AmigaOS's command line

[TeamBlackFox]

One thing I look for in an OS is usability, something I find AmigaDOS to lack in a critical manner. First of all, its as far from Z shell as can be. For those of you who aren't UNIX savvy, its like tcsh meets bash. Its configurable, bash compatible (important if, like me, you use Linux daily) and supports syntax highlighting with the appropriate plugin.

AmigaOS has a great GUI, I'll be the first to say that, but I wish that it came by default configured for GUI only use. Unlike UNIX or Linux I cannot compile a custom kernel or GUI setup the way I want (I don't count AROS as it cannot replace AmigaOS yet on 68k in terms of speed and is still buggy and doesn't support WarpOS) so I am forced to have a setup guide handy when provisioning a new system. Maybe I'm too UNIX-Like for my own good but I dunno.

 

[commodorejohn]

Personally, I find AmigaDOS vastly more usable than Unix shells, at least once you get up to WB2+ and have command-history recall. Human-readable commands, a directory structure that doesn't try to fit every single device in the system into an organization designed for files on disks and every single disk into one hierarchy, the ability to assign aliases to disk volumes without having to rely on environment variables...I'll take that any day.

 

[woodycool]

I'm a lover of AmigaDOS 2.0 and above, running in a KingCON window (you get the 'Tab' auto complete in KingCON)

 

[Xanxi]

IMHO opinion, the Amiga DOS syntax is the more usable i have seen, even if it can benfit from an improved shell like KCON.
Nothing to compare with Unix that i find very user unfriendly.

 

[Templar]

I love CLI on AmigaOS.

 

[Oli_hd]

I totally agree with Commodorejohn on this one, I cant stand the way the directory structure of Linux puts drives in folders or the unreadable commands. The Amiga's CLI is the best Ive used and although it could do with an update I would hate to see it turn into a Linux style shell!

 

[Templar]

I totally agree with Commodorejohn on this one, I cant stand the way the directory structure of Linux puts drives in folders or the unreadable commands. The Amiga's CLI is the best Ive used and although it could do with an update I would hate to see it turn into a Linux style shell!

As you have already guessed, that would never happens.

 

[woodycool]

My only annoyance with AmigaDOS, is having the majority of the commands external (in C: assign)
Commands such as Copy, Delete, Rename and Dir should really be internal, and on my setup, I make them resident.
It's even worse on 1.x, as even If..Else..Endif and Echo are external !!!

 

[Xanxi]

My only annoyance with AmigaDOS, is having the majority of the commands external (in C: assign)
Commands such as Copy, Delete, Rename and Dir should really be internal, and on my setup, I make them resident.
It's even worse on 1.x, as even If..Else..Endif and Echo are external !!!

So true.

 

[TeamBlackFox]

I prefer the UNIX setup. Linux is also my server tech and likely is for Amibay, as Windows server does poorly with PHP. And they're not "folders" you PC hooligans. Its "directory" plus all devices are under /dev so its not hard. /dev allows for more than 26 devices anyways

 

[commodorejohn]

I'm fine with Unix running servers, the fundamentals of that haven't changed since its inception back in the '70s anyway. It's all the attempts to force it into a modern desktop context that are spectacularly ill-advised - the "every subsystem is built out of eight million other subsystems and individual components" approach to design that can bring the whole house of cards crashing down and leave you staring at a bare terminal if a config file gets screwed up somewhere in one part of the system, the "every device a serial-access file handle" I/O model that sort of halfway made sense when it was an operating system for PDP-11s driving serial terminals but is just insane in this day of smart and outright programmable graphics hardware, the graphical environment that, no matter how advanced your hardware, still thinks it's 1984 and it's issuing primitive drawing commands to a glorified vector terminal over an imaginary serial link...and, again, the bizarro "every disk a folder in a unified filesystem" model that would have sort of made sense in the days of terminals dialing into a central mainframe but has never, ever matched up sensibly to how personal computers have ever worked.

