Quote:


Damn I ran the installer and rebooted, not it comes up to a gray screen with one of my pannels on the side and the title bar at the top says starting pegasosmixer, I amso see the time on the right side. I can move my mouse and do nothing else. It just sits at that state and never loads the mixer. HELP!!!

The installer and the archiv does not fit together ...
Copy the relevant files by hand after booting from
a MorphOS-CD ...

the files from syslibs belongs to mossys:libs
modules to mossys:ambient/modules
and c to mossys:c
and the missing png.alib/z.alib to mossys:ambient/libs.

Try my archive But it comes without installer.
Just copy all files to mossys:

http://my.morphosi.net/?modul=download&mode=Misc&project=Compiles

In Ingo's archives are missing 2 libraries png.alib and z.alib.
Try to boot from CD and install this complete Ambient 1.41 archive from Robin:

http://my.morphosi.net/?modul=download&mode=Misc&project=Compiles


[ Edited by luky-amiga on 2005/2/9 14:09 ]

argh, shame over me ;)

now i've added the missing files to the lha-archive

You guys rock!! Thanks muchly

Analogkid: It's OK, it was with good intent.
Did you try to rename some file via Ambient 1.41? It doesn't work for me


[ Edited by luky-amiga on 2005/2/9 14:26 ]

i can't rename files too and i can't edit mime preferences

@ jcmarcos

I don't know ...

1) If you read the IRC log and other sources you will know what the MorphOS head honchos thinks about important OS components (for instance MUI) not being MorphOS-unique. A desktop is a core component in a desktop OS (well, DUHH ), but now the (former?) MorphOS desktop Ambient has been released as open source and can be ported to any other Amiga-like operating system with more or less ease (probably less, but it's not all impossible). I can only guess how they feel about that.

2) MorphOS is a closed source, proprietary operating system. Ambient is nowadays the pure opposite to this. It's completely open, free for all to use in whatever way they want under the GPL license, which kind of disqualifies it as an official MorphOS component of this importance. How do you think Bill Gates would react if the Windows desktop Explorer was released as GPL by it's authors (well except mobilizing an army of lawyers (and rightly so) to sue their arses off)? So it's obviously a legal and licensing matter but it doesn't stop there, it's a business matter as well (which tangents to the point 1 above). A proprietary desktop OS needs it's own unique, proprietary desktop. GPL is impossible!

3) David Gerber is no longer interested in programming for MorphOS: "... That'll be without me, though. I just cannot morally do that. Which is why I decided to release Ambient as GPL so it can continue to live on. People are free to improve it or port it on other platforms, as long as the GPL requirements are met". I am not sure his role as Ambient programmer could easily be replaced, and I am not aware of any single sole even trying. This makes Ambient smell kind of dead, at least to my nose.

4) After reading what the MorphOS lead developers thinks about Gerber and his efforts with morphos.net, I must say I doubt he is particulary welcome in the team even if he wanted to continue.

My guess is that if MorphOS is to continue it's evolution as a desktop OS, it will need a new, proprietary desktop. I really think Ambient is out of the question at this point. Let's see what happens with Scalos. I don't know if this even is an ambition from the MorphOS team, but maybe Scalos can become something really relevant in this context eventually, and maybe some deal can be made there?

Perhaps someone will pick up the Ambient development as well and continue to release it as a third party desktop replacement? At least that should be easier to do now, with this stripped and downgraded version (despite its higher version number) that does no longer depend on un-released MorphOS 1.5 components?

My experience from Ambient has been mixed from the beginning. Sure, it looks pretty, but compared to even Workbench 3.1 it kind of sucks when it comes to functionality. In some areas more than other. I'm curious about this new version and I am looking forward to try it when I get home from work (maybe it will work fine as an interim solution while we are waiting for the next major OS update?), but I don't think of Ambient as some kind of holy grail. Not at all. It never was *that* good anyway, and if something better comes down the road I will be *happy* to upgrade. I see no point in using Ambient just for the sake of it.

BTW to those of you who already tried it - what were your experiences? What about stability, is it more stable or worse than v1.29? Some problems are reported here already, but are there others? In short: does the "Pros" win over the "Cons"?

Very well said takemehomegrandma. I completely agree with you.
Im eagerly awaiting Scalos, I like how the developer interacts with us. We need more of that kind.

