WinUAE exposing how crappy Windows is

[stefcep2]

All very interesting.  Seems to me whilst the registry is a necessary thing, its negative effects on system performance is what concerns users.

There's no doubt the more stuff you install in Windows, the longer the boot time, even if none of the installed executables are executed at boot time.  And then the executables themselves take longer to start.  If you then uninstall the executables, your boot time or applications start up times don't improve.  Why is that?

On Amiga, the mere act of installing an app doesn't appreciably increase boot time, in my experience.  Ofcourse if that app RUNS at boot time, boot time will increase.  But just installing it and running it once doesn't make much difference to the boot time afterwards, nor does it affect the start up time of other apps.  

If I install an app in AmigaOS, then uninstall it, and it leaves debris behind its relatively simple to identify which debris belonged to that app, as most of the time files are written to sensibly-named OS directories or the user-startup text files, usually an assign:, and have sensible names. And apart form taking up miniscule amounts of hard drive space, I could leave them there without suffering appreciably diminished OS performance.  

Conversely, I wouldn't even think about deleting any system files from Windows or Linux.

[stefcep2]

@Amiduffer: how do you remove (completely I mean) an MUI program that will have installed some MCC classes ?

No, don't tell me you'll find some undeleted items in MUI:libs after having deleted the program's directory...

Seeing the mess MUI became, the settings that are saved sometimes in env: sometimes in envarc:, with no default time for settings: sometimes it's binary, sometimes it's text,... I don't think you can point the Windows registry.

The VAST majority of amiga software that i have installed on my hard drive may add assign to user startup. Some may add something in Libs, Devs, or L or C, env or envarc. If they do, then these files have sensible names that identify which app installed them.  

Using MUI as an example, if the equivalent software ie a GUI replacement system, were installed for Windows or Linux-where people do run KDE and Gnome- what would be more difficult to do:  finding and deleting MUI debris, or finding and deleting the equivalent in Windows or Linux?

[stefcep2]

Regarding "clutter". Out of the box Windows, or in fact any of the big three OS's currently in the desktop market offer more functionality than AmigaOS could offer if you grabbed every third party hack/patch and or replacement piece off of aminet.

what functionality do Win 7, OS X and Ubuntu have out of the box that a patched Amiga OS don't?  OS functionality, not apps.

And patched up to the gills, AmigaOS isn't exactly pretty to deal with either.

Amikit is the most un-Amiga like patched environment that i have ever used.  As alien as it looks and feels to me as a long time Amiga 3.x user, i can find me way around the core OS files more intuitively than any linux distro or Windows version i have used.

[stefcep2]

I'll start the ball rolling with this one, as I'm sure others will be able to provide more instances:

True, segregated multi-user support.

I don't care, I'm the only user.

Firewalled TCP/IP stack that is built deep into the system.

Windows by default firewalls only one of incoming or outgoing traffic, forget which.  You'd be mad not to use a third party firewall AND anti-malware suite.  Even without a firewalled TCP stack your risk of malware IN REALITY is less with Amiga than Windows.  Yes its security by obscurity, but it works.  In THEORY, yes Linux and OS X are more secure by design, but in REALITY, if there was enough motivation malware could be as damaging on Linux and OS X.  So a significant part of Linux and OS X security is obscurity as well.  There is no 100% secure OS

Full memory protection. OS4 redresses this somewhat, but it's not nearly as effective as in the others.

There's a whole thread on MP, and its nowhere near a big deal for most users most of the time.  Yes a system with MP is better than one without, but in REALITY, the lack of it hasn't made Amiga a perpetually crashing mess.  As I've said earlier look at all the software-apps, utilities, drivers written, and then all the art, music, video, documents on Aminet as evidence as to how well this system without MP works in practice-you couldn't do this if software kept bringing the OS down and people kept losing their files!

Fully functional network file sharing.

Yes

A HAL worth a damn.

Yes, but a lot of nice third-party Amiga hardware seemed to work fine anyway. Anyway, whats CGX/p96 and AHI?

SMP

yes.

As for the restriction on apps. Many users might well argue that things such as iTunes or WMP represent core functionality within the OS.

Equivalent media player software is available as open-source alternatives, and if you could get AmigaOS to run on fast enough hardware you'd have similar functionality.  Its not the OS stopping someone porting a general media player, the codecs are all out there.  Having  said that iTunes runs best on Mac. Linux alternatives have issues with some iPods anyway.  But I was interested in core OS functionality, not apps.  Everyone knows Amiga has far less developers willing to write software for it.

Apparently you didn't get what I was aiming at.

I wrote:



You put in 20, 30 plus patches into a 3.x system with all the trimmings

Apparently you didn't get what *I* was aiming at.  Amikit is good example of exactly that and as far removed from a 3.x system as you can easily get. And guess what?  Most apps that i have tried work as well as they do on a vanilla 3.1, and i can *still* work my around it to troubleshoot.

and suddenly one of your favourite apps stops working.
Good luck trawling through it all to find out which one of those patches (or if you're especially lucky, combination thereof) is the culprit.

