I first heard about morph in the early days of the first ppc cards...
which I couldn't afford at the time. Much later.

Enter AmigaDave at Amiwest...I saw him demo morph on a mac. Since my family has various macs I thought I would try it.

I discovered our macs were the wrong ones... but for one, a mac mini 1.5
but I had to wait for morph for the mac mini. When that happened one family member insisted for dual boot. Got that worked out. Then wanted more software.
Discovered Papasuar's collection. (which would not install due to the hard drive sizing)
Then that family member wanted the mac mini back, i bought a quicksilver, which did not have a radeon card (didn't know that at the time, Learned later)
the story continues...

So, MorphOS was not easy, lots of other stuff got in the way.

It would have helped if there was a missing manual!

But FIRST, a doc/faq "If you want to try morph, you need this!"

Quote:

Well, it has been there forever: http://www.morphos-team.net/hardware

Let me point out (again)!!!
You have to KNOW about a web site before it does you any good!

I made my living as a photo/video pro, I have set up lots of different computers and systems... not to mention various software.

If I want to make it work, IT works!
If it's takes too much effort, I just give up and use what works for me.
Often others follow my advise. (big hint)

MorphOS devs put too much "faith" in I wrote something, it's on the web, it's not my fault you can't find it.

It's not about playing sherlock...it's about sharing a fine body of work that MorphOS is. But you assume too much about the end user.

No wonder there's only a couple of thousand reg users.

Give me credit! I have morph running on several machines NOW!

M

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[ Edited by sacc-user 15.08.2013 - 00:57 ]

I think you have a point. How about adding information of required hardware and places to look for information/manuals in the read-me that comes with the ISO? That would surely be where people starts to look when they feel lost in the beginning.

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Uh, how can you even download the OS if you don't know its website? I guess nowadays everyone starts by reading OS's website when going for a new OS. And especially with this marginal system. You must guess that it can't support every bit in the world. At least I dig out every detail to be sure what is supported etc for every new system I try or at least if I'm going to put money on it.

And secondly the main MorphOS.readme on the CD and on the installed system in the very root dir of it tells you the site's URL. It also tells about supported gfx cards in the very first paragraph. You can't miss it if you download the CD...

I wonder where the information should be then?

@jPV

Graphic cards, yes, but there are other pieces of hardware worth noticing there I believe.

And it does refer to the FAQ at the homepage. Maybe some additions would be a good idea. Online manuals, forums such as Morphzone and such. Something helping the complete beginner to get started.

Just my 2 cents.

sigh...I did not start with a download. I had a cd copy from Amiwest.
see you assumed (again)
I remember what I did. I went home, booted up my mac, inserted the cd and as I was told, rebooted holding down the "c" key.

That's the true start of the learning effort.
I did in fact read these docs "after the fact"

I NOW know about the hardware, the web sites, etc, etc. Thanks.

Even Jim, said I forgot to say "go to the library" in this thread.
He also helped, by explaining even offering to sell me stuff I needed.

Since I don't not live and breath morph, I often just passed on "issues"
Because of this, it took years for me to get really interested.

Therefore, Thanks again to AmigaDave, who patiently explained each and every time I asked him a question.

He never said: it's been on the web forever.


Quote:

> I went home, booted up my mac, inserted the cd and as I was told, rebooted holding down the
> "c" key. That's the true start of the learning effort. I did in fact read these docs "after the fact"

Question is (which jPV has asked before but didn't get an answer) what you think the MorphOS Team should have done to make you read the docs on the CD "before the fact" or to make you otherwise aware of "the fact". Do you have a reasonable and feasible suggestion?

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Right, 42

Okay, I just loaded my 3.1 cd in my win7 machine, clicked open to read files... most readable was a file called Important, something about ide.
no morphos readme file apparent. clicked around into docs, still no read me.

So, I loaded the 3.1 cd into our mac mini, clicked to open all files, again
just the important file. No visible morphos readme.

Reboot the mac mini, held down the "c" key, morph booted into the WELCOME screen/window, there's a read me button at the bottom left. Clicked to open.
That read me has all the important stuff.

But since it booted, I didn't need it to tell me about the graphics card...
because it was working!!!

