The following is an interview with Ola Jensen and Adam Chodorowski, two of the core developers of the Amiga Research Operating System (AROS), a project to develop a open source Amiga OS clone.
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Aros, is in my opinion a pretty neat Os, i've downloaded it, and used it for about 3wks now, the software that comes with it isnt great but it works, i've only had 6 Os crashes out of about over 50 boots, the menuing system is a bit fiddly to start with but easy to get used to, AROS is one of the best free Os projects i've seen on the net
AROS is one of the best free Os projects i've seen on the net
Agreed. It's impressive. The UI is very FAST (although still slightly buggy), clean, and consistent.
put it on a bootable mini CD and played with it for a while. It was cool 
I must also note that AROS is pretty slick. I burned the demo CD and gave it a whirl a while back. It does a lot- I figured it wouldn't have been as full-featured, considering how it doesn't really get talked about all that much. I mean, you don't hear about people who run it, etc etc. Yet, it is quite complete in some areas. I can't help but wonder why they're not concentrating on things like TCP/IP/ to pull AROS into the realm of an OS folks could use for everyday things?
Keep up the good work, AROS team! You've got something special and cool on your hands, to be certain.
I can't speak for the AROS developers, but I think TCP/IP gets in there when it's convenient.
I like this project a lot. It's a quiet point in the Amiga universe where people concentrate on development, rather than throwing too much mud at eachother. And it's nice to see it picking up some speed in development.
Fabio Alemagna also works in the AWeb webbrowser team and when TCP/IP is done, I'm fairly sure there will be a port to AROS. Suddenly AROS becomes very usable. :-)
Also keep an eye on:
http://www.chodorowski.com/aros/screenshots/
which gets updated regularly.
right now, we are not really focused on TCP/IP. It will come. A few people are working on it (out of the few developers), but don't hold your breath. Let's meet again in 3 years, and see if we will still be rocking. Current short term goals seem to be drivers, desktop/UI and devkit, and that's fine by me, because these are the basic building blocks. Not to mention documentation.
Also yes, the site needs a status update, but we lack a status update writer
I would love to be able to use AROS. I support it in the way that I can, but I am not a devloper. I am sorry to say, but without more devlopers I really don't think it will get anywhere. It is amazing how far they have gotten with as few devlopers as they have. I wish them luck and hope some more devlopers join them. This could be really a really good OS, I think.
they clean up the UI somewhat. It looks out of date (fixable I'm sure) and from what I've seen, it seems like the UI for programs tend to be crowded with widgets. Also, the DOS thing is a turn-off.
It is a clone of an old OS. It is mean't to be out of date. But I understand what you mean.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Also, the DOS thing is a turn-off.
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You don't like CLI?
Given the well established IPC interface with Amiga (and follows thru with Amiga Like OSs) .... typically seen in terms of the Arexx port and the heavy IPC use in the Hurd, the Hurd and AROS wil make for a nice combination with many user benefits.
Imagine extending the terms "dumb terminal" and "smart terminal" as analogies to ones personal interface to the computing power of the very large developer base of GNU. Where KDE and Gnome are considered "dumb terminals" to access in the user space of the Hurd. The "Smart Terminal" would be AROS interfacing with the Hurd thru IPC so as to access the GNU resources.
But AROS is also targeted for stand alone, and that too, is good, and further supports the "Smart Terminal" analogy.
Nothing like taking your smart terminal (OS + Personalized interface) with you (on something as simple and small as a business card CD or memory stick) that you can run it on what is the most popular and common hardware or PPC (both the Hurd and AROS are being ported to PPC), while also being able to interface it in an integrated way with the massive application functionality and multi-user security base of the FSF GNU works.
Many have said GNU/Linux is to complicated for the typical user (especially those who don't need multi-user support/security complexity) and Many have said Amiga OS (and likewise AROS) is simple, easy, efficient to use. Nothing stopping the best of both finding the common IPC integration.
One needs to understand that there are three primary User Interface as explained at http://threeseas.net/vic/html/3uis.html
Perhaps zephc thinks that AmigaDOS is something related to MS-DOS. AmigaOS has had its own CLI for a while. DOS is a term which has floated around (Disk Operating System) before MS-DOS. It's not like AmigaOS is based upon some gimpy single-tasking MS thang...
Just offering the chance for people to suggest by e-mail, articles or interviews theyd like for me to write, not neccessarily related to AROS.
Hi there,
I just wanted to know the status of the Pegasos port. In my opinion developping for x86 is not the right direction to go (there are already too many oses on x86). Now that we have some valid hardware (Amigaone or Pegasos) it would be great to have an os to go with it. It would be great.
Michal Schulz is already working on it, he has a Peg board and just got a Voodoo3 card so he can hopefully do more gfx stuff. So yes, PPC port is on sched ... oh, nevermind.
However I for one would not afford a PPC board in the near future, but as I'm happy using Linux on x86, and don't really expect to take over the world with AROS (but with Zune instead I dont care
Anyway, the choice x86/PPC is more determined by hardware and knowledge availability than any other reason, I guess. So send us even more PPC boards and PPC hardware hackers.
Sure, If any one want to send an AmigaONE or PegasOS to the AROS team, we would be happy to put more developer time in getting it up and running.
Right now very few of us can afford to buy a PPC machine, so we have to use the cheapest available hardware (Read: x86).
Our Thanks go to Genesi for providing a PegasOS board.
I believe zephc may be taking about the screen mode selector that appears at boot time...
If so, I quite agree with him. We will sort that out ASAP.
It's a quiet point in the Amiga universe where people concentrate on development, rather than throwing too much mud at eachother.
A very good point!
Hi, I noticed AROS runs on PCs with 486 instructions or better. It'd be nice to see AROS continue to not require the most recent CPUs, as it'd be ideal to put on older systems.
I'll bug {szuler} (hihi;-) to speed up with PPC port ;>
It is nothing like msdos, it actually support full multitasking!
on amiga.org forums? Maybe contact him to see if the offer is still in place..
Mr Buck did, and that is why we have actaully managed to get AROS booting on the PegasOS computer (and aparently Open Firmware based Macs?).
But Michal Shultz hasm quite a way to go before AROS can do anything useful on the PegasOS. These things take time.