Philosophical question related to AROS vs OS4

[hbarcellos]

Some facts:

* UAE emulation will be fully integrated inside AROS soon (http://thenostromo.com/teamaros2/index.php?number=7).
* When running on a non-original Amiga hardware (AmigaOne, EFIKA, etc...) OS4 runs classic software through emulation (Petunia), right?

So, besides Amiga software designed to run on PPCs, what will be the difference of running AROS in a x86 box than running OS4 on AmigaOne, Pegasos or EFIKA?

I see one, there's a good chance of the x86 box being MUCH MUCH faster than the ppc based board...

Am I right?
 :roll:

[Caius]

Hmm. I want to see how that "UAE integration" in AROS plays out in practice before I start comparing it with the 68k emulation in OS4.

[Phantom]

That's right. Better to wait for the UAE integration to finish and see after what has to offer.

[hbarcellos]

I saw some posts on the Amithlon discussion.
Integration is ready and functional?
Can I get latest Icaros build?

[orb85750]

More philosophically speaking, the Amiga community has become so fragmented because the Amiga brand has been floundering for over 15 years.  But *if* Hyperion and partners can bring back respectability and reliability, should we all stand behind a sanctioned Amiga once again or continue in a fragmented manner?

[Golem!dk]

More philosophically speaking, the Amiga community has become so fragmented because the Amiga brand has been floundering for over 15 years.  But *if* Hyperion and partners can bring back respectability and reliability, should we all stand behind a sanctioned Amiga once again or continue in a fragmented manner?

Not a fan of sanctioned, had enough of that since C= died.

[haywirepc]

UAE integration on AROS is working great, in my opinion it is much better than AOS by far. In short, you would not even know that the app is running on an emulator, its very seamless which was the goal.
 
It runs just about ANY classic app seamlessly, including those that bang the hardware (Games and demos and so on). I have not found any apps that didn't work yet, and beleive me I tried many.
 
In short, it is a giant leap ahead for amiga fans.
 
Still needs more work to be finished (sound and joystick) we are starting a new bounty for this now so I think it will be assigned and completed in
the coming months.
 
As far as performance... There is NO comparison.
733mhz power pc is good enough for most things, but verses 3+ghz intel/amd processors the limitations of powerpc chips become apparent fast.
 
Things also in development on aros : Screen dragging,Gallium 3d engine
Many apps being ported,Wanderer improvements,2 companies offering pre-installed aros computers,including aros netbooks, and much much more.
 
I choose AROS because its open, it can never die or be controlled by any one entity or person. It runs on many different platforms now, and is growing by leaps and bounds.
 
I respect the work hyperion has done to AOS but I think they have their heads in the sand when it comes to choosing what hardware their os will support. Power pc is dead dead dead. Move on or die.
 
Steven

[runequester]

I'd love to see amiga OS running on ARM processors. There's plenty of very cheap options out there, and it'd be easy and cheap to build a "amiga" machine, rather than relying on obscure expensive hardware or old, used mac's.
 
AROS will run on what you have right now though, and its very forgiving on the system resources even on a sub optimal system

[SamuraiCrow]

Some facts:

* UAE emulation will be fully integrated inside AROS soon (http://thenostromo.com/teamaros2/index.php?number=7).
* When running on a non-original Amiga hardware (AmigaOne, EFIKA, etc...) OS4 runs classic software through emulation (Petunia), right?

So, besides Amiga software designed to run on PPCs, what will be the difference of running AROS in a x86 box than running OS4 on AmigaOne, Pegasos or EFIKA?

I see one, there's a good chance of the x86 box being MUCH MUCH faster than the ppc based board...

Am I right?
 :roll:

It's hard to measure if AROS x86 will be much faster than AmigaOS 4.x because the Petunia JIT is only a processor-based emulation.  JUAE on AROS will emulate the chipset as well as having processor JIT.  The AROS emulator will be more compatible to the old hardware-banging  Amiga code.

In order to run a fair comparison you'd need a whole host of Amiga chipset emulation software for OS 4 including Blitzen, Nalle Puh, and CIAgent plus a Copper coprocessor emulation that doesn't exist yet.

[hbarcellos]

It is fast even when it is running on a virtual machine? I never managed to install Aros natively on any of my hardwares. Ill try it on a recently got old 1ghz dell latitude. But ill probably have to end using it with a microxp vmware installation.

Btw, is that version out yet?

[ElPolloDiabl]

Well let's see... one is free, the other one costs money. I know which one gets my vote.
It's hard to call it an Amiga with no chipset or ROM on the motherboard, it's more like an Amiga compatible.
My biggest issue is drivers, cosmetics and naming rights are secondary.

