Submitted by And the MorphOS team continues to expand their hardware support. They released MorphOS version 2.5 today, which adds support for Apple’s eMac computers (the 1.25Ghz models, the 1.42 models have not yet been tested). Of course, there’s also a whole load of fixes and improvements, too.
After adding support for the G4 Mac Mini, the MorphOS team has expanded support for PowerPC Macs by adding the eMac G4 to the list. The 1.25Ghz model will surely work, but they warn they haven’t tested the 1.42Ghz model.
“The MorphOS development team is proud to announce the public release of MorphOS 2.5, the fifth new OS version since the debut of MorphOS 2.0 in the same month two years ago,” the team writes, “MorphOS 2.5 finally adds the Apple eMac to its list of officially supported platforms. In addition to the extended hardware support, existing users will benefit from various bug fixes and a few new features.”
The list of improvements and fixes goes a little over my head, since my experience with this Amiga-inspired operating system is remarkably limited, sadly. I do know this: they’ve got a celebratory sale going on, so profit from that one while you can.
“In anticipation of the 2nd anniversary of the release of MorphOS 2.0 later this month, you are now able to purchase a MorphOS keyfile at the special celebratory price of 111,11 EUR (includ. 19% VAT), the same price that was available to the very first buyers of version 2 of MorphOS during our introductory phase in 2008,” the team details.
Dust off that G4 Mac Mini or eMac and have a go at it.
Still waiting for the PowerBook version…
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_G4_(Late_2005)
Running on a G4 clocked at 1.67 GHz, MorphOS should be really a spectacle show.
Edited 2010-06-04 14:00 UTC
I have my dual G4-450Mhz PowerMac ready and waiting for MorphOS.
I’ve got it running on a 1.25 GHz MacMini and whilst it is very fast, performance can be sporadic when using OWB. The OS itself is stunning for a niche operating system, but I have fought far too much than is comfortable with bad design partly inherit to Amiga’s history. I find it an impressive piece of work, but a tough operating system to love. I want to write a review but I am always left questioning alternative operating systems themselves as I try to reconcile the many hurdles I found trying to do very basic tasks.
This is an OS for Amigans. No effort is made for anybody else.
I’m looking forward to trying out 4.2.5 and I hope they’ve improved in ways that will let me gather my thoughts and come to a conclusion as to what this OSes place is.
Maybe it is just the fact you are experienced with different Operating System features, and nowadays you can’t put off with ease your habit and abandon the procedures and customized features you have knowledge of, and embrace another OS and another kind of procedures and features, you are completely unaware…
…Or just it feels not-natural for you to perform OS activities that just seem odd to your past experience.
However it will be interesting to read some review from you, as we Amigans want to explore what are the points (features, keyboard sequences, script handling, preferences adjusting) of any our AmigaOS-Like systems (AmigaOS, Aros, MorphOS) that are difficult to understand for new users, or those features that newcomers can’t handle properly with ease.
So then, we all users can ask the developers to modify the OS facilites in those parts that are difficult to understand, in order to create a more friendly experience to those who approach Amiga-Like Operating Systems for the first time, or even give thanks to the people who notice and signal bugs that none evidenced before.
Edited 2010-06-04 16:07 UTC
I have used a variety of OSes including the equally quirky RISC OS; and as a designer I can [for the most part] see beyond what I have experienced in one OS when it comes to another. I understand that one OS does one thing a different than another, but I also understand that different !== right.
Are You designer? Now you make me very curious to listen you telling the whole story about the experience you had in using MorphOS.
And mostly what about the things you felt and sensed sweet and all the things you felt and sensed cra**y.
*/waits with impatience for any your future article about MorphOS.
I’m a long time Amiga user (using 16Mhz A3000 to post this), but I found that many of the “Amiga things” I’ve become accustomed to are not part of the OS at all, but third-party add-ons, programs and hacks that are Amiga-only. When I start with a basic Amiga setup, I’m a bit lost until I can get my favourite filemanager, tools, hacks, etc. loaded up. I can certainly understand a newcomer feeling lost. It takes time to get used to different ways of doing things and time to get programs and utilities that work the way you want. Luckily, Amiga has always been easy to hack and change.
I’ve always wanted to try MorphOS and I probably will when they support PowerMac G4. I’m sure even I will feel a bit lost until I can get it set up similar to the way my other Amigas are.
MorphOS, like all operating systems, expects me to understand invisible and intangible background processes that change the state of the computer according to commands I execute. Take for example, the cipboard. We take this for granted, but it is an awful piece of UI if there ever was one. You click copy and *nothing happens*. You are expected to understand what is happening within the black box. There’s nothing tangible here with which a new user could expect to understand “copy”. When you photocopy something, you get the result straight away. Not when you move to another photocopier and punch a button to get your copy from the previous machine.
