How is OS4 ?

[Crumb]

from those who use it, or have in the past, how is amiga OS4 ?

Whats cool and fun ?

It's fine although it's slower and more primitive than MorphOS*(it's quite noticeable if you compare MorphOS1.4.5 and OS4 on Classics, it's slower in almost every way: 2d graphics, 3d graphics, hd access, worst access to other filesystems, slower/worse usb support...). Lack of cheap hardware doesn't make it funnier. OS4 alpha-beta software (even SDL ports) are usually announced like they had discovered sliced bread even thought it's usually released 4-5 years later than stable MorphOS ports. Commercial software like DvPlayer is worse than free MorphOS software like MPlayer. They had to do bounties to bring Apache+MySQL+PHP to OS4 while MorphOS users enjoyed it since the beginning. USB2.0 has been publicly available on MorphOS for years.

OS4 hardware is usually both slower and more expensive. When they released Sam440 5 years later than Peg2/G4 they did that at the same price despiting it was much slower. Today Peg2 is still faster than the machines released 5 years later (Sam440).

I switched to MorphOS on a G4/1.5Ghz Mac Mini and I'm happy now. Most of my friends who are still active amiga users have jumped to MorphOS too. We can enjoy a decent computer right now without waiting for vapourware. Try to watch HD video on those Sam440. Try to watch youtube directly in your browser on a Sam440. With Fab's OWB even on an old Peg1 with g3/600 youtube videos are played smoothly fullscreen without the need of 3rd party apps like getvideo/tubexx.

If you are interested on OS4 get a second hand Peg2.

[Crumb]

I don't know much software for OS4 which is labelled as alpha/beta, most of the software released there are stable versions, and not all of the software for OS4 has a MOS version.

I can't think of much OS4 software without better MorphOS equivalent. Most software news for OS4 consist in SDL ports compiled with "make" with almost 0 changes. When the port is slightly difficult it usually comes from MorphOS ports that were done years ago.

Not a problem since MPlayer exists for OS4 too, and it's free as well. From my experience, DVPlayer handle DVDs better than MPlayer.

Perhaps with OS4 Mplayer version, that always has lagged behind MorphOS one (MorphOS*version was the original port that made possible AROS/OS4/OS3 ports and it's the one better maintained and most stable).

Who cares how a software has been ported, what's important is that the software exists :-)

well, my point is that a lot of software already exists in MorphOS right now without spamming amiga webs with newsitems about quick ports.

You cannot really compare prices since all the hardware available for MOS is second-hand only.

Of course I can.*Efikas are new and cost 99$. OS4 owners don't have problems in using second hand hardware either (just look at the amount of betatesters that sold their uA1s when Pegasos2 port was announced).

I can buy various*Mac Minis for the price of a full Sam440.

We'll see how will the Sam460 compare with the Peg2, the new Sam should be shipping in September I have read.

Well, I would expect that any hardware released 5 years later and sold at a similar price should be both faster and better. That Sam460 is a hackish board with some strange incompatibilities that block SATA if you want to fit a proper gfx card so users are forced to fit a PCI*SATA card in the PCI slot. Anyway that embedded cpu only has a few KB of L2 cache (so it really needs DDR ram) and lacks Altivec instrutions*(something not wise for a Multimedia computer). For OS4 users Peg2 is still much better option that L2-Cache less Sam440

That will be probably fixed with a future Timberwolf release with support for HTML5 videos. BTW MOS currently lacks a Firefox port.

It's not about quantity but quality: MorphOS OWB is way better than Timberwolf, I can already watch youtube videos fullscreen on an old Peg1/600 directly. BTW, MorphOS OWB is way ahead than Strohmayer's OWB*port too.

If we take into account the quality of past Frieden ports:*Quake3, Blender... there's nothing that makes us think that they are going to be able to release a finished, polished version in a reasonable timeframe.

[Crumb]

Shouldn't you be comparing the Sam440 with the Efika, rather than the Peg1? Bit of an unfair contest otherwise, I would have thought.

since Peg2 is already cheaper than Sam440 and both run OS4 I think it's fair. Efika can be bought new but doesn't run OS4. With Peg2 the user can run both OS4 and MorphOS. I would get a G4 Mac Mini anyway.

