Merry Xmas from the Kitty

Merry Christmas!
These are my sincere votes to the AROS/Amiga community and everyone else, and here's a nice and quick treat for all of you!

I hope all your wishes come true in this holiday season...

AROS Kitty - So sexy and so lost...

If you do read my blog from time to time, you'll notice that those lovely AROS ICE themed window skinning is missing from this BLOG - well the domain where the image sitted just expired, so I'll have to find another one (but first I'll have to redo the images! Ouch!...)

Anyway this time I'm letting myself go with the flow and talk about Kitty - AROS mascot, first designed by the famous Amiga Illustrator and animator Eric Schwartz. His work is vast and well recognized and appreciated by not only Amiga fans but a much wider audience. His most recent work is available in Youtube, but you can follow it's monthly web comic Sabrina Online (Which is also an Amiga inspiration character)...

So asked upon creating a character for AROS, he designed this sexy kitten we all grown found with...


Mascot images can be downloaded here: Aros.sourceforge.net/kitty

Lately interviewed on AROS-SHOW, Eric Schwartz admited the possibility of more work on Kitty - See the full inteview on AROS SHOW!
But the sexy kitten would never get another role or pose, and AROS users/fans begun to deliver some mockups and ideas based on kitty for several purposes...

Such as:




and lately I stumble upon a rendition on Amiga.org of Kitty on a completely new pose done by anglosaxonusa:



There's also a honorable mention on the MorphOS Tans and AROS one (check OS-TAN wiki for more info)


Lately there's been interest in getting Kitty mascot onto SuperTuxKart, as character driveing her own car... Info on AROS-EXEC and FreeGameDev Forums ... Quite a deserved honor, but I believe still pale regarding its role on AROS life, and it iconic presence that immediately makes AROS recognizable to the eye!

So here's my plea... Help Kitty get back to life - lift it to more modern design features, more poses, more personality, more life beyond a simple still iconic image for an about window or a logo on a Web site!... Either with drawings, mockups or nagging Eric Schwartz to get her fit! AROS identity is somehow tied to her, so let's have it - Show you work...

And please enclose your exploits to this address, so that I might add to the above collection - > joao (dot) r (dot) ralha (at) gmail (dot) com

AROS Strong points - POV

I don't follow all the posts in the Amiga Forums, I mainly stick to AROS-EXEC, AmigaWorld.net and ocasionally wonder around Amiga.org, and Natami.org ones... I seldom got to Amigans.net and MorphosZone...

Naturally you find a lot of trolling in any forum, but that's specially true for the ones that are "multi-format"... Most of them are always the same lame attitude that plagues since Commodore demise, and in an ever increasing fashion. Usually the subjects are "What is considerered amiga, amiga like or amiga oficial or amiga spirit", or "Classic vs NG, Blue VS RED VS Black", or "your OS only supports Dead HW or not Amiga like HW"... The list goes on... A sane normal person can only think that Amiga community stands for some kind of Asylum Health type disease that everyone is trying to solve!...

So I can hardly look at these subjects with necessary objectivity. Anyway, I guess I'll put my reasons for backing up AROS (with no disregard for the other NG OS), and with the full clarity that it's not perfect even by a far stretch (but then again what is perfection!?)...

AROS has in my point of view some great strong points, in comparison with other OS:
- It's Open-Source nature frees it from an entity sole control, and has contributed for the development of the other OS due to its magnanimous license (APL), and maybe even to other software I'm not aware.


- Hardware support: True has to be said that both AmigaOS 4.x and MorphOS have their hardware reasonably well to fully supported. But they only support one CPU type (PPC) and limit themselves to a small range of GFX HW.
AROS on the other hand supports lots of CPU's but does not try to limit itself to only a few range of devices. So if a user decides to use an NVIDIA PCI CARD on a PPC machine, the porting affair should be relatively simple (probably comprising of endianess issues mostly). The development although more complex (and not so well optmized in certain issues) delivers a backbone for real multiplatform availabilty.
AROS can be found running from desktop type computers to Portable and netbook computers, and is aiming for ARM powered devices, so maybe soon AROS will reach the NG cellphones/smartphones.



- Connectivity: Both AmigaOS 4.x and MorphOs support modern TCP/IP stacks, AROS has its own rendition of AMITCP (ArosTCP), but it has more drivers available, and has support for both Wireless and Mobile Broadband from the get going. The only thing that does not currently support is modem through common phone line.
But the fact remains, that AROS offers more modern options for the ordinary connection to the internet.

- Ratio Price/performance: Right now you either have an MorphOS on a latest generation MAC, and that is a very nice combination (providing you got your hw on ebay for a low bid) or you have AROS (which was free) on X86 machine. That's as simple as that... And the quantity of options are much larger...