The problem I have found with MorphOS—for which it cannot be blamed—is that as it has a small team of developers behind it who are all knowledgeable in the ways of the Amiga and they design and implement the OS according to their knowledge of this black box. As an outsider, where do I fit into this equation? Should I be forced to learn how the black box behaves when I prod it just because that’s how everybody before has done it and I shouldn’t complain; or shouldn’t this be redesigned so that it’s easier to understand to begin with.
How can I review something that is asking me to adopt it as a full time platform, suffer all the difficulty learning it just so that I can be “fair” about it. I can’t. All I can summise is that it is a technical achievement for the makers, it presents itself well and it has a varied and interesting community. I was going to try adopt the OS for a month but I couldn’t wrangle a free licence out of the development team so it put paid to that idea and I can’t get more out of the OS than booting it up and tinkering with it—which is neither fair or realistic when it comes to reviewing. What I did find was an awful lot of bugs—genuinely broken stuff, not only ignorance on my part. This is why I look forward to trying the new version to see what changed.
I would only want to write something if I could do the OS justice. If anything I am more inclined to write about the issues of newcomers to alternative OSes than MorphOS itself specifically.
How could it be done otherwise without a visually bloated interface which displays endless amount of popups like “I copied something !”, “I cancelled something !”, “Oh, look, I just found a Wi-Fi network around ! Be sure to try it out !” ? Such a popup is fine for something which happens rarely, not for something which is done everyday.
You say that nothing happened, however I see that…
-> The “copy” link got highlighted when the mouse was hovering it.
-> When I clicked it, as soon as the command was acknowledged, the OS made the popup menu disappear as visual feedback.
In my opinion, for a function as commonly used as copy and paste, it is safe to assume that the user will take a week to get used to it, if he/she is going to use this feature for 10 years long.
My sqrt(2) ct however…
http://releasecandidateone.com/221:a_services_menu_for_iphone
Is one possibility. We have to copy and paste so much because apps just don’t talk to each other in a meaningful way.
So you want a windows (95) clone? For every single ‘alternative’ OS?
If so count me out of your great dream.
For goodness sake, what is with jumping to such a OMGWTFBBQ conclusion? NO, of course I don’t want a Windows 95 clone. Defensive, much? Get a grip dude, I love operating systems and I want smarter ones, including the alternatives. Did you not see this before? http://camendesign.com/krocos
Pardon me but I am not capable to see your point.
What is the difficult you find in copy function?
Is the icon remaining the same and not becoming ghosted and then you are unable to understand you clicked and copied it in clipboards?
Do you prefer that the icon will change its state and becoming ghosted until it has been copied to desired position?
Edited 2010-06-05 09:07 UTC
*sigh* You’re not quite understanding. Don’t over react. Copy/paste is just an example where the computer changes state in a non-obvious way. It’s obvious to you and I because we understand what is happening; but a computer beginner could not understand that there is such a thing as the “clipboard” when it is never mentioned in the UI. Have you ever asked yourself how come you know it’s called the clipboard?
I remember clearly the first time I ever came across cut / copy / paste. It was 14 years ago and I was using Microsoft Draw on Windows 3.1 and I was playing with making shapes and looking through the menus where I found cut / copy / paste. I assumed that these functions were for drawing markings for where one would physically cut and glue the paper on your printout. You can laugh all you want, but you have _all_ done this at some point with computers, where you made some assumption that wasn’t true because the computer’s intentions were not obvious.
UI is hard. Don’t take your privileged position to be neither common, nor the absolute truth–because when we’re old, we’re going to be coming across lots of new UI that the kids think is plain obvious but makes no sense to our desktop-orientated upbringing.
edit: typo
Edited 2010-06-05 09:58 UTC
If it’s any help I’m not quite understanding either. You appear to be saying you don’t like ‘alternative’ OS because they do thing differently and you don’t like change and you don’t like many of the existing mainstream ways of doing it because they’re dumb, I think.
OK… This is a point, but we can’t make computer aimed at all kind of people, even the more stupid people.
If people just can’t underastand the concept of clipboard, then computers are not for them.
Oscar Wilde once said that is not possible to build a machine fool-proof, because fools always find the method to broke it, or make it not-functioning.
This is the same for User Interfaces.
You will find always and always dozillions people that will be unable to understand how it works.
So it is better to let it be “as is”, and to take a life instead of worrying about it and loose your health due to it.