I would get a G4 Mac Mini and enjoy it instead of waiting for vapourware and vague promises.

[Crumb]

@Karlos

there are >800Mhz Sam440 (and Sam440 range begins at 533Mhz). But it will always be an "unfair" comparison because releasing that stuff (no altivec, no L2cache, low clockspeed) 5 years later than peg2/G4 was a very bad idea.

We may also add that it's unfair to compare hardware released with 5 years of difference but it's ACube's fault.

Nowadays for something around 500Euros we may expect at least some dualcore altivec powered cpu running at more than 1,5Ghz. Something like MPC8641D. That would be the minimum after Pegasos2 was released 5 years ago.

[Crumb]

sorry Crumb but i don't agree!

In everyday use on my CSPPC, AOS4 is much responsive than Morphos 1.4.5 (with MUI4 and a recent Ambient). If you are speaking about the barebone 1.4.5 with MUI 3.9 the comparision is not fair, because most of the recent apps, requires MUI4 :-)

You must have some configuration problem with your setup then because MorphOS gfx are way faster and is much more responsive than OS4 (e.g. moving solid windows is way smoother in MorphOS), don't get me started on HD access speed. BTW, you can install both MUI4 and a more recent build of Ambient on 1.4.5 (just like you install boinbags on OS4). That's the way I use it and OWB and MPlayer work quite better than their OS4 counterpads too. IIRC*I stripped debuginfo from my Ambient&MUI4 files.

MorphOS team activated some delays in the menus, go to MUI prefs and reduce them to 0. My CSPPC with Picasso4/CV64/CV3D is way faster with MorphOS than it is with OS4.x (even if I use Prometheus/Mediator4000 with Voodoo3 on OS4 side). There was also some problem with the fonts as default settings try to use some fonts that are not there.

PS:*It's not just my hardware as I tested OS4/MOS with different hardware (computers, ppc boards, gfx cards... many comments in ACube compatibility list are mine in fact). On A1200 with OS4 for example is almost mandatory to switch off OS4 skin and go back to an OS3-like skin if you want to avoid turtle-like performance. With MorphOS it's not so slow even with the most basic BlizzardPPC. I tested 4 different CSPPC (180-233Mhz) with different computers A3000, A4000, A4000T... also a pair of BlizzardPPC*(240Mhz and 160Mhz models) and various gfx cards like RetinaZ3, PicassoII, GVP*Spectrum, CV64/3D, CV64, PicassoIV, Permedia2, Voodoo3...

[Crumb]

@framiga

I*used MorphOS since the first release and also OS4 (years before it was released and years after it was released) and you must have some configuration problem in you MorphOS install because it's faster than OS4 in almost everything. I have used it with Permedia2, G-Rex+Voodoo3, PicassoIV, CV3D and CV64 and gfx were always faster in MorphOS. You can install more recent Ambient builds and also WB, but MorphOS always works faster. No just in my machine but also in my friends ones. Gfx, 68k emulation, I/O, response speed... all is faster with MorphOS. The only missing stuff from 1.4.5 is the tcp/ip stack but you can install mosnet/miamidx/Genesis... even some OS4 beta components like Roadshow 68k ;-)

[Crumb]

Some of them are quite important, though: Abiword and Gnumeric, or Timberwolf.

X11 ports? no thanks. Any x11 thing on Amiga is an example of quick'n'dirty port that should have never been published.

Timberwolf port is primitive and not really useable compared to any real browser. It's funny you present a pre-alpha crashy thing as a flagship.

Where did you get this information?

go to os4depot. If you take away quick SDL ports and unix cli command apps there's nothing much left that worths to be listed.

And it's only with the Os4 version that you should do the comparison, since the original poster has asked opinion on OS4 itself, not a comparison with MOS or other OSes. The fact that OS4's version of Mplayer lags behind MOS' one doesn't make it less useful.

Since he has the chance of running a better MPlayer version in a Peg2 thanks to MorphOS I think it's quite related.

AFAIK Efikas are still sold as new, but they are not produced anymore. Anyway, Efikas are more limited in specs and expandibility than Sams.

