MorphOS ahead of AROS?

[takemehomegrandma]

Indeed it is. Far less crashes, a much better method at backwards compatability, MUI just works, USB works (including writing to NTFS), the GUI (Ambient) is AMAZING!!!

I think the only thing AROS has that is fully worth mention is the 3DCard Support, but even most of the drivers have bugs and the screen flakes out.

But hey, AROS is free, if you are interested, download it, install it, and submit bug reports.

I completely agree, as does (probably) most people who has MorphOS experience coming in contact with AROS.

Anyway, since you already gave such a good answer, I'm going to dedicate my post entirely to speculations! Maybe the future way forward for MorphOS will be to abandon the integrated, seamless 68k emulation at some point, together with the ambition to maintain the API as tight to the original Amiga OS API as they do today, maybe changes will be necessary at some point, if you are to make a jump to a different architecture/ISA. While it would lead to some sacrifices (turning it more into AROS, but still more than that), it could also lead to many great things, like a better HW platform, true SMP, true MP, true 64-bit, etc.

Then you would have to run the old Amiga apps through UAE or whatever, like they do on AROS, maybe that will be good enough on a x86 machine (it's not much fun on PPC). It will be a completely different manner than what we are used to on MorphOS (or OS4) today, it won't be integrated, it wont be as seemless, it's a different philosophy on "Amiga backwards compatibility" altogether, but although the thought might be a bit shocking to us at first, it seems to be enough for AROS people? Anyway, it wouldn't stop by just becoming a new "AROS Copy", since most new (and most interesting) MorphOS SW are in PPC, and is still maintained and could probably be ported to a new MorphOS "v4.0" architecture without greater troubles. Some good SW has even been brought under the MorphOS Team's wings for integration into the MorphOS package, and I think this strategy might continue.

So MorphOS would (probably) still have most of its native SW stack available, but you would have to run Amiga apps in the AROS way. MorphOS will of course still have its unique polished look and feel, the same features (and  more), the feeling of a real, usable desktop, etc from MUI4, Ambient, etc, not anything like AROS. And somehow I doubt the MorphOS Team will ever settle with running MorphOS in some process on top of another OS (as they seem putting a lot of pride into building a complete OS themselves)? And as a result, it could have a better HW platform, true SMP, true MP, true 64-bit, etc, a package completely new to Amiga, a "2nd Next Generation" (meaning Third of course :lol:, "3D miga"), which neither AROS or OS4 could match. But who knows, these things are *highly* hypothetical speculations, and might not happen at all (though they have been suggested by some MorphOS developers as one of several plausible ways to a future). I guess we'll learn in time...

[takemehomegrandma]

Nevertheless having some 68k integration in AROS is better than none ;-)

Maybe I misunderstood, but to me it sounds like a mish-mash of UAE emulation boxes...?

[takemehomegrandma]

It works like RuninUAE on OS4, but it's not the same as JIT integration in MOS/OS4.

Indeed, AROS plays in a different league (never said "worse" league, just *different*). I haven't got anything against AROS at all, it's just that it follows a different philosophy (grown through anarchy and lack of management), and as a result it's simply not as usable as OS4/MorphOS is to many Amigans, since they will expect both more and different. It's a cool "research" project though (in its anarchistic, unguided way), and I think it proved useful for picking up a few MorphOS components in the early days...

[takemehomegrandma]

They are UAE emulation boxes. On the other hand as long as emulation boxes are hidden under the hood it doesnt matter how it is implemented.

Yes, like two applications running on two separate computers (with separate OS code), instead of the two applications running in the same environment.

[takemehomegrandma]

@XDelusion

From what I read, I do believe this basically is the game plan.

...

All in all I don't like this idea. I have been looking for modern(ish) hardware that I could score at a cheap price, and be able to run a large chunk of my more resoure intensive classic Amiga apps on, and until my eMac died, despite it's limited resources, has been the answer to my praryers! I would only hope that in the future that the MorphOS team would strive to maintain classic support on what ever new hardware that they may be targetting, for as long as possible. I like not needing Amiga rom images, I like not having to load up an emulator, I like being able to run my old software as if it were native, and it does not bother me in the least that I am not able to play the old games without emulation because of the chip set because when you are gaming, you are not using the OS, so I could really care less. It's when I'm running classic apps that I don't want to be running an emulator.

