Classic AmigaOS On Modern Hardware - A Critical Analysis

[OlafS3]

Yeah don't take me as ragging on AmigaOS, I'm just saying from a user's perspective it has some work to do. I personally really like the design, which is why I like DragonFlyBSD ( I know Matt Dillon the developer ) because he's adding features that are AmigaOS-like.

AROS is a great project and I will use it once AROS68k surpasses the original AmigaOS in terms of performance and stability - as long as the Linux kernel stays off my desktops. Does AROS68k use the Linux kernel at all?

No it is based on Rom Replacements and does not use the Linux kernal. It is running on real hardware (Wawa can say more about it), running in all sort of versions of UAE (including FS-UAE and WinUAE), used in one form or another on Icaros (special distribution of Aros 68k) and Aeros (uses my 68k distribution AROS Vision) and boots from Linux directly in FS-UAE (called AMINUX but not updated recently).

My own distribution is Aros Vision:
http://www.aros-platform.de/

You can download and unpack it and easily use it in WinUAE or FS-UAE

There will be new accellerators based on FPGA soon and I am very optimistic that Aros 68k will run on it soon too

[OlafS3]

Yeah don't take me as ragging on AmigaOS, I'm just saying from a user's perspective it has some work to do. I personally really like the design, which is why I like DragonFlyBSD ( I know Matt Dillon the developer ) because he's adding features that are AmigaOS-like.

AROS is a great project and I will use it once AROS68k surpasses the original AmigaOS in terms of performance and stability - as long as the Linux kernel stays off my desktops. Does AROS68k use the Linux kernel at all?

Surpassing it in speed on ECS/AGA? I do not believe that this will ever happen. AmigaOS was highly optimized for this hardware, beating it there is almost impossible. What is more realistic is beating AmigaOS by adapting it to new FPGA hardware with special abilities.

[OlafS3]

while it is not a priority this side is being optimized and bugfixed as well.

Nice to hear :-)

perhaps you could do a step-by-step manual how to install Aros 68k (nightly) on real hardware. I was often asked but I cannot help there.

[OlafS3]

I'll give you that compactness can be nice.

AmigaOS is my favourite graphical OS. If it had a more UNIX-like commandline and had some of the features I mentioned it missing it'd be pretty much the perfect OS.

Since it won't likely get those for a long time, my bet is thrown in the hat with DragonFly BSD. What Matt Dillon promises is what people want of AmigaOS with the UNIX philosophy behind it. ( Once Wayland becomes BSD friendly we'll be able to ditch horrible X11 )

In my distribution there are many commands that are identical to unix world. Amiga 68k developers were heavy inspired by the unix world.

[OlafS3]

Seems like Agami has some of the right ideas but I want to refute one in particular:

> Amiga OS is the only OS I have had the pleasure of knowing that did this well, without the overbearing control

I'll have to disagree here. AmigaOS is HEAVILY biased towards the user. Consider that UNIX was developed in the 1970s, and with it and Berkeley UNIX you get the following things Amiga still lacks:

Memory Protection
Privilege separation
Multi-user support

Plus there is a balance between the user and the developer in UNIX. Just most people are too dense to see it. Let me explain, but first:

> Don't even get me started on Unix and Linux.

Please don't make the mistake of blobbing these together. GNU/Linux is horribly biased to developers, and it promotes bad, bloated, lazy code.

Modern UNIX descendants like System V and BSD are primarily hindered by the horrible display server that is X11. Each variant of BSD and System V variant addressed this differently:

Sun developed NeWS, a Display Postscript variant, for SunOS, their Berkeley UNIX derived OS ( Berkeley UNIX refers to historical versions of BSD here ) but it failed horribly in the market due to X11 being very entrenched

NeXT Computers developed their variant of Display Postscript. Even though NeXTSTEP is not a true Berkeley UNIX derivative ( Based off Mach, not UNIX ) it does maintain UNIX compatibility, and their Display Postscript server technology was passed into OS X as Quartz.

SGI developed XSGI, their variant of X11 which addressed its flaws by optimising it for SGI hardware and stripping out what wasn't needed.

