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Author Topic: MorphOS 2 vs. AmigaOS 4.1 (pros/cons)  (Read 9224 times)

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Offline xeron

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Re: MorphOS 2 vs. AmigaOS 4.1 (pros/cons)
« on: November 09, 2008, 06:21:28 PM »
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zylesea wrote:Also the OS4 Emu (which is no emulation, but an API wrapper) enables many OS4 apps to run on MorphOS.


Really not much OS4 software runs under OS4Emu, and not everything that runs works all that well.
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Offline xeron

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Re: MorphOS 2 vs. AmigaOS 4.1 (pros/cons)
« Reply #1 on: November 10, 2008, 12:48:17 PM »
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The Amiga backwards compatibility is better in MorphOS than in OS4,


To a degree, but i doubt there are many 68k apps you use on MOS that won't also work on OS4.


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Personally I like MUI4 (and *the many programs*(!) using it) much better than Reaction,


Well.. back in the OS3.9 days I would have agreed that I prefer MUI to ReAction, but since OS4's ReAction has been greatly improved, I now prefer it. Then again, i'm not super familiar with MUI4, but then, I doubt you're super familiar with OS4 reaction.

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 and since the entire desktop is using this,


ReAction usage across OS4 is pretty comprehensive. There is very little that needs to be changed over.

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ported to OS4 when it's finished for MorphOS, but until that happens it's only available for MorphOS (in beta versions).


True, but then OS4 has OWB and NetSurf. NetSurf is fast, but doesn't have JavaScript. OWB is really not that far behind Sputnik any more. Maybe tabs.. can't think of anything else.

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In my eyes, MorphOS is the clear winner! :-)


Well, theres no accounting for taste. I had both, but when i needed money, I had to sell one. The Peg had to go.
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Offline xeron

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Re: MorphOS 2 vs. AmigaOS 4.1 (pros/cons)
« Reply #2 on: November 10, 2008, 12:54:26 PM »
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Sputnik is a *native* browser, the other one is a SDL recompile


I *can* call BS on that one. OWB hasn't been a simple SDL recompile for a *LONG* time. It has had a proper ReAction GUI for several versions. It used some functions from the SDL libraries, but a lot of the rendering code was changed to use OS4 native calls, and it has had a native ReAction GUI for a long time now.

The latest version doesn't use SDL at all. Not one bit. It only uses standard OS4 APIs. Its a lot faster than the old builds, too.

OWB grab.
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Offline xeron

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Re: MorphOS 2 vs. AmigaOS 4.1 (pros/cons)
« Reply #3 on: November 10, 2008, 01:19:13 PM »
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But if you are going to degrade the Amiga to some kind of loader for recompiled X11 and SDL apps


Pfft. Hardly. I don't have Cygnix installed. SDL is mainly used for games and demos, and they wouldn't really be any different even if they used Picasso96 directly.

OS4 runs plenty of Amiga 68k software, and has a pretty decent array of native software that grows all the time.
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Offline xeron

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Re: MorphOS 2 vs. AmigaOS 4.1 (pros/cons)
« Reply #4 on: November 11, 2008, 07:53:31 AM »
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takemehomegrandma wrote:

No they don't, and I was going to write a reply to that, but then I saw that pVC already had! ;-)


Actually, a few of your claims are wildly inaccurate, as has been pointed out, but if you want to still believe that, for example, OWB is still a "simple SDL recompile" because it makes you feel all warm and snuggly about how superior MorphOS is, rather than actually researching your arguments, thats up to you. I have a lot more respect for pVC's opinions than yours.

Mind you, up until a couple of weeks ago, I also had a Pegasos alongside my AmigaOne, and I didn't form the same opinions as him, so a lot of it is subjective.

For example, pVC claimed that OS4's installer had lots of "useless requesters", where I thought it was really good that it told you exactly what the installer was doing, and thought it was really helpful for new users. Also, I had no problem determining when the installer had finished, but maybe it should have had a final "Congratulations! You're all done!" message if pVC found it unclear, but really, I think OS4's installation procedure is excellent.

