AfA OS (AROS For AmigaOS)

[motorollin]

Anyone used AfA OS? I'm a bit confused about what it actually does. From what I understand, it replaces some of the OS3.x libraries with AROS ones (compiled for 68k) . But what does this actually achieve? Is the performance any better/worse? Is it worth it?

I did look through some of the documentation for AfA OS but it seemed to be documentation of the additional functions available to developers with the new libraries, rather than the advantage for the end user.

--
moto

[motorollin]

I don't have many hacks. Just VisualPrefs.

What does AfAOS actually do?

--
moto

[motorollin]

And I guess because the original libraries are not overwritten, backwards compatibility is maintained?

Sounds cool, but not enough for me to get excited over yet.

--
moto

[motorollin]

bloodline wrote:
No, backward compatibility is maintained because AROS is fully compatible with AmigaOS. The original libraries are overwritten.

Are you sure? Look here. Specifically this part:

It is easy to boot with or without the new libraries.
No original libraries in your LIBS: directory need to be overwritten

Maybe this has changed since that document has written. If AROS is fully compatible with AmigaOS, then why use OS3.x+AfAOS at all? Why not just use AROS natively and use this to run AmigaOS binaries?

--
moto

--EDIT
Ahhh, I've just looked on the AROS Exec home page and there is no Amiga version of AROS. I guess that's why some of the AROS libraries are being backported. I hope the ultimate goal is to have a fully ported and bootable AROS environment for 68k Amigas.

[motorollin]

bloodline wrote:

motorollin wrote:
I hope the ultimate goal is to have a fully ported and bootable AROS environment for 68k Amigas.

Yes :-)

This would definitely be something to get excited about. An actively developed OS for 68k Amigas which is fully backwards compatible with classic software! Stuff like visualprefs, birdie, powericons etc could all be part of the OS instead of hacks which can make the OS unstable.

Exciting stuff!

--
moto

[motorollin]

I think it's great that AROS functions are starting to be ported to 68k Amigas. But for my needs, anti-aliased TrueType fonts are not particularly useful. I hope that the idea is to totally port AROS to run on 68k Amigas without the need for OS3.x.

Since AROS68k would be binary compatible with AmigaOS software, we could still use WHDLoad for games and run other apps too.

--
moto