So I am new to morphos and new to Amiga but I have had many problems with using morphos. First off I am using a 1.67Ghz 2GB DDR2 17' PowerBook G4 with a fresh install. The system randomly hangs and freezes to the point where it needs to be hard rebooted multiple times a day when I am using it. Furthermore I am having a hard time running some software for the system. I found the OS4 software compatibility thing for MorphOS and installed it to try to get some OS4 software running, so far I have tried OS4 versions of several different softwares and none work on MorhphOS with the OS4 compatibility layer all giving various error messages. Maybe this has to do with it not being updated in years?

I have also had issues using software designed for morphOS. Just browsing directories is broken sometimes and results show no files in a folder randomly. Once I formatted a USB stick on morphOS put a file on it, brought it over to my windows computer and it showed up as FAT32, put a file on it, and now the USB will not work in morphos and is completely undetected. Earlier I downloaded Cinnamon writer for morhpos and tried to get it to work and the file explorer tries opening the HLA file as a folder and it shows nothing in it, so then I extracted the HLA (I really have no idea what a hla is I am pretty new with this) and it got the files out on the ramdisk, but when I tried copying them over to my hard drive, they appeared to copy but now the file explorer will not show them there... Ughhh.... this leads to my next problem where the copy and paste/drag and drop acts very wonky compared to linux, mac, windows, haiku, and everything else I have ever used. Some times files simply refuse to be copied and no dialogue appears. Other times it works, and then other times it copies and promptly the file vanishes.

The web browser has lots of problems. Flash seems to not work anymore and anything using flash is broken this leaves the Spotify web player, pandora, and most online games non working. HTML 5 video supposedly works, but it stutters so bad on youtube is is unplayable in the lowest quality setting (and I have the fastest powerbook ever released with high speed internet I cant imagine its too much better for anyone else?). As far as I can tell there are no plugins for the browser either would be nice to have adblock or disconnect? Gmail seems completely broken in the browser as it always says bad request or cookies disabled (they aren't). This means google docs, a very usable modern writer wont work at all either.

Across the whole system, I guess java is not supported. It looks like work was going into it for OS4 but I don' think it got anywhere. This leaves us unable to use any java programs or java web content :( add this in with many normal software packages for other systems not being available and it makes it harder to use.

I don't know about the Amiga Command line originally but the MorphOS command line seems very lacking compared to linux/BSD. Package management seems non-existant and basic things like ssh and telnet don't work from the terminal I would also have appreciated if it used more Unix style commands rather then windows style since they are typically shorter but if Amiga is traditionally like that its fine. Actually how much of MorphOS is ACTUALLY Amiga? Is it 100% new code or does it actually use amiga stuff? The inner workings seems pretty hidden from the general public...

Also I am very confused about the JIT 68k emulations. According to what I have seen online this only works with some stuff. Amiga games apparently don't work at all? Its all good and dandy to have UAE, but I could run that on almost any other OS with a better CPU.

Also the GUI (maybe since im not used to Amiga) seems VERY inefficient. Not being able to minimize a program (when I hit minimize IDK where it goes to), and not being able to have a box go even slightly off the screen does not help with multitasking. Having to go up to the top bar to do basic tasks in time consuming, and having to right click to do things that you should not have to hold down right click to do. Take for example in mac OSX, it would be very inefficent if for every program you opened you had to go to the top bar right click and drag up then go to the mac bar. Instead when a window is selected mac automatically puts those choices in the top bar. (overall with a few tweaks the GUI is like 90% like mac, just add and bottom bar with a bin and you pretty much have a mac gui clone).

What filesystem is morphos formatted in also? I have so many troubles converted files to pc and morphos.

