One unified OS for the future?

[ddniUK]

Where is this 4.1.7 coming from? It is 4.1 Final Edition.

[spirantho]

Yes, the Sam460 will be a much fairer comparison than the Peg 2.

I believe that bPlan kept some of the really low level stuff to themselves. Just did a quick Google and found this, for example:

I think RAM timing is kept solid for biggest compatibility, so there
will be room for improvement, but I don't know how, and bplan
won't tell us...

http://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=4548&post_id=42844&viewmode=flat&sortorder=0&showonepost=1

That thread is just talking about twiddling the timings, nothing to do with AmigaOS - but the important thing is that it illustrates that bPlan did keep that sort of info to themselves.

I don't say that MorphOS isn't faster, only that the Pegasos II doesn't give a fair indication (the Sam 460 will), and that a benchmark that compares speed of a mature OS with a beta pre-release is completely meaningless.

[Everblue]

Not sure I get the argument here... is it that OS4.1 is a beta?

[itix]

Yes, the Sam460 will be a much fairer comparison than the Peg 2.

Funny that you say that because MorphOS 3.8 will be the first version to support SAM460 while AmigaOS 4 has supported SAM460 several years now.

;-)

I believe that bPlan kept some of the really low level stuff to themselves. Just did a quick Google and found this, for example:

http://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=4548&post_id=42844&viewmode=flat&sortorder=0&showonepost=1

That thread is just talking about twiddling the timings, nothing to do with AmigaOS - but the important thing is that it illustrates that bPlan did keep that sort of info to themselves.

Users dont need such kind of information. And OS developers dont either if they want to stay compatible.

[spirantho]

@itix

As long as the morphos devs have full access to the hardware details, then once MorphOs has reached a mature state on the 460, then I suspect we'll find there's very little difference. Of course before that state is true, then yes, MorphOS may well appear slower and that wouldn't be a fair comparison either. Look at G5 benchmarks on MorphOS now compared to their first beta releases, there's quite a difference.

@everblue


There was a link above to an OSnews article that compared non-optimal beta version of OS 4.1 on a Pegasos II with a mature MorphOS version and said "oh look! Morphos is faster, therefore it is better".  
To make a true comparison (as if that would help anybody), you need to compare a fully open hardware platform running mature versions of both of the OSes.

[Blinx123]

There is already a unified OS! Its called windows!

We hipsters like to be special! The more obscure the better

Can this Windows thing run Apple Pages? What about the most recent MorphOS/Amiga OS 4.* software?
Is it compatible with my ARM/PPC hardware and my GNU/Linux drivers?

[itix]

As long as the morphos devs have full access to the hardware details, then once MorphOs has reached a mature state on the 460, then I suspect we'll find there's very little difference.

Are you sure? Are you sure MorphOS is not faster on some task and OS4 is not faster on some other tasks?

Some benchmarks like RAM disk speed is not necessarily always tied to underlying hardware but to algorithms used in RAM disk implementation.

Of course before that state is true, then yes, MorphOS may well appear slower and that wouldn't be a fair comparison either. Look at G5 benchmarks on MorphOS now compared to their first beta releases, there's quite a difference.

It would be fair comparison because it tells exactly what you get. It is important to users so they can hold their buying decision if it turns out that support is not mature enough yet.

Mods: this discussion should be moved to its own thread.

[spirantho]

Yes, MorphOS and AmigaOS both have their own strengths and weaknesses - there will always be some variance, but overall I don't think there'll be much difference.

As for the review being fair - yes, it was a fair indication of the state of AmigaOS 4.1 on the Pegasos II at that time, but in no way should it be used - several years later - to say that because of that AmigaOS as an OS is slower than MorphOS as an OS. All the review proves is that a pre-release beta of AmigaOS is slower than the full release of MorphOS at that time on that hardware.

[ddniUK]

@spirantho

You should know better than to come on here spreading your common sense and reason. Shame on you!

