Classic AmigaOS On Modern Hardware - A Critical Analysis

[TeamBlackFox]

I go to a lot of Amiga forums and I see comments like this:

OMG! AMIGAOS 3.9 ON X86/X64/ARM WOULD BE AWESOME!!! :banana::banana:

These posts make me laugh a lot on the inside, but they make an interesting point and case discussion which begs the question:

Out of the context of the hardware - is Classic AmigaOS really that advanced?

Since I'm not a developer and don't know all the specifics of AmigaOS vs BSD vs GNU et cetera. I'm going to approach this from my own angle - with some bias.

BIAS NOTICE: I am a UNIX guy for most things - I use FreeBSD and IRIX mostly and ditched GNU/Linux, Windows and OS X. Please keep that in mind while reading this.

So on the surface Classic AmigaOS ( Simply referred as AmigaOS hereafter ) has a load of features that other kernels like Haiku, IRIX, BSD and other modern(ish) kernels:

Preemptive multitasking
Message passing
Handles DSOs
Runs mostly in usermode

However, it lacks mechanisms which are VERY important for security and stability:

Memory protection - Without this - poorly written programs can lock or crash the system.
Multi-user mechanisms - Needed for secure operations - on AmigaOS you're effectively the equivalent of a user on BSD with the NOPASSWD flag in sudo setup, so you don't get any warning as to if an operation will break something and no password prompts, and you have to effectively trust the programs you're running.
Standard video and audio APIs - Outside of running the built-in chipsets, you're relying on the manufacturer's standard compliance with video and audio APIs like RTG and AHI. Which means even if AmigaOS were on x86, without something like puh der baer or nalle puh no programs relying on the hardware will run even if you have something like "trance" on MorphOS

Some of these issues are "fixed" on MorphOS or AmigaOS 4, but not all of them. As far as I know, OS 4 has no multi-user support or memory protection ( never used it so I may be incorrect, correct me if I'm wrong ). Same with MorphOS or AROS ( I've used both of these - briefly ). AROS seems to correct this somewhat by employing the Linux kernel, but I question using THAT kernel of all the wonderful kernels out there.

The other issue which also currently applies to IRIX is that both OSes are heavily reliant on the underlying hardware to make up for their shortcomings. AmigaOS seems to rely on the chipsets for a lot that traditionally is relied on by a CPU so thats why it seems " snappy ". IRIX likewise is heavily integrated with its video hardware and subsystems so it feels faster than it really is.

Logistically this creates a problem for developers on x86 as this makes AmigaOS less desirable - with all the variants of hardware out there its impossible to support more than a handful of configurations fully, plus aith AmigaOS traditionally being proprietary and not free or open, besides the tiny, tiny market of active Amiga users I doubt the userbase would grow much with all the problems that are currently existing in the Classic AmigaOS. Maybe AROS or MorphOS will become very popular with people outside our communities, but I'd be interested to see how much the userbase actually grows or if the community actually benefits from having new people who may or may not have the best interests of the community in mind.

Anyways thats just some thoughts from a former and soon to be active user of AmigaOS once I get my 3000 in the mail.

[wawrzon]

well. i dont think amiga os can be concurrent to the mainstream options available out there, but availability of mainstream hardware  to run "amiga os" might be an improvement to "amiga os users" themselves.

from my perspective which is actually pretty bound to the amiga and related hardware and having a limited experience with os4 and arosx86 everybody needs to find the solution that suits his interest most.

here i am slightly biased towards aros, especially aros68k as i suppose it offers opportunities at least in some areas, a fair trade of research in others while it still conserves the legacy where its important, that means in therms of open source code and binary compatibility.

[TeamBlackFox]

Yeah don't take me as ragging on AmigaOS, I'm just saying from a user's perspective it has some work to do. I personally really like the design, which is why I like DragonFlyBSD ( I know Matt Dillon the developer ) because he's adding features that are AmigaOS-like.

AROS is a great project and I will use it once AROS68k surpasses the original AmigaOS in terms of performance and stability - as long as the Linux kernel stays off my desktops. Does AROS68k use the Linux kernel at all?

[OlafS3]

Yeah don't take me as ragging on AmigaOS, I'm just saying from a user's perspective it has some work to do. I personally really like the design, which is why I like DragonFlyBSD ( I know Matt Dillon the developer ) because he's adding features that are AmigaOS-like.

AROS is a great project and I will use it once AROS68k surpasses the original AmigaOS in terms of performance and stability - as long as the Linux kernel stays off my desktops. Does AROS68k use the Linux kernel at all?

