MorphOS 3.12 Released

Mike Bouma shares a post from MorphZone, detailing the latest update to the AmigaOS-like computer operating system known as MorphOS: The MorphOS development team is proud to announce the public release of MorphOS 3.12. This new version introduces brand new dual-monitor capabilities to various Powerbook laptops as well as G5 desktop systems, and features improved thermal management, fan control and dynamic CPU frequency switching, which provide increased energy efficiency and reduced noise levels. Additionally, the Helios Firewire stack has been fully integrated into the core OS and we added support for hundreds of modern printers and scanners. The installation and troubleshooting guides should be carefully read prior to installation. You can download MorphOS 3.12 here.

Y an not going to buy apple hardware

[rossdee]

so IU can switch to AmigaDOS

But I did like WB2.1 and 3.0 back in the day

So now they have a FireWire driver....

[ffkom]

... at a time when FireWire devices have mostly ceased to exist on the market.

FireWire was truly better than USB while it was actively developed, but like all superior technology, it died from not being the cheapest solution available.

Limited hardware

[Sebby]

Except for some Amiga-specific hardware, the only supported stuff is all Power-PC era stuff, so pretty old.

I was expecting support for more recent (and more generic) hardware.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

If you have a PPC era Powerbook you quite possible also have Firewire peripherals from that era too, that's why.

Re:

[b3e3]

In the few use-cases where it was popular (for big, fast, portable storage), ESATA replaced it until TB3/USB3.1 took over. It didn't help that cheap or damaged FW cables had a reputation for starting fires...

No Virtualbox support yet?

[sproketboy]

I'll wait

Wow. I'm surprised this is still a thing.

[Nabeel_co]

Why is there moder OSs being developed for 15 year old hardware?

Surely everything the G5 could do, modern computers could do just as quick with much lower power consumption, no?

I remember hearing a while back that some of the things that the velocity engine (i think?) could do on the G5 were still unparalleled in modern computing, but that was probably 7 or so years ago.

Re:Wow. I'm surprised this is still a thing.

[drinkypoo]

PowerPC chips are pretty cool, and there's a bunch of machines lying around cheap.

But they don't support my iMac G4, the last good one, with the nvidia GPU. They don't properly support any other nvidia cards, either. So I have nothing their toy OS will run on, so I guess I won't play with it.

Apparently you could get it to run in qemu from QEMU 3.0.0 and Morphos 3.8. But they're gonna need ATI GPU emulation to ever get good graphics performance...

Re:

[Nabeel_co]

But, what's the purpose?

That's what I don't get.

Is it just for fun?

Because I can't see a real world use case.

Re:

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

A gallon jug still holds a gallon of material a decade later.

Those old Apple computers do everything that they did when they shipped. Most of what the typical person does with computers (excepting gaming, the more advanced/bandwidth-efficient video CODECs, etc.) isn't that much more intensive than it was when these computers were new. However, the software we use to do that work gets progressively more crufty and slow as it acquires more complexity in the name of features.

Is this a mainstream project? No

Re:

[Nabeel_co]

That was never my point.

My point is that everything a PowerMac G5 can do, idling at 500 watts, my pocket computer can do at less than a watt.

Why use 500x the electricity?

There is no point, unless there IS something a PowerMac G5 can do that a modern computer can't.

The only purpose I could see is developing PS3 and xBox One games.

Re:

[Bert64]

Not just the power consumption of the hardware, but also the cost of software like morphos...
The hardware is basically worthless at this point, people are throwing them out as they are well past their useful mainstream life.

Morphos is priced at EUR79 even if you assume you can get the antiquated hardware for free, for that price you could buy a raspberry pi plus accessories which would outperform the old ppc hardware.

Re:

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

My point is that everything a PowerMac G5 can do, idling at 500 watts, my pocket computer can do at less than a watt.

The difference in power draw isn't so dramatic. A quad-core G5 fully tricked-out would pull about 455W at peak, and closer to 100W at idle, about the same as a modern workstation. To meet it in CPU power, you'd need two Raspberry Pi 4 systems, which would be at 30W at peak. So, while a very significant 15x power draw, not quite hundreds of times.

There is no point, unless there IS something

Re:

[Nabeel_co]

I need to add:

This isn't a gallon jug of water.

It's more like a sieve that can hold a gallon of water so long as your water supply is 100 gallons per minute.

Why not use a sieve that can hold a gallon of water at 1 gallon per minute?

Re:

[Bert64]

It's just for fun, which is why the price tag is offputting.

The hardware is available cheaply or even for free, most people who bought these old macs have upgraded to more modern ones at this point, there are very few reasons to keep legacy hardware around and even emulation on modern hardware can generally outperform the original hardware if you have ancient code to run.

But, why would you pay far more for morphos than the hardware is worth, for what's basically just a hobby os?
I've played with the various

Re:Wow. I'm surprised this is still a thing.

[Misagon]

Inertia. Old MorphOS apps compiled for PowerPC.
MS Windows is still running on x86, and people don't want to move to 64-bit ARM even though ARM has much better performance/Watt: the x86 hardware is cheaper and more familiar. MS have developed Windows NT for MIPS, PowerPC, DEC Alpha and Itanium throughout the years, but people have stayed with x86 for the same reasons.

MorphOS also works on PowerPC cards for older Amigas, and there is pride in running an up-to-date OS on them.

ARM is also being embraced. For instance, there is the ARMIGA Amiga emulator machine (with built-in floppy), and the Amibian distro for the Raspberry Pi â" but those are all emulators of vintage Amigas.
MorphOS is a continuation of the Amiga, and the PowerPC hardware represents what the Amiga could have been, had Commodore invested properly in development.

Re:

[Nabeel_co]

That's not a fair comparison though, x86 is still getting active development, the G5 isn't.

Yes, Arm is better, as was the Itanium line, but when support and development of IA32/amd64 is still ongoing, people aren't going to go through the hassle of switching.

that being said, in the next 10 or 15 years, I expect desktops to switch to arm-based processors.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

"They" (someone holding the rights) should bring out an Arm-based Amiga machine with an Amiga emulator, open source the OS, and let the community port it to the hardware. The sources (for AmigaDOS, 3.1 I think) are already in the wild, so it's not like they'd be releasing any secrets. They'd get a chance to sell you the ROM licenses in the bargain. (I got my legal ROMs from Amiga Forever, though the actual ROM images aren't exactly hard to come by — they were cheap, so why not?)

There seems to be plent

Re:

[b3e3]

They aren't exactly cheap, but there are several Amiga cloning projects (AmigaOne/Pegasos, Minimig, Clone-A) based around FPGAs. Eventually one of those mad scientists is going to swap out their 68k for a moden ARM.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Now that I've said it and you've said it back to me, I've changed my mind.

I want it based around Libre RISC-V.

Since it doesn't need a lot of horsepower, it's totally feasible.

Re: Wow. I'm surprised this is still a thing.

[Fredrik Andersson]

Really if you think MorphOS is a modern OS you need a reality check. MorphOS is in essence an Amiga OS clone, Amiga OS died almost 10 years before the PowerPC died. It's all just nostalgica.

Too expensive...

[Mage66]

I can run Linux on most of the Computers that MorphOS will run on. MorphOS costs nearly $100US for a license. Drop that to $25.00, and you'll see a lot of people paying for it to try it out. I won't pay that money for an unfinished OS. They need to rethink their pricing structure.