@Rudei

Absolutely, provided that I'm in the UK at that time, and chances are that I will be.

Last edited by AMiGR on 26-Jan-2006 at 10:22 AM.

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@IceDragon

We could argue for hours and still be both right - except we're not talking about the same thing. When I've read your answer lots of it would be wrong unless you consider OS4 will still be cripled by it's licensing scheme (and that's not what I was considering, so it's not so nice to read an answer that shows you weren't really paying attention to what I wrote).

My main concern is the licensing scheme Amiga Inc chose (read my previous posts). You might be thinking it's pointless to talk about that, I'm thinking it's not (and I'm hoping nobody's going to pop-up again and say it's pointless "because it's how it is and you can't change it")

Once you understand that, you can see why IMHO a Cell port wouldn't be the same as than an x86 port, and why porting OS4 on x86 would ensure you can still have up-to-date hw in 4 years (whereas it will be far harder on Cell).

Now, even if OS4 was still bundled on hw, I think you could reconsider your arguments in an important mesure.

Quote:

Well since you used the expression of "cell will be outdated HW by then", you are contradicting yourself.

Quote:

So whats the advantage ? None.

The fact IBM released *developpment* boards to linux developpers doesn't mean the hw will be available to others. Nor does it mean that if you buy a Cell mb in 6 month (and I'm being really optimistic here) you'll be able to change the processor easily in two years to upgrade your hw. On x86, OTOH, you'll still be able to do it, and thus your hardware won't be outdated in 4 years as if you had bought a Cell mb. Provided the chosen mb is a mainstream one, with a socket that will be used for a few years, even if OS4 was running on proprietary x86 hw, you'll still be able to cheaply upgrade it by buying a new processor in any shop (OTOH, that's what some might consider a bad thing, cause they'd rather force you to buy a new computer each time you want to upgrade).
Can you do that right now with Amiga One or any other proprietary PPC solution?


Quote:

You can start on anything that you want now. You can already start to port to CELL, too. There is enough information (even CELL software simulators you can test your code and performance on) out there to start with that, too.

There was also enough information on PPC hw when they started coding OS4 for tha Amiga One. They still ran into problems that could have been easily avoided if they had chosen a hw that's as mainstream, stable and thouroughly tested as any good x86 mb. Suggesting to start a port through an emulator involves far more risks and delays than porting it to an existing hw (on x86, good chipsets are used for years, so you can change the mb for a more recent one without real pbs. Usually, you don't even need to rewrite anything when the mb are using the same chipset). Especially since you won't exactly know yet how the Cell mb will be (certainly not IBM's developpment boards. The one they gave to linux devs are not to be the end hw.

Then (in case you prefer to bundle OS4 with the hw) it's still harder to justify buying a Cell mb (not to say it will be far more expensive) than an x86 when you can still use good linux distros while you wait for OS4 to be ported. AFAIK, I didn't see any plans to offer a desktop linux distro an Cell yet (you'll be able to use linux on it it as a server though... but it will be a long time till you can do everyday tasks on it).

Quote:

If you don't use custom HW on x86, so can you on other architecture.

Now you're addressing my point. "so can you on other architecture" ? You would have to stretch the facts a bit far till you could even imagine that other architectures are in the same playground. When will I be able to go to any computer dealer and by myself a Cell mb and a Cell processor of my choice? IBM isn't even plannig to compete against x86 hw with Cell in that area (not that I would mind, that would be nice). And if you read again their advertising, the fields they're going to provide their solutions have no interests for home users.

@falemagn

Quote:

falemagn wrote: @samface Quote: If you get some statistics maybe you could do some guesswork on the probabilities, but to entirely rule out the possibility of running into such "pecularities" would be an impossibility. Knowing for certain is not something you do without hindsight. This is so funny, coming from someone who knows that it can't possibly be that someone else than Hyperion could have taken up on the job of developing AmigaOS4 and accused me of making "phylosophy".

The funnies part about this is that despite that I let you have it your way, you are now using that against me too. Is there any way to come to any kind of understanding with you at all? I'm not asking you to agree with me, just that we understand each other. Is that too much to ask?

>However, let's just say that the tens of other OSs available for x86 proves that it's
>not the difficult job as you want to make it out to be.

Yep, they proove that they are failing miserably in the hardware compatibility department. Linux, the biggest competitor to M$, just managed to boot for the very first time on my Fujitsy-Siemens laptop just a few months ago, an entire year after I purchased it. If we start porting the AmigaOS4 to the x86 processor today, when do you reckon I will be able to boot it on my laptop?