No it is based on Rom Replacements and does not use the Linux kernal. It is running on real hardware (Wawa can say more about it), running in all sort of versions of UAE (including FS-UAE and WinUAE), used in one form or another on Icaros (special distribution of Aros 68k) and Aeros (uses my 68k distribution AROS Vision) and boots from Linux directly in FS-UAE (called AMINUX but not updated recently).

My own distribution is Aros Vision:
http://www.aros-platform.de/

You can download and unpack it and easily use it in WinUAE or FS-UAE

There will be new accellerators based on FPGA soon and I am very optimistic that Aros 68k will run on it soon too

[wawrzon]

AROS is a great project and I will use it once AROS68k surpasses the original AmigaOS in terms of performance and stability

that may still take quite a long time as the lack of quality feedback likely does not motivate the developers to improve on it.

- as long as the Linux kernel stays off my desktops. Does AROS68k use the Linux kernel at all?

no. aros (and particularly aros68k) does not use linux kernel except of linux hosted versions. the fork of aros that is aimed to use linux kernel for hardware abstraction is arix.

[OlafS3]

Yeah don't take me as ragging on AmigaOS, I'm just saying from a user's perspective it has some work to do. I personally really like the design, which is why I like DragonFlyBSD ( I know Matt Dillon the developer ) because he's adding features that are AmigaOS-like.

AROS is a great project and I will use it once AROS68k surpasses the original AmigaOS in terms of performance and stability - as long as the Linux kernel stays off my desktops. Does AROS68k use the Linux kernel at all?

Surpassing it in speed on ECS/AGA? I do not believe that this will ever happen. AmigaOS was highly optimized for this hardware, beating it there is almost impossible. What is more realistic is beating AmigaOS by adapting it to new FPGA hardware with special abilities.

[TeamBlackFox]

FS-UAE. Hmm I may have to try this out. Thanks Olaf!

>FS-UAE - GPLv2

Now I want to punch someone in the face for not giving this a BSD-compatible licence. Oh well, gonna try it anyways.

[wawrzon]

Surpassing it in speed on ECS/AGA? I do not believe that this will ever happen.

while it is not a priority this side is being optimized and bugfixed as well.

[3583Bytes]

Very nice post, seems to make sense, I think the Amiga OS was ahead of the time in 1987-1990 (maybe even later) and it should be respected for that.  Today however I don't get the new versions of Amiga OS, other than to "Keep the Dream Alive".  There are a few people in my Amiga Club into the new PowerPC stuff but for the price they pay and the limited functionality you really have to be a fan of the dream.  The Aros and Morph OS stuff I get even less.

[TeamBlackFox]

Oh, I'm looking to get a PowerPC card for my in the mail 3000, but that will be later on once I'm in  better financial shape to afford one. I also would like an X1k but if I ever get the cash for one I'll probably request that Trevor offer one to the FreeBSD or OpenBSD project so they can port it.

The point is that its vintage hardware that should be used, but its not an ideal replacement for whats out there. I got nothing against anyone who uses x86 extensively, I plan to get a box myself eventually,  but I don't particularly like the hardware or its rapid depreciation and relatively worthless architecture.

[matthey]

AmigaOS trades features and security for speed, responsiveness, and compactness. Some of the features and security can be added in a modular way but the AmigaOS will likely never be a high security OS. High security multi-user support may be necessary for some applications but can be a hassle for the majority of users that don't need it.

Surpassing it in speed on ECS/AGA? I do not believe that this will ever happen. AmigaOS was highly optimized for this hardware, beating it there is almost impossible. What is more realistic is beating AmigaOS by adapting it to new FPGA hardware with special abilities.

I believe the exec.library, ffs and ram handler were written mostly in 68k assembler. They are often optimized for 68000-68030 performance though. There is room for performance increases on modern 68k processors although not much to be gained for code size. Note that ffs was blown away by better algorithms with pfs so maybe there is room for improvement even for these assembler parts. The higher level AmigaOS modules written in C have more potential for improvement. Some are compiled for the 68000 (SAS/C mostly). I have disassembled enough of them to tell you that it would be rare that I couldn't save 20% of the code while still optimizing for speed. Look no further than PeterK's icon.library for example. He has added support for many more icon types, gained much in speed optimized for speed while putting the icon.library on a major diet. ISA changes to an enhanced 68k processor could allow for another 5%-15% of AmigaOS size reduction. The AmigaOS doesn't have the bloat that many other operating systems do but there is still significant room for improvements in speed and code size. Much of it's speed and responsiveness is because of it's simplicity.