...

Anyhow, there is my UAE rant, and why I prefer MorphOS like it is. Backwards compatible. Though again, by the time all this takes place, we'll probably be at version 4.x which I'm sure is going to be VERY impressive, and I'm sure that when 3.x comes out, developers will get excited again and will begin to start coding fresh new apps and games for it.

Thank you for your long and well written post!

I agree that this route would be a big and non-trivial mental step of acceptance a MorphOS user would have to take, *should* it happen (which again is highly hypothetical, and something in the future anyway). There is a beauty in MorphOS's way of simply not caring if the binaries are 68k or PPC but treats them just the same, allowing them to truly work together in the same environment, they all using the very same resources, arexx communicating with them and binding them together (arexx being 68k itself even), etc, etc.

1) But if you want this to remain unchanged in the future, I think you must sacrifice the possibility of moving to a different architecture (due to big/little endian problems (at least on x86, not sure about ARM) *together* with the enormous effort it is to write a good 68k JIT native for that new ISA, which again would be pointless (at least on x86) due to endianness issues), and by that you will sacrifice the chance of having MorphOS running on future proof HW (the PPC is dead, and everything tied to it is bound to die as well). You would also sacrifice the possibility of having true SMP, true MP, 64-bit, etc, i.e. many of the things people have been crying for for several years now. You would also sacrifice the only chance for MorphOS of reaching a wider audience, outside this shrinking little community, or to even survive more than a couple of years ahead from now.

2) The flip side of the coin is that if you want to move the MorphOS platform to an architecture that still has a pulse and is future proof (meaning a chance of long term survival of MorphOS, the PPC is dead), and if you want to harvest the benefits of multiple CPU cores, memory protection, 64-bit, etc, then you are in for a break from the past. It means a new endian model and an Amiga API that is different in maybe few but way too fundamental ways for even trying to uphold any kind of backwards compatibility to the old Amiga API environment, a new set of API's, rules and guides would apply. The old (and current) 3.1 API centric applications have prerequisites, a way of function, and makes assumptions of their surrounding environment that simply wouldn't be true anymore. It would be a "3rd generation" system, and it won't be free of sacrifices to go there. To a user, it would look and feel the same, have much of the same features, the same Ambient, the same applications in a recompiled version (mostly, at least). It wouldn't at all be like the Mac's migration from OS9 to OSX, not even close, it would still be MorphOS with most of its advantages intact (and a couple of major *new* advantages on top of that). But we would probably have to settle with something like AROS is doing today for the 68k emulation part. And personally, I honestly think that would be an *acceptable* price to pay. And as has been construed by many people in this thread (including you), MorphOS is about so much more than just its superior 68k emulation...!

So the way I see it, there are basically two choices, leading in two different directions, and there are sacrifices to them both. Question is - which one do we prefer?

[takemehomegrandma]

I am happy that the discussion here is ok and not that "high emotional" :-)

Less people suffering from Amiga Persecution Complex trying desperately to defend outright moronic decisions without any rational arguments whatsoever... :lol:

ARM is niche (expecially for the new devices/tablets) but it has no meaning on the desktop.

While ARM indeed has its application-specific uses today, its volume and market is huge, it has many benefits compared to x86, its areas of use is growing rapidly (it's "kicking upwards"), and its "meaning" on the desktop might very well change within 2-3 years, with the introduction of ARMv8 and nVidias announced "x86 killers".

So the only logical choice can be to take X86.

Agreed, especially if the plan is still to persue the "MorphOS is Desktop Only" route, I wrote something about this a few weeks ago.

Anyway, depending on how they go ahead with this new developments, maybe it will be possible to support *both* architectures without any bigger troubles? I mean, if they shift focus to "Ease of Portability" from "Evolved Amiga features while maintaining excellent and seemless 68k backwards compatibility"? Some extra work would have to be put into SDK development etc, and maybe they will *mostly focus* on x86 for the desktop but could accept deals for more or less embedded ARM based applications without greater effort, should the opportunity arise? Will need work, yes, but it will be much easier after having gone through the changes needed to get to "3rd Generation" anyway (i.e. any 68k by UAE in AROS style, and an evolved environment/API more flexible than the rigid, old 3.1). Anyway, they are apparently using a virtual environment (if you haven't done it yet, you should browse through that first post, there are lots of cool info there) for this development, so they can work on development without even having a machine, and will be making the decision of which architecture to choose later on. IMHO, this sounds like a clever and flexible approach!

