Why should I use Amiga?

[Piru]

@anon123

Compared to linux, there isn't much where amiga-like systems are "better" at. MUI is quite nice GUI system. Other than that, lack of memory protection, lack of resorce tracking, missing POSIX, missing java, missing flash, missing development tools etc make them such a bit (in comparison).

Well, if you're curious about the miggy programming, give WinUAE (or E-UAE) a try. For NDK, see NDK3.9.lzx (unlzx.c).  For development environment, there's GeekGadgets (which has many GNU tools, including gcc, make et all): GeekGadgets repo. If you get serious about it, Amiga Developer CD 2.1 is a must (it contains tons of documentation and tools).

Don't get me wrong, amiga programming can be a lot of fun, but it doesn't even come close if you compare it to any serious platforms.

PS. I'm just trying to give somewhat more realistic reply here.

[Piru]

AmigaOS does not have multiuser support of any usable kind. Anyone trying to suggest multiuser.library and muFS are just kidding themselves.

IMO muFS is kind of pointless exercise, as there is no memory protection anyway.

[Piru]

@anon123

What hardware can I run 3.9 on?

You linux boxen for example. See the E-UAE link I posted earlier.

[Piru]

What does multi-user support have to do with memory protection? Multi-user functionality is just supposed to be a method of making sure that user's have their own environment and don't get at each others files. MuFS does that.

Without memory protection any user can poke some magic location in the filesystem and make all files accessable.

From the multiuser README:

Code: [Select]

Introduction
------------

MultiUser allows you to create a *IX-like environment where several users live
together  in harmony, unable to delete each others files, unable to read those
private  love-letters  of  other  users.   And  this even if several users are
working on the machine at the same time (on a terminal hooked up to the serial
port)

People without a valid login ID and password won't be able to access files you
have made private with MultiUser.  If you make all files private (not readable
for others), the only useful thing they could do, is boot from a floppy.
MuFS doesn't give any of the other true multiuser benefits, such as user specific preferences, or separated user home directories.

So what is left? Supposedly separate file owner info and access permissions, which are trivially hacked.

muFS is even more pointless as muFS user/group info isn't synced with the user/group stuff in the TCP/IP stack. So you have two sets of users and groups to maintain, and you can easily get them out of sync.

MuFS is pointless.

[Piru]

The current Amiga OS4 release has a certain amount of memory protection that could be used (e.g., you can allocate private memory), so that could be used (for OS4 only).

That wouldn't work (as protection) anyway, as user is always running with "root" privileges. So any malware could just use whatever is needed make the memory writable, poke in the patch, and then write protect the memory again.

For multiuser to be really secure, the underlying system must be built from ground to have proper access control. Basically this would require total OS rewrite, basing it on some BSD (unix) like kernel.

[Piru]

@Hans-

Private memory should, in theory, only be accessable by the task that created it. Therefore, only the task that created it should be able to change it's protection status.

Even if it was, it's trivial to patch some OS function and make it do some dirty work. This way the malware can "force" the correct task to do it's evil bidding.

Similar patches were used against current multiuser already.