Even worse is the last three kernel updates I've done with Ubuntu through the repo's and I end up at the grub prompt!!  

What you say is possible with any OS, and when it usually happens after the last patch/addition you made.  The point is when it happens on Amiga, its usually something that starts from user-startup, WBstartup, changes a shared Lib, or executes something in C.  I have more hope in tracking it down than I do Win 7, or Ubuntu.

Been there, done that. Wasn't fun.

Quite.

[stefcep2]

You absolute hypocrite. All the times you had a pop at other people of dismissing your points because they said "I don't use it".

whats good for he goose...

It's a level of security that AmigaOS lacks.

And if the malware to take advantage of is so uncommon and unlikely, what then?

Good luck installing your OS4.x for A1 on a Sam.

In contrast I can and have installed Linux from the same disk on everything from a single P2 system to a coreduo.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA.  go herehttp://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=327.  Go there tomorrow,  Go there 6 months from now,  try 6 months ago.  SAME STORY, whatever the time.  Thousands upon thousands of users with hardware that DOESN'T WORK, some not at all, some not without alot of fartsing about. And this with THE MOST popular Linux distro in history.

That is the power of a HAL.

Hmmmm....

Rhythmbox, Elisa etc.

Both of which are in of themselves apps, but sit on frameworks that are built into the OS itself and comes out of the box. It isn't that AOS just lacks the apps, it's that it lacks the frameworks upon which these apps rely on to operate.

Linux will not play the most common audio (mp3) and video (mpeg 2/ dvd) out of the box. I can't even get Totem to play a fricken' audio CD, and no-one can tell me why. Amiga been doing for 20 years, 10 out of the box. But thats besides the point.  Amiga can play mp3, and mpeg2, what "framework" are you trying to muddy the waters with?  

I imagine that parts of WMP's framework can be accessed in a similar fashion by third party apps.

Right: VLC relies on WMPS "framework" to work.  Wait a minute, VLC works in Linux and there is no WMP there...WTF are you on about?  Your app takes the digital file, decodes with the right codec, and pumps the video and audio to Direct X or X-server +pulse/whatever or graphics.library/cgx/p96 plus AHI on Amiga.  Playback speed on Amiga is ultimately limited by hardware not OS.

I wouldn't be surprised if the library functions within iTunes on OSX are in part tied to the OS's search engine that again could be tapped by other software...

Yeah its all about search engines.  iTunes talks to certain iPods using a form of encryption/coding.  Don't remember the exact term, but its not an OS thing, its simply because iTunes the app, and iPod the hardware speak the same language, and Apple keeps that secret.

Heh, you still don't get it (colour me shocked). That you personally are very proficient with AOS but not so much with the other two is utterly irrelevant to the point I was making - which is that once loaded up with everything, AOS can be and is a pita to sort out when it's patched to the hilt.

Proficiency has very little to do with it.

[stefcep2]

@the_leander

Your replies speak for themselves.   But once again.

1.  Theoretically lack of multi-user and MP make AmigaOS less secure.  In reality, it means SFA as a)the risk of malware  is negligible and b) Amiga runs software just fine without MP 3) You face far greater risks under Windows.  Obscurity in the real world works for Amiga, as it does for OS X and Linux.

2.  I referred to  Ubuntu as it is BY FAR the mostly widely used distro.  Totem is its default media player.  Ergo its the most widely used Linux media player out of the box.  Ditto lack of mp3 and DVD playback in Ubuntu.  Its what most Linux users would confront out of the box.  

3.  I referred to VLC precisely to negate your BS "WMP as an OS  framework used by third party media players without which you can't playback media files" argument.  I achieved my aim.  The rest is just waffle.

4.  Spotlight?  You claimed iTunes could be considered an integral part of the OS.  Now you're onto a search utility.  Amiga has them too, if you want.

5.  Competence has nothing to do with the fact that one OS has sensibly named folders and  file names, and another doesn't or requires you to execute and remember a gazillion shell commands just to do simple thing.  

BTW I'd forgotten "the I don't use it so it doesn't matter" argument.  That thread`must have cut you, real bad , man.  Peace.

[stefcep2]

What you're saying is that AmigaOS is better because it is really unpopular. Thats a time limited selling point.

Its an argument that recognises things as they are:its a hobbyist OS for which there is negligible malware risk.
 

Unless what you want to do is convince the world that AmigaOS is so much better, but then tell everyone they can't use it because then you'd all be easy targets for malware.

That sounds like Windows.   Really.  Its what MS does every Windows cycle.  Its only a matter of time before any Win version becomes just one massive patch. MS even tells us so.  We then wipe that one off the hard drive, and start again, hoping to get a few years of reasonably secure OS  use MP, Firewalls, AV software nothwistanding.  If Linux and OS X were as popular, they'd be in a similar state.