[takemehomegrandma]

@ billyfish

There are many joints between MorphOS and AROS, there has been "cooperation" (MorphOS using AROS stuff, and returns the changes/improvements), and still is (WPA/WPA2 seems like one recent example?). As you say, porting MorphOS apps like Odyssey to AROS is a good thing, etc. But MorphOS developers are developing MorphOS, not AROS, and I think this will continue...

Less people suffering from Amiga Persecution Complex trying desperately to defend outright moronic decisions without any rational arguments whatsoever... :lol:

You really can't see the irony of you saying this, can you?

Actually no, since:
1) I don't suffer from Amiga Persecution Complex (the opposite actually, I have a complete and rational understanding of Amiga's (and MorphOS's) problems, and I'm at peace with that, there are even links in this page that proves it)
2) I'm trying to *expose* those outright moronic decisions...
3) ... *using* rational arguments!

So no, the only ironic thing here was your comment about irony... :lol:

/me crawls back under a rock.

Good! And stay there!


@ OlafS3

I read some time ago that there was a opensource project to emulate PPC on X86 but I do not find it (just a Mac-Emulator). For (old) PPC Applications there should be something like VirtualPC, for 68k Janus-UAE. 68k and PPC can be integrated but of course not so tight as now. Everything has its price.

I think a PPC emulator would cost more in effort than it would gain in reward; most PPC software is still maintained and can be recompiled, so it would probably only be a waste of time...?

[takemehomegrandma]

I think you do suffer from "Amiga Prosecution Complex" :-)

:lol:

OK I get it now, "prosecution", "persecution" — English isn't my native language and some words *do* look kind of the same...

Rational arguments are great, using terms like "outright moronic" are the opposite.

Well, "moronic" is actually a very good (and rational) adjective for describing a strategy for platform building that involves $3,000 computers of 2007 level that offers little more than a $100 computer from 2004, believing this will lead to platform growth and a sustainable future, and getting upset when someone makes posts *in a forum* on how it *won't*!

Anyway, meta discussions about discussions are off-topic in *any* thread (also in this one!), and it would be much better if you would stop this, or at least take it to AW.net where this is seems to be the norm. If you have arguments to counter mine about the A1X1K, bring it on (preferably in the now running thread that *is about* the A1X1K and not here), but please stop filling the forums with pointless discussions about the discussion, it only brings up the noise...

[takemehomegrandma]

Wrong.
...
you'll see applications windows seamlessly integrated in the AROS workbench. You can move and resize them as you wish.
...
M68K programs can then access to AROS partitions
...
M68K programs run in a coherent M68K environment, while x86 ones do the same on a coherent and well separed x86 one. User just will see little differences on the screen

Maybe I don't understand, but from what you just said there, it pretty much sounded *exactly* what I meant when I said "like two applications running on two separate computers (with separate OS code), instead of the two applications running in the same environment", one host/AROS box, and one 68k box. You are talking about making it *look* like the same system in a purely visual/theme sense (and have access to a common clipboard), but in my view it's still a lot more like running WinUAE on a Windows7 machine (where the 68k part also can access the host systems file system, etc) than what both MorphOS and OS4 offers today, where you simply don't have any HW emulation or separate/shielded off "boxes" at all, but all binaries are run the same way, share the same memory space, the same resources, data, sheduling, messaging, arexx, *everything*, no matter if they are 68k or PPC, there simply is no difference at all (it *is* one and the same, not just visually so)!

Maybe that would be a necessary trade-off approach for MorphOS as well in the future (after an architecture jump), but there is a *vast* difference from what is here in MorphOS today, both in a practical/pragmatical manner, as well as in a philosophical manner.

[takemehomegrandma]

IIRC most modern ARM cores only support Little Endian mode now, it wasn't a very used feature and I'm sure it is easier to interface with devices in little endian due to the ubiquity of x86.

even in the data? maybe just code or address...

