For me the best way to have a good office suite is to switch on morphos 4 X64 or Arm or booth as fast as possible.
Why ?? Just because of endianess issues. Think that on X64 Morphos we will have a nearly 10 times faster processor and a javascript jit for owb, so cloud offices will be really amazing ! And libreoffice is to be cloudified like ms office. For me it will be better to work on one main application, the web browser. Think of hardware accelerated Cairo, Tynigl or Mesa support for canvas....it could be great.
Without endianess issues mainy ports will be easier.. like mupen64,pcsx or uae jit,or even os4 emulation on morphos ...FS UAE..

Ok i dream, but with a genius like Bigfoot in the team everything is possible....

[ Edited by acepeg 14.06.2017 - 23:19 ]

> Without endianess issues mainy ports will be easier.. like [...] uae jit,
> or even os4 emulation on morphos ...FS UAE..

There is an m68k-to-PPC JIT compiler for UAE. Besides, this is not really an endianess issue as UAE's m68k-to-x86 and PPC-to-x86 JIT compilers wouldn't even work on little-endian PPC, obviously.

Quote:

I do like his idea that concentrating on perfecting the OWB/Odessey browser will open up a ton of cloud based programs or applications, including office software. Having a great web browser, or dare I say the "best" web browsing experience on MorphOS for x64 would make it stand out to many people, who are not currently MorphOS users. I am not a fan of moving everything to the "Cloud", and prefer to have my software and data files all on my own hdd, or ssd, but I do agree that many programs or applications have moved, and continue to move to cloud based and/or subscription payment solutions. If Libre Office moves to a cloud based application, I hope it remains free to use.

Endianess issues might not affect certain things that you have mentioned, but I'm sure switching endian will open up a lot of software to possible ports that were not feasible on PPC, due to the amount of work that over coming the endian problem would have caused developers. (Yeah, I know I am just stating the obvious)

Edit: I hope that once MorphOS for x64 is completed, one of the things that makes it stand out when compared to Linux and Windows, or MacOSX, is the way it shines during multi-tasking. IMO, Windows still sucks at multi-tasking most of the time. Even after all these years since it was first introduced on Windows, MacOSX, and Linux (don't know if Linux has had multi-tasking from day one), they don't seem to be as good at multi-tasking as the original 7MHz A1000 & A500 are/were at multi-tasking. I don't use MacOSX currently, but with my new iPhone SE arriving later today (if Verizon is accurate on their delivery date), I'm going to see how my Intel powered MacMini runs the latest version of MacOSX, and if it runs good, I'll be doing all, or most of my web browsing and email activities from MacOSX in the near future (until MorphOS gets updated and begins to do those tasks better than MacOSX in the future). Not being a Linux user, I don't remember how well it multi-tasks, but I would be surprised if it is better than the multi-tasking of AmigaOS1.x through 3.x on 68k hardware or FPGA.

[ Edited by amigadave 15.06.2017 - 08:55 ]

I'd agree with David on this, Windows really does bog down when you ask it to do a lot.
Which is particularly frustrating on multi-core systems.

That's why I hope our current focus on lightweight, streamlined operation continues.
With the right kernel, our future OS ought to be much more responsive than the competition.

> I would be utterly happy if there were some program [...]
> to read and write document files in [...] excel.

https://blog.alb42.de/2019/06/02/its-a-leu/ can view and edit XLS, XLSX and ODS files.

Now also TCD (TurboCalc) files:
https://blog.alb42.de/2019/06/08/libre-turbocalc/

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 08.06.2019 - 22:27 ]

I was forced to use LibreOffice when my old employer's account for Microsoft Office expired.

It's... well, hard to describe fairly. Obviously it's far more powerful than most office packages (especially free ones), but it's slow and clunky, has some UI design issues (Calc cell borders are a real pain trying to do proper work) and strangely lacks the occasional simple feature while covering a lot more obscure ones. The one that bit me last week was trying to put a line break every 80 chars so an exported textfile would be readable in readers that didn't support word wrap. It just couldn't do it.