Quote:

And, once again, just look at AROS to see the most blatant proof that you're wrong. No, it didn't take 13 years to make AROS run natively on x86, it took what amounts to way less than one year of full time work of a single man.

Yeah.. and you were able to do exactly what with that first version of AROS on x86? Yes, the complexity of the OS counts. I mean, even I could probably make my own bootstrap and have the computer boot up a simple command line interpreter in a much shorter time. I'm not saying that the first version of AROS on x86 would be a simple command line interpreter nor is my intention to speak condescendingly of AROS, I'm just saying that the complexity of the OS matters in the question of how difficult it is to port to another processor architecture, different chipsets and probably another kind of firmware as well.

And no, I don't think it's a good idea to rely too much on general hardware driver standards, leaving us with modern hardware that we wouldn't be enabled to take advantage of any more than to the point of very old hardware standards anyway.

_________________
Sammy Nordström, A.K.A. "Samface"

MINDRELEASE.net - The Non-Commercial Network of Digital Arts.

Samworks D & C - Professional Web Development (in Swedish)

@samface

Quote:

Yep, they proove that they are failing miserably in the hardware compatibility department. Linux, the biggest competitor to M$, just managed to boot for the very first time on my Fujitsy-Siemens laptop just a few months ago, an entire year after I purchased it. If we start porting the AmigaOS4 to the x86 processor today, when do you reckon I will be able to boot it on my laptop?

They are?
You need to test more OSes, on Desktop systems, Samface.
Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, BeOS, AROS, just to name a few, run on all the PCs I've got, old to new, so either get a clue or give it a rest, please.

Quote:

Yeah.. and you were able to do exactly what with that first version of AROS on x86? Yes, the complexity of the OS counts. I mean, even I could probably make my own bootstrap and have the computer boot up a simple command line interpreter in a much shorter time. I'm not saying that the first version of AROS on x86 would be a simple command line interpreter nor is my intention to speak condescendingly of AROS, I'm just saying that the complexity of the OS matters in the question of how difficult it is to port to another processor architecture, different chipsets and probably another kind of firmware as well.

Except you forget that AROS uses the AmigaOS API, so it's NOT less complex than it, if we forget about the missing 68k emulator. Yes, it is source compatible with AmigaOS and given emulation or the same CPU, it's binary compatible as well (as shown from AfA and the old AmigaOS part replacing AROS betas).

BTW, AROS explicitly supports chipsets like the NVidia NForce, including ethernet, et cetera.
It's not relying on the old hardware standards to work and that is the work of ONE man in his FREE
time, not a full development team.

Last edited by AMiGR on 26-Jan-2006 at 11:24 AM.
Last edited by AMiGR on 26-Jan-2006 at 11:18 AM.

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@AMiGR

Quote:

AMiGR wrote: @samface Quote: Yep, they proove that they are failing miserably in the hardware compatibility department. Linux, the biggest competitor to M$, just managed to boot for the very first time on my Fujitsy-Siemens laptop just a few months ago, an entire year after I purchased it. If we start porting the AmigaOS4 to the x86 processor today, when do you reckon I will be able to boot it on my laptop? They are? You need to test more OSes, on Desktop systems, Samface. Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, BeOS, AROS, just to name a few, run on all the PCs I've got, old to new, so either get a clue or give it a rest, please.

OK, so that Linux wouldn't work on my laptop until a year after I bought it was because I don't have a clue. Right.

Anyhow, you didn't answer my question. If we start porting the AmigaOS4 to the x86 processor today, when do you reckon I will be able to boot it on my laptop?

Quote:

Quote: Yeah.. and you were able to do exactly what with that first version of AROS on x86? Yes, the complexity of the OS counts. I mean, even I could probably make my own bootstrap and have the computer boot up a simple command line interpreter in a much shorter time. I'm not saying that the first version of AROS on x86 would be a simple command line interpreter nor is my intention to speak condescendingly of AROS, I'm just saying that the complexity of the OS matters in the question of how difficult it is to port to another processor architecture, different chipsets and probably another kind of firmware as well. Except you forget that AROS uses the AmigaOS API, so it's NOT less complex than it, if we forget about the missing 68k emulator. Yes, it is source compatible with AmigaOS and given emulation or the same CPU, it's binary compatible as well (as shown from AfA and the old AmigaOS part replacing AROS betas).