It's true that ARM is "bi-endian", at least in some "higher/application" level sense (and so are some PPC chips AFAIK), even modern ARM cores:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_CPU_architectures

However, this has been debated many times over at morphzone.org (nestled into those very long threads that literary goes on for years, where it's impossible to find it now, at least I have trouble, but I found this!), and the ARM was developed as little endian from the beginning, and it seems it still operates like this *internally*:
 
"ARM doesn't support Big Endian in anything but a bullet-point feature sense. The same is true of PowerPC processors which supposedly support Little Endian operation. The basic promise made in supporting these features is that it reorders bus transactions so they fit the right data format - memory is laid out in Big Endian, but when you load it into a register, it is flipped automatically and in the register on your Little Endian processor, you have Little Endian data. On PowerPC, you can fudge this manually without changing modes at all if you know the data format ahead of time (stwbrx, lwbrx). I'm not sure what the equivalent is on ARM.. maybe it doesn't have it, maybe it does. Instruction opcodes are still Little Endian in ARM whatever mode it's in. Internal registers and devices are all Little Endian. All that changes is how it routes data from memory into the cache and then the register. It is a limited subset. The SOLE reason for these features is because both ARM and PowerPC targets can and do run as device targets (e.g. on a PCI bus with another host processor doing the control) and they need to be able to interoperate with those buses. It does not magically turn your system into a Other Endian chip.
...

However absolutely NONE of this is relevant to MorphOS. MorphOS is for all practicality endian-independent - the only reason it gets thorny is trying to mimic PowerPC and/or m68k operation. So, the solution is.. drop those things in the trash where they belong. MorphOS has plenty of developer support and a huge amount of open-source software out there that can simply be recompiled. AROS is proof positive of this - it runs on x86 AND PowerPC, and it certainly does not run the PPC in little endian mode."
http://www.morphzone.org/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=6268&start=54

All in all, I think this might cause troubles when trying to run old/existing 68k binaries ("translated" of course) in "the MorphOS way", yes?

(These things makes me dizzy, and I won't even pretend to understand them... :lol:)

[takemehomegrandma]

Aros runs on all x86 CPUs from Pentium 3 to i7 PCs but MOS will not run on a G5 Mac so if we compare progress of Aros Intel i7 vs Powermac G5 Mos config clearly the truth is Mos is still on a tiny scale compared to Aros's ambitious PC  configurations supported. When MOS is running on every Mac desktop and laptop from G3 to G5 and Intel x86 Macs let me know :roflmao:

I suppose MorphOS could quite "easily" (relatively speaking) be made running on every mac desktop and laptop from G3 to G5 by lowering its standards by running hosted, on top of a complete alien OS like Yellow Dog Linux that provides all the true low-level "OS stuff", but so far the ambition behind MorphOS has been a lot higher than simply providing some Amiga environment with a GUI on top of Linux, the ambition has always been to make a complete OS, from the ground up. One of the most important functions of an OS is to provide low level support for the hardware, and MorphOS does this in an extremely lean and effective way, from the top of the API and all the way down to the silicon.

[takemehomegrandma]

OK, lets get something straight, I am a real Amiga person, I use my Amiga's everyday and use them.

Fine, many people here are retro enthusiasts whose only/primary interest is the "Classic" HW and OS. That's great, have fun! Also UAE is still being developed, and who knows, maybe there will become something tangible of NatAmi one day that you can use as well?

But many others are more into "Next Generation" Amiga, we who wants the evolution to continue, we who wants to use the Amiga in a more modern way (MorphOS, AROS, OS4), and you will just have to accept that!

I am not a fake Amiga person who sold their old silicon and then chime in that I use "MorphOS Amiga done right" right where, how and why, prove it. Run Pen Pal, Wadsworth, Final Copy, DPaint, etc.

I have no idea of what Pen Pal is, never came in contact with that back in the days. WordWorth runs, most people seem to prefer Final Writer though. Final Copy seems to run, I haven't done it myself, but at least it's listed in the MorphOS Software Database, so I guess *someone* has tried it. Deluxe Paint V works, and so does Personal Paint, etc.

