AmigaOS 4XX - MorphOS etc

[takemehomegrandma]

@techlord

You've got to ask yourself the question what you really are looking for, what are you intested in?

Is it to play old games and use old apps and the old OS, etc? Then you really want maximum compatibility, which means UAE or real Amigas (or maybe Minimig?).

But if your interest is towards having a 2011 level Amiga experience (modern desktop, browsing, media files, etc) then there is really no real alternative than MorphOS IMHO.

[takemehomegrandma]

Basically, both MorphOS and AmigaOS 4 are "next-gen" Amiga-like experiences, but when it comes down to it it's entirely subjective.

Of course emotions and other subjective, irrational things can also affect your choice, but MorphOS...

...is faster...
...has the latest versions of the best Amiga standards integrated (like CGX, Poseidon, MUI4, etc)...
...has more and better features...
...is more Amiga (classic) compatible...
...is ahelluvalot cheaper (looking at total system cost)...
...runs on (albeit second hand but still) easily obtainable, high quality, mainstream hardware...

...and there is really nothing subjective about that, only pure, measurable facts.

[takemehomegrandma]

It would be no easy accomplishment, both have accrued at least 20 solid trolling years between them.

And funnily enough, this comment of yours was probably the most rude, off topic and pointless post in the thread...

:rolleyes:

[takemehomegrandma]

Basically, both MorphOS and AmigaOS 4 are "next-gen" Amiga-like experiences, but when it comes down to it it's entirely subjective.

WHY was my reply to this comment, made yesterday, mysteriously removed???

It was not in breach of *any* terms of service or "netiquette", it was merely a short list of *objective* reasons that could (or even should) affect ones choice, made as a counterclaim to the above "it's entirely subjective", and the post was polite its tone.

Is Amiga.org turning into what AW.net was a decade ago, where threads get locked/removed, posts disappear etc in a subjective manner in order to favor a certain group of people's economical interests?

[takemehomegrandma]

It is subjective

Given that you have already ruled out the classic HW and/or UAE, then you are looking for a NG solution. Given that you have also ruled out AROS, then the choice is between OS4 and MorphOS, and *there are* some perfectly valid objective points of measurements to help you make up your mind (I think Fab managed to relay what I wrote pretty accurate, don’t remember exactly though).

MorphOS *is* faster, it *does* have all the preferred by most and most widely spread Amiga standards integrated and in modern versions, it *does* have a much lower system cost, it *does* run on easily obtainable mainstream hardware with totally OK bang/buck ratio, it *does* have the best Amiga compatibility, it *does* have the most and the best features as a whole – the desktop, the shell, 3D, JIT, etc, etc.

These are objective, measurable, comparable facts. Nothing subjective about it at all. You can make speed benchmarking charts, you can write feature charts, you can make compatibility comparison charts, you can make price comparison charts, and you can put them (the OS4 and MorphOS charts respectively) side by side, in black on white, and then you can draw your conclusions from that.

*OR* one can do as *You* did, and completely discard even the thought of objective, rational comparisons with a simple "it’s entirely subjective" one-liner sentence (making some weird analogy to MS-DOS vs. Windows 7 on top of that (!!!)) – Well, of course you are *totally free* to "want" the slowest system, the solution with the second class left-over Amiga standards, tied to insanely priced low volume hardware, worse Amiga compatibility, worse desktop experience, worse shell experience, worse 3D, worse JIT, etc, etc. But in my book, that is *not rational*, and it's like saying ”I prefer coal power plants instead of power plants that doesn't contribute to the grow house effect, because that's how I want it, and it's entirely subjective anyway”, ”I like slow, expensive, dangerous, polluting cars with no second hand value instead of fast, cheap, safe and environment friendly cars with a high second hand value, because that's how I want it, and it's entirely subjective anyway”, ”I prefer war instead of peace, because that's how I want it, and it's entirely subjective anyway”, etc, etc.

In that sense *everything* can be ”entirely subjective”! But that doesn’t take away the fact that *purely objectively* speaking, using rational comparisons, peace *is* better than war, safe and clean cars *are* better than unsafe polluting cars, and non-polluting power plants *are* better to the environment than coal power plants.

If you would *actually do* an objective comparison between the current best OS4/MorphOS systems, and come to the conclusion that no matter MorphOS's superiority when it comes to price/performance/specs/compatibility (which is the only conceivable outcome) you simply want the OS4 one anyway, *THEN* we are probably talking about a decision made on subjective factors, like taste, emotions, your need of belonging to a certain group, or whatever, instead of purely objective factors based on verifiable facts. But that doesn't say it's impossible to do objective comparisons between OS4 and MorphOS, it only say that *YOU* chose *not* to!

It's *NOT* "entirely subjective" to everyone!

[takemehomegrandma]

Internet Debate Handbook, guideline #7: You are objective and rational. Therefore, anybody who disagrees with you is not.

