Submitted by The MorphOS development team is proud to announce the public release of MorphOS 2.2, a free update for users of MorphOS 2.1 and 2.0. In addition to numerous bug fixes, MorphOS 2.2 includes additional optimizations and new features such as Kryptos, a disk encryption suite.
MorphOS 2.2 continues the trend set by 2.1 by coming with a whole boatload of bug fixes all across the system. The biggest new feature, however, is the disk encryption suite Kryptos. With Kryptos you can encrypt file systems on-the-fly, using AES-256, Serpent, or Twofish, and is compatible with TrueCrypt. It supports FFS, SFS, FAT, and Ext2. NTFS support is also included, but only in read-only form. Kryptos has a MUI-based graphical user interface.
Speaking of MUI, a lot of work has gone into fixing MUI bugs, according to the release notes. In addition to bug fixes, translations into Polish and Finnish have been added. Video handling has also been improved, with MorhpOS better managing video memory and low-video-memory situations.
For an overview of the included changes, check the release notes. A description of the hardware requirements and installation procedures can be found here. MorphOS 2.2 is available for download at its website’s files section.
Sadly, there’s no word yet on the already infamous MorphOS version that runs on Apple’s PowerPC Mac Minis. Let’s hope this gets released sooner rather than later, so that we can pick up a Mac Mini for cheap, and run MorphOS 2 on it.
I’ve got a Mac PPC, would love to give this a spin.
Totally – especially if Snow Leopard *does* in fact cut out PPC Macs. Such users may carry on using earlier versions of OS X quite happily, of course, but all of a sudden there might be a fairly sizeable niche to fill.
Amiga has not done itself any good by not porting to x86
There amiga users wait decades for newer hardware to run
amiga os. Morph os has to consider a x86 port
I don’t agree with MorphOS migrating to x86. The PPC is a nice niché platform without commercial interruptions.
I think that PPC is vital for development platform. A place where new ideas can be development without mass interruptions.
Nice to see that MorphOS soon will be available for macmini G4’s but it needs to stay as an alternative to all those x86 operating systems. If MorphOS migrated today it would mean it would be swallowed by x86 mass. I think it was sad that Apple left the PPC platform. It means less competition in computing marked.
I think that PPC should be supported still, but more PPC motherboards should be supported. Thats another discussion
And that is good how? MorphOS is a commercial product. They desperately need ‘commercial interruptions’.
Again. What on earth are you on about? I’m not sure you know yourself. Staying on PPC has so far not provided any benefit whatsoever apart from the 31337 factor. MorphOS is already an obscure OS with very, very few users and extremely little in terms of hardware support.
Also, the only thing interesting about MorphOS is the software. The hardware is completely irrelevant as long as is solid, fast and runs MorphOS.
And this is different from the current situation? Staying on the PowerPC platform does not make it less likely that MorphOS is ‘swallowed by x86 mass’. It already has been. The question is whether MorphOS can be resurrected, and that can only happen if more people get the chance to run it. The x86 platform has by far the most available customers.
MorphOS looks interesting, but I am never going to buy hardware specifically to run it. If, however, it ran on an x86 system (of which I have plenty of old boxes), I would definitely give it a go.
MorphOS is a niche OS served for Amiga X fans and more. Do you really think that MorphOS would have got more users by jumping over to x86? Look at AROS! Its starting to shape but its taken ages. Let AROS be the x86 AmigaOS.
MorphOS would just vanish on x86 and development halt to AROS level. PPC gives it passion, enthusiasm and a great community.
Let MorphOS live on PPC and be an alternative operating system. Its always people like you who begs for x86 release that scares me most. You dont really have a clue about how to deliver some different into a marked. If you as I said, want Amiga operating system for your x86 desktop or laptop support AROS. MorphOS should stay on PPC and develope that platform. PPC doesn’t deserve to die because you think x86 is so much easier just because YOU didn’t buy any Amiga hardware? If you really want to support MorphOS or AmigaOS 4, then buy Efika or SAM440!
Edited 2008-12-22 11:46 UTC
Amiga was cutting edge in it’s days. But these boards are just pieces of cheap underpowered HW. Sorry, I don’t need anything like that even for free, because I have a well-made modern PPC hardware – PS3.
Amix, you are exactly the kind of amigan, because of which many leaved the platform. Non migrating to x86 long time ago, was a fatal mistake. I don’t care about CPU used, as far as my OS of choice can be supported by decently priced, powerfull, yet power savy HW. Now give me FullHD support capable Amiga HW with above objectives, or keep your desilusion about importance of keeping Amiga to PPC to yourself ….
They did, however. Look up Amithlon sometime, AmigaOS on x86 migration path right there for you. But, they were married to PowerPC in the mindset, still are. I personally disagree on it going x86, but I also disagree on PPC. ARM, MIPS, SPARC, architectures that they would control the supply chain would be smart. On x86, just a bit of pressure would render them as impotent as OS/2 as access to hardware driver support dried up. With PowerPC, the hardware is lacking, and access is limited. With ARM, MIPS or SPARC, they could purchase a license, and then they would control their own destiny.
since teh SPARC platform is an open platform I do not believe there is a need ot purchase a licence.
I totally agree with with Amix. And I am fed up with x86 users that claim they would like to see MorphOS or AmigaOS ported to x86. If it were the case, I think the same guys will find other arguments to denigrate these alternative systems.
The MorphOS team do what it can improving the system. Porting it to x86 would be a huge task … without talking the driver availability.
Thank you, MorphOS team. And thank you Amiga in general for giving us so much fun.
Secondly, I would also like to add that historically, Amiga has always been on an alternative hardware platform simply because the IBM-PC “standard” was so utterly atrocious from a performance, design and media standpoint.
Remember that Amiga was doing in 1985, what took PCs until 1994/5.
@corto: I’m sure many people would love to try Amiga on x86. Look at the recent RISC OS Virtually Free release, look at Haiku, look at ReactOS. People try them just to see how they work.
Moving to x86 would give the platform more users.
@Kroc: Historically, Mac was also on alternative hardware. However, the transition to x86 did not stop the platform from being useful.
I’m not saying that x86 is the end-all-be-all of CPUs, but porting the OS to x86 would do no harm.
porting to x86 would do harm (in the short term) by taking an incredible amount of dev time. and having it on x86 would give it s few more users but not many. the only advantage to x86 is that almost everyone has one. but what people seem to forget is that having an x86 port means nothing if there arn’t drivers for your hardware. supporting an achatecture is one thing, thats not all that hard. but supporting a diverse driver set with millions of possible configurations is a head ache. trust me i know.
It would do more harm in that they do not have the resources to license the documentation for every single possible combination of x86 hardware imaginable. Apple gets away with this by selling whole-systems, an OS group cannot afford this by any stretch of the imagination. The only way they could go x86 is if they made whole-systems, with limited chipset and driver support, and that defeats the point of going x86 to begin with.
Porting to x86 is not on the agenda as long as there is no big endian x86 cpu available. porting it to a little endian system would either mean to loose binary compatibility or to have a speed penalty because *every* data would need to be flipped endianess-wise during runtime.
MorphOS, just like AmigaOS, shares structs from apps and the system, thus endianess is a matter for these OSes (other than e.g. OS X).
Btw.: No word on the Mini port – there are words out there, somewhere. It’ll be available as soon as possible. I just got a mini myself some days ago. I’d expect the mini port to be available at Easter 2009.
keep up the good work MorphOS team.