What is your everyday OS/Platform ?

[HenryCase]

I use Ubuntu 10.10 but not going to update to 11 because of crap unity. If i did update my Linux i will probably move over to Kubuntu because I've heard it's better.

Why don't you switch over to Linux Mint instead? You can think of it like an enhanced Ubuntu. Means you can keep running GNOME as your DE too.

[HenryCase]

Got it from my co-worker. He got it as a development unit to work on porting something to it, but he had some kind of falling-out and wasn't very interested in it anymore. Sounds like the only difference is that it has a 2GB internal SDHC instead of 4GB, but it works just fine.

I've been toying with the idea of developing something for it...I've been wanting to play around with Amiga-inspired microkernel OS development for a while, but of course I need to understand a good bit more about the i.MX515 SoC to even have a chance of getting anywhere...

A good starting point for your investigations:
http://aros.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/nightly-download?20110530/Binaries/AROS-20110530-linux-arm-system.tar.bz2
Should work on the Efika MX, in fact here's a screenshot to prove it:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54643129@N00/5191566091/

[HenryCase]

Ah, yeah. I was wondering if AROS would run, but I couldn't find much conclusive. I'll have to give that a shot. It looks like the archive is a binary distribution? What exactly do I have to do to get it to boot?

Yeah, definitely worth a try. At the moment the ARM port of AROS is Linux-hosted only, so to get it to run you'd need Linux installed on the Efika MX first. This allows AROS to use all of the hardware that ARM Linux supports. What operating system have you got on the Efika MX at the moment?

[HenryCase]

Ah. It's got the distro that came with it when I got it from my coworker (Ubuntu 10, I think?) Which is woefully in need of updating, but should work just fine for hosting AROS.

Wonder how long it'll be before it can run native...?

As far as I know ARM-native AROS being worked on behind the scenes. However, some more user testing could help make sure the ARM ports are stable, so as you do have suitable hardware you could be doing us all a favour by testing it out and reporting back what you find.

I reckon you're right that Ubuntu 10.04/10.10 (whichever you have) will be a good candidate to host AROS on. If you'd like some advice on setting AROS up then posting on AROS-Exec, or chatting on the #aros IRC channel (on freenode) is your best bet for getting some helpful advice.