Huh? What has API compatibility have to do with hardware compatibility? And no, I don't think the first version of AROS on x86 was a complete reimplementation of the AmigaOS API. What had been implemented up to that point was of course AmigaOS3.x API compatible but many parts of the AmigaOS3.x API was still missing for the simple reason that the functionality wasn't there yet. That's what I was talking about and what you was refering to as something that didn't take more than a year to get functional on the x86.

Quote:

BTW, AROS explicitly supports chipsets like the NVidia NForce, including ethernet, et cetera. It's not relying on the old hardware standards to work and that is the work of ONE man in his FREE time, not a full development team.

Again, that has been implemented after quite a few years in the making by a programmer that is developing on his spare time without a salary nor expenses. You simply cannot use this as an argument for why a commercial venture such as the AmigaOS4 project would do the same.

_________________
Sammy Nordström, A.K.A. "Samface"

MINDRELEASE.net - The Non-Commercial Network of Digital Arts.

Samworks D & C - Professional Web Development (in Swedish)

@samface

Quote:

Anyhow, you didn't answer my question. If we start porting the AmigaOS4 to the x86 processor today, when do you reckon I will be able to boot it on my laptop?

Thats sounds like trolling to me.

If you had taken time to read the posts in this thread (instead of just jumping from pretext to pretext) you would have already noticed noone has been suggesting Hyperion has to support every x86 hardware - the same way it's not supposed to support any PPC hw.

They just support a few motherboard (the smartest would be to just port it to a well-known and mainstream chipset, thus supporting tens of mb with this chipset) and if it's not yours, you go and spend 50$ on the mb, plus 50$ for the processor if you don't have one yet.

Quote:

Anyhow, you didn't answer my question. If we start porting the AmigaOS4 to the x86 processor today, when do you reckon I will be able to boot it on my laptop?

I just did for him. Since the answer was in the thread, it wasn't necessary, but that way you might start to adress the few myths you've spread the past few days and still don't want to adress. I (and some others) did answer them, but till now you haven't had the elementary politeness to reply.

@samface

Quote:

Again, that has been implemented after quite a few years in the making by a programmer that is developing on his spare time without a salary nor expenses. You simply cannot use this as an argument for why a commercial venture such as the AmigaOS4 project would do the same.

Let's hear the experts : AFAIR Hyperion developpers stated that since they made the OS hw independent, a port to any new hardware would take only weeks. Even if you're realistic, count mounts and it'll still be fast. ATM, the pb is more getting hw (from Hyperion's own assesment of the situation) than the time developpers have or not.

Unless you are still going on with falemagn about what could have happened years ago

Then I suggest you address what really matters.

Quote:

You simply cannot use this as an argument for why a commercial venture such as the AmigaOS4 project would do the same.

I completly agree. With a commercial venture like Amiga OS4, it wouldn't have taken that long. But you can still commend the man to support so much x86 hw in so short a time :)

@samface

Quote:

OK, so that Linux wouldn't work on my laptop until a year after I bought it was because I don't have a clue. Right.

May I ask you about few things: What distribution you've tried? Could you name the laptop again? Was your kernel ACPI aware?

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@opi

Well, it's a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo D and the Linux distro I tried was Ubuntu - Linux for human beings. Appearantly, XFree86 couldn't even open up a frambuffer screen for my ATI-9700pro graphics card. Didn't bother with analyzing the problem any further than that. With the new Breezy, it just works.

_________________
Sammy Nordström, A.K.A. "Samface"

MINDRELEASE.net - The Non-Commercial Network of Digital Arts.

Samworks D & C - Professional Web Development (in Swedish)

@samface

Have you tried Knoppix?

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@samface

I understand. Breezy has recived a lot of love from Matthew Garrett (who's a ex. Amiga user/developer for that matter) and laptop team. You have to undersand that's almost impossible to support all kinds of HW, and when we're talking about laptops it's even worse, bacause often they have broken BIOS implementation.

Also, if your laptop was new on the market, it takes time to deliver a working code. Throw releases cycles of Linux kernel and its distributions, and you have a year.

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@t3g

Well, Fabio did argue that general hardware drivers could be made and that even AROS supports most PC hardware, new as well as old. That's why I asked how long it would take before I would be able to boot AmigaOS4 on my lap-top if we start developing AmigaOS4 for x86 today. And no, saying that I'm trolling isn't really called for.

And no, I really don't think you've stated any real "myth" busters that would be needed to be addressed by me. If I let anything go unanswered, then it was probably something not related to any of the points I'm trying to make and/or because a reply would just be fuel for more pointless and endless debates.

