Efika OS4.1

[Erol]

I asked Bplan (efika) about Amiga OS4.1.. below is my question and their answer.
I hope we get more choice soon  Sam or Efika boards.

Q.  Are there any plans for Amiga OS4.1 compatibilty for the Efika boards?



A.  This is the operating system manufacturer responsibility. There is no technical restriction. Moreover, any PowerPC OpenFirmware compliant application or operating system should work out of the box or with tiny adaption.

[Lorraine]

/

[mongo]

Lorraine wrote:
I think they consider Sam their low-end board.

Yup. Sadly the Sam is a low-end board when it comes to performance but not price.

[motorollin]

Hopefully now they have released it for the PegII, an EFIKA version will follow.

--
moto

[Lorraine]

/

[motorollin]

No different to any other licensed operating system - you should always purchase a separate copy for each machine you run it on. It makes no difference whether the machines use the same version of the OS or a different one.

--
moto

[Lorraine]

/

[motorollin]

Hmm yeah, I didn't think of it that way. Maybe if they do release an EFIKA version it will just take the form of an EFIKA bootloader for the PegII version. Though that would make them less money, so probably not...

--
moto

[mpiva]

Moreover, any PowerPC OpenFirmware compliant application or operating system should work out of the box or with tiny adaption.

  Does this mean that OS4.1 for the PegII will also (mostly) work on an Efika?  Even if Hyperion won't officially  support it, maybe all it needs is some community made drivers for sound and network and such.

[nikolaos]

 Well maybe, but there are four versions of it now (Classic/A1/Sam440/Pegasos). Even if you already own OS4, you'd have to buy it specially again for the new platform.

That is exactly what I hate about licensed OS systems.
I also see no future in the ppc platform. that is why I use, and belive in AROS as the only amiga like future system.

[mpiva]

Lorraine wrote:
But supposing you want to swap machines (stop using the SAM in favour of the EFIKA, for instance). I'm pretty sure there's no law forcing you with retail copies of things to 'embed' it to that machine.

  Let's think about that for a minute.  Who's actually going to stop using a SAM to solely run Linux on it?  But if you're not going to run Linux on it, then why keep the SAM?  But if you're going to sell that SAM, why would you sell it without the AmigaOS 4.1 CD?  :-?

[Lorraine]

/

[Trev]

- Sell OS4 (Sam Edition) for half price (second hand).
- Buy OS4 (Efika Edition) for full price.

The (* Edition) bit is humorous. Imagine what life would be like if Mac OS or Windows were marketed this way:

Windows (Asus ... Edition)
Windows (Biostar ... Edition)
Windows (eVGA ... Edition)
Windows (Foxconn ... Edition)
Windows (Gigabyte ... Edition)
Windows (HP ... Edition)
Windows (Intel ... Edition)
Windows (MSI ... Edition)
etc.

Historical footnote: MS-DOS and Windows were initially marketed this way and only licensed to OEMs, who sublicensed them to consumers. The upside was that OEMs were responsible for compatibility, not Microsoft. That's why you still see things like Compaq DOS floating around, as the OEM was responsible for customizing and compiling IO.SYS. The DOS kernel, MSDOS.SYS, and the shell, COMMAND.COM, were distributed as binaries. PC-DOS was the same stuff with a few ifdef's in source--the binary files just had different names, and many of the bundled utilities were different.

An OS4 version of an OEM Adaptation Kit would be very nice.

The next time anyone questions Windows's stability, consider that it runs on every 386 or higher PC BIOS-compatible motherboard manufactured in the last 17 years. (Well, maybe. I'm sure they're requiring a more advanced instruction set now.) The same can be said of Linux (which, despite claims to the contrary, is compatible with less hardware than Windows).

At least Apple has the luxury of designing both the hardware and the software, but frankly, there's no way Amiga, Inc. or Hyperion can compete with Apple in either the hardware or software market.

U-Boot, OpenFirmware, et al should make it simply a matter of device driver development. It's too bad most of the key OS4-related driver development info is still considered proprietary or closed.

[mpiva]

@ Lorraine

  You are artifically complicating things intellectually due to OS4.x's unfortunate legal situation.  The problem only exists in the mind. Consider it this way.  When I bought an A4000 to replace my A1200, I didn't blow a fit to Commodore that I had to buy AmigaOS 3.1 AGAIN.  I didn't complian that I'd have to sell my A1200 at half price AND sell AmigaOS3.1 (A1200 Edition) at half price.  I never heard anyone demanding they be able to buy an A4000 without the OS so they could reuse the OS that came with their A1200. And even though the Workbench disks are interchangable, the Kickstarts aren't.

  The problem is that the SAM and EFIKA (and AmigaONE, CSPPC, etc) don't come prebundled with AmigaOS4.1.  If they did then this whole discussion wouldn't even be here. But does it really make a difference if you have to buy motherboard X, costing Y and OS A, costing B as opposed to motherboard/OS bundle (X+A) costing (Y+B)?  Because if we had a proper Amiga owner that's the only thing that would be different.

@ Trev

  Strickly speaking, I can't take the Windows version that came with my ASUS and go install it on another computer.  Sure, Microsoft sells a "universal" Windows CD that will work on any computer but that's different.  Again, this would be no difference than if there was a proper Amiga owner to arrange proper deals with hardware manufactures to bundle AmigaOS with it.  Then, LATER DOWN THE ROAD, when there's lots of different platforms on which AmigaOS can run, there can be a single "universal" AmigaOS4.5 CD which contains all the different versions for the various motherboards.

[Trev]

@mpvia

Strickly speaking, I can't take the Windows version that came with my ASUS and go install it on another computer.

You're confusing operating system code with OEM preinstallation media and an OEM license. Windows is Windows. Asus has not modified it in any way. What they have done is streamlined the installation of drivers and other third-party applications (yuck), so you don't have to worry about it. Whether or not you can transfer an OEM license of Windows to another computer is for legal scholars to debate and wasn't the point of my message. ;-)

But consider this: if you dislike the licensing terms set forth by a vendor, then refuse to honor them. I'm not talking about mass duplication and redistribution without a license; that's obviously illegal under most circumstances. What I'm talking about is refusing to let Microsoft, Hyperion, or anyone else tell you what you may or may not do with hardware or software you have legally obtained. If I want to write a bootloader, drivers, and whatever else is necessary to run OS4 on unsupported hardware, I'm damn well going to do it. ;-) (Note the so-called infringing use of the Sega Dreamcast swirl on Tux's tummy in my avatar.)