Please MS just go to hell...

[bd139]

Fuck me amigaos is so ugly. Looks like someone with shit in their eyes used a mac for 5 minutes then proceeded to drink half a bottle of vodka and recall the experience.

Put it into the context of the era from which it came. When I first saw an Amiga back in the late 80s I was blown away. It could display stunning full color graphics in the era when Macs were still relying on a tiny built in monochrome display and most PCs had either Hercules monochrome or CGA with that godawful pink, light blue, yellow and white palate. The problem is that development pretty much ceased not long after that, Amiga OS is still essentially frozen in time more than 30 years ago.

Meh. I bought a 32 bit ARM desktop back then (Acorn A440) which made the Amiga look like a joke.

We had a weirdly advanced computer industry in the UK which didn’t last

And here I am today using a 64-bit ARM laptop. I’m home again

[dave j]

Put it into the context of the era from which it came. When I first saw an Amiga back in the late 80s I was blown away. It could display stunning full color graphics in the era when Macs were still relying on a tiny built in monochrome display and most PCs had either Hercules monochrome or CGA with that godawful pink, light blue, yellow and white palate. The problem is that development pretty much ceased not long after that, Amiga OS is still essentially frozen in time more than 30 years ago.

Meh. I bought a 32 bit ARM desktop back then (Acorn A440) which made the Amiga look like a joke.

To be fair, the Archimedes's first OS, Arthur, didn't look much better:


At least it was replaced after a couple of years by Risc OS which was a big improvement:

[bd139]

That’s completely fair 

[madires]

Back then Acorn had a booth at the Amiga con in Cologne. The hardware was quite interesting, also the concept of the stackable pizza boxes. However, it was more expensive and the lack of software was an issue too.

[bd139]

Yes it was extremely expensive. In fact mine was bankrolled by a relative who conveniently dropped dead and left me a bundle of cash. My mother went bananas when she realised I'd spent that amount of money on kit 

As for the software, it was a smaller market, but what was out there was exceptionally good. I used techwriter and impression through university on RiscOS 3.11 which were way ahead of anything at the time and still pretty far ahead of stuff now. it only really started running out of steam when the world wide web became ubiquitous (gopher was fine!) and finally sold the Acorn A440 in 1997. I had a RiscPC 600 as well but never got around to really moving stuff to that. 8 years was a LONG run for a computer back then. I know the guy still who bought the A440 off me and he's still got it and uses it now even though various bits have blown up over the years.

What replaced it? Well a Compaq Professional Workstation 5000 with two Pentium Pro 200 CPUs, 128Mb of RAM, 4.3Gb SCSI hard disk and Windows NT4.

As for the RiscPC stackable cases, someone built a ridiculous one. Even has a kitchen sink and pizza oven in it 

[rsjsouza]

What replaced it? Well a Compaq Professional Workstation 5000 with two Pentium Pro 200 CPUs, 128Mb of RAM, 4.3Gb SCSI hard disk and Windows NT4.

Ultra wide SCSI-2 15k rpm Cheetah? 

At that time we had a 9.1GB Cheetah running on our Dual Pentium II 300MHz with 128MB on a Supermicro MB. Those days were very exciting for home computing. 

[bd139]

Wasn't a 15k one. think it was a 7200rpm one at the time.

I had some serious problems with the 15k cheetahs. If you powered down an array with them, reliably one or more dropped dead every time  . Also had a supermicro chassis which one blew up in

[Ed.Kloonk]

What do you think of tiling window managers for Linux in relation with dual/triple monitors?

[bd139]

Terrible idea IMHO. This is more fundamental than tiling window managers. I ran dual 27” for a bit and it has serious problems. Your neck position is never ideal ie centred so you end up with progressively worsening shoulder problems. I invested heavily in decent working environment in the end which was proper task chair, monitor stand, foot rest and desk and went back to one 4K 27” monitor. Then I looked at my workflow.

After that the workflow was optimised and quite frankly the admin and inflexibility of pissing around with tiling window managers is just too much. You spend too much time ending up with windows that are too small and everything is distracting and generating noise all the time. I usually use iTerm to my Linux box (in AWS) and run tmux on that. Local VScode connects to it via ssh as well  . Safari runs on top as does slack and outlook. And I haphazardly cmd-tab between them.

