About multitasking, what's best : AmigaOS, Linux, or Winblows XP ?

[Agafaster]

ptek,
I take your point: Debian is fine on my A1! (800MHz G3 now, instead of 25MHz 68030/68882)
but then, I tend to use Sawfish, and steer well clear of KDE.
OS4 is good too, it seems to allow more time for non-os things than debian does. I will quantify:
Playing non-protected DVDs is smoother in DVPlayer on OS4 than on Xine/mplayer on debian.
(I only ever watch movies on debian if they are WMV, and even then, not all are supported there!)
but that could be any number of things, and not necesarily down to the actual scheduler.

-edit-
its also worth pointing out what they are:
AmigaOS (even version 4) is essentially a single-user single core multitasking system, and debian (indeed any linux) is a multiuser multicore multitasking system.


note: by single/multi core I mean capabilities, not requirements!
linux takes care of every eventuality - dealing with lots of users, lots of sessions, and (potentially) 1-to-lots of cores.

[Steady]

@Piru

Reaction does very complex rendering from within input.device task context at priority 20, blocking anything lower priority.

True, but you can keep simple rendering to the input.device task and offload the complex rendering to your process context, giving the best of both worlds if you do it right.

[whabang]

The multitasking in AmigaOS was ok for it's time, but most modern linux distributions, and the later versions of Windows kick it's ass thoroughly.

As for stability, well, I've had far mroe Gurus than BSOD's the last few years.

Actually, Windows Vista is incredibly stable. I haven't managed to crash it yet, unless I do something stupid, like crowbaring the wrong video driver into the system.

[stopthegop]

See what I'm getting at? There is no single reference point to make a comparison.

I disagree.  I think the fact that we're even having this discussion is proof that the Amiga is something very special.  I mean this is a hardware platform that hasn't had an update since before win95!  I haven't seen anyone talking about how badass Windows 95 was.

[neon32]

You can argue the technicalities till the cows come home. But from a non techie point of view to a guy who just uses the machines. The feeling of quality and rock solid'ness of the amiga multitasking has never been matched by windows for me. Thats one of the reasons why after all these years i STILL want my Amiga OS back and to ditch my windows XP machine.

Theres so many nuances with windows that i've come across over the years, but i've just learned to live with them, because i've not had a choice. But it drives me nuts on a daily basis because i remember how good the Amiga once was. Simple things like if you sit and watch the clock on the date and times properties on ANY windows box, with NOTHING running in the background except system tasks. You tell me that that second hand doesn't keep jerking and stopping every few seconds. And this applies to everything, from flash animations in web pages, to video. I NEVER had that with the Amiga, the Amiga was rock solid and consistantly smooth. Thats the sign of quality.

[TheWizard]

You know, I would have to agree with neon32's assessment. (Piru does make some very good points though.) I can't stand seeing video jerk and pause when I adjust the volume on my work system and it brings up a green bar. Too many similar examples to boot. I do not think the poor floppy controller comes into the picture at this point. (I'm using a dual-core, Media Center Edition Sony VAIO.)

[stopthegop]

Windows and Mac are top heavy with software.  Its really just that simple.  To quote one of my favorite books on hardware, "How to Control Your World with Your Computer":

"I've always believed the best software programming language is solder".

[Speelgoedmannetje]

neon32 wrote:
You can argue the technicalities till the cows come home. But from a non techie point of view to a guy who just uses the machines. The feeling of quality and rock solid'ness of the amiga multitasking has never been matched by windows for me. Thats one of the reasons why after all these years i STILL want my Amiga OS back and to ditch my windows XP machine.

Theres so many nuances with windows that i've come across over the years, but i've just learned to live with them, because i've not had a choice. But it drives me nuts on a daily basis because i remember how good the Amiga once was. Simple things like if you sit and watch the clock on the date and times properties on ANY windows box, with NOTHING running in the background except system tasks. You tell me that that second hand doesn't keep jerking and stopping every few seconds. And this applies to everything, from flash animations in web pages, to video. I NEVER had that with the Amiga, the Amiga was rock solid and consistantly smooth. Thats the sign of quality.

While I agree with it mostly, I get the idea you use a system-hungry virus scanner. :-)

[Speelgoedmannetje]

stopthegop wrote:

"I've always believed the best software programming language is solder".

I can't agree more :lol:

I strongly believe ,considering todays software/hardware capabilities, a new computer needs to be designed from scratch.

[neon32]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:

While I agree with it mostly, I get the idea you use a system-hungry virus scanner. :-)

No, like I said, with no other tasks running in the background, except system tasks.  :-)

Either way, it shouldn't make a difference. It's just validating my point - CPU or disk-based intensive tasks shouldn't make everything jerk around painfully. It never did on the Amiga.

[InTheSand]

Click here if you think Windows is stable!  :-D

Actually, most of these appear to be from earlier versions of Windows. I don't think I've ever had a BSOD with Win2K, XP or the Vista betas.

 - Ali

[Tomas]

Actually, most of these appear to be from earlier versions of Windows. I don't think I've ever had a BSOD with Win2K, XP or the Vista betas.

I have sadly... and then they are usually worse than the standard crash and usually means i have to reinstall the OS.
Last time it happened was when installing a device using microsoft certified drivers.. I got bsod during boot and it would not even boot if i removed the device or booting in safe mode.
Another time i had a program freeze up the OS which meant i had to use the reset button.. Upon boot some file was missing/corrupted so that meant i had to reinstall again. People say that ntfs is pretty much safe from data loss on hard reset/power loss, but that is sadly not true in my experience.

[TheMagicM]

I can quantify that:

try multitasking in a graphical environment, in a low power (by modern standards) system:
AmigaOS: A1200 030 at 25MHz with 8MB ram OS3 (any of em!)
Linux: same setup, but one of the m68k builds, I tried BSD (couldnt get X working) and debian 2.something m68k build.

you will find that linux is dog slow even just running X! ok, thats cheating a smidge, cos I was trying to use X on AGA, but the point, I believe, is made.

DUH.  of course.  When you build a operating system to run optimally on a bare bones 7mhz, 68k processor with 512megs RAM,  then you slap on a accelerator, OF COURSE IT WILL RUN FASTER.

If we all designed a operating system to run on a 286 and ran it on a 3ghz machine it would feel GREAT.

Linux > AmigaOS.

[KThunder]

the only os ive never run extensively is macos- classic or osx. and i have programed for several systems, including dos, windows 9x and  (very little) linux.

the best, smoothest, most capable, and most flexible preemptively multitasking system i have ever used is os/2 warp 3 and 4.  i used warp for at ibm for quite a while, and warp 3 on my own personal machines.

i have never seen a warp machine crash, im sure they do but ive put several through torture and they never blinked.

i have preemptively multitasked, dos, windows3.x and os2 programs simultaniously with no slowdown and no comflicts even with the occasional dos hack crash.

fine tuning how you want specific programs to work makes it even better, and os/2 has an interprocess com like amigaos called rexx

so does any of that matter, do i run os/2 because it is so smooth and stable, no i use windows9x and xp. why?

because i use an os to run programs i dont run a computer just to run some really cool os. windows has better support than any other os both from ms and 3rd party.

[DaBest]

I still like using the Amiga the most and not being an expert om multitasking, I think they all do a fine job. Widow, Linux, Macs or the Amiga. :-D

[stopthegop]

If we all designed a operating system to run on a 286 and ran it on a 3ghz machine it would feel GREAT.

Not true. It would still be just plain old DOS.  Just faster.  I could drop a 400 small block into Grannie's station wagon, but you'd still have...grannie's station wagon.