AROS 3D with Deadwoods latest abi v.0 build.

[nikos]

I'm not a coder and I understand nothing about abi v0 and abi v1. I'ìm a simple user that want a full working system full of useful application. This is what I know:

ABI V0
Stable - full of application - lots of users - new users must use it to have a good AROS experience - system files outdated - status abandoned

ABI V1
Unstable - a lot of application are missing - under slow development - more advanced than ABI V0 - no users wants to use it because it's unstable and full of bugs

I think this is something really wrong. All the changes should be done on ABI V0 and then, when the changes are stable enough, backported to ABI V1. This way all the users of ABI V0 will keep AROS alive, all the bugs can be solved and all working code can be ported to the more advanced ABI. Leaving ABI V0 behind is/was a bad idea, IMHO.

Well written. This is exactly how I feel to. It is not with disrespect to Kalamatee and Michael that worked hard on ABI v.1 but they needed a lot of help that never came. Now the project been almost abandoned and thankfully Deadwood stepped up and did something about it. 

[terminills]

I'm not a coder and I understand nothing about abi v0 and abi v1. I'ìm a simple user that want a full working system full of useful application. This is what I know:

ABI V0
Stable - full of application - lots of users - new users must use it to have a good AROS experience - system files outdated - status abandoned

ABI V1
Unstable - a lot of application are missing - under slow development - more advanced than ABI V0 - no users wants to use it because it's unstable and full of bugs

I think this is something really wrong. All the changes should be done on ABI V0 and then, when the changes are stable enough, backported to ABI V1. This way all the users of ABI V0 will keep AROS alive, all the bugs can be solved and all working code can be ported to the more advanced ABI. Leaving ABI V0 behind is/was a bad idea, IMHO.

You don't keep something stable by making changes to it.   The entire point of ABIv1 was to fix incorrect assumptions from when AROS was started.     As for making changes and then back porting to ABIv1 that's pointless MC68K, X86_64,ARM,PPC are all ABIv1, X86 is literally the only port that is abiv0.   As for software don't worry I've got plans for that too.  The joys of owning my source(Finalwriter isn't all that I own) is I can control where it ends up.

[terminills]

I'm not a coder and I understand nothing about abi v0 and abi v1. I'ìm a simple user that want a full working system full of useful application. This is what I know:

ABI V0
Stable - full of application - lots of users - new users must use it to have a good AROS experience - system files outdated - status abandoned

ABI V1
Unstable - a lot of application are missing - under slow development - more advanced than ABI V0 - no users wants to use it because it's unstable and full of bugs

I think this is something really wrong. All the changes should be done on ABI V0 and then, when the changes are stable enough, backported to ABI V1. This way all the users of ABI V0 will keep AROS alive, all the bugs can be solved and all working code can be ported to the more advanced ABI. Leaving ABI V0 behind is/was a bad idea, IMHO.

Well written. This is exactly how I feel to. It is not with disrespect to Kalamatee and Michael that worked hard on ABI v.1 but they needed a lot of help that never came. Now the project been almost abandoned and thankfully Deadwood stepped up and did something about it.

Abandoned?  There you go again the project wasn't abandoned ABIv0 was abandoned.

[nikos]

I'm not a coder and I understand nothing about abi v0 and abi v1. I'ìm a simple user that want a full working system full of useful application. This is what I know:

ABI V0
Stable - full of application - lots of users - new users must use it to have a good AROS experience - system files outdated - status abandoned

ABI V1
Unstable - a lot of application are missing - under slow development - more advanced than ABI V0 - no users wants to use it because it's unstable and full of bugs

I think this is something really wrong. All the changes should be done on ABI V0 and then, when the changes are stable enough, backported to ABI V1. This way all the users of ABI V0 will keep AROS alive, all the bugs can be solved and all working code can be ported to the more advanced ABI. Leaving ABI V0 behind is/was a bad idea, IMHO.

Well written. This is exactly how I feel to. It is not with disrespect to Kalamatee and Michael that worked hard on ABI v.1 but they needed a lot of help that never came. Now the project been almost abandoned and thankfully Deadwood stepped up and did something about it.

Abandoned?  There you go again the project wasn't abandoned ABIv0 was abandoned.

