So if you are to choose one of the two new OS options, I think it would be fair to compare them in four key areas before making your choice:
1) Level of compatibility to the original OS.
2) Performance
3) Features
4) HW options, including "bang for the buck" ratio
Take this "blind test" to see which one (option 1, or option 2) you would prefer:
1) In the first OS of the two, Amiga compatibility has been a top priority since day one. In the second, it hasn't.
I think that a better comparison would be how legacy software actually performs under both systems, and if there are programs that run only on one system, how many of them do so and how much important/relevant/useful they are and if a native version of them already exist.
2) The first of the two is faster than the second one, running on exactly the same HW.
True, at least according to a benchmark done some time ago.
3) The first of the two has more, better and more modern features in important areas than the second one, as well as most of the Amiga "3rd party standards" (CGX, Poseidon USB, MUI4, TurboPrint, etc) *integrated* into the OS.
I don't know about all the features of MOS, what about the following ones that have been integrated in OS4, are they integrated in MOS as well and if so how do they compare?
- TCP/IP stack (MOS has MosNet integrated AFAIK, how does it compare with Roadshow?)
- PTP support (is it integrated in MOS? Does it have e.g. thumbnail support as in OS4?)
- HW compositing
- integrated Cairo library
- third party HW driver support (I don't really know here how do the two systems compare)
- journaling filesystem (JXFS vs. SFS, how do they compare feature-way?)
BTW, MUI3 is integrated in OS4, although not to the same degree as MOS and it's not configurable as much as in MOS, but at least it is installed together with the base installation of OS4. Also, regarding third party standards, Picasso96 is integrated by default.
4) The first one runs on a much wider selection of (second hand) HW, including very cheap yet powerful Mac G4 computers, offering performance levels previously completely unseen in an Amiga context. The second one completely lacks the option of similarly affordable and powerful HW, but runs on new (with warranty), expensive, low-power HW, on which it hasn't come out of "beta state" since over a year (for unknown reasons).
I wouldn't rule out the fact that, if you'd prefer to have a new machine, OS4 runs on machines which are in production and sold, while MOS not (at least for the "in production" bit, I have read that there is still at least one reseller offering Efika systems).
Varthall
