Amiga.org
The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: Anding on August 26, 2006, 11:28:17 AM
-
Can I get some reactions to this idea?
I love the Amiga but I now need more. If I distil what I love about the Amiga it is
- Transparency. With a little time you can understand all that is going on with the operating system, what all the files on your HDD do, and how things work "under the hood". Contrast this with Windows which is a black box with millions of almost unknowable pieces.
- Power. Custom chipset, multitasking OS, GUI, this machine kicked @rse ahead of it's time!
- Simplicity/elagance. Small code, tight execution, minimal components to get the job done. How fresh!
I will keep using my Amigas (under UAE, with AmiBlitz to be precise), but now I do need to move forward in time. I want to keep the thrill I got with the transparency, power and the simplicity and elgance of the Amiga, but get access to new hardware, graphics acceleration, new coding opportunities, and a wider community of active contributers. So I'm thinking of moving up to LINUX, with Mono .NET for development.
What would you think if you were me?! How closely does LINUX resemble AmigaDOS? Is it as transparent as the good old Amiga? Which GUI would you pick? Etc..??!
Cheers,
Andy
-
Linux isn't as transparent as AmigaDOS, but at least you can pick most of it apart and configure it to suit, not to mention recompiling it and breaking it!
Check out Ubuntu - this is a pretty complete distribution and everything pretty much "just works" - but it still allows plenty of scope for being reconfigured.
- Ali
-
Another vote for Ubuntu.
Linux can be almost as small as AmigaOS (see Slackware/DSL) or as big and bloated as Windows (see SuSE/Mandrake). I find Ubuntu to be a nice midway point, combining a nice simple interface with a powerful underlying OS. I think you will enjoy it as an AmigaOS user.
--
moto
-
What would you think if you were me?! How closely does LINUX resemble AmigaDOS? Is it as transparent as the good old Amiga?
In my personal opinion, of all OS I know, LINUX is most dissimilar to AmigaOS !
It is not intuitive. You have to read several pages of manuals to do the simplest things.
Getting new Hardware working, is close to impossible for a "normal" user.
In my opinion, even the actual windows versions are closer to AmigaOS then LINUX !
If you want AmigaOS feeling, then AROS is the best choice.
But it is not usable for .NET development.
If you need .NET development, but don't want to use WINDOWS or LINUX, then take a look at
http://www.reactos.org/
I am not sure if .NET/MONO is already working there, but there is a good chance, as ReactOS is an OpenSource Windows clone.
-
@Heinz
A few years ago I would have agreed that Linux is less user friendly than some other operating systems. Getting hardware or software to work used to be a nightmare.
However, Ubuntu makes it really easy to get new hardware working and has an excellent package management system for installing new software.
--
moto
-
A few years ago I would have agreed that Linux is less user friendly than some other operating systems. Getting hardware or software to work used to be a nightmare.
However, Ubuntu makes it really easy to get new hardware working and has an excellent package management system for installing new software.
Maybe.
But the same things were said about some of the LINUX distribution I have tried.
I have tried a lot.
SUSE
MANDRAKE
KNOPPIX
DEBIAN
SLACKWARE
The three first worked quite well, but I never get my DSL Card ( yes there was a official Driver ! ) and my Scanner working.
CD-Burning only worked on Knoppix ( If I remember correctly ).
And all had a Package Manager and a configuration tool, that was supposed to be "great", "wonderful", "just works" ....
I personally accepted that LINUX is no desktop OS and it probably never will be a desktop OS.
-
amigados is based on unix, thats why it is so easy to port unix programs over.
linux is an opensource version of unix
its not surprising that there are lots of similarities. many people have tried linux and found it to be too complicated, thats one of the reasons AROS has so much promise.
-
It depends on what exactly you are comparing. I use linux almost exclusively at work. As a development environment it is good but I truly don't regard it suitable for a lot of ordinary end-users.
-
Thanks guys for the link to Ubuntu. This looks very impressive. If I interpret their philospohy correctly, it's a little Amiga like in their focus on "doing things well". Also confidence inspiring that they have a managed developer community, and that the computer billionaire / space pilot Mark Shuttleworth is backing it with real $$$. I will definatly burn a CD of this and get cracking...
