What would make a good AROS-1?

[dammy]

What would make a good AROS-1 that is cheap enough to be affordable but would still allow growth?  I would guess that a major requirement would be that such a box would have to be able to dual-boot into a more mainstream OS.  Being that, it should be x86 or x86-64 based?  Or is there a better option in bang:buck ratio for a modern desktop system?

Biggest problem is drivers for gfx/snd/nic.  What would be acceptable gfx card that developers have a reasonable chance of getting documentation for?    Same for snd card and network card.

Dammy

[dammy]

by bloodline on 2004/1/6 14:38:41

The Best AROS-1 would be one of the Athlon64 Motherboards with integrated Gfx, Audio and networking... that we would know what hardware we are targetting and be able to develop drivers for it.

MY first thought would be one of the amasingly cheap Via Mini-ITX boards, but I would prefer to go 64bit now

Cheapest mobo/athlon 64 is $335 w/o intergrated gfx.  I would like to see a pure 64 bit AROS, but that's not going to happen any time soon (unless someone wants to donate a few machines to the devs;).  The cheapest Opteron mobo with onboard grx is tyan  S2850G2N with ATI Rage (8Megger) for $179.

IMO, too expensive for a AROS-1.  AROS being as small foot print, I don't think it's really needing current upper end CPUs.  2200 XP with a MSI mobo would be over kill for $110.

What keeps me wondering is, what gfx card?  Unless that nVidia bounty opens on TeamAROS and a dev takes it on, I don't see the major gfx OEMs as reasonable choice for a AROS-1.  

Dammy

[dammy]

by Argo on 2004/1/6 20:35:13

Not my setup. Haven't gotten AROS to run yet. Though it's getting closer each time. Does AROS have USB support?

Currently there is NO support for USB.  PS2 mouse should work nicely.  Right now, there is work being done with PCI and some slight hint of some taking a relook at what has been done so far for TCP/IP.  Just takes awhile since it's all community driven OS with very little corp sponsors, though there are some rather nice folks out there who are helping out via TeamAROS bounty donations. =)

Dammy

[dammy]

by Rodney on 2004/1/6 23:01:10

besides the point it would be pointless to have an AROS-1, but i think AMD are the go. And the smaller the formfactor the better!

RIght now, I'll agree with you.  Given in awhile once a few major applications are finished/working, it maybe time for it. It would allow merchants to sell niche machines to end users that would be preinstalled and all the hardware has the proper drivers.  It's more of a reverse Eyetech, everyone is licensed hardware dealer and end users get to pick and chose the best machine that suits them.  Choice, what an evil thing.

Dammy

[dammy]

by Kronos on 2004/1/7 10:22:44

Don't see why everybody seems so keen on running AROS on big irons.

AROS should concentrate on what made the Amiga the Amiga, back in those days.

"Power without the price" was the motto, not brute force with the elegance of
a 40t-truck (and even the noise level ....). My personal experience is that I the times
where I would allways need more grunt has ended 2 years ago with buying the
AthlonXP1600, and that is running Linux

A(R)OS is neat and clean and should therefore do more than o.k. with one of the
VIA-mini-ITXs. The 1GHz does need a small fan, but that shouldn't be a to big prob,
and it will surely deliever more than enough speed for any SW that AROS will get in
the coming years. Write a native/accelareted GFX-driver for it, put in in a really small case....

Hey, this is AROS, do both big iron and mini-ITX. =)

Dammy

[dammy]

by Kronos on 2004/1/7 12:04:00

Well it was you, who asked for ideas about an "AROS-Ohne".

Heh, you got me there.  Think I need to do a poll for this...

Dammy

[dammy]

Here is that poll was promised.

Dammy

[dammy]

Not anymore

Not working for you?

Dammy