I could say that any ACube hardware is not produced anymore since the produce just a few dozens of boards from time to time. Efikas may be limited but still only cost a fraction of the price of Sam440 and you can try out MorphOS on them for free (just like in any other hardware like Peg2/Mac Mini/PPC*Classics) while you have to pay around 500Euros to try out OS4 on Sam440. I bet the limited Efikas will run Quake2 faster than a 50% faster Sam440. And USB file transfer also works faster on Efikas despiting its limitations.

Ok, but then compare second hand OS4 machines with second hand ones for MOS.

No problem, take any eMac/Mac Mini and enjoy the power of altivec now.

You can buy various USED Mac Minis for the price of an USED Sam440, perhaps.

Sure.

I hoped that too, but it seems that ACube's financial possibilities at the time were too limited to allow it.

The same story Eyetech and others told us: buy this thing you don't really want so we get more money to produce the thing you want. We would be in a far better situation if Moana had been released.*3rd party hardware producers could still release new hardware for those who think having new prototypes sold to endusers is important.

Define hackish.

Sam460.After plugging a decent gfx card and a SATA*PCI card you will have 0 free slots, nothing brilliant.

But how much will these two missing features affect the overall performance of the board?

small cache will make that emulators runs slowly and lack of Altivec will hit multimedia performance and even old Pegasos2/G4 performance may be higher.

Unless the buyer isn't more interested in new hardware.

If buying new prototypes hardly tested, hard to replace and with G2s cpus from decades ago is your idea of "new"... I prefer hardware well tested produced in hundreds of thousands of units, easy to replace, faster and cheaper.

How many plugins are available for OWB, compared to Firefox?

Does any of those Timberwolf plugins allow you to watch youtube videos fullscreen?*no? too bad.

What you don't like about theirs Quake3 port?

It's slow and buggy and even they aknowledged it when it was released "as is".

[Crumb]

@TheBilgeRat

On a Mac Mini G4 I can run OSX, OS4 alpha, Linux and on MorphOS I also run latest MPlayer and my 68k software probably runs faster than it does in your old P4, just like graphics on MorphOS are faster than UAE*P96 output. BTW, nowadays I*do all my web browsing with OWB.

If a pc suits your amiga needs good for you :-)

[Crumb]

What make you say that's quick and dirty? By how stable it is, by its number of feature?

I would say that quick'n'dirty ports feel alien (like running X11 apps through cygwin on Windows), are more unstable that native ports, feel unfinished and integrate badly with the host OS (like Cygnix X11 stuff)

And yet it's so far the best software on OS4 to e.g. download videos and mp3s from many sites. I find it funny that you imply that it's not usable at all.

Do you really call "useable" and "polished" having to use windows keyboard shortcuts to select menu options because GUI doesn't respond to mouse events...

And by taking away all the SDL and Unix ports I should realise that every SDL port made for OS4 needed no change to the makefile, or it was derived from MOS? How do you make that connection?

You should realise that most PPC software is just a collection of SDL/CLI unix ports that usually run better in posix platforms. In case port is not easy to do it's common practice to take MorphOS code: MPlayer, BasiliskII, Freespace2 and others...

What I see from his question is just "how is OS4", I don't read it as a "please tell me what's the best Amiga environment out there".

It's normal, just like if you ask me if Dunlop tires are good and I reply you that I prefer pirelli ones

Well, it's just a matter of reference. I could also say that x86 PCs are not produced since they are being produced since only around 30 years which is nothing compared to 2000 years of no PC being produced. But if you choose a reference which is different you really can't continue a discussion.

Since Efikas are being sold new with its 2 years of warranty and Sam440 has just been produced in small batches and is not produced continuously (I doubt they produce any now that Sam460 is planned) they have the same status now: sold new with warranty but not produced actively.

But Sams are more powerful than Efikas, so the increase in price can be justified. And besides, MOS is anyway OT here.

Price increase can not be justified because a machine produced for the same small market 5 years ago costed the same and it's named Pegasos2/G4. Both run OS4 and The old 5 years-old machine is faster. Quite sad if you ask me.