[TeamBlackFox]

AmigaOS trades features and security for speed, responsiveness, and compactness.

I'll give you that compactness can be nice.

AmigaOS is my favourite graphical OS. If it had a more UNIX-like commandline and had some of the features I mentioned it missing it'd be pretty much the perfect OS.

Since it won't likely get those for a long time, my bet is thrown in the hat with DragonFly BSD. What Matt Dillon promises is what people want of AmigaOS with the UNIX philosophy behind it. ( Once Wayland becomes BSD friendly we'll be able to ditch horrible X11 )

[matthey]

I'll give you that compactness can be nice.

AmigaOS is my favorite graphical OS. If it had a more UNIX-like commandline and had some of the features I mentioned it missing it'd be pretty much the perfect OS.

The Unix like command line is just a few aliases away. I have added these aliases to my S:Shell-Startup:

Alias cp copy
Alias free avail
Alias kill break
Alias ls "list sort N"
Alias mkdir makedir
Alias ps status
Alias rn "run >NIL:
Ok, it's not quite Linux (or DOS) but something like this can make life easier for someone who constantly changes between shells on different platforms. Linux has more advanced options like pipes that are more powerful than the Amiga PIPE: device but the Amiga supports 3rd party shells also. The AmigaOS shell is easier to use, IMO, than any other CLI/shell that I have come across but it's not the most powerful.

Since it won't likely get those for a long time, my bet is thrown in the hat with DragonFly BSD. What Matt Dillon promises is what people want of AmigaOS with the UNIX philosophy behind it. ( Once Wayland becomes BSD friendly we'll be able to ditch horrible X11 )

I have followed Matt Dillon's work and DragonFly looks promising (big brother OS to AmigaOS by a former Amigan). I wish DragonFly was more popular. If it was as popular as Free BSD, I would install it on my x86 box instead of Mint. I'm worried about lack of support though.

[TeamBlackFox]

The Unix like command line is just a few aliases away. I have added these aliases to my S:Shell-Startup:

Alias cp copy
Alias free avail
Alias kill break
Alias ls "list sort N"
Alias mkdir makedir
Alias ps status
Alias rn "run >NIL:
Ok, it's not quite Linux (or DOS) but something like this can make life easier for someone who constantly changes between shells on different platforms. Linux has more advanced options like pipes that are more powerful than the Amiga PIPE: device but the Amiga supports 3rd party shells also. The AmigaOS shell is easier to use, IMO, than any other CLI/shell that I have come across but it's not the most powerful.

This will help when my 3000 comes (^w^) Thanks for the tip. And its not GNU/Linux I run, I run BSD since GNU/Linux is horrible.

I have followed Matt Dillon's work and DragonFly looks promising (big brother OS to AmigaOS by a former Amigan). I wish DragonFly was more popular. If it was as popular as Free BSD, I would install it on my x86 box instead of Mint. I'm worried about lack of support though.

Indeed. What hardware do you run? I'd be happy to tell you if its supported. Also HAMMERFS on either MorphOS or AmigaOS 4 would be awesome - it would bring ZFS like behaviours to Amigans. Imagine: snapshots, logical volumes, software RAID - the possibilities!

[matthey]

Indeed. What hardware do you run? I'd be happy to tell you if its supported. Also HAMMERFS on either MorphOS or AmigaOS 4 would be awesome - it would bring ZFS like behaviours to Amigans. Imagine: snapshots, logical volumes, software RAID - the possibilities!

I don't currently have a Linux/BSD box setup but I have a spare Pentium 4 (with hyper- threading and 2GB of memory) box with Intel chipset and a new half Terrabyte SATA HD. It's nothing special but I figured I could try out Linux/BSD/AROS/Haiku etc. on it if I could find the time. I currently have my Pentium M Windows XP laptop networked to my Amiga using SMBFS. It gives me AmiDevCpp compiling, UAE, modern web browsing and a general file server. It's efficient and sufficient for my needs but it wouldn't hurt to have a backup computer. I have some Linux experience but I would like to avoid some of the time consuming Linux tediousness like hardcore shell usage, endless settings configurations and the need to compile everything. I would rather stay away from needless eye candy bloat and degenerative GUIs that require many clicks, have hidden gadgets, and no uniformity like Windows 8 and Ubuntu. I was leaning toward Mint but also considered Free BSD. I couldn't even find reviews for DragonFly. I want a no hassle OS that is as easy and fast to use as the AmigaOS but with more modern software (especially a browser). That's all . Suggestions?