New improved intuition.library version from the Kickstart 3.1

[eliyahu]

What exactly is missing? And again if you talk about 68k you can (almost) replace everything with original 68k libraries. By this I have f.e. added MUI38 (and removed Zune). That almost works for everything.

olaf: would you or one of the other AROS 68K users be interested in creating a guide on which libraries and tools we can use from AOS on our AROS installs? that would be hugely helpful to us noobs.

-- eliyahu

[OlafS3]

olaf: would you or one of the other AROS 68K users be interested in creating a guide on which libraries and tools we can use from AOS on our AROS installs? that would be hugely helpful to us noobs.

-- eliyahu

I can only document regarding 68k branch, AROS X86, ARM and so on is different. But yes I can (and partly already have). I will try to update that (expecially regarding programmers).

[Minuous]

Where did you get this nonsense from? Of course they do.

I got it from Ben Hermans' mouth. You can read the interview here: https://web.archive.org/web/20041020081420/http://www.swaug.org.uk/int010402.html

The relevant part is:

"SWAUG: Has Haage&Partner given you access to OS3.9 source code to be used in OS 4.0?
BH: No."

Obviously they have OS4.1 source code, which is what I assume you are referring to. However, that is not going to be very useful for people who are targetting Classic Amigas, even if they were willing to share it which I very much doubt. They've also shown no inclination to release the OS3.1 sources which they also hold. AFAICT there is no legal impediment to it but IANAL.

What exactly is missing? And again if you talk about 68k you can (almost) replace everything with original 68k libraries.

Last time I checked, it was/is missing the entire official AmigaOS GUI (ie. ReAction), as well as some less important components. I suppose those files can be copied over from OS3.9. But in that case, why not just use the proper OS3.9 instead rather than some mishmash of AROS+OS3.9?

[guest11527]

Sorry, yes, you are right, the H&P contributions are indeed missing. That was under a different contract, and unless authors contributed individually to Hyperion, the sources stayed at the authors, including 3.9. It is mostly reaction that's missing, and the updated Os components that are based on it (Preferences for example). Unfortunately, some of them are pretty buggy - ScreenPrefs crashed me quite a lot.

[wawrzon]

Last time I checked, it was/is missing the entire official AmigaOS GUI (ie. ReAction), as well as some less important components. I suppose those files can be copied over from OS3.9. But in that case, why not just use the proper OS3.9 instead rather than some mishmash of AROS+OS3.9?

reaction isnt particularly necessary, the only software i can recall testing on aros, that needed its classes was aweb. aros contains few appropriate rewrites of those classes and the rest you can obtain from the internet, afair from the class act download page to be precise.

now, aros doesnt provide everything, for instance proper installer tool is missing in c:, but you can just download the commodore version from aminet and put it there. on genuine amiga aros user has enormous advantage against aros x86, that you can use and fill the gaps with genuine amiga software and libraries. for instance you can just use the missing mui classes under zune. i see it definitely as an advantage, not as handicap. aros provides free and open source base to build an amiga compatible system and run amiga software as well as aros software that is not available for amiga (such as aros owb for  example). even where its still bugy, slow or incomplete, it comes with the sources and can be fixed and improved.

beyond that aros contains a lot of components that were missing from the genuine amiga os, eventualla up till 3.9 out of the box. there is a handy editor, not a memacs, you can move the windows off the screen without patching the rom with loadmodule. it contains a unified cpu library that automatically loads appropriate parts of it with setpatch after recognizing the cpu at boot time, and therefore the same installation will work on every hardware without messing with 060 or 040 libraries that might left an inexperienced user confused with not bootable or instable system, wondering whats up.

seriously, i dont understand all these complaints.. with the genuine amiga you had to get and install even mui separately, in contrary to where you have zune with basic set of libs. the system was at bare minimum after installation, yet nobody bitches about this. but when aros is missing some libs and classes, it is the reason to put it completely down and refuse to use it?

[OlafS3]

I got it from Ben Hermans' mouth. You can read the interview here: https://web.archive.org/web/20041020081420/http://www.swaug.org.uk/int010402.html

The relevant part is:

"SWAUG: Has Haage&Partner given you access to OS3.9 source code to be used in OS 4.0?
BH: No."

