Nicholas Otley has built a QEMU hosted version of AROS Max for MS Windows. It’s easy to use, just run the self extracting archive and double-click the winaros.bat file to run AROS-Max in a window. Get the file here or visit the Aros-Exec message board.
AROS-Max On Windows
About The Author
Adam Scheinberg
Technology Executive • Web Developer • Father • Foodie • Music Snob • OS enthusiast
Follow me on Mastodon @[email protected]
Actually I unsubscribed from the Developers list of AROS last night and also asked Aaron Digulla to have my CVS access removed from AROS as well. I tell you some reason why I did this without sounding offensive (as I hope).
Personally I think that AROS is going nowhere anytime soon or nowhere anytime later in the upcoming years due to wrong focus and wrong set of priorities. While I do believe that the people working on AROS do have skills to work on such a project I on the otherhand think that AROS is growing exuberantly in all directions without roadmap, without focus, without concentration on stuff that are essential.
Last night a bounty to implement DBUS into AROS was finished and that stuff got merged into AROS without any feedback with the participants or further discussion about its requirements. DBUS is an IPC system that the GNOME people on Linux have implemented because CORBA (which is used right now) was overkill for some tasks. Now someone has filled in a bounty to have a DBUS bridge getting implemented into AROS to allow AROS to communicate with the outside world of Linux and control of some elements.
First of all DBUS isn’t being proven, nor has it become standard for GNOME and not even for KDE (regardless if it’s put on freedesktop.org). KDE still uses DCOP and GNOME still uses CORBA for IPC communication and DBUS is far from being anywhere to be used. Talks have been started for GNOME and KDE but before any major upcoming release this still stays talks.
So far AROS (while it’s lacking from everything else, TCP/IP stack, from functionality of WANDERER, from well everything essential) now has a DBUS bridge which is basicly useless for AROS itself (not to mention useless because DBUS can’t be used in an AMIGA OS like operating system at all because it’s not being supported by anything).
I think the bounty for DBUS was just a waste of time and wrong chosen. While I do see a point to animate people to contribute to AROS I on the otherhand believe that there is an urgent need for more essential things right now than wasting someones powers on stuff that only adds new complexity to an OS which the OS can’t use in real life scenarios because AROS is no POSIX like Operating System. I therefore had asked on the AROS Development list why the participants working on AROS (regardless how much their contributions are) weren’t asked before. As in a modern teamwork (e.g. many people working on one project) it is required that you stay in communication with the people working on it or being interested on it. It can’t be that you simply go and add various things to such a project making it bigger, bulkier, messier specially if it’s stuff that has absolutely no relevance to the project and the projects goals.
Also what I figured out over the years is, that AROS is quite split up community of people working on it. Half of the Developers want to make another Desktop Environment out of Linux (and have it operate hosted – which might be an explaination why to implement DBUS) while the other half of the Developers want to have AROS to become an self running Operating System such as AmigaOS4 or MorphOS.
The inclusion of DBUS caused a huge animosity for me not that it is absolutely useless for AROS, no because also it wasn’t discussed before nor does it fill in a particular ROAD or FOCUS towards one goal. Now AROS does have DBUS which it can not really use since it’s not even used for what it was written for but it’s still lacking everything else that is really required.
I think as long as the people working and contributing to AROS have no focus to concentrate on, and no real roadmap or better organization as long AROS will stay an unattractive tweakers toy for the most people. I call myself developer and was quite interested in AROS. I haven’t done much for it now and only contributed the one or other patch there and here and recently fixed some issues where gcc 3.4.3 made errors. But this doesn’t mean that I would have done more if I had more time working on it. But going everywhere and adopt all kind of stuff into AROS is in my opinion the wrong approach and as long as the problems that I tried to explain exists as long AROS won’t go anywhere. It doesn’t help having good developers, it would help more to concentrate on one path, focus on something and have better communication accross the participants. This as sad it sounds is not existing in AROS it’s so much open that everyone is going to blow around in all kind of parts contributing all kind of weird stuff to it without that these things are being brought up for dicussion or coordination. Even bounties are simply taken as they come without being dicussed whether the implementation wouldn’t make things more complicated than neccessary or whether it would make sense to not adopt that bounty because the person who had filed in the bounty does have a slightest clue what he asks for and what benefits it would have.