Sam's advantages are shaded by OS4 (lack of) features: USB works slower than Efika and 3D is probably slower too despiting higher clockrate. It has more ram and faster HD access but I'm not sure I want to pay 450Euros to get a system marginally better.

Sam G2 cpu technology is obsolete and not many customers would expect having to pay 500Euros for it.

This doesn't help much since OS4 doesn't run on Efika.

But MorphOS does and it runs classic software probably better than 533-600Mhz Sams.

Well, you proposed a comparation between OS4 and MOS machines, I guess it's your turn to compare them too.

Obligement.free.fr has some nice benchmarks.

Wow, so you're implying I didn't want to get my AmigaOne?

I'm implying most of people paid large sums of money for A1 and specially Sam440 because it ran OS4, otherwise the hardware would have been rejected and they would have bought better hardware like Pegasos2 or Mac Mini.

What is the problem with these?

There's no problem with wanting new hardware, the problem is releasing hardware both more expensive and slower than the hardware released 5 years ago for your own market.

So, "hackish" = "you don't like".

hackish means using an embedded cpu and selling it in a desktop motherboard with limitations you would never expect in a motherbaord like having just ONE SATA that gets disabled if you fit a PCI-e card.

Ok, so now you're saying that a Sam460 might not be worse that a Pegasos2 G4. I agree with that.

I'm saying that it will probably be worse in many aspects.

No, my idea of new is something that hasn't been produced years ago and that has no valid warranty. BTW where did you read that Sams are "prototypes" and "hardly tested"?

All A1s are Teron prototypes hardly tested. Sams hardware looks better although it's obvious that it has not been tested as deeply as big companies like Apple test its hardware.

That's the point... *you* prefer. That's different that saying that for OS4 users Peg2 are a better choice than Sams.

Other betatesters and users who sold their (u)A1s to buy Peg2/G4 instead of Sam440 may not agree with you.

And yet me and other people find it to be useful even if it's alpha.

I guess it's the same people who's happy using alien x11 ports on their "Amigas"

@tone007

lovely crab! :-D

[Crumb]

you are too much biased  (and probably short in memory) to understand that i already tryed everything to make Morphos 1.4.5 "useable" on classic (FYI i'm one of the few who got up and running AmigaOS3.9-Morphos 1.4.5 and AmigaOS4 on my CSPPC-CVPPC and helped others users to fix variuos issues when 1.4.5 was released).

Sure, I remember old threads but there's nothing that requires special skills in making OS39/OS4/MOS work in the same hardware. I made the first MorphOS1.4.5 version work on a G-Rex 4000 and some time before OS4 Classic was released I convinced the Friedens to add an option so G-Rex would be ignored (so the user had the chance to use a ZorroIII gfx card -including Mediator or Prometheus- in addition to the G-Rex). Later Frank Mariak listened to the users like me that asked CV64/CV3D/PicassoIV support and he added it so I could test more hardware.

I also helped users to install both MorphOS and AmigaOS4 and even did a small install guide txt to install MorphOS powerup.

In addition to that I installed both OS4 & MorphOS on a pair of A1200 with Permedia2

When you boot OOTB MorphOS or OS4 just drag a window. On MorphOS it's silky smooth and on OS4 it's not (I'm talking about Permedia2, CV64, CV3D, PicassoIV and Voodoo3). If you adjust MUI skins and disable delays MorphOS flies (even if you compare it to OS4.x with basic OS3.x skin)

As a disadvantage you have to add that A1200 OS4 version doesn't have scsi support.

I also tested OS4 with RetinaZ3, Algor, Highway, Norway, Prometheus, Toccata, ConciertoIV, X-Surf...

Your not speaking with a newbie, so please refrain to insist with that "you must have some configuration problem in you MorphOS instal" because it is simply not true. Thanks!

You haven't stated which Ambient/MUI versions you are using or if your binaries are stripped. You haven't stated your settings either. I'll repeat: you must have some configuration problem because using modern Ambient and MUI4 it should go faster (at least all systems I have configured run faster than the same system with OS4).

[Crumb]

That's not a definition of a quick'n'dirty port. A quick and dirty port refers to a port done in a limited time, without a good quality check of the port and  leaving bugs mostly untouched.

