Classic AmigaOS On Modern Hardware - A Critical Analysis

[TeamBlackFox]

I go to a lot of Amiga forums and I see comments like this:

OMG! AMIGAOS 3.9 ON X86/X64/ARM WOULD BE AWESOME!!! :banana::banana:

These posts make me laugh a lot on the inside, but they make an interesting point and case discussion which begs the question:

Out of the context of the hardware - is Classic AmigaOS really that advanced?

Since I'm not a developer and don't know all the specifics of AmigaOS vs BSD vs GNU et cetera. I'm going to approach this from my own angle - with some bias.

BIAS NOTICE: I am a UNIX guy for most things - I use FreeBSD and IRIX mostly and ditched GNU/Linux, Windows and OS X. Please keep that in mind while reading this.

So on the surface Classic AmigaOS ( Simply referred as AmigaOS hereafter ) has a load of features that other kernels like Haiku, IRIX, BSD and other modern(ish) kernels:

Preemptive multitasking
Message passing
Handles DSOs
Runs mostly in usermode

However, it lacks mechanisms which are VERY important for security and stability:

Memory protection - Without this - poorly written programs can lock or crash the system.
Multi-user mechanisms - Needed for secure operations - on AmigaOS you're effectively the equivalent of a user on BSD with the NOPASSWD flag in sudo setup, so you don't get any warning as to if an operation will break something and no password prompts, and you have to effectively trust the programs you're running.
Standard video and audio APIs - Outside of running the built-in chipsets, you're relying on the manufacturer's standard compliance with video and audio APIs like RTG and AHI. Which means even if AmigaOS were on x86, without something like puh der baer or nalle puh no programs relying on the hardware will run even if you have something like "trance" on MorphOS

Some of these issues are "fixed" on MorphOS or AmigaOS 4, but not all of them. As far as I know, OS 4 has no multi-user support or memory protection ( never used it so I may be incorrect, correct me if I'm wrong ). Same with MorphOS or AROS ( I've used both of these - briefly ). AROS seems to correct this somewhat by employing the Linux kernel, but I question using THAT kernel of all the wonderful kernels out there.

The other issue which also currently applies to IRIX is that both OSes are heavily reliant on the underlying hardware to make up for their shortcomings. AmigaOS seems to rely on the chipsets for a lot that traditionally is relied on by a CPU so thats why it seems " snappy ". IRIX likewise is heavily integrated with its video hardware and subsystems so it feels faster than it really is.

Logistically this creates a problem for developers on x86 as this makes AmigaOS less desirable - with all the variants of hardware out there its impossible to support more than a handful of configurations fully, plus aith AmigaOS traditionally being proprietary and not free or open, besides the tiny, tiny market of active Amiga users I doubt the userbase would grow much with all the problems that are currently existing in the Classic AmigaOS. Maybe AROS or MorphOS will become very popular with people outside our communities, but I'd be interested to see how much the userbase actually grows or if the community actually benefits from having new people who may or may not have the best interests of the community in mind.

Anyways thats just some thoughts from a former and soon to be active user of AmigaOS once I get my 3000 in the mail.

[TeamBlackFox]

Yeah don't take me as ragging on AmigaOS, I'm just saying from a user's perspective it has some work to do. I personally really like the design, which is why I like DragonFlyBSD ( I know Matt Dillon the developer ) because he's adding features that are AmigaOS-like.

AROS is a great project and I will use it once AROS68k surpasses the original AmigaOS in terms of performance and stability - as long as the Linux kernel stays off my desktops. Does AROS68k use the Linux kernel at all?

[TeamBlackFox]

FS-UAE. Hmm I may have to try this out. Thanks Olaf!

>FS-UAE - GPLv2

Now I want to punch someone in the face for not giving this a BSD-compatible licence. Oh well, gonna try it anyways.