There is nothing subjective about digits printed in black on white; a 1 is a 1, a 2 is a 2. You don't disagree: "I really think 2 is 7, it's all subjective".

Speed/performance is one example of such a *measurable* variable you can use in an objective comparison. In computer terms, good performance is generally considered a good thing, not a bad thing (well, maybe this isn't true among MS-DOS fans in 2011, I wouldn't know :lol:). So this is *not* about agreeing or disagreeing, *not* about taste or preference. Not "which is the most beautiful color?". Not at all. Good performance is good, worse performance on the very same hardware is worse. Pure, Simple.

There are other variables that are equally measurable. "Price" is one. "List of Amiga applications that works" is another.

You could list all Workbench's features, one by one, in one column of a chart. You could then list Ambient's in a column next to it. You would see that Ambient will match the one of Workbench, but when the Workbench feature list will end, then Ambient's list continue to go on, and on.

I don't mind people liking their OS4 systems, for whatever reasons. But *I do* mind when they say "but when it comes down to it it's entirely subjective". When it comes down to it, I am using MorphOS instead of OS4 simply because MorphOS is the best performing, most backwards compatible, most feature complete Amiga NG options there is! Nothing subjective about it! *I DO*have subjective reasons to *not* using OS4 as well, like my disgust against Ben Hermans&Co, their views that it's OK to mix Linux concepts in Amiga, their view of quality of their releases, and the negative effect I feel they have had on the Amiga in general, but that's a different matter altogether, because *THEN* we are talking about subjective matters (taste, opinions, etc), because I know there are people who actually *do* like Hyperion, their views of how an "Amiga OS" should be done, etc. In that case we are talking about issues of a level like "what flower smells the best?", "what is the tastiest food?", etc (i.e. *SUBJECTIVE* things), and not Quake 3's framerate on MorphOS vs. OS4 on exactly the same Pegasos2 machine (for example).

See?

[takemehomegrandma]

@amigadave

Yes indeed. There are actually no technological, no economical, no rational reasons whatsoever to use OS4 instead of MorphOS. The only reason I can think of is: "OS4 is teh reeel!!1!!", in other words, the good old Amiga(TM) brand loyalty. Of course the answer becomes "it's all subjective which is best" when there are *no* objective arguments that supports your own decision or choice. AROS and MorphOS users on the other hand has freed themselves of the brand loyalty (often a long time ago already), that's no longer of any importance, that's not why we are here. Maybe that makes it easier to compare the merits of the three Amiga NG OS's in a more objective way, not having to resort to subjective "arguments"? And in my case, it also makes it a bit annoying when any objective arguments are constantly being disposed by the same subjective arguments, time after time. Sure, taste can (and will) play a part (as I said in the post above, it surely has played a part for me in my choice of NG OS), but there is no need to "feel" which OS has the most and best merits! That can easily be *measured*!

[takemehomegrandma]

Math is math is math, yes. But it's a general truth that benchmarks are a guideline at best; they depend on a wide variety of factors and thus mean different things to different people with different requirements. Remember what people say Mark Twain said but Twain said Benjamin Disraeli said but Disraeli may not actually have said about "lies, damned lies, and statistics."

So slow performance is actually fast? A high price is actually low? A short feature list is actually longer than a long?

Of course you can *prefer* slower performance, higher prices, and shorter feature lists, etc, only because "it's teh reel!!1!!" (or for whatever other subjective reason). I know that, we see that daily here on Amiga.org and elsewhere. Then we are talking about subjective arguments as ground for your decisions, like feelings, emotions, etc. But that doesn't make objective arguments non-existent. It only makes them disregarded.

None of which has anything to do with my point, which is that using "it's objectively better!" as a go-to argument for OS flamewars is naive. People pick their OSes for many reasons other than strict performance, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Of course, and I am one of them. But that doesn't mean that no objective arguments exists, or that you should discard them. As an example, my own reasons to use MorphOS instead of OS4 is:

1. Because MorphOS *does have* better performance, *it has* a lower price, *it has* a more extensive feature list, *it has* better Amiga compatibility, etc, of the two.
2. AND *my opinion* of the Hyperion crew is that they are a band of bandits, and *I feel* that being "official" is of no importance (and I even don't agree with that)

What's listed under point 1 was objective (and really can't be argued with, since it's all measurable), point 2 was subjective (and is argued all the time).

