Back From Very Long Vaction, No OS 4.0, Still?

I did the same thing KennyR did; I went to PCs.  At first one of the Amigathlon/AmigaXL machines from SoftwareHut.  After a serious mistake on my part that broke the software that came on it, my brother gave me XP Pro to try.  I will never, ever, never go back to waiting on other people to supply me with nothing but promises for a machine and software that won't do half of what XP does on a high-end PC.  Within one month, I had hardware and software on this machine that I never would have had on my A4000.  I loved my Amiga days, but the choice between having all the newest gadgets and software and having nothing but promises -- well, that was an easy choice for me.  

[quiesce]

When I first spent over an hour installing XP on my 900mhz duron, I knew I was in for some horrible, clunky OS. Then when it booted I was pleasantly surprised at how smooth it ran.

That only lasted a few hours though. After installing a few apps it slowed to a crawl. This OS was obviously made for toddlers, it prevents you from exerting any significant influence over the OS and is more bloated than the previous 3 OS's combined (there are hundreds and hundreds of DLL's in the system32 folder, just what the hell are they thinking?). Not to mention it looks awful.

I downgraded to Win2000 pro (and this was hell, because the win2k installer had to run in windows, and XP inhibited the installation because Microsoft always think they know better than you), so I had to install 98 and then install 2000 from 98.

Win2k was acceptable - I could almost like it (almost), but it still took 30 minutes to install and is very, very slow. I look forward to installing Os4 in a matter of minutes and booting in seconds on my new AmigaONE.

[KennyR]

I didn't say I went to PCs, fourwheels. ;-)

I actually bought a Pegasos (MorphOS = Blue Side). I have already owned a PC for many years and only really use it for Office97 (and occassionally websites I can't load in Amiga browsers).  It is a P200, and I have a 1.3GHz Athlon in my home too - and neither come close to the speed of the Pegasos. I won't be buying another PC. Waste of money.

In fact, XP on the Athlon is perhaps the most slow OS I have ever used. It takes up to 10 seconds just to open the startmenu. I can't use that computer at all - my blood pressure goes through the roof every time I try because of its irritating slowness. I'm getting a headache right now thinking about it. It really needs a memory upgrade, I think - 128MB is not enough for XP. (Hmmmhphhh!).

Quiesce, all I can say to that is you're doing something wrong.  I've been using XP Pro for months on a 1.4ghz Amithlon machine, and I not only love it for the way it looks, I love its speed, its file handling (especially photos), and pretty much everything else about it.  Completely plug 'n play, completely fast, completely great.  

[mikeymike]

@ KennyR

RAM is probably the main problem, combined with not enough performance tweaks.

Oops, sorry, thought you meant PCs.  I'll never quite understand the mindset.  When I used an Amiga, I was willing to put hundreds of dollars into it to make it run better.  Now I'm willing to do the same with my PC.  Why does there seem to be a double standard among most Amigans?  XP is simply fantastic if you're willing to give it a decent PC to run it on.  The Media Player alone is worth it.  1.4ghz is plenty of processor speed, then give it 500mbs of RAM, and you'll still have spent less than you would on nearly anything in the Amiga world right now.  

[Paul_Gadd]

Waiting and excuses is Amigas past, present and future, these companies are doing more damage than good.

Either release something or call it a day, even the die hards must be pissed off by now.

[downix]

@Paul_Gadd

Genesi released something months ago.  Give Pegasos-UK or GGS a call
and buy a Pegasos.

[KennyR]

The Media Player alone is worth it. 1.4ghz is plenty of processor speed, then give it 500mbs of RAM, and you'll still have spent less than you would on nearly anything in the Amiga world right now.

We obviously don't understand each other's mindset. Yes, if I wanted to upgrade my Amiga, it would cost me a fortune. But with my Pegasos it costs me less than £150 more overall for the same PC spec, the only real difference being the main CPU.

See, the whole point is not just feeding bloatware more and more hardware for it to waste - that's a never-ending cycle, just like upgrading a 1991-made Amiga. I cut out of both cycles a long time ago. I don't want to buy a new CPU or GFX card or DIMM every 6 months just because Microsoft can't code.

PS: Windows Media Player is total cack. ;-) There are much better players on the Windows platform.

[KennyR]

I've been using XP Pro for months on a 1.4ghz Amithlon machine, and I not only love it for the way it looks, I love its speed, its file handling (especially photos), and pretty much everything else about it. Completely plug 'n play, completely fast, completely great.

Fast compared to what? The problem is you have no basis for comparison, probably never having seen AmigaOS run on modern hardware. Use MorphOS on a Pegasos, or AROS, Amithlon, or QNX on your PC for a week, and when you go back you'll get as irritated with XP as I do for being a total slug. I prefer apps to load in less than a second, rather than less than 30!

Edit: In fact, you should even try Windows2k on your PC - it ain't fast, but you should see the difference between it and XP immediately. You won't go back.

[Psy]

See, the whole point is not just feeding bloatware more and more hardware for it to waste - that's a never-ending cycle, just like upgrading a 1991-made Amiga. I cut out of both cycles a long time ago. I don't want to buy a new CPU or GFX card or DIMM every 6 months just because Microsoft can't code.

Don't forget Windows is also buggy and unsecure.

I hate the registry countless times my computer didn't work becouse of a single line in the registry hell it make me wish for the days of the super long Config.sys in OS/2 wich I bitched about.

My Win98SE still sometimes hangs on shutdown I just gave up tring to fix it as I don't think it is worth it.

[alx]

I'm unfortunately running XP at the moment, although AmigaOS3.1 seems far more responsive on a processor 28 times slower (excluding all the optimisations an Athlon has that a 030 doesn't)

Sometimes it freezes on shutdown as well.  And a couple of days ago it refused to recognise my profile, so I had to customise everything again.  All probably because of a faulty line in the registry.

But it's still much better than a 32-bit shell and various applications kludged onto DOS.