AROS has so much promise.
I'm very curious about too Aros. Amiga OS was mass seller in it's day, and I think that's why it's influence carries on lasting. What's the end destination for AROS? Is it meant to go mass market, or more for people who had an Amiga in the past and are still dedicated?
Regards
Andrew
-
KThunder wrote:
amigados is based on unix,
Ah, urban myth No. 125. Been quite a while since I saw that the last time :-o
AmigaOS and and *nix have nothing in common 'cept they fact that could multitask 20 years ago. AmigaDOS and *nix, well I don't expect to see anything BCPL in an *nix-kernel ....
-
check the command stucture, command naming, multitasking setup, disk management and many other things about the os.
if you are comfortable with unix you will be very comfortable with amiga. there are many many commonalities. the same cannot be said of amigaos and msdos, or amigados and many other os's and the fact that much unix software has been ported to and from amigados and unix shows that they are similar on many respects. some unix source only has to be recompiled with a larger than normal stack and minor disk and video tweaks.
if someone was to rewrite linux to be simple for anyone to use it would be very very similar to amigados
-
BTW, Ubuntu has a live CD version so you can try it out without committing to install it.
--
moto
-
Amiga(D)OS is just as much based on *nix as BeOS is based on AmigaOS (not at all that is).
-
some unix source only has to be recompiled with a larger than normal stack and minor disk and video tweaks.
Then why there is Firefox for Windows but not for Amiga? Why there is GIMP for Windows but not for Amiga? Why, oh why there is much much more Linux software available to Windows than Amiga... Conclusion: your reasoning is flawed. Linux and Windows are more close to each other than Amiga is to Linux or Windows.
-
Getting new Hardware working, is close to impossible for a "normal" user.
It is impossible for a "normal" user!
Just look at the people who have dificulties with installing (even software) on Windows ...
-
Definitely not the Linux.
And btw. there is Gimp for Amiga.
-
MacOS X the closest to AmigaOS I have found.
-
motorollin wrote:
BTW, Ubuntu has a live CD version so you can try it out without committing to install it.
Do you have a link where to download that?
I've been thinking a while about giving Linux a try, but as I have but 1 harddisk with 2 partitions which are both crammed with stuff I need a version which boots from CD.
-
unix was developed in 1969, tripos was based on unix and written in bcpl a c-like language in 1976, later when the os was being develped for amiga a change was made when metacomco was contacted for an os. they took a 68k version of tripos and developed it for the amigas hardware.
in the 80s many many programs were ported from unix for the amiga including rendering programs, text stuff, spreadsheet programs, lots of postscript programs etc etc. go to aminet and type in unix into the search you will find lots of programs including games that were ported
go to google or any other search engine and type in amigados unix tripos and you will find os history sites some of which actually call tripos a unix clone although it is not. amigados is a direct offshoot of tripos, which is an indirect ofshoot of unix. there was a lot of os development especially in american universities in the 70's that was based more or less on unix. including minux which infuenced linux.
software porting has stopped for many reasons not the least of which is the fact that many of the programmers who were doing the porting have moved over to linux, and the fact that most amigans dont run an x-window server which is neccisary for newer software even though they could.
-
mac osx is based directly on bsd unix.
-
a few years ago I put Red Hat on my laptop. I use it for making web pages and several other activities and it works just fine for my purposes.
by now, it's an "old" kernal and I should get something newer. Maybe Ubuntu. I haven't decided yet.
anyway, my system is stable - it's why I haven't changed it for so long. I never have to monkey with it. it just works. I like that. I can't so everything (it IS old, after all).
And while it's not exactly like AmigaOS, it's fun. and it doesn't blow up like windows can. the weirdest concept is that everything is a "file".
-
Anding wrote:
I love the Amiga but I now need more. If I distil what I love about the Amiga it is
- Transparency. With a little time you can understand all that is going on with the operating system, what all the files on your HDD do, and how things work "under the hood". Contrast this with Windows which is a black box with millions of almost unknowable pieces.
-I will keep using my Amigas (under UAE, with AmiBlitz to be precise), ..., but get access to new hardware, graphics acceleration, new coding opportunities...