You look at "modern" desktop Unices and you can basically see forty years of struggling to catch up with what the rest of the industry was doing embodied in the layers upon layers upon layers of accumulated cruft. It's like someone took a perfectly serviceable steam locomotive and spent decades replacing some bits and repurposing others until it was the world's ungainliest minivan.

 

[TeamBlackFox]

I respect your opinion CommodoreJohn, but I don't agree with it.

Sure, I'll grant you that UNIX is very old. Is it outdated? Sure. Is AmigaOS outdated? Even more so. Where are multi-user isolations, RAID support or 64-bit support? I don't want to turn this into an Amiga vs UNIX rant as both have their uses. I'm just saying, if I developed OS4 or MorphOS I would either make a UNIX type CLI, or make the system 100% graphical.

And some desktop UNIX forks are great, IRIX is one of them, even if no longer developed, another with great desktop use is Ubuntu despite me finding Unity ugly I have converted several people to UNIX. I much prefer UNIX to Windows in every way. Its to the point that, with Windows, I don't know how to use it effectively. Something doesn't work on Windows? I reinstall, on UNIX I actually look up the log location and fix the issue.

At least from what I know of AmigaDOS it does not natively support secure shell, tar (very important to me as many of my scripts rely on it), permissions, ownership or anything else I am used to in UNIX. I admit, I'm acclimated to UNIX heavily so don't see the things you all have been pointing out to be flaws. And at least if the GUI crashes in UNIX you can recover from it. What does Windows do? BSOD. Oh, thats useful! AmigaOS Guru meditates. Equally useful.

 

[commodorejohn]

Sure, I'll grant you that UNIX is very old. Is it outdated? Sure. Is AmigaOS outdated? Even more so.

Am I arguing that AmigaOS is fully modern? Nope. But what it is is more modern than Unix, and more fundamentally usable, because it started as a sensible, elegant design for a desktop operating system, rather than having to be progressively kludged into being usable in a desktop context.

I don't want to turn this into an Amiga vs UNIX rant

Hard not to, when you started it as one...

I admit, I'm acclimated to UNIX heavily so don't see the things you all have been pointing out to be flaws.

And yet you're blind to the fact that you yourself are seeing "flaws" in AmigaOS because it doesn't match up with your expectations, so much so that you started a thread to complain that it wasn't the OS you actually wanted.

 

[TeamBlackFox]

Dude, calm down. Seriously I like AmigaOS but I'm merely trying to point out that AmigaOS has a great graphical interface (I'll be the first to say Xfree86/X Windows sucks) but the command line reminds me of the Windows NT cmd.exe - a mockery of a CLI. UNIX has a better CLI. More commands, multiplexing via screen or tmux, a variety of command shells and the /dev system is much, much better for drives versus drive letters. UNIX's /dev system allows me to see what device is on what channel of the machine (/dev/sda1 vs /dev/sdb1 for example are different devices on the same channel)

 

[woodycool]

Whilst I see your point, UNIX shells tend to be more advanced and have more features, I disagree on the whole '/dev' thing that I find a pain in the ass.
However, you compare UNIX with Windows and put AmigaDOS in the 'Window' box (even if you do so inadvertently) when you say "the /dev system is much, much better for drives versus drive letters"

AmigaDOS does not use drive letters as such. Yeah, it starts with a device followed by a colon, but usually you have for instance DH0:, DH1:, DH2: etc, which is directly comparable to /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, /dev/sda3 - but is shorter to type than it's UNIX counterparts and more user friendlier, in my opinion.

As much as I understand everyone has their own preference, my understanding of this thread (correct me if I'm wrong) is that people are stating they prefer the command line provided my AmigaDOS over say a UNIX shell or Windows' cmd.exe. The OP was not saying "AmigaDOS is better than UNIX" but was saying "I like AmigaDOS better than UNIX" which are two different things.

So, based on all of this, please can we calm down a little as it all looks like it's going to boil over and get messy. At the end of the day, we are all just expressing our opinions.

