Open Source Amiga OS

[slaapliedje]

See, freetards don't think that way. In the Gospel According to Stallman, all proprietary software is capital-E Evil, and the goal of all software is (obviously) to metamorphosize into a Free Software Alternative, probably with four different variants depending on whose UI toolkit is the Free-est at the moment, two separate Windows ports for the poor benighted peons stuck on Proprietary Software, and eleven abandoned forks, at least one of which was an attempt to "integrate social media features."

Thus saith Lord Stallman!

I always find it funny that people think Stallman actually says these things.  I guess it's akin to Christians saying that Jesus said to kill everyone who didn't think he was God or Son of God or whatever.

Stallman himself has said that there are use cases where proprietary software is understandable, but nothing he'd really use.  But then he also makes a difference between proprietary and closed source.  I tend to agree with him that even if it's proprietary software, the source code should be available to the users for auditing purposes (at the very least).  How much easier would it be to debug crashes in Windows if we could get reports saying "Dll crashed in function blah of line blah" or something.  I have been able to track so many issues down and fix them, or work around them simply because of this with (for example) php scripts, etc.  

AmigaOS is horrible at this too "Error in ramlib #8000004" what the crap is that?  Fortunately in this day and age we have the Internet to look that up.  Anyhow, I always find it funny when people are calling others things like 'freetard' even though for the most of the part the ones who are all up in everyone's faces about 'Free' software (mind you Stallman also states that Free Software and Open Source Software are not the same thing, though they overlap at times) are really trying to look out for software freedoms and really if they had started sooner, maybe the AmigaOS wouldn't be in such a horrible state right now with 3 different offshoots of the 3.x line, all with different hardware requirements.

If there had been enough 'freetards' at Commodore when they were going bankrupt, maybe they could have 'leaked' the source code Online then we could have had cross platform Amigas everywhere!  

That could have changed the whole scene.  Well, perhaps except for the fact that most of AmigaOS was written in Assembly and C, which is completely alien to most younger programmers.  Most of the people I talk to these days say that the only thing they learn in college is basic C (rarely) and Java.

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

This is, of course, in stark contrast to the people who hijacked AmigaOS and turned it into Linux, which we all know is the Only True Future of the Amiga.

I've always pretty much figured the only 'real' future of the Amiga OS is AROS, 1) it's open source, so even if the current developers die, or whatever, it'll be out there for people to pick up and work on.  2) supports the most hardware platforms.  

Regardless of how awesome AmigaOS 4 and Morphos are, eventually there'll be no PPC chips/boards for them unless we start getting them ported to IBM i or pSeries.  And if people thing the X1000 is expensive...

Only other way would be if some company could get all the manufacturing rights for 68k and PPC line to start making their own processors / boards specifically for the Amiga.  Then maybe there could be a continuation of Amiga compatible OSs.  Since an operating system doesn't mean jack without hardware.

If AmigaOS4 would become open source and could be ported to ARM or x86/64 then maybe it'd have more of a chance.  You could still require physical kickstarts and replace the UEFI systems that are common to the newest motherboards, to have 'real' Amigas.  

I came real close to buying a Mac back in 2005, only because I wanted a PPC based system, but then Apple right around that time had announced that they were going Intel, so I gave up on that idea.  It's also a shame that the Amiga doesn't work on a Coldfire.  That would have been another possibility.

Just a quick note on those previously in the thread that said they had so many issues with dependencies in Linux, and that Aminet makes it easy for the Amiga...

I would LOVE apt-get for Aminet... 'apt-cache search gcc' 'apt-get install gcc' and have it fetch all the geek gadgets stuff and install and configure gcc for me?  that would be AWESOME!

I did see fink on Aminet (which basically is what the Mac uses for debian style awesome) but it was really old, and the notes on it said it didn't work all that well anymore.

I've also found that for the Amiga there is Aminet (huge, and is awesome) but then much like Debian, there are bits and pieces that are required for smooth running all over the Internet.  To be able to apt-get Samba, and SSL support, and nfs, etc would be fantastic.  As it is a few bits of Amiga software are still in git or svn repositories and people have to set up a full development system just to use them (like anfs).

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

The coldfire is interesting, but cold you get the same speed from 68060
at 100mhz?
While we are at it can we have an FPGA implentation of AGA for people still on an A500 or A2000. If you can get at least a 1000 people interested, the project is worth doing.

If I recall correctly, the reason the Coldfire project was picked up by the Atari ST/TOS guys and not the Amiga guys is due to it not having 100% of the instruction set that the 68060 supports.  It didn't bother the TOS guys that much because TOS is open source and they were able to tweak the core OS to emulate the bits that were missing through software.  

Here is the story from the Natami team;  http://www.ppa.pl/sprzet/12-questions-to...-natami-team-part-1.html

An FPGA implementation for the OCS/ECS machines to get AGA would be AWESOME!  From both the users and the developers point of view, since then all the developers could actually target AGA or better, without feeling like they're leaving out a huge chunk of users.

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

The age old argument of "I spent all my time learning it THIS way, and this other program wants to do it THAT way.  It sucks because it's different!"