[TeamBlackFox]

Oh, I'm looking to get a PowerPC card for my in the mail 3000, but that will be later on once I'm in  better financial shape to afford one. I also would like an X1k but if I ever get the cash for one I'll probably request that Trevor offer one to the FreeBSD or OpenBSD project so they can port it.

The point is that its vintage hardware that should be used, but its not an ideal replacement for whats out there. I got nothing against anyone who uses x86 extensively, I plan to get a box myself eventually,  but I don't particularly like the hardware or its rapid depreciation and relatively worthless architecture.

[TeamBlackFox]

AmigaOS trades features and security for speed, responsiveness, and compactness.

I'll give you that compactness can be nice.

AmigaOS is my favourite graphical OS. If it had a more UNIX-like commandline and had some of the features I mentioned it missing it'd be pretty much the perfect OS.

Since it won't likely get those for a long time, my bet is thrown in the hat with DragonFly BSD. What Matt Dillon promises is what people want of AmigaOS with the UNIX philosophy behind it. ( Once Wayland becomes BSD friendly we'll be able to ditch horrible X11 )

[TeamBlackFox]

The Unix like command line is just a few aliases away. I have added these aliases to my S:Shell-Startup:

Alias cp copy
Alias free avail
Alias kill break
Alias ls "list sort N"
Alias mkdir makedir
Alias ps status
Alias rn "run >NIL:
Ok, it's not quite Linux (or DOS) but something like this can make life easier for someone who constantly changes between shells on different platforms. Linux has more advanced options like pipes that are more powerful than the Amiga PIPE: device but the Amiga supports 3rd party shells also. The AmigaOS shell is easier to use, IMO, than any other CLI/shell that I have come across but it's not the most powerful.

This will help when my 3000 comes (^w^) Thanks for the tip. And its not GNU/Linux I run, I run BSD since GNU/Linux is horrible.

I have followed Matt Dillon's work and DragonFly looks promising (big brother OS to AmigaOS by a former Amigan). I wish DragonFly was more popular. If it was as popular as Free BSD, I would install it on my x86 box instead of Mint. I'm worried about lack of support though.

Indeed. What hardware do you run? I'd be happy to tell you if its supported. Also HAMMERFS on either MorphOS or AmigaOS 4 would be awesome - it would bring ZFS like behaviours to Amigans. Imagine: snapshots, logical volumes, software RAID - the possibilities!

[TeamBlackFox]

Well problem - DragonFly BSD is 64-bit only now. No more i386 releases. So that crosses it off the list.

FreeBSD is great, but its all DIY - you compile the X server from ports or install from pkgng. Once you get it setup, though its very low maintenance. If you're looking for an Amiga style window system I have a few you may like in mind:

AmiWM - Amiga Window Manager Clone: http://xwinman.org/amiwm.php
AfterStep - NeXTSTEP WM Clone: http://xwinman.org/afterstep.php
Enligtenment - The one I use: http://xwinman.org/enlightenment.php

If you're looking for variety of programs you can't beat GNU/Linux, but I don't like it because the entire system feels held together with duct tape. FreeBSD is the choice I'd pick considering your hardware, but you'll have to set everything up in very true UNIX fashion - I like that a lot.

One OS you may enjoy though is OpenSXCE -  a distro of illumos - a Solaris 10 fork:
http://opensxce.org/

Other than that, if I get "Ugly Betty", my Octane, working, then I'd be happy to sell her to you for a decent price - the Octanes are by far the best bang for buck with SGI - IRIX can use Firefox 3.6 currently and while Amigas dominated the low end market, IRIX dominated the high end market.

[TeamBlackFox]

I guess good luck with that. I'm probably NOT going to code for AmigaOS for a few reasons:

No compiler I particularly like for C, and I must use a compiler available for FreeBSD since thats my development system for platforms.
No POSIX compliance
No OpenGL

I'll use it though, definitely as a user. If I were to add the things I want, I'd probably end up with DragonFlyBSD. So instead I stick to FreeBSD and track DFBSD development.

