docs/Design/Autoupdate/OS/Amiga.md
How software is installed and updated across the Amiga family — AmigaOS 3.x (classic 68k), AmigaOS 4.x (PowerPC, Hyperion), MorphOS (PowerPC), and AROS (open-source AmigaOS-compatible reimplementation) — split into manual and automatic (background/self-updating, like Linux Snap auto-refresh).
The Amiga family inherits a distribution culture from the classic 68k days: software ships as compressed archives (
.lha, historically.lzx, sometimes.zip) downloaded from a central web archive, then unpacked and either dragged into place or installed via a bundled Installer script. This is fundamentally manual — the user is the update mechanism. Genuine auto-update tooling is rare and recent: AmiUpdate and AMIStore's Updater (AmigaOS 4) can check online and pull newer versions, and Grunch (MorphOS/AmigaOS) is the only tool in the family that behaves like a true auto-refreshing package manager. AROS and classic AmigaOS 3.x have no mainstream package manager and no auto-update.
| Platform / OS | Manual | Automatic | Auto mechanism | Maintainer | URL | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aminet (cross-platform archive) | ✓ | — | None — browse/search, download .lha/.zip, unpack + Installer by hand | Aminet community | https://aminet.net/ | Per-package (mixed) |
| OS4Depot (AmigaOS 4) | ✓ | — | None — manual .lha download + install | OS4Depot volunteers | https://www.os4depot.net/ | Per-package (mixed) |
| MorphOS-Storage (MorphOS) | ✓ | — | None — manual .lha download + install | MorphOS community | https://www.morphos-storage.net/ | Per-package (mixed) |
| AROS Archives (AROS) | ✓ | — | None — manual download + install; AROS has no mainstream package manager | AROS community | https://archives.arosworld.org/ | Per-package (mixed) |
| AMIStore (AmigaOS 4 app store) | ✓ | Partial | Store client + separate Updater: compares local vs remote versions, can auto-check on start and on a schedule (~every 4h), then user confirms download/install | A-EON Technology | http://www.amistore.net/ | Proprietary client |
| AmiUpdate (AmigaOS 4 online updater) | ✓ | Partial | Checks amiupdate.net for newer versions of OS components + registered apps, lists them, user selects; can auto-check but is user-triggered, not a silent daemon | Simon Archer (bundled with AmigaOS 4.1 from Update 6) | https://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/AmigaOS_Updates | Bundled (proprietary) |
| Grunch (MorphOS + AmigaOS) | ✓ | ✓ | True package manager: search/download/install/auto-update/uninstall with dependency handling; update prompts can be disabled so installed software updates automatically (closest analogue to Snap auto-refresh) | "geit" (Guido Mersmann) | https://www.geit.de/eng_grunch.html | Freeware |
| MorphOS system updates | ✓ | — | None automatic — full/point OS releases distributed as downloadable images/installers; user installs manually | MorphOS Development Team | https://www.morphos-storage.net/ | Proprietary OS |
| Classic AmigaOS 3.x drag-install (68k) | ✓ | — | None — drag drawer, or run the Amiga Installer script; .lha/.lzx archives. No package manager, no auto-update | software by individual authors | https://aminet.net/ | Per-package (mixed) |
AmiUpdate and AMIStore's Updater are "Partial" because they can check
automatically/on schedule but still require the user to confirm the install — not
silent auto-appliers like Snap's snapd. Grunch is the single family tool that
can genuinely auto-update installed apps unattended. There is no legitimate
mainstream package manager for AROS or classic AmigaOS 3.x.
A WeKan Electron desktop app cannot run on any Amiga-family OS. Electron bundles Node.js + Chromium, and there is no port of Node or Chromium to 68k (AmigaOS 3.x), to PowerPC AmigaOS 4 / MorphOS, or to AROS — these platforms lack the modern V8/Blink toolchain, threading, and graphics stack Chromium requires. The only realistic way an Amiga user reaches WeKan is via a web browser pointed at a hosted WeKan server (and even then, heavy modern JavaScript strains these browsers) — never as a native install, so none of the update mechanisms above apply to WeKan itself.