For most of these old apps you will have to make some one time edit in some configuration setting or/and there may be one or two visual glitch in their GUI's, search amiga.org and morphzone.org for info about settings etc if you are really interested. But they work and are usable. And so does Directory Opus, Magellan, etc, as they have done from the very beginning (many used them back when Ambient still were young and underdeveloped, but these days Ambient has many Magellan features integrated so there is little point now).

Heck, you can even run the original 68k Amiga OS 3.1 *Workbench* on MorphOS (or at least you could back in the v1.4 days, I doubt anyone have tried post 2.0), should ambient feel too modern and advanced for you to handle! :lol:

Show me a new browser that can keep up with todays sites so you can surf the web, play mp3's, watch videos and play movies.

Odyssey is part of MorphOS, and will do just that for you. HTML5/CSS3/JS etc, no problem. Odyssey even beats Internet Explorer 9 when it comes to CSS3, which is kind of amusing actually! Not at all like the Classic days, where Ibrowse users on Amiga could only look with jealousy on how the Web technology went on without them, and constantly be bugging website developers to avoid using CSS and stick to stone-age and deprecated HTML-tags and tables for their design... :lol:

I am an Amiga person, if I wanted a Mac, I would be using a Mac.

A Mac box running MorphOS is no longer a Macintosh, but a MorphOS box! We're just talking about the silicon here after all, it's the OS that makes the computer...

At least AROS who is behind right now has the chance to continue on, why because they see some of the future, NEW USABLE CPU'S AND GRAPHICS PROCESSOR UNITS, the PPC boys are still living in the past, just like me using the old Amiga.

Few people in the MorphOS camp are PPC fanboys today. PPC made sense back in the days when PowerUP and later the MorphOS project was started. Apple was using it and it seemed to have a future on the desktop just as bright as x86 seemed to have.

One MorphOS developer said on MorphZone.org (about choosing PPC as target architecture in the first place) something in the lines of: "if we would have known back then what we know today, we would have chosen differently" (not an exact quote)

In a response to the comment "I only regret that again we have an announcement about old hardware", a developer said: "Fair enough, but don't whine if it ain't a PowerPC based box "

In a response to the comment "Due to lack of another new PPC-based hardware, I can make the only conclusion: this is the end of MorphOS ", a developer said: "IMHO Apple hardware is the only target that makes sense for PowerPC MorphOS at the moment." (and no, the bold emphasis was not put there by me, but by the dev himself)

MorphOS leads today, how about the future.

OK, since you asked so politely, here it is:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=59765

[takemehomegrandma]

@HenryCase

I was a little bit offended when someone asked how we could even mention MorphOS and AROS in the same sentence. Hence I wanted to know if the difference is really that big.

Whilst I don't know for sure who said that, I think it's safe to say such a viewpoint places this individual in the minority. I've found most people in the Amiga community are generally supportive of AROS, even if they may prefer another operating system. Can we view the commenter as the troll they are and move on now?

I'm afraid Mazze is "bending the truth" a bit in his claims above. This is what happened: AmigaNG said in another thread: "if you really want a cheap Amiga ng type of experices then I would personally recommend getting an old pc and installing Aros on it, not a PowerMac", to which I replied "It would be interesting to hear how you can even compare MorphOS [or indeed OS4] to AROS like they would be playing in the same league? ... you are solely focusing on x86 hardware *for the sake of it*, totally neglecting the differences in features of the two OS's, which probably is the most important variable of them all for the user experience and *usability* at all. "An old PC" is hardly any cheaper than an old PowerMac, and if it's the user experience you want (i.e. really being able to *use* it as an Amiga), then MorphOS is the one NG solution that has the most to offer..."

All this is absolutely true, which most of us already knew, and which this thread clearly has shown to those who didn't. One of the things that most OS4 and MorphOS users appreciates the most, is probably the mix of evolution *combined* with the best way of obtaining Amiga backwards compatibility, and by that I mean these two OS's capability of running Amiga 68k programs in the completely seemless way they do, that they treat 68k binaries exactly the same as PPC ones, there simply is no difference! All programs run in the same memory space, by the same scheduler, sharing the same resources, the same data, signaling, arexx, etc. It's one and the same! While in AROS, 68k compatibility has for decades been totally under prioritized, and relies completely on UAE to emulate a "separate" Amiga on top of AROS, like two separate (albeit somewhat connected) computers in one.