Best bit? Well I run my entire stack off a docked laptop so when I want to go and do some work somewhere else I just unplug the dock cable and wham it’s all on the laptop screen. Tiling managers shit the bed then.

I came to the conclusion that tiling window managers are inefficient and just look cool to outsiders as it makes you look like you’re neo from the matrix.  It’s movie set tech. No better than LCARS from Star Trek. Looks cool but would be boiled assholes to use.

[madires]

What do you think of tiling window managers for Linux in relation with dual/triple monitors?

Horrible! I prefer a virtual window WM with one monitor in a setup with multiple virtual screens.

[JPortici]

Must have been recent, because i don't remember noticing it before.
They manage to fuck up the notepad!
I don't remember when the search shortcurt was changed to Ctrl+T (because of "Trova"?) which of course doesn't work as it's Ctrl+F (or maybe in italian systems it's really Ctrl+T but i use a mix of italian and english in the interface so it's fucked up?)
And you can also search on Bing. How useful

[Ed.Kloonk]

  

Glad it's not just me.

Here is why I asked..

[madires]

If I understand him right, his point is about being able to freely assign virtual desktops to monitors. Opening a window on a specific desktop is supported also by non-tiling WMs. Same for maximizing a window on a specific monitor.  The drawback he forgot to mention is that he can't have a window across two or more monitors. Neither can he have neighboring areas of multiple desktops on a monitor, i.e. the virtual desktops are basically jointless tiles of a large virtual screen and you can move around freely or jump to the next tile.

[edy]

Are they the platforms of choice for everything else? I tried to find me a PDF editor for linux, again, happy to hand over money, I got a trial for a program that was god awful and did not count as it could not properly deciper the PDF and allow me to edit text with every word being split into multiple text boxes.... On windows i have many options. All other programs claiming to be PDF editors were all lying as all they banged on about was adding notes to a PDF not editing the original text.

I've tried a number of programs... even ran an older Foxit PDF Editor under WINE for a while, but I finally stumbled upon a superior app in Master PDF Editor, which I believe is on version 5, for my Ubuntu Linux laptop. Yes it can edit text normally, add/modify/edit images, form objects, pretty much do anything and is the best PDF tool I've seen so far that is multi-platform including Linux:

https://code-industry.net/free-pdf-editor/

I've been able to edit PDF's no problem. I believe version 4 was fully free, but with version 5 it adds a watermark when saving (when "unregistered") if using the more advanced features. However, this can easily be "rectified"    post-save using a hex editor if you know what to look for.    Although I highly recommend paying if you find the program useful. It's also available for Windows and MacOS, so it's nice to see developers now including Linux in their offerings.

[james_s]

Where Amiga really shone was games, and that was 99% of what I was interested in using computers for back in that era. There were a lot of arcade ports and clones which made good use of the audio and video capabilities of the Amiga hardware, the PC experience back before the sound card and VGA era paled in comparison. The Acorn stuff was never sold over here as far as I know, I never saw one, I've still never seen one in the flesh.

[madires]

Not just games. DeluxePaint, FinalWriter, FinalCalc, several programming IDEs (SAS/C for example), CygnusEd, DirWorks/DIrectoryOpus, Newio (PCB layout), terminals (e.g ncomm or Term), FTS (FidoNet), WilhelmTel (ISDN VoiceBox) and many more. FinalWriter outperformed MS Word, even with large documents. And it didn't crash all the time.

[bd139]

Also vim!

[PKTKS]

If I understand him right, his point is about being able to freely assign virtual desktops to monitors. Opening a window on a specific desktop is supported also by non-tiling WMs. Same for maximizing a window on a specific monitor.  The drawback he forgot to mention is that he can't have a window across two or more monitors. Neither can he have neighboring areas of multiple desktops on a monitor, i.e. the virtual desktops are basically jointless tiles of a large virtual screen and you can move around freely or jump to the next tile.

