Amiga mention in LinuxToday editorial

[stefcep2]

been searching for that Amiga feel for years but there is only one Amiga.  As far as Linux goes, anyone who thinks its intuitive to have a system folder called "etc" is just kidding themselves.    Linux is designed so that its neigh on impossible for the average user to install anything on their own, unless someone has packaged it for them previously. And then you have to sometimes BEG to get their distro Guru to do it:  i tried to get E-Uae packaged for PCLOS, but they didn't like a few home truths i said about their distro and so they ignored it.  Linux fans use Linux simply because its not a MS product, not because they enjoy it.  A single 50k system file that's one version too old will stop it from booting, and believe me installing something as innocuous as a 500k emulator will do it. Its just a real shame that the open-source movement has selected this OS to work on.  The hype and fanboyism for Linux has genuinely held back the development of alternatives to windows.

At one point didn't Amiga Inc as part of Gateway want the next AmigaOS to be based on Linux?  Amiga users didn't want a bar of it, but having the device drivers from the Linux with the Amiga look and feel on top, with UAE, would have made a lot of sense

[stefcep2]

c= "command"
s="start up"
L= "fiLesytems"
T="temporary files".  tell me once and I can remember it. Which is easier to remember: "startup-sequence" versus menu1st.  

In Linux

etc="anything else we don't know what to do with or where to put goes in here"

oh yeah here's another one: modem port on Amiga= serial.device, in Linux ttyusb0blahblahbla..

And the app names k3b?  thats cd/dvd burner software, really intuitive name ..

Limited to my experience?  Go on the forums for each and every distro out there.  See how many posts there are from people wanting to do really simple things, and the long-winded, sudo this sudo that, cut and paste of commands you will never remeber or know what they mean, editing of Xorg.conf files, kernel options etc..  Linux's ONLY advantages over a 20 year old OS like AmigaOS are memory protection and it runs on cheap modern intel/x86 hardware and its free.  Thats it.

[stefcep2]

@jaminjay

And that's what this whole game is usually about : it should 'just work'. This is why the Mac is making ground at the moment, and why the Amiga was so strong in the past where games were concerned (before the console industry strengthened enough).

thats Linux's catch cry.  except it "just doesn't" far too often for the average user..

[stefcep2]

@jaminjay

"
There are things that can't be done in Windows unless you hit the prompt.

I've also spent a lot of my Amiga time in the Shell with scripts and ARexx, and couldn't imagine having a system without it."

Used windows as my main system for 5 years, only command prompt I ever used was to execute run winuae so that i could read and write to a flash card.

Shell scripts, Arexx, never NEEDED to on Amiga, if you CHOOSE to because you WANT to, OK.

But in Linux to do many system-critical things You MUST fire up a command line and type or cut and paste archaic commands, that you will probably never remember.  No choice, no GUI way to do it.

[stefcep2]

@piru "That's why any proper distro has dependicies. apt is your friend."

Not always.  There are numerous examples where the dependancies are not installed eg eg k3b burning software update that needed an update to a KDE GUI file that wasn't picked up in synaptic, no boot.  Then fire up Windows (why should you have to?) so that you can get on the net and wait several days until others have that problem so that you get a fix.  Oh what would you do if there was no windows? or yeah install another distro so that you can work out how to make the first distro boot..its a joke..

I have run XP Pro for 5 years: not one BSOD, never failed to boot first, time every time.

[stefcep2]

@ Piru

My idea of "unbootable" in the context of a modern OS that purports to be user-friendly is that it doesn't get to the log-in screen.  You are clearly an advanced user.  The mere fact that you can install and maintain your own Linux server is testament to that.  I have no doubt that most Linux issues can be resolved via the CLI.  In fact 95% of the time thats the ONLY way.  But will an average user be able to do this?  Probably not.  As you say you can boot to the prompt.  And then do what?  Issue a heap of text commands with switches that YOU know.   But could I?  Could I be arsed going back to 1978 to learn all of these.  Thats the problem. eg i wanted to create a bootable USB thumb drive.  In Linux: add syslinux, open shell, issue about 10 lines of cli commands, with switches, in the exact order.  In Windows, download utility, click "install" utility, stick in USB drive into USB port, click on "make bootable".  Which is easier?.  

Fundamental to this is the fact that the GUI for Linux is not integral to the OS:  GUI's in Linux are written on top of CLI, ie as a way to more easily access the cryptic commands and numerous switches that need to be known to get anything done.  Often the GUI is not even written by the original software author.  Hence the possibility that it won't work properly. But underneath it all its all cli commands going on. In principle its similar to the way Win 3 sat on top of DOS.

[stefcep2]

@uncleted.

its about the number of post made to do really SIMPLE things, or things that ought to be simple, but aren't

I agree that Ubuntu has tried to be more user-friendly, and yes add/remove is a welcome step forward (via synaptic (?) which has been inother distros for a while).

And I absolutely agree that different distro's fix problems that are present in other distro's.  That gives rise to the phenomenon known as "distro-hopping": a chosen distro A won't do x, but distro B will, so you go to distro B, only to find distro B wont do y, which distro A could, and so on..

You mention Linux's server heritage:  Linux is a great server OS, but the demands of a server OS are different to that of a desktop OS.  Server OS's distribute the same software, doing the same tasks-usually database-related- on many clients.  desktop OS's need to run many different apps, at the same time doing varied things, where user input is more frequent and variable. Result? The GUI stutters and locks the desktop user out far more often than it should.

I am not a programmer so i don't know much about the API's of different OS's, so I can't comment.  But I am desktop user, and therefore I am eminently qualified to discuss the user experience it offers.  Its not about liking or not liking linux, its about whether it provides a satisfactory user experience for the majority of ordinary users, relative to other OS's.  It doesn't. Yet.

having said that I'd love it succeed, because I believe in the open-source philosophy.

Amiga was always about putting the user in control, and it was always easy to configure and with DOpus very easy to house-clean, very easy to know where installers put things, very easy to launch things via GUI (in fact in 13 years of using one maybe 5% of the time I used CLI).  As Aminet shows with the countless free utilities, software apps etc the API was sufficiently accessable to anyone who was inclined to learn.

[stefcep2]

@ aeroman.  

been having that discussion with the Linux zealots who just don't get that CLI's belong buried in the past.  Its NOT better, its not progress, its just holding back the widespread adoption of the OS by the masses.  But what else CAN they say when the entire OS is, in fact command-line driven, and the GUI is just veneer over the top of it.  Yeah right so the guys at Palo Alto, Atari, Apple, MS, Commodore, IBM , BE Inc, et al who went for the GUI and mouse etc were all wrong and the Linux community is right?