Better than nothing at worst, an excellent free office package at best, but if it's slow on an i7 with a high end graphics card, I hate to think what it'll run like on a G4.

Quote:

I didn't like it either. But then, I get tired of all the constant changes to Word.
They've had it working well for about 20 years now.
But any version of Word from about 2000 up, I can use without much adaption.

Libre/Open Office's word processor? Calling it clunky is being kind.

It would be nice to have a good word processor under MorphOS, but I don't even use Linux for word processing.

I just pull out a Windows laptop.

Hey, even under OSX or MacOS I can use Word, even on older PPC Macs.

My primary concern is keeping OWB/Odyssey up to date.
I spend far more time on the internet than I do editing documents.

And for simple code editing a WYSIWYG word processor is actually a hindrance, so we have editors that will cover that.

> https://blog.alb42.de/2019/06/02/its-a-leu/ [...]
> https://blog.alb42.de/2019/06/08/libre-turbocalc/

Dedicated site:
https://blog.alb42.de/programs/leu/

Interesting note:
"X5000s CPU is not compatible with any FreePascal program at the moment"

Is this only true for OS4 or also for MorphOS on X5000?

No quotes for this comment. I've already stated my opinion about Open Office.
Were it available under MorphOS, I'd still use Word under OSX or Windows.
I do agree that multitasking under popular OS' is crude. That is primarily related to their monolithic kernel structure.
I started using micro kernel OS' with the 6809, I've used them in process control OS', and in MorphOS.
As long as the X64 version of MorphOS continues to be based on an enhanced version of Quark, we will have an advantage that even AmigaOS does not have.
And btw, multitasking under Amiga OS was always a hit or miss matter.
Or has everyone forgotten those irritating 'guru meditation' crashes?

It's about time we stopped worrying about legacy and started to focus on what MorphOS could become.
After all, your most powerful Amiga has always been an X86 system running UAE or Amithlon.

While I can understand retaining some of the 3.1 API, whatever doesn't work in an X64 version of MorphOS should be jetisoned.
We can run legacy code the same way Windows, OSX, or Linux does, via UAE.

I can't wait to see what our developers come up with. Particularly what Mark, Frank, and Michal come up with for our video subsystems.

I don't understand this bizarre fascination with the Amiga.
It dead, Jim.

And unless we want to follow that trajectory, we need to evolve.
Isn't that what the name of our OS implies, metamorphosis?

We've got a good base with our current OS, go 32 or 64 bit, adopt a little endian ISA, memory protection, better OpenGL and graphics support and we got a winning combination.



[ Edited by Jim 26.06.2019 - 21:41 ]

> multitasking under Amiga OS was always a hit or miss matter.
> Or has everyone forgotten those irritating 'guru meditation' crashes?

Yes, that's the price to pay for having multitasking without memory protection, no matter the kernel type.

> I can't wait to see what [...] Mark, Frank, and Michal come up with for our video subsystems.

Is Michal available again?

> I don't understand this bizarre fascination with the Amiga.

Yes, that much has become obvious ;-)

> go 32 or 64 bit, adopt a little endian ISA, memory protection, better OpenGL
> and graphics support and we got a winning combination.

Don't forget SMP support :-)

Quote:
Let's call it Haiku...

>> multitasking under Amiga OS was always a hit or miss matter.
>> Or has everyone forgotten those irritating 'guru meditation' crashes?

> Yes, that's the price to pay for having multitasking without memory protection, no matter the kernel type.

My own experience points to microkernels as being better equipped to handle rogue processes.
That said. Without memory protection there is always the possibility of kernel coruption.

>> I can't wait to see what [...] Mark, Frank, and Michal come up with for our video subsystems.

>Is Michal available again?
Keiro? I don't know, I don't ask anyone about the status of the development team. I didn't even know Ralph was still active until I exchanged messages with him about a key file.

>> I don't understand this bizarre fascination with the Amiga.

