Workbench 5 renamed Commodore OS

[Daedalus]

Once the C64x is out in stores, then I expect C=USA release information about the Amiga series and it's OS. Ubunto is not that exciting to me, C=USA's the follow on OS that will be running on C=USA Amiga series has my interest peaked. Although such a OS will probably take nearly a year to get such a project to beta level testing. :-|

I'm delighted with this sensible turn of events, but I'm still curious as before as to how they're gonna develop a new OS to beta level in just one year. Is it still going to be Linux-based à la Android etc., or is it new from scratch?

[Daedalus]

IMO, C=USA will not be able to make significant money buy selling Amigas with Linux.  It needs a custom OS that will be different.

See, this is the bit I still don't understand. A new, custom OS is great, it means it might actually be Amiga-like in the same way that AROS is... But what software will it run? If it's not based on Linux or something similar, how will it run OpenOffice, Firefox or any of the creativity software the new "Amiga" is supposed to be created for? Or is the CUSA development team going to develop the whole OS *and* port all these huge apps and all their dependencies? If they don't port the apps it'll be in a worse state than AROS is for launch. And that's not going to make them significant money either.

Look at Haiku: Several years in the making, it's only at Alpha 2 release, it has an out-of-date browser which has just been replaced by a newer, sometimes unstable one, and an unusably unstable office suite. I know it's largely a volunteers project, but do CUSA really have the developers to pull that off?

[Daedalus]

So which publishers have they licenced games from?

Or are they still encouraging people to download pirated D64 images?

Looks like they've changed the wording on the website so they no longer officially condone piracy... Maybe we should charge them for all the consultancy and legal advice these forums provide them

[Daedalus]

Ummm, so they'll build an emulation of a Linux kernel, X server, desktop etc. in a sandbox with full API pass-throughs to their new OS? Wow, now I'm *really* interested in how they'll manage to write all that from scratch. Or will it be Linux in a virtual machine?

I guess if they keep the applications with their own desktop environment separate from the actual OS desktop it wouldn't be that hard, but then it's more like AmiCygnix than ABox. That'll work (it does on AmigaOS4), but it certainly won't feel integrated or professional doing it that way.

[Daedalus]

I often find myself wondering one very important question. If it is not better, if it's not offering something new, why bother with reinventing the wheel? Just to be different? ahh... it works for hobby, but not on the serious market.

Yep, that's what many of us have been trying to figure out. Having emulation layers to support non-native software in place of native software isn't better, it isn't new and it certainly won't fly in the serious market. So it looks like: a) it'll just be Linux with a more thorough skinning than the one on the C64x, maybe a new desktop at a push, b) a totally new OS with emulation to replace the lack of native software and modern features, which will be a marketing disaster, or c) CUSA have the funds to bankroll dozens of developers for several years to come up with a genuinely viable OS and ecosystem, and the marketing, support and distribution of it all.

Place your bets now please.