Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 26th Mar 2009 23:34 UTC
Despite the recent emergence of several new ways to actually run AmigaOS 4.0, the supply of machines is still extremely small, and not very future proof. As such, one of the most recurring questions within the Amiga community is why don't they port the darn thing to x86?
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Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2005-07-06
Yeah, because a PPC processor with off-the-shelf PC parts is so much more "Amiga" than an x86 processor with off-the-shelf PC parts.
PPC support big-endian whereas x86 are only little-endian, so *yes* a PPC is more "Amiga"-like that an x86.
Now, does it means that it was a good idea to choose PPC?
Well, at the time Apple was selling PPC so it was easy to buy a desktop computer with a PPC, now that Apple has switched to PPC, the PPC is dead for desktop computers IMO so x86 is the only option currently.
Sure, PCs have a huge selection of hardware which isn't possible to support, but just support one configuration and advertise it: users will buy this particular configuration: that's what I did when I bought a PC and I wanted to be able to run BeOS on it at the time: I selected the components known to work with BeOS..
Member since:2009-01-03
Enter Anubis-OS
http://anubis-os.org/home/
Offshoot from AROS with some developers from it.
Member since:2005-07-06
If you think that it was the look & feel of AmigaOS that made it special, you are very sadly mistaken. A Linux distribution that looks like AmigaOS is just that: a Linux distribution. It'd be nothing like the real thing.
As for the "It isn't an Amiga on x86", like Thom said, that's a load of crap. There hasn't been any "real" Amiga hardware since the mid 90's, and PPC is no more "real" Amiga than x86.
Member since:2007-04-23
If x86 AmigaOS would not be Amiga, then nor is PPC AmigaOS..
Both PPC and x86 are incompatible with the original architecture that ran the Amiga, and both would only be able to run legacy apps through emulation.
The original Amiga hardware is gone, dead, buried, too hopelessly outdated to be of any use whatsoever these days... The only thing worth keeping is the OS, and only then if it runs on modern hardware that's actually available.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-03-28
Zbigniew - in order to understand the difference, you would have to use AmigaOS for some time. Pity the OS feels so old, but otoh it even feels fast responding and simplistic. And simplicity is, what nowaday's system designers do forget about. You get the feeling after some time of usage though. But - I think, that just Linux with some window manager will not do it, no?
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Member since:
2008-08-28
There also also people who claim that moving AmigaOS4 to x86 would mean the end of the Amiga operating system, because it would not be able to compete with other x86 operating systems such as Linux and Windows. This seems like a rather odd reasoning to me
Why? It'll be no longer any Amiga. Neither Amiga hardware, nor Amiga OS (x86 AmigaOS-like OS instead). Perhaps indeed the better option would be to just use Linux with especially prepared fvwm2 theme (to have AmigaOS "look&feel")?