MorphOS or AmigaOS 4 ?

[qz3fwd]

Originally Posted by jbenam

Is there anything that really uses an RX590 on AOS4, or is it just a bragging rights thing?

Well there is video decoding and shaders.
The RX590 was not exactely new when I ordered it but it is new WRT the Amiga and what it supports.

[matt3k]

For the AOS 4 side, the game ports will be much more plentiful than MorphOS.

MorphOS is much more suited to daily driving and doing productive things. It can be used as a desktop replacement much more than AOS 4. It has very polished and refined over the 30 or so releases for it.

AOS has many less updates and has gone after more pie in the sky features. So installing it will be a bit more complicated. As SamCrow mentioned MorphOS went after a development environment to open doors not available in Amiga Land.

Email alone is a tremendous headache in AOS. Simplemail and YAM were really good 25 years ago, but they are now crashy and a big waste of time. Iris will be running in minutes and work perfectly with 10k emails with 5 different servers and YAM/Simplemail will be starting up for 10 minutes and then crashing repeatedly. Rendering HTML and allowing modern and normal use of email is unique to Iris. Impossible any where else with a native program. Even handling PDF's in MorphOS is easier. This doesn't even mention Wayfarer and how I can use it daily and it just works and renders perfectly. Amiga browsers are really prehistoric tbh and don't do much.

Wayfarer, Iris, PolyOrga, and other native programs provide capabilities that just aren't available in any other Amiga flavors. Multi-monitor is also the best in MorphOS.

As I got old over the years I just want to use the box and not think about it with no drama or headaches. I don't even tinker much with the classic stuff. So MorphOS is clearly the daily driver, just use it as a desktop replacement. I can use MorphOS for my work daily with out issues, that is near impossible to do with AOS (believe me I had months into trying!). AOS is much more for nostalgia for me.

Performance wise, it seems that MorphOS has some speed advantage as well for overall feeling and fps for gaming. Will be interesting when the new drivers are release to see if there is an improvement.

The last and biggest difference is that in MorphOS is if I have an issue with the OS that impacts my work. The Team has always helped me and even fixed code over the years to make it work/better. I remember back when I first bought my Peg II new, I had issues with a screen saver and they fixed it very timely. At least I know what the status will be or if it will be fixed etc. So for me it is worth it to choose MorphOS alone.

In the end, it depends what you want to use it for.

[jPV]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Theming and skinning is one thing (and likewise OS4 can easily be made to look like MorphOS), but behaviour is another.

And I was talking exactly about behaviour, not about theming/skinning.

What was talked:


1) It was said that MorphOS preferences are like a modern day control panel, but I told that this behaviour can be changed back to what it was on Amiga. For example, if you create an "Audio" icon in the SYS:Prefs/ drawer and double-click it, you get a classic Audio prefs window instead of the centralized "control panel". All system prefs can be used standalone instead of a collection in the control panel. There just aren't these separate icons available by default, but it's easy to create them to get this behaviour if you prefer it.


2) As an another example I also mentioned that you can change the behaviour of desktop (file management) windows back to the spatial mode instead of the default browser mode, because the browser mode seems to be an issue for some people. It's not difficult to change behaviour back to what it is on AmigaOS, just one checkmark in the settings.


And there are many other similar options to change behaviour of things in MorphOS. People should stop judging by default settings... there can be only one kind of default setting but every people have their own opinions how things should be.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by jPV

And I was talking exactly about behaviour, not about theming/skinning.

Well, the guide you linked to in that post is primarily concerned with theming / skinning. Hell, it's even called "How to make MorphOS look like OS4".

1) It was said that MorphOS preferences are like a modern day control panel, but I told that this behaviour can be changed back to what it was on Amiga. For example, if you create an "Audio" icon in the SYS:Prefs/ drawer and double-click it, you get a classic Audio prefs window instead of the centralized "control panel". All system prefs can be used standalone instead of a collection in the control panel. There just aren't these separate icons available by default, but it's easy to create them to get this behaviour if you prefer it.

And that's fine. It's more about where things are located though, similar to having system components in MOSSYS: for example. The behaviour of those preferences panels remains the same whether they use their own window or inherit the Preferences one.

2) As an another example I also mentioned that you can change the behaviour of desktop (file management) windows back to the spatial mode instead of the default browser mode, because the browser mode seems to be an issue for some people. It's not difficult to change behaviour back to what it is on AmigaOS, just one checkmark in the settings.

Indeed, but this is one area where behaviour actually differs. Switching to spatial mode will of course give you the bare window look with icons, but the stored OS3 icon positions still aren't respected and still can't be set except when the icon is on the Ambient desktop. Naturally enough, people who don't care about such a feature will dismiss it as unimportant, but it becomes more of an issue if you want to create archives that also work on OS3 and OS4 for example. This was one particular example that came to mind when I made my comment about behaviours.

And there are many other similar options to change behaviour of things in MorphOS. People should stop judging by default settings... there can be only one kind of default setting but every people have their own opinions how things should be.

Yes, in any system, people should be aware of the options for changing preferences to their liking. My comment on behaviour took that into account.

[Pyromania]

Which OS will add a notch first to pull ahead in features. Also, they should be available in more colors.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

Which OS will add a notch first to pull ahead in features. Also, they should be available in more colors.

Whichever one has 10bpp color, that's the better one.

[matt3k]

MorphOS 3.18 was released...