Andy
Why not get a PegasosII? It runs Linux and MorphOS, which is an Amiga like operating system itself. You can use Radeon cards up to the Radeon 9250 and even 3d drivers are there. I have to admit that there is a way bigger developer community for Linux x86 than for PPC Linux.
Bye
-
Also remember there is Kubuntu aswell...
both Ubuntu and Kubuntu are nice..
I don't want to start a Window Manager war but..
KDE imho, is a bit more intuitive than Gnome.
Plus you get alot of slick KDE gui's for almost every application that's worth it... And to streamline the
Gui even more the GTK -> QT skinning engine is not bad
at all... It's not quite a rush yet, but it will be some day :)
It is a hawk on your computer resources though...
Untill KDE4 is out that is :)
Just my two cents on this...
-
how much would a pegasos setup cost and where can you get it. its been a while since i last checked
-
Last time I looked on Amigakit a Pegasos 2 was around £350 (I think about $700.) That was just the board and processor (1GHz) though.
-
The PegasosII Motherboard with 1 GHZ CPU module costs $499/€415 according to Genesi's webshop. At least you had to add a case,psu,Ram,Mouse and Keyboard to the setup, if you already have CD-Rom, HD and a VGA Monitor.
Bye
-
shoot thats a bit out of my range right not, oh well
-
Hmmm... I'm going to stick my opinion in and comment on the original questions posted...
Linux is perhaps MORE transparent than Amiga, simply because it's Open Source. The converse to this is that, of course, it's slightly more complicated.
It's powerful, multi-tasking, works with most hardware, and the software components have been tried and tested over years - the core utils are tight and elegant.
The directory structure makes sense just as much as the Amiga's. Just remember that Unix and Linux are multi-user; that's why you get directories like /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin, etc.
The major distros are extremely complex, and that includes Ubuntu. But not many people realise that all that's needed to get a completely functional DOS-style command line up and running is a working kernel (compiled specifically for your hardware), and a few core commands, libraries and devices. Literally a few MB! And surprisingly easy to do.
I've seen an entire console-based system take up less than 128MB: wordprocessor, database, spreadsheet, email, web browser (with graphics and JavaScript!), instant messenger, mp3 player, CD and DVD player (yes, running in the console!), picture and PDF viewer, games and utilities...
After that you can add a cut-down version of Xorg and a simple window manager, and you've got a functional GUI. (There are many, many window managers, from ultra-simple, mouseless jobs like RatPoison and Ion, to behemoths like KDE and Gnome.)
But the best way to learn Linux (and realise that it's not really that far distant from Amiga) is to build it yourself. Try Gentoo or Linux-from-Scratch and get your hands dirty by putting together a minimal system (there are a few how-tos out there). Linux can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. If you want efficiency and elegance, do it yourself. I've never come across another OS that gives you so much choice!
-
amigados is based on unix, thats why it is so easy to port unix programs over.
WTF?
Any way, I find Linux not only to be cryptic, but bloated and sluggish as well. Nothing like an Amiga. Haven't tried Slackware though.
I do like though those OpenGL OS-X style GUI's. Cool the way a window moves around like a big jelly when it is dragged.
-
Sorry for jumping in back there. I'm doing this on a phone and missed reading the last dozen posts.
amiga.org PDA version anyone?
-
wtf??? dont be so rude
get to computer and read the last dozen posts
-
i know you can't afford it right now. but i say save for a pegII with MorphOS. it's the ultimate next-generation Amiga experience. even more so than AOS4, which is verging more away from the original transparent/open Commodore OS design we all love.
you can even directly install your old Workbench disks and run that instead of MOS if you like. But MOS is just like a pumpedup version of AmigaDOS/Workbench on steroids, so I doubt you'd do that but the options there. :-D
-
@KThunder
AmigaDOS is (for a very large part) a port of TRIPOS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPOS) - but TRIPOS isn't based on Unix at all. If you take a look at the interna - memory management, message passing, micro kernel - this is quite obvious.
