MorphOS: Public Release of MorphOS 3.6

[Jeff]

@Amigadave or anyone

What is the best air cooled G5 desktop-tower type to get for MorphOS?  I have a "short list" of a few older machines I am tracking down. I would like to add this. My only MorphOS reg is tied to an older G4 mini.

[Lurch]

Thomas has a good work-a-round but not really an official update program as such, would be good to have something along those lines.
No more downloading ISO's just run the update program and it does the work.

AmigaOS has done some great work with amiupdate along those lines, although it did error out on first update and I had to manually update one of the libraries after that it was away.

Grunch has it's moments, doesn't always connect to the database and some updates wouldn't download/update so in the end I just googled the recommended versions it put forward. It's come along way though from when I first used it. If it wasn't for Grunch I wouldn't have found cyber lemmings ;-)

I even tried it under 3.9 and it had similar issues.

Where MorphOS has the edge over AmigaOS is driver support, speed of updates and boot time.

The GUI isn't for me though, to me AmigaOS has the feel of 3.9 without the need of all the software hacks which is a good thing for me.

I've tried various AmigaOS 3.x/4.x style themes for MorphOS but just can't get into it.

I'm still impressed with the boot time though, and the developers are amazing. The amount of work they have put into it is incredible. I'll register it at some point (now that I have my Peg board) just to support another Amiga project. I try to support most things Amiga.

However would be nice if everyone worked together on an "Amiga OS" just so we can leap frog a head at a faster rate but then history would say this isn't going to happen.

Red/blue camp bollocks etc...

[pVC]

You can avoid dealing with physical discs, Thomas Rapp described it at MorphZone:

Updating procedure for...
Mac

You can also skip few steps in that guide. You don't need to rename bootinfo.txt or bless it (if you don't touch it). Unless bootinfo.txt has changed of course, but it usually (never?) does. It's enough just to replace boot.img and that's it.

This method has worked for me too, but it's not officially recommended to update the live system, because in theory it can cause some unexpected errors. I'd recommend to do it after fresh reboot at least.

Other safe discless method is to boot the ISO from USB memory. It's practically the same as CD boot and it's recommended way too. You can find official guide for it.

[Iggy]

@ Jeff
The 2.3 Ghz G5 with PCI-X slots is currently the most powerful air-cooled model available.

@ AmigaDave - Did you try an R400 card yet? Johannes Genberg in Stockholm (Yasu on MorphZone) has been beta testing the driver and let me know a few weeks ago that it had been finalized.

@ TeamBlackFox - Just hold on to your 2.5 GHz Quad. Support is rarely announced ahead of time (except for rare exceptions like the SAM460 - which probably shouldn't have been mentioned since all its done is generate constant comments about the delays), but support for PCI-e G5s seems like a natural next step.

[matt3k]

I have never tried AOS 4.x.  I still actively use 3.9 on classic hardware and MOS 3.6 on a powerbook.

IMHO, MOS seems like a very natural progression in the user experience to 3.9.  It has a balance of modern elements, and classic look  that works for me.  

The upgrade process from1.4x to 3.6 has been solid. Burning a CD is simple and ever since Jalapeno, it is native to the os.

I agree if "one banner" was working together instead of red/blue it would have helped, particularly in the software application area which is the biggest void of all flavors of Amiga.  

Welcome to MOS...

Thomas has a good work-a-round but not really an official update program as such, would be good to have something along those lines.
No more downloading ISO's just run the update program and it does the work.

AmigaOS has done some great work with amiupdate along those lines, although it did error out on first update and I had to manually update one of the libraries after that it was away.

Grunch has it's moments, doesn't always connect to the database and some updates wouldn't download/update so in the end I just googled the recommended versions it put forward. It's come along way though from when I first used it. If it wasn't for Grunch I wouldn't have found cyber lemmings ;-)

I even tried it under 3.9 and it had similar issues.

Where MorphOS has the edge over AmigaOS is driver support, speed of updates and boot time.

The GUI isn't for me though, to me AmigaOS has the feel of 3.9 without the need of all the software hacks which is a good thing for me.

I've tried various AmigaOS 3.x/4.x style themes for MorphOS but just can't get into it.

I'm still impressed with the boot time though, and the developers are amazing. The amount of work they have put into it is incredible. I'll register it at some point (now that I have my Peg board) just to support another Amiga project. I try to support most things Amiga.

However would be nice if everyone worked together on an "Amiga OS" just so we can leap frog a head at a faster rate but then history would say this isn't going to happen.

Red/blue camp bollocks etc...

[nicholas]

The best Amiga OS available just keeps on getting better and better.  Each update brings so many new features and the quality is outstanding.

Definitely worth the £100 licence fee.

Thanks MorphOS Team!

[Epsilon_]

Upgraded my G4 powerbook from Morphos 3.5 to 3.6 no problem.

Confirmed airport wireless now works under MorphOS!

YES! I no longer need the pcmcia wireless card anymore!

