
Amiga oriented alternative OS MorphOS 3.8 for PowerPC released - doener
http://morphos-team.net/releasenotes/3.8
======
aurora72
MorphOS has got the best graphics driver for PowerPC's. I once tried to play a
720p movie on a Mac mini G4 and only with the MorphOS did it play smoothly
albeit with the audio going asynchronous after 4-5 minutes.

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Tloewald
So it's smooth but doesn't do synch properly? That's kind of a deal breaker –
keeping in synch is (or should be) a higher priority than not skipping frames.

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aurora72
You're correct. But that was about 2-3 years ago when I tried it. That might
have been fixed by this new release, perhaps.

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tonyjstark
I always wondered who is using MorphOS and why does so. Also, how is it in a
day to day usage, does somebody develop on that platform, how big is the
community and so on.

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rbanffy
I'm not. My most recent PPC box has a G3.

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_skrzyp_
I'm 19 and I've used MorphOS for almost a year, sometimes even as main OS (it
does its job pretty well).

In short, the OS is very good, but the devteam isn't - they're just old Amiga
scene chaps with closed minds and some sort of schizophrenia. They hate FLOSS,
they can do a huge flamewar if you say 'Linux' or 'Unix', they don't care
about users which they doesn't met.

On a technical side, it's just a Quark kernel (L4 fork) with ABox "VM" which
is compatible with m68k binaries via JIT and AmigaOS 3.x api via compatible
MorphOS API.

Overall pros: * Very fast OS * High responsibility of UI, low latency on FS
operations * Backwards compatibility with AmigaOS 3.x software which doesn't
call Amiga's hardware directly * AmigaOS4 compatibility can be achieved using
external library, but it's not so good * Lots of native software written
especially for MorphOS * _nix software can be ported using MorphOS SDK and
LibNIX, but it 's not seem good by community and developers. _ Port of SDL
library, which can help you with porting SDL and OpenGL games * Own browser
(Odyssey) with WebKit engine, but sometimes you need to prepare own ca-certs,
cause maintainer doesn't packages they all

Cons: * No memory protection - when something crashed, your system likely will
be unusable * Tasks cannot be killed easily (see above) * Limitation to 1,5 GB
of RAM "because compatilibity" (xD) * Uses own properitary technologies, APIs,
GUI toolkit * Developers and community doesn't like open source technologies *
Paid license: * 111 EUR for PowerBook G4, iBook G4, PowerMac G5 * 75 EUR for
PowerMac G4, eMac G4, Pegasos I or II * 49 EUR for Sam460[e[xp]] * 45 EUR for
Efika 5200B License is bound to hardware which needs to be registered by
internet connection, you'll receive a keyfile which is a system driver for
removing time limitations * Lots of poers are outdaed * You need to grab an
external E-UAE emulator to use a software which needs to acces Amiga hardware,
it was received a JIT some month ago. * System doesn't support NVIDIA cards
and won't be * SDK uses GCC 2.95 (!!!) and system is compiled using it, but
GCC 4.5 is an option * Part of API and "LibNIX" is an wrapped OpenBSD libc *
I've a some suspicion about violating GPL license. * I've ported a Vim some
time ago, but they rejected to add it for MorphOS-Files (WWW-based package
manager), they use own Scintilla-based editor * Users and developers doesn't
care about security * You'll not found multiuser capabilities, or any servers.

But decision is yours, I've pointed only some causes, but I feel that I can
write a book about my experiences with this OS.

If you have any questions, leave a comment here.

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OldSchoolJohnny
Maybe link to something more enlightening than a release notes page or is
everyone here assumed to be familiar with MorphOS?

~~~
doener
Try this:
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MorphOS](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MorphOS)

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mariuolo
I saw it many years ago when the first Amiga PPC addons came out, but I had no
idea this was still going on.

What are its main selling points?

~~~
pmarin
The main selling points is to run an AmigaOs like OS on cheap PowerPC (Apple
hardware).

It is a hobby. Some people prefer to build the ultimate DOS box for playing
DOS games and demos on real hardware or go nuts and play with expensive
japanese computers (NEC 9801, X68000 or FM Towns).

~~~
cwyers
I suspect that while it may have been relatively cheap hardware at the time
this project started, it's not cheap anymore by almost any measure.

~~~
yellowapple
To build on a similar comment to this effect, I have four Apple-built PowerPC
machines. In order of acquisition:

* 1 eMac (G4 processor, Radeon graphics): $40-worth of labor * 1 PowerBook G4: $80-worth of labor * 1 Power Mac G5 (single processor): free (was being thrown out) * 1 XServe G5 (dual processor): free (was being thrown out)

Meanwhile, you can buy quite a bit of Apple's PowerPC hardware in working
condition for anywhere between $25 and $200+ on eBay. Many of them will come
with either OS X Tiger or a botched OS X Leopard (which I've found to be
notoriously unusable on most PowerPC Macs). I personally run OpenBSD on my own
such machines (I'd dabbled with GNU/Linux previously, but there were
significant stability issues, particularly with hardware support; while
OpenBSD's hardware support isn't that much better, at least it's more-or-less
consistent across targets, so when graphics enhancements arrive on one
platform (for example), they'll typically hit my PowerPC boxen, too (which is
precisely what happened with 5.5 when OpenBSD adopted a DRI implementation)).

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aphrax
isn't this the OS that degrades it's performance after a certain amount of
time & then prompts you to buy a license?

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justtriedit
Yes, I just installed it an hour ago on a Mac Mini G4 I had laying around...

Even the bootable "live"version does it.

It is a two hour limit. Very noticeable, like a 2 second lag on the mouse.

To register, you must run a program in the install, that ties the registration
to your unique hardware/id signature.

Pretty snappy before the two hour limit on 10 year old hardware. Works great
on 1280x1024 display, not so much luck on the 1080p monitor here.

~~~
aphrax
to me this seems an odd way to get people to purchase a license, I wonder if
it actually works to any great extent..

~~~
tluyben2
I wonder why this is commercial; no more than a handful of people will
install/use this powerpc version will they?

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bitwize
In the Amiga scene, people expect to get paid for their work.

~~~
_skrzyp_
Have you ever seen paid Amiga demos? :>

~~~
bitwize
Demos are an outgrowth of the software-piracy scene. Most developers of non-
grey-market software expected to be compensated for their work.

In fact there was one case where Microsoft used open source to destroy an
entire software niche on Amiga: they acquihired the developer of Bars & Pipes
Professional and got him to open source it, destroying the market for Amiga
sequencing software. When you consider that musicians have kept their old
Atari STs going until well into the 2000s, that market was bigger than you
might have supposed.

