--- Eric Dittman <dittman_at_dittman.net> wrote:
> > It's not multi-user so it lacks file permissions but it's a single user OS
> > anyway.
True, it's primarily a GUI-based, single-user machine, but I used to do
maintenance work over VT220 via "newshell <aux:" while my friends played
"Silent Service" on the same machine. Obviously, I had to stick to
text-window-based editors, and the like, but they exist (vi, emacs, etc.,
if "ed" and microemacs that come with the OS aren't adequate).
It has no passwording and no concept of file ownership, but you can run a
session off a terminal while someone else uses the GUI. Stick that in your
Mac/DOS/Windows pipe and smoke it!
> Well, for one thing I'd want multiuser capability, clustering, and the
> GUI would have to be improved. I never liked the looks of the Amiga GUI;
> it looked primitive to me. I haven't seen an Amiga lately, so I don't
> now if the looks of the GUI ever improved.
The pre-2.0 stuff reminds me of old versions of GEM. The later stuff got
better, but anyone who has fixated on any GUI preference will probably
find even the latest Amiga UI to be "primitive".
> I use a GUI primarily to manage several text windows, so I could ignore
> most of the GUI anyway, but the text displays would have to be fixed.
That's mostly how I used my SPARC5 at work - I could tile four xterms and
get lots of stuff done at once - tail a log file in one, edit code and
other files in another, create accounts in another and have a spare for
whatever machine I needed to get to on the intranet. It didn't matter
to me if it was OpenLook or CDE or whatever, as long as I could fix 2x2
text windows of 25x80 chars. Back in the old days, I only had room for
two VT100s on my desk so I had a serial switcher (or some of our CiTOH
terminals supported two sessions as long as you didn't mind manual refresh).
Same concept - don't tie me down to one text input thingy, no matter how
it's done.
> And the OS should not require a GUI for system operation. I like my
> systems to be connected to a terminal server with one main system
> acting as the terminal (along with my VT525).
The Amiga passes for that, too. Unlike the Mac, they come with a shell.
Unlike Windows, you don't need to use a GUI tool to change trivial parameters.
It's precisely these reasons why my favorite OSes include AmigaDOS, UNIX
and VMS.
-ethan
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Received on Fri Jul 27 2001 - 14:32:51 BST