UserDoc:Main

Welcome to AmigaOS

AmigaOS is an operating system pretty easy to understand. Of course you need to learn some basic concepts. This documentation will provide these and your imagination will do the rest.

Many people/organisation used this system since its creation. Some of them are/were famous: Andy Warhol, the NASA, the Hollywood industry...

AmigaOS features

Here are some of the features of AmigaOS that make easy to control your computer. Some of these concepts were copied by other operating systems which tend to show they are the correct way to do things.

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• Small footprint: AmigaOS can work with 64 MB of memory. On disk, a default installation takes around 200 MB only.

• Restart only the operating system: If you feel the need to restart the system, you can do so restarting only the operating system and not the whole computer.

• Full name directories (Fonts, Libs...): If you browse the AmigaOS system disk, you'll see easy to understand names: Classes, Libs, Fonts, Prefs, Storage...etc.

• File recognition based on their content: you can name a file whatever you want, even without an extension. Examples: "my file" or "picture of me in front of the computer". There is no need to add an extension to explain what the file is like ".txt" or ".jpg". AmigaOS really examines the files content to recognise what type of file it is.

• Ram disk concept: On AmigaOS there is a special disk called the Ram disk which represents a part of your computer memory. This area is not fixed. It automatically grows whenever you store files in it.

• Command line and graphic interface tied together: Both the command line interface (where you type commands with the keyboard) and the graphical user interface (GUI) are tied together. You can easily use command lines from the GUI or open graphical elements from a command line.

What is AmigaOS

AmigaOS concepts are described here. You will learn how to operate your computer via the command line interface (using your keyboard) or using the graphical environment: the Workbench.

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Introduction

In order to explain what is AmigaOS and how it works, we need to start with basic concepts like "what is an operating system?", "what is a file?"...etc. You may be familiar with these concepts but this manual needs to stay accessible to all audiences. Also as some concepts vary a bit from an operating system to another one, it may be an interesting read for skilled people as well.

In this section, you will find:

• how AmigaOS is booted on your Amiga computer?
• what is shell?
• what is the Workbench?
• how to use the mouse in the Workbench?

...

AmigaDOS

Note: this section will be filled in a few days thanks to the help of Frank Bunton and his AmigaDOS for beguinners guide.

The Workbench, the graphical environment

Introduction to the Workbench and link to its page.