Hi All,

I am new to the MorphOS world. Sorry if I come across as an annoying newbie. But, I have become very excited about amiga for the first time in a while since reading all about MorphOS 2.0. I am really interested in buying an Efika board and running 2.0 on it.

I cannot seem to find any discussion or announcements about actual status or any guestimated ETAs. Anyone got anything like that?

Thanks!

Dave

[ Edited by jiffydos on 2007/8/3 6:44 ]

Hi Dave. It takes a bit of effort to follow MorphOS' progress, more than with any regular open source system. Recently, "Jacadcaps" has been posting here and there with small updates.
MorphOS 2.0 is closer than ever, but that's being said many times. It has been shown in action in recent meetings. Do a search in this site about "2.0", and relax. Also, BBRV's blog has some posts about this matter recently.

Could we gather a list of news about MorphOS 2.0 here? I would add the following:

- Will cost money (99 euros, IIRC).
- Will have some form of online registration system.
- Has different graphics functions, that allow for transparency, as can be seen on Geit's site.
- Has an early "startup menu", as can be seen on Geit's site.

Could you guys add elements, and correct these ones?

[ Edited by jcmarcos on 2007/6/19 15:57 ]

Well, I guess my next question then, is how about efika support? It it supported in 1.x? I don't want to buy an efika until I am sure I have something to run on it other than linux.

Efika is not supported in the current release, it is planned for the next release (whenever that appears :)), and has been shown running on several occasions. Just keep an eye on this site and you should know when it's available.

@jiffydos

Great to hear about your interest in MorphOS! I'm quite sure you'll love it whenever you can get a hold of it.

When is that?

Well, who knows...

IMHO the web communication situation from the MorphOS team is beyond embarrasing, I think it's *damaging*. But maybe that's just me; maybe there is a plan, and maybe things will change as soon as MorphOS 2.0 is released?

Whenever that may be...?

Quote:

I always thought you were familiar with this smiley:

icon_whendone.gif

Update:

- Release date: icon_whendone.gif.
- Will cost money (different amounts have been mentioned).
- Will have some form of online registration system.
- Does run on the Efika (it has been shown several times already).
- Will probably not run on Amigas with PPC accelerators (Jacek "jacadcaps" Pisczcek: "if you ever dreamed about some boxed MorphOS for your Amiga, better wake up now").
- Has different graphics functions, that allow for transparency, as can be seen on Geit's site.
- Has an early "startup menu", as can be seen on Geit's site.

[ Edited by jcmarcos on 2007/6/20 8:23 ]

Quote:

What I meant was that if it gets released, it would continue being released on the same terms as before and not as a boxed product. Well... maybe for already registered users only? Who knows...

Quote:

99e? I was hoping for no more than 50e. A bit too much for me

I agree.
50 EUR would be perfect.
But I guess that they need some money to keep going.

Quote:
You might want to add the fact, that the drawing is hardware accelerated. Transparency can look nice, but unless it's hardware accelerated (as it is in MOS2), it would also be significantly slower.

Also afaik, it's "real" transparency, meaning that If the contents of a window below others changes, the changes can actually be seen below the others. (f.ex. MOS1.4.x menu transparency isn't "real")

@ Jupp

Yes, the transparency is both "real" and done by the graphics card.

Quote:

Is everything offscreen buffered (like MacOS X AFAIK) and later composited onto the screen, ie. including visible parts of opaque layers which are also not hidden by any transparent layer?

If layers support per-pixel alpha, does the feature only work on 32 bit screens or also on ones with for example 16 bit depth?

My bet is that MorphOS 2.0 (or MUI 4, more precisely) has trown away all those clipping functions that were a nightmare in every windowed operating system until recent years: No more clipping, the contents of the windows are textures over rectangles, completely handled by the graphics card. MorphOS can have the blurb of "hardware accelerated windowing system". When windows are in fact 3D objects, imagine the amount of funny things you can do.
If this is correct, expect a much lower usage of the CPU (no more clipping functions), and more usage of graphicas card bandwith and memory.

I think it's premature to discuss any technical issues at this point. layers3d project is still young and I already have plans for even more revolutional changes ;)

jacek

That is exciting news. Are you familiar with Project Looking Glass? That sort of functionality would be really cool.

@ jacadcaps

As much as I appreciate yor revolutionary further changes, better keep them for MOS 2.1

Quote:

Looking Glass is cool indeed but unusable IMHO
Just some impressive eye candy but not suitable as a productive desktop concept :)

Have you actually tried it ? You can download it you know.

I thought it was great except it was too unstable.

These days compiz and beryl are where it's at if you want to see cutting edge desktops.

Quote:

sure, i do try it from time to time following progresses

Quote:

i've been using compiz then beryl for a long time now, but MacOSX desktop interface is still much better IMO (Leopard looks gorgeous btw)

WARNING, WARNING,

About the supposed price of MorphOS 2.0 most of you forget the exchange rate between monneys. A sum of 99 $ is not equal to a sum of 99 ?, same for a sum of 49 $ and a sum of 49 ?...

Check out www.xe.com or www.oanda.com in your native or preferred language for the exchange rate between us dollar and euro or other currencies if you do not live in europe.

Brumiga

[ Edited by Brumiga on 2007/6/22 13:50 ]

[ Edited by Brumiga on 2007/6/22 19:53 ]

[ Edited by Brumiga on 2007/6/22 19:53 ]

And keep in mind this is all speculation...

Update:

- Release date: icon_whendone.gif.
- Will cost money (different amounts have been mentioned).
- Will have some form of online registration system.
- Does run on the Efika (it has been shown several times already).
- Will probably not run on Amigas with PPC accelerators (Jacek "jacadcaps" Pisczcek: "if you ever dreamed about some boxed MorphOS for your Amiga, better wake up now").
- Has different graphics functions ("layers3d"), that allow for hardware accelerated transparency, as can be seen on Geit's site.
- Has Reggae integrated into Ambient (Grzegorz "Krashan" Kraszewski: "Yes, Reggae is a part of MorphOS 2.0. Most of Reggae decoders are faster than datatypes. If AltiVec is not available, Reggae switches to non-AltiVec routines. Reggae enabled Ambient uses datatypes too. If Reggae does not recognize a file, datatypes are the next try" (edited)).
- Has an early "startup menu", as can be seen on Geit's site.

@jcmarcos

You are aware that until now there haven't been a boxed MorphOS for PowerUP, and yet some people still manage to run it?

Quote:

Yes I am. I'm just compiling the scattered information about MorphOS 2.0. In this particular case of non-commercia PowerUP version, I'm just quoting Jacek "jacadcaps" Pisczek's words.