The time invested depends on coder's skills and OS knowledge. e.g.: Itix could port software X in one week and it would take me two months to do the same. Despiting time factor the rest applies to x11 ports: no good quality checks, most of original bugs remain untouched (even new ones are added) and no use of host OS functions.

You cannot judge poor an X11 port, since by its nature it will feel alien compared to its host window manager.

we are not just talking about window managers, gaim would feel alien even if you used amiga window frames. Using an Amiga skin doesn't suddenly turn your x11 software into amiga software

In this case the port has a good integration with Workbench within its limits, just check the work that has been done to get the gadget graphics as similar as possible with OS4's one.

Then just use any random OS (e.g. Windows with WindowBlinds) with some Workbench skin and be happy. AtheOS had Amiga-like gadgets and there were some x11 window managers that mimicked WB but that won't turn gtk into mui.

Regarding unstability I can only speak of my own experience, at least AbiWord and Gnumeric run pretty stable on my system.

"ls" also runs pretty stable on all amigas yet it doesn't feel native because it doesn't use amiga arguments.

And still, being a port you can't really judge on stability,

what?!

unless you pretend that a port in order to be a good one must have fixed all the stability bugs of the original code.

I assume coder won't be silly and will avoid bleeding edge unstable versions. If code runs stable in other platform it should do so if the port is properly done.

And for the last part, what part of these ports make you feel them unfinished?

X11

We talking here about how "useful" it can be, not about "useability" and "polishness". And yes, having to use keyboard to select menus doesn't make it less useful, since the plugin I'm using does the job well.

Lynx is also perfectly "useful" too.

I'm still interested to know how have you found the information that all the SDL ports have been made by just typing "make". The part that they usually run better on other platform is IMHO not true: it is true for those programs that require more CPU power than the available one on current OS4 machines. But at the moment I can't recall a single SDL application that runs sluggish on my system.

SDL/X11 ports always run better in the original platform.

No, for that I would have asked you "how are Dunlop tires compared to other ones", while in this case it's a case of "I want to try Dunlop tires, how are they?" OP has even explicitely stated that he's not interested in a MOS comparison.

I disagree. And I think it's polite to reply you instead of ignoring you.

Efikas will never be again produced. Sam440 are still produced (and that has been confirmed by ACube, even if the 460 will enter production). I see a difference here.

BBRV always says that if you have an order for Genesi to build certain number of 512MB Efikas they will build them. Both products have warranty and Efikas can be built on demand I don't see much difference. In addition to that I think there are more chances of ACube going broke than Directron

Have you thought about how's the PowerPC CPUs market today in respect to 5 years ago, and have you taken in account that the major CPU buyer that existed 5 years ago isn't anymore a buyer these days?

I think ACube choosed wrong cpus, added unneeded stuff to motherboard like that fpga you can't program with freedom and added the mobility Radeon unneeded for embedded stuff. The choices they have made for 460 model look slightly better for embedded customers but are odd for desktop users.

Most Amiga users I know were waiting some fast G4 machine many years ago. Now it's funny because Hyperion partners avoided the use of Altivec (with the honorable exception of A1-XE G4), something that pissed almost all users I know. The situation looked brighter when Moana appeared but unfortunately Hyperion management decided to recover developing costs selling us expensive hardware instead of trying to sell many OS4 units and leaving users the choice of using 2nd hand hardware like Mac Mini/Powerbook or new hardware (like Sam440 or whatever thing they wanted to build)

They are enough to justify the release of a new platform, though.

Since some users are desperate to run OS4 they will buy almost everything you put on sale. But mind you, if you could buy Moana and run it on a 2nd hand Mac Mini many users would have been able to try out OS4. Now the number of users spending more than 500 Euros to get a substandard board that runs slower than 5-year old boards are pretty slim compared to the number of users they would have got if they also had released Moana.

They had their right to choose. At the time they had the choice to not buy A1 and OS4 if they felt that the hardware was too pricey.

Sure customers have right to choose, no one questions that. The problem is that customers who wanted to run OS4 had NO choice.

