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Questions and Answers for AMIGA Workbench or Coffin

Workbench 3.1.4 Feature Update

Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
06 Apr 2018 17:25


EXTERNAL LINK 
AmigaOS update: Further details to AmigaOS 3.1.4
In a discussion on amiga.org, the developers Thomas 'Thor' Richter and Olaf 'Olsen' Barthel have informed about the current status of the development of their updates for AmigaOS 3.1 called "3.1.4". Additional to diverse bug fixes and the changes which are known since the Amiga32, among others the following changes will be added:

    The update will include a new version of "DiskDoktor" which "examine the contents of the volume, looking for defects and copy the contents of the directory tree to a different volume". Large volumes and long file names are supported. The new version of DiskDoktor only requires 1 Megabyte dealing with a 1 Gigabyte partition, and 8 Megabytes for a 8 Gigabyte partition.
    A replacement for the CD file system CDFS: A backport of the CD file system of of AmigaOS 4 (currently without supporting mixed-mode CDs, UDF, HFS and HFS-plus) which supports the new mount options "NoNSD", "DirectSCSI" and "SuperFloppy". Besides, "Mask", "Maxtransfer" and "BufMemType" are honoured.
    "CrossDos now also supports long file names, FAT32, FAT24 and FAT16."
    CrossDOS as well as the new CDFS now are multithreaded, that means they do not freeze the Workbench any longer while working.
    Obviously the Workbench developed by Olaf Barthel from AmigaOS 3.5+ is used - or at least part of it: Richter mentioned that replacements for the prefs programs of Workbench and ASL have to be used since Reaction was removed.
    The programs MagTape and Edit were removed from the distribution. Edit "suffered from several bugs and limitations".
    workbench.library and icon.library "are already too large to fit into the ROMs", they will be on disks. They will also take more RAM, "so that there is less left on the low-end machines. It will probably not work with 512K alone."

Richter pointed out that many parts of the new features still have to be tested. The developers are looking for new beta testers.


Roman S.

Posts 149
06 Apr 2018 21:46


The programs MagTape and Edit were removed from the distribution. Edit "suffered from several bugs and limitations"

 
Well, they already have a fixed Edit: EXTERNAL LINK


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
23 Apr 2018 06:39


It seems no one should have high expectations of this 3.1 bugfix update. In discussion at a.org it was compared to OS 3.9 in "missing features" way by Thomas Richter (point is also not to expect something as advanced as 080 MMX support too):

EXTERNAL LINK 
Sorry to disappoint you. Just to make one thing clear: 3.1.4 is not supposed to be a replacement for Os 3.9. It cannot. We do not have Reaction, and a lot of other distributions for 3.9. Nor is it supposed to be. You can certainly install it on top of 3.9 if you like.

In particular: 3.1.4 will not come with Reaction. It will not come with Reaction-based preferences. It will not come with Genesis. It will not come with BenchTrash, ZipTools or ViNCEd. It will not come with AmiDock, WarpOs, the xpk-libraries or AsyncWB, or AWeb. There will be no MP3 player, no CD-Player, no AVI-Player. It will not come with the mmulib.

This is a bare-bone core operating system, same bare-bone as 3.1 was. If you need further components, you'll find plenty in Aminet. Actually, part of the goal is to leave "distribution building" to third parties, as we have really limited development capacity.

Furthermore, nobody is willing to guarantee you anything in Amigaland, how can we possibly do that? We're doing the best we can, that is all I can promise.

Thus, if you expect a new, fully blown distribution, you are wrong here. All I am going to promise is a bug-fixed release of Os 3.1. It was never announced as anything beyond that.

Thus, if you expect the best invention since deep dishes (as we say in Germany) - no, it's not. But it is the latest, newest and most robust deep dish anyone can possibly sell you. You probably have to fill it yourself, though.


Roman S.

Posts 149
23 Apr 2018 19:46


"In particular: 3.1.4 will not come with Reaction" - Good. Never liked it.

"It will not come with Genesis" - Good. Buy RoadShow and let Thomas and Olaf focus on what they are good at.

"It will not come with BenchTrash, ZipTools or ViNCEd" - meh. Don't use ZipTools, probably hardly anyone needs it nowadays. Updated BenchTrash is now free, available from AmiNet. KingCON rulez!

"It will not come with AmiDock" - meh. I don't liked it, I use AmiStart. ScreenTab also looks nice.

"WarpOs, the xpk-libraries or AsyncWB, or AWeb" - AWeb, WarpOs and xpk-libraries are available separately. Only AsyncWB hurts a little... hope the OS 3.9 version will work.

"There will be no MP3 player, no CD-Player, no AVI-Player" - no useable AVI-Player exists for AmigaOS 68k. I hope the Amplifier copied from my OS 3.9 will work.

-----

Any more... "limitations"?




Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
23 Apr 2018 20:29


Roman S. wrote:

  Any more... "limitations"?
 

 
  AmiDock, even in its advanced forms in OS4/Enhancer isnt that much, quite buggy and unflexibile launcher, with exception of some sweet dockies.

AmiStart, ScreenTab, KingCON ... all great solution and fine examples how users created better end solutions then OS makers :-)
 
  It would be good if once in life we could have a standardized TCP/IP stack, be it license paid for RoadShow per OS copy.
 
  It would be nice if once AmigaOS would gather best of its software, something like Linux does, and thus present itself in its best glory. But wait, that is what packages like AmiKit or even ApolloOS do :-)

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