Obviously they have OS4.1 source code, which is what I assume you are referring to. However, that is not going to be very useful for people who are targetting Classic Amigas, even if they were willing to share it which I very much doubt. They've also shown no inclination to release the OS3.1 sources which they also hold. AFAICT there is no legal impediment to it but IANAL.



Last time I checked, it was/is missing the entire official AmigaOS GUI (ie. ReAction), as well as some less important components. I suppose those files can be copied over from OS3.9. But in that case, why not just use the proper OS3.9 instead rather than some mishmash of AROS+OS3.9?

Aweb needs classact not reaction and is easy to include

OS3.9 is suddendly free and the source codes available? Really? Please show me the link? When you are not able to then I do not understand what you are saying. I am a little nerved of such comments, I think most try to find reasons not do anything. The 68k community has the chance to get a successor for AmigaOS, if they are not interested I am fine with it because I can use it very good on UAE, BTW emulated environments will be more important than the "real" ones that many here prefer in my view. So I will see in near future if there is interest, if not I will not push anything in that direction anymore. I am the same opinion as Wawa, the reasons not to do anything on Aros are strange, to say it politely and sound to me more like excuses why people do not want to contribute.

[wawrzon]

@olaf
actually its not about doing anything but of a choice of options. minous has chosen the option of inoficial boing bags and asm patching, if im correct. in short therm it is probably more rewarding option, but it is a matter of opinion. once one invested enough effort in something you dont want to resign on it of course.

which brings me to another argument in favor of aros. boing bags are impossible to legally be distributed in one piece and demand experience with patching. people frequently mess up their systems. this disadvantage doesnt exist on aros. you just decompress the iso over to your harddisk and you should be ready to go.

[kolla]

I rememeber resource.library being rather critical in OS3.9.

[Minuous]

reaction isnt particularly necessary, the only software i can recall testing on aros, that needed its classes was aweb. aros contains few appropriate rewrites of those classes and the rest you can obtain from the internet, afair from the class act download page to be precise.

If you're aiming to do a proper job of replacing an OS, it is indeed necessary to support all the standard functionality of what you are replacing. This should surely be the first priority, before wasting time doing non-standard AROS-only extensions and crapplets such as a new editor when there is already a perfectly functional editor in OS3.9, not to mention dozens available on Aminet. I don't think it's appropriate to make these kinds of value judgements on the necessity of various components which are already official parts of the OS and hence are depended on by third-party applications. The fact is, ReAction is part of the OS, is used by various components of the OS and third-party applications. (Not just AWeb either.) Certainly more necessary than an unofficial one that was never part of the OS and which isn't used by OS components.

BTW ClassAct files are generally earlier versions than the corresponding ReAction files, and are missing functionality that is offered by the ReAction files. So just downloading them from Aminet is not necessarily enough.

now, aros doesnt provide everything, for instance proper installer tool is missing in c:, but you can just download the commodore version from aminet and put it there.

In that case, why not just use the official version of *everything*, no need for AROS at all then.

Even where its still buggy, slow or incomplete, it comes with the sources and can be fixed and improved.

Development tends to be random, presumably it is more interesting for the devs to expand the system in non-standard ways and ignore the missing functionality. Even 15 years later...

with the genuine amiga you had to get and install even mui separately, in contrary to where you have zune with basic set of libs.

Well, of course. MUI has never been part of AmigaOS. AmigaOS already has a GUI system and it isn't MUI. So I'm not sure why you would put MUI into AROS instead of the official GUI system.

[wawrzon]

If you're aiming to do a proper job of replacing an OS, it is indeed necessary to support all the standard functionality of what you are replacing. This should surely be the first priority, before wasting time doing non-standard AROS-only extensions and crapplets such as a new editor when there is already a perfectly functional editor in OS3.9, not to mention dozens available on Aminet. I don't think it's appropriate to make these kinds of value judgements on the necessity of various components which are already official parts of the OS and hence are depended on by third-party applications. The fact is, ReAction is part of the OS, is used by various components of the OS d third-party applications. (Not just AWeb either.) Certainly more necessary than an unofficial one that was never part of the OS and which isn't used by OS components.

first of all there might be replacements on aminet without proper sources, which is my assumption, secondly aros aims officially at full source compatibility with os 3.1 for starters, whats happens beyond is just what the devs have fun to do, which is perfectly legitimate with me. whoever is not satisfied with the approach may contribute themselves, this is not a guarantee on non open approach.