- Future prospects: While MorphOS has devoted its future focus to the Apple PPC line (and aims to support it fully), AmigaOS 4.x is backing the PPC custom machine with a few novel twists and offering (AmigaOne X-1000), the truth is that PPC hw is deemed to end, and even some Linux distros have ceased support on that platform (sounds familiar right). AROS is available to the EFIKA and SAM440 PPC, does not seem to further aim on to more PPC machines, but has extend it range beyond X86-32 bit and 64 bit , to M68k (as retrospective goal) and ARM (which is a sensible option regarding ARM supported devices prospect for future ones). So I would say that in that area seems ahead of the its "competition"...

- Specific Software: So far that's the point that AROS is alway lacking behind, both AmigaOS and MorphOS offer more, but maybe its time for some interesting developments in the media front in the future...


So While AROS is lacking in several areas, the truth is that it no longers sits in the pale shadows of the other Amiga like NG Offerings, it surpasses in certain degrees.

And its great because of its open-source development. It means that if any of the other OS wishes to add any of these enhancements or opt for other devices, AROS provides a shorter path to the required R&D.

One OS to rule them all...

Many people who have heard of AROS have the wrong notion that it's X86 only, or that other versions are not maintained or abandoned.

Well if you take a look at the AROS download pages, you'll find a very different story. So let's take a look at the options. First the native ones:

• amiga-m68k-system
- The original hardware intended, and the last to be recently supported. The R in AROS really stands as "replacement" as originally intended!

• efika-chrp-ppc
- Although with some quirks, it poses the second PPC option of AROS native, and and the free option to those who only have MorphOS for the machine.

• pc-i386
- The most current and known form, available also as two distributions at the moment (IcAROS and BroadWay). Hardware support is varied and constitutes the main target of development.

• pc-x86_64
- The AROS was the first to hit the 64bit range, and reports says that it performs more elegantly than its x86 flavour.

• sam440-ppc
- The first option on PPC native, and the free option to those who have AmigaOS4.

Then hosted options:

• linux-i386-system
- the main backbone of development along the years, still widely used by third party devs.

• linux-ppc-system


• linux-x86-64-system


• mingw32-i386-system
- A more recent option for hosted systems to run on MS Windows platforms in hosted form. Some still prefer the virtual/sandbox environments as Qemu, VmWare or Virtualbox...

Oh and guess what ARM cpu's should be added later if all goes well...

Of course, these are nightly builds, and naturally it happens that some are behind schedule because of modifications, or submissions that have some specific code relating with the hardware or compilation tools. But the truth is that all of these are more or less regularly maintained. And it's up to the general users to find some use and do some beta-testing.

The distributions are the best way to experience AROS as regular user should. Unfortunately these are made by enthusiasts and the natural target is the X86 compatibles. Although plans exist to make X86-64 distribution, it still leaves the PPC range behind in this respect - which is a shame.
I don't believe this will pose a problem for the Amiga-68k range though, enthusiasm is something which is not at fault, and with current emulation panorama and new hardware (Natami) coming, it seems more absurd that lack of support would be in place.

Naturally I hardly see the current PPC flavours to get much enthusiasm as HW manufacturers tend to see them as end-of the line or obsolete products, but the same could be said for the Amiga platform, and guess what?! Here is the Nightly Build on its first steps.

Maybe someone would also add the Atari-m68k and Mac-68k architectures to the AROS dev tree and N.B., (or even Acorn Archimedes and other eastern machines like X-68000) and I guess that would make World Domination... Even if retrograded... ;)

One OS to rule them all,
One OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all and in the light bind them!

Well, It sound better than the megalomaniac domination of the world trolling and ghostly laughs... At least more refreshing! Cheers everyone...

I'll be back...

Those were the imortal words of AROS before development plunging into more modern and widely available hardware! Returning to its original hardware and enhance AmigaOS 3.x - after all that was the original goal!
While time has passed, many believed that goal was deviated or totally forgotten!
Guess what... the ship is nearing the coast, and this time it might just get into port!

Of course I'm talking about the work done by Jason McMullan and Toni Wilen (WinUAE man himself)n on the Kickstart bounty (Phase 1 and 2). And they're finally delivering the promise goods... Check it out!


Boot sequence on WinUAE of current WIP

While it has still a lot of miles to get to port, everyone is confident that this time AROS will reach home - and by home I mean the original hardware range of Amigas. But not only that it might get to the next generation of hardware with compatibility in mind. I'm adressing NATAMI naturally! And this looks like the baby is going to rock...