[ Edited by hellbeard on 2005/2/9 15:51 ]

Quote:yeah, same here.
I certainly don't think it's wise to expect people to recomplie this stuff.

I mean, shouldn't we try to keep some sort of standard when it comes to the system files??

otherwise how can we expect to run other programs over that and hope to find out where the problems are?

@takemehomegrandma

if David Gerber isn't interested in coding for MOS anymore why did he release an update after he stated that ?

[ Edited by SoundSquare on 2005/2/9 17:04 ]

I have some trouble following your logic -- I think that any update to Ambient is welcomed by most..

@ SoundSquare

Quote:

This was a cut&paste from the latest source archive. It's his own words. Not that it changes anything, as far as I see it ...


@ volm

Quote:

It's welcomed by me too. I don't think you understood what I was talking about ...?

t seems stable so far.

The Pro's do win over the cons, for me, if only for the icon layout bug fixes and the limted mime abilities. but with a broken rename and other problems we may find soon; it may be best to wait if you do not have anything else for file managment etc (ie I use opus5 installed with the excellent magellen within ambient patch)

But the other than that there's no other advantages as far as I can see.

The new layout engine now orders the icons in correct A-Z but that's it, no date or size sorting options. And even more annoying, aside from the desktop icons it does not allow you to position icons manually (think window's 'auto arrange') and lays the out on a grid which is far to big for my icons (32x32) which means in order to see them all, the window must be sized to atleast two times the size it needs to be. As far as i can tell there is no way to either disable this feature or reduce the grid.

The list view is ok, but largely useless, it only displays file names in A-Z order. No other sorting options, no file size displays nothing just a list of files and no file management options not even those present in the icon veiw.

Another feature which baffles me is the thumbnail view which don't get me wrong is nice and works well (needs a caching feature though) but why they bothered to implement this when the list and icon views are so under-featured.

That's my current opinions off the top of my head right now and i need the loo, gotta run (fast) so byee

P.S. I understand it is unfinished, I am not complaining just letting people know what they are installing. Anyhoo I really need the loooo


[ Edited by MaSC on 2005/2/9 17:28 ]

[ Edited by MaSC on 2005/2/9 17:43 ]

takemehomegrandma:

# It's welcomed by me too. I don't think you understood what I was talking about ...?

----

Did you understand anything of it yourself ?

Gunne

If you install the new Ambient, copy def_jpg.info def_png.info def_mp3.info def_ogg.info etc. to ENVARC:sys/ to get those icons for those filetypes.

(Also copy them to ENV:sys/ to avoid reboot )

Darn, it just doesn't work here.... have to wait for the next release, I guess... :(

@ gunne

You are the third person that obviously didn't understand what I
wrote. I thought I was pretty clear, but perhaps I wasn't?

Make no mistake - I too welcome *any* upgraded MorphOS desktop, simply
because the one shipped with MorphOS 1.4 isn't quite good enough. Any
improvements to that one are great and much welcome probably by any
user. I never claimed different, did I?

My post was a reply to the one by jcmarcos. He suggested that even if
there may be *new* desktops available for MorphOS, he feels that
Ambient will win by default, since it is "belonging" to MorphOS.
Everyone is of course free to feel anyway they want about that, I just
tried to discuss four reasons to why Ambient these days may no longer
be an official and central part of MorphOS (feel free to comment these
four points, it was only one post to raise a discussion, not claiming
this to be facts at all), hence it may no longer "belong" to MorphOS.
At the same time - *if* MorphOS will be continued to be developed as a
desktop OS - a new official desktop may emerge, one that may offer the
same things as Ambient and perhaps more (in time), and then *that one*
may become the one "belonging" to MorphOS. That's all I wanted
to say really! I also gave my personal opinion that as long as there
are improved desktops coming to MorphOS, I don't really care if they
are called Ambient or something else. What matters to me is the
continuation of MorphOS as a desktop OS as well as the functionality
and behaviour of the desktop, not it's name nor it's author.

I only tried to discuss the situation based on the information I have
at hand. It was not my intention to offend anyone in any way. If you
(or anyone else) have information that none of the four points in my
post is true and that Ambient in fact continues to be an official and
central part of MorphOS and that it will officially be included in
future public releases of MorphOS, feel free to share that
information.

takemehomegrandma:

Yes, I did understand what you wrote. Was only trying to joking with you a little bit...