But with the quicksilver, I never got to -see- the welcome screen because it didn't work. (nvidia card was swapped out later, then it worked)
I really didn't know that macs came with different video card at the time.

real answer

The WELCOME TO MORPHOS read me should be text only file that can be read on the pc/open cd to see all files and on the mac/open cd to read all files.

end answer

If I had read that, I might/would have known to just replace the nvidia card and then booted in to morph without the WTF issues.

sigh

and if you are going to continue to depend on the web pages. Then the welcome to morph front page should...
Please consider placing a banner at the bottom saying "really really read this, morph will only run on etc so it doesn't make you crazy"

M




[ Edited by sacc-user 15.08.2013 - 15:32 ]

Quote:

The file you need is visible to all operating systems (I just checked with Linux, OSX 10.8 and a Windows XP VM) and is in the root of the CD, it's called MorphOS.readme

I would say "You really can't miss it", but obviously you did. ;)

Quote:

Old saying "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink"

I did say no apparent file, on my win7 machine, it did not open and needed to be started with something like notepad. TOO MUCH Work for beginners who are
now used to buy, plug in, use!

I too, am now too tried to keep trying to have the morphzone understand.
It's not as easy as you think, and if you want more morphos users...
it must be get "ouchless"

too much circle thinking, the OP had it right, we newbies see things.

M

I know I could have, and should have been a better presenter of MorphOS at each of the AmiWest Shows where I have displayed MorphOS to the people attending the show, but I figured some kind of representation was better than none, so I continued to do it each year, always asking for more MorphOS users, or any of the Dev. Team members to show up and help.

I am a poor example of a MorphOS user and still have much to learn myself, but I have done the best I could to get the word out about what MorphOS was and what it was capable of doing. I have tried to answer all questions asked of me, but have not anticipated all the problems new users might run into, or made a point of making sure they knew where to find the answers they need when I am not around to answer their questions. I will try to do a better job in the future for new users.

The one thing I have always pointed out to everyone is that MorphOS is not for everyone, and it is not necessarily an easy OS to start out on, if you have no experience with AmigaOS previously. I also believe that because most of the existing MorphOS users and developers are the most advanced Amiga users from the past, they also do not often think of ways to present MorphOS in a way that is easiest for new users to understand, as they assume too much is already known by new users who are current or former Amiga users.

I have been asked to help out with creating updated documentation for MorphOS, but sadly have not found the motivation to help in that area yet, as great improvements could be made in that area that would make entry into the world of MorphOS much easier. I am sure that such documentation will come in time, but it is a tedious task that very few people have the patience to sit down and complete. There are much more fun ways to spend your time than documenting how an OS works and what features it has. The documentation that we do have, I believe is good, but we just need more of it and parts of it need updating for the changes that have been made over the last 5 to 8 years.

Maybe who ever takes over for me at AmiWest will do a better job at preparing visual aids that provide more information to new people interested in finding out what MorphOS is all about.

No offence, but if you can't pop a cd into a Mac or Windows machine and open a plain ASCII text file then I'm not sure any Amigalike OS is for you.

MorphOS and likewise the Amiga OS is VERY different to mainstream OS's. Expect to struggle and expect it to be a big learning curve.

There are things with MorphOS I don't always get immediately and I've been using Amigas for 24yrs.

First rule of the internet applies to MorphOS and Amigas, "Google is ALWAYS your friend".

#morphos on freenode is always full of friendly and knowledgeable people.

Same goes for this place too.

If you are stuck just ask and people will fall over each other to help you.

Feel free to private message me and I'll always try to help you or anyone else who asks.

Quote:

Offense taken. You're making major assumpions (again)

I never reported WHAT I could do!
BTW, I bought my 1st Amiga1000 in Jan86.

I read the OP and reported what happened!

Thanks anyway, I have been running, building, repairing, classic amigas, OS4, windows, macs, yes even morphos...

I was trying to help you morphers understand some of the issues new users face.

This is why we need people like amigadave, he's a translator

M

sacc-user,
Quote:

Quote:

Only way to make it working in Windows would be renaming file to .txt or perhaps supplying PDF instead. There is no way to force Windows to open .readme file on a right tool automatically.