-
save for a pegII with MorphOS. it's the ultimate next-generation Amiga experience. even more so than AOS4, which is verging more away from the original transparent/open Commodore OS design we all love
What does THAT mean and where did you get that notion from??
OS4 seems very Amiga-like to me. just like MOS, it FEELS like amiga - just faster. And just as a reminder, I have a peg and I go to Amiga meets where we get to play with an A1 - with the Latest OS4.
there's some differences, of course, but they are basically similar enough to both be Amiga. And I say this as a USER.
-
In my personal opinion, of all OS I know, LINUX is most dissimilar to AmigaOS !
It is not intuitive. You have to read several pages of manuals to do the simplest things.
Getting new Hardware working, is close to impossible for a "normal" user.
I couldn't agree more with you. I installed Xandros hoping to be able to do somethings on it that Amiga OS4 can't yet. I had heard that Xandros was easy to use, but it just tries to hide an overly complex system from the user. Boy does this sound farmiliar to another OS I know!
AS to the hardware my understading is that when a new Linux kernel comes out a lot of hardware that used to work no longer does. If you doubt this just try to get a two to three year old Intel winmodem to work!!
That is not all; IMHO Linux is a lot slower on the same hardware then Windows XP. This is not good. Maybe I just need some new drivers, but tring to update even the update list on dial up Internet is... well painfully slooooow.
Still there are things to like about Linux and if Amiga 3.x and 4.x, MOS, MAC OS and the like where not available Linux might look a lot better.
-
I like Ubuntu and XFCE as the Window manager. Fast and light, can be tricky at first but can look damn pretty have a look at
DreamLinux (http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/english/index.html)
As an example. Dreamlinux is Debian based too!
lovely :-)
-
@wisemantrading
Winmodem on linux? You are joking of course. The clue is in the title. Some work but most don't. Bin the cheapo piece of rubbish and get a proper modem.
Linux Forums are full of people who try to get this sort of duff tripe to work. It is well documented that these modems are half modem half software.
Any file/operating system is going to look cryptic and confusing at first. The trick is to start as a noob all over again, hurts the pride a bit, but other OS's do a lot of puppy walking for you. Linux doesn't. If you want that try Linspire/ freespire. (bloated and heavy but noob friendly).
Either that or just get a Mac and be done with it.
-
Zac67 wrote:
@KThunder
AmigaDOS is (for a very large part) a port of TRIPOS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPOS) - but TRIPOS isn't based on Unix at all. If you take a look at the interna - memory management, message passing, micro kernel - this is quite obvious.
you are correct about memory management to a point. the designers of tripos puposely didnt use the same memory setup as unix as they were designing an os for a completely different purpose than mainframes. message passing is actually very similar except again we arent using mainframes and batch processing and time sharing. microkernal setup is differnt partially because commodore et. al. used a rom for basic functions and exec for everything else.
dozens af computer scientists around the world tracing the history of unix and its flavors place tripos in the tree so to speak and the 68k implementation that became amigaos as a direct sucessor. the command stucture, batch file setup init. files etc. etc. are very similar. but maybe we are all wrong.
think of it this way in the 70's you had microcomputers beginning to show up and they needed an os. some of the os designers used cp/m or some variant or based their setup on that. some just used basic as their os. and some based their work on unix.
-
Winmodem on linux? You are joking of course. The clue is in the title. Some work but most don't.
Not at all! Would you rather that I call them softmodems? I know they are part software, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't work under Linux. My main point is that they (at least mine) used to work under older Linuxs. This just doesn't make since. I can still use printer drivers that work under Workbench 1.x under Amiga OS 4. I know that this not the exact same situation, but working drivers should not stop working with with small jumps in the Linux kernel.
I know Linux will feel more friendly with time, but the original question as I unstood it was does Linux have the same friendly feel as Amiga OS. For me the answer is no.
I also know that Amiga has some things that would stump a newcomer, but I think that it is much easier to come to grips with Amiga.
I am not done tring out Linux, but if I can do something (what ever it may be) on Amiga I think it is much easier.
-
KThunder wrote:
you are correct about memory management to a point. the designers of tripos puposely didnt use the same memory setup as unix as they were designing an os for a completely different purpose than mainframes.
