Amiga Workbench advantages over other OSes

[mr_a500]

AmiGR wrote:
..the user shouldn't turn the machine off without a shutdown.

Yes I definitely agree with this, but I've had many occasions where I spent 20 minutes or more making lots of settings changes, only to have an unrelated application crash (many hours after the settings change) and cause the "blue screen of death" - meaning I had to make all those damn setting changes again!

After those wonderful experiences, I now reboot Windows after making lots of settings changes to make sure they actually ARE saved. (... until they slowly and mysteriously revert back to MS defaults!)

This brings me to yet another major "Amiga advantage": preferences/program settings are stored in only a one or two locations and can be easily backed up and restored. In Windows, settings are stored in the Registry and many different locations (10 or more!) and are impossible to back up and restore. There are some "hidden" backup programs but they only backup very few preferences. Backing up Registry keys is a nightmare. (don't debate me on this point - I have MAJOR experience attempting to backup Windows & program preferences!)

Waccoon wrote:
Why would you want to? Look at what Apple does with its virtual texture desktop. That's the direction Amiga should be heading. Scrolling screens and virtual workspaces are a snap to add to the system once you have that nice, scalable graphics engine working.

I already explained why in my response to srg86 (on page 2). But hey, if Apple has a better solution then that's great. I don't insist on doing everything the "Amiga way". If there's something better then I'll go for that. :-)

[T_Bone]

KThunder wrote:
i added disk cache because that is one reason you cant just kill modern system not because you mentioned it you notice i put what you said first

of course you can just kill a modern system, I do it daily!

I'm livin on the edge baby!  :lol:

[minator]

CLI commands in English - easy to learn, something unix (and like) systems seem to completely ignore.

Responsiveness - very few others can even get close, the only one I can think of is BeOS.  This is a design point of the Amiga which again others have not bothered with.

Simple system layout - again something other systems seem to completely ignore.

No swap - I consider the ability to run *effectively* without swap a major performance and resource efficiency advantage - it means you can build a system without a HD, try that on any other system...  Yes, you can build a minimalist Linux system but you'd lose a lot of functionality in the process.
Note: The lack of VM is a distinct disadvantage but VM is not the same as swap.

Title bar at top of screen - Ever since going over to the Mac I've become convinced this is a good idea, however the mac implementation is better as it does not require you to press the right mouse button.

A standard scripting language - the fact of a standard meant everyone uses it, the lack of a standard scripting language on other systems means they are not used even if their capabilities are better.

Experimental GUIs, this is difficult on other systems but Amigas embraced it back in the day, it didn't always work but some non-standard apps had excellent interfaces.

DOpus 4 (not the later versions).  IMO the highest point of file management applications.

History - many ex-Amiga users have fond memories of the Amiga, this is not true for pretty much any other system out there today.

[cv643d]

I like that programs go into folders. And folders goes into sub folders. So if I would have Photoshop on my Amiga it would go into the Graphics folder on my Work partition. And when I would start Photoshop I would go into my Work partition and into my Graphics folder and then into my Photoshop folder. When I am in my Photoshop folder I see a couple of icons, one is Photoshop and some read me icons, the other icons belonging to Photoshop is hidden because they have no .info files.

Windows is a huge mess when you are trying to organize folders and programs. The startbar is not a good idea I think because programs are put in strange startbar folders like companyname/program/program.exe

I think Workbench was great in that you could organize your programs however you wanted it. And if you wanted to uninstall something you could always just delete a folder, in some cases some files where left on DH0: but in most cases those files where so small it did not matter they where still left.

Currently I run XP and have set up mini icons on my startbar for most of the popular programs I run every day, I rarely go to programs in my start bar anymore because it is just a huge mess. Sometimes I go into c:\program files and it just amaze me how much JUNK gets collected there.

Linux and Unix are messy to. I am not suppose to critize them because some big bearded fat Unix-wiz with dirty jeans would probably type up a three page long list of argument why they rule the world. But to be honest with you Unix just feels old and dumb in some ways.

And I do not believe in that people who like functions of Workbench are living in the past. The small things in Workbench is what I like about it like pressing amiga + m and amiga + e.

[mr_a500]

cv643d wrote:
Windows is a huge mess when you are trying to organize folders and programs.... I think Workbench was great in that you could organize your programs however you wanted it.

