OS4 vs OS3.9

Hello!

I am one of those who have a Classic Amiga with a PPC-board. According to Hyperion, AmigaOS4 is soon ready to be released for classic Amiga.

Is it worth upgrading to OS4? I am currently using OS3.9 / Kick3.1.

My PPC setup is 210mhz (i think) and I have 256 mb fastmem with Mediator and Voodoo3.

Classic amigas that uses the 680x0 processor have a huge amount of tools/utilities and programs downloadable from AmiNET. OS4 doesnt support 680x0 processors. How compatible will the "emulation" be with old 680x0 software (f.i. Kick 2.0 -> ).

Is it worth the trouble getting OS4 or should I wait until Amiga Inc. (or other developers) releases new hardware?

Gretings AmiGubbe.

Edit:

I am sorry, I wrote this in the wrong forum. Can someone move it to the correct place?

@AmiGubbe

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Way better then on AmigaOne, because you have custom chips and we do not.

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You get PowerPC native drivers for all your hardware and you will get access to New PowerPC based programs that runs many times faster then on your old OS3.9, and because OS4.0 has minimal memory protection you should notice when dangers programs in your system, so you can avoid buggy programs that corrupts your system and crashes vital data.

I think you should not upgrade because of the 680x0 software, but because PowerPC software runs many times faster and more secure.
If develop software you should defiantly upgrade, the development tools in OS4 SDK is way better then OS3.9 NDK.

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Well if no hardware is demonstrated whit OS4, then no hardware is demonstrated whit OS4, when they can show AmigaOS4 running on some new hardware then you buy it not before then, forget pre payments, in this market you get many broken promises, but some times dreams becomes reality.

@LiveForIt

>If develop software you should defiantly upgrade, the development tools in OS4 SDK is way better then OS3.9 NDK.

Really? Could you be more specific?

@Minuous

Some examples:

1)
If you crash a program under OS4, is will most likely not bring down your OS, and you get report telling you whats wrong.

2)
If your AmigaOS4 does lockup, you can recover your debug printf() after worm boot, its safely kept in write protected area.

3)
New SDK explains how you interface whit OS4, and how to write system friendly, OS3.9 NDK might suggest things that is no longer safe, or is obsolete.

4)
And remember there few new modules like USB / PCI / Amiga Input if like too support these things you most upgrade.

5)
The SDK is POSIX compatible, so you write most the C example and lean some stuff, is also where useful when try recompiling or porting stuff from Linux.

Moderated .. by myself..

@LiveForIt

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After reading some lines from Rogue (developer? of os4) it seems like the 680x0 processor is being shut down and is no more in use. That wont happen to the custom chips?

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Good point there.

@AmiGubbe

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No. All custom chips are used by OS4.

OS4 has got a very high performing 68k emulator which
I guess easily out performs a 68020@14MHz even on a
604 +200Mhz PPC.

@AmiGubbe

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Short answer: YES!

Anyway if you wait for new hardware doesn't hold your breath for Amiga inc. SAM is ready, we must only hope the court case finish soon.

More Questions:

Is it possible to have "dual" boots. One with f.i. OS3.x and one with OS4.0. Some old stuff, like games and such will not run under OS4.0. I read that there was some problems with WHDLoad. Can I use ONE HD for Dualboot or do I need two separate hds?

How much diskspace does a "normal" OS4 installation need?

@AmiGubbe

You can dual boot OS3.9 and OS4. I have both installed on my A4000.

@xeron

And how do you do this? Two different partition or two harddrives? Do you select wich drive you want to launch via Early Startup Menu (Right and left mousebutton upon reset).

If you have two harddrives, can you access the second no matter wich OS you prefer to run?

@AmiGubbe

You select the boot partition via the Early Startup Menu, yes.

Its a little tricky because you have to do it twice (again after the OS3.9 setpatch reboots from cold boot), but it works, and I could avoid it with a little bit of script trickery.

OS3.9 can see all FFS and SFS partitions, but not FFS2.

@AmiGubbe

I have two partions laid out as:-

DH0: 0 - 512MB
HD0: 512 - 1024 MB

On DH0: resides OS4.0 - 68K Fastfilesystem
On HD0: resides OS3.9 - 68K Fastfilesystem

Note this is not an indication of how much size either OS takes up but just my prefered partition sizes.

Both are marked as bootable in HD / MEDIA TOOLBOX

DH0: has a higher boot priority than HD0: So it will always boot into OS4 on powerup.

Unless I boot with nostartup-sequence like xeron says and selected another boot device (HD0).

DF0: still has the highest boot priority so it will always boot from floppy if I want to play a hardware banging floppy based game.

All my stuff which is hardware banging or doesn't work under OS4 cos' the reaper catches it I run under 3.9

This is not a feature of OS4, it possible to have dual boot 3.1 and 3.9 machines too.

Just remember that the initial ESS appears on a native screen, so unless you have a Bvision or other graphics card which is capable of showing the initial ESS on first boot, you'll need to attach an old monitor/tv or have some way of displaying the ESS on your primary display.

@xeron

Makedir RAM:T
Assign T: RAM:T

IF $kickstart EQ 50
Execute S:OS4-STARTUP
ELSE
Execute S:OS39-STARTUP
ENDIF

@AmiGubbe

OS4 on my AmigaOne uses about 150 MB. That does not include all the different languages available, so assume that total is only for a single language.

@AmiGubbe

Workbench on my A1 is currently using 168.2MB and that includes various third party software including web browsers, media playesrs and utilities.

@xeron

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Read Documentation/kernel/bootloader.txt.
When it could not see it, it would be impossible to boot OS4
from an FFS2 partition...

@samwel

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Actually, it outperforms 68060/50MHz on 604/200MHz most of the time and 68040/40 every time.

So, if you have an expansion board with 68040/25MHz and any PPC processor, then the emulated software will be faster than the native 68k execution.

However, OS4 and the JIT emulation requires more memory than OS3.x, theoretically it can run with 32 MB (without JIT emulator), but I would suggest 128MB. (When swapping will be ready then less memory will be enough, but then it will be significantly slower. Oh well, you can't have everything, I guess.)

@AmiGubbe

Read this article. And the OS4 reviewed there is a very old version. OS4 is now faster (the 68k emulation for instance).

@All...

Thank you all..

Last question!

When?