[TeamBlackFox]

Seems like Agami has some of the right ideas but I want to refute one in particular:

> Amiga OS is the only OS I have had the pleasure of knowing that did this well, without the overbearing control

I'll have to disagree here. AmigaOS is HEAVILY biased towards the user. Consider that UNIX was developed in the 1970s, and with it and Berkeley UNIX you get the following things Amiga still lacks:

Memory Protection
Privilege separation
Multi-user support

Plus there is a balance between the user and the developer in UNIX. Just most people are too dense to see it. Let me explain, but first:

> Don't even get me started on Unix and Linux.

Please don't make the mistake of blobbing these together. GNU/Linux is horribly biased to developers, and it promotes bad, bloated, lazy code.

Modern UNIX descendants like System V and BSD are primarily hindered by the horrible display server that is X11. Each variant of BSD and System V variant addressed this differently:

Sun developed NeWS, a Display Postscript variant, for SunOS, their Berkeley UNIX derived OS ( Berkeley UNIX refers to historical versions of BSD here ) but it failed horribly in the market due to X11 being very entrenched

NeXT Computers developed their variant of Display Postscript. Even though NeXTSTEP is not a true Berkeley UNIX derivative ( Based off Mach, not UNIX ) it does maintain UNIX compatibility, and their Display Postscript server technology was passed into OS X as Quartz.

SGI developed XSGI, their variant of X11 which addressed its flaws by optimising it for SGI hardware and stripping out what wasn't needed.

The others adopted X11 and dealt with the shortcomings. AMIX being a System V derivative was among these, notably.

However with Wayland under development we should see all the inherent flaws of X11 be corrected. Wayland is a proper display protocol which doesn't treat all hardware like a big dumb framebuffer ( What X11 does without the hacks like DRI and such that people have been working on )

The reason I say UNIX proper can balance user and developer focus is simple:

Its well known that UNIX itself is one of the most developer friendly OSes of all time.

Once the shortcomings of X11 are gone we are left with only one major issue - a lack of a standardised toolkit. That can be addressed down the line, for now ditching X11 is by far the most imperative issue, its almost 20 years late after all.

The biggest issue in my opinion today is that most consumers are morons and are afraid of working in the console. Thats why I point newbies to UNIX to FISH, the Friendly Interactive Shell. Useless for scripting, but really assists new users by being actually helpful and interactive rather than biased towards developers. You throw together Wayland X Enlightenment X FISH and most users after the initial learning curve won't have any issues.

Enlightenment is my choice of GUI due to its minimalism, yet simplicity of use while being eye appealing and not a resource hog.

I am far from a critic of Amiga, I'm an advocate actually, but I think its best chance of not fading into obscurity relies on the promotion of DragonFlyBSD.

I rest my case in the matter at this point. Take it however you will.

[TeamBlackFox]

I have nothing against Linux but I do not see how DragonFlyBSD will help  the Amiga platform. We had a lot of people recently who promoted Linux,  one company relabeled PCs with a special Linux distribution on it, one  person promoted his own distribution, you are now recommending your  favorite distro here. We all use PCs with Windows/MacOS or even Linux  now for our everyday work. You said what are the shortcomings compared  to modern platforms but we are all aware of that and they are addressed  already in different projects (except MP). In good marketing you do not  stress the limitations but search for the strength and how to go on. Are  you interested to invest time (like many here do) in the project  (whatever platform)?    

First off BSD is NOT LINUX! Please use proper terminology and don't lump BSD users with the GNU/Linux projects. We don't get along with them at all.

DragonFlyBSD is designed as a high performance UNIX OS that is inspired by the design of AmigaOS. Which in my opinion means it has the best chance of ever bringing the good aspects of AmigaOS to the modern UNIX market. Its design as an OS is such that it is suitable for servers and workstations, with limitations on driver support.

I'm not saying I want to invest time in developing for it - first off my experience with C and code in general is pretty weak. I develop in my spare time where I'm not working 50-55 hours a week at my dayjob as a data center tech for Dell/MS Azure - its a hobby and a limited one at that.