_________________
Sammy Nordström, A.K.A. "Samface"

MINDRELEASE.net - The Non-Commercial Network of Digital Arts.

Samworks D & C - Professional Web Development (in Swedish)

@samface

Quote:

Again, that has been implemented after quite a few years in the making by a programmer that is developing on his spare time without a salary nor expenses. You simply cannot use this as an argument for why a commercial venture such as the AmigaOS4 project would do the same.

This is the last time I'm going to repeat it, because if you can't understand it now, there's no way you'll ever understand it.

Michal has worked on AROS native for way less than 13 years, the first time AROS booted natively dates back at 1999, that is 6 years ago, not 13. Moreover, the amount of total time Michal spent on AROS native, up until now, is less than one full time year.

That is to say, to get AROS native where it is now, with generic support for x86 hw and even specific drivers for the nvidia chipset, would have taken him LESS THAN ONE YEAR, had he worked full time on AROS.

Is that clear, now? Can we, please, continue the discussion with these FACTS in mind?

As for comparing a project lead in one's own spare time with a commercial one, I'm afraid that you're shooting in your own feet that way: a commercial project would of course take LESS time, not more.

_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford

@falemagn

Well, just read post #805 again while pretending that I have those up to now not yet stated facts (I wonder how they can have been repeated so many times as you claim) in mind then. None of it changes anything.

_________________
Sammy Nordström, A.K.A. "Samface"

MINDRELEASE.net - The Non-Commercial Network of Digital Arts.

Samworks D & C - Professional Web Development (in Swedish)

@samface

You mean that the fact that you've been proven wrong all along doesn't change anything?

_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford

@falemagn

In you imagination, perhaps. Saying that a bicykle is faster than walking doesn't change any of the points I've stated about this whole AmigaOS4 on x86 hardware issue. But if it makes you feel better, Fabio; you're right, a bicycle is faster than walking. Happy? :)

_________________
Sammy Nordström, A.K.A. "Samface"

MINDRELEASE.net - The Non-Commercial Network of Digital Arts.

Samworks D & C - Professional Web Development (in Swedish)

@samface

So, exactly Sammy, when did I say that a bycicle is faster than walking?

(do you enjoy making up these imaginary examples with no bearing to reality?)

Last edited by falemagn on 26-Jan-2006 at 04:32 PM.

_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford

@samface


Quote:

I wonder how they can have been repeated so many times as you claim

Let's see:

Quote:

But heck, just look at AROS: it can boot and work flawlessy on a multitude of different machines and configurations, with different chipsets and all that. All done in the spare time of one single developer.

Quote:

I rather meant that the x86 native port, with the hardware it supports, is mainly due to one single developer, Michal Schulz.

Quote:

And, once again, just look at AROS to see the most blatant proof that you're wrong. No, it didn't take 13 years to make AROS run natively on x86, it took what amounts to way less than one year of full time work of a single man

Quote:

Michal has worked on AROS native for way less than 13 years, the first time AROS booted natively dates back at 1999, that is 6 years ago, not 13. Moreover, the amount of total time Michal spent on AROS native, up until now, is less than one full time year. That is to say, to get AROS native where it is now, with generic support for x86 hw and even specific drivers for the nvidia chipset, would have taken him LESS THAN ONE YEAR, had he worked full time on AROS.

Weird. It seems that you didn't really read any of his postings before replying, since you would have noticed the number of times he stated these FACTS to which you replied with your own distortion of reality.

Last edited by AMiGR on 26-Jan-2006 at 04:50 PM.
Last edited by AMiGR on 26-Jan-2006 at 04:49 PM.

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@cHaOs667

Quote:

cHaOs667 wrote: @umisef No, its the turn of falemagn, he compared the two sales and i would like to see the source of his numbers for the amiga one and amithlon. Okay, you showed me now that the sales for Amithlon are over 1500 and sorry... 1500 sales are not an bestseller (particularly in the x86 world) But now falemagn show me the AOne Sales figures so that you can prove youre comparison

Those 1500 sales were only during a very brief period too, if it wern't pulled, it would have sold alot more. I think it was only available for around 6 months.

Then there was the Fat, Cholesterol, Salt, Harold, and MSG free update, Umilator, that would have sold again.

_________________
"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." - Oscar Wilde

@opi

Quote:

Breezy has recived a lot of love from Matthew Garrett (who's a ex. Amiga user/developer for that matter) and laptop team.

So Matthew Garrett is an ex-Amigan? Nice to meet Amiga users, even if it's on other OS. What did he develop on Amiga?