Basic questions and needed clarifications about AROS

[Starrfoxx]

I haven't had a chance to dig into AROS yet, so I'm reading what I can about it before testing it out on VMware or a spare HD.

I noticed this on the front page:

"It's an independent, portable and free project, aiming at being compatible with AmigaOS 3.1 at the API level (like Wine, unlike UAE), while improving on it in many areas."

Although I'm familiar with Wine, I haven't used it.  I know you can run certain games and programs with it on Linux, and it's not considered emulation.

Do I understand then that the goal of AROS is to run Amiga games and programs without emulation, and also provide a future for new software that takes advantage of modern hardware?

It's a very fascinating project, the more I read about it.  Ubuntu has become an amazing OS with it being open source, and it seems like AROS could be just as good given time.

I'm wondering how far ahead or behind AROS would be compared to OS4.  I know there's been much anticipation about OS4, but would it be worth it compared to AROS?  I thought about mentioning OS5, but I don't feel like opening a can of worms.  

The Amiga community is so divided in different sections.  AROS just makes sense as a direction to follow for some type of future in the Amiga.

I was curious for some feedback on that and your thoughts and clarifications.

[Piru]

"It's an independent, portable and free project, aiming at being compatible with AmigaOS 3.1 at the API level (like Wine, unlike UAE), while improving on it in many areas."

IMHO likening AROS to Wine is slightly misleading. True, it is more correct than comparing it to UAE, but still quite a bit off. What AROS provides is a API compatibility (and potential ABI compatibility on m68k hosts). Wine provides both API and ABI compatibility (and thus obviously only works on x86).

Do I understand then that the goal of AROS is to run Amiga games and programs without emulation

No. AROS does not run amiga games or programs. You need to use UAE.

[JosephC]

AROS runs AROS games and AROS programs.

[dammy]

Do I understand then that the goal of AROS is to run Amiga games and programs without emulation, and also provide a future for new software that takes advantage of modern hardware?

No, what the page is talking about is ease of porting.  A application that is running on 3.1 should with hopefully minimum effort, to recompile as a AROS x86 app.  The text on that page is aim at Developers and not end users.  For Amiga68K binaries, you will need to run EUAE with one possible exception.   _IF_ (and there are couple of devs looking at it now) AROS68K is brought back to active developement and ported to the Amiga68K machine (or such as Minimig), then AROS68K should be able to run an Amiga68K application.  

Dammy

[RW222]

I'm all a bit fuzzy about this too. Understand that 68K binaries won't run on x86. If using a 68K install of AROS though, would only 100% OS legal stuff run? Guess that's a moot point until an AROS kickstart comes along really, but thinking there's some stuff that might be done a bit hacky that might not hit the kickstart direct, but nevertheless use undoc "features" of AmigaOS or something???

[dammy]

Yeah, it's confusing since AROS is being ported to many arch's.  For right now, you will need EUAE to run your old Amiga apps.  For future Amiga with AROS kickstart ROM, that would be a different story since each kickstart will have to be made to the different Amiga series.  There are no silver bullets, just alot of waiting and hard work.

Dammy

[Amigamia]

You can say that out loud "AROS just makes sense as a direction to follow for some type of future in the Amiga."

[Raffaele]

Starrfoxx wrote:
I haven't had a chance to dig into AROS yet, so I'm reading what I can about it before testing it out on VMware or a spare HD.

You have no need of it...

There is live CD distro ISO file updating any time...

Simply you download it, burn a CD from the ISO file and autoboot with no problems without harming your system...

http://aros.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/nightly-download?20071009/Binaries/AROS-20071009-i386-pc-boot-iso.zip

And there are also:

Version to be installable (the one that you can use with WMWare

Version which runs hosted into Windows

Version which runs hosted into Linux

(These two acts as a simple emulator like UAE, with the differene that you are not running an emulated AmigaOS, with emulated hardware, but you are running just AROS into a window of Linux or Windows OSs.

Check in the info of the downloads for the version you ask for...

Enjoy AROS

[Heinz]

RW222 wrote:
I'm all a bit fuzzy about this too. Understand that 68K binaries won't run on x86. If using a 68K install of AROS though, would only 100% OS legal stuff run? Guess that's a moot point until an AROS kickstart comes along really, but thinking there's some stuff that might be done a bit hacky that might not hit the kickstart direct, but nevertheless use undoc "features" of AmigaOS or something???

As there is no full 68k Port available to test that, it is hard to say.
But there is AfA (AROS for AmigaOS) Project.
Bernd Roesch ported some AROS core Libraries to the AmigaOS to modernize it and add new Features to it.

You can try that and see how compatible it is.

Aros for AmigaOS Project

[McVenco]

Raffaele wrote:

There is live CD distro ISO file updating any time...

Simply you download it, burn a CD from the ISO file and autoboot with no problems without harming your system...

Yes. I have tried that a few times already... downloaded the ISO, burned it to CD, and rebooted my pc, but then nothing much happens. The only thing that shows up is a grey (black? don't really remember) screen, sometimes with a mousepointer (which moves - so it DOES do something), and sometimes without the pointer. Am I doing something wrong, or should I wait more than about 5 minutes for something to happen?

I tried it the first time somewhere last year, and the last ISO that I burned and tried was from some 2 months ago..


Does AROS have known issues with certain Wintel systems? Mine is a Asus A7V333 mobo, with AMD XP 2000+ CPU (256MB Ram).

[dammy]

Does AROS have known issues with certain Wintel systems? Mine is a Asus A7V333 mobo, with AMD XP 2000+ CPU (256MB Ram).

Unless it's some unusual gfx card, looks good hardware wise. Did you try selecting different gfx settings at grub?  Nightlies are pretty raw so best to try a very recent nightly and try it again with different gfx settings.  There are two distros (which will be far more end user orientated/stable) in the works with one of them do out Oct 31st.

Dammy

[Raffaele]

McVenco wrote:

Yes. I have tried that a few times already... downloaded the ISO, burned it to CD, and rebooted my pc, but then nothing much happens. The only thing that shows up is a grey (black? don't really remember) screen, sometimes with a mousepointer (which moves - so it DOES do something), and sometimes without the pointer. Am I doing something wrong, or should I wait more than about 5 minutes for something to happen?

No... Too much long time...

You should had seen something like this in a few time:

http://bp2.blogger.com/_rfWbINbeMj0/RwgC0pdO1fI/AAAAAAAAAAk/9A0TcNS2AWk/s1600-h/snapshot23.png

I tried it the first time somewhere last year, and the last ISO that I burned and tried was from some 2 months ago..


Does AROS have known issues with certain Wintel systems? Mine is a Asus A7V333 mobo, with AMD XP 2000+ CPU (256MB Ram).

You could ask it at their forum, register for free and ask them help...

http://aros-exec.org/modules/newbb/index.php


Ciao!