Either you have missed my point or I didn’t make it quite clear. I certainly wouldn’t dare to compare the C-64s’ functionality to that of Windows, Mac OS X or Linux/Ubuntu or whatever. What I would compre however is the functionality of an Amiga-OS to any of the above mentioned systems. If you want me to make a similar comparison, the Amiga-OS would be a Porsche and all the other OSs would be Hummers.
The first is lightweight and doesn’t carry any unnecessary weight with it (while still being able to serve everything a regular user needs), the second does carry far, far too much weight with it. Weight that may be valuable in emergencies but is certainly not needed by every user.
Let me explain that a little more, going back to the Amiga again. To this day I have nothing but utter respect for the people who created the Amiga. Simply because they were able to build an actually usable (and very responsive) computer around a 7 MHz-processor (and some highly dedicated co-processors of course).
But it didn’t stop there. I think the highest amount of RAM I had ever built into my Amigas was maybe 6 MB of RAM. Nothing more. Oh, and did I forget to say that the Amiga didn’t have virtual memory? But, even with that tiny amount of memory I was able use, say, a text-editor, a painting-application, a browser and an Email-application at the same time.
The reason why this was possible was an OS that was built for efficiency. Compared to it, I think that most every so-called modern OS is a big pile of bloated junk that does tons of things under the hood that I probably wouldn’t notice if it wouldn’t be there.

My simple question is this: Why are the OSs we have to use nowadays are still sluggish too often, and sometimes about as “fast” as a turtle? Why did the Amiga with the laughable slow CPU feel much more responsive than any of the modern OSs? Again, I absolutely do not see how an Amiga could be seen as a bicycle.
I also don’t see what you’re up to with pointing me to the kernel. While hacking the kernel might be a theoretical possibility, most of us regular users (and even the geeky ones) will never do that, mostly because of the lack of time and experience. And regarding OS X and Windows: We couldn’t do to that anyway, even if we wanted to. And why should we have to? It is not the users job to optimize the basics of the OS, it is the job of the OS-makers.

Also I think that isn’t the point here. My complaint isn’t so much about Linux (though I think it’s just the same big bloated mess as every other system out there). My main complaint is that even the commercial OSs out there are the sameugly, bloated mess. What I am convinced of is that, with all the insanely huge amounts of RAM and the even more insane speeds of our CPUs, the OSs we use should be able to fly like a Porsche, not crawl like molasses.

Again, I have to refer back to the Amiga. This computer has clearly shown me, that there is no good reason whatsoever for a slow bloated OS.
One could say, computers have a lot more to do today under the hood nowadays. But I would object. Do they really have to? Does the regular user really need all the “servcies” that run under the hood? And even if, why do they have to slow down the OS so dramatically?

Here are a few things I absolutely would demand from a modern OS nowadays:

1. Be clever enough to run only with a set of very basic services at the start, and dynamically load others when and if they’re needed. Everything else is bullshit and a waste of precious CPU-power, not to mention the additional energy that is wasted with the increased CPU-load.
2. Make economical use of the hardware-ressources via the programming-libraries, like old systems did (again Amiga comes to my mind, but it could be Atari as well for example).

Part of the problem nowadays seems to be that the programming-libraries provided by the OSs are bloated as hell (or at least seem to be very inefficient). To me it seems that with increasing amounts of RAM and CPU-power programmers just got more and more lazy. This has to change! The OS-makers should be aware that a sluggish OS is a very bad user-experience, something that the guys behind the Amiga and Atari obviously knew and cared for (and probably the makers of some other OSs I am not aware of).

I would even go as far as to say that needlessly wasting the ressources of computers is an insult to the user. What it says is: “While we could make a fast application, we do not care enough for you, my paying customer, to be bothered”.

Imho, every major OS nowadays fails utterly on all of the points I mentioned before. And as a conclusion, all of these OSs suck big time, when it comes to user-experience. None of them is up to par with the advancements of hardware we have “gained” throughout the years. Though “gained” is highly discussable as well, because, instead of being able to use most of the computer-powers of today for our own needs, far, far too much of it is wasted (yep, wasted!) for things the regular user couldn’t care less.

Even better, you can probably find ways of running old C-64 OS (if that’s what’s called) on some virtual machine, and compare it to the real thing. time boot times. That would be more comparable.

Oh Multitasking is the thing that’s bugging you. If one wants improve his OS, since you now use Linux, you can write your own kernel, and use your scheduling algorithm of choice.
Linux even permits you to custom install everything.
Open source is the way. Power to “root$: man “

To be truthful, I myself am very lucky to own a custom built computer (AMD 64×2 ^2.8ghz dual-core, 2GB 866mhz ddr2 ram, 250GB hd, 8500GT) however I experience a small amount of lag running XP SP3. I tried vista and it was good speed but I hatd it! However, when I used the Amiga it was tenfold the speed.

What is happenning, the world is becomming slower!