AROS Status Update

[Argo]

AROS developers has been quite busy in last two months, discovering and fixing bugs, adding new features and so on. Maybe, from a user point of view they are not so noticeable, but you can be sure they are really important as well. There are, indeed, some really BIG news about PPC and 68k portings of AROS.

Bernd Roesch has compiled an AmigaOS-68k hosted version of AROS called AFA (AROS for AmigaOS): "AfA OS is a way to use AROS source without changes and compile them on every AmigaOS based operating system.

It can run and be build hosted on every AmigaOS compatible system and provides a compatible API to all systems. With AFA, the host Amiga OS is degraded to do things that MS-DOS was doing for Windows 3.11-WinMe. It is easy to check for bugs/errors using testprograms, but the rest of the system is using the old stable functions. You can easily boot with or without the new libraries". More informations and pre-compiled binaries are http://amidevcpp.kilu.de/afaupload.php3">here.

Pavel Fedin has modified the mount command in order to support DEVS:DOSDrivers and SYS:Storage/DOSDrivers foldersa, as like as in AmigaOS 2.1 and later revisions. Many c: commands has been back-ported from MorphOS as well.

Michal Schulz has re-vitalized VMware graphic hidd, so running AROS on this famous emulator will be easier. He's also working on a 2D accelerated graphic hidd for Ati cards.

Finally, you can download x86 FreeBSD hosted version, and lots of funny interesting software on http://ftp.back2roots.org/aros">Back2Roots FTP.

[fx]

Sweet!

But has anyone got it to work on their classic Amiga? I tried it briefly but when I try and start the AFA Prefs I get an error message saying "No AFA OS running", and when I SnoopDOS it fails to open LIBS:afa_system.library

If anyone has had any similiar problems and solved it, I would be happy to hear how

[Senex]

You might also try to repeat your question in the german comments thread of the original news-item about AfA OS - noone would mind if you do so in English there, since there are no comments yet at the english version of our news-item.

amiga-news.de

[jmbattle]

Yep, exactly the same behaviour here too.

I was interested in being able to use truetype fonts and antialiasing through diskfont.library (i.e. throughout the workbench/all interfaces etc.) - atleast, this is what I gather can be achieved.

Any hints or tips would also be welcome here too.

Cheers,
James

[unusedunused]

when above message come then you have not start the afa_loader.

download the archive from 20.nov this work without assign

BTW: If someone can write a installerscript and want help on AFA it is nice when he write a installer script.but currently you must copy files by hand

short install and test without risc is.(No files are overwritten)
copy in the afa_OS dir the fonts dir to your bootpartiton.
copy afa_os libs dir to your bootpartition libs dir
copy the dir afa_os_libs to your bootpartition.The folder ois create automatic when you do it from WB

no go in the dir c: of the afa OS archive.doubleclick on afa_loader.Now it should work.in fontreq there are Fonts vera mono Vera sans.This are truetpye fonts and work with antialiasing in every app.if something fail look on snoopdos what the loader want do

If you show in scout the libraries there should be another diskfont.library graphics.library with pri 1 in the system

If you want use AFA on startup then you can copy afa_loader to your c: dir and add in startup-sequence

in this sheme

....
c:adddatatypes
c:afa_loader   <-----new entry
c:iprefs
........

if your system really dont boot with AFA a left mousbutton hold on boot skip afa initialation.

also if you add
c:afa_loader MOUSESTART

then afa work only if you press and hoild down left mousebutton during boot

[fx]

If I can get this to work I will try and write an installer, I have some experience with Installer but have never tried to add anything to the Startup-Sequence yet, so we'll see how that turns out :-)

Anyways I made a screenshot of what is happening on my Amiga, I tried to show all files that are needed for AfA_OS but I might have forgot someone since I did it quite in a hurry. Am I missing something obvious?

Screenshot

[unusedunused]

Thats great if you can make a installer.Hope to get it working on your system
adding to startup sequence should only a option.maybe this can add later

Thanks for your precise report.Your file place look ok.

