Can and will Amiga OS 4.xx become more stable?

[amigasociety]

Now that I have had a few months using Amiga OS 4.1u5 on my X1000, I like to over-all zippiness of the OS. Fast, to the point, and I like it.

But... in terms of stability compared to Mac OS X that I come from, my Amiga OS system locks up daily.

I am guessing this is memory protection issues that Amiga OS lacks??

Locking up means I have to use the reset button on the front because no Grim Reaper comes up and my system is locked from say a TuneNet & Timberwolf freeze or in some cases, just other general use.

Curious if this is something the Amiga OS can ever fix or just something that the OS unless really changed will always have?

Just curious.

I can't remember the last time my OS X systems locked or freezed up but is a daily thing on Amiga OS.

tj

[tonyw]

Now, be fair.

The OS doesn't lock up by itself, it is locked up or broken by errant applications. I remember the days when I had a Mac and there were so many applications (games, particularly) that did the same to the Mac.

I soon got to know which applications would kill the Mac and avoided them. You have to do the same with your Amiga.

If there are components of the OS or applications supplied with the Amiga CD that fail, then tell us (or the authors) and get them fixed.

[kas1e]

@amigasociety
In general its memory protection we lacking, yes. All we need its protection of some os components , areas/memory of which can be overwrited by the bad programms. All the other big oses of course have that. Sure , on amigaos4 can be done something like this, but it will break compatibility for old 68k apps for sure + ppc apps should be recompiled as well. But, as for me, its worth of it.

@tonyw
Its only in ideal world you can have non-buggy apps, but in reality apps always will have small or not so small bugs. Its os should care for sake of user's happenes to protect them from bad programms, and do not lockup. And some app (and even os components) will have bugs anaway, for all the time. In whole world all the oses going to that way: help users to protect necessary areas from bad programms, but not saying them to avoid those bad (which almost all) programms. Its not users worry to sit whole day over monitor, and day by day found what progrmm are bad, what are not, what have bugs which can cause lockups and what are not. Some users just want to use OS without worry, and be sure that OS will take care about necessary for us areas.

I.e. protection of necessary areas are must. And saying to users that they should loose their time for found bad programms (which by itself can be _very hard_ task), are no solution.

[Hans]

@amigasociety

Can and will Amiga OS 4.xx become more stable?

Yes it can, and I expect that it will. Not overnight, but through a concerted effort from both OS and application developers.

Hans

[AmigaDave]

Now that I have had a few months using Amiga OS 4.1u5 on my X1000, I like to over-all zippiness of the OS. Fast, to the point, and I like it.

But... in terms of stability compared to Mac OS X that I come from, my Amiga OS system locks up daily.

I am guessing this is memory protection issues that Amiga OS lacks??

Locking up means I have to use the reset button on the front because no Grim Reaper comes up and my system is locked from say a TuneNet & Timberwolf freeze or in some cases, just other general use.

Curious if this is something the Amiga OS can ever fix or just something that the OS unless really changed will always have?

Just curious.

I can't remember the last time my OS X systems locked or freezed up but is a daily thing on Amiga OS.

tj

I am even more new to using AmigaOS4.x than you are, but I have the advantage of being an Amiga user since 1987, so I have tons of experience that you are missing from the past. I can tell you that the original AmigaOS1.x to 3.x was very stable. You have to realize that you have a very early release of a brand new computer design and there are bound to be bugs to work out on it and the AmigaOS4.1.5 release that has just recently been completed for it.

As long as AmigaOS4.x continues to be worked on, I am sure you can expect better stability with each new release, or update. It is just an unfortunate fact of life that the resources available to work on AmigaOS4.x are very limited, so the progress of improvements for AmigaOS4.x will be much slower than any other operating system you are used to using. But we will get there. I would guess that AmigaOS4.1.4 on your SAM is probably more stable than update 5 is on your X1000, isn't it?

I would think that stability on the X1000 is a combination of it being a brand new computer design, and the early state of the port of AmigaOS4.1.5 to this new computer. As more work is done on the computer and its drivers, stability will improve. Also, as work on AmigaOS4.x in general is completed, the stability of OS4.x on all hardware platforms that it has been ported to, will improve.

These are all assumptions on my part, but I think others will agree with most, or all of them. Because of how the original Amiga was designed, without memory protection and because it was an open and well documented design that many programmers took full advantage of in the early years, by directly hitting the hardware, the original Amiga hardware and OS1.x to 3.x could be brought down, but I never experienced it that often in all the years that I have used it. Certainly nothing like what you appear to be experiencing and in my experience, not any more often than my current Mac hardware crashes (but then I am using only G4 & G5 Mac hardware).

[gerograph]

Guess AOS4.xx will become a lot more stable, as major improvements also happend to AOS4.1 for SAM. My AmigaOS 4.1upd4 for SAM is super ueber stable. I only have crashes when coding, in very rare cases OWB-MUI crashes. Compared to WindowsXP (on my DELL Lattitude 6410/i5), I have a lot more crashes. Both computers are used on a frequent base (1-3 hours a day), I'll try to shift as many work from XP to AmigaOS. So, consider my as AmigaOS poweruser. Never had a Mac though... Regarding X1000, keep a few things in mind:

- having a new computer, people tend to try all sort of software in a short amount of time. In such a situation crashes are more evident on every system.
- AmigaOS 4.1upd5 (X1000) is still in a very early stage (seen from User point of view). First AmigaOS 4 on SAM was also more unstable... (give them half a year, and most problems will be fixed)
- I remember frequently upcoming GURUS on my AOS 1.3 / A500 as youngster as well.

...from say a TuneNet & Timberwolf freeze or in some cases, just other general use.

Well, Timberwolf is Alpha, so donnot count those crashes in...

Memory protection might help, but I donnot believe it will be worth it. XP has memprotection as well, but still crashes... I vote for shorter Amiga OS boottimes instead !

[tommysammy]

I have here no troubles with my X1000 .All works very stable.Sometimes I use my X1000 10 hours and more without any troubles(only at weekend or holidays)
Rarely i get a freeze or greamreaper.Mostly it is thirdparty software,that makes here a little bit trouble

[Evillord68]

I do not have an X1000, because of that i can not tell anything about the X1000.
But i have here an Aone XE G4, µAone, Pegasos II and 2 classics with OS4.1, i must say i can use them daily around the clock, i must say they are stable.

[BillEaves]

...from say a TuneNet & Timberwolf freeze or in some cases, just other general use.
Memory protection might help, but I donnot believe it will be worth it. XP has memprotection as well, but still crashes... I vote for shorter Amiga OS boottimes instead !

+1 for faster boot times.
Ideally both but to me being able to boot fast is more important especially if something unstable leaves you having to cold reboot.

BTW. I have recently been having trouble with my X1000 just suddenly powering down for no reason. PSU problem maybe ?
It is only in the last week or so it has benn happening. It powers back on but does not get beyond the X1000 logo screen, unless I power down fully. The long reboot is a real PITA when this happens.

[xenic]

BTW. I have recently been having trouble with my X1000 just suddenly powering down for no reason. PSU problem maybe ?
It is only in the last week or so it has benn happening. It powers back on but does not get beyond the X1000 logo screen, unless I power down fully. The long reboot is a real PITA when this happens.

I've just had some experience with that on my SAM Flex after installing a sound card. The card wasn't a very good fit and pulled on the PCI connector and motherboard when I screwed in and tightened the rear bracket. I finally bent the rear bracket so it wouldn't put any strain on the PCI connector when I tighted the bracket screw and my spontaneous power down problems disappeared. You might want to check any cards you have installed to be sure they are well seated and not pulling on the connector or motherboard.