SAM460 and OS4.1 thoughts and issues
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 5:37 pm
New here. But I've been posting on amigaworld.net for about a month....
Hello!
I took the plugne and purchased a SAM460 system through AmigaKit. I previously used Amiga systems from 1990 through about 1997, doing pretty much everything with them from gaming to 3D animations to programming (AMOS and later C using intuition, gadtools etc). It's great that Amiga OS is still developed, and I really appreciate all the hardwork put into it.
So, I could write a big review, but instead I'll just say what's great, what's I think is not so great, and some suggestions:
The great
AmigaOS *looks* amazing! I couldn't belive how well everything scales up to silly resolutions. The last time I used an Amiga I was happy with 640x500 "productivity" workbench. Now we have 1080p modes. Everything looks lovely.
Everything is *fast*
Web browsing works surprisingly well. OWB looks nice and is reasonably fast. I'm interested to hear if that is still being worked on though.
SMBfs works well enough. Writes are a little slow (want to try to diagnose that), but reads are good
The SDK looks awsome. I already ported a couple of my little projects from OS3.1 days. Hoping to upload one to os4depot soon.
Liikewise for the wiki, though it would be nice if it was updated so it didn't refer to things that aren't current anymore
USB devices work well
AmigaKit were AWSOME! Answering every PM in a matter of hours usually even at silly time of day. They also did an amazing buld of my machine in a custom case I wanted. Thankyou again AmigaKit.
It was a nice surpise to see printed material for the OS. I wasn't expecting that.
The not so great
This is mostly hardware related to the SAM460...
The old lack of DMA problem. Probably enoguh written on that. But it would be really good if it could be fixed so it would free a PCI slot on my system.
Overlay/3D. Same again really. Though they don't personally bother ME (I don't play games and I have lots of ways to view videos, including a nice TV downstairs!) but I can see how it would be great for others.
Sound. Seemingly some systems have sound problems still and I'm one. MP3s play sloooow, so it is unusable. This is quite anoying! Apparently acube are working on some fixes. I hope they come soon. It would certainly be nice to hear that these problems are being worked on. Again because of the SATA DMA problem I can't use a PCI card.
General system stability. I'd say it is fair but not great. I have had network death (ping has no buffer space available, and nothing else works network wise until reboot) when copying lots of files using the Shell. That happened only once. Workbench pauses for 30 seconds while copying files, and once the mouse was unresponsive at coldboot. Most of my old 68K software seems to cause instant crashes so I have pretty much given up with inline emulation. UAE seems to work well though, but of couse with no decent sound games are no fun.
... EDIT:
Workbench Bug: If a disk gets full while copying, the error requester cannot be dismissed, meaning you have to reboot.
I also had networking die, again.
Workbench Bug: Sometimes when deleting a file (on RAM disk, HDD, whatever) no confirm dialog will appear for several seconds or upto a few minutes. During that time most of the system is locked (but mouse moves and you can depth arrange but not double click windows). Then the confirm dialog appears and everything is ok again?
Can someone please confirm those above 2 Workbench issues?
... ANOTHER EDIT:
Through the help of the nice folks on amigaworld, I've tracked down the Delete problem. It seems to be a deadlock caused by a busy system. Though otherwise Workbench is fine (eg. the About window appears), if the machine is busy then the Delete confirmation dialog is prevented from appearing, or at least delayed. So I'm fairly sure this is down to some task priority issue.
Suggetions:
Copying files using workbench is not clever. When copying (say) 3 directories each with 1000MB of files, the progress bar would go: 33%, 66%, DONE - with absolutely no updates and several minutes between. It MUST update as each file is copied, like UnArc does. Even if it is just to say the filename withbout moving the progress bar. Please?
The default Shell doesn't have scrollback, which is a pain.
IMO there is *too much* in the core Operating System. More things should be made Extras. Small is beautiful, and there are plenty of ways to customise after install but it is hard to know what is safe to remove as it's currerntly layed out.
I miss the distinction between Tools and Utilities. I think there is a difference: one if for ocasionally used OS-level manipulation, and the other is.. well Utilities. I know this nit-picking!
Can we have a game or two in "Extras"?
IMO the entire "network connection" wizard concept is not useful in 2012. Nearly everyone has ethernet and a router. Just DHCP the LAN and you have networking setup with no work, for about 95% of the users. The connection profile stuff just confused me when I looked at it.
Anyway, that's enough from me. Except that I look forward to contributing, in my own little way, to the Amgia scene. It's been 15 years since I thought about this OS and I'm really happy to be back.