I find it funny that when Pagestream was released for Linux, guess what style interface it used?  That's right, the one that Gimp uses.  With a separate toolbox from the main window.  It's perfect for dual screens.  

I realized the other day, when trying to use Dia or Flow to create some network diagrams, that I just don't use Applications anymore... weird, I know...  I'm a Linux system administrator by profession, and I can get things done faster by the command line.  Graphical user interfaces are starting to annoy me.  Maybe it's because when I come home, I play around on my Amiga, and love how it's set up.  Only thing I use Windows for anymore is when I'm in the mood to play an (eye-candy) game.  A good chunk of those are coming to Linux, so that'll eliminate that need.

But overall, the majority of graphical applications I do end up using are Evolution (email) and web browsing.  I could probably use Mutt instead of Evolution, too bad the Web is so graphical these days... or I'd ditch that too!  

But as this thread is about the benefits or the want to open source Amiga, the whole "this open source application's UI sucks!" isn't even remotely on topic.

The Amiga, much like most other graphical interfaces, have guidelines for 'proper' application interfaces.  Much like Gnome and KDE, etc on the Linux side and on the Windows and Mac side.  But they are just guidelines.

I've found every 3D rendering software I've ever played with to be annoying, except perhaps Maya, which was way cool, but I really don't have the talent to use them.  But I also won't go into forums and rant about how much they suck.  I have ranted back at people who put the hate on the Gimp, simply because it's all open source, if you have such a vicious hatred toward it, FIX IT.  The GPL even would let you fork it and call it GIMPSucks if you so wanted to.  You would probably piss off a lot of people, but then so do politicians

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

http://xkcd.com/386/

Ha ha, thank you for that, nicholas.  Best way to start off the day!

@commodorejohn  There really aren't any OPEN SOURCE alternatives to the Gimp.  It's the only thing out there even remotely close in functionality to the "industry standard" of Photoshop.  So if the UI is the only thing bothering you, rewrite it.

People who generally call open source supporters as 'freetards' and then turn around and complain that free software sucks and everyone should use something else just don't get it.  Much like the hippies of old didn't get that if they wanted to be actual world shapers, they needed to stop sitting around in drug circles and get out there and change the world.  Unfortunately when they did that they mostly became greedy yuppies.  Stallman remained a hippy neckbeard, but started a huge movement to real software freedom.  And for this he is mocked.

I like that he doesn't own a cell phone

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

See thats the Linux mantra.  

Linux users are happy to tell people how much "better" their platform is but when users tell them "You know there is stuff here that from a users point of view is actually ****.." the response is:

"well fix it yourself, you have all the tools, all the source, to make it work exactly how you want it, for free that's the really good thing about open source"

To which the user thinks:" I'm not a ****ing programmer, I just want to use the damned thing without tearing my hair out...how do I remove this **** off my hard drive."

BTW people don't RUN operating systems, they run applications.  And any free app on Linux usually has good or better app on Windows, for free as well if you want it.

If you're not a programmer, pay one to fix it for you.  Companies do it all the time.  Most of the people will work off of donations.  The fact is, open source software is usually written to scratch an itch, and if that itch is scratched for the writer and not for all the people that complain about usability, than what should the actual answer be?  "Sure, I'll completely redo my program for free even though it works fine for me...."  People have to eat and all that.

Usually these free applications on Windows are the same ones on Linux.  The big difference is you can get them from a trusted repository most of the time on Linux (or even compile from source) whereas in the Windows world, you'll be lucky if you can download a free program without Yahoo toolbar or some extra crap that you don't want.

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

What is anfs?

anfs is a newer version of NFS (Network File System) for the Amiga.  http://sourceforge.net/projects/anfs/

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

Definitely past time to close this thread.

Is it weird, or what, that a simple question on using open source to further a dead or dying operating system could cause so much grief between people.

Seriously, if you have such a hatred toward open source software, stop using the Internet, in fact stop using Windows, because we all know some BSD licensed code got in there.  

I like Open Source for two things, 1) you can see what the code is doing (even from a non-programmer like me, this is useful).  2) they don't bundle extra crap in it if you get it from the original creator.  (this BS that CNet started doing and adding crap like the yahoo toolbar and other retarded stuff for Windows downloads is absolutely horrible!  Not to mention how they make the actual DOWNLOAD button tiny, but have a huge DOWNLOAD NOW! for whatever advertisement they are currently pushing.)

The fact that they're usually free only helps my pocket book.  There are commercial distributions of Linux, and there are completely free ones.

For those that complain of breakage, use a mainstream and tested STABLE version.  I use Arch Linux, because I know what I'm doing and I expect breakages.  If you need stable, use CentOS or Debian.  Pretty simple, really.  I can guarantee you that both of them test packages before uploading them.

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

Yeah, personal attacks toward programmers, and people who use the software.  Pretty funny.  Personally, I like the GIMP's interface more than Photoshop's, but that's because I've used it on random occasions, and I think it's easy to find things.

Anyone who is used to Workbench should be able to pick up any Linux stuff.  I like the Linux distributions because they allow me to choose how I use my computer, and not how Microsoft wants me to use my computer.