And I'll repeat my question: are PCI Express gfx cards incompatible with 4x lanes slots, and work only in 1x ones, to make you force to plug it in Sam460's 1x lanes slot?

AGPx1 speed would be sad.

What has ACube to do with MAI?

both are OS4 hardware producers Hyperion forces us to buy hardware from if we have some interest in OS4.

Regarding the tests, the question is if they have done enough tests for a releseable product, which neither you nor me can know. So you can't really say that SAMs are "prototypes" and "hardly tested".

But I can claim it hasn't gone through all the tests mainstream hardware goes through.

That still doesn't make your opinion as a general rule.

Well, most (u)A1 users I knew sold them to buy Peg2/G4. Also the ones I don't know in person. Even one of the Friedens used Peg2 as main machine one year before OS4.1 Peg2 release because it was better hardware than MAI/ACube.

[Crumb]

I'm sorry, but the above reasoning is just very silly. Better hardware or not, I'm pretty sure it wasn't the reason he had a Pegasos 2.

Call me old-fashioned, but if I was developing software for some target hardware, I'd pretty much want to have that hardware available to test it on during development.

That was around one year before it was decided if OS4 would see the light on Peg2.

[Crumb]

Even in the old days when I actually did some OS4 for classic beta-testing, I can't say it was sluggish, even running on AGA, let alone RTG: See here.

MorphOS is smoother than OS4 (with RTG obviously since AGA is not supported on MorphOS powerup). OS4 default settings are unfortunately too slow for AGA... solid window dragging is pathethic on AGA and should have been disabled as default. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DHpRYQj1hg

@framiga

I explained you that switching to OS3.x skin speeds up OS4 but whatever, MorphOS still works smoother on Classic hardware.

[Crumb]

@Crumb
maybe you do need a Peg2 if you are developing an OS for it...

You fail to notice that the broken A1 was replaced by an unsupported machine instead of a Sam440. One year before the decission of porting to that platform was taken core os4 developer prefered using a non supported platform with unfinished drivers instead of Sam440. The testing lasted 3 months as maximum.

And I also see you enjoy 2004/2007 a lot, negating all progress AmigaOS HW and SW has made since your early alphas (what progress? everything is still 1000% identical to OS-0.5,

OS4.1 is an early alpha? OS4 HW hasn't progressed much in 5 years, in fact Sam440 has been a step back compared to Peg2. Software wise there are many cosmetic changes but little deep changes (swap memory is one of the most noticeable although it was possible with 3rd party apps on OS3.x, we are still waiting auto stack enlargement and gfx core rewrite)

and Aos4.5 will be more or less on par with 1.0, if that!!! ) but as I said many times, your blabbering is irrelevant to end-users.

I wonder if you have ever done any constructive post in any thread at amiga.org. It looks like you just have joined amiga.org to spread your blabbering and red troll propaganda.

Get over it, and most of all, the time Aos slept are finished, you will see upgrade upon upgrades from now on both software and HW side, you better start getting acquainted to this new situation...

It seems you live in a candy coloured parallel reality. HW and SW side OS4 is 10 years in the past. Hyperion had the chance to design new APIs or at least port their OS to mainstream hardware so userbase would not shrink to a few users. They failed.

[Crumb]

@Crumb
But really, OS4.1Up2 has a ton of under the hood improvements and nothing went untouched from the early alphas you helped beta test.  

OS4.1 final is an early alpha?

As for Sam, it was a beginning and mostly aimed at people spending thousands on towerized 1200/4000 only to get clunky systems very prone at breaking. It did a great job and the intended audience is happy, those that were searching for a performance beast were not.

I think it failed since there's still more people interested in spending thousands on classic hardware than buying Sams.

I told you many times at AW that support for such initiatives would make newer HW possible,  and now they will make the 460EX which is more capable and aimed at a certain

So what? Sam460 specs would have been ok-ish 5 years ago but now it's just obsolete before being released. I don't see many reasons to be happy about a machine with amiga-market specs from 5 years ago... last 10 years all amiga market has lagged behind x86 market but now it's getting ridiculous since hardware manofacturers seem unable to produce anything that is capable of performing significantly better than 5 year old (cheaper) hardware.