Lawrence
Hello!
I took the plugne and purchased a SAM460 system through AmigaKit. I previously used Amiga systems from 1990 through about 1997, doing pretty much everything with them from gaming to 3D animations to programming (AMOS and later C using intuition, gadtools etc). It's great that Amiga OS is still developed, and I really appreciate all the hardwork put into it.
So, I could write a big review, but instead I'll just say what's great, what's I think is not so great, and some suggestions:
The great
AmigaOS *looks* amazing! I couldn't belive how well everything scales up to silly resolutions. The last time I used an Amiga I was happy with 640x500 "productivity" workbench. Now we have 1080p modes. Everything looks lovely.
Everything is *fast*
Web browsing works surprisingly well. OWB looks nice and is reasonably fast. I'm interested to hear if that is still being worked on though.
SMBfs works well enough. Writes are a little slow (want to try to diagnose that), but reads are good
The SDK looks awsome. I already ported a couple of my little projects from OS3.1 days. Hoping to upload one to os4depot soon.
Liikewise for the wiki, though it would be nice if it was updated so it didn't refer to things that aren't current anymore
USB devices work well
AmigaKit were AWSOME! Answering every PM in a matter of hours usually even at silly time of day. They also did an amazing buld of my machine in a custom case I wanted. Thankyou again AmigaKit.
It was a nice surpise to see printed material for the OS. I wasn't expecting that.
The not so great
This is mostly hardware related to the SAM460...
The old lack of DMA problem. Probably enoguh written on that. But it would be really good if it could be fixed so it would free a PCI slot on my system.
Overlay/3D. Same again really. Though they don't personally bother ME (I don't play games and I have lots of ways to view videos, including a nice TV downstairs!) but I can see how it would be great for others.
Sound. Seemingly some systems have sound problems still and I'm one. MP3s play sloooow, so it is unusable. This is quite anoying! Apparently acube are working on some fixes. I hope they come soon. It would certainly be nice to hear that these problems are being worked on. Again because of the SATA DMA problem I can't use a PCI card.
General system stability. I'd say it is fair but not great. I have had network death (ping has no buffer space available, and nothing else works network wise until reboot) when copying lots of files using the Shell. That happened only once. Workbench pauses for 30 seconds while copying files, and once the mouse was unresponsive at coldboot. Most of my old 68K software seems to cause instant crashes so I have pretty much given up with inline emulation. UAE seems to work well though, but of couse with no decent sound games are no fun.
... EDIT:
Workbench Bug: If a disk gets full while copying, the error requester cannot be dismissed, meaning you have to reboot.
I also had networking die, again.
Workbench Bug: Sometimes when deleting a file (on RAM disk, HDD, whatever) no confirm dialog will appear for several seconds or upto a few minutes. During that time most of the system is locked (but mouse moves and you can depth arrange but not double click windows). Then the confirm dialog appears and everything is ok again?
Can someone please confirm those above 2 Workbench issues?
... ANOTHER EDIT:
Through the help of the nice folks on amigaworld, I've tracked down the Delete problem. It seems to be a deadlock caused by a busy system. Though otherwise Workbench is fine (eg. the About window appears), if the machine is busy then the Delete confirmation dialog is prevented from appearing, or at least delayed. So I'm fairly sure this is down to some task priority issue.
Suggetions:
Copying files using workbench is not clever. When copying (say) 3 directories each with 1000MB of files, the progress bar would go: 33%, 66%, DONE - with absolutely no updates and several minutes between. It MUST update as each file is copied, like UnArc does. Even if it is just to say the filename withbout moving the progress bar. Please?
The default Shell doesn't have scrollback, which is a pain.
IMO there is *too much* in the core Operating System. More things should be made Extras. Small is beautiful, and there are plenty of ways to customise after install but it is hard to know what is safe to remove as it's currerntly layed out.
I miss the distinction between Tools and Utilities. I think there is a difference: one if for ocasionally used OS-level manipulation, and the other is.. well Utilities. I know this nit-picking!
Can we have a game or two in "Extras"?
IMO the entire "network connection" wizard concept is not useful in 2012. Nearly everyone has ethernet and a router. Just DHCP the LAN and you have networking setup with no work, for about 95% of the users. The connection profile stuff just confused me when I looked at it.
Anyway, that's enough from me. Except that I look forward to contributing, in my own little way, to the Amgia scene. It's been 15 years since I thought about this OS and I'm really happy to be back.
Lawrence