Fabio writes: “Another whole month has gone by, which means that it’s time for another status update. Read more about it, and also check the screenshot showing the Zune real time gradients in action!”
AROS Status Update
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Team
I love AROS, not becouse it’s feature complete or even all that stable at the moment.
I love it becouse of what it represents.
It is a OS written by the Amiga Community for the Amiga Community.
In a lot of ways it’s more “Amiga” than Amiga at the moment.
Not to degrade the Morphos or OS4 efforts (Both of which I also support with $).
These propriatory OS’s will certainly have their place.
But my heart will always be with AROS.
It is to Amiga what Linux is to Unix… It brings Open Source to a platform racked by failures of propriatory “closed source” initiatives.
OK I’ve finnished waxing lyrical now 😉
Regards
Darren
Darren, I’d point out that MorphOS and AROS share code, thereby allowing one to benefit from the other. While MorphOS’s source code is not availible for general access, it is open for review and analysis by elements of the AROS team for the areas that MorphOS and AROS share code. (read: modules that MorphOS used from AROS) This has been a boon to both groups, as with the shared-code, the AROS team then re-implimented the changes made by MorphOS into their main tree in whatever manner they chose. (From what I’ve seen, it was similar to how many Linux coders worked, with a printout of BSD’s source next to them, to see how it was done, but doing it their own way to better suit the OS)
Being on the AROS developers list (and I swear I’ll finish some drivers one day when I have time) I’ve seen where this mutual assistance has helped both groups grow. I’m looking forward to seeing AROS on my Pegasos before the end of the year.
> Darren, I’d point out that MorphOS and AROS share code,
> thereby allowing one to benefit from the other.
You should be careful when stating that, as it must be made clear that the shared code comes only from the AROS side, that is we don’t get anything back apart bug fixes to OUR code which they use.
Notable eception to this rule are some open source SWs which MOS uses and that have been contributed to us.
> While MorphOS’s source code is not availible for general
> access, it is open for review and analysis by elements of
> the AROS team for the areas that MorphOS and AROS share
> code.
Actually, only Georg Steger has access to those parts.
> (read: modules that MorphOS used from AROS) This has been
> a boon to both groups, as with the shared-code, the AROS
> team then re-implimented the changes made by MorphOS into
> their main tree in whatever manner they chose. (From what
> I’ve seen, it was similar to how many Linux coders worked,
> with a printout of BSD’s source next to them, to see how
> it was done, but doing it their own way to better suit the
> OS)
No, that’s not quite the case. Most of the code used by MOS hasn’t been integrated back into the AROS sources yet, moreover we are allowed to integrate it ALL like it is, without having to bother about reimplementing it, because that’s what the AROS license demands. The parts we have (if we want) to reimplement are the ones we have not access to.
Oh my goodness look at that gradient, that is the most beautiful gradient I have ever seen.
I’m not trying to be funny there is no blockiness that I can see. Why is it other gradient usually turn out terrible especially fullscreen gradients?
I’ve seen a lot of comments here about the ugliness of the Amiga GUI, and with regards to MorphOS, AmigaOS 4, and other reimplementations of AmigaOS I generally agree.
But the original AmigaOS GUI as shown in these AROS screenshots has a beautiful simplicity all its own, kind of like the pre OS X Mac GUI. Simple, consistent, easily recognizable gadgets. Even the original color scheme is more pleasing to my eye than newer GUIs.
Bravo to the AROS folks! Simple and elegant. Very nice.
Mac OS X with all its 3D juju could certainly do very cool gradients that would even float the icons above it in 3-space.
However, the Mac OS is not so elegant anymore. Jobs thinks scan lines, shiny metal objects and glowing pills that look like traffic lights is the way to go. Too bad.
I agree with Jason.
Also I am increasing the post count of this news story
@Nate
When I heard you talking over at ANN about using te Hombre as an I/O chip I thought you’d gone wonkers. When I saw you in a recent OSNews thread engaging Mike Bouma (and he engaging you) in yet another crappy ANN-style flame war I moaned loudly. When you can’t even get your fact straights when it comes to AROS I’ve most definitly written you off as just another homeless, post-Amiga troll pushing your own agenda showing the same PR skills as Bill Buck of Genesi and Bill McEwen of Amiga Inc.
As for swearing about writing drivers, that doesn’t count – actions do. If you have committed to something than make sure you follow through. I’ll gladly admitt that I’ve yet to give AROS and other support than vocal, but neither have I promised I would.
@ AROS
To me, you’re among the very last true Amigians still doing something Amiga-related and I’m taking great interest in watching you make good progress. Two thumbs up, waaay up!
> When I saw you in a recent OSNews thread engaging Mike
> Bouma (and he engaging you)
It was only reactionary though and nothing personally directed against Nathaniel. But I thought I had to respond and make it clear that he talked strongly about things he simply has no insider knowledge of and formulated incorrect information as indisputable facts.
And as an employee of a rival company, IMO he does not only hurt the rival Amiga companies, but also the reputation of his employing company. Thus IMO a loose <=> loose situation and not good for anyone.
Take a look at the very informative AROS status page. And then go to your bosses at Amiga Inc and get permission to make up something similar for OS 4.0.
And with your newly made full-of-facts OS 4.0 status sheet, you can then post non-vaporware articles about OS 4.0.
I find it disappointing that you find time to discredit anyone who doesn’t work for Amiga Inc or doesn’t agree with your views on the Amiga world.
