boot_wb,
Quote:

Your guess is as good as mine. My shorter term guess is based on my belief that the two "Proof of Concept" demonstrations that were shown for the dual 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac, and the 2.1GHz G5 iMac, show that the at least one or two of the MorphOS Dev. Team members have an interest and an understanding of what it took to get MorphOS to boot on those two G5 models. This encourages me because if they can figure out how to do those presentations, I am hopeful that the amount of work to support the G5 is less than some people might think and that some of that work has already been at least partially completed, or the demonstrations could never have happened. As another member here pointed out, all of the work on video card drivers, will transfer directly to support for those same video cards being used in the G5 PowerMac's.

What it really boils down to is what the MorphOS Dev. Team wants to support next. Only those Team members can really know how much work is already done, from when the demonstrations were presented.

I was not at any of the shows where Big Foot, or other Team members demonstrated MorphOS booting on any G5 system, so I can't say how much, or how little work was completed,just to get it booting.

Did they boot from a USB stick, a CD, or from a SATA hdd?

It could be that much less work was needed to do those "Proof of Concept" demonstrations than I had hoped was already done. Just more of my wishful thinking that more is done and less needs to be completed, so G5 support could be provided for MorphOS.

I still think that it would be better for everyone, if the MorphOS Dev. Team decides to move to x86 and/or ARM, that they do it with the AROS developers, instead of in competition with them. They can even do it alongside them with their own MorphOS fork of AROS. To start over from scratch with a new x86 and/or ARM creation would be a mistake, in my opinion.

I do understand why many MorphOS users want MorphOS to move to x86 and/or ARM now, instead of later.

@serge,

I understand that any implementation of multi-processor support for OS4.x, or MorphOS3.x, would not be true SMP and therefore might actually be crap. But as you wrote, it might be better than nothing, if it can provide a small boost in performance, or usability on systems with dual G4's. It might not be worth the effort to even create it, but since Hyperion have virtually promised to provide it to OS4.x users, I am sure they will complete something and we can then evaluate if it is useful at all, or complete waste of time and effort. We will have to wait and see.

The context switching was a killer on the slow Phase5 boards of the past (slow compared to what is available today). Now with today's modern components and CPU's that are orders of magnitude faster than those on the Phase5 boards, maybe the context switching won't be as noticeable at slowing down the system, compared to the added processing power a second core of the 1.8GHz PA6T can provide (or a second 1.42GHz to 1.8GHz G4 could provide on a MorphOS3.x system, if the same kind of AMP were implemented. The MorphOS Dev. Team can wait and see if what Hyperion comes up with is worth the effort, before they decide to copy their efforts, or come up with a better AMP solution).

Other members here are probably right and the MorphOS Dev. Team will choose to move to x86 and/or ARM, instead of wasting any more time and effort on PPC, or less than perfect AMP strategies.

I just wonder how "Amiga" like they will be able to keep MorphOS after such a move. The "Legacy" layer that provides backward compatibility might be like a virtual machine, or some kind of seamless integration of UAE to make it invisible to the user.

The most important question is how can the MorphOS Dev. Team find more users and developers? They have not done much in the past, as MorphOS has not really been ready for non-Amiga users. I think it is polished enough to compete with Linux for people that are willing to put up with some missing features and who are interested in different operating systems.

[ Edited by amigadave 07.03.2012 - 11:54 ]