[takemehomegrandma]

You keep saying this, but lets look at things objectively then:

* The MorphOS community is way less active than the AmigaOS 4.x community

* There aren't more MorphOS users than AmigaOS 4.x users

* AmigaOS 4.x actually being AmigaOS, MorphOS is unknown

I don't really understand the point you are trying to make in the context of this thread. Seems a bit off topic, hence almost inflammatory. Anyway, it could very well be that the MorphOS community could be smaller than the OS4 community. I don't have any exact numbers, but the poll suggests they are about the same size (at least on this site), and that they even together is half the size of the real Amiga (that is: the classic in various shapes and forms). But for such a small platform, I must say it seems that MorphOS has its fair share of competent and active developers, making *real* Amiga applications and not just Linux recompiles for an .so environment. And no, MorphOS isn't really unknown. Sure it's small, limited niche OS, but so is OS4. And in the big world, outside this (and "your") forum, Amiga can hardly be categorized as a well-known system/brand in 2011. Two decades of water under the bridges has played its course.

I have a bonus one for you as well:

* You still making too much noise, making people move on from the larger amiga-community

There has always been a lot of noise (from many entities, including Hyperion and its followers), but *noise* isn't what making people moving away from the larger Amiga community. The lack of an obvious and sustainable future and road-map post PPC is (no sign of long term), the lack of progress is (no sign of mid-term), the lack of realistic products is (no sign of short-term). And no - a €2,500 computer with 2007 level laptop performance running an OS of OS4.1.3's quality is no solution. It could even have made it worse or hastened the process, by making the above more obvious and very difficult to miss.

The retro fans shouldn't care though!

BTW, I just love your rhetorics when you're upset... Love it!

While glad of being of amusement to you, I must tell you that I'm not really upset at all, rather the opposite, I'm in a very good mood!

[takemehomegrandma]

@takemehomegrandma

There are both objective and subjective elements here, and much as you would like to, you cannot rule out the subjective side of it.

Of course not, and I don't!

Nobody's arguing with the objective merits of MorphOS

Yes, by saying that "when it comes down to it it's entirely subjective".

It isn't.

That's my whole point!

but some people prefer the feel of OS4 which is why you shouldn't try to rule it out for new users.

I think it would be wrong to "indoctrinate" new users in the brand-religion mentality that is finally beginning to soften up. Suppressing objective arguments and comparisons in favor of highly subjective ones will do just that.

If you want to highlight OS4's merits, do so by using objective comparisons and arguments. Like how cheap and easy it is (pun intended, since this (in comparison to OS4) is another one of MorphOS's benefits) for a new user to try it out in order to see if it really is anything for them.

And, if you're going to stick purely to objective reasoning, as someone else asked, why are you using MorphOS when you could just use Windows? Objectively speaking, Windows kicks the living daylights out of MorphOS and OS4 combined on pretty much every metric you listed.

I carefully avoided replying to a similar question above, because it's off topic and irrelevant in this context. We are talking about OS4 and MorphOS (not even AROS really). But OK, to answer your question - *I DO* use Windows. In fact, I'm typing this on a Win7 box. I also run Ubuntu on two machines of mine. But none of them are the best Amiga NG solution! That's why I use MorphOS!

To bring up the obligatory car analogy

I generally only replies to "Cola" analogies...

lots of people think I'm nuts for driving the car I drive.

Then you probably are!

:pint:

[takemehomegrandma]

That's odd that on one hand you believe in objective vs subjective when comparing the operating systems, but when it comes to a court decision, which would be likely called factually objective by said court, you take the reverse stand and go with your *subjective* feelings. You don't see the basis of how you form your opinions as being contrary?

I'm sorry if I have lead you to believe that I would think the settlement between Amiga Inc and Hyperion would be fake/not real or whatever. I don't, I'm pretty convinced it's there alright.

Why I put it among my "subjective" reasons to why I use MorphOS instead of OS4, is because I don't *feel* (a subjective thing) that this is of any importance to me. And the "I even don't agree with that" (also a subjective thing) comes from the way Hyperion reached this so called "agreement". I feel that it wasn't really an agreement in its true sense, more like a situation where Hyperion said to the rightful Amiga IP owner: "If you don't give me this, I'll kill you". Amiga Inc "agreed" to granting Hyperion their current rights in the same way as a lonely woman in a dark park agrees to having sex with a man with a knife and a mask on his face in exchange for her continued life on this planet. A true, sound agreement is where *both* parties walks away smiling after closing it. I don't think Amiga Inc's owner smiled when he walked away.

The thing becomes even more ironic when you look back on what Ben Hermans (of Hyperion) said in his lie-campaign about MorphOS some years ago:

(Just replace "the MorphOS team" with "Hyperion", and it will be really funny)

"The failure of Amiga Inc and the MorphOS team to come to terms is in part due to the fact that Amiga wants to assert their ownership and intellectual property rights over the Amiga OS (for which they paid 4.5 M USD) whilst the MorphOS team happily continues to refute those claims"

After this, the same man "took his walk in the park" to get what he felt he was entitled to.

So no, I don't *feel* OS4 to be truly official by grant from the IP owner. I know that it is, objectively speaking. But I do hope it's only temporary, until Amiga (current or future owners) can find a way to correct this by putting things right again. And I do think they want to. Don't you?