We would really like to thank Pegasos I to Pegasos II Upgraders Samuel Byford and Herbert Klacki. Not only did they do an excellent job of wrapping up and returning their Pegasos I boards, but they even included 2x128M pc133 DIMM modules.

You are nice guys! Thanks alot! The Skolelinux Trial will benefit from your kind gesture.

Also, we would like to recognize Fabrice Lehaut. Fabrice, if you ever want a job as the shipping manager you have one at Genesi. Fabrice's Pegasos I packaging job could have survived a train wreck! You must have really loved that Pegasos!

Thanks to each of you!

And, by the way, how is the new one?!?!?!

Raquel and Bill

@ Raquel and Bill

Hi there. Hope you are doing fine!

Just wanted to ask if you could update us a bit on the Genesi/MorphOS situation? Anything happening there at all on that front that you could share with us?

Hallo BBRV!

Thank you for making my upgrade possible, the new Peg2 is doing fine here but i wait for money to build my own HTPC.

Not yet. One step at a time. First things first.

We need to clean up a few more issues from the past and then we will move ahead toward the future. We had to simply survive to get to this point. It has not been easy.

Our intention is to fully support MorphOS again one day, but with the people that have proven themselves over time to be talented, diligent and positive.

It is a significant challenge to introduce a new operating system in a world of free software. Nevertheless, remember, Ralph is an "insider" and of course, we want him to achive the great success he deserves.

R&B

OK, thanks for your answer. I thought that perhaps some of the things from the past was related to this?

I guess that establishing a new, commercial OS is even a bigger challange than establishing a new HW platform (you have done a good job with that, I don't think anyone can deny that ). Judging from your previous achievements, I think you are the right ones to take on to such a challange ...

@ThePlayer

GREAT!



Glad to hear that!

The new Application Note for the Home Theater system we used to win the Best of Show Award at the Freescale Technology Forum should be online in the next ten days. It will provide you with a full set of instructions for configuring the PegasosPPC. We have added some new features too!

In fact, the build will work on any PowerPC based board you are using *if* our HAL/OF is used to bring up the board. Anything with a PowerPC would do in this case if the processor is fast enough. For the AppNote, the ODW is used as only an 'example.' Nevertheless, we think that one should not trivialize the importance of getting the OS running on the board in the first place. We want to emphasize that what we are using is an AltiVec optimized compile of Gentoo that is *special.* It will not be easy to replicate the work - even in Debian. Of course, one day we would like to create the same sort of system with MorphOS.

If you buy a Hauppauge 150, 250, 350 or 500, and place it in an x86 machine and try to make it work under Linux nine times out of ten you fail. On PowerPC we have the entire series of PCI cards from Hauppauge completely covered and working. There is no such thing anymore as "I can't set this card up." The port involved quite a bit of PPC unique effort (PPC DMA, PPC PCI busmastering, x86 ASM work). This was actually done by Genesi and mostly Pieter Van den Abeele. It is a good example of a non-trivial PowerPC port. MacOSX actually does NOT have support for the Hauppage cards. All they support are TV tuners over USB and USB is too slow to allow for full screen or HDTV. There are no MacOSX drivers for any PCI TV tuner cards and a TV tuner card is not something they can easily add to the new Mini.

Pieter now has a Palm LiveDrive (802.11 WIFI enabled handheld device) he is working with to add some neat functionality to the total system. The plan is to get wireless video conferencing with the ODW up and running. Pieter installed Kinoma ( http://www.kinoma.com/ ) on the device, which allows MPEG4 playback.

The other cool new thing is that you can watch television on the desktop as well as in MythTV. And, we now use professional anti-aliased fonts for the desktop. It looks great.

We think we may be able to build a whole community around this system. We will see!

R&B

P.S. @TMHG

[ Edited by Genesi on 2005/7/30 13:28 ]

Quote:

I hope it wont take too much time. I am not sure if I will wait again another year for the next major Release.

Quote:

I would like to point out that despite the fact that Genesi is not involved in funding directly the MorphOS development ATM there is a team of volunteers working non stop on new MorphOS releases.

