@Argo

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https://www.aeros-os.org

I've never tried Aeros due to the registration for download requirement.

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"Unix is supposed to fix that." -- Jay Miner

@wawa
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the concerns of security are another matter. but this is a problem common to all amiga like platforms. i think we need to accept the situation that these are outdated platforms that will never offer features expected on a contemporary system.

Yes, I agree. AmigaOS and AROS are just hobbies for me, since I'm not willing to ignore the security problems.

@bobson
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I thought thats what AROS was - an Amiga OS compatible api, running in a sandbox + some enhancements?

AROS is a reimplementation of AmigaOS, but there is no sandbox. If you run AROS hosted, then there is some protection, since AROS runs in a host OS process and cannot affect other host processes.

If you want an Amiga-like system for day-to-day use, then AROS is not it, unless you are willing to ignore the security problems.

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So how much work would be involved in porting OS4 to RPi / ARM? or are we better off binning it all, and starting again?

There's no starting over; it's too late for that. It took Linux 27 years and thousands of developers to get where it is today. If someone were to start from scratch they would never catch up -- they would never achieve a modern system, because the definition of a modern system keeps advancing.

In many ways this is not a good thing. IMO systems have become too complicated. I'm glad that Moore's Law seems to be slowing down.

Running AmigaOS via emulation is a hobby of mine, but I'm already happy with how that works. It's my day-to-day system that I find lacking. This is why I spend most of my discretionary programming time trying to make something more Amiga-like on Linux.

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@bison

meh... I only ever write node.js... my hobbies include writing stuff in node.js, beer, and powerlifting...

So I now think Aros a dead end?

Amiga OS 4 a dead end..

its all dead...

How depressing.

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wawa wrote: as you might have red (or maybe it was tim that pmed me about it?), one of the reasons michal picks up on this project is that newer compilers apparently offer opportunity to define endiannes on the fly, so aros structures can be effectively turned to be big endian, and therefore be made compatible with amiga. which would allow the same approach on running 68k code within aros on arm as os4 and morphos do. im not sure about little endian archs.

Do we really want to mark all the AROS source code structures with (CPU/AROS port specific) BE/LE identifier tags? The compiler supporting ways to identify big endian data is only half the battle (it is possible to create SETENDBE and SETENDLE assembler inlines for C which would accomplish much of the same goal). We need to examine the performance and future compatibility of such solutions. I know of 2 ways to keep the data in BE orientation under AArch64.

1) Use SETEND BE and SETEND LE instructions.
Performance: Very good (switch to BE and rarely have to switch back to LE)
Future compatibility: Poor (SETEND is deprecated in ARMv8/AArch64)

2) Lacking BE/LE load/store instructions, REV, REV16 and REV32 instructions would be used.
Performance: fair (these REV instructions will be required after and before every BE load/store)
Future compatibility: Excellent (the REV instructions are here to stay)

There may be a 3rd way to set the endianess early which would behave much like solution #1 but hopefully with a brighter future. Even if this is not possible, some ARM hardware may not support BE making an AROS LE port more attractive. ARM may advertise that it is bi-endian but it is more LE much like PPC is bi-endian but more BE (although PPC/Power LE support has been improving).

@Thread

The A1222 is the best short term bet and if that isn't successful then we've got Classics and Vampire stand alones that are far more fun than limited Pi machines. If AROS doesn't excite me then why would the Pi crowd stop dabbling in RiscOS and try AROS instead? Again we missed the boat and were beaten this time by the Acorn folk!

Last edited by BigD on 25-Aug-2018 at 05:49 PM.

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@BigD

We will inform the developer that BigD is not excited by RPi so he will start to be depressed and stop the project for sure...

@bison
there is a public download which requires no registration.

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AROS Broadway - AEROS - Aminux - AmiCloud - indieGO! Appstore - AmiWallet - VAN lossless video codec - AMC Amiga media Center -KrypUnite - LibertyNet - MinX - amigaNX

Let me reinstate the importance of the PI and not any other ARM platform: the VideoCore IV documentation is still (somehow) available online. It's probably the only platform where you'd be able to code "down to the metal" the graphics stack in a good old amiga style. We even have a (beta quality?) vbcc port for the VideoCore IV ...

Just to say ... I jointed, albeit with a bit of a low profile for now, the Patreon campaign.

Who's next ?

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bobson wrote: Could memory protection be introduced - with a sandboxing for the classic Amiga stuff? else the whole exercise is pointless...

Yes, I believe full memory protection and resource tracking could be added to the AmigaOS with major changes to the API. Classic Amiga software could then run safely in a sandbox.