So what I want to say is for all people interested in an Amiga future, better stay off of AROS. There is more hope and more productivity if you focus on AmigaOS4, MorphOS or even UAE.
Ali ‘Galaxy’ Akcaagac, plastering your rant all over the internet isn’t exactly something mature to do, specially because that’s a discussion that started on the AROS-Dev ML, completely off-topic here, and to which AROS devs already answered.
But people will remember that you also ranted the same way about Gnome, KDE and freedesktop, so no big deal… Wrong place to rant like that, I guess, that must be why you didn’t put your name over your words 🙂
“It can’t be that you simply go and add various things to such a project making it bigger, bulkier, messier specially if it’s stuff that has absolutely no relevance to the project and the projects goals. ”
Why not?
Thats the beauty of opensource. Anyone can do whatever they like with the code.
For instance, I might decide to write a microwave oven controller based on the existing AROS code tommorow, and then commit the code straight back into the CVS.
Now, by your logic that code is useless and shouldn’t be there.
By my logic, that code could be picked up by someone else and used for any number of things I haven’t envisaged. Who knows? Did Linus Torvalds anticipate Linux running on anything other than an i386 way back in 1991? No.
And there is also the name to take into consideration. Amiga RESEARCH Operating System.
The clue is in the second word!
It just works for me. I downloaded it and it ran fine on Windows SP2. I’m sorry to say I do not really grasp the beaty of Amiga, but functioning it does.
I wish they’d update the site more frequently. It would tell people that AROS hasn’t been abandonned. If devs would present what has been done so far and what has to be done next maybe more devs would be encouraged to join up.
AROS-Exec also looks dead.
Hey evert! using AROS on a hosted Win isnt the same as using AROS Native! or AmigaOS on an Amiga! the feeling is FAR from the same! + you need to learn it to understand the greatness of it
.
BTW to ronald + all! aros-exec.org is “experiencing” a Ddos attack some from lame kiddies (thank you lamers) sorry about that please try again when the kiddes give up.
Ola “4pLaY” Jensen – Aros-exec.org admin
why anything that holds some kind of relationship with the old Amiga world has to be that messy, and pointless…
Pointless arguing, no direction and always being in a state of “not done” is the Amiga curse. It would appear that Aros has it spades. It could be a great desktop OS. But lack of direction and the desire for 4-5 devs to recreate everything on their own will forever hold it back.
I have an AmigaOne with OS4.0 and I really am very impressed with it! Not very interested in running AROS on PCs.
If they ever get the cost down to something reasonable. I will be there with you. But really, the cost at this time is just, well. Not very cost efective.
Hello, my name is Ali ‘oGALAXYo’ Akcaagac and my hobby is ranting on all kind of forums against anything which has to do with GNOME!
As an Amiga programmer I can only shake my head in disbelief that the AROS project only needs
15% more of the original goal of porting the AmigaOS3.5 code to their project for it to be completed.
This has been the state of things for the last two years or so. Instead, the AROS project is focusing on
adding bells & whistles for other hardware, etc., & blowing off this last 15%. Yes guys, it is indeed hard to
work on the boring stuff, when it’s more interesting to try to write code that you’ve never seen before.
BUT — you’ll have to prove that you can complete the original task you set for yourselves before anybody
else (at least the serious folks), will want to spend time helping you. I for one, have decided to spend my
programming time porting my old programs to AmigaOS4. The last program took less than a day, including
updating the documentation & uploading it to os4depot.net. My point is this: there is no AROS OS3.5 replacement until THE PROJECT IS COMPLETE. Prove that you can accomplish your goal, or quit
wasting your time.
Jim Steichen, Author of AmigaTalk
I think I can say for all of us involved in the AROS project that we do it for fun. There is no grand “conquer the world” scheme behind it, we code because it is a fun hobby.
Sure, there are goals. We will get there eventually.
@stychokiller: A lot of things have happened in the last two years. Zune for example, out opensource MUI clone. I would hardly call any AmigaOS without MUI complete. As for “bells&whistles” I can’t say that I find much of it really. Hardware support is necessary in the form of drivers. If somebody wants to have a go at porting to a new platform then good on them, it has a tendency to weed out more bugs in the process. I for one do not feel that I am wasting my time at all. It is a hobby after all.