It made no importance to me. I just discovered it, I found it was quite good, and I start using it.
As english is not my native language, then I found the term “clipboard” strange. Then I discovered the real thing, and I thought it was very funny that the inventors use the same term as in a real clip-board attached to a wall.
I not laugh at all… But I think you were victim of misunderstanding and false assumptions, and you are just acculturated to a certain sequence of actions.
Sure you are searching to re-create in MorphOS your usual “Look & Feel” that pleased your sense of taste (born from your previous OS user experience) and you were unable to re-create it.
That’s all.
I know that is not the user who must accomplish the OS, but the OS that should be as much as customizable, to give the user a confortable place to stay.
But sure I think that you had not explored Magic User Interface of MorphOS in its deep.
MUI it is capable to be completely customizable (no kidding) by the user, and give a very good feedback, if only you try to explore and learn how it works.
Do you remember the fact that in MS-DOS age, hundreds of thousand people were stuck and uncapable to react when they saw the message:
“Press any key to continue.”
???
They were just searching desperately when on the keyboard was located the key named “ANY”
It is normal to misunderstand, got freeze-surprised or get stuck, either on new and on ancient User Interfaces.
But then computers once were made to let people explore it and learn from their errors.
I am sure that after a certain times of “try and repeat”, (trial and error and retry) you had learned how to use correctly Copy and Paste of Microsoft Draw of Windows 3.1.
[By the way. How many millions people do you think they know the existence in Windows of clipbrd.exe command hidden in its System32 guts?
It is a very useful command showing textually and graphically the content of the clipboard.
I wonder why Microsoft usually tells none about it in user manuals.]
Now it is my turn to make you an example:
The first time I used a computer, my teacher said. You can do evreything. You can even delete files. The computer will not die for this, and you can restore the operating System again if you delete something important.
Well. Nowadays on Modern operating Systems if you click on system files, it is easy to corrupt the Operating System, itself, connecting Internet with no defense, or feeze the machine.
Amiga has preserved this feature of being still an Operating System when you can try, fail and retry, because it gives you the opportunity of manipulate everything on the installed system with few chances to freeze all.
This is not absolute truth, and in studying User Interfaces it is hard to create the perfect UI, that will match the whole userbase.
There will be always people that will not understand.
For Example. The Button “START” of Windows XP Desktop.
With Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft removed the label “START” because literaly tenth and tenth of millions people were unable to understand or they just find odd the fact that that to stop the computer they had to press “Start” even to switch off.
(computers are used by milliards people nowadays, not just the people that were stuck with “Any” key)
What is the “morale” teaching of this story?
That for us Amigans it is better to continue with our own interface, aimed just at smart people who does not care of oddity, and to curious people who want to explore the computer and its feature.
Only if there is something really bad, or really misunderstanding into AmigaOS or MorphOS systems, then it is necessary to modify it, and create something intelligible for all.
Edited 2010-06-05 23:51 UTC
“This is an OS for Amigans. No effort is made for anybody else.”
I guess it’s true that Amiga differs a lot from other OS’s more common, that people has a bigger chance of “being used to”.
But if you compare MorphOS 2.5 with other OS’s targeted to the same Amiga audience, I see many things present in MorphOS that the others don’t have, that should make life a lot easier for “an outsider”. The file manager for example, centralized prefs, a very solid system for mime-type handling, to name a few things that I think makes the life a litter easier for a complete “newbie”.
Maybe someone should make a “hitchhikers guide to MorphOS”, a guide that takes a user used to other OS’s (like Windows for example, everyone has experience from Windows) and step by step shows how common things are handled in the MorphOS way?
There is the Pegasos Book PDF online, and even if it barely covers MorphOS upto 1.4.5, then it deals with MorphOS starting from the basics.
http://www.efika.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&…
http://www.morphos-team.net/news.html
Yes, it’s more than Linux, but if you’ve got a PPC Mac-Mini, why not give it a try for free? And if you like it, it cheaper now.
I’m going to have to get my G4 1.25 Ghz out of storage and run it with this OS… Or wait, maybe I should actually use it for a video media station. Woot!
…On my daughter’s old G4 Mac mini. Sweet! I would install it but flash support is weak – and my daughter needs flash for her virtual academy. Ah well.
It’s quite snappy, looks great…
You could dual boot MorphOS and OSX on that mini.
http://dreamolers.binaryriot.org/dualboot.pdf
Well, my daughter needs it for her VA (home school) so I will likely wait until it seems she needs a more powerful computer, then I’ll take the mini and install MorphOS on it for myself.
Thanks for the link! I saved off the dual boot doc.