A few questions for AmigaOS 4.x users...

[save2600]

Is AmigaOS 4.x a more "complete" OS in that, once purchased, you don't have to hunt and peck for files all over creation that are needed shortly after purchasing in order for the basics or some modern things to run? For example, if you go to download a game and try to play it, will it still ask you for all these MUI or GUI-like classes or libs? It has a built in DVD player, right? .pdf viewer? e-mail client? How about internet.... what TCP client or is networking better integrated yet? OWB for a web browser as standard? What about USB handling... still Poseidon? Display output... still CyberGFX? AmigaAMP? How is printing handled today?  

As an aside, anything available as sophisticated as iTunes? Any photo editing software included like Showgirls? If not, what are people using? How about video importing and post production? If not, what are people using?

Are we still talking bare-bones hobbyist/developer/Frankenputer fare here or is it a little more well rounded and mature? Inquiring minds want to know. Not looking to start a flame war, these are genuine, 'clueless' questions as I haven't paid attention to anything "officially" AmigaOS wise since 3.9.

[save2600]

Thanks Duce and Redfox - you answered a lot of my questions  

What I mean by "more complete"...

No third party printing program (ie: TurboPrint) with drivers for various printers gets run before you can actually print something?

So MUI 3.9 and all its requisite classes are already installed and part of OS4.x? You download and install a game and you do not get a requester (or have to look at SnoopDOS/Snopium to find what's missing) saying you need to track some other classes or libs down from somewhere?

And as far as this USB stack transparency goes... so the MUI/Poseidon thing is non-existent? There's another stack of some kind? One with less 'features' (shit to tweak), that's more automatic or "smarter"? You plug USB devices in and they simply work as they should?

[save2600]

For clarification, I'm not talking about running OS4.x on a legacy system of any type. Strictly modern hardware running modern software. And yeah, I get bug fixes, etc.

So, just gathering the few responses so far... can one say that AmigaOS 4.x provides a close computing experience to that of what we fell in love with back in the 80's with our Amigas? Or currently with Apple's OSX? In that I mean, "stuff" for the most part, just works? Transparently or with minimal fuss?

[save2600]

Thanks much for all the great replies. Very interesting reads and I especially appreciate hearing what people are using for software and what the comparatives are. I did not know OS4's USB stack is just 1.1 though. Sounds like there might be a lot less config hassles, but at the expense of speed.

Playing around with MorphOS on the G4 Mini last night, I transferred a 13gb file in 18 minutes using an external 2.0 WD hard drive. Of course, the system did not bring up an icon for this particular partition or device as I had to 'mount' if first. lol  BUT... the initial transfer to the external drive took 28 minutes on my 2.1ghz G5 iMac. What a difference! I really love the snappy 'feel' of these alternative or Amiga-like OS's and would like to give OS4 a try someday.