OS4 population. Power-users will get an X1000

ATM they have failed to deliver the machine for the summer as they promised and you blindly believed.

But please Crumb, say there won't be any new HW again (as you did last November) "it doesn't make commercial sense!" You bring luck!

ATM there's just vapourware (we'll see when x1000 is released... perhaps we'll have to wait until 2011). ACube hardware still doesn't make commercial sense anyway. Otherwise ACube would produce 1000 boards and we wouldn't see spamming-news each time they produce 20 boards.

Actually I live in a world where there is no Amiga or Amiga-like OS that justifies preaching about how cool and modern we are (as you seem to do with morphOS a marginally more mature OS that is still ridiculously obsolete), talk about living in candy worlds...

I don't think I ever claimed that anything amiga-ish has any chance to take the world. Reading your claims about your vapourware x1000 taking over the world is funny. Reading your comparisons of vapourware hardware with real tangible solutions is hilarious.

The bad choices of hardware partners are ruining OS4 chances to be moderately successful in the hobby-OS market. The bad management choices like not releasing OS4.x for existing ppc hardware kill the chances of increasing user base (with the honorable exception of Peg2, although Moana would have made more sense)

The "other OSes" amiga-like have an obvious advantage: if you feel nostalgic or are a little curious about amiga things you can try them out easily (without making big investments) and become an user. And that's the biggest problem for OS4, and the detail some OS4 users try to justify with strange arguments. It's not just about technical disadvantages, my point is that it's too expensive. If they had released Moana at least that problem wouldn't exist for people willing to use 2nd hand hardware. And please note that Moana wouldn't prevent the release of sams, x1000 or whatever vapourware thingie is announced because some people want new hardware.

I see potential in AmigaOS as they are now free to form commercial partnerships

The only potential of AmigaOS is disappearing and giving it's name to a modern OS. If Hyperion ever wanted to sell a modern OS they would need to get rid of almost all amigaos API to make it evolve and put a "compatibility box" like OSX guys did. You may claim OSX is MacOS but well... it's just a label and it has little in common

The long term clear public goal of OS4.x should be jumping to x86. PPC is dead on desktop.

and things are starting to move,

I've heard the same magic mantra last 8 years in the OS4 camp. Since you were not in the community 5 years ago you probably won't understand the frustration of seeing announcements with dancing bananas about an unimpressive hardware that is both slower and more expensive than what we had 5 years ago

while I believe the hermit crumb idea first announced to me at Pianeta Amiga by Guruman (in the sense that he told me there would be the MacMini port) didn't seem that hot to me.

A Mac Mini/Peg2 release and the release of new hardware are not mutually exclusive.

But make no mistake, what I saw were 3 OS very far from todays standard, all

Sure, trying to take over the world with AmigaOS API would be ridiculous and won't work. Claiming it's progressing a lot doesn't make much sense since the API limits all the future evolvement of the OS.

have a long road to travel making those differences, quite frankly, highly laughable (and that is what I think every time I see you so adamantly writing about them, get real Crumb).

Then it's strange you don't notice that spending 1000Euros to be able to try out a limited toy OS and claiming that it's evolving a lot, that it's "the real one", that it's based on some unimportant old sources of an 80s OS no one knows and getting nervous when another hobby OS beats it in all benchmarks is no less laughable.

As for your clinging to the past read my lips: from the end of September 2009 (the day they signed the settlement) things have changed, you had a glimpse in the past 6 months, you will notice it even more in the next 12, and if that won't be enough, it will slap you in the face a little further down.

Yeah, I just have noticed how they promised to release a board this summer and they failed. I have also noticed that they released 2 updates for OS4.1 but they are still unable to get USB2.0 working. I have noticed an evaluation motherboard running a FPS at 4fps (wohooo!). I have noticed some cosmetic changes like startup managers and some eyecandy but little deep changes in the core of the OS. In the meanwhile I had to read claims made by people like you praising a vapourware motherboard with unknown specs and praising "new hardware" that is five years late. BTW, the idea of anouncing x1000 using a web-mistery is highly unprofessional and sad. The owners of amigaos think that they have the golden goose, don't realise that the world has evolved last years and try to milk the users.