Amiga.org
The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: danwood on July 03, 2017, 10:30:16 AM
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Hi!
As some of you may already know, I recently joined the very talented team at FriendUP which consists of many former Commodore/Amiga people.
On my first visit to the offices in Norway I was pleased to see they even have a resident Amiga 1000 in the office!
(http://i.imgur.com/LUEIP51.jpg)
Commodore UK's former joint managing directors David Pleasance and Colin Proudfoot are heavily involved in the company, and talent such as Paul Lassa (behind the Commodore 65) and Francois Lionet of AMOS fame are also coding for the core platform.
I've enjoyed many Amiga related chats with their chief architect Hogne, who is an Amigan through and through. I was impressed to see the AmigaDOS and TRIPOS manuals on his desk for reference.
Amiga fans will be very at home with the CLI which is based on TRIPOS and even the directory structure, mount-lists etc. are all descended from the Amiga.
The project is open source and after 3 years of testing and development, version 1.0.0 was uploaded to Github over the weekend. You can download it and build it locally, check out their web-based "demo version" there will also be a Linux-based Installer coming soon.
(http://i.imgur.com/eBIE1hy.png)
I'd implore every Amiga fan to give it a proper look: https://friendup.cloud/friendup-v1-0-0-is-here-the-internet-is-now-your-computer/
We'll have a video giving more detail and showing some examples later this week.
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This actually looks really good (from the limited info available) - I thought it was going to be yet another fake OS in a browser, but the windows application support via RDP sold me
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Amiga fans will be very at home with the CLI which is based on TRIPOS and even the directory structure, mount-lists etc. are all descended from the Amiga.
Urgh. Is there a particular reason to mimic the (2nd to) worst part of the Os? I mean, really, Tripos had so many constructional problems that this is probably something I would ditch immediately.
Look at my "shell hacks" thread to find out why. Really really stupid ideas in Tripos.
The project is open source and after 3 years of testing and development, version 1.0.0 was uploaded to Github over the weekend. You can download it and build it locally, check out their web-based "demo version" there will also be a Linux-based Installer coming soon.
Frankly, looks like a mildy tuned XFCE on a Linux box to me.
Nothing bad about it, at least it has a sane shell and a sane operating system. But that's not related to Amiga.
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Finally, a new OS with the right window gadgets in the right places! :)
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Finally, a new OS with the right window gadgets in the right places! :)
That's an easy exercise with XFCE, believe me. I have the window decoration on my Linux machine configured in the same way.
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Maybe the least "Amiga feeling" about it are the menus, they are very much like how menus are everywhere else than Amiga. Which is a shame, since the Amiga way of doing menus is probably the most powerful around (it's a macro-recorder!)
What made me laugh was that after a while goofing around with it in full screen, I missed having a web browser, forgetting that I was already running it in a browser. The feeling of lacking a browser was quite Amiga like :lol:
The CLI is very rudimentary it seems, the typical commands did not really give me much hint about the filesystem layout, and no commands accepted «?» as temporary argument like on Amiga.
What I really don't quite grasp is what this is supposed to give me, an operating system, but what am I operating with it? Certainly not the underlying hardware, that still needs a "real" operating system. Internet resources? My data? If so, how? How do I get my data there? What does it interact with?
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so one would need a Linux box to run this 'browser' OS ??
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so one would need a Linux box to run this 'browser' OS ??
Anything with a capable browser, you wouldn't be forced to use Linux.
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Anything with a capable browser, you wouldn't be forced to use Linux.
So if it requires a browser and an OS to run it on, what exactly does it provide that I don't already have?
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So if it requires a browser and an OS to run it on, what exactly does it provide that I don't already have?
It's an unusual concept. I usually avoid cloud-based BS like the plague, but this seems... I don't know, different.
I signed up and logged in to try it out for a few minutes, seems it's basically a modern Amiga-like OS in a web browser. But they're also doing some rdp black magic to allow you to run applications from multiple OS's (including windows) in it.
