This is about AEROS which is basically AROS Broadway (hosted not native) on linux.
Hosted is not "emulated" or virtualized.AROS hosted runs as Linux process and utilizes linux API's for network, filesystem, audio. So it doesn't matter what HW you use as long linux provides the low-level stuff.
The difference to ARIX is, afaik, that I use a whole Linux subsystem with Windowmanager(but no linux desktop, for that there is AROS/Wanderer) with all bells an whistles while ARIX is more pure AROS on a "limited" Linux subsystem.
The most noticeable differences:
ARIX = smaller footprint (less Linux files)
AEROS = bigger because full of X11/linuxsystem and Linux Applications.
ARIX = AROS binary compatible
AEROS = AROS binary compatible + fully Linux compatible
Also as far as i know ARIX can bang parts of the HW directly.
At least both share enough that work being done for one will help the other.
For example Network and Audio are both in update process.
Michal Schulz is rewriting the audio device to utilize ALSA instead obsolete OSS.
So we can keep in mind:
ARIX is not alien and will not hurt AROS. Both will benefit if someone work on AROS side of things.