Aros68k viability on real Amiga hardware

[gulliver]

OBJECTIVE:
Determine wether Aros68k is a viable alternative in its current form on Amiga hardware.

METHODOLOGY:
A comparison between AmigaOS 3.1, AmigaOS 3.9 and Aros68k will be held. Tests will be conducted Under WinUAE for the sake of simplicity. The chosen tests will be boot speed and memory footprint.

After the first set of tests is conducted, another will be held with all OSes trimmed down to the lowest common denominator to provide a leveled plainfield (labeled as “Comparable” in the results section). In this way we can fairly compare OSes that do much more things at boot time and consume much more memory due to the fact they are running extra programs and providing other features. So AmigaOS 3.1 is chosen as the lowest common denominator, and this means I will adjust both Aros and AmigaOS 3.9 to the following settings:
Only PIPE as DOSdriver
No WBStartup programs
ENV-Archive/sys will be empty
Only 8SVX, ANIM, AmigaGuide, FTXT, CDXL and ILBM datatypes.
Arexx will not be started by default
No Wallpapers
Only 2 visible icons in the desktop in 4 colours.
No decoration


TERMS:

The operating systems will be used in the following form:

AmigaOS 3.1 v40.42 + kickstart v40.68

AmigaOS 3.9 with BoingBags 1 and 2 applied with no other extras + kickstart v40.68 (softkicking AmigaOS Rom Update)

Aros 68k ABI 1 Nightly (17th may 2017) no contribs + aros kickstart with its extended rom (will not boot from its emergency floppy, but directly from its own roms)

WinUAE will be set in the following configuration:

Amiga 1200 with 4MB of fastmem, in the most cycle exact emulation settings possible.

Tests will be conducted following these procedures:

“Boot time” is the time it takes the operating system from cold boot to show the full desktop in a complete manner.
“Memory usage” is obtained from the avail command being issued from the Execute menu item of Workbench. The “in use” category will be taken into account.

RESULTS:




Results have been rounded, and are averages after different runs.

ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS:

Aros is unbearably slow after it has booted in this 14mhz 68020 Amiga config. It is nearly impossible to be able to access the Workbench menu, as it takes ages to draw it, timing out the mouse selection operation. You can literally see the cascading window being drawn.

Removing Aros “decoration” improves the situation considerably, but it is still noticeably slow.

During tests, Aros crashed out of the blue, and produced screen refreshing issues several times when performing ordinary workbench tasks. Seems to be quite unstable and prone to crashes. Whilst all other Oses had no issues performing the same mundane tasks.

On Aros Workbench windows are as slow as a snail.It doesnt matter if you ramp up the available cpu power a bit. Opening a window and closing it, seems an eternal wait.

[grond]

This supports the impression that AROS's biggest problem is the graphics subsystem whenever there is no accelerated driver. Memory footprint looks okay to me (your mileage may vary).

Perhaps you could try running both in a WinUAE P96 setup and see how they compare then?

[Locutus]

How is it once you add a RTG board with a 24bit mode that doesn't require expensive pixel conversions?

[idrougge]

Am I reading this correctly in that the challenge was even weighted in favour of AROS by letting it start from its own ROM instead of being softkicked like 3.9?

[wawa]

Originally Posted by gulliver

Aros is unbearably slow after it has booted in this 14mhz 68020 Amiga config. It is nearly impossible to be able to access the Workbench menu, as it takes ages to draw it, timing out the mouse selection operation. You can literally see the cascading window being drawn.

Removing Aros “decoration” improves the situation considerably, but it is still noticeably slow.

i think it is expectable that a full color decoration enabled desktop wont be usable on a plain 68020, especially using png inagery. except that there is aphablending in transparent menus.. i have an incomplete iff theme here, but as you write the easiest way is to disable the temeing for starters. especially it looks more amiga then.

the speed of graphics subsystem especially on planar is a known problem. it has not received much love due to lack of feedback from 68k users and the lack of involved amiga coders.

btw. alternatively to wanderer there is scalos and also workbook, very small and simple workbench replacement for low end systems.

During tests, Aros crashed out of the blue,

should be reproducible though. can you specify how to provoke such a crash? could you post your config? maybe you have run out of memory? (fast or chip)

and produced screen refreshing issues several times when performing ordinary workbench tasks.

yes, there are screen refreshing issues left, i have observed even before yesterday when testing with an a4000/040/16/AGA. many have been fixed by georg last year, but apparently not all.

Seems to be quite unstable and prone to crashes. Whilst all other Oses had no issues performing the same mundane tasks.

aros certainly isnt as stable as it should be. still as i wrote above i have been testing it these days on one of my 4000er with a number of aros and amiga software and couldnt provoke a crash.