However I say it again, and also as what I have tried to say before - what MorphOS need is some useful applications.

If Ambient in itself is open source or propierty doesn't really matter at this time. As it is open source right now - that is the best. As what I also did understand there have been made a special agreement for certain libraries. This have been discussed also on morphos-news before. Thats also good. So everything right now is very fine and good as it is. Ambient - as a desktop envinronment - can be developed further under the license form it does exist in.

If things will change in the future - we will see when that happen.

All the best !

Gunne


[ Edited by gunne on 2005/2/9 23:17 ]

Quote:
I just hope it will be developed more "openly" than before - so that "normal" users won't waste time fixing bugs in Ambient that have been fixed by others long ago (but not released to the public)

Well first testresult for me so far,
Here my problems I encounterd:

Rename under Ambient doesn`t work.
System Settings don`t work (can someone confirm this?)
Dir size is allways zero, filesize is sometimes
shown in bytes, in MB it`s allways zero.
background images are trashed until it is loaded again.
WB-Startup doesnt work
(Oh and as I write, Ambient crashed, no idea why, i just moved an Icon ;D )
Mime types editing seems not to work for me, otoh text and image viewing works great with the integrated View utillity (imagine what this can be with improved mos media.. ah well)

I guess i forgot somethings.

on the pro side, there are several improvments like faster icon loading and nice fading icons, listview is back, (but i am a bit dissapointed, no sorting features, and I would have liked to see some kind of tree mode.. currently if a listvie drawer is opend, it opens in the same window, but in icon mode) mime types are cool etc.

but imho it is not worth the trouble in its current state. It clearly shows a way and.. ah well.. it really would have been cool to have MOS 1.5 with new Ambient and stable. Hopefully this will happen in the near future.
Switching back now to old Ambient.

[ Edited by Bladerunner on 2005/2/9 23:58 ]

Quote:

You came across very clearly, thank you.

I think your post was positive, overall, but at the expense of Ambient. To me, "jumping ship" regarding the desktop seems a little odd at this moment.

Downplaying the value of a well-designed desktop just because its licensing scheme changed is nonsense.

@ gunne

OK, I am perhaps a bit edgy after a long and difficult day, and maybe
I misunderstood your choice of smiley a bit!

I completely agree with you that it doesn't really matter - at this
point in time - whether the only available desktop system is GPL or
proprietary. Any improvement released to the public is indeed very
welcome by everyone!

Regarding Ambients role in the context of an *official* evolvement of
MorphOS as a *desktop OS*, things may perhaps look a bit different,
who knows? And who cares *at this point* (from a users perspective)
as long as there will be a competent enough desktop in those future OS
releases?


@ Jupp3

I agree. But I also believe that these long intervals between
public releases of the OS (and the bug reports and fixes in between)
may not only be because of ignorance and indifference from the
developers, but simply because of a complex situation of dependencies
between different OS components that is being developed at different
pace by different freelance developers. Or perhaps you are wishing for
some kind of sourceforge system, public CVS or such?


@ Bladerunner

Thank you for your report. I have followed the discussion here and
on the mailing list, and I have made the decision not to bother
installing the "raw compilations" of these sources currently
available. To be fair against David, I don't think it was his
intention to publish a set of bug free, ready-to-compile-for-everyone
kind of sources. If he wanted this to be installed by end-users I
think he would have published some binaries at his website himself.
This is not an official MorphOS release, hence it is not bugfixed or
anything such. It's raw sources, and they are also most probably
stripped and downgraded from his last stable version (actions which
may indeed introduce hords of smaller bugs like the ones you
described). I think this should be looked at as a better starting
point than before for any third party developers interesting in taking
over where he left it. AFAIK no-one really took on to the challange of
releasing or porting the last set of sources. This was probably a for
him unusual no-dollars-demanded effort of publishing his work. I think
he is hoping for this "boost" in combination with the GPL to bear some
kind of fruit. Perhaps it will? Is anyone taking on to the challange?

@ volm

I am obviously not a person in position of making any decision about
anything at all here. I don't make any calls of jumping ship or such.
Others (mainly a certain developer) have jumped ship though, and
other people (other developers still involved) may make their
decisions based on that fact. I am simply trying to *interpret* how
the decision-making people may reason, in order to predict what's
going to happen next (and what may *not* happen at all). I only try to
discuss things, not claiming them to be facts or anything such. Peace!