Have you use the afa_os_loader from that archive ?
 
AFA_OS_20_nov_05.zip-  
 
And you get no requester that volume AFA_OS: is miss ?

The old loader from the user archive work only with the assign.only the new loader work in the way
you test.If you get no volume requester then it should work.the loader work so that it first check a dir in sys:afa_os_libs
If he dont find it,he check for afa_os: dir or assign

If not you can start each file in afa_os_libs folder.first start afa_system_lib.exe.
then start diskfont_lib.exe and graphics_lib.exe

then it should work and we must find out wy the loader do this not.

[fx]

Yay! It worked when I started everything manually!

New screenshot [ ~330kB ]

But the loader fails :-(
I am using the loader from the Nov 20 update, and I don't get any request for AFA_OS: - so everything should be fine I guess.

I'm gonna start working on an installer script now anyway, for starters perhaps I should only make it start everything manually, in exactly the way it worked for me. Then I can change it to use the loader later when it is sorted out what makes it not work.

One more thing, all executables looses the executable flag when you zip the files, so the distribution should probably be in lha format.

[fx]

Wow, after I put the executable flags on all the files in Sys:AFA_OS_LIBS/ - the loader started working! Yay! So now everything is working great!

[Dagon]

where exactly is the FreeBSD hosted version? (under what name?)

[unusedunused]

Ah execute bit is problem,on the page can currently only upload .zip.I ask if this can change that support
lha too.

BTW: is speed of truetype usabable or is it too slow to be usefull.
It can speedup,by only calc this values with a alpha value difrent 0 or 255.(most values on fonts are transparent)

but it cost develop time which maybe better use in the current state of AFA when teh text speed is usefull
to add more features

[Amigaz]

Working good here too but I had to put the loader before LoadWB in my startup sequence, I guess it crashed with all my Amiga Theme Experience patches which are everywhere between Iprefs and the datatypes etc
Will upload a screenshot later

[fx]

@bernd
I have finished a early beta of the installer, it's very basic and has a few bugs that needs ironing out but it's semi-working for now

I took the liberty to make a lha archive when I archived it, all the files that are in the nov 20 release are there, only difference is I added my installer and has set the executable flag on all (hopefully) needed files.

The bugs:
The installer thinks a directory exists and asks if it should be removed even if it doesn't exist, this can be ignored.

The C:AfA_OS_Loader command is added to S:User-Startup instead of the Startup-Sequence. This works in most cases, but it seems if you save your workbench with an anti-aliased font, it doesn't show up after a reboot.

Anyway if someone tries it please let me know how it worked.

Oh, and about speed on classic Amigas. It was pretty slow, but still faster than I had expected on my 040/40 with a Cybervision 64. On a friends machine with 060/50 and a Cybervision PPC, he said it was very usable! He could hardly notice any difference.

[unusedunused]

@fx many thanks for doing that,i download and test it soon

for speedup,i look what can do,when switch the JIT on winaue off this seem same speed as 040 25 so i can see

yes if you have patches the loader must start behind that or the patches patches the afa funcs in the new libs away

Only Limit when you start behind c:iprefs then the new picturdatatype cant use

But i see now that 256 color iff backgroundpictures dont work

So best for new picture datatype is use truecolor backgroundpictures for now.The color reduction of AROS picture
datatype is not very good so when use truecolor pics and 256 color WB give too not very good quality.
If this a limit,because you want 8 bit WB,best remove new picturedatatype out of the
afa_os_libs dir

[unusedunused]

Thanks the installer work very good.I hope i get ok that the afa upload can change to lha,then i upload a new archive

But text is better change to that.when start in user-startup then new picture.datatype does not work

(set #startup "Do you want to add the required \"C:AfA_OS_Loader\" to your \"S:User-Startup\"?\n\n")
   (set #startup2 "If you run into any problems with the AfA_OS_Loader,or want use new picture.datatype try and ")
   (set #startup3 "move it to \"S:Startup-Sequence\", right before IPrefs and remove it from User startup.")