I also would like to know what you are missing so much ATM that would eventualy cause you to leave the platform.

While I appreciate very much new OS releases my biggest problem so far is not the OS (everything I need is there) but the lack of some applications (particularly a good web browser).

Quote:

I don't feel that anyone is working on MorphOS at all.

Quote:

What about the stuff they showed us already since 2 years (3D drivers for Radeon, TCP/IP stack, AltiVec, [put in what I have forgot],...and still missing bug fixes and more improvements, Ambient is still ages behind)? There is a bunch of software in the pipeline only waiting for the next Release. Its really frustrating to sit on MorphOS 1.4.x since 2 years and have the feeling that it doesnt really goes ahead. MorphOS is my main system (I dont have a PC or Mac) and I am not interested in Linux.

From what I heard from the dev team they always have been working on a new release. Maybe there are not release date set but as you say it is in the pipeline.
As for the features you mentioned:
3D driver for radeon: you can get a really cheap voodoo if really you can not wait.
TCP IP stack: while it is frustrating (specialy for a newbie) there are 68k alternatives.
Altivec: That would be nice IF there was any application taking advantage of it (besides rc5).
Ambient is been worked on and you can get the "been worked on release" anytime.

I understand the frustration but I can leave without most of these features for quite a while. It is not the same thing for the browser, most of the time I have to use another computer just for that.

Great, thanks Genesi now it will be much more easier for
me to setup the HTPC Software.

@DJBase: I think we'll see the next MOS release this year.

Quote:
I guess he would like to tinker with the new tinygl.library as well.. ;)
Quote:
AFAIK zapek added Altivec support to Ambient. An mPlayer version with Altivec support was shown on MOS last September,too. Reggae filters take advantage of the Altivec unit. And finally, even ShowGirls is Altivec optimized. And that's just to start, and what *I* know (because it's public knowledge). From one side it's refreshing to see there is progress behind the curtains both in the OS and in its applications, on the other side I partially understand DJBase's frustration. Howerver I'm both confident and patient, and I still believe everything will be all right soon. It's good to hear that Genesi wants to put things right, because, as we have seen, things might take time, but they are definitely behind teir words. After all even the Peg1-Peg2 exchange has arrived as promised.

Kind regards,
Andrea

guruman

MOS is being developed slowly and i'm sure there will eventually be a release, although lack of feature set or communication is indeed frustrating..

As far as the last part of your statement about Genesi being behind their words and taking care of their responsibilities that remains to be seen...



magnetic

[ Edited by magnetic on 2005/7/30 16:08 ]

Quote:

Great offer. Why using more modern hardware at all. We could still be happy with our old C64...

Quote:

Yeah, let me try the timemachine to get Miami registered.

Quote:

Why making applications with Altivec support if there is no support in the OS?

Quote:

They are still buggy and lacks lots of features.

@DJBase
I agree.

There are a lot of fanatism on MorphOS users? It seems like that. What occour? Genesi is simply ignoring MorphOS, only saying stuff for be like a good company, but now seems MorphOS is not interesting for them and it's being ignored...

Even if 3D support on Radeon would bring you better performance you can still get the functionality with a V3 now.
I would better have new good 3D app (blender is coming) than a radeon driver bringing me twice the performance for apps that do not need it. At I really wonder if you really need the extra performance (for what application ?) or if you just want it for the sake of having it.
The developer of blender does use a V3 and is happy with it.

For TCP you can still get Genesis. If you are not confident that we will get a native PPC stack you can contribute to the eztcp bounty.

As for altivec, I am sure that the devs who really needs it now can ask for an 1.5 beta. The users have very limited use for it now.

And I don't get what you want for ambient. Your point was that it was bad that beta stuff was not released yet but when I point that you can get it anytime you say it is buggy.

At any rate I don't see anything constructive in your posts. The MorphOS developement and success is a collective effort. If you want to get more be constructive and do whatever you can to help.

@timo
Genesi is a business, they make business decisions. If opportunities for making money with MorphOS come Genesi will invest again in MorphOS.

If you think MorphOS is worth investing some money go ahead and show the example.

