping sets of capabilities, and B. the entire point of the processor is to run software. "Time-sharing" is multitasking (often preemptive) and multiple mainframe OSes implemented it years before Unix even existed.

You have no idea what you're talking about...

Uh, OK, there Commodorejohn, the only thing I ask is please don't get into running computers with the united states satellite division, where we run Xenix, Unix, Windows, CPM, DOS and at NASA even used AmigaOS to recieve pictures from outer space.

And you are right sir, I have no idea what I am talking about, since we have been loading up hardware with buffered instructions since we did not have the memory or hardware when we first started out using computers, the first computer that we had had about 40 cards in it, with magnetic memory modules, we used a system called mini code (4 bit instructions) with a type of Unix to run the systems. We could run 4 different systems by time sharing with the unix type mincode to give instructions to the buffered hardware so that it would not slow down (remember hardware takes more time than electronic signals).

Oh btw I still have my original BCPL books from the start date of the Amiga, somewhere up in the attic.

In order to make brash statements, first you have to define Unix, since most of you are to young to remember what the original Unix was about, and even if you did you couldn't afford it, since my copy cost around $43,000 at that time (gov't purchased). Today we have switched over to a new language that is more of a control and easier language to program.

Tell me ever play with cobal, turbo pascal, pascal, or mini code.

Oh by the way I spent about 2 years programming the Amiga's for those NASA space shots, I did work for Commodore you know, but I was really better at sales. Not as much hard work as programming.

and btw, I never said that the Amiga was Unix, I said it was an off shoot of Unix, which means that it has multi tasking features, and the reason the Amiga is so good at multi tasking is because you can give the hardware sound and video chips buffered instructions to decrease the CPU from givning all the commands (remember cpu's can only initiate one command at a time) but by buffering the chips (or hardware) with several instructions, as the instructions are being used the CPU rests, until the hardware tells it I am done with your last instructions waiting for more.

OK