Due to some of these reasons, mostly stability, and lack of software it seems hard for me to be able to spend $125 USD for a license. Also keep in mind I am coming from the point of view of someone who has never used Amiga before, and the nostalgia factor is pretty small some criticism may be unfair. At the moment I am highly considering purchasing this as I know a LOT of work has gone into this. And to not be completely negative here this is a AMAZING project. Making any new OS in general is no small step, especially working to THIS extent. Having custom web browsers, its own GUI, its own real flavor that makes it different is a really cool thing that lead me to try it. Even the fact it can run so well on a old powerbook is amazing. I hear rumors that there might be morphOS x64? I really hope so cuz ppc seems pretty dead... sorry this was so long lol

[ Edited by Ozfer 13.06.2016 - 06:59 ]

You seem to have a lot of "problems" that aren't problems at all. Let's get through this:

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If it does without you using some software then it's really a hadware fault. Try running "memtest extensive" from the console.
If the system crashes because of some software you used - then you'd better not use this software.
If the system crashes when you're surfing the web - make sure you didn't run out of RAM (it's easy to check - just enable the "memory" screenbar - right click on the depth gadget in the upper right corner of the screen and tick the "Modules->Memory"). If you see that your mem is running low - just close the browser and open it up again (sadly there's no other way to workaround the infamous Webkit memory leak issue ATM).

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Yes, that's it. It's pretty much useless now. Better use the native programs.

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I find that hard to believe. Have you tried setting the view to show/all files? On Amiga-ish systems every file can have an icon (a file with corresponding name and an .info suffix) - when the window display mode is in "show/only icons" mode you see only the files that have said icons. Otherwise you see nothing.

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You say the computer doesn't see the disk, or the file?

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I strongly believe you mean an ".lha" archive, probably with no icons inside.

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Probably the "missing icon" problem? I mean the file gets copied but you don't see it?

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...and that's the way it is, giving there's no flash plugin.

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Download and enable the youtube fullscreen fix plugin, spoof as Chrome32, add youtube to "trusted" in content blocking and put the video in fullscreen mode. PowerBook should handle 720p just fine.

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It's 100% new code, based on a few impressive classic Amiga software (CGX, MUI, AHI). The system file/directory structure is an Amiga derivative too. MorphOS has API compatibility and can run 68k binaries seamlessly thanks to JIT 68k compiler built in. The whole system is based on Quark microkernel.

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Basically the built in 68k compiler gets the CPU sorted out, while the system structures remain compatibile with AmigaOS up to 3.9. If the software isn't written to run under operating system (like most, but not all games), or is hitting the "custom Amiga chips" in any way (no contemporary MorphOS machine has those) it won't work. However, there is much software that just works.

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You are able to minimize a program ('iconify' it).

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You are totally able to do this. Try moving the window with "Ctrl" pressed and if you want to have this option permanently turned on check the "IControl" in system settings.

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IControl again.

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We don't want a Mac GUI clone. And you can have a bottom bar too (Ambient settings->Panels).

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That would be SFS. But you can use an ordinary FAT if you want to (especially on your removable drives).

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It seems so and there are such rumours indeed.

To be fair/mean even AmigaOS 4 has compatability issues with itself (latest version vs earlier versions).

> HTML 5 video [...] stutters so bad on youtube is is unplayable
> in the lowest quality setting

There seems to be something misconfigured at your end:
http://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=11664&forum=3&start=13

> would be nice to have adblock or disconnect?

There is content blocking in Settings -> Content.

> Across the whole system, I guess java is not supported.

Correct.

> ssh and telnet don't work from the terminal

Have you tried Applications/RemoteShell?

> I would also have appreciated if it used more Unix style commands rather then windows
> style since they are typically shorter but if Amiga is traditionally like that its fine.

http://library.morph.zone/Shell_Commands/Alias

> I have so many troubles converted files to pc and morphos.

Any details?

Thanks for getting back to me that was really helpful since I am not familiar with all the Amiga differences. I will try mucking around to get some more stuff working later.

The problem I had with usb was I formatted a USB stick on MorphOS, put a file onto it from MorphOS, then put it on a windows computer where it correctly saw the partition and the files, after that I tried putting the chrysalis pack onto the usb, when I put the USB back onto morphOS the USB was completely undetected. I will try this again later.