Ack.
message passing is actually very similar [...]
The implementation differs fundamentally.
microkernal setup is differnt partially because commodore et. al. used a rom for basic functions and exec for everything else.
Erm - maybe you should read up on 'microkernel'.
And exec.library resides in ROM - no way around that for sure.
dozens af computer scientists around the world tracing the history of unix and its flavors place tripos in the tree so to speak and the 68k implementation that became amigaos as a direct sucessor.
Yes? At least ppl at Wikipedia don't:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix-like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system#Unix-like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPOS
And I wouldn't either. The architectures and implementation differ far too much. You could call them 'similar' (as AmigaDOS is POSIX oriented), but AOS is definitely not 'Unix-like'.
the command stucture, batch file setup init. files etc. etc. are very similar.
That'd make MS-DOS Unix-like, too. You're looking at the user or maybe application side, I'm talking about architecture.
I'd say, AmigaOS is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Unix. (Sorry, Douglas ;-))
-
Can Linux cure my craving for AmigaDOS?
No version of Linux can be considered as easy to use as AmigaDOS. For basic thingies like word processing and web browsing, Ubuntu is fine. But if you want to play DVD's or MP3's, or have an extraordinary setup (like two monitors, or two sound cards, or something like that) it's gonna be a hell of a fuss if you're new to Linux.
I now got my KUbuntu installation up and running with alot of stuff like gaim (msn alternative) xmms and so. I can virtually do everything I could with Windows (though I still need to install KCDemu - a Linux Daemon Tools equivalent - but it needs a kernal recompilation).
One can 'feel' that Linux is designed for multitasking (wich Windows (XP) isn't). While I listen to Internet radio using my USB soundcard I'm copying backed up stuff on the hd and doing seveveral other stuff - and it happens so without one single hickup; the way I like it 8-)
-
I've used Windows, Linux (too many flavours), BSDs and recently found an operating system which gave me the same feeling as the Amiga: Mac OS X.
On the top you've got a friendly face that works brilliantly - intuitively - and underneath you've got a coherent file structure where you stand a cat in hell's chance of understanding exactly what (almost) every file does on the operating system.
Linux has become too fragmented with the distro wars, environment wars (KDE! no! Gnome! Fight!) to the point that it's damn difficult to use as a desktop in my experience. Ubuntu is a breath of fresh air, and I really wish them well as they've got exactly the right ethos, but all the same it doesn't quite do it for me.
The Apple approach of providing end user and power user functionality wrapped up in a cohesive functional environment really enthused me to the point that my next machine will be a Mac. I'm running OSX on a Dell C640 as an evaluation and will be purchasing a macbook once funds allow...
It honestly made me think of the Amiga days and what made them great.
-
What really gives MacOS X the Amiga feeling, is the fact that it's a powerful opperating system with close ties between the Hardware and Software. The people who write the OS know exactly what hardware it's going to run on and it shows...
-
Well, I think there are many similarities in the Amiga and Linux approaches. To look at the citeria the OP mentioned:
- Transparency: Definitely "yes". You can ultimately examine every single aspect, every file, every function of the OS and its components, everything comes with full source code (if you really want to go that deep). There are thousands of communities and tons of documentation which help you in doing so.
- Power: Absolutely. There just is no example where Linux can't be used.
- Simplicity: Yes and no. It might be quite a learning curve if you only have worked with other OSes previously. But once you have understood the basics, everything seems logical and easy. However, you rarely just throw in a floppy disk and click around ;-)
- Small code / minimal components: Yes and no. Most distibutions come bloated with KDE or GNOME and tons of crap being installed by default. So this is rather a question of customizing. Personally, I prefer window managers like IceWM or Fluxbox (and FreeBSD btw, it appears even easier and more logical than Linux to me). They are extremely fast, you can get hundreds of nice themes or just create your own. This is one of the biggest commonnesses IMHO. Ultimate configurability. You can completely modify the look of your desktop, mess with icons, all the stuff Amiga users love.
If you want to use a state-of-the-art OS, I recommend you give Linux a shot. Nothing keeps you from continuing to use your Amiga in parallel (like I do). And E-UAE runs quite nice, too.