This is *very far* from MorphOS and OS4 of today. I think many MorphOS and OS4 users would say that this fact alone (the different way it treats Amiga applications) makes AROS run in a completely different league than MorphOS and OS4. Not necessary a worse league, but *clearly* different. And if you go on in your comparisons about MorphOS usability and user experience (since the root of this thread is AmigaNG's "if you really want a cheap Amiga ng type of experices then I would personally recommend getting an old pc and installing Aros on it" comment), you will find *many* things that several people in this thread has put forward, that gives MorphOS a far better (the best really!) "AmigaNG type of experience". Only the fact that someone would *recommend* (which AmigaNG did) a system that uses a "Wanderer/Zune" combo that is of sub Amiga OS 3.1 level in favor of MorphOS current "Ambient/MUI4" combo is absolutely ridiculous, and only shows ignorance and cluelessness!

Nobody ever said that AROS couldn't be fun for those into it (which traditionally mostly is the people developing it), nobody was kicking on it, AROS is a good thing, it has *some* advantages (being free, running on x86), it has contributed some to MorphOS evolution etc, but it clearly *does* play in a completely different league than MorphOS (and OS4 for that matter) when it comes to giving the user an "AmigaNG type of experience".

[takemehomegrandma]

@people who more or less deliberately misread Iggy's comment about "version numbers" :rolleyes:

In the context it was put, wasn't it kind of obvious that he was talking about level of maturity, and *not* explicitly version numbers per se? Compared to MorphOS (and OS4 for that matter), AROS as a whole *is* immature, who are you trying to fool here? There is not without reason you *won't* see this kind of warnings on MorphOS's download page:

Warning

AROS is alpha quality software. This means that it is currently mostly fun to play with and cool to develop for. If you came here because you thought AROS was a finished, complete and fully usable operating system, you will most likely be disappointed. AROS isn't there yet, but we're slowly moving in the right direction.

...and...

Note

Although AROS can be installed to a hard drive, please be aware that the installer is known to contain bugs. It should not remove or wipe any partitions if not asked to do so, but this cannot be guaranteed. So please note that generally you should not install AROS on a working machine whose HD contains valuable data, as there is a real possibility of data loss. We take no responsibility for any data loss that occurs. Any bug reports on the installation process will however be appreciated.

Again, not at all kicking on AROS, not trying to belittle the efforts of its developers etc, I'm sure it's very fun for those into it, but please don't pretend it's something it clearly isnt...

[takemehomegrandma]

Are you really so out of touch that you don't know that by far the most popular variant of AROS is the one that runs natively, on the silicon, without any trace of Linux?

It was a reply to Digimans "When MOS is running on every Mac desktop and laptop from G3 to G5 and Intel x86 Macs let me know :roflmao:" comment, mocking MorphOS for not running on all Mac's and Laptops. Clearly AROS doesn't run natively on *all* x86 desktops and laptops either. I have hardware it won't support, for example. But hosted or in a virtual machine, yes it will, and the same could be achieved with MorphOS (actually, I think it already is/will be, purely for development purposes while developing stuff like 64-bit support, etc).

When it comes to *silicon*, I think there is much truth in Cammy's post here on amiga.org that the Aros/Platforms/x86 support page links to: "You are better off if you build a PC out of supported components to begin with rather than hoping it will work on an existing PC because it usually ends in disappointment. There are just too many different chipsets for the two or three occasional/casual Aros developers to handle. It doesn't help that the three major distributions are handled nearly entirely by a single person each, usually only with their own PC and a virtual PC setup to test it on." and this one the support page itself: "It is very hard to recommend a completely supported motherboard because as soon as newer motherboards arrive so their features change subtly, often introducing non-supported parts like ethernet and audio. It is a moving target."

Silicon needs drivers, a fact that is equally true for AROS as it is for MorphOS, so mocking MorphOS for not natively supporting *every* PPC Mac out there is kind of a moot point, don't you agree? Like throwing stones in a glass house, yes?