Also, pVC said he found MorphOS's "eye candy" to be nicer, whereas I found the exact opposite. I hated every single one of the themes that came with MorphOS. Usually they had too many high contrast gradients which made them look really ugly. In the end I settled for a converted OS4 skin on my MorphOS box.

The other thing I disagreed with was where pVC claimed that OS4's prefs were inconsistent; all OS4 prefs modules are compiled against a common preferences framework. Where any two prefs have the same functionality, it will be in the exact same place. They also all use the same GUI toolkit. Where they differ, its because they are showing preferences for different things. The only prefs editor I can think of that is really different is GUI prefs, where it uses a lister instead of tabs, but really, it has so many options that would be unwieldy. But the GUI prefs is really for "pro" users, most people just use pre-defined skins.

Edit: I just clicked through all the prefs editors, and the vast majority are very consistent, I thought. Notable exceptions were GUI (simply because of the amount of options), AHI (because it is not actually an OS4 specific component), UBoot, and to a lesser degree Internet. On the whole I stand by my statement. And besides, who spends all their time in prefs editors?

One thing you have to remember is that MorphOS had a big head start in development time to OS4, and there was a time when OS4 was quite far behind, and now it is only a bit behind in some areas. In fact, in some cases MorphOS has caught up to OS4 (64bit filesystems, TCP/IP etc).

The thing is, in a lot of areas where OS4 used to be behind, it has caught up, and development hasn't slowed a bit. It is unusual if there arent updates to the beta version every single day. IMHO, on the areas where OS4 still is behind, it won't be long before it catches up. A lot of the weak points pointed out in this thread are being worked on.

Another thing about MorphOS that I found was that it seemed pretty much dead to me. The forums on morphzone are very quiet, and there never seemed to be all that much software written for MorphOS, outside of the occasional AmigaZeux release and a couple of other devs. Whereas there is often new or updated software to download for OS4, and the OS4 web forums are much livelier places.
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Offline xeron

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Re: MorphOS 2 vs. AmigaOS 4.1 (pros/cons)
« Reply #5 on: November 11, 2008, 07:57:41 AM »
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kickstart wrote:
The post of pVC says everything and from a user with both systems.


pVC isn't the only person posting with direct experience of both systems.
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Offline xeron

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Re: MorphOS 2 vs. AmigaOS 4.1 (pros/cons)
« Reply #6 on: November 11, 2008, 01:48:06 PM »
Yes, often still applies. I'm talking about updates as well as new apps, of software written for Amiga, available natively on AmigaOS4, and where OS4 is a maintained target by the app author(s), as well as OS4 specific apps.

Besides, not all ports are half assed, some of them actually have considerable Amiga-specific changes, such as Steven Solie's SSH port, OWB (which is as much an Amiga app as Sputnik is a MorphOS app now), VICE, Transmission, NetSurf, and many others.

It seems to be a delusion amoung OS4-bashers that all OS4 has is SDL ports or X11 apps, which is simply not true.
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Offline xeron

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Re: MorphOS 2 vs. AmigaOS 4.1 (pros/cons)
« Reply #7 on: November 11, 2008, 02:06:25 PM »
OK, well, i could be wrong, but when i had both, it felt like there was a lot more updates and software to download for OS4 than there was for morphos, SDL games aside.

Mind you, I was only aware of and checking Aminet for MOS, and I was using OS4Depot & Aminet for OS4, and its perfectly conceivable that for the period I had my Peg set up and in use, MOS was especially quiet.

I just got the feeling that morphzone was very quiet and that morphos' software "scene" seemed quieter. Another mitigating factor could have been that most of my Peg-usage time was well before the release of MOS2, and maybe the release has warmed things up a bit. (I did try MOS2 briefly before selling the Peg).
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