Current mockup design for a possible Natami case

On the other hand the common known Next generation hardware (X86/X64 and PPC range) is getting more and more updates, and the recent developments might benifit of bringing on compatibility out of the box with AmigaOS 3.x software.
For the time being the J-UAE by O1i is definitely the reality to behold, and quite good from my POV.


Current incarnation of J-UAE

After all this who has the nerve to say that AROS is not Amiga! You're right - It's the next best thing! Real and modern and faithful to the original Amiga team leaded by Jay Miner! That's what it is!!!....

Now back to work... I'm sorry for not updating my blog more frequently, but I blame the International Crisis!...

A small off-topic - Laser Squad type game.

It's a shame AROS hasn't got full JAVA support...
If it had I would say this would be the multiplayer game that all people from the AROS Community should play (But I'm biased).






This is a very good net - multiplayer rendition of the Rebelstar/Laser Squad type games by Julian Gollop. Developped by Stephen Smith it really shows some good strong points.
It's still under development and is using GFX and other resources either from other Open-Source projects or user contribution. Sources from this game are available, but like I said earlier they're JAVA, so not great use for AROS portability at the moment.
Anyway this proves that open-source rulez...

By the way - You should check the Julian Gollop interview on RETROGAMER - really good sutff: Retro Gamer Magazine

AROS - Back to GFX glory...

We all remember that then AMIGA storng point known to public was GFX capabilities. And developers and artists used Amiga software, specially Deluxe Paint.
LunaPaint was to be our killer app, much like Dpaint was in early days of the Amiga... but that road took a diferent turn along the way, and we haven't the killer app everyone was hoping.

But magnifique Yannick Porter deluxe, begun work on AmiFIG and went beyond simple porting adding aditional features, and providing new functionalities (anti-alising, free-hand drawing, limited SVG support...).

And Manu is already taking benefit of this piece of software, with some wonderful images such as the one above. Reminds me the famous survivor pic so heavily abused in the late 90's early 2000's.
I Guess that Manu is for AROS what Eric Schwartz was for Amiga...

And here's a Video of Manu Working in Lunapaint and AmiFIG:



That's what we want - useful and killer apps! Keep them coming!...

Magellan found it first... Wanderer would follow...

Politics and related fuss aside, there was an interesting project carried out in my country. The availability of netbooks for all students in basic school (primary studies or whatever you call in your country) at low or or no price depending on the fathers/responsible person income. The product/project was called Magellan named after the famous Portuguese Navigator who first circumnavigate the earth and prove indeed that the Earth was indeed round...

Like I said, politics and publicity stunts aside, the truth is that it made quite an impact on the public school population, and it became a reference. It's not say that it all went well... But in all it was pretty decent effort, with a large impact - it even was exported for Portuguese native language countries and a few Spanish ones (Hugo Chavez was rather enthusiastic about it - go figure)!...

Of course my 5 year old son is still in pre-school (or kinder garden) but immediately notice that his colleagues had something that he had not. And wanted something to play with...

I pick up my wife's obsolete portable (Compaq Pentium II 133 mhz with 64 mb) and removed the win2000 OS and installed AROS (with FFS) and later IcAROS (in SFS), it was a bumpy ride in such a modest setup, but I managed to install, enjoy and write the improved Theme Prefs with it!

Of course my plan was to introduce my son to AROS, and to my surprise he pick it up almost immediately, so it was nice warm and cosy feeling. My son enjoyed it so much that it made me feel that I had a companion at home with a taste for amiga stuff.

Naturally he wanders more in games, but he also uses LunaPaint and Grafx2 (he prefers the latest, quite understandably), and always is on the lookout for all the directory contents to find new stuff.

My point is, young age users are more open than old ones, and while he does not have any amiga background or is fueled by any anti-any-os or architecture, he seems to appreciate more the IcAROS setup than the Windows one (While using them both). I believe in time he will have a more pragmatic and oriented POV, but if he had all the necessary software for his necessities (learning stuff), I'd say he pretty much would prefer any machine with AROS (netbook, portable, or desktop) than any netbook with a cutdown Windows XP version (that's what magellan is - the linux option is just that... an option).


Two weekend ago, thanks to the USB install option I was able to show AROS with sound to my son, and he was happily playing a few of his favourite games with sound output on my Works' Acer travelmate portable. If AROS gets more hardware and software support we can put a lot more happy faces on many kids - of all ages!!

Being a optmistic type and adventurer type sailor guy, I would dare say that Magellan might be more enthusiastic about AROS, than other projects bearing his name...

AROS steping up in several diferent directions...

First of all I'll try to put this in chronological order, because I haven't been here in a while, so do excuse me if memory fails me at this time... Also I'll try to number and categorize the AROS major points in these past few months...

