Yes, I’m a little late, but here we go:
The MorphOS development team is proud to announce the public release of MorphOS 3.18! This new release includes several new applications such as Hex – a scriptable file/RAM/disk hex editor, ArchiveIt – a ZIP archiver/unarchiver application and Thermals – an app displaying thermal and fan information and graphs.
In addition, MorphOS 3.18 supports Samba 2 and 3 network share browsing and mounting in the Ambient desktop.
Radeon drivers have been updated to better support dual monitors, more graphics card models and 3D, including updated TinyGL library and drivers. We have also improved Realtek 8168 ethernet drivers with support for more card variants and enhanced networking stability on PCI express systems like PowerMac G5 11,2. USB input device connectivity issues on supported CyrusPlus 5040 systems have been corrected.
This looks like a great release, but with the supply of PowerPC Macs, especially capable ones, dwindling, one has to wonder just how long they can keep this going. There have been rumbles here and there these past ten years of a port to x86, but I have no idea where those efforts stand.
The most gorgeous os still in development. Is smp and protected memory nowadays?
Most likely not.
Nope, nor can such features be easily added without completely breaking the fundamental APIs it’s built upon. The switch to x86 that they’ve been talking about is the best opportunity for adding such features since the existing software base won’t be compatible anyway.
Hopefully Chrysalis 3.18 is released soon to match!
The supply of x86_64 hardware is infinite but there’s also a ton of operating systems there. Maybe worth going directly to ARM?
Well, the TinyGL implementation MorphOS includes is hardware accelerated. There aren’t many arm designs where the GPU architecture is open, so it’d be difficult to port it and it still be accelerated.
I think the M68k emulation is probably written in assembly, so it’d either have to be removed (Thus removing one of the benefits of MorphOS) or ported. Being assembly, that’s a tall order.
The ARM ecosystem is highly fragmented, with many boards being incompatible with each other. Sometimes you get boards within the same family where an OS works, but its still highly limiting. Make an OS that runs on a RPI, it won’t run on anything else without a ton of work…
Slight correction: x86_64 version is planned but 32-bit x86 is not planned nor ever will it be.
I just wish they’d open source it and pool resources with the AROS team.