On Aros Workbench windows are as slow as a snail.It doesnt matter if you ramp up the available cpu power a bit. Opening a window and closing it, seems an eternal wait.

aros has room for improvement. thats given. im looking forward to put together some more basic config next, something with 030 or even 020 maybe. uae is good for primary testing an comparison but wont give you real figures to be expected on an actual amiga hardware, as you cannot make it cycle exact.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Am I reading this correctly in that the challenge was even weighted in favour of AROS by letting it start from its own ROM instead of being softkicked like 3.9?

possible, however here on my machine aros even softkickes faster than os3.9 with the same configuration.

what may take ages on aros68k is loading png window and desktop backgrounds (which are ugly anyway by default). needs to be turned off in wanderer prefs.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by Locutus

How is it once you add a RTG board with a 24bit mode that doesn't require expensive pixel conversions?

everybody can try that. on an uae the gui is working in an instant.

on a real amiga, id say with an acceptable speed. however id still wish to have this improved. the problem is rather, that it may ran out of vmem on the rtg card and not correctly swap out to fast ram. which is pita with 2-4mb cards as usual on amiga.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by wawa

possible, however here on my machine aros even softkickes faster than os3.9 with the same configuration.

I never mentioned speed, I'm talking about the memory benefits. You save upto a megabyte of memory that way.

Originally Posted by wawa

what may take ages on aros68k is loading png window and desktop backgrounds (which are ugly anyway by default). needs to be turned off in wanderer prefs.

Like OS 3.9.

[clebin]

Originally Posted by wawa

workbook, very small and simple workbench replacement for low end systems.

I wouldn't recommend Workbook - it's not really functional. As I mentioned in another thread, there is a bounty to improve it and I hope that one day someone does as it could become the best choice for low-end 68k machines.

Nice thead by the way gulliver. Good to see people talking about this.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by idrougge

I never mentioned speed, I'm talking about the memory benefits. You save upto a megabyte of memory that way.

as i mentioned elsewhere, s-s could be made to behave a bit more intelligend and not load the whole usb subsystem on non usb computers. it can be commented out by hand, but usually none does, since at least for me it wastn a problem ive been concerned with.

Like OS 3.9.

my os3.9 has no backgrounds enabled and still loads slower. however something is really not very efficient loading these pngs on aros, i think. i have it on my complaint list for a long time.

[nobody]

AROS looks too modern for a 020 processor.

[idrougge]

BTW, WB patterns were turned off according to OP, so that can't be what slows AROS down.

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by gulliver

A comparison between AmigaOS 3.1, AmigaOS 3.1...

I am particularly interested in a showdown between these two. My guess is that it's gonna be a tie.

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

I am particularly interested in a showdown between these two. My guess is that it's gonna be a tie.

Thanks. Corrected

[Locutus]

After disabling some obvious patches and incompatibilities (Executive, CGX4), my A4000 actually boots all the way to Workbench from a OS3.9 partition but with AROS daily build 'ROM' kicked.

Come on, thats not bad at all!

Graphics are slow but boot time etc is fine. I need to pickup a extra CF card and build a AROS install on it for shit 'n giggles.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Also considered THIS

[Retro1234]

"btw. alternatively to wanderer there is scalos and also workbook, very small and simple workbench replacement for low end systems."

Can you replace wanderer with scalos and use of the other components of Aros?

[E-Penguin]

I was wondering about trying this on my a1200(b1230 iv @50 128MB), but can't find where to start. The AROS website points me to AfA, which seems both ancient and not full AROS. Can anyone please point me in the right direction?

[grelbfarlk]

What about a comparison between a heavy 3.1, 3.9 (ClassicWB would be fine) and AROS build on a low end 060(like A3640)+RTG with a low end RTG card like a Picasso 2/Spectrum/Piccolo?

[wawa]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

"btw. alternatively to wanderer there is scalos and also workbook, very small and simple workbench replacement for low end systems."

Can you replace wanderer with scalos and use of the other components of Aros?

sure. you can use scalos instead of wanderer, as replacement. the only annoying thing if you replace wandere with scalos call in startup-sequence is that it leaves an open empty wanderer screen behind that eats up videoram and where windows may open up instead of scalos screen.

someone needs to figure it out how to avoid this.

scalos is or at least was quite faster than wanderer last time i tried. but best is to disable the bakrounds and textures there. all that stuff isnt that pretty anyway.

btw, you can also configure deous magellan to be your desktop, as olaf did in his distro.