MorphOS 2 vs. AmigaOS 4.1 (pros/cons)

[takemehomegrandma]

@amiga4ever

The Amiga backwards compatibility is better in MorphOS than in OS4, but then it's a matter of taste how important this feature is for you personally. To me it's essential.

The MorphOS desktop (Ambient) is light years ahead of any Workbench.

The integrated USB stack of MorphOS (Poseidon) is the best USB stack, period! It supports USB 2.0 and a *great* number of peripheral equipment.

I think the printing system of MorphOS (Turboprint) is better than in OS4 (although I feel that printing isn't a prioritized feature in any of these two OS's).

Personally I like MUI4 (and *the many programs*(!) using it) much better than Reaction, and since the entire desktop is using this, it gives a clean and consistent user experience and opens up for some nice customization possibilities.

Sputnik (the web browser under development) is said to be ported to OS4 when it's finished for MorphOS, but until that happens it's only available for MorphOS (in beta versions).

MorphOS also has a lot of nice features that you could learn about yourself by going here and click on the "Overview" and "Features" tabs. What's important to you? Think about that for a minute, and then go read about the features yourself. And then feel free to ask more specific questions! :-)

In my eyes, MorphOS is the clear winner! :-)

[takemehomegrandma]

@Varthall

As for the ported X11 programs, I'd be surprised to hear that no one uses at least Abiword and Gnumeric, since they're for now the best office applications available for OS4.

"Ported" you say? In my world, those aren't OS4 programs in any way. I'd run those programs in their *proper* environment instead, and Amiga apps on the Amiga OS, but perhaps that's just me? To me, this isn't what Amiga is about...

[takemehomegrandma]

@Hans_

For example, I doubt that takemehomegrandma has actually tried Amiga OS 4.1 enough to support his claims about the system.

It would be interesting to know exactly which one of "my claims" you are referring to?

Amiga backwards compatibility? Well this is an established fact, and it hasn't happened by itself, but by hard and persistent work from the MorphOS developers to make the OS that way. This should be acknowledged, not belittled. The OS4 team didn't have this feature as prioritized as the MorphOS team, they had another vision and wanted to do things in a different way instead. I'm *not* saying OS4 sucks in this regard, only that MorphOS has *better* backwards compatibility. For instance, read what "Toaks" has to say about it here. He has both MorphOS and OS4, and what he says on that page and a few pages forward is that both systems are nice and good and all, but due to some different priorities and views, MorphOS has better backwards compatibility.

Or was it that the MorphOS desktop (Ambient) is light years ahead of any Workbench? Anyone that has used and followed Ambient's development knows how it started as an inferior desktop that everyone replaced with the original Amiga Workbench or Directory Opus Magellan the first thing they did. In MorphOS 2.0 I seriously doubt that anyone has replaced Ambient with Workbench, and this is for a reason!

Or was it the USB stack? Can you *really* claim that OS4's USB stack is better in *any* way? And the same with printing, where are the OS4 advantages?

Whether you like MUI 4.0 (and all the MUI apps out there) and appreciates a clean and consistent user interface experience when using them, as well as the MUI customization options for all the programs and the desktop itself, is a matter of taste. As I said.

Sputnik is a *native* browser, the other one is a SDL recompile. A matter of taste. Sputnik is said to become available for OS4 as well, so there might not even be a problem there. But if you are going to degrade the Amiga to some kind of loader for recompiled X11 and SDL apps, then I think someone missed a point somewhere. Use Linux instead. Heck, with a simple VNC client you could even run Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office, how about that! :-P

[takemehomegrandma]

Hans_ wrote:
@takemehomegrandma

When taken together your claims form an inaccurate picture.

No they don't, and I was going to write a reply to that, but then I saw that pVC already had! ;-)