Since I started this thread a week ago I've spent a week looking at the options as I see them. ALL options struggle on the hardware front as far as I'm concerned, some for very different reasons to others.
I don't really want to try to compare OS4 vs. MorphOS because I don't have real hardware for OS4 and as such I don't like the experience too much. I did fire up the VM last night and it works quite well but without native graphics it's never going to cut it for me and of course I don't want to spend the kind of money that the hardware demands so for now, it remains out of contention.
Out of the other two, I probably like MorphOS the most in terms of it's stability and it's features / look and feel. But again, for what I have available to me the hardware is a problem. I've already said it in this thread but my Mac Mini isn't really suitable for all but the most basic usage. It will do for now but to get something more capable is a bit of a crap-shoot with old hardware and auction sites. I'll keep my eye out.
So, Aros. I geuninely think that despite it clearly getting the hardest time - and it may be that's deserved, I'll not pass judgement on that - it's very promising, but AGAIN hardware is a problem. I can run on a similarly under powered machine to the Mac Mini (a netbook for example) or I've got to go rummaging around for old kit that is maybe not SO old, but still needs IDE mode and graphics cards that I have yet to determine, but it certainly doesn't look like anything that I can buy new?
What is becoming clear is that when I start to dig into ABIv0 Aros (32bit) it is nicely capable. As a user I couldn't care if it has memory protection or SMP (OK, SMP would be nice), as long as it doesn't crash too often and runs quick with good graphics then I don't really care.
So for now I have some options that work well enough to get on and start to get into actually doing some stuff instead of spending my time installing etc. and it's time to see where that leads me