The XServer has been able to do that since the introduction of Xinerama extension

Any client wishing to have multi head or inter Workspace support on the server should be compiled and linked against Xinerama otherwise it *may* fail to properly interact in a multi head multi workspace setup.

I have used that quite extensively across the 90s and all 2000s in my bench with 2 even 3 svga heads and several different WindowManagers  each with some goods and some bads.

Things got weird when DRM was introduced because mode set moved from the server to the kernel  and things now are even more weird because it seems that an extensive work is being done to remove all these features from XWindows  dragging it to the level of dumb displays like WSL via Wayland.

Nevertheless I keep trying having a full features XOrg setup and all my clients are linked against Xinerama even though I have no longer a multi head setup because my bech is just too filled with stuff..

But it still works fine here..

Attached the remarkable extension of TWM - ak VTWM - with on the fly multi Workspace Multi Head and dynamic panner widget.

Your answer is:  ALL CLIENTS SHOULD BE COMPILED AGAINST XINERAMA
get rid of the crippled Wayland deprecated distro. Just find a suitable
real UNIX like LINUX - Slackware is (STILL) my primary option

POTTERIX shit is for my 6y old nephew. perfect for him

So your answer is Real UNIX distro with Xinerama support


Paul

[coppice]

Also vim!

Along with vigor, ajax and other classic kitchen cleaning products. I used to know this cleaner, Vi, who used them all.

[bson]

I don't care much about the TPM requirement, either to or fro.  If it makes software license management more streamlined, less of a hassle, and effective then I suppose I'm all for it.

My personal beefs with Windows 10 in general though don't seem to be changed or fixed in Windows 11.

The tying of keyboard layouts to languages, lack of custom layouts, and inability to switch layout without also switching language is a major annoyance.  I mean, how do you type √2 in Windows?  What language has a layout that includes √?  On Mac this is found on the standard US keyboard layout, by pressing Opt-V.  I would assume it's present on ALL the layouts.  And if you want to you can create your own (though you need a utility to do so) - the keyboard switching switches layouts, unlike Windows which switches languages.  But this sentence is in English.  There is no other language.  Even if it included the phrase "the characteristic impedance is 100Ω", that's still entirely English despite the "greek" letter Ω.

I still can't rearrange the virtual desktops.  Sometimes you work on one thing, at other times something else.  For example, you have three desktops.  On desktop two from the left you open KiCad.  You open the schematic editor.  Then you want documentation on a separate desktop.  So you add another - it will now be all the way to the right with a bunch of stuff inbetween, and there is no way to simply rearrange it like you would on MacOS.  You get to open task switcher (Win-Tab) and sit and move individual windows around.

And, with the soon 7 desktops given a few different things you're working on, the next time the F*NG thing updates it's all blown away.

Makes me wonder if Windows users actually use computers for work, or if all they do is play games and browse...

[rsjsouza]

The tying of keyboard layouts to languages, lack of custom layouts, and inability to switch layout without also switching language is a major annoyance.  I mean, how do you type √2 in Windows?  What language has a layout that includes √?  On Mac this is found on the standard US keyboard layout, by pressing Opt-V.  I would assume it's present on ALL the layouts.  And if you want to you can create your own (though you need a utility to do so) - the keyboard switching switches layouts, unlike Windows which switches languages.  But this sentence is in English.  There is no other language.  Even if it included the phrase "the characteristic impedance is 100Ω", that's still entirely English despite the "greek" letter Ω.

Interesting. I have two keyboard layouts (English, Portuguese), two languages and one location. Switching the keyboard layout (Alt-Shift) does not change the language.

For special characters, I simply type the equivalent Alt code (Alt+234 for Ω, Alt+251 for √) - I have a small post it note tied to my monitor with my most used alt codes.

[bd139]

I don't care much about the TPM requirement, either to or fro.  If it makes software license management more streamlined, less of a hassle, and effective then I suppose I'm all for it.

My personal beefs with Windows 10 in general though don't seem to be changed or fixed in Windows 11.