[Everblue]

MorphOS and AmigaOS both have their own strengths and weaknesses - there will always be some variance, but overall I don't think there'll be much difference.

I think the fact that MorphOS runs on dirt cheap hardware and well, AmigaOS doesn't is a very big advantage for MorphOS.

[itix]

As for the review being fair - yes, it was a fair indication of the state of AmigaOS 4.1 on the Pegasos II at that time, but in no way should it be used - several years later - to say that because of that AmigaOS as an OS is slower than MorphOS as an OS. All the review proves is that a pre-release beta of AmigaOS is slower than the full release of MorphOS at that time on that hardware.

Funny that you claim Hyperion was selling pre-release beta to their customers. They never advertised it as such.

But yes, it nly reviews state of affairs in year 2009. Today if AmigaOS 4.1 FE (not released yet) was compared to MorphOS 3.7 (released) it could be even greater victory for MorphOS... ;-) I mean, it is also possibility, isnt it?

[spirantho]

Funny that you claim Hyperion was selling pre-release beta to their customers. They never advertised it as such.

The OSNews article was done on the beta of AmigaOS 4.1 for the Pegasos II:

It is important to note, though, that AmigaOs 4.1 for the Pegasos II is still in its bets stage, so things can certainly improve once it moves out of beta

But yes, it nly reviews state of affairs in year 2009. Today if AmigaOS 4.1 FE (not released yet) was compared to MorphOS 3.7 (released) it could be even greater victory for MorphOS... ;-) I mean, it is also possibility, isnt it?

Absolutely, it could be. But I still say we need to wait until we have a fully open platform and a mature version of each OS on that platform before we can possibly make any decisions.

To me personally, I don't care which is faster - but I just get annoyed with people saying x is better than y and giving totally misleading 'evidence' such as that OSNews article, which - by its own admission - was not representative of the full story.

[itix]

The OSNews article was done on the beta of AmigaOS 4.1 for the Pegasos II:

Absolutely, it could be. But I still say we need to wait until we have a fully open platform and a mature version of each OS on that platform before we can possibly make any decisions.

The OS news was repeating wrong information from French article (http://obligement.free.fr/articles/amigaos41_vs_morphos23.php) where it initially claimed that AmigaOS 4.1 for Pegasos 2 is beta. This was corrected later:

Contrairement à ce que j'avais écrit dans un premier temps, l'AmigaOS 4.1 sur Pegasos II n'est pas en version bêta. Il n'en demeure pas moins qu'il s'agit de la première version de ce système pour Pegasos II. Est-ce l'AmigaOS 4.x s'améliorera sur ce matériel%&$#?@!? Peut-être ou peut-être pas. En attendant, il reste moins optimisé que MorphOS. Enfin, on peut noter que la performance de certains tests est plus due à la façon dont a été compilé le logiciel qu'au système lui-même.

So it was full release vs full release. I know that Hyperion fixed slow disk I/O in later update, though.

[amigakit]

@Everblue @Niding

In the new year, I will continue work on a stripped down GadTools based AMIStore for low-end Classic Amiga running EasyNet.  It will be fun to scale it down but a lot of work of course ;-)  I have some interesting ideas that I hope will work with it.  I assume GadTools will work fine with all Amiga-like OS ?  I do not really want to use MUI because of it's higher footprint with Classic AmigaOS and it may consume too many system resources, plus not every Classic user has MUI installed.

[spirantho]

@itix
Fair enough (though it doesn't say much for the quality of the article if they don't even know what version of the OS it's running).

I still say that the only fair comparison will be when MorphOS and AmigaOS have both reached a stable, mature build on a completely open board like the Sam460 though.

[Kronos]

Few thoughts:

MUI is not just much easier to code for it will also look much nicer for user (+ offering options)

Amigas that can't run MUI without problems are pretty lowend indeed, so unless you plan to distribute SW for 68000 + 1MB useing MUI won't be a problem

Anybody who hasn't MUI installed on his mid-range Amiga (read 020 or 030 with atleast 4MB) is most likely not really interested in new SW