Dude, calm down. Seriously I like AmigaOS but I'm merely trying to point out that AmigaOS has a great graphical interface (I'll be the first to say Xfree86/X Windows sucks) but the command line reminds me of the Windows NT cmd.exe - a mockery of a CLI. UNIX has a better CLI. More commands, multiplexing via screen or tmux, a variety of command shells and the /dev system is much, much better for drives versus drive letters. UNIX's /dev system allows me to see what device is on what channel of the machine (/dev/sda1 vs /dev/sdb1 for example are different devices on the same channel)

 

[t-bus]

I think they both rock. I've spent a long time as a *NIX guy, and got my first C= a few months ago. I find the command line environment on Amiga to be pretty fantastic, considering the age of the OS-- once you add something like Vinced to get tab complete.

I hate floppies and physical media with a passion, and I found the Amiga CLI easy enough to pick up that I was able to quickly script ways around using them to install even the most stubborn, dumb software that insists on a disk being present (I.E. OS 3.9 installer, CyberGraphX CD, etc.) from my network.

After setting up a telnet daemon, I was really quickly able to hack together some nice login and environment set-up scripts.

If you want *NIX, go run *NIX! If you want a different blast from the past, stick with Amiga. The diversity of the OSes is what makes retrocomputing fun.

 

[TeamBlackFox]

Hey t-bus,

I actually like AmigaOS but I don't use the commandline at all on it. I guess I am so accustomed to UNIX that its just too DOS feeling for me.

 

[Harrison]

The Amiga's CLI is nothing like DOS! Just as Linux Commandline is nothing like M$ DOS.

At the end of the day, everyone likes what they are most used to and have used the most.. and have the most experience of.

I love the Amiga CLI. As others have said, it is really easy to pickup and use thanks to its straight forward and very easy to understand commands, plus the really easy way to add and customise commands simply by dropping them into the C drawer. (Notice I used drawer and not directory or folder! ). But as someone else pointed out, it was always so annoying not having the most basic commands native, such as format and dir. You were really stuck sometimes in a floppy only system.

I do however also use the Linux commandline a lot via SSH sessions to admin Amibay, among many other servers, and find it just as great for its purpose. It is brilliant for backing up servers, managing files remotely etc... but I would never like to use it as part of a desktop OS.

I also don't mind MS DOS. It isn't as good as Linux's commandline, but it's OK for what it needs to do. However, I tend to have Powershell installed on all my PCs, so that gives it much more power on a par with Linux, but with a bit more friendliness like CLI.

However, for me the greatest was the Acorn Archimedes. You had the RISCOS based OS, and its commandline was the complete BBC Basic. That was brilliant and so easy to use. I still remember the first time I played around with an Archimedes in the 80's and discovering BBC Basic was a full part of the OS and available to access in a commandline window. A friend of mine whom had owned a BBC Master and knew it's OS and hardware inside out got his hands on an Arch at college and within the first day had coded a full GUI based stockmarket trading game purely in BBC basic. That shows you just how intuitive and great it really was.

 

[TeamBlackFox]

I actually was messing with E-UAE the other day on Gentoo and messed with AmigaDOS some. Its clear I've been in UNIX land way too long. I cannot tell you how many times I tried typing ls -la; its not even funny.
For Harrison specifically:
I'll have to pick up one of those ARM boards that support RiscOS and try it out my friend.

I'm currently learning C, PHP and Bash, and out of all of them I probably use Bash the most due to how much I administer servers, but I have to say that, after a few years of not really touching AmigaOS, its a great refresher on how innovative it is. Although, I have to say, I don't like the single user aspect much, since I come from UNIX I am used to privilege separation. Hoping that can be rectified in one of the AmigaOS forks.

One thing I would like to see AmigaOS have in their commandline is definitely some of the UNIX command analogues that others have previously stated are missing.

 

[Harrison]

The problem is that AmigaOS and it's CLI are now over 20 years old, and were designed with the single computer and user in mind, so never even took multiple users or permissions into account. It was a time before most desktop computers were networked or required such abilities, and before the internet as we know it today. Had it continued development properly I'm sure it would be as fully featured and supporting of such functionality today.