Yes, 1 developer in a project like this is almost like abandoned. The user base also shrank to almost nothing.
Thinking developers is all there is about in a project like this is a big mistake. There should, and most be a joined effort by dedicated people that do different things. 
Talking to you is like talking to a wall. I suggest you and Kalamatee do your thing and let others do what they think is best for this open source project. Do you have any problem with that?

[deadwood]

Life is so short and the older we are the faster it runs away. Is this the best way of spending your energy?

First of all, as I mentioned in the second post here, while I patch things here and there advancements you see are work of people who pushed their changes to AROS master branch over years. Give them credit where credit is due.

Secondly developers around AROS have different passions. Some prefer lower level kernel work and advancing hardware support, some prefer more user facing aspect and look for stability and continuity. What I've seen over the years is that sometimes their values clash and cause conflicts, however I believe they are both needed to make progress. Neither approach will suffice on its own.

What I wish us all is to enjoy aspects of AROS we favor and let others in the community enjoy their favorite aspects. Accept the difference in opinion and move forward.

[end of topic from me]

[Yanosh]

Just to be clear: I don't care if the AROS ABI is 0 or 1. I want a more advanced AROS than the one I'm using now. So the exact instant it will be available, I'll switch to it. Until then, it's still not available and not ready for everyday use. AROS on X86 was born as ABI V0 and all available software was made for it. On other systems there was no need to mantain the older ABI, so on these systems the right choice was to use ABI V1. On X86 we should have made something to slowly transition from ABI V0 to ABI V1. I'm not a coder and I really don't know if this was possible, the only thing I know is that no one would switch from a working OS to one not fully working and with almost no software. ABI V1 is much better than ABI V0... the bad thing is that it doesn't work as it should.

[nikos]

You are 100% right Yanosh. What you say is what most feel.

Deadwood also explain exactly what I'm thinking. We are most in a age where most of life is behind us. It is not to put on a chair that we are all old Amiga fans and it is very unlikely that this OS will attract other people. I think that is proven already.
It would be rediculous to favour anything other than we want something useful, and ABI v.1 i386 or AMD64 is not. If it where, we would not have this conversation at all!

[OlafS3]

You are 100% right Yanosh. What you say is what most feel.

Deadwood also explain exactly what I'm thinking. We are most in a age where most of life is behind us. It is not to put on a chair that we are all old Amiga fans and it is very unlikely that this OS will attract other people. I think that is proven already.
It would be rediculous to favour anything other than we want something useful, and ABI v.1 i386 or AMD64 is not. If it where, we would not have this conversation at all!

I can only comment this discussion from 68k side... abandoned I would not say. There are much more users than before using AROS. Of course the X86 branch is in a more difficult situation. The problem is what is Aros about and what are the goals? There are different views. Some time Kal was very active in the 68k branch (and got financial support at that time). But the requirement was amigans only accept aros if it really replaces 3.1. Over the time a lot of situations and places were identified where aros not behaves like 3.1 and is not compatible to 3.1 for unknown reasons. Kal was not interested so Aros is forked now. And it is accepted by users. So the requirement (in my view) is that Aros is easy to install and configure and is setup like amiga with same look & feel. Also the desktop must be like amiga (or at least as similar as possible) and 68k integration is extremely important. Then there is a chance that more people use it.

I do not know if I explained it right... people must feel at home when they start Aros, they must forget that they use Aros and not 3.1. "Classic" users are by far the biggest crowd, so there are the chances to attract users.

[nikos]

You are 100% right Yanosh. What you say is what most feel.

Deadwood also explain exactly what I'm thinking. We are most in a age where most of life is behind us. It is not to put on a chair that we are all old Amiga fans and it is very unlikely that this OS will attract other people. I think that is proven already.
It would be rediculous to favour anything other than we want something useful, and ABI v.1 i386 or AMD64 is not. If it where, we would not have this conversation at all!

I can only comment this discussion from 68k side... abandoned I would not say. There are much more users than before using AROS. Of course the X86 branch is in a more difficult situation. The problem is what is Aros about and what are the goals? There are different views. Some time Kal was very active in the 68k branch (and got financial support at that time). But the requirement was amigans only accept aros if it really replaces 3.1. Over the time a lot of situations and places were identified where aros not behaves like 3.1 and is not compatible to 3.1 for unknown reasons. Kal was not interested so Aros is forked now. And it is accepted by users. So the requirement (in my view) is that Aros is easy to install and configure and is setup like amiga with same look & feel. Also the desktop must be like amiga (or at least as similar as possible) and 68k integration is extremely important. Then there is a chance that more people use it.