Thanks to the MorphOS team for this release.

Catcha,
Epsilon

[Yasu]

@ AmigaDave - Did you try an R400 card yet? Johannes Genberg in Stockholm (Yasu on MorphZone) has been beta testing the driver and let me know a few weeks ago that it had been finalized.

I'm also known as Yasu here as well Though I rarely write anything here.

Yes, I have been testing it for some months now and it's not only much more powerful than my previous 9600 Pro card but I have also a lot less gfx bugs on it (maybe as few as 0). So if you can get a hand on a X800XT card I really recommend it!

[Edit] It's an X800XT I got.

[Boot_WB]

You can also skip few steps in that guide. You don't need to rename bootinfo.txt or bless it (if you don't touch it). Unless bootinfo.txt has changed of course, but it usually (never?) does. It's enough just to replace boot.img and that's it.

This method has worked for me too, but it's not officially recommended to update the live system, because in theory it can cause some unexpected errors. I'd recommend to do it after fresh reboot at least.

Other safe discless method is to boot the ISO from USB memory. It's practically the same as CD boot and it's recommended way too. You can find official guide for it.

+1 for USB or CD boot - the simple (and fail-safe) methods, no messing with the boot partition.

It's easy enough to put together a yaboot-based boot menu that offers all the options (boot from HDD, boot OSX, boot linux, boot from USB, boot from ISO, etc), but any boot menu adds a few seconds to the boot time.
For everyday usage, unless you regularly boot into multiple OSes/versions it's more annoyance than use. (The one blessing is that once configured, you never have to bother with OFW for anything ever again. )

[Jeff]

@Iggy

Thanks!!!

[XDelusion]

I fear a world in which no one owns physical copies of books, software, etc. And everyone must depend upon internet acess not to mention technology as a whole to gain acess to things we have paid for.
 Further more in such a world, companies can withold software you have bought, or can alter eBooks (information) which you have downloaded.

 No sirt, I'd rather also still have the option of using physical copies, and as said before, you don't have to burn a CD to install the ISO update. It's all rather simple actually, doesn't even need an updater feature for people too lazy to read.

Starting to look really good, a shame nobody is picking up warp3d. I understand that it's old but would still be nice :-)

Still not a fan of Ambient, also is there such a thing as "morphos update"? There's grunch I know but pretty buggy and doesn't always work.

Would be great to be able to update from within MorphOS instead of having to deal with old fashioned discs all the time :-/

Liking the SMBFS though :-)

[Hans_]

Congrats to the MorphOS dev team.

I fear a world in which no one owns physical copies of books, software, etc. And everyone must depend upon internet acess not to mention technology as a whole to gain acess to things we have paid for.
 Further more in such a world, companies can withold software you have bought, or can alter eBooks (information) which you have downloaded.

 No sirt, I'd rather also still have the option of using physical copies, and as said before, you don't have to burn a CD to install the ISO update. It's all rather simple actually, doesn't even need an updater feature for people too lazy to read.

This is slightly off-topic, but since Lurch was talking about updates done via AmiUpdate... I have AmiUpdate set to save the downloaded archives of all updates to disk. So, I can make my own physical backups if I want to. That more or less addresses the risks that you list.

Personally, I prefer having a combination of small "automatic" updates, and periodically having new ISOs with all of the small updates included. That's the "best of both worlds."

Hans

[TheMagicM]

One thing I noticed about SMBFS right away is that I no longer have a limitation as to how far I am able to go into subdirectories. In 3.5 I couldnt recurse too far into subdirectories for some reason so I had to move what I wanted on my NAS to a higher level.

Now..it works like I want. That in itself is awesome.

[TrevorDick]

Thanks to the MorphOS Dev team. Downloaded but not yet installed.

Can anyone provide a brief update on the main improvements?

TrevorD

(PS I know RTFM! ;-))

[Lurch]

I have never tried AOS 4.x.  I still actively use 3.9 on classic hardware and MOS 3.6 on a powerbook.

Still have 3.9 setup on my A1200, hacked to death with software patches and hardware mods. Still has a switching issue with RTG/WHDLoad I can't fix.

It's amazingly quick can run most summvm games fine and it's a pretty good machine for internet browsing.  

I haven't touched it in awhile, but can't bring myself to sell it.

Feels just like my OS4.1 update 6 setup, however not as fast as the peg II.

Everything on os4.1 is in the same place as 3.9. So I get the 3.9 experience (with modern additions) but it's far more stable/faster. Plus I felt at home on first boot, just like running afaos/zune on 3.9.

I agree if "one banner" was working together instead of red/blue it would have helped, particularly in the software application area which is the biggest void of all flavors of Amiga.  

There was a time when there was more more bickering than progress, if we can all focus on one goal imagine the list of apps we could have now :-)

Welcome to MOS...

Thanks :-)

[takemehomegrandma]

Can anyone provide a brief update on the main improvements?

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=67595