A great example of this are themes.  I was in a discussion last night with a friend of mine, we were talking about how awesome some of the themes for Gnome-Shell look, and I had to tell him that I wait for every release of Windows, hoping that they'll include some sort of ability to theme.  What do we get?  Colours...  Sure there is Window Blinds, but it costs money and doesn't fit very well with the OS and takes more resources than it probably should.  Even the Amiga, as old as it is, has great themes for it!

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

I think one of the advantages of open source software is also a disadvantage, in that they are open about what development they are working on, in which case then you automatically think "that's an awesome feature, why isn't it already in there?"

This I think is one of the biggest reasons why people tend to think open source software is incomplete.  

I tend to be kind of the same way, where I'm always chasing that latest version, and it moves so fast, which is why I used Arch Linux.  Unfortunately some major design changes which Arch decided to adapt after Fedora has made me move away from it.  Namely the whole move toward 'let's throw everything under /usr/bin!'

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

Yes, yes... but 2 out of 3 were born as commercial products (StarOffice and Netscape Navigator).

True, just like some of us would like something open source to be born out of the Amiga OS product.  And as we can see, both of them have flourished a lot more than when they were commercial.

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

I of course thought of living OS (in development). AmigaOS (68k) is heavily patched but no sources and either no team developing it.

Here I'll give my thanks to some of the people like PeterK who have reverse engineered libraries and / or have released them as open source.  The new icon.library specifically kicks major butt.

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

As well as DonAdan with the modules:
- dos.library
- graphics.library
- scsi.device
- battmem.resource
- bonus (for A3000/A4000)
- cia.resource
- filesystem.resource
- mathffp.library
- misc.resource
- potgo.resource
- wbfind
- wbtask

THIS!!    This is the awesome of the coders in the Amiga community.  Actually I knew about scsi.device and graphics.library, but the others?  It'd be nice to have one Sticky post with all the updated libraries to help those that don't live on the forums or are just getting into (or back into) the Amiga scene.

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

Wiki would be awesome for such things.  Also for setting up a development environment.  That info is all over the place.  Maybe I'll set up a new domain for hosting such things.  Though I know for code there is already amiga.sourceforge.net

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

So basically, if AOS was released as an Open Source project, no one has given a clear idea as to where they want it to go. AROS is not AOS but that seems like everyone's easy answer.

Put the key in the door and retire this thread.

If I recall correctly, one of the biggest omissions of AmigaOS is memory protection, or lack thereof.  If I recall, even AmigaOS 4 doesn't have it?  Or maybe it was only recently added.

AROS is a good example of where it would go, simply for the multi-platform support.  Amiga everywhere was what one.. *cough* person *cough* kept touting as the next awesome thing.  If they had just released the code, we'd probably have that already, and AROS wouldn't need to reverse engineer all of the functions.

I think 4.x is going in the direction that it would have gone, though I really think it's only being able to run on very select hardware is what is killing it's popularity.  We all know what made the Amiga awesome in the first place is the custom chipset, but custom chips aren't really viable anymore, simply because the CPU can provide so much raw power, not to mention the graphics chips.  Oddly though the sound chips still pretty much suck.

I always kind of figured that if the hardware had improved and Commodore hadn't gone bust, we'd have something similar to the way the Atari Jaguar was set up.  Custom Graphics and Sound chips with a 68000 for bootloading the whole thing.  Would keep the software that is already written working, but give a nice fat bus speed for everything that is coded for the new hardware.  Make the hardware fresh enough and fast enough that you wouldn't need to get any upgrades for 5 or so years.  I think the biggest problem with PCs these days are sloppy coding and the constant upgrade path.  Sure it's slowed down in recent years, but the fact that newer software takes so much more memory and so much more processing speed, but doesn't have much better graphics / sound is disturbing.

That's where the AmigaOS shines.  The OS itself is so lightweight and yet versatile, that really what it needs is bug fixes.  Maybe add a few APIs to be native, like SDL, OpenGL, OpenAL, etc.  Upgrade the languages to the latest (Perl, Python, C++11, etc) and make it easier to write software for, and a reason to write software for it.  If programmers can look at how things were written to so tightly use the hardware, maybe it'll give them inspiration to make their software not require 8gb of RAM!

For what it's worth, today I told my manager that some computer was running at 99.9% CPU usage and was crawling because of some java software that is simply supposed to do something like FTP files.  I made the comment, "He needs to write his software for computers that are made today, not 20 years from now."  I have already gone blue in the face from them re-writing something as simple as transferring files in Java, and using UDP... but that's a bit off topic...

The Amiga is from an age when computers were fun, and not everyone knew how to 'use' them.  When if you had a computer, you were most likely picked on as a geek.  That's part of where the nostalgia comes in, but it could potentially bring more people back into the fold if the source code were available, and we could all learn from it as well.

But I would vote for bug fixes before features!  Which I think is the way that most of the new libraries are going.  Getting PeterK's icon.library installed really does improve the overall experience of the Amiga!  I really need to look at the other ones!

slaapliedje