I didn't mean you were trying to make a mac clone, I just meant it was very similar. When you put a panel at the bottom screen its looks 90% like mac.

Yes most crashes are caused by me trying to run software. Yea it was LHA I was having problems with.

I use MOS on daily basis on a PB 1.67 too, but for me it works really well.
There are some freezes sometimes, but no too often.

I think, the reason behind the misterious file disappears are just a click away: The default view mode is 'icons only'. If you put anything on windows, there will not have an Amiga style icon, and will be hidden. This might look like a bad behaviour, but consider, that you can hide all, what you not really want to see always.

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That's weird. If the problem persists try running HDConfig from System:Tools/ directory and check if it can see the disk.

BTW: There's a lot of useful information (especially for a newcomer) in MorphOS Library, here on MorphZone.

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Enable the Debug sbar module and check "Show Log..." from it always after you've ran a new program, or occasionally during the use. If you have tons of lines on it, something has misbehaved and is likely to cause unstability. Don't use programs which make "hits". When you don't use broken programs the system should stay up very well whole day.

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Learn the (amigaish) concept of showing all files or just files with icons.

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Yes, I don't advice to use the flash plugin at all. It mostly works with some ads with no real use. And it breaks YouTube etc. Better go with HTML5 when support is available.

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YouTube videos stutter in the small embedded window, but you have to install the _latest_ YouTube Fullscreen Fix script and use that to get the smooth playback (it really is smooth then). Detailed instructions can be found here: http://library.morph.zone/Getting_Started#Getting_YouTube_Videos_to_Play_Better_on_the_Browser_Window

If you still have some problems, check this too:
http://library.morph.zone/Tips_and_Tricks#Problems_with_YouTube_Videos

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Works here (tm). Have you updated OWB from 1.23 to 1.24?

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Yes, there isn't any proper Java implementation on any amigaish system. I haven't needed it myself anyway.. and I never install it on other systems either due the holes found on it constantly. Javascript works of course.

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Amiga command line is very flexible and has lots of features not found on some other systems, but also missing features found on other systems. It's just not similar in some aspects, but it actually is very powerful. I'd suggest you to read official AmigaDOS manuals for 3.x for example to learn it. And check the available shell commands from here: http://library.morph.zone/Shell_Commands

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http://library.morph.zone/Getting_Started#Installing_Grunch

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For SSH do this: http://library.morph.zone/Getting_Started#Adding_Paths
And telnet can be found from the MorphOS SDK.

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Install the MorphOS SDK to get hundreds of Unix commands:
http://morphos-team.net/downloads

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MorphOS is API compatible and emulates the 68k processor. It means that most of the system friendly Amiga software should work, if they don't want to use Amiga's chipsets directly. Games and demos usually hit the Amiga HW directly and MorphOS doesn't emulate the Amiga hardware, so they don't work without UAE, which emulates the whole machine.

But many applications, shell commands, libraries, datatypes, device drivers, etc stuff do work directly under MorphOS. And they do work very quickly because their API calls go mostly to PPC native stuff.

Basically if program doesn't need to open an OCS/ECS/AGA screen and doesn't need to use Paula for audio, it should work pretty well. Newer Amiga programs which support RTG (graphics cards) and AHI (audio cards) will work fine.

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http://library.morph.zone/Getting_Started#IControl

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I don't quite understand this question. By default MorphOS uses Smart Filesystem (SFS), but it also supports many other filesystems, but what do you mean by converted files?


[ Edited by jPV 13.06.2016 - 21:26 ]

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Spoofing isn't needed, the fullscreen fix script (and good content blocking settings) is all you need nowadays. You can have the default (OWB) spoofing just fine.

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This is all correct. I will add that you should make sure to click the "full screen" button to drastically reduce CPU load. To be clear the "full screen" button acts more like "full browser" and doesn't actually go full screen. You will be able to view up to 720p videos in the browser with less than 40% CPU load.



