@Cego

Unless you want MorphOS on your phone, smart TV or fridge, desktop is what it is.

You also don‘t need 500W to get faster single threaded than anything ARM.

And thats the issue, as it stands today we do need single threaded as fast as possible and even with the best Intel or AMD it will be the limiting factor.

My 2 cents so far:

These 'MorphOS on alternative arch'-discussions pop up more often when the last released MorpOS version is already more than a year behind. So maybe even a new PPC-MorphOS version will silence them (for some time).

While valid points are nicely discussed I doubt a discussion in an user thread will convince one or more devs to scrap their already existing x86_64 MorphOS Alpha and start on another architecture from scratch. Also this would postpone 'MorphOS on alternative arch' even more... While I personally also would 'like' an ARM version, the x86_64 route already has been taken so x86_64 it will be.

What hasn't been broadly discussed is the documentaion available/needed to port for ARM boards. These boards seem to run 'nice' on Linux, but it is easily forgotten that most of the time they only do with vendor kernels and binary blobs (especially for GPU drivers). So practically most of the time you would port to a board running an outdated vendor kernel + proprietary drivers and with scarce documentation. The Raspberries would be among the best supported, but still RPi 5 has no full mainstream kernel support (might probably take another year) yet... RPi 4 would be ok kernel-wise, but I don't know about the GPU.

So in the ARM case a big amount of reverse engineering would be needed to get things going, as in the Linux world. On the x86_64 side this situation is much better. There are also a lot more standards used (UEFI, ACPI, ...) An AMD B450 board is not totally different from another AMD B450 board. An ARM-SBC running a Cortex-A76 CPU probably is totally different from another ARM-SBC running a Cortex-A76 + documentation is scarce...

Also as Kronos states for MorphOS in it's current state only single core performance would be of interest. In this regard the RPi 3 most certainly is slower (1,4 GHz CPU A53 vs. 2,3 GHz G5), also RPi 3 storage via USB is slower than SATA-1. Only the RPi 4 might get en-par performance (1,8 GHz A72 + larger cache than G5) or is slightly faster. USB-performance also is better than RPi 3.

Regarding the efforts needed to get MorphOS to work even on one ARM board, which is not magnitudes faster than currently supported PPC hardware, the x86_64 route still seems a good choice for the time being. Especially as quite some work has already been done.

> Raspberry Pi 3B+ already does as well as a PowerMac G5.

Like ernsteiswuerfel, I really doubt that for per-core performance.

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Run the A/Box hosted or virtualized like is already the case on PPC. But instead of Quark use something which already works on the board. Hide it and don't tell anybody and everyone will think they are running native. Like they do on PPC.

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No one said future MorphOS wouldn't support multiple cores and more RAM.

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Yep, and that would be the hard part compared to the relatively simple task of running the current state of MorphOS on a different CPU.

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If we go into dreams, I imagine going directly to Morphos 4.1 Final Edition Update 2. Its characteristics would be:
- PPC support (Mac G4, G5, AmigaOne), X64 (APU Rizen on laptop and desktop) and ARM (Raspberry Pi 4/400/5, Chromebooks PPC, Orange Pi, Mac Silicon) with universal binaries.
- PPC JIT interpreter and 68k JIT for old apps.
- Abox classic 68K/PPC.
- Abox NG PPC (AmigaOS 4, MorphOS "classic" apps).
- memory protection (for old apps, each would be launched in a dedicated instance of its box to not crash the rest).
- support for more than 1.8GB of RAM.
- use of the Qbox.
- multicore support.
- multi-user support.
- full Vulkan and OpenGL support for recent or integrated cards.
- support for hardware video decoding and encoding integrated into modern GPUs (VP9, x265, h264...).
- more printer drivers.
- port of LibreOffice integrated into the OS like IRIS and Wayfarer (it's the last office brick I'm missing).
- of course, MorphOS would still be as light and fast.

All available to celebrate Christmas 2024. I accept February 2025 for my birthday.

Thanks !

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You made my day with this post! :)

Any NEWS?

I've heard some rumors that MOS team is working on MorphOS 3.19. But don't quote me on that

> I've heard some rumors that MOS team is working on MorphOS 3.19.
> But don't quote me on that

Of course they are working on 3.19. Every bug fix commited to the MorphOS repository that takes place after the release of 3.18 automatically constitutes work on 3.19.

Edit: slight correction (thanks geit)

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 09.10.2024 - 02:09 ]

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To be the nitpicker here. This is not true. Several changes only apply to MorphOS 3.20, as 3.19 is considered to be just a bug-fix update, even so we broke that rule in the past several times.

> 3.19 is considered to be just a bug-fix update

Yes, 'bug fix', not 'change'. Thanks, corrected.

> Several changes only apply to MorphOS 3.20

Yes, you are obviously already working on 3.20 :-)

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Two more weeks.

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Nah you‘ll have to wait for M-Day.

Great to see that MorphOS is moving along.

I'm much more interested in the applications being developed at this point.

I rely heavily on Iris, PolyOrga, VPDF, Wayfarer, and a bunch of other programs. Most of them are very actively developed and that is the value of MorphOS.

Sure, new killer hardware and OS Update, would make my day to day even faster... But for most things the 2.5 is more that fast enough... So back to the applications :)

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I absolutely agree with you, most important also to me are applications for that great MorphOS

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What hardware you run MorphOS on?
I got MacMini 1,5GHz and it's slow and limited. It's not enough for me.
And I don't like laptops, notebooks at all, so PowerMac isn't my object of desire. Same with PowerMac G5. It's a large, haevy and overcooked crap.

>> for most things the 2.5 is more that fast enough...

> What hardware you run MorphOS on? [...] PowerMac isn't my object of desire.
> Same with PowerMac G5. It's a large, haevy and overcooked crap.

He's never grown tired of praising it, for example:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=13502&start=41 (#42f)
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=13603&start=14 (#15)
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=53&topic_id=13686&start=7 (#8)

@Andreas_Wolf wrote:

And you never get tired of quoting others. :)

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The best hardware I have found for heavy use, as I do most of my productivity and work almost completely on it. It is a PCIe Single PowerMac that I took the 2.5 GHz processor from a Dual processor liquid cooled system and put it in an air cooled single processor. Drive two monitors one 4k and other 1080p. Chris Edwards and Acill both use the exact same system, you can check out Chris's video to see what he does on it and Acill will demo it at AmiWest.

The single processor is a lot cooler than the 2 processor system and since MorphOS only sees the one core, this seems to be the best way to go for the time being... Thanks to Andreas you have some links to crawl...

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Sorry. I meant a MacBook of course.

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I figured :)

The PowerBook 17 is a bit ackqward to drag around for work, as I have done for a few years. In hindsight the 15 would be a better size.

Having owned the PowerMac for a daily driver for years and initially not liking apple hardware. I have really learned to appreciate that it is very well built and very reliable. So yes it is a decent size (smaller and lighter than my 3000T however) and it runs relatively cool for what it is. Given it is the fastest we can get, I live with it.

> you never get tired of quoting others. :)

In my experience, quoting what one refers to specifically with one's reply is how written communication works best. Forum conversations can quickly get confusing with more participants and several points per participant. Quoting simply keeps misunderstandings at a minimum.

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Powerbook 17 G4: 39,2 x 2,54 x 25,9 cm
Powerbook 15 G4: 34,8 cm x 2,8 x 24,1 cm

I found the sizes to be shockingly similar despite the significant difference in terms of display.


Even a modern 16-inch Macbook Pro has a very similar width and length despite the smaller display. (It's certainly thinner though.)

Macbook Pro 16: 35,57 cm x 1,68 x 24,81