We now have enough info from AmiWest & Pianta Amiga to partially construct Hyperion's roadmap for OS4:


* OS4.1 is already released for Amiga Ones & Pegasos 2. It seems that there may never be a non-beta release for Sam440s...


* OS4.1.1 will be free & available for Sam440, Amiga Ones & Pegasos 2. Although not yet finished, it is expected to have:

- A more modern metallic-looking theme, although this may not be the default.

- Much bigger new icons as standard. (Looks a *little* OS X-ish IMHO, which is good.)

- Dynamic icon scaling on Workbench! So users with huge monitors won't be forced to live with small icons, but user with smaller monitors can still have small icons if they wish.

- A new intuition, with shadows below windows, and extended ReAction. Including support for fading windows in/out (as used by the Notification system).

- Not confirmed for OS4.1.1 but Rogue has said they now have a hardware-accelerated version of Cairo (which should really speed-up some things). Certainly more graphical things are apparently hardware-accelerated under OS4.1.1, and I guess Cairo is part of that.

- A pop-up Notification system: All applications registered to the application.library can send notifications to the notification server (called Ringhio) that can be configured to display them on the WB screen. If you get multiple Notifications, then they stack-up, rather than loosing the previous message. Should be used by at least the USB stack & some 3rd-party programs like XNet-RSS.

- Replacement of the WbStartup folder by a StartUp preferences app, so you don't have to worry about programs in the WbStartup folder becoming out of date. And the loading of programs is accompanied by display of their icons on a bar in the middle of the screen (like in many other OSes).

- A "launch handler" that allows you to configure which program opens a specific filetype, or even offer you a choice of several different programs. Like OpenURL, but unlike DefIcons, I believe the settings will NOT be stored in the icon, and therefore you won't have to update every single stored icon when you change your settings. It also sounds like it will be used to provide an official replacement of OpenURL.

- Automatic tracking of where programs are stored (needs to be a suitably written program like OWB or TuneNet), so that if you move them then the OS remembers their new location the next time you run it. I guess it might be used by the new APPDIR: device that I saw mentioned - so perhaps you can have APPDIR:TuneNet, and it will run TuneNet from where-ever it is stored.

- Automatic monitor configuration, using DDC (monitor plug'n'play).

- Better support for GUI Styles/Themes, so that you can easily make OS4 windows look like a Mac, BeOS, etc. (This had been demoed some years ago, and they are looking to add it back in.) (I suspect this may have to wait until OS4.1.2, but the official word is that it should make it for OS4.1.1)

- Better USB support, and especially a lot more stable.

- 10% faster video playback on Sam440 (at least with DvPlayer), thanks to improved graphics handling.

- More beginner-friendly installer.

- More beginner friendly set-up of OS4, e.g. ContextMenus & ClickToFront running by default.

- Workbench automatically updates itself when files change now (this was a past complaint about OS4.1 in an OS News review).

- Special versions of Tunenet, SimpleMail, and possibly other programs.

- The Calculator has finally been improved! Now supports some scientific & programming functions, if you want it to. Personally I will find this invaluable.

- I noticed a "DiskImageGUI" program in the Utilities drawer...

- 3rd-party programs (which you can choose to install) are now put in a separate Extras drawer inside Utilities.

- A ton of bug fixes, which makes OS4 much more stable, especially on the Sam.


* OS4.1.2 is a name I invented for the "minor update" that will apparently follow OS4.1.1 . I doubt it will really be called that, but I felt that OS4.1.1.1 was getting silly :) . Things I believe we can expect in this release, if they do not make it into the earlier release are:

- A new shell with support for multiple tabs, scrollbars (with buffer), command history & auto-completion.

- Support for USB2.0.


* Future AmigaOS goals were revealed by Hyperion:

- SMP (multi-core) support continues to be a future goal for AmigaOS.

- Better USB support.

- A focus on printer support.

- A focus on graphics driver acceleration. i.e. More stuff being hardware accelerated, which fits in with Rogue mentioning elsewhere that Cairo now has hardware support.

- Replacement of the graphics subsystem.

- *Plans* for JAVA support! He did say "for OS4.2 and beyond", so I guess it may not be fully supported in OS4.2 (if at all), because it would be such a big project.