I do not know if I explained it right... people must feel at home when they start Aros, they must forget that they use Aros and not 3.1. "Classic" users are by far the biggest crowd, so there are the chances to attract users.

Yes, very true. I agree 100%
Janus-UAE tried to integrate 68k AmigaOS with AROS and never got quite good enough. More help and effort should have been put into that direction from the start.

[x-vision]

My 2 cents:

There are so few users that, if there is already so hard to maintain a niche & alt OS, imagine maintaining 2. All energies should focus in Abi1, because splitting energies with abi0 is what it is holding Abi1 back (vicious circle), and already for YEARS.

"So it will leave abi0 users orphan" some would say. And I say: so what?? Let's face the truth: almost nobody use Aros on a daily basis. Wasting energies in an abandoned distro just because it is sometimes used by 10-20 people? (at most) is plain stupid. All the scarce energies and time need to be put in the only version with future: abi1 64bits. I don't care if x86 64 or arm, but at least on something that makes sense, not on another OLD and ABANDONED OS/kernel which NOBODY CARES ABOUT.

And I LOVE aros, but ignoring the truth will just hurt ourselves.

[OlafS3]

I agree

68k makes sense

and 64bit ABI1 makes sense

generally concentrate on ABI1

(addktionally perhaps ARM RPi)

generally there should be a agreement on less platforms. For example I had a lot of problems because commits obviously broke software on 68k. Less platforms less problems. If Aros (outside 68k) shall have a chance it is important to concentrate

[braincure]

As a former C.Amiga user, I just joined you.

Aros has been with great success, a spark to morph os and others. This is beautiful.
Users continue on their old system with AmigaOs 4.01 or Morph os and with aros.
In this sense, Aros has completed its mission perfectly. Because, with winuae etc, they somehow use and play classic applications.

With this success of Aros, Users were so impressed that they now want to see a 64-bit complete Aros.
this seems very clear in correspondence.

There seems to be no need to defend the 32-bit Aros. Already AmigaOs 4 and morph Os, Winuae is doing that part.

What more can Aros do at this stage in 386x32?

I believe that Amiga ideas will come true with 64bit, even after us.

They start a search just because they want it.
whereas the option is right in front of us.
Arosx64!

[nikos]

As a former C.Amiga user, I just joined you.

Aros has been with great success, a spark to morph os and others. This is beautiful.
Users continue on their old system with AmigaOs 4.01 or Morph os and with aros.
In this sense, Aros has completed its mission perfectly. Because, with winuae etc, they somehow use and play classic applications.

With this success of Aros, Users were so impressed that they now want to see a 64-bit complete Aros.
this seems very clear in correspondence.

There seems to be no need to defend the 32-bit Aros. Already AmigaOs 4 and morph Os, Winuae is doing that part.

What more can Aros do at this stage in 386x32?

I believe that Amiga ideas will come true with 64bit, even after us.

They start a search just because they want it.
whereas the option is right in front of us.
Arosx64!

Everyone dreamed of that, and it is what we like to see.
The problem is that it is not there, it is not ready.
OS developers can blame that they lack a distribution, dedicated developers.
Problem is that it is buggy and distribution maintainers tried to make this happen.

Years pas by and if ABI v.1, AMD64 version would not have stalled ABI v.0 there would have
been more activity.

This made diversity among developers, users and many AROS promoters left. It there are no progress that is useful
there are no use for the system. This is like you have a better car but you have no wheels for it.
The car is useless in that state. It is absolutely no garantee the car will ever have its wheels!

Last but not least this better car can not compete with the best out there.
It is a hobby OS and we have fun with it. We enjoy what we have and like to keep that alive.

I think this is where classic Amiga OS and other classic systems survive. They accept the limitations and embrace it, not everything has to go forward. I understand that modern stuff is all 64-bit now but why do we really need 64-bit? SMP is not even possible without breaking compatibility with classic Amiga OS. There been talks about a new Amiga like OS but then we already have Linux and other alternatives. What would be the point?

[x-vision]

As a former C.Amiga user, I just joined you.

Aros has been with great success, a spark to morph os and others. This is beautiful.
Users continue on their old system with AmigaOs 4.01 or Morph os and with aros.
In this sense, Aros has completed its mission perfectly. Because, with winuae etc, they somehow use and play classic applications.