1. Third Party software increasing in quantity and quality

For starters there's a word of praise I have to give... to Yannick!

Yes he definitely is on the runner up contest for Ports developer on steroids!
You can check his web-site here:Yannick's AROS Web page
A quick list of ports include:


1.Games
- Air Strike, Alien Blaster, Belcher Rescue, Billiard GL, Critical Mass, Eat the whistle, F1 Spirit, Glaxium, Mega Mario, Open Tyrian, Possible Worlds, SDL Ball, Shotgun debugger, Star Fighter, Super Methane Bros

- The Maze of Galious
2. Apps
- Unrar & Open Universe


And then there's it's own creations:
- Zunecalc
- ZuneArc
- AROS VNC Client
- WHD Menu

Pretty amazing stuff considering that these projects did not span more than 4 months ALTOGETHER. Keep it coming Yannick!!!
I guess as with Mazze it's about time for an interview on AROS SHOW! ;)

2. AROS is getting 3d Acceleration

Other major event is Deadwood work on Gallium 3D - pretty impressive stuff, but I haven't checked it out myself - my Nvidia card is an oldie - Riva TNT...
Anyway with his commitment AROS will have soon enough 3d Acceleration!

3. Amiga emulation and integration is nigh
We all know about O1i's effort to bring the AROS E-UAE integration port to a finish state, and it seems it's really there. This and Ami-bridge have been fueling the comeback of many Ex-Amiga users.

But there's a new guy in town! Say hello to Emumiga !
Moogen and Jakob have been working on a emulation layer so that AROS runs Amiga binaries within AROS internals (just like any AROS executable).

Emumiga goal is to run AmigaOS 3.x applications directly in AROS without emulating the Amiga chipset and without a copyrighted Amiga ROM image. For that it consists of a Motorola 68000 processor emulator that runs in emulated virtual memory. The virtual memory space contains mappings of real AROS system objects accessible from the virtual CPU. The mappings are set up to create AmigaOS binary-compatible system structures. Emumiga intercepts system calls made in the Amiga application and forward them to the corresponding AROS system calls. Emumiga constantly keeps track of all mappings, sets up new mappings as new objects are discovered and removes mappings for dead objects. The emulated CPU will not emulate any exact version of the MC68000 line of processors, but will behave in a way that runs the largest number of programs possible.

Right now they're able to open the Amiga Workbench Clock utility and show the menus (in AROS style naturally)!

Wonderful Stuff Really!

4. Booting AROS from USB
Yep! This is also a biggie! You can now partition, format and install an USB disk to work as AROS Bootable storage device from InstallAROS. And I must say that I've tested and it works like a charm, and it's pretty easy too... Naturally multiple partitions in different FS formats it's a different story in the difficult department but it's also doable...


5. Adding Mobile Broadband support to AROSTCP
Sami has added PPP support to AROS through USB modem devices! And this makes another world record for AROS - the first AMIGA NG OS to achieve Mobile Broadband support!
It's a shame that some Huawey USB pens do not work at the moment, but that may change in the future since the problem is already identified!

6. AROS gets Screen dragging
Finally the icing on the cake - Sonic work has expanded beyond Win-hosted version of AROS and now is working with AROS GFX internals and with a specific goal in mind - getting the most specific OS recognizable and distinguish aspect of AMIGA OS - Screen dragging. And it's already working!

7. AROS improves on other platform architetures
We all know about the AROS SAM port by Michal Schulz, well he's improving it with the help of Markus and some other folks (can't remember right now - sorry), and the small improvements are being fueled from other ports and back. This is what I call multi-cooperation!



EFIKA port is still in the works as far as I know, but it's probably improving as well specially with latest developments in the USB area (Poseidon and USB booting devices support).

But news arise from the nearly defunct m68k port that's being totally ressurrected!
Gaz is on the job and has already received help from Pavel (aka as Sonic is a pretty ocuppied fella - better watch ou for this one - started with the validator bounty and there's no stoping him!).
Better still the goal is to persue the Kickstart ROM Replacement Phase 1 bounty!
Well let's hope that a third time is a definite one!

So, to summarize...
These points are just the tip of the iceberg, I'm not even speaking of some internal changes and additions that have visual effects (GFX speedup, pointer prefs support) and others that do not!
So stick around... 2010 might be a pretty good year! Honestly!! - Where did I heard that before.... ;)

New AROS ALIVE movie on Youtube!

AROS ALIVE PART III is out! Roman Eberle (aka Romancer) has delivered another installment of this special series of videos regarding AROS!

Link to the video is: YouTube Link

Or watch the video below:



Also check the other parts of AROS ALIVE:
Part II
Part I

Visit the Author's homepage at http://www.roman-eberle.de... And support AROS!