Only with few of the benefits.
Modern video editing has come a long, long way since the days of Newtec's Toaster. Everything these days is digital and in that arena I suspect AOS, even with all the improvements of MOS or AROS or OS4 would be put under severe pressure to cope with the sorts of demands that kind of software would make in today's environment.
Photo editing is probably more realistic, but then you're competing in an arena where Linux has some pretty mature and feature rich software to choose from.
As well as a significant chunk of it's capabilities due to it's being hampered by 80's era APIs and architecture. Appliances are supposed by nature of their requirements to be stable and unobtrusive in their function. Rigged up to the eyeballs with patches and kludges, AOS was never that.
But that Ubuntu install has out of the box more capabilities than you could get with AOS even with every patch and hack from Aminet installed and running smoothly (and good luck with that). It also has the supreme benefits of both being free (in all senses of the word) as well as well supported by vendors and coders.
There are probably more coders working just on the Linux kernel today then there were developers for Amiga software even at it's height to give you an idea of the scale of the mountain you're looking to go up.
This desire to try to move it back out into the mainstream, even under the limited guise of "appliance" type machines is simply that doesn't make any commercial sense (actually I think it makes even less sense than to try marketing it as a full blown desktop computer). There are far better suited, already mature and cheaper options around.
Amiga coming back was a great dream in 1997, which was realistically the last chance it ever had. In 2011 that same dream leaves a truly bitter taste in one's mouth. It's a retro hobby system and I'm sorry to have to repeat this, but that is all it will ever be at this late stage of the game. Minimig (and perhaps one day Natami if/when it's released) really do show the way to go in terms of the future of the Amiga. UAE for anyone else.
For those of us committed to legacy software, I'd have to agree with you Alan.
But I run very little legacy code and I'm using my OS of choice because it provides a familiar development platform. I have Ububtu installed, but I don't write anything under it (I just use it).
I'd still like to see ARM ports of the NG OS' and if I can run Ubuntu or riscOS then I'll have those as well.
Since your not responsible for paying my OS licensing fees, I'll support what developments I care about.
And if it remains a hobby, so be it. It holds my interest.