“It was only reactionary though and nothing personally directed against Nathaniel. But I thought I had to respond and make it clear that he talked strongly about things he simply has no insider knowledge of and formulated incorrect information as indisputable facts.”
My point is that Amigaland has had enough of bad PR and sandbox politics. At some point, someone has to be man/woman enough to call it the quits and let the products speak for themselves. The situation at OSNews is light years away from the rotting Amiga sites that are plauged by flame warriors, trolls, and people unable to produce factual arguments and I intend to make my outmost to keep it so.
@ Michael
“Take a look at the very informative AROS status page. And then go to your bosses at Amiga Inc and get permission to make up something similar for OS 4.0.”
You seem to be a bit daft to me. Have you got anything valuable to add, or are you just fueling the neverending Amiga bonefire?
“I find it disappointing that you find time to discredit anyone who doesn’t work for Amiga Inc or doesn’t agree with your views on the Amiga world.”
Just like you’re doing now? If you’re going to dish out, you might as well be prepared to receive too.
Okay, this news item is about AROS making good progress. Let’s just drop everything else before things get out of hand.
This project really gets me excited. Its a lot like AmigaOS, yet, its totlay free, and i know its going to be here for ever
– how cool do you want to get?
Plus in the most recent year, it seems to have picked up steam, and is by my account traveling very well. I guess this has something to do with more people being interested in AROS these days. Ie Genesi. No doubt they get valuable testing of their components and code improvements!
I cant wait till the workbench clone is just about done, and i can get a native compiler. As soon as those are done, i’ll be installing it and coding for it. Cant wait.
Amazing news, every AROS update makes me feel good. Kinda get the feeling of “nearly there!”.
well worth downloading i like it .
This can turn out to be something very big. An Amiga-like OS running on x86, specially the Linux hosted version (thus supporting all modern hardware), can attract a good number of people to it.
Looking forward to further developments on AROS, it’s becoming somtheing very special.
MorphOS and now AROS… It’s not the UI that made the Amiga so popular. What made the Amiga so popular is the multitasking using low amounts of memory and video capabilities. The UI is something the AmigaOS cloners need to replace (or heavily enhance.) IMO the Amiga UI hasn’t evolved much I see.
Look at http://os.amiga.com/os4/OS4GUIPre.php and see why.
Apple evolved from ugly OS 9 to the simplistic and beautiful Aqua on OS X.
Microsoft evolved from ugly Windows 3.1 to XP today.
Linux evolved from ugly Motif to Gnome 2. Gnome 2 is nice to see on screen.
Much of the default AmigaOS4 GUI will soon be revealed. What you see in many screenshots are simply the old AmigaOS2+ GUI style look, which has been the standard AmigaOS look since 1990 and worked pretty well even on 7 Mhz Amiga systems. AmigaOS2.x or better can however be made to look alot more modern.
Some example themes for the classic AmigaOS:
http://www.nowee.org/overshaker/
The first public presentations of AmigaOS4 will take place at the following events:
http://www.oase.at/amigaos4ontour.html
> MorphOS and now AROS… It’s not the UI that made the Amiga
> so popular. What made the Amiga so popular is the
> multitasking using low amounts of memory and video
> capabilities. The UI is something the AmigaOS cloners need
> to replace (or heavily enhance.) IMO the Amiga UI hasn’t
> evolved much I see.
You’re right about AROS having a minimalist GUI, however it’s not meant to stay like that forever, it’s just that there are far more important things to think about now, and replacing the GUI and making it modular and skinnable requires a lot of thought to be done right, specially considering that backward compatibility has to be taken into account.
We AROS Devs _do_ care about usability and good appearance, and are well aware of the AROS’ limits in this field now. Be assured that in the future the AROS GUI will be completely customizable to your likings.
Is it similar to Gtk-GNOME, OPENSTEP, KDE, Windows? Is it easy? Do C++ wrappers exist?
[i]You’re right about AROS having a minimalist GUI, however it’s not meant to stay like that forever, it’s just that there are far more important things to think about now, and replacing the GUI and making it modular and skinnable requires a lot of thought to be done right, specially considering that backward compatibility has to be taken into account.
We AROS Devs _do_ care about usability and good appearance, and are well aware of the AROS’ limits in this field now. Be assured that in the future the AROS GUI will be completely customizable to your likings.[i]
No, making it modular is not what I meant. Skinning is not important. 99% of Windows users don’t skins their OS or apps. It’s wasted effort. What needs to be is a solid UI from the start just like Red Hat Linux 8. Most Red Hat users still use Blue Curve. Usability(from an UI standpoint) is more important than inter-changing themes.
> No, making it modular is not what I meant. Skinning is not
> important.
Being able to apply different skins, if done right, is just the natural consequence of the good engineering of the system. Making it immutable is a wrong design decision from any perspective you look at it. If we had to change the GUi just to replace it with another immutable one, then we’d be better off by not changing anything, as the _current_ GUI is the one Amigans like more.
You may have your opinion about the “perfect gui”, others may have other opinions, so it’s better to let the user chose.
No, of course the Amiga was not popular because of its gui. It was the combination of a strong gui, strong command line shell, and unique OS features such as scriptability, true plug-and-play, and preemptive multitasking that made it great. Some people say that the hardware made it great, but I disagree. The hardware only enabled the software to be as great as it was. As time went by, the hardware became obsolete much quicker than the software.
I still say that the original 2.x gui is beautiful. Skinnability would be good, then I could keep the original gui or make it look MacOS-ish and people who didn’t like it could apply their own themes. Then I wouldn’t have to listen to how ugly people find it.