The AmigaOS works much different than Linux/BSD/Windows. The CPU instructions generate an effective address (EA) which the AmigaOS usually has mapped directly to a physical address (PA) in a flat shared memory model. Linux/BSD/Windows CPU instructions generate an EA which is mapped to a virtual address (VA) which is mapped to the PA with the aid of a memory management unit (MMU). Each task/process has its own virtual address space which remains separate and isolated from others. The CPU uses translation lookaside buffer (TLB) caches which quickly translate virtual to physical addresses. Programs usually start at low virtual addresses and often historically at the same address which is poor for security (AmigaOS programs have always loaded and started anywhere in physical memory). Task switching involves slower swapping of virtual address spaces which the AmigaOS has no concept of. CPUs have grown to support the virtual address spaces and paging concepts of these popular OSs despite their performance handicap, especially on less than high end CPUs. Despite multi-levels of TLB caches, TLB misses can easily cause double digit and sometimes as much as 50% performance losses (worse with 64 bit and SMP). The AmigaOS can easily create MMU pages with protections for memory but isolation of process address spaces is difficult without breaking compatibility. To make matters worse, the AmigaOS being a microkernel places almost everything in user space for best performance (Linux/BSD/Windows started as monolithic kernels with practically the whole OS in supervisor space). Separating the address spaces likely needs some kind of privilege based system like capability based security or a protection ring (needs hardware support but may be able to give the AmigaOS efficient security with the fewest changes). Embedded systems struggle with the same decision between better security with the overhead of modern CPU "virtual" support and better performance, lower jitter and better energy efficiency without it. It's possible the responsiveness, efficiency and small footprint of the AmigaOS we like would disappear when fully assimilated.

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I thought thats what AROS was - an Amiga OS compatible api, running in a sandbox + some enhancements?

AROS does not have full memory protection so it can't provide a sandbox. It may be possible to run hosted in another OS's sandbox or using hardware assisted virtualization.

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So how much work would be involved in porting OS4 to RPi / ARM? or are we better off binning it all, and starting again?

I expect a simple port with no modern enhancements would be moderately difficult if big endian was enabled (the difficult parts being everything in supervisor mode, the drivers and the 68k and possibly new PPC JIT). Unfortunately, we don't know what condition the source code is in.

I'm not sure Hyperion would be interested anyway as they passed up the chance to proliferate the AmigaOS on the PS3 and PPC Macs. They seem to have a different business model that looks snobbish and arrogant to me but maybe the rumors about their financial situation are wrong.

@bobson

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my hobbies include writing stuff in node.js, beer, and powerlifting...

Well I guess you could substitute C programming for beer. The first few months might be kind of rough.

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Amiga OS 4 a dead end.. its all dead... How depressing.

I don't think so. Amiga failed to "take over the world," but it still remains an interesting hobby. There are so many different ways to enjoy it: original hardware, emulation, AROS, AmigaOne, etc. And the concepts that Amiga pioneered remain, and can be implemented again. It all seems good to me.

@IridiumFX

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Let me reinstate the importance of the PI and not any other ARM platform: the VideoCore IV documentation is still (somehow) available online. It's probably the only platform where you'd be able to code "down to the metal" the graphics stack in a good old amiga style.

Yes, that's why I'm much more interested in RPi than the more powerful boards from Odroid. Mali graphics remain closed, and that's a real problem.

@phoenixkonsole

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there is a public download which requires no registration.

I did see that, but it seems very old -- 2012 I think?

Last edited by bison on 25-Aug-2018 at 09:00 PM.

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@BigD

I have aos4 and no the a1222 does not interest me at all. But AROS on the pi does. So why should your opinion be more important than others?

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@bison
2012 was end of pc support. Last public one for pi should be from 2016 maybe 17 can’t remember. I moved to odroid line afterwards

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@terminills

Hopefully with SMP-Support...

yes it is very interesting... unbeatable regarding price

@OlafS25

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@terminills

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I have aos4 and no the a1222 does not interest me at all. But AROS on the pi does. So why should your opinion be more important than others?

I don't remember saying it was. You already have AmigaOS so why would AROS be required in addition? Not sure, really not sure other than a Pi being a cheap toy versus an relatively expensive PPC computer being required for AmigaOS but you've already got it so hardware price isn't an issue for you?!

I give my opinion, you give yours. There's no more important one! We're talking about 1s and 0s and bits of silicon!!!

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@BigD

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You already have AmigaOS so why would AROS be required in addition?

To be honest I enjoy AROS much more than I do aos4.

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@terminills

Good for you. Is it because you no longer have a Classic machine and are chained to your PC? That's the only reason I can see why AROS would be at all relevant. The problem is I'd rather use PC / Mac apps on my MacBook than 'pretend it's an authentic Amiga machine.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Let me list my classic machines for you.

A1200 with mediator
2) A4000’s one with a 68060
A3000T
5) A3000’s
A3400

See I have plenty of classic machines and yet AROS still has a brighter future in my eyes. The reason being is anyone can work on it.

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@BigD

Aros will not suddenly be used by million of users and rule the world because of RPi support but perhaps many users will try it and some of it like it and "some" in this context could be a lot of new users, even if they only use it parallel to BeOS or whatelse

A1222 is more or less hardware similar to RPi but much more expensive and AmigaOS only supports one core at the moment, a big disadvantage expecially on something like Tabor

Your view is as valid as mine or any other person here but the lower the entry point is the better

On AmigaOS the entry hardware is too expensive, at the moment without Tabor you only can buy X5000

Or you use emulation

@OlafS25

Fair points but again who is developing new software pushing the platform on AROS? Why not just use a PC OS if you have a PC?!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios