AROS has no chance in the future if...

[dammy]

True, and this despite trying to work it out for years.

Is there a time table?  None that I am aware of.  Now it may not fit well within YOUR time table, but such is life.  Over the past two years, I've been very happy with AROS' developement.

To be honest, I don't believe AROS knows what it's all about. There seems to be no direction and no aim, and the only actual purpose I can make out is to give the people involved something to do

I guess it's possible for those on the outside looking in may interput it that way.  If that is what you like to think, by all means, do so.

The reason I always ask the same question about AROS is because no one ever has an answer.

Perhaps they did answer, and you just failed to recognise it as the answer you were looking for.  Or of course, they just ignored you.

It seems to be in a constant and perpetual state of aimless development, but I can't make any more use of it today than I could a few years ago.

Guess all those things have been developed over the past two years are meaningless to you.  Well such is life.  Perhaps AROS will eventually live up to your high expectations.  Until then, how about writing your own Amiga like OS so AROS knows how it should be done?  :roll:

Dammy

[xaccrocheur]

Just a quick question : Is there a compatiblity matrix for the AROS snapshots ? I'm trying w/o any luck to boot past GRUBinto the latest iso image for i386.. :cry:  Is that the right download ?

I remember trying the same thing with a 2005 version on this very machine (athlon 2Ghz / GeForce4) and it worked.. Or dif it ?

Thanks for any light from any person that manages to boot it on asimilar machine !

[coldfish]

@ bhoggett

Its fair to be frustrated with long development times, but really what do expect for zero effort and zero expenditure on your behalf?  I dont think its fair to criticise/condemn a product that you get for free, instead simply dont use it.

On the other hand, if you have a vision for AROS' direction why not get involved and do some work towards fulfilling that vision?  

AROS is a community effort, the people involved are working on the aspects they enjoy, its just possible that noone wants to work on the task of generating a development pathway, if that's the aspect you enjoy, get involved and contribute your ideas, its better than standing on the sidelines.

[bhoggett]

Kalamatee wrote:
Perhaps you should write down EXACTLY what IS your question.  Ive only read negative statements so far ..

*Sigh*

OK, here it is again, for the zillionth time:

"If you are not an AROS developer, and not involved in its promotion or hype, what use is AROS to you? Why should you really care about AROS?"

I know there is plenty of activity and discussion between AROS devs on the mailing lists and forums, but it does seem to be a project simply aimed at the devs alone.

The OP essentially asked the question "What is AROS for?", and it's a valid question. If the answer is "It's a project for the devs to have fun with." than that's fine, I can accept that. However, reading all the various announcements and the posts about it on forums from people like dammy, you'd think it was a project with significance to ordinary users, a realistic and preferable alternative to porting AmigaOS4 or MorphOS to x86, for instance - but in that respect asking "when and how" is a valid concern.

Will AROS be able to hold the interest of the casual user for more than 10 minutes, and if so when? Is it taboo to ask?

[falemagn]

"If you are not an AROS developer, and not involved in its promotion or hype, what use is AROS to you? Why should you really care about AROS?"

The short answer is: you should't. And the best thing is, no one is asking you to!

The long answer is: anyone can "develop" AROS, be it by means of contributing directly to its codebase, or by developing applications for it, or by giving suggestions, or by drawing icons, writing documentation, or whatever else suits your needs. As for the "hype" and "promotion": has it ever crossed your mind that it's not AROS devs who hype it or promote it? Have you looked at how many people are subscribed to aros-exec?

Like it or not, AROS represents, to some people, something "good", something to "promote" and something to work on their spare time.

Anyone is free to contribute to AROS, and AROS itself is the summation of all those contributions, hence AROS is what people want it to be.

What do you want AROS to be?

[Fats]

bhoggett wrote:

The OP essentially asked the question "What is AROS for?", and it's a valid question.

The purpose of AROS is to develop an open source amiga like OS.

 If the answer is "It's a project for the devs to have fun with." than that's fine, I can accept that.

As it is an open source project done by volunteers the devs want to enjoy programming AROS.

 However, reading all the various announcements and the posts about it on forums from people like dammy, you'd think it was a project with significance to ordinary users, a realistic and preferable alternative to porting AmigaOS4 or MorphOS to x86, for instance - but in that respect asking "when and how" is a valid concern.

Fortunately for most devs AROS' purpose is not only to have fun but to end up with an OS usable for everyday use.
The timeline ? When it's done.

Will AROS be able to hold the interest of the casual user for more than 10 minutes, and if so when? Is it taboo to ask?

It's not taboo. The problem seems to be that some people can't ask this question without becoming confrontational.


Personally I'm an AROS dev, I enjoy programming it, I do target AROS to become an OS for general use.
I don't understand the heated discussion about it, though. If it's not usable (yet) for you; don't use it.

greets,
Staf.

[dammy]

Will AROS be able to hold the interest of the casual user for more than 10 minutes, and if so when? Is it taboo to ask?

So you installed AROS, setup TCP/IP, did some IRCing and then customized your prefs, played some games, did some art work while listening to MP3s all in under 10 minutes?  You must have been REALLY bored out of your mind with the old school Amigas.  

Dammy

[ncafferkey]

xaccrocheur wrote:
Just a quick question : Is there a compatiblity matrix for the AROS snapshots ? I'm trying w/o any luck to boot past GRUBinto the latest iso image for i386.. :cry:  Is that the right download ?

I remember trying the same thing with a 2005 version on this very machine (athlon 2Ghz / GeForce4) and it worked.. Or dif it ?

Thanks for any light from any person that manages to boot it on asimilar machine !

Yes, that's the right download. You might get more clues about what's going wrong by choosing VGA graphics in the GRUB menu (it shows you the boot messages). Then you should probably post on aros-exec.org.

[Gojirax]

Someone asked:
"Will AROS be able to hold the interest of the casual user for more than 10 minutes, and if so when? Is it taboo to ask? "

To which Fats replied:

It's not taboo. The problem seems to be that some people can't ask this question without becoming confrontational.

While later Dammy replied to the same question with:

So you installed AROS, setup TCP/IP, did some IRCing and then customized your prefs, played some games, did some art work while listening to MP3s all in under 10 minutes? You must have been REALLY bored out of your mind with the old school Amigas.

Dammy

I'm finding this to be a fairly decent thread for getting some discussion underway for the average onlooker like myself. I've used AROS for all of 1 hour from an ISO that I downloaded.

I can see where the Devs and Fans would feel beset upon from the types of questions. (The title of the thread alone is enough to put someone on the defensive.)

The thing I see here is that even though people are giving harsh criticism of AROS, the good thing is... they're at least loooking. At some point they tried it out.

Whilst Dammy's reply was one of moderate defensiveness, it held within it some good detail on what can be done with AROS. Thanks Dammy. A more detailed version of what you typed there would be awesome.

I too wonder what I can do with AROS. I like the fact that it's fast and smooth and very Amiga-Like.

Is there a listing of applications that work with AROS compiled somewhere? Maybe an AROS fan could write up some quick guides titled something like "Things you can do with AROS"... even if you aren't a programmer, you could contribute a tremendous amount with just something like that. I'd give it another shot if I didn't have to scour the internet to put the pieces together.