Firstly, to BBRV:

You'r welcome, it was a pleasure to do the upgrade - delivery was expecially fast, thanks!

All others regarding MOS situation:

Firstly Altivec....there are several developers out there that already have versions of their programs waiting in the wings to be released as soon as altivec is released. The one I know most of is ShowGirls which flies under Altivec. Be patient all!

As for the MorphOS/Ambient updates - of course they are happening and being worked on! you just have to look at the regular frequency that Ambient is being updated to see that. Every new compile adds functionality (and more often than not a few bugs)(which are sorted in the next version) and my "desktop" is becomming more useable with each release.

MUI 4 alpha was released recently proving that major componants ARE being worked on. Sure there's a LOT of bugs in mui4, but it is an Alpha so what do people expect?

You all seem to forget that MOS has once again reverted to being a "hobby development". These people are not being paid for their work, its a labour of love. Spare time dev. They could be out getting a suntan but instead they choose to stay in on the computer plugging away with code. Give the poor, brilliant, dedicated people (fools?) a chance and stop harping on at them. It'll arrive when it's done.

Thats my rant over with.
Bifford.

[ Edited by Bifford on 2005/7/31 9:15 ]

Regarding Ambient - who said that future major releases of MorphOS will use Ambient at all as its desktop? I'm actually not too sure about it ...

Quote:

Its not about the performance. Its because most people have Radeons in their Pegasos. They are cheap and easier to get (ever tried to get a new Voodoo these days?). But its good for the Blender developer that he has a V3.

Quote:

Yeah, buying an AmigaOS3.9 CD first to have it registered and even then Genesis doesnt give me the features I would need. Bounties are a nice try but I am not that rich that I can waste money for every thing that is missing.

Quote:

Yes, the special elite group has AltiVec since...no idea...2 years? Yes, users would have limited use but read my previous post again to understand why...

Quote:

Did I say that it was bad that beta stuff was not released? If I see things that is used by special elite group since years it cant be much worse than the current public version. Ambient lacks features since I use it and still.

Quote:

And I can't see any really usefull argument from your site. I think I did a lot over the last 2 years for this platform that cost me time and money but thats not the point.

Quote:

The same points counts also for me from users point of view. Every computer platform would be "hobby system" for me. Maybe I have chosen the wrong one.

Wow.. what a thread. Anyway, I personally enjoy the fact that there are differing opinions. To some DJBase may seem like a naysayer, but negative comments are just as needed as cheerleading. Cattle-prods hurt the cow, but can get the whole herd moving. Things are far from perfect, and reminders are needed. I'm as hopeful and optimistic as the next guy, so even *I* need to be grounded on occation.

At any rate, guys, let's not let this get personal, 'kay?

Quote:

Your wrong BBRV, Mac OS X has several other then USB solutions and the best HDTV one on the market. see HERE! The EyeTV 500 is firewire based and awesome.

As for PCI based well here is one for you that are made for OS X only as well. The Alchmey is PCI based and fantastic!

Before you make it out to look like your the only PPC solution please do some research. Oh and I have an eyeTV on a Mini working just great too.

Now for a bit of positive word to you! Great job, they are nice solutions and I hope to see some good come of it.

Quote:

Hmm, I see no need to sound any alarm bells here?

This is how people feels! Not everyone, but some do for sure (me too, to a certain degree at least). It's *valuable* to know this and to allow people venting opinions like these, because it at least gives the involved people with powers *the chance* to act accordingly (even if they maybe don't have the *immidiate ability*). If you won't allow the use of a thermometer once in a while, you will be totally clueless about the temperature!

BTW, surpressing negativity for the sake of keeping up appearences, would be a very "un-morphish" thing to do, and that kind of behaviour should be left to a certain dot-net site IMHO ...

tmhg:

Exactly! I was only asking that folks don't get personal about it. There are those who would give any realist a hard time.

Also, I wanted to make it clear that I, and most of the moderators around here, actually value all opinions. The squeaky wheel is as important to the cart as the quiet ones. Or, was that nothing ever gets fixed if you wear nothing but rose-colored glasses?