The main limitation of AROS from the point of view of a potential user is that it does not run any Amiga programs.
It would be very useful to have an OS that ran natively on x86 hardware, without needing either Windows or Linux (or QNX) to be present, and had UAE fully integrated. Amithlon is good but there are a number of programs, such as DPaint, which don’t work because of the limitations of the P96 graphics engine.
An AROS whose programs are all ports from Linux is not useful – one may as well run a Linux distro.
Of course, if the whole thing is entirely an abstract programming exercise, then the user’s point of view is irrelevant.
There is a torrent download of WinAROS-Max on
http://thepiratebay.org/download.php/3263681/WinAROS-Max020.exe.tor…
Are essentially original (chipset oriented) Amiga ones.
I mean, there is no need to recreate the audio.device for instance, which was replaced this year by AHI (audio engine used by all Amiga originals/clones), or to recreate AGA or ECS graphics engine when modern Amigas use CyberGFX themselves (AROS use CyberGFX). Intuition (widgets system), to speak of an Amiga core library, is superseded by Zune, an MUI (object oriented widgets and windowing system) clone, used by real Amigas as MorphOS clones.
In fact, some AROS core devs are polishing the system heart and the build system to allow more flexibility WITHOUT leaving the main goal “to be source compatible with AmigaOS3.1”.
When some others are coding essentials hardware drivers:
Amigas came with on-board audio, it was essential to provide audio drivers (AROS has support for SB-Live!, AC97-(inteli8x0 or nforce). So sound was done. A native NVidia driver provide minimal “à la” Amiga graphic support (e.g.: switching screen sizes/depth in live)…
I can’t believe the “3.1 milestone” can be reached without those particular requirements. Is there only one Amigan here who can live without his beloved switching screens, please stand up?
So, IMHO, more than 85% are done.
Will this make me able to play my old Zool games for Amiga?
“Will this make me able to play my old Zool games for Amiga?”
If you want to play old Amiga games, try UAE.
The problem with screens is that several essential programs use two screens at once – one is the image, render, etc being worked on, the other is the control panel. If you can’t somehow display the control panel and the data simultaneously, those programs can’t be used. ImageMaster is an example.
It might be possible to trap requests for a second screen and open a borderless window instead.
Another problem is that a number of programs request a HAM or HAM-8 screen for the palette editor.
Some kind of integration of UAE with AROS would work best. The problem then is finding drivers for all the PC hardware.
Hopefully, AROS will provide a foundation for *researching* into a new Amiga OS on AMD64 architecture. I wish they would look into rewriting Amiga’s Exec kernel as an exokernel, and into the idea of preparing the Amiga OS for residing on regular PC hardware… They might be able to take the reigns away from a headless horseman and show the horse the way to go, so to speak.
A lot of Amigans haven’t understood the idea I have in mind, nor the rich implications of advantage for such a new and different OS (capable of full backward compatability, but future-minded and progressive in its nature). Those who haven’t grasped it yet…have only succeeded in failing in their own ideas.
Amiga RESEARCH (of a new) OS (AROS). Hopefully, too, they will attract more programmers willing to experiment down this path. Perhaps some who know how to manage a project can help them get things on a more streamlined track.
Definitely not knocking AROS for what they’ve done thus far; few others have shown such initiative and drive as they.
–EyeAm
http://s87767106.onlinehome.us
As seen here:
http://aros-exec.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=361&forum…
AROS is going to go the Linux Desktop Environment approach.
I think a better approach for AROS would be to utilize Linux for the drivers rather than be hosted on Linux. Granted, the article here is about AROS on Windows.
Is this really about AROS on every conceivable host, or what? (judging from the http://aros-exec.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=361&forum… link posted above).
Seems everything BUT Amiga, even for a self-proclaimed ‘research’ OS. I have to agree with others in the thread that due attention be given to fleshing out some clear-cut goals. Without the goals known, you can’t get there; you just accomplish what you have before you, without any true inkling of what to do with it beyond the tunnel vision. The big picture should be reviewed, too.