[SamuraiCrow]

It is fast even when it is running on a virtual machine? I never managed to install Aros natively on any of my hardwares. Ill try it on a recently got old 1ghz dell latitude. But ill probably have to end using it with a microxp vmware installation.

Btw, is that version out yet?

Yes it is.  See http://www.icarosdesktop.com/.

[Fab]

UAE integration on AROS is working great, in my opinion it is much better than AOS by far. In short, you would not even know that the app is running on an emulator, its very seamless which was the goal.
 
It runs just about ANY classic app seamlessly, including those that bang the hardware (Games and demos and so on). I have not found any apps that didn't work yet, and beleive me I tried many.
 
In short, it is a giant leap ahead for amiga fans.
 
Still needs more work to be finished (sound and joystick) we are starting a new bounty for this now so I think it will be assigned and completed in
the coming months.

First, sound and joystick should have been the priority there. UAE uses AHI and lowlevel for that, so there's no excuse. What's the point of integrating UAE if it can't even do basic stuff.

Now about UAE integration, there's absolutely no comparison with what you can actually do with the 68k emulation from MorphOS/OS4. What you consider as seamless and transparent with UAE is just at best an acrobatic trick, but in practice, it's very limited.
Basically, the applications running in UAE are unaware of the host OS and vice-versa, except for a few hacks. Try for instance to drag a file from wanderer to an ASL requester shown in UAE (it could work with tricks, but i doubt it does ATM). Try addressing the REXX port of a native AROS application from an application running in UAE, it will probably won't work either. And there are many many other situations that could show how limited this integration is (though it obviously depends on the implementation). And let's not even mention the different look from native and emulated apps.

Obviously, using UAE is much more compatible, when it comes to hardware-banging apps, but then MorphOS/OS4 can also deal with that with UAE, in your so-called transparent way. But at least, for games, it doesn't matter if the integration is mostly an illusion.

For instance, under MorphOS, i can just doubleclick ADFs to run my hardware-banging games, or use contextmenu to run applications/WHDLoad games in UAE (reusing an already running UAE instance if needed). And for all the other applications that don't bang the hardware (which are the majority here), i just run them directly, without this UAE handbrake.

[klx300r]

68k emulation via E-UAE has come along way for OS4.1..chekc out glUAE by saimo an :-)d EasyEAU with GUI by Cyborg. glUAE in partiular is very system integrated and allows native 68k programs to run with only a click of a button once its installed :-)

[Gulliver]

I see it this way:

AmigaOS 4.x : It is a an easy transition from AmigaOS 3.9, everything is familiar. It has the "Amiga" name. But it is still pretty immature, as it seems to be a victim of constant crashes. Anyway, Hyperion seems commited to fix them in the long run.
Still it has lots of quirks such as no USB 2.0 suport, something which any decent semi-modern OS has. It is propietary and closed source, meaning it depends entirely on one Company, and if that company dies, then that is most likely gonna be its end. It has a high price tag and is tyed to an old underpowered PPC architecture which is hilariously expensive.

AROS : It is not a straight-thru transition from AmigaOS 3.9, but nothing an average user cannot do. It is still  immature, and was a once stagnating project, that it is now progressing very quickly. It has really good USB 2.0 support. It is open source and freely available, it is married with the cheapest and fastest architecture we have today, x86 PCs (But it can be divorced from it if needed).

Speaking about emulation, OS4 emulation is a little bit flakey, programs that hit the hardware, which means most games and demos, will not work, or at best work with issues. AROS emulation it is far from perfect, as it is not completed, but it is really good. I suggest you see it for yourself download the latest IcAROS distribution of AROS, and try it out. It is without a doubt better than OS4.

Performance wise, AROS beats the hell out of OS4. Its architecture gives AROS that freedom and power.


Bottomline: I am not biased by the love for an OS or the hate of another, it is what is. And still it is great to have them all.
Technically speaking OS4 still leaves a lot to be desired, but then a human choice on an OS, it is rarely based on its various technical aspects, but rather on the subjective personal experience/desires/feeling they see/get that they will particularly perceive as fullfilling in that OS.

As a sidenote, there is also something that needs to be clarified: The Amiga hardware and its AmigaOS are both long dead since about the time of both the Amiga 4000T and AmigaOS 3.1. All we have here, name it Pegassos, SAM, or even an AresOne, are "Amiga-like" hardware and that happens to be the same with MorphOS, AmigaOS 4.x and AROS. It is not that they are bad or evil, it is that they are not Amigas or AmigaOS, nothing against them, just "Amiga-like". Please dont be fooled by cheap marketing or passionate advocates.

My 0.02