- There is surely a lot more planned, but it's currently secret!


Related news:
* It seems that the Most Amitious Project (which is NOT Firefox!) will be announced before the end of this year.

* The Firefox port (Timberwolf) will *hopefully* have an early alpha release made by the end of the year, but this is not a commercial project, so anything could happen. The bounty is already over 3,000 Euros, which Steven Solie said "will really help things along" :)

* Hyperion's settlement with Amiga Inc (both of them & other related parties) was due to mediation that started 28th November 2008. There were in fact several lawsuits (by the different parties), not just the one that was publically followed.

* It will take time for the judges in all of the court cases to be updated on the settlement (and presumably officially close those court cases).

* The number of developers working on OS4 has varied between about 10 & 30. It is currently "in the high teens", so over 15.

* ADDED: Drivers for more recent ATI Radeon Graphics Cards are in the works by Hans de Ruiter over at HDRLab. Support for R5xx to R7xx chipsets is planned. Features like VGA and DVI output, hardware pointer, frame buffer and 2D blitter HW acceleration are already supported in some of the lowest end models, with Compositing support coming up next. 3D acceleration will come after the full 2D driver will be completed.


For those who missed some of these facts, and don't believe me, here are my main sources:
http://blip.tv/file/2751322
http://blip.tv/file/2756479
Pianeta Amiga post by Tuxedo
Pianeta Amiga post by guruman
http://codebench.co.uk/4.1installcd_shots/
http://codebench.co.uk/ScreenShots/images/silvergreen_wb.jpg
http://hdrlab.org.nz/radeonhd-driver/
http://hdrlab.org.nz/radeonhd-development-log/

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_________________
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@ChrisH

The updated console components are unlikely to make the next full update.

It is most likely to make a subsequent "quick-fix" update.

Simon

_________________
Simon

Comments made by me on any public fora are not representative of, or on behalf of, any company I may have, or assumed by the reader to have, any association with.

Any comments are a personal opinion, and should be accepted as such.

@ChrisH

thanks for the information.

4.2 won't be this year, but 4.1.1 will?

i look on with interest at hyperion and amiga os situation from what is on aw.net and others. i think the project is porting it onto some specific ARM processor machines. partly why I think so is this would be financially a good move (low cost of upcoming ARM powered things). i'm interested to see whether they gain notably more customers from the project, assuming it is collaborating with companies to get it onto some ARM machines.

- Multi-core (SMP) support!

but where is the right hardware to run on? sounds promising though!

_________________
A3040 AmigaOS3.9
A1200 060/BPPC AmigaOS3.9/4.0
Sam440ep AmigaOS4.1.2
Pegasos2/G3 AmigaOS4.1.2/Morphos2.7/Debian6.0/OpenSuse11.1
MacMini/G4 1.5 MorphOS 2.7/OSX 10.5.8

Long Live Amiga

@amije

If Steven Solie stated there would be Multi-Core support in 4.2 then surely the hardware is being worked on?

It is a nice thought to know that, maybe, new hardware is being worked on.

_________________
1 AmigaOne G4XE (OS4 Pre-Release Update4)
Minimig
Sam440ep + OS4.1FE
Sam460cr + OS4.1FE

Nice that you put together the roadmap.

Some parts I have not seen before. It would be nice to get official roadmaps with 6 months between them from time to time IMHO.

@ChrisH

Nicely wrapped up summery.

_________________
AmigaOS 4.1 FEu2 on Sam440ep-flex 800MHz 1GB RAM
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Still waiting (or dreaming) for the Amiga revolution...
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@ChrisH
Great man, I read all about it in several places but seeing it all here sure makes a big impression!

By the way, I vote for Cairo HW acceleration directly in 4.11

_________________
SamFlex Complete 800Mhz System + AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4
Amiga 2000 DKB 2MB ChipRam GVP G-Force040 Picasso 2 OS3.9 BB2
AmigaCD 32

@ChrisH

Wow, nice work. Thanks for taking the time to do this!

_________________
Pegasos2 G3 running AOS 4.1 and MorphOS 2.0
Amikit user, tinkering with Icaros VM (AROS)
EFIKA owner
Amiga 1200

@ChrisH

1 - Quote:

Multi-core (SMP) support! Sounded like this would continue to be developed after OS4.2, presumably because it is such a major change.