[ Edited by redrumloa 13.06.2016 - 15:22 ]

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Here it doesn't. Don't know why, but YT refuses to display the video on my MorphOS machine when there's no spoofing active. I've beeen looking through it, comparing versions of OWB and the script, checking the content blocking settings again and again... Nothing helped, except "spoof as Chrome 32 (Windows)".

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Are you using the free version of MorphOS? If so, it will automatically slow down to a crawl after 30 minutes of use. This is a 'feature', rather than a bug. The MorphOS developers want users to test MorphOS on their machine, while giving them an incentive to purchase a licence.

I know about the system crawling after 30 mins that wasn't the problem I was having. I also installed the youtube script and youtube still refuses to go fullscreen and cpu usage is high. OWB is at version 1.24 already. Tried spoofing as chrome and it didnt fix it.

Now I understand the ole icon mode thing and that explains all the missing file problems I was having. Thats much better now.

Just got the development tools installed and I am messing around with that ATM..

Really don't like how it hides files and folders. I am trying to switch the theme to others that are hidden but so far havn't found a way to do it. Also I see there are other hiden wallpapers...

[ Edited by Ozfer 14.06.2016 - 01:54 ]

> You can have the default (OWB) spoofing just fine.

http://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=53&topic_id=11464&start=33 ;-)

> You will be able to view up to 720p videos in the browser with less than 40% CPU load.

On a 1.67 GHz G4 with H264/VP8 video?

I've never gotten youtube to be useable either and I've tried all the above suggestions. I finally gave up and rarely use MorphOS at this point. I have some hope for 3.10, I will at least give it a try.

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Uh. Just switch to a lister or and browser mode, all files etc., snapshot a window at volume level or mymorphos, all dirs deeper will be displayed in a mode you saved. (volume needs to have a disk.info)

No idea what themes you are talking. There are MorphOS skins, MUI presets, both can be selected easily via preferences. If you have some 3rd party they should simply be in approriate places in SYS:. Default icons can replaced manually (you can also do it one by one in Ambient mime prefs).

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Did you wait that video playback really started before clicking the fullscreen button, like explained in the links I gave earlier? If you try to click the fullscreen button while it's still buffering (the small rotating circle), it doesn't work then or until you reload the page.

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OK, let's get over that again.

1. Download the "YouTube fullscreen fix" and copy it to your OWB/Scripts directory
2. Enable it as seen on this screenshot
3. Go to the "Content blocking" OWB prefs and add a line to allow youtube.com (as seen here)
4. Restart the browser, try running a video. If that fails - spoof as Chrome and reload the page.
5. To reduce CPU usage set the video to either fullscreen or panoramic view.

It just has to work.

6. And be sure you don't have flash plugin (plugins/swfdec_plugin.library) installed, or at least in use (plugins enabled). It breaks the YT too (unless spoofing as Chrome would fix it, but I don't think so). For example Chrysalis pack installs it by default... maybe Papiosaur should fix it by disabling it from the default settings or just by removing it totally from the pack?

[ Edited by jPV 14.06.2016 - 13:08 ]

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I'm tryin to setting up OWB on both my PB1.67 and MM1.67 (overclocked) and still have about 100% cpu load.
Maybe some other tricks you missed?

> still have about 100% cpu load.

With 720p or 360p videos?

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720p

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To play a 720p video on a PB 1.67 is almost impossible even with MPlayer. On youtube, it is more painfull.
You should try only 240p/360p videos.

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Set loopfilter to skip all frames - it gives a substantial boost (both in mplayer and owb), but in general 720p h264 is the max. you can get on a G4.

Also, youtube was providing (maybe they still do) a nice 480p or something which was really nice for PB and mini G4 (no crazy spinning fans ;)), but for this you need some additional scripting probably.

[ Edited by Korni 14.06.2016 - 16:25 ]