So far it has been simply awesome. Great and feature rich update.

The network handling is super intuitive and transfer speeds on the 11,2 Mac are faster than my i5 PC by a decent margin now.

Too much good stuff to report, check it out:

https://www.morphos-team.net/releasenotes/3.18

[drHirudo]

Originally Posted by matt3k

MorphOS 3.18 was released...

So far it has been simply awesome. Great and feature rich update.

The network handling is super intuitive and transfer speeds on the 11,2 Mac are faster than my i5 PC by a decent margin now.

Too much good stuff to report, check it out:

https://www.morphos-team.net/releasenotes/3.18

Yes, I see they've finally fixed the uncontrolled fans issue on iMac G5. I still have one working, but forgot how I installed MorphOS from Flash drive or where the Flash drives from previous install are. Will need some time to try again.

[Solskogen]

https://www.morphos-team.net/guide/usb-boot

[Sani11]

If you already have a Mac Mini G4, MorphOS is a great choice. It's a highly efficient and lightweight operating system, and its interface is quite intuitive. MorphOS is also a bit more "modern" compared to AmigaOS 4 in terms of look and feel. The OS is known for its speed and efficient use of hardware resources, which makes it a perfect fit for the G4.

[matt3k]

Originally Posted by Sani11

If you already have a Mac Mini G4, MorphOS is a great choice. It's a highly efficient and lightweight operating system, and its interface is quite intuitive. MorphOS is also a bit more "modern" compared to AmigaOS 4 in terms of look and feel. The OS is known for its speed and efficient use of hardware resources, which makes it a perfect fit for the G4.

Great points. The only other I would add is that the native applications allow you to do modern things with it.

[cloverskull]

My $.02 is that MorphOS has a far lower barrier to entry and is far more useful in most cases, with a modernish web browser and quicker updates, as well as better support for various GPUs.

OS4 feels more authentic Amiga to me in a way that I cannot describe. It's just the way I feel about it.

Honestly I use OS4 quite a bit more personally but in retrospect the cost of hardware and everything is basically prohibitively expensive and frankly not worth it. But I like it. :P

[drHirudo]

Originally Posted by cloverskull

My $.02 is that MorphOS has a far lower barrier to entry and is far more useful in most cases, with a modernish web browser and quicker updates, as well as better support for various GPUs.

OS4 feels more authentic Amiga to me in a way that I cannot describe. It's just the way I feel about it.

Honestly I use OS4 quite a bit more personally but in retrospect the cost of hardware and everything is basically prohibitively expensive and frankly not worth it. But I like it. :P

You explain it very well. MorphOS feels like another Linux distro, which for modern computing is quite nice, especially for old PPC hardware like 20 years old Macs.
AmigaOS 4 feels like frozen in time Operating System, where all the disantvantages and stumbles that the users had in 1990-ies are still there.
Lack of Memory Protection, Random crashes and freezes out of nowhere, limited, ancient, obsolete and unsupported software and formats, buggy and cripled ports from other operating systems - everything that makes the Amiga feel is much more prevalient on AmigaOS 4 than on MorphOS, hence why I prefer the AmigaOS 4.


But AmigaOS 4 has it's advantages over MorphOS as well - support for more modern graphics cards, more recent and decent ports of popular software, friendlier active user base.

[tolkien]

I prefer MorphOS over AOS4 for a few reasons.

It is updated frequently for free
Better browser and email client.
When I use it is like using my a4000 with rtg., feels the same way.
It has an infinite lower entry to can use it.
Can talk to developers and get fixes very quickly.
There very helpful users (well, this goes to aos4 too).
And perhaps the last one, no Ben Hermans in MorphOS.

[drHirudo]

Originally Posted by tolkien

And perhaps the last one, no Ben Hermans in MorphOS.

Who is Ben Hermans, and why is he important?

[tolkien]

Ben is only important to me. Dont worry. You can check the others facts I listed.

[phx]

Originally Posted by drHirudo

Actually, coding for AmigaOS 4 made me love the PPC processors

Indeed, PPC seems like the nicest RISC ISA, while M68k has the best CISC ISA. So PPC was probably the logical successor.

and I started collecting PPC based machines.

Me too! I have lots of Apple PPC hardware, a Pegasos2, a BeBox(!), a Motorola PowerStack, IBM thin clients and dozens of PPC-based NAS (Synology, QNAP), where I ported NetBSD to.

Originally Posted by drHirudo

You explain it very well. MorphOS feels like another Linux distro

Agreed. This is true for OS4 as well (ELF shared objects!), but MorphOS is especially affected. I cannot blame the developers, because the only chance to run modern software is to use open source, which is mostly Linux-based.

But turning the whole OS slowly into something GNU-compatible, because it makes porting software and using GNU-tools even easier, is not something I'm too happy about. I love Unix, and I am an official NetBSD developer, but I don't want too much of it on my Amigas.

In the end it doesn't really matter if you use OS4 or MorphOS. I just use it as a conveniently fast solution to have some Amiga-feeling during my daily work (m68k cross-development, E-UAE, emails).

[matt3k]

MorphOS is AmigaOS that MUI was fruitful and multiplied and took over the operating system.

MorphOS feels like MUI and AOS together but not Linux/Unix.

[matt3k]

Here is a video that was just posted to show the network features in 3.18, cool stuff.

[ Show youtube player ]