I'm merely championing the benefits DragonFlyBSD brings to the table and once Wayland makes its way to the BSDs, that will be the time for me or someone else to strike with this. Its not the right time and I'm not currently in a position financially or experience wise, but maybe when Wayland is matured the situation will be different. We will see until then.

[TeamBlackFox]

If cost is a consideration, I would suggest that you NOT bother buying a Phase5 PPC accelerator card for your A3000D.  There is very little software for the Amiga that uses the 603e/604 PPC chip on those accelerators and if you wish to run that small amount of PPC Amiga software, there is another alternative that is much cheaper, and gives you additional options as well.

I am referring to running MorphOS3.6 on a G4 or G5 Mac model that is supported, as MorphOS3.6 has a good deal of compatibility with much of the WarpUp & PowerUp Amiga PPC software and demos.

The cost of those old Phase5 PPC & 680x0 dual CPU accelerators is prohibitively high still, and there is no guarantee that such boards will work much longer (or work at all when you receive it).  Plus, the performance of the 603e and 604 PPC's is far below what you will get from any of the G4 or G5 PPC's in a used Mac.  Lastly, the A3000D is cramped for space and the cooling for your proposed Phase5 PPC accelerator will be limited at best.

Just my 2 cents of advice, as an Amiga user who has owned every model of Amiga made, including a couple of those expensive Phase5 PPC accelerators, regarding you possibly buying a Phase5 PPC accelerator for your A3000D computer.

What do you recommend I upgrade it to then? You think a less costly accelerator is more cost effective?

Also honestly I'm not too keen on the fact MorphOS barely utilizes the hardware, is 32-bit only and has no SMP support. While none of the other Amiga NG OSes seem to support this I'm honestly thinking my money for computing is better spent elsewhere than on an NG Amiga solution.

[TeamBlackFox]

Thanks for the links Olaf I'll take a look at it after work ( They don't care as long as I don't go on facebook. )

[TeamBlackFox]

Eh if its running under the Linux kernel I'm not interested. I'm not interested in supporting the Linux kernel while open alternatives exist. Thanks anyways.

From the DragonFly BSD Web Site:
"DragonFly belongs to the same class of operating systems as other BSD-derived systems and Linux."

You're taking it out of context. Its not saying Linux is UNIX or BSD is Linux. They're in the same class because the Linux kernel is a workalike. BSD is descended from Berkeley UNIX which is in turn descended from Research UNIX, the original UNIX.

                          no - you don't. Most people put the ridiculous platform wars behind  them. Most software I am interested in works well on BSD and flavours of  Linux so what's the problem?

It's really stupid to not get along with someone because they use a  different operating system from you.. You realise that right ?       

No, actually its Linux users who criticize the conservative nature of the BSD projects, criticize us for not adopting the GNU philosophy, which is a load of rubbish anyways, and say we're a bunch of masturbating monkeys ( Linus Torvalds himself called us that ). I've tried getting along with that class of Linux user, but I don't - mostly I hang around with BSD/Solaris/IRIX guys with a few GNU/Linux users who aren't a bunch of ignorant rude people.

[TeamBlackFox]

OS4 is just far better on the NG platforms, even my lowly 440ep runs OS4 just stunning where as my old PPC A1200 never ran it acceptably in my own books.

I'll probably go for an '040 or '060 then.

Honestly, my favorite accelerator for the A3000D is the Warp Engine  68040 @ 40MHz.  It is not the fastest accelerator you can get, but it is  rock solid, has an excellent SCSI controller and fits well into the  A3000D with small modifications to provide better airflow through the  hard drive and floppy drive shelf.

I can't recommend 68060 accelerators that I have no experience with in  the A3000D, but other members may give you some good recommendations.   The 68060 is supposed to run cooler and may be a better choice in the  A3000D's small case (small for an Amiga with Zorro slots).

