Hi all,

I am interested in alternative operating systems, and I have created a comparison of different operating systems, including MorphOS: https://eylenburg.github.io/os_comparison.htm

As I don't have any PPC hardware I can't test MorphOS, so all the information I put in are based on what I've found online. So I'm a bit worried that I got some things wrong. For example I have no way of checking myself whether Whatsapp Web or Zoom work in Wayfarer or not (the later I assumed "no" because even Safari isn't fully supported).

So, please could let me know if I made any mistakes regarding MorphOS?

I can't speak for MorphOS but your info on AROS is out of date. I would suggest going to each of the 3 clones main community sites and getting as much info as possible about them all.

> please could let me know if I made any mistakes regarding MorphOS?

Depends on what you regard as "MorphOS", i.e. just what comes on the MorphOS ISO image or also what's available/installable from 3rd parties.

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https://library.morph.zone/Mounting_Network_Drives
http://aminet.net/package/comm/tcp/AmigaCloudHandlers

That might not work anymore(I don't use it) but that's handlers for using google drive and dropbox on MorphOS, AmigaOS and AROS.

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Where's the darn like button. :(

I'm generally limiting it to what the OS supports without third-party software, or in the "app" section whatever is officially supported by the developer (with a bit of an exception if the "official" app runs on another OS, e.g. the official Nextcloud app ported on FreeBSD).

This is because otherwise I'd have to keep track of all the software that's available by third parties (e.g. the Dropbox tool linked above - I'd have to check regularly whether it's still working or not).

Another example is file systems - you can probably read/write any file system on Windows or Linux if you get the right third-party drivers for it. It's very hard to keep track of this. New software is released, existing software stops working etc.

Of course the line is a bit blurred, e.g. the Webkit homepage says it runs on MacOS and Linux, so MorphOS (= Wayfarer) is not "officially supported". Yet it has been ported and runs and it's important to note that.

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What info do mean specifically? I only mention AROS briefly, saying it has 64-bit support and simultaneous multithreading and that it doesn't have a modern browser (best being OWB from 2016 based on Webkit from 2013).

Couple of quick notes...

CPU compatibility: Does it count that MorphOS runs on G5 CPUs which are 64bit? Even though binaries aren't 64bit :)

Multi-touch: Besides the 2-finger scroll it also supports clicking (left button) and two fingers right button click (couple of variations of it).

64-bit support: What kind of support this means? There's some 64-bit support in OS components... like filesystem and IO operations.

Full disk encryption: Do Kryptos encrypted disks count? Although you probably can't encrypt the system partition...

Software license: some parts of MorphOS are open source: Source Code Releases

MySQL or PostgreSQL: Does SQLite count?

Can run other OS's apps: MorphOS can run AmigaOS applications (68k, PPC/WarpOS, and PPC/PowerUP).


And yes, if 3rd party solutions can be added, then there will be much more to add.

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The AROS version of Odyssey uses a revision of Webkit that was released in July 2015 (r187682).

The main benefit is that it supports "Javascript ES6" whereas the MorphOS and OS4 versions of Odyssey are stuck with the 6 years older "Javascript ES5". (Wayfarer is a different story, of course.)

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You can try to make a test with QEMU, it is the same than on a real PPC hardware but or your article cans a help.

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Not quite. You do not have "enhanced layers" support so there are no window shadows, and so on.

> best being OWB from 2016 based on Webkit from 2013

As you're saying the same for OS4 on your page: Odyssey for OS4 got several updates in 2020 and another two half a year ago actually.

http://www.os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=network/browser/odyssey.lha
http://kas1e.mikendezign.com/aos4/odyssey_betas/

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Thank you, I made some changes:
- Changed that it only runs on 32-bit PPC to running on legacy PPC (because of course the G5 is quite old an MorphOS doesn't support IBM Power8/9/10 systems)
- mentioned AmigaOS compatibility
- mentioned 2-finger taps
- Smaller changes to wording
On the license I think unless the whole product is open source, it basically doesn't count. E.g. the base of macOS and iOS, Darwin, is open source but all the higher layers of code are not.

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Newer POWER-family-(ish) chips are also supported (like QorIQ 5020/5040 or AMCC 460ex) - used in AmigaOne X5000 and SAM460ex respectively - still in production AFAIR.

[ Edited by koszer 09.07.2022 - 10:27 ]

>> running on legacy PPC (because of course the G5 is quite
>> old an MorphOS doesn't support IBM Power8/9/10 systems)

> Newer POWER-family-(ish) chips are also supported (like
> QorIQ 5020/5040 or AMCC 460ex) - used in AmigaOne X5000
> and SAM460ex respectively - still in production AFAIR.

By now there're 3 main generations of Power(PC) cores: PowerPC up to v2.02, Power from v2.03 to v2.07B and Power from v3.0 up. The question is what's considered legacy Power(PC): everything up to v2.02, which means MorphOS also runs on non-legacy Power(PC), or everything up to v2.07B, which means MorphOS only runs on legacy Power(PC).

OS/2 "VMS-like"?
Very unlikely, it was written by IBM.