But even if it was renamed to .txt file it would have to be written with MS-DOS linefeeds (easy to forget on Amiga) or Notepad wont display it correctly. And assuming that everyone has installed PDF plugin to Windows is another assumption more.

Re: The most appropriate text file format... How about html?

Another thing I'd like to see in html is the developer documentation. It'd be kind of neat to have the current dev docs available to browse online.

> I just loaded my 3.1 cd in my win7 machine, clicked open to read files... [...]
> no morphos readme file apparent. [...] I loaded the 3.1 cd into our mac mini,
> clicked to open all files, again [...] No visible morphos readme.

Okay, that's bad.

>> Question is [...] what you think the MorphOS Team should have done to make
>> you read the docs on the CD "before the fact" or to make you otherwise aware
>> of "the fact". Do you have a reasonable and feasible suggestion?

> The WELCOME TO MORPHOS read me should be text only file that can be read
> on the pc/open cd to see all files and on the mac/open cd to read all files.

It is an ASCII file already but problems with displaying the file may occur on certain operating systems due to the .readme suffix and the line break encoding, as itix stated. I favour ausPPC's suggestion to additionally provide the information in an HTML file which would remedy both problems.

> if you are going to continue to depend on the web pages. Then the welcome to
> morph front page should... Please consider placing a banner at the bottom saying
> "really really read this, morph will only run on etc so it doesn't make you crazy"

I don't think that once you've found the MorphOS website, going Homepage -> Overview -> Hardware Compatibility (i.e. 2 clicks) is too much to ask of anyone.

ausPPC,

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Makes sense to me.

Quote:

I agree. Now the documentation is not that good (lot of pieces missing you have to fill with Commodore development kit) but personally I find it easier search pages and functions using Google than Multiview.

@itix

How about one in HTML and one .readme? I like the .readme.

My 2 cents.

Quote:

I agree with the part that too much is assumed that the new user have previous experience with Amiga. I think this is a shame since MOS is a good enough OS in itself to attract other people who are just mainly into wierd OS:es. Take Linux that requires a lot of the user to learn in order to use. People actually take their time learning it because there are books and online tutourials for that purpouse. There's no reason that we can not get new MOS users by doing the same.

Me and a couple of others at morphosnordic.se have talked about such a project, but right now we are all busy with more pressing matters. But it's still something we would like to continue since we think there is a real need for some good guides for new users.

Quote:

So you have 27 years experience of using Amiga's where the defacto standard for documentation is AppName.readme but didn't think to look on the disc for this file?

Given this experience I genuinely cannot understand why.

I can't understand why you didn't google for the word MorphOS when you got stuck and navigate the morphos-team.net website for instructions?

The first thing I did before I even bought my PowerBook a couple of months ago was check the website for supported hardware and installation instructions.

Isn't googling for information the first thing everyone does no matter what the problem/subject? Even my 60odd year old parents go to google for everything.

What stopped you from doing the same? If you did actually do this, then what is the problem?

> How about one in HTML and one .readme? I like the .readme.

Same here. As said in an earlier posting, the HTML file should be an addition, not a substitute. I'm sure there's still enough room for that in the ISO image file ;-)

> Take Linux that requires a lot of the user to learn in order to use. People actually
> take their time learning it because there are books [...] for that purpouse. There's
> no reason that we can not get new MOS users by doing the same.

You can see that there's a commercial market for books on how to master Linux. I doubt there's a commercial market for books on MorphOS, unless by "books" you mean non-commercial PDF documents a user can print out if he desires.

Quote:

I'd think it's good to keep .readme in root and HTML version in Docs or Docs/HTML dir. Same could contain compatibility list too for example...

Quote:

+1

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I mean an actual, physical book. A bounty or a kickstarter could pay for the pressing to keep the costs down to a reasonable level. It's just too tiresome to read things on a screen, especially if it's the same screen you are using to try MOS out.

Quote:

No need for kickstarter.

The team could piece together the various docs already existing into one document then print on demand from http://lulu.com and/or publish to Kindle too.


[ Edited by Intuition 16.08.2013 - 17:06 ]