BTW ClassAct files are generally earlier versions than the corresponding ReAction files, and are missing functionality that is offered by the ReAction files. So just downloading them from Aminet is not necessarily enough.

has not made any difference so far when trying to run any reaction app on aros. care to name me one that doesnt work that way?

In that case, why not just use the official version of *everything*, no need for AROS at all then.

have i not answered that before? aros is for convenience to have the complete system out of the box, but not the whole aminet. if you find the sources for important component it can be included in contribs, otherwise just use it for free under aros 68k.

Development tends to be random, presumably it is more interesting for the devs to expand the system in non-standard ways and ignore the missing functionality. Even 15 years later...

true. for whatever amiga or non amiga development, proprietary or open, but with an open approach you are able to compensate for what you miss.

Well, of course. MUI has never been part of AmigaOS. AmigaOS already has a GUI system and it isn't MUI. So I'm not sure why you would put MUI into AROS instead of the official GUI system.

reaction nor class act was not official with 3.1, aros aims at. and it can be easily substituted on 68k qith freely available binaries. there is no apps i can tjink of using it. mui ismuch more an important framework for instance for mail, rss, web clients and a lot mpre and aros zune allows to run them just fine from what i have been testing. i dont recall an reaction app i needed that did nt run on aros 68k, again, care to name one?

[Gulliver]

But then, have you actually run aros on real Amiga hardware?

It sucks horribly (unless you are using a 68060 with graphics card and plenty of ram), and that is why most real Amiga users still prefer AmigaOS 3.1, 3.5 and even 3.9.

Aros seems it is the way forward for 68k, but then it also seems that it never reaches that desired state to even replace AmigaOS 3.1 efficiently.

[saimon69]

@Gulliver
Well if nobody works on doing the feature is hard to see them implemented; it is not like in an official OS where all is provided when ready, nor is like in Linux where there are several hundred devs -paid and not: whether we are talking of AROS or not, the Amiga and NG ecosystem is pretty small and there are just few knowledgeable devs working in lot of stuff, not necessarily useful or not immediately...

[Minuous]

first of all there might be replacements on aminet without proper sources, which is my assumption, secondly aros aims officially at full source compatibility with os 3.1 for starters, whats happens beyond is just what the devs have fun to do, which is perfectly legitimate with me. whoever is not satisfied with the approach may contribute themselves, this is not a guarantee on non open approach.

Why pick an arbitrary obsolete version like V3.1 and not, for example, V1.1? Seems pretty random. I don't see what's so special about OS3.1.

has not made any difference so far when trying to run any reaction app on aros. care to name me one that doesnt work that way?

Report+ and MCE, for example, require BB1 versions of some ReAction components as they use some of the newer functionality.

aros is for convenience to have the complete system out of the box, but not the whole aminet.

OS3.1 never included MUI anyway so I don't see the reasoning behind having it in AROS. If it's missing Installer then it's hardly a "complete system out of the box", even for an OS3.1 clone.

[Terminills]

Why pick an arbitrary obsolete version like V3.1 and not, for example, V1.1? Seems pretty random. I don't see what's so special about OS3.1.

Aros predates 3.5 by 3-4 years.  Therefore it makes sense for it to be based on 3.1 and not 3.5 or 3.9.  Otherwise would that mean today we should be basing it on 4.1+?

[Gulliver]

Yet, after all these years, aros doesnt manage to implement the functionality AmigaOS had back in 1993. Blame whoever you want, but AmigaOS 3.1 was not even top technology back then, and it is a shame it cant be accomplished in 2014.

So my point is that aros is full of really good objectives, but lacks in its poor execution as a project.

[olsen]

Why pick an arbitrary obsolete version like V3.1 and not, for example, V1.1? Seems pretty random. I don't see what's so special about OS3.1.

Trick question: what's the big difference between programming for Kickstart/Workbench 1.1 and 3.1, other than the number in front of the dot? The APIs evolved big time between 1.1 and 3.1, putting much more power into the hands of the programmer. What required a lot of inside knowledge and fiddling with barely documented data structures back in 1985 became easier to achieve and was a lot less error prone, too. Documentation and example code arguably became better, too, although much of the original documentation was quite good already (even though it was not exactly complete).

Also, the operating system became more robust, thanks to tons of bugs getting found and fixed when QA tools such as "The Enforcer" were widely used within Commodore engineering (which may not be relevant for AROS, though).