As requested by Daff in the original thread, by this I'm starting a new one to discuss our joint updating process of Fulvio 'DoctorMorbius_FP' Peruggi's article MorphOS - The Lightning OS, by which we try to reflect the changes introduced into MorphOS since version 2.0.

In the latest "beta" that is linked below I've added several suggestions and a lot of screenshots provided by David 'Daff' Brunet. The changes compared to last week are marked in green this time.

MTLOS 2.4 beta (Nov. 8, 2009)

Of course this is still work in progress and given the very rare spare time of everyone involved this will certainly take a couple of weekends until we'll reach a "release candidate" that we can send to Fulvio to update his homepage.

Of course it would be great if - besides Daff, guruman and myself - also further contributors will turn up in the future to bring the article not "just" up-to-date but possibly also extend it.

So which topics could be addressed next?

1) The games section - adding interesting games released during the last three years (e.g. Warzone 2100, Homeworld?). This will be supposedly worked on by guruman who contributed already the corresponding original section back then.

2) The display engine might be added to the section "Characteristic features", just in a common paragraph with the sentence I wrote about TLSF.

2b) Maybe further "characteristic features"?

3) In the first section I wrote: "except for some parts that are open source" - I think we should either reduce this wording just to Ambient or, as Daff suggested, extend it by further examples of Open Source that are part of MorphOS. Thus my question would be: are there any at all?

4) MorphOS software (renamed from "exclusive" to "examples of", to include also further applications) could be extended by further programs like e.g. VNC, Papyrus (?), ProStationAudio, Hollywood, MLDonkey or TVPaint. Others?

Then there was the suggestion by Ulrich and others to make the article shorter, more comprehended. I've to admit that personally at least I'm quite reluctant with regard to this. Not only because I'm hesitant to apply such a severe change, a deletion actually, to someone else's work, i.e. Fulvio's, but also because in my opinion this would change the whole nature of that article. I guess for a shorter comprehension the Wikipedia entry or other articles would be better suited. Or, as a compromise, we could change the article in a way that each section starts by an abstract which can be individually "expanded" by the reader if he wants to learn more about the corresponding paragraph. This way nothing would have to be deleted completely.

Another thing to discuss is the suggestion to move OWB from the "Ports" section to the "Examples of MorphOS software", although personally I think from the context it clearly belongs to the "ports" paragraph. Alternatively we could merge the two sections instead, but that would generate an even longer paragraph and other stuff, mainly the games, is also separately handled anyway.

PS: With regard to the display engine it would be great if we could get some hints by the Team about special aspects about it worth mentioning in the article maybe? I'd be very grateful for this.

I'll try to make some contributions to the article this week and send you my results for further review and comments. Is your email address listed in your profile here on MorphZone?

Edit: My version will show your changes still in red text and mine in ......BLUE (what else).

[ Edited by amigadave on 2009/11/8 12:13 ]

Just a few words on filesystem support:

Ext2FS driver (the name is somewhat misleading) supports both Ext2 and Ext3 disk formats, only disks which were not cleanly unmounted can be accessed in read-olny mode. MorphOS has a MAC HFS+ read-only driver since v2.3 and a complete MAC HFS (note the lack of the plus sign in the filesystem name, this is the old version known from Classic 68k MACs) filesystem driver since v2.4. NTFS and SGIXFS drivers have only read-only support, what should be noted in the article.

The paragraph about salvage tools should be a bit rewritten to avoid possible confusion. SFSDoctor, which is included in the system, supports only SFS disks. PFS salvage tools are available only together with commercial PFS driver, AFAIR. There are also very old commercial salvage tools for FFS (i.e. AmiBack Tools package), but they are very limited (supports only partitions smaller than 4GB).

> further examples of Open Source that are part of MorphOS. Thus my question
> would be: are there any at all?

Have a look into SYS:Docs/Licenses.txt

> Papyrus (?)

That's one I would omit ;-)

@March & Andreas_Wolf

Thank you, will add that today.

@amigadave

Yes, the e-mail address specified here at MZ is still valid.

Okay, with regard to other open source components I've just added AHI as a second example besides Ambient. Also the file systems paragraph has been slightly changed as suggested.

Still it would be great if someone could help with two or three sentences about the display engine.

Nice guide to MorphOS, hope you don't mind we mentioned it on the Aladdin 4D Blog today.

http://aladdin4d.blogspot.com/2009/11/great-guide-to-morphos.html

@discreetfx

Well, that's a bit unfortunate to be honest, since a) it's work-in-progress and b) won't stay there forever since it's just hosted there to allow us to work on it.

In the end the files will be sent to Fulvio Peruggi to replace his original article by this updated version.

But I do agree that Fulvio's and Andrea's guide is really nice - that's why we are adapting it to MorphOS 2.x currently. :-)

@Senex

We can remove it if you like.

@discreetfx

Well, that's something rather Fulvio would have to request. :-) Personally I don't mind, but maybe you want to mention to your readers that it's work in progress (also they'd understand then the weird colouring of parts of the text). :-)

And "b)" is rather an inconvenience for you than for us, actually, given that your link will lead into the void one day.

A possible alternative might be to rather link to the original article instead (see URL in the previous comment): while it's reflecting MorphOS 1.x for now, in the end it will be replaced by the current version, thus your link in the blog would stay valid.

Any news about this update ?

If Guruman can't do the games section's update, I will write it. Simply say "go", and I will do it.

Hi, I am here and still alive. And I still want to contribute to this effort. It seems I might have some spare time in the next few days, but indeed I think every contribution is good and since Senex is the volunteer for the coordination of this work, sending the writings to him should ensure that the best parts get integrated.

Kind regards,
Andrea

Hello, I apologize for the silence - just wanted to let you quickly know that I'm still around. Real world issues do consume even more of the little spare time these weeks and monthes ahead than before, unfortunately. With regard to ongoing own work on the article, this weekend's contribution will be exhausted already by writing an e-mail to Jacek Piszczek this evening to beg for help with regard to writing a few sentences about the display engine, sorry.

I have been updating a bit some sections. Work is ongoing

Kind regards,
Andrea

"now, maybe, I will be able to create a new updated version of "MorphOS: The Lightning OS" (the latest version on MorphZone was greatly improved a few years ago by a team of friends during my "exile" away from MorphOS world, and I want to thank all of them for their effort). [...] but surely at least six months will be needed"
http://www.meta-morphos.org/viewtopic.php?topic=1275&forum=2