You can mount web-based storage (sftp or google drive are a couple) inside the OS as well, I couldn't make it work, but admittedly I didn't try too hard. I guess the selling point is you can log in from any device with a browser and access the same desktop session on all devices without actually having a PC. Like a weird hybrid of a remote desktop session and a thin client.
Unsure what the fuss is about tbh, but I'm intrigued enough to try it again in a few weeks
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It's an unusual concept. I usually avoid cloud-based BS like the plague, but this seems... I don't know, different.
I signed up and logged in to try it out for a few minutes, seems it's basically a modern Amiga-like OS in a web browser. But they're also doing some rdp black magic to allow you to run applications from multiple OS's (including windows) in it.
You can mount web-based storage (sftp or google drive are a couple) inside the OS as well, I couldn't make it work, but admittedly I didn't try too hard. I guess the selling point is you can log in from any device with a browser and access the same desktop session on all devices without actually having a PC. Like a weird hybrid of a remote desktop session and a thin client.
Unsure what the fuss is about tbh, but I'm intrigued enough to try it again in a few weeks
Thanks, the perspective is useful, as I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the concept.
I mean, I get cloud based OS' like ChromeOS, but I'm trying hard to figure out what differentiates this project.
Although at this point I don't really use cloud based storage to a great extent, so my perspective on this isn't that great.
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So if it requires a browser and an OS to run it on, what exactly does it provide that I don't already have?
The Amiga curse.
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Another fake OS in a browser. Never cared for any of these.
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The Amiga curse.
I think Iggy has the curse already too :)
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I think Iggy has the curse already too :)
:roflmao: Not recently. Come to think of it, I haven't bought anything with an Amiga brand label since someone sold me a CD32 at a good price at couple of years ago.
Although...I keep dancing around the idea of buying an X5000/20 (instead of waiting for the X5000/40) and that would mean both new Amiga branded software and hardware.
In the past, this curse has mysteriously left my pockets, my wallet, and my bank account empty.
So I've tried to avoid it.
BTW - Glad to see a few of you are as confused as I am about the 'browser OS' that requires a browser and an OS (although it does supposedly bring the 'Amiga').
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I think Iggy has the curse already too :)
Antibiotics and a pot of live yoghurt should cure that. ;)
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Antibiotics and a pot of live yoghurt should cure that. ;)
For the Amiga curse? More like a rabies vaccination and a bottle of Rye.
But I'll go grab some kefir just in case a probiotic live culture would do some good. :laugh1:
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For the Amiga curse? More like a rabies vaccination and a bottle of Rye.
But I'll go grab some kefir just in case a probiotic live culture would do some good. :laugh1:
:lol:
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For the Amiga curse? More like a rabies vaccination and a bottle of Rye.
But I'll go grab some kefir just in case a probiotic live culture would do some good. :laugh1:
:lol:
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Kefir cures all.
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From an enterprise perspective cloud based OSs, i.e. workspaces make sense. There you can have centrally managed and controlled environments for your employees. E.g. An employee takes his own device (tablet, laptop) and uses the cloud OS to do his office work, in a separate sandboxed cloud environment without the risk of infecting the Enterprise network with the sh*t installed on his own device or leaving confidential data from the office on his device as it only lives in the cloud.
However, our big IT friends, Microsoft (Azure based workspace), Citrix and Amazon all already offer something for this. So I am also struggling to understand where FriendUP has a chance in the market.
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Dan Wood has just uploaded a more indepth video of FriendUP, demostrating the features of the OS.
While Im personally somewhat sceptical of cloudbased storage, just from a security point of view, I do see the advantage of this OS from a ease of access point of view, espesially if you are moving around alot for work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84D-jBTbwYk
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I'll have to admit, the fact that David Pleasance, Francois Lionette and Dan are now involved has made it really interesting
...If Dave Haynie gets involved i'll probably swoon like a fangirl