Yes! You know, I once tried to organize Windows programs. With a fresh Windows installation, I installed all programs on a second partition for applications in neatly organized folders like "Graphics", "Music", "Development", "Productivity", etc. instead of the default "C:\Program Files". It was an absolute disaster! Even though install files give you the option to select location to install, there are major problems if you don't use the default location. I ended up having to wipe the harddrive and reinstall Windows.

Windows is massively flawed. Theoretically, Windows is extremely customizable. But the reality is if you do customize settings, you will end up getting screwed. It seems that Microsoft and most software companies expect users to use the default settings (because most users do) and do not carefully test the impact that non-default settings will make on their software. I have had so many problems that I don't even bother trying to customize the default anymore. (I wrote detailed notes of every problem I encountered too - just to prevent me from going insane and heading to Redmond with a shotgun ;-) )

[SHADES]

@ thread.

I loath Virtual memory. I much prefere beeing able to just turn off my PC and not worry about a thing.
AMIGA OS is so efficient and requires so little memory, it was never a real need to have virtual memory.

It would be a nice feature to have as an option, but that's all. I still prefere the performance, small foot print of AMIGA OS and it's applications over bloatware any day of the week period.

So for me, it's a multitasking enviroment gui in under 512k memory lol!! and all the other points above.
I love AMIGA OS. The ONLY thing it's missing for me is a safe multi user enviroment and server abilities. Perhaps that will be called AMIGA OS Server )))))

[uncharted]

minator wrote:

A standard scripting language - the fact of a standard meant everyone uses it, the lack of a standard scripting language on other systems means they are not used even if their capabilities are better.

Erm, AppleScript? ;-)

Experimental GUIs, this is difficult on other systems but Amigas embraced it back in the day, it didn't always work but some non-standard apps had excellent interfaces.

Non-standard GUIs almost always broke with system upgrades.  In the beginning (pre GadTools) the toolkit was too limited, and developers were forced into rolling thier own.  Thankfully today custom GUIs appear to be the presrve of OEM scanner and printer software.

DOpus 4 (not the later versions).  IMO the highest point of file management applications.

That's an application though not a part of the OS. That's cheating :-)

[tomekm]

Does anybody know how does it boot to NT system?? A black magic happens between MBR and user shell being loaded. Amiga has startup-sequence. Even mac 9&10 is better that way.

Click-to-front: damn, how i hate it!. I prefer doubleclick-to-front with MCP or other tool in AmigaOS.

Virtual Mem/paging - having 128Megs of Fast in my a1200 for more than 2 years, i never ran out of it. In pc i have 768 and always run out of it. Mac - i have 384MB. In OS9 i disabled VM, in OS X it`s enough to run OK and damn stable.

Stability -  No comments about Windows. It simply crashes without reason from time to time, no matter of what hardware  it is running on, and how is it configured.
A correctly configured AmigaOS is stable as hell.
Even my patched Mac OS 10.3.9 running on unsupported Mac model is stable. (now it runs primarily as Internet access gate almost 24h/day for more than 2 months, and when i have to shutdown other machine for a while (normally 3-4 times a day), i always run iTunes and some muzaxx on it AFAIR, for those two months I NEVER HAD A CRASH on mac!!!)

Desktop conventions - Windows suxx. No stable conventions. AmigaOS - gives you choice. Conventions clear and simple. Mac OS X - has some preconfiguration, but does not really make difference if you fell free to break them.

Applications installation/uninstallation - Windows pain - always leaves tons of sh*t in many folders. AmigaOS - Just delete related files and remove assigns (if any), and sometimes libraries, but I used to not delete libs - as they almost always may be handy with other apps. Mac OS X rules here. Not only it rarely stores application-related files in system folders, it also (by default) shows the whole application folder as (this) application itself only! You simply put that in trash - and it`s uninstalled !!

Screen flipping/dragging - virtual desktops have nothing to say. AmigaOS is excellent with these capabilities. Not only (with native graphics) it switches the screens ABSOLUTELY IMMEDIATELY, but also it allows you to see as many screens as you like, when you drag all of them down a bit.

If only i had AmigaONE...
Or even if I had a faster (at least a 500MHz) Mac..

I would never want to look at the Windoze again then.