How will Hyperion continue the momentum?

[EvilGuy]

How to continue the "momentum"?

Releasing product would be nice. Or maybe giving a functional system to some of the online hardware sites to play with?

But really, "momentum" .. a bunch of Amiga-users begging for hardware that is nothing more than a 2007 version of the BeBox.

Give us AmigaOS4.x/x86 for $49.95; that'll create momentum.

[EvilGuy]

Doesn't have to be a borrowed kernel like Apple has done. It could be completely written from the ground up. Sort of a modern version of the Amiga microkernel. Though it would take longer.

People whinge about the hardware not making the Amiga what it is; which leaves pretty much the OS and the "look and feel". I say its simply the look and feel that makes an Amiga an Amiga so why not exploit that.

Make a new Amiga window manager for Linux and sell "Amiga - powered by Linux" (tm) systems instead. Then companies can produce Amiga/PowerPC or Amiga/Intel or Amiga/...

Value add by making the Linux underneath configurable entirely from the Amiga UI. There are some awful tools in Gnome/KDE for configuring the important bits of Linux that could do with a nice bit of Amigafying. Workspaces are nice under Gnome, but it'd be nice to be able to drag screens down sometimes (and not have to use Compiz to do it!)

But concentrate on strengths; the UI is fairly intuitive so make it work with Linux. Don't try and manufacture custom hardware because it'll always be second fiddle to the dedicated hardware companies. Don't try to create an entire OS from scratch because it'll never have the diverse hardware support that the existing players have, nor will you ever get the major application developers porting applications.

Unless of course your business model is selling a couple of hundred units to the hardcore, die hard fans that will buy anything with an Amiga badge on it anyway.

[EvilGuy]

@EvilGuy
Dude, I practically got my head chopped off by the Friendens for saying something like that in 2004. Welcome to 2010.

rotfl. Yeah, imagine if they'd pulled their fingers out then and did the sensible thing rather then pushing outdated, expensive hardware. But I shouldn't blame them for their fetish, some people like shoes, others ladies underwear, Hyperion & co like PowerPC.

I played with the AmigaWM on SunOS in '96, it had screen dragging and everything. Very nice. If there were an Amiga company around they could've picked it up and made it something special, rather than just an oddity.

[EvilGuy]

So basically AROS with more developers?

Yeah, pretty much :-)

[EvilGuy]

The LAST thing we need is another "Linux" powered OS.

That's like saying the last thing we need is another "amiga" powered OS. There is 1.2, 1.3, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 3.1 .. oh so many :-)

And it doesn't have to be Linux. Pick any other OS that someone can license with source,
and put the Amiga UI on top of it. It could be BSD, or Minix, or QNX or Windows CE (), or ...

Why do people insist on being lazy and use some form of linux instead of making a whole new OS?

Lazy? Pragmatic. You are NEVER going to get an Amiga system supporting 10% of the hardware that Linux supports, so why not leverage Linux's strong points and fix the weaknesses?

Programmers that use linux have no imagination or skill what so ever, they are just building and trying to get credit for other people' hard work. You want to impress me then make a new OS from the ground up.

Its this sort of sanctimonious BS that is killing the Amiga. Well, killed the Amiga, because the only new hardware is based on a design that is years old, followed by an OS that is ancient (talk about a band-aid solution, there you have it, AmigaOS4) with support for a
processor family that is pretty much dead on the desktop. Yay.

For they can't even decide on one distro, but have to fight over millions, and they don't realize that their fancy distro won't work on anyone elses hardware, but their own. It makes me sick.

Choice is bad. Diverse hardware support is bad. A modern OS is bad. That's what happens when you spend too long drinking the Amiga/Hyperion kool-aid. Maybe your sickness is related to the amount of kool-aid you've consumed over the years.

[EvilGuy]

WHY? why do you half to piggy back on the work of others? Are we (the communitity) so incompitent and incapable of creating something from scratch? or God Forbid, Port the Amiga OS over to X86?

Going it alone - in a community that everyday gets smaller - will simply give you what has happened in the last ten years. Overpriced, outdated hardware, little software changes and no applications. Look how long its taken Amiga developers to port a modern web browser.

But I guess it boils down to what YOU think an Amiga is. To me an Amiga is a computer made by Commodore with a Motorola processor and custom chips, coupled with a great OS. I look at it as the same as a 1969 'Hemi 'Cuda. It was the artful combination of hardware and software. NO emulator or linux shell can recreate that combination, just like no kit car can be a '69 Cuda, no mater how close it looks.

Amiga to me is a fast, clean interface which doesn't get in the way of doing what you want to do. The only way to share that with the masses is to go mainstream and support hardware that is available in 90% of the worlds PCs and forget about the PowerPC fetish that the die-hards have.

If people want to spend ANOTHER ten years arguing that and getting NOWHERE then Hyperion seem to be going the right way about it. Otherwise, leverage what others have done in computing in the last twenty years and pull the Amiga into the 21st century.

[EvilGuy]

Have you EVER tried compiling some Linux distros?

All the time - I use Gentoo which in itself if probably one of the most unfriendly Linux distros available. I've custom built Linux
distributions for various people.

For a newb to try and compile a distro though. Wow, thats pretty impressive.

I have tried dozens on all sorts of hardware, only to have them crash or no compile properly (ever tried "tiny linux" on a P1 200 processor with 64 megs of ram - good luck.) Hours spent waisted on crappy distros that crash on re-boot

If you don't know what you're doing then you're going to have problems - the same applies to Mac, Windows, Amiga, ...

Your problems clearly highlight that a) people want to use Linux, b) some people have problems c) there is an opportunity for a company to make Linux easy.

Now think of it this way - AmigaOS is easy to use. Its fast. It does what you generally expect. Sure, there might be some pain learning how AmigaOS works coming from a Windows-only user but it is fairly intuitive. Now imagine that interface running on stable, fast, MODERN hardware.

Forget that its running on Linux, or BSD, or ... on PowerPC or Intel x86, or x64, or SPARC or ...

Apple did it and they've done it well. Amiga in the last few years seems to have copied everything else Apple has done, so why stop now?

It seems like EVERY time we talk about ANY OS, the Linux boys want to CRAM it on us (just look through any thread on this very board for the last 10 years). Every year I try at least a dozen times to use linux and the only ones that I can even get to work are Abuntu and I do try to use Amigaforever, but I give up on it in a few hours.

After a few hours. /shakeshead.

Either way, a UNIX core could be seen as a stop-gap. To get interest back to the platform. There is nothing stopping the Amiga company from developing a UNIX/Amiga hybrid, get some developers then move to a /Amiga. But at the moment we're getting NOTHING. Well, thats not true - we're getting more outdated hardware, costing a hell of a lot of money and an OS that is looking prettier - with pretty only minor functional changes.