The others adopted X11 and dealt with the shortcomings. AMIX being a System V derivative was among these, notably.

However with Wayland under development we should see all the inherent flaws of X11 be corrected. Wayland is a proper display protocol which doesn't treat all hardware like a big dumb framebuffer ( What X11 does without the hacks like DRI and such that people have been working on )

The reason I say UNIX proper can balance user and developer focus is simple:

Its well known that UNIX itself is one of the most developer friendly OSes of all time.

Once the shortcomings of X11 are gone we are left with only one major issue - a lack of a standardised toolkit. That can be addressed down the line, for now ditching X11 is by far the most imperative issue, its almost 20 years late after all.

The biggest issue in my opinion today is that most consumers are morons and are afraid of working in the console. Thats why I point newbies to UNIX to FISH, the Friendly Interactive Shell. Useless for scripting, but really assists new users by being actually helpful and interactive rather than biased towards developers. You throw together Wayland X Enlightenment X FISH and most users after the initial learning curve won't have any issues.

Enlightenment is my choice of GUI due to its minimalism, yet simplicity of use while being eye appealing and not a resource hog.

I am far from a critic of Amiga, I'm an advocate actually, but I think its best chance of not fading into obscurity relies on the promotion of DragonFlyBSD.

I rest my case in the matter at this point. Take it however you will.

I have nothing against Linux but I do not see how DragonFlyBSD will help the Amiga platform. We had a lot of people recently who promoted Linux, one company relabeled PCs with a special Linux distribution on it, one person promoted his own distribution, you are now recommending your favorite distro here. We all use PCs with Windows/MacOS or even Linux now for our everyday work. You said what are the shortcomings compared to modern platforms but we are all aware of that and they are addressed already in different projects (except MP). In good marketing you do not stress the limitations but search for the strength and how to go on. Are you interested to invest time (like many here do) in the project (whatever platform)?

[OlafS3]

Can I ask what the dire need for multi-user support is? Isn't there a third party add on that will accomplish this?

I know why Linux and Windows need it. Why does Amiga need at all?

[OlafS3]

What do you recommend I upgrade it to then? You think a less costly accelerator is more cost effective?

Also honestly I'm not too keen on the fact MorphOS barely utilizes the hardware, is 32-bit only and has no SMP support. While none of the other Amiga NG OSes seem to support this I'm honestly thinking my money for computing is better spent elsewhere than on an NG Amiga solution.

then take a look at this:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Arix-OS/414578091930728

and:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Arix-OS/414578091930728

as I said... in work

[OlafS3]

Thanks for the links Olaf I'll take a look at it after work ( They don't care as long as I don't go on facebook. )

I have not found another link. It is showing SMP working in ARIX (the commercial version of AROS) with two cores. Additional AROS using Linux kernel for driver support. There is also a 64bit version of AROS supporting (if I remember right) right now 128 GB RAM. Only MP is not possible at the moment but also promised for the future. There are versions for X86/X64/ARM/PPC and 68k. ARIX is in test right now so if you are interested you could certainly take part (after signing NDA).

Aeros is running using a Linux kernel (Linux hosted) with Linux Apps and WINE added. And then there is AMINUX (my distribution) running in FS-UAE started on a stick (with Linux) but not updated yet. Perhaps a more interesting playground for you.

[OlafS3]

Eh if its running under the Linux kernel I'm not interested. I'm not interested in supporting the Linux kernel while open alternatives exist. Thanks anyways.



You're taking it out of context. Its not saying Linux is UNIX or BSD is Linux. They're in the same class because the Linux kernel is a workalike. BSD is descended from Berkeley UNIX which is in turn descended from Research UNIX, the original UNIX.



No, actually its Linux users who criticize the conservative nature of the BSD projects, criticize us for not adopting the GNU philosophy, which is a load of rubbish anyways, and say we're a bunch of masturbating monkeys ( Linus Torvalds himself called us that ). I've tried getting along with that class of Linux user, but I don't - mostly I hang around with BSD/Solaris/IRIX guys with a few GNU/Linux users who aren't a bunch of ignorant rude people.

that sounds worse than in the amiga community...