2 - Quote:

It seems that the Most Amitious Project (which is NOT Firefox!) will be announced before the end of this year.

I think the addition of 1 gives away 2.

My (admittedly weak) knowledge of AmigaOS is that apps communicate with the OS using shared data structures. This means things like SMP and memory protection are impossible. SMP because two processors trying to write to the same structure will cause a horrible crash, memory protection because the data structure is shared.

For SMP you need to create a system that either locks the data structure or perhaps adds message queuing of some form.

If you can solve that problem you are already a big way towards solving memory protection.

Thus, as I posted once before, I think the super secret project is about adding memory protection.

Quite how this will work with the existing kernel is anyones guess, but I do know Hyperion have been keen to distance themselves from any idea of sandboxes. Perhaps it'll be a weird hybrid kernel that remains compatible but has the new comms system as an add-on, this'd give you partial memory pretection. You'd wait a year or two for any major apps to get moved across to the new comms system then switch older apps into a sandboxed type environment, only then would you get *full* memory protection.

Sounds ...complicated.

_________________
Whyzzat?

@minator
I trust the Brothers will find a good solution (by the way, where did you read that they despise sandboxing?).

_________________
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Amiga 2000 DKB 2MB ChipRam GVP G-Force040 Picasso 2 OS3.9 BB2
AmigaCD 32

@DAX
They do not "despise" sandboxing, just don't plan to use it in OS4. There was an old & long-ish AmigaWorld thread, which I recently-ish pointed to, that contains the semi-technical revelations/discussions.

Last edited by ChrisH on 22-Oct-2009 at 10:10 PM.

_________________
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@ChrisH

Quote:

Dynamic icon scaling on Workbench! So users with huge monitors won't be forced to live with small icons, but user with smaller monitors can still have small icons if they wish.

So it's official now ?

At Pianeta Amiga a lot of people was complain about new big iconset

Quote:

- More beginner friendly set-up of OS4, e.g. ContextMenus & ClickToFront running by default.

Quote:

- Workbench automatically updates itself when files change now (this was a past complaint about OS4.1 in an OS News review).

Finally somethings usefull for UI user's perspective

P.S.
Did you forget to mention Cairo acceleration, it was confirmed as already done by Rogue some days ago

P.P.S.
I really really hoped to have the new shell on 4.1.1

Last edited by samo79 on 22-Oct-2009 at 10:47 PM.

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@ChrisH
Hey, these is a good news for us, and I'm very happy to have a good OS for my Sam because sometimes the strange crashes are desperates.

whot about memory protection in the next update os 4,1,1 ???
kernal protection ???

@ChrisH

Thankyou for taking the time to do this research.

---
redfox

@ChrisH

Nice summary!

Thanks - I learned a lot from this which I'd not picked up on elsewhere. SMP sounds interesting, I wonder how it'll be implemented..

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@1Mouse
Quote:

1Mouse wrote: @amije If Steven Solie stated there would be Multi-Core support in 4.2 then surely the hardware is being worked on? It is a nice thought to know that, maybe, new hardware is being worked on.

Maybe they just have one of these instead.

@ChrisH

Quote:

ChrisH wrote: We now have enough info from AmiWest & Pianta Amiga to partially construct Hyperion's roadmap for OS4: * OS4.1 (final) is already released for Amiga Ones & Pegasos 2. It seems that there may never be a non-beta release for Sam440s... * OS4.1.1 (final) will be free & available for Amiga Ones, Pegasos 2 & Sam440. Although not yet finished, it is very likely to have:

Thanks for putting that in a roadmap

The Java support is very interesting (and very late coming to the party).

A couple of questions.

Why no 'final' version for poor old SAM users?

Also, why would the next update not be called 4.2...seems strange to call it 4.1.1

@NovaCoder

Quote:

Why no 'final' version for poor old SAM users?

Because they're jumping straight to 4.1.1 instead.

Quote:

Also, why would the next update not be called 4.2...seems strange to call it 4.1.1

Because 4.1.1 is mainly fixes and enhancements to what already exists in 4.1.

4.2 will most likely be reserved for the next paid for update.