I think your money would be better spent to get an accelerator without  the PPC and use the saved money to buy a good RTG video card, like the  PicassoIV, or Cybervision64.  The A3000D is a very popular Amiga model,  and I hope that you have hours of fun playing around with it.  I suggest  that you NOT try to expand it into something it can't do well.  Stick  with AmigaOS2.1 through AmigaOS3.9 and software for the OCS & ECS  chipsets and you should enjoy it for what it is, and what it was  designed to be.

The only reason I mentioned MorphOS, was because you intended to buy a  PPC accelerator for your A3000D, and MorphOS will run almost all of the  PPC Amiga software much better than any PPC accelerator could ever do  it.  Unless you are really interested in NG Amiga inspired systems and  software, don't bother buying any hardware to run it.  The NG systems  are certainly not for everyone, as they are best suited to only the hard  core users who are dedicated to supporting the future of NG systems.   The Amiga NG platforms are not ready for the general computing public,  and might never be ready for them.  AROS & MorphOS have one  advantage that they can both be "test driven" for free, if you happen to  have any of the supported hardware to run them.  From your signature, I  see that you have a PPC G5 that might be supported some time in the  future by MorphOS, and possibly AROS PPC as well, though I don't know if  anyone is working on AROS PPC any more.

I hope you enjoy your Amiga A3000D.  Did you choose that model because a  version of it at one time in the distant past came from Commodore with  Unix installed on it?    

I had a 3000UX a few years back that was stolen by someone who a family member let into my house. I know who did it, and I'm 99.99% sure he took it to the scrapyard. He still won't admit he stole it. In hindsight though, I never used it, and Amiga UNIX is atrociously broken - so glad to have moved to BSD and IRIX. I'd much rather enjoy AmigaOS on it and use it for certain things ( If you read my signature I have a lot of systems and in my home network they all have a role they're specialized for )

As far as expandability for it goes, I have yet to decide other than a CPU upgrade. I was only looking at PowerPC cards because they seemed interesting but I didn't realize they're that slow ( I'm used to MIPS and SPARC which generally have slow clocks but high performance output )

I'm getting rid of the G5 soon due to its high power consumption, that I never want to touch OS X again, the atrocious prices for upgrades, the lack of overall expandability and the fact I can't find a good video card that won't burn out ( Had an X1900 in it till last night when it bit the dust, now a GeForce 6600 and the return of an unaccelerated X11 ). At this time I have no interest in AmigaOS beyond the legacy releases 3.9 and AROSM68k. AROS is a cool project, but I have no use for it, except I may, and this is a maybe, see if it can be hosted on DragonFly BSD ( Probably not as the Linux kernel is a piece of nonstandard junk and tends to break dependencies for other platforms ).

[TeamBlackFox]

@TeamBlackFox:

You seem to want AmigaOS to be just like UNIX. This would not be an improvement. UNIX is a late 60s/early 70s design filled with a lot of cruft and very user-unfriendly, I don't see what it would offer that AmigaOS does not. I've tried various UNIXes and they have been universally awful.

Not at all.

My favourite UNIX variant is SGI's IRIX which is very Amiga-like on the frontend - same market, different ends of the market though ( SGIs were 10k USD and up )

I just prefer the setup of UNIX and its philosophy ( Everything is a file, device nodes and commandline tools ) But I like AmigaOS for graphical stuff.

Ideally a UNIX variant like IRIX or DragonFly BSD with a Wayland compositor in the vein of Ambient, Zune or Workbench would be very ideal along with graphical tools for those who prefer GUIs ( I'm perfectly fine with console configurations but I know others arent )

Both these variants of UNIX differ from other UNIX in a few key areas:

IRIX is very optimized for graphical usage and therefore supports console and graphics usage equally. DragonFly BSD is still under heavy development and until it reaches the 5 or 6 release mark it will still not be ready for desktop use ( It works great for servers )

Both are designed to fix what others broke and did wrong.

Unfortunately IRIX has been frozen since 2006, but tha