With this success of Aros, Users were so impressed that they now want to see a 64-bit complete Aros.
this seems very clear in correspondence.

There seems to be no need to defend the 32-bit Aros. Already AmigaOs 4 and morph Os, Winuae is doing that part.

What more can Aros do at this stage in 386x32?

I believe that Amiga ideas will come true with 64bit, even after us.

They start a search just because they want it.
whereas the option is right in front of us.
Arosx64!

Everyone dreamed of that, and it is what we like to see.
The problem is that it is not there, it is not ready.
OS developers can blame that they lack a distribution, dedicated developers.
Problem is that it is buggy and distribution maintainers tried to make this happen.

Years pas by and if ABI v.1, AMD64 version would not have stalled ABI v.0 there would have
been more activity.

This made diversity among developers, users and many AROS promoters left. It there are no progress that is useful
there are no use for the system. This is like you have a better car but you have no wheels for it.
The car is useless in that state. It is absolutely no garantee the car will ever have its wheels!

Last but not least this better car can not compete with the best out there.
It is a hobby OS and we have fun with it. We enjoy what we have and like to keep that alive.

I think this is where classic Amiga OS and other classic systems survive. They accept the limitations and embrace it, not everything has to go forward. I understand that modern stuff is all 64-bit now but why do we really need 64-bit? SMP is not even possible without breaking compatibility with classic Amiga OS. There been talks about a new Amiga like OS but then we already have Linux and other alternatives. What would be the point?

I will put it in short as I don't want endless discussions and too much text:

- SMP is already DONE! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4is9ZHeFfIs and it's a perfect example of what's wrong with this situation: After hard work, it was acheived 3 years ago! then? ... nothing happened with it. Nobody test/used it because it never officially appeared. meanwhile a lot of work, time and effort was put on Abi0.

- "Aros 64 is not there", so what? while abi0 aros was being developed, it wasn't also there. Does it mean their devs should focus on developing os3 further? the answer was NO, right? the right way was keep working on aros until "it is there". Later, they were aware of the design flaws of the original kernel, so they decided to start again doing it right (not an easy decision at all). Why screw all their efforts concentrating our attention in the wrong version?

- "We cannot compete" that's very debatable: While we won't create windows 10 overnight, there niche devices and configurations which may have a good market for Aros: Raspberry Pi, RiscV boards, old wintel machines, etc...

- "We enjoy what we have and like to keep that alive" Sorry but IMHO that's preciselly the wrong way to see it: it may live a bit for some time, but it is the way to a secured death: devices get old, it is harder everyday to get new connectors, cables, screens supporting our screenmodes, IDE hardrives, even compact flash cards. Let's not even talk about disk drives (rip). What will happen when we cannot find those devices? That's why I insist in keep going forward: I don't want a slow death of the Amiga. I want it alive. Even it does not have everything, if it has only a decent (modern) browser, it can do a lot of things (there are office suites, and even all kind of design, music and programming tools for browsers) and a couple other basic tools, which we alreadty have (just need updates), that's enough for me. But the only way to atract new devs and users is with a competent OS, and mnost important: an OS that they can use in their main computers. I have a very powerful (gamer) PC but I would switch in a heartbeat to use AROS as much time as possible instead of the terrible windows10 if it supported its hardware.

- And this bring me to the final argument "impossible to support all hardware". Sure. I agree. But I'm also sure people would understand that just maybe 1, 2, 3 or 5 at the most configurations are "officially" supported by an AROS dev board (which their devs can select at their taste) and everybody will understand and support.I propose something like: 1 powerful/gaming config (I know kalamatee has an OpenGL/vulkan update almost ready), 1 office/modest/old hardware, and 1 risc/mobile device (RPi, Mobile, Risc board).

But I'll say it for the last time: time is running out. This is the last chance. If the aros devs don't keep all their priceless time in the future/sustainability of aros, it will slowly die.

[Yanosh]

Why screw all their efforts concentrating our attention in the wrong version?

No one want this to happen. The only wrong choice was made is to not transition the older and working ABI into the new one. A little change at a time. This is IMHO. All the user base on X86 is on the older ABI. All the application are on the older ABI. You are asking to people to switch from a working environment to a buggy, not fully working and application less one all of the sudden. Do you really want to switch from a working Windows system to a buggy and application less one just because when completed is better than the working one?