Author: Mike (dialup-65.58.140.34.Dial1.Phoenix1.Level3.net)
Date: 06-17-2002 07:42
Here's all the info for this thread that I can think of off the top of my head. I'm not sure what kind of info you're looking for, so I just gave some basic info. So if you have questions about any of these ask me or anyone here or on comp.sys.atari.st newsgroup. And if anyone has any more complete info (as I am not always aware of some things out there), please add to or correct this!
OS's and AES's that I know of:
OS Kernals: TOS, Mint, and Magic
TOS is cooperative multitasting only (the GEM GUI can only singletask, while Geneva can use the cooperative multitasking abilities), can only use 8+3 filenames, very basic.
Mint is a BSD derivative capable of pre-emptive multitasking, has many filesystem choices, etc., but requires Unix knowledge of varying degrees for any but the most basic of setups.
Magic is a TOS rewrite that can use pre-emptive multitasking and FAT32 long filenames. Is very user friendly compared to Mint, but not quite as powerful on the networking side.
AES/Shell layers:
For TOS: GEM, Geneva
GEM is extremely basic. Most users only use it for certain programs that require a very clean system, and as a backup should their alternative OS go wrong for some reason.
Geneva is a bit nicer, still quite compatible and stable. It can multitask very fast, and is faster in general than GEM. It's the only way to get a really good multitasking system without getting into Mint or Magic.
For Mint: Geneva, AES 4.0/4.1, XaAES, N.AES, OAESis, MintOS, X11
Geneva runs on Mint similar to TOS, only it can use Mint's pre-emptive multitasking. Some have reported stability problems running it with Mint, but I personally have a pretty stable setup. The only thing it has any real trouble doing is changing graphics resolutions.
AES 4.0/4.1 is the original "MultiTOS". It is visually almost identical to GEM, but can multitask. It is quite slow compared to the other alternatives, and not quite as feature-packed.
XaAES and OAESis are works in progress, with XaAES being the most mature of the two. Somewhat slow, but visually nice. Needs some further development to be usable on a wide scale.
N.AES is a rewrite of AES 4.1. It is the fastest of the graphical AES's, and is quite stable and nice looking.
MintOS is a text-only interface, but some users find it very fast and powerful. As I don't like text-only interfaces personally, I have not tried this much.
X11 is a Mint port of Linux's X Window system.
For Magic: MagX
This is built into Magic, and is very fast and looks nice. It has varying degrees of stability depending on the machine you are using it on. It also has Mac and PC versions. Easiest to set up and configure for those of us who are very GUI dependant.
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