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We’re not done with the AROS news quite yet, as Andrzej Subocz published another update with the latest news from the AROS community. Some of it we already covered, but a lot it we haven’t. For instance, there’s the initial version of a partitioning tool for AROS, called QuickPart. For now, it’s in read-only mode, but once it’s complete, it will allow users to do, well, partitioning. Work has also begun on porting SDL2 to AROS, replacing the aging SDL 1.2 version currently available.
On top of all that, there’s a lot of work on new and improved network drivers for the 64bit version, an extensive amount of changes and improvements to the build system, C library, datatypes, and much more. Subocz’ full report has many more details, so head on over and read up.
I will make a conspiracy:
Every time I run into an alternate operating system, my best bet of running it is in qemu (or similar). If… Linux had a stable driver API, they would be in a very different position.
Take ReactOS for example:
https://reactos.org/wiki/ReactOS_FAQ#Is_ReactOS_able_to_run_Windows_software_and_Windows_drivers.3F
They can run actual drivers from Windows NT. Given they are alpha, it might not work, but at least Microsoft had graciously provided us with an API which makes this possible.
In the end ReactOS could be around longer than many of these open source competitors.
(Think how much FreeBSD would “profit” if they shared the driver API with Linux. Or Haiku. Or AROS here)