olsen's description is excellent. My two cents: I have an AMIX 2.1 installation that I used to try and get to run modern software for kicks. I'm more or less a total hack when it comes to getting things to build...but I did have some success including running ssh and building newer C compilers which enabled yet more software to compile. There were also more weird bugs than I have ever seen. Half the challenge was virtually *nothing* expects to encounter sysv4 these days -- with good reason -- so all kinds of things bomb unexpectedly and require gentle nudges to direct them at sysv4-style workarounds. An old O'Reilly book on System V programming was really helpful. And lots of patience...25MHz and 16MB means that many builds basically thrash around in swap space. A configure script might run ten minutes or more before finally bombing with some error. And when that managed to finish, no guarantee it's actually going to build...what, and I suppose you want a pony too?
It's fun to play with but that's where it probably stops these days. From a modern user's perspective most would find it formidable or, more likely, just unusable. It's difficult to install and out of the box you get broken networking, DNS that only works with "some assembly required", a clock that can't figure out what year it is unless it's patched, a buggy, closed kernel, etc. In a world where even Debian can be installed on x86 architecture by literally clicking "next" until it's complete, AMIX is a dinosaur.
Interesting side note, the system I run AMIX on is a superkickstart Amiga 3000, so I actually have it set up to quad boot if memory serves: WB 1.3, 3.9, AMIX and NetBSD 5.
