Commodore OS Vision

Reader supplied reviews for Commodore OS Vision Average rating 7.3 from 12 review(s) Please select a rating in the range of 1-10. Please write at least a few sentences about the distribution while limiting your review to 4080 characters. What are your thoughts on Commodore OS Vision? Please include a few pros and a few cons, along with your overall impression of the operating system. Our FAQ page has tips on writing a good mini-review. Version: -- 3.02.01.0-beta9 Rating:    -- 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 out of 10 Your review (minimum 250 words): Past reviews - sort by: DateVotes Version: 3.0 Rating: 10 Date: 2025-05-02 Votes: 5 A great system that allows you to return to the past in a click! In an instant, we can go back to a time when we used to spend whole nights, over building in Basic and playing. The system very stable and, importantly, does not send or use, any private data. The system was based on Mx Linux with all its tools, so you can easily customize everything and count on support. I recommend to anyone who remembers those beautiful times of the 90s, and also to those who want to know how it was back then. Thank you to the developers for all their great work! Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 3.0 Rating: 9 Date: 2025-05-01 Votes: 0 The C64 was my first home computer & I have fond memories of using it. It lead me to my 30 year journey into System Administration & Electronics repair (mainly because the c64 died a lot and I had to find a source for chips to repair it!) This was a major flash back to a simple time when computers came with programming manuals & the source code was available for us to modify. Jim Butterfield's course on the C64 got started. I had a hard time getting this to install, kept erroring out on boot from a USB Drive, Ventoy didn't help either! I was frustrated by it looking for /dev/sr0 when the file size exceeds 30 GB, which is even too large for my blue ray burner. I had to install IVentoy PXE server to handle the very large ISO! I used a Sony Vaio Laptop as my install machine. It has great Network Boot capability and four cores. It finally booted and installed fine! I got to try the new OS! I took the drive from the laptop when done and installed it in the desktop which would not boot the ISO from any source! It booted first time & every time without an error. You can't do that with Winblows! WOW! Awesome feeling but I had to shut off some of the animations, which was not hard to find. Some c64 games threw syntax errors which blew me away, Vice has always ran my D64 files flawlessly! I purged Vice and reinstalled it and that fixed the errors I was getting. It would help if when an app failed that we would get a explanation of where the files should go! I had a hell of a time copying in the roms from my host machine. All & all it was a fun experience, It looks great & most everything worked on my MSI/AMD desktop! A++ Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 3.0 Rating: 3 Date: 2025-04-26 Votes: 3 I was intrigued by the "new Commodore" but quickly discovered it’s just a standard motherboard capable of running Windows. Hoping the OS might be innovative, I downloaded versions 2 and 3—only to be disappointed. As a longtime IT architect with 27 years in the industry and deep nostalgia for retro computing, I live for vintage systems and pushing their limits. From the perspective of both new and old tech lovers, the Commodore OS misses the mark. It’s just a Linux distro cluttered with visual add-ons that hinder usability. The graphics are gaudy and lack true nostalgia. Underneath, it's just Linux running emulators—something you could do on any PC. Version 2.0 at least launched D64 files into VICE fullscreen, creating a fleeting illusion of magic. But version 3.0 lost even that—every D64 file opened in a standard window without executing the software. This OS doesn’t bring back the old days. I get why Linux was used, but let’s talk about what a modern Commodore OS should embody. Actually, I scrapped that thought—because that era is over. An OS once provided access to hardware capabilities within strict limitations. Now, with modern hardware and software enhancements, those limitations fade away. I launch software from my modern PC onto my old systems. This OS forces users to confront that reality. If it ran on an actual Commodore, it wouldn’t have so much unnecessary flash. A true Commodore legacy should continue the spirit of creativity—making visually and audibly compelling experiences accessible to everyone. The original community thrived on experimentation, pushing the limits of hardware with shared knowledge. A worthy successor should allow users to easily build games in that same spirit. Instead, Commodore OS 3.0 is just another cluttered UI with a BASIC implementation tossed in. If this were a simple hobby project, I wouldn’t be tearing it apart. But since it's packaged with a paid product—essentially just a custom-designed PC case—it deserves scrutiny. Slapping on some nostalgic fonts and a blue theme isn’t enough. I’d rather stick with my preferred OS on my PC, where I can disable all the unnecessary effects if I want to (or enable them, if I choose). I don't need eSpeak barking at me or amateurish 3D backgrounds disrupting the interface. When I think of Commodore’s legacy, I think of game engines like Unity and Unreal—tools that continue the tradition of accessible creativity. The "new Commodore" is a novelty item for people unsure how else to spend their money. The OS, at best, is an annoying installation process followed by a major letdown. To the creator: I get that you enjoy this, and I hope you continue having fun. Maybe that is the legacy—living it, rather than preserving it authentically. But adding every open-source game to 3.0 was a misstep. These aren’t industry-crafted titles; they feel like amateur attempts. Commodore was about games, but its games were better. Was this review helpful? Yes No See all 12 reader reviews of Commodore OS Vision...