Submitted by Some weeks ago the popular AROS distribution VmwAROS has changed name into Icaros Desktop, for two reasons: to avoid confusion with VMware-related products, and to better focus on the “Live” version, which runs on top of real hardware. This new release, Icaros Desktop 1.1, the first with the new name, has got many enhancements over the previous ones.
Firstly, the web browser OWB finally allows AROS users to surf the web in a modern fashion and to use popular applications like Google Maps and Google Docs, Preezo, Meebo, and so on. An improved version of E-UAE allows launching multiple sessions, while MPlayer now reads all DVDs correctly. Many new applications have been added to the distribution, like the new ArosPDF reader, the SabreMSN Messenger client, and more.
Icaros is an AROS distribution. For those that don’t know AROS: it used to stand for Amiga Research Operating System, but in order to not be associated with all the legal bickering and nonsense in the Amiga community, it changed its acronym to stand for “AROS Research Operating System”. The project was started back in 1995, and right now, it’s a near-feature complete implementation of the AmigaOS. Since AROS is only source-compatible with older AmigaOS software, older packages either need to be rebuilt, or run using an emulator like E-UAE.
AROS is open source, and released under the AROS Public License, based on the MPL. It runs natively on x86, x86-64, and PowerPC.
Anyway, more news about this 1.1 release, and some screenshots, can be found on the official website. Icaros Desktop comes, as usual, in two flavours: the Live! version which run on real PC hardware, and the VE one, already pre-installed in a VMware virtual machine.
That’s great news! (que dying echo and the sound of chirping cricket)
I still care. (But I did enjoy the sound effects. ;^) )
This really is great news, as far as I’m concerned!
Cricket? We Amiga users haven’t been able to hear crickets for ages!
Has the Installer/partitioner been fixed or is it still like an episode of the Krypton Factor to get AROS permanently installed?
Installing it is quite easy, worked first time for me… It does require you to reboot after you partition, and on the next boot it formats/installs but booting doesn’t take very long.
What i would really like to see however, is a list of supported cards for the various drivers… I tried both the ATI and nVidia boot options on different machines and nothing worked.. I had a Radeon x1600, nVidia 8600 and Mobility Radeon in a Dell C610 laptop, none of which worked except with the generic (slow) vesa drivers.
Also the AC97 sound driver causes a noise (like binary catted to /dev/dsp) on the dell c610 followed by a crash.
I have a supported nic and a supported soundcard (emu10k is meant to be the best supported), would be good to get a machine running with everything working.
Cheers for that Bert.
I have an old 300MHz K6, 128MB of RAM and an GeForce 2MX sitting in a box in the spare room which will do nicely methinks.
I think I might still have a .11b Prism card knocking about somewhere too.
excellent…I wonder if it supports connection to wireless networks.
-2501
There is only support for Prism II chipset based devices. I really wish more of the fringe/alternative OS developers would focus on WIFI. Personally I think now-a-days wired Ethernet should be secondary. What good is a fast, small, portable OS without wireless?
I would love to put AROS or Haiku on my Aspire ONE, or on an older laptop. I do realize that wireless is fairly difficult to reverse engineer and develop (look how long it took for reliable Linux wifi), but surely someone could use the Linux code for these devices to port to another platform.
Jeff
Wireless networking support is essential for any desktop operating system.
For Haiku there is a bounty. http://www.haikuware.com/bounties/wireless-network-stack-bounty
Someone has started working on it. Using code from FreeBSD. Linux code probably isn’t working, because of the incompatible to everything GPL license. http://dev.osdrawer.net/projects/activity/haiku-wifi
Better use the *BSD code since the Linux code is GPL infected and the Linux code is probably ripped of the BSDs anyway.
Wouldn’t it be nice that the GPL stated that “if you wish to use a driver that is commonly developed for Linux or <insert free OS>, you are allowed to borrow it”.
BTW what license does Haiku and AROS have anyway?
Haiku is under the MIT License
AROS is under the AROS Public License http://aros.sourceforge.net/license.html
Yes, I agree that AROS needs more wireless network drivers. On the ethernet side things are getting better, but on the wireless one we’re stuck to 5 years ago. Unluckily we lack the manpower to develop everything, so if someone with proper competences would joint the project, it would be really great.
And, well, we already have an Atom platform supported, the iMica from CluterUK Developments. This should work as code-base for netbooks but, also here, we need someone that would code the necessary GMA950, sound and ethernet/wireless devices. Having Icaros running on a netbook would finally convince me to buy one =)
I agree…it needs somekind of wireless support specially if you want to see it running on laptops. I would love to run Icarus or Haiku too and all I ask is a good web browser and wireless support. I would take care of the rest…
-2501
It’s got the web browser. It just lacks meaningful wireless support (though ancient Prism II-based cards are supported)
Cant get it to work in vmWare Fusion on a macbook. Has anyone managed to get it working?
Does it have a networking when using vmWare?
Yes, it should work flawlessly on Vmware fusion and yes, networking is supported as usual. Maybe your virtual net needs some tweaking.