The tying of keyboard layouts to languages, lack of custom layouts, and inability to switch layout without also switching language is a major annoyance.  I mean, how do you type √2 in Windows?  What language has a layout that includes √?  On Mac this is found on the standard US keyboard layout, by pressing Opt-V.  I would assume it's present on ALL the layouts.  And if you want to you can create your own (though you need a utility to do so) - the keyboard switching switches layouts, unlike Windows which switches languages.  But this sentence is in English.  There is no other language.  Even if it included the phrase "the characteristic impedance is 100Ω", that's still entirely English despite the "greek" letter Ω.

I still can't rearrange the virtual desktops.  Sometimes you work on one thing, at other times something else.  For example, you have three desktops.  On desktop two from the left you open KiCad.  You open the schematic editor.  Then you want documentation on a separate desktop.  So you add another - it will now be all the way to the right with a bunch of stuff inbetween, and there is no way to simply rearrange it like you would on MacOS.  You get to open task switcher (Win-Tab) and sit and move individual windows around.

And, with the soon 7 desktops given a few different things you're working on, the next time the F*NG thing updates it's all blown away.

Makes me wonder if Windows users actually use computers for work, or if all they do is play games and browse...

I am forced to use windows for work.

I basically run a Debian VM and use PuTTY to SSH into it and fire up tmux and do all my shit in there. Windows does fine alt tabbing between slack, putty and Firefox 

[BrianHG]

Fuck me amigaos is so ugly. Looks like someone with shit in their eyes used a mac for 5 minutes then proceeded to drink half a bottle of vodka and recall the experience.

Put it into the context of the era from which it came. When I first saw an Amiga back in the late 80s I was blown away. It could display stunning full color graphics in the era when Macs were still relying on a tiny built in monochrome display and most PCs had either Hercules monochrome or CGA with that godawful pink, light blue, yellow and white palate. The problem is that development pretty much ceased not long after that, Amiga OS is still essentially frozen in time more than 30 years ago.

AmigaOS was designed to originally work on 256kbytes back in 1984, including graphics mem and run a multitasking OS from a floppy.  Moving up to 512kb and stuck with many users of 1 floppy drive of 880kb to store both the programs and essentially the remainder of it's version of windows, yes it had to look primitive and there was no incentive to truly improve things since Comodore's main seller was the Amiga 500 in the UK.  Commodore flopped it's resource development dollars into the failed CDTV and CD32 where if they listened to their engineers at the time, the Amiga 3000 would have had a better version of the AGA chip set supporting 8mb chipram supporting 256/32k(ham) color at 1280x1024 progressive with a true Motorolla audio DSP and 16 bit audio IN/OUT codec with 16 channel stereo audio retiring the PAULA audio chip.  At it's release date, June 1990, this would have been a killer as the lower end modes, like a true progressive 800x600 and 640x1024 would be true 16 and 24 bit.  We got stuck with the same old crap + a BS built in flicker-fixer line doubler with all it's zipper motion problems.  The A4000 was supposed to have the never released AAA chipset which would have done the 1280x1024 at 24bit true-color.  The engineers had good intentions and ideas, but, the ones running the show had short term imaginary $$$ ideas which couldn't cope with future.    A sad predictable decline of what was once my favorite personal computer where I actually began my PCB development on as well as home made eprom programmer which ran circles around PC equivalents at the time in the late 80s through the Amiga parallel port.

[rsjsouza]

Amiga was a dream - light years ahead of what we could get in an affordable way back then. However, I see the Amiga as the most potential threat to the Apple McIntosh at the time, as the PC industry was entirely based on clones and gained tremendous popularity across the world - for example, in Brasil we had zero access to anything other than PC computers and components, which were cheaper than an entire system and easier to smuggle (import taxes were/are prohibitively high and parts are easier to hide  ).

[madires]

Most people think of the A500 when talking about C= Amiga. When I retired my A2000 it had a 68040 @ 40 MHz with > 16 MB RAM, two SCSI HDDs, an ISDN TA, a NIC plus TCP/IP stack, and a high resolution graphics card with VGA output. The 486 and Pentium PCs alongside were sluggish compared to the A2000. Later on it was replaced by an AMD K6-2 @ 450 MHz.