> Yes, that much has become obvious

Actually, maybe I do. Why else would I have so much older hardware laying around.
And while my family has a Nintendo Switch to play with, I've got a CD32 in my den.

>> go 32 or 64 bit, adopt a little endian ISA, memory protection, better OpenGL
>> and graphics support and we got a winning combination.

> Don't forget SMP support

Definately not, I've been trying to draw proposals out of the OS9 community for the same thing.
We've begun to use the same MiSTer hardware that many Amigans have adopted, however we also have the advantage of a native ARM port for the two core ARM CPU built into the DE10 nano.

The possibility of coding across the 6809, 68K, and ARM on one platform intrigues me.

One of my main issues with MorphOS has been the learning curve with the 3.1 API and the additional features of MorphOS, and that it's kind of pointless to start writing with a 68K assembler again.

At least with MiSTer, I'll be able to start at a point closer to where I stopped.
And maybe I'll use the system to explore legacy Amiga structure some more.

The pity is it puts my DE1 on the shelf, but I've had my fun with that.

[ Edited by Jim 30.06.2019 - 18:25 ]

Quote:

Oh hell, no!
Don't drag me back to BeOS again, please!

Even AmigaOS stands a better chance at resurgence than that.

Closing my more contentious points, again, I'm confident we have a clean OS.
A couple of years in tRumps US is enough to make anyone a little pararoid.

>>> I can't wait to see what [...] Mark, Frank, and Michal come up with for our video subsystems.

>> Is Michal available again?

> Keri?

I thought the 'Michal' you mentioned is the one called Kiero ;-)

Quote:
Misspelling due to an autocorrect function I missed. Sorry, I'll fix that. And yes, I know, you've mentioned it before.

> I'll fix that.

Seems this didn't work so well ;-)

Quote:

BeOS: Amiga done right. ;)

Addendum:

> Interesting note:
> "X5000s CPU is not compatible with any FreePascal program at the moment"
>
> Is this only true for OS4 or also for MorphOS on X5000?

"Why my Programs does not work on AmigaOS4 X5000? The problem is, that FreePascal itself does not know the X5000 CPU, and it seems to be not a normal PowerPC, but needs some special care. I heard something about special alignment problems. I don’t have a X5000, Charlie doesn’t have a X5000 and we do not know whats special about it to fix that issue. Besides, we both are not really using OS4, we both use [...] MorphOS [...]. [...] If you are interested in Pascal and Amiga(OS4) and want to help with the compiler doing a better job on X5000 [...] you can just do it, it’s open source, send us a patch."
https://blog.alb42.de/2020/05/30/freepascal-and-x5000/

I have a feeling this doesn't really answer the question, does it? ;-)

But this does:

"I'd like to fix Free Pascal's code generator to work properly on the X5000 on AmigaOS4. [...] My guess is that OS4's kernel doesn't provide a full compatibility with the standard 603/G3 instruction set via emulation, esp. when it comes to various FPU alignment restrictions. (MorphOS might also affected partly, but its kernel is more robust in this regard.)"
https://twitter.com/chainq/status/1276276393610002433
https://twitter.com/chainq/status/1276277113474220033


Edit: Finally solved:

"this issue, or at least the worst of it is now fixed in Free Pascal SVN trunk. As usual, the issue was solved with the help of a MorphOS Developer. They provided remote access to an X5000. [...] It was some optional optimization in some memory copy/fill routine, which only works on a subset of PowerPCs - primarily the ones shipped by Apple back then - as it assumes a certain cache line size. This optimization should have been disabled for OS4, but it wasn't. [...] Meanwhile, it was also uncovered, that FPC's PowerPC code generator doesn't really respect a set of FPU data access alignment restrictions, but these are normally hid by the OS via exception handling. These to be fixed soon."
https://twitter.com/chainq/status/1286752510313668612
https://twitter.com/chainq/status/1286926079027011584
https://twitter.com/chainq/status/1286927164303200256

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 18.09.2020 - 22:39 ]