A clearer set of goals will attract more programmers or developers. Otherwise, it’s just a hobby toy, and not any kind of solution for those looking beyond the current state of the Amiga OS. If the goal is compatability *behind* the newer Amiga OS 4.0, what’s the point? What exactly is being researched here?
It seems to me that the research venture would be better served to experiment with some things that haven’t been done before. Amithlon is one example of what had not been done before, regarding Amiga OS–and apparently what was achieved was the ability to run Amiga OS on regular PC hardware, ten times faster than the fastest Amiga (if benchmarks are to be believed). Of course, Amiga Inc. killed that, right?
–EyeAm
http://s87767106.onlinehome.us
To see the full effect of what has been done you really need AROS installed natively on a harddisk, with supported hardware. The ‘Windows Hosted’ version just runs in an emulator, this is popular as many soft-egg followers want to check it out without having to fiddle with making a bootable CD, and the hastles of finding out why it won’t boot on some hardware configurations.
Nicholas also has plans for ready-to-run setups for Mac (and possibly other) platforms, so we can spread news and general awareness as far as possible.
IMO the Native version is headed in exactly the right direction, and having a rigid roadmap would detract from the whole; the Linux hosted version allows for easy development and play with experimental features. If a Linux environment evolves out of it, then so be it, but if it does it will surely be a natural progression of the current work.
Extract the Windows hosted archive, and then burn the arosmax.iso to a CD. boot this on your PC and you will experience the beauty of the Amiga feeling.
Thanks for the tip. I’ll give it a shot. I just hope those old floppies still work now. =)
Is a nice OS; I ran it off a live CD. It really needs a TCP/IP stack, though. Computers are connected these days and a lack of one hurts.
For what do you need a TCP/IP stack, they have DBUS
AROS has come an enormous length.
1. Polished design. To even think that the hosted version is kind of a DE is symptom of either ignarrogance or utter thickness.
2. Device-centered philosophy. Hey, who cares for that? After all, were those critics to write software, they’d put it all on main() – it’d have to be faster!
3. AROS has a roadmap. It’s even been subject to revision when it’s due. It’s up on the ws for all to see. Are you visually impaired?
4. The AROS ML’s are filled with interesting debates on interesting stuff and whatnot. Programming stuff, ya know. But hey, it’s more interesting to benchamrk Linux against FreeBSD, right? That’s what’s mentally enriching.
5. The hosted version is there to ease development and trying of new ideas. I suppose it’s more intelligent to use Bochs to provide virtual hardware than Linux to provide virtual software…
6. There was an interesting discussion on the TCP/IP stack a while ago. What’s the point? To do it wisely or to do it hastedly, compromising the future? Once you port the BSD satck, you can’t get rid of its IO model anymore.
By the way, Fabio, cheers to you and everyone else on the team.
well, personally im only interested in the native flavour of AROS, but hey…AROS are portable!
I only miss tcp/ip and nix compatible shell (bash or ksh) atm.
I cant see why people wants to glue aros with linux…its not a true kind of relation.
but as aros says…no schedule’n’rocking
for those who doesnt see progress…is probably cause didnt saw a small black cursor in the upper left corner when aros was begin to work native, that indicates a second task running!
We have very few dev but…imo very good ones, and all features are very pondering pro and contras. sure there are things that are not priorities, but if will do no harm and someone want to implement it we will not deny.
Freedom, have heard about that?
Regards, and very thanks for all who have tried it…i hope you had joy and stay tunned (imo, till the middle of 2005 we will be in a very shape)
Merry Xmas and Happy new year! =oD
I have absolutely no problem with the direction AROS is heading in. AROS always was a platform you could run native or run hosted and I’m sure it always will be.
I think people just want to see happen a bit quicker. If it was no-one would care about non-core features being put in.
If you do want the programmers to spend time on the important things then start a bounty for the important things. I’m tempted to start one for some much needed Wanderer features – after all, I’ve spend hundreds of pounds on the MacOS in the last few years.
I hope that TCP/IP will be the feature that really gets AROS moving. Compiling AROS on AROS too to an extent. It means that developers and would-be developers can actually spend time using it – not just playing with it and leaving. A mixture of excitement about seeing each piece of work pay off and frustration about missing features might get people working more and more people working.