AROS is not an emulator. It uses directly the hardware of the platform you run it on. As it doesn't use an underlying OS (Linux, Winblows), it is fast ! AROS can give you the possibility to write a software that will run on each platform AROS is ran on...
- Is AROS another OS done by a crazy coder ? Or is there a team ?
6 people are actually commiting some code on the AROS project.
That's the main reason why we need more developers: No one has much time
for such a big project, so we must have more people to move on.
| - What is the current status of aros ? Currently, about 60% of the complete AmigaOS 3.1 are implemented. Main weak points are hardware drivers and ... "more exotic things" :-) We can, for example, compile simple stuff from Fish disks (e.g. the lines and clines Demos from Disk #304). |
- What kind of compatibility there is between normal Amiga apps and AROS ?
AROS is, unlike UAE, an API-Emulator (like WINE): It allows to compile Amiga
software on a PC (or PPC when that port is finished; works have just begun).
We try to be as compatible as possible (on Linux/m68k, some simple binary
Amiga programs run unmodified).
So AROS is at least source compatible, if you have no m68k CPU.
- QNX, a great OS, will be released widely in a few months, do you think
AROS still has a future ?
Why not ? As long as people lie in bed and dream the Amiga dream,
Amiga will have a future and AROS will have on as well.
QNX is really great geeky stuff. I guess it will become an issue in about 2-3 years, when the first applications are there :-) Just have a look at Be: Great shiny stuff. Good publicity. Getting nowhere because there are just no apps.
- What do AROS need ?
Coders ! The AROS project needs coders to make it a nice way to spread
the Amiga feeling to a lot of platform.
- Did you ask Olaf Barthel ?
Yeah. His problem is a legal one: He could (and probably would
like) to help but Amiga and H&P would probably sue him to death
(he did some major work on OS3.5).
And if he worked on AROS, H&P would say that he is using the knowledge he aquired by working on OS 3.5 (and which they paid for). And that's something they won't like to do.
Elwood:
I think H&P should be interested in AROS because it can be a nice thing for
the Amiga market and if the market grows, H&P will gain benefit about it.
So I'm sure they agree if Olaf wants to work for AROS.
We have the same goal so let's start working together !
- How much time is needed to complete AROS ?
I guess it will be finished on three to five years if nothing changes but
I hope to raise a lot of interest with a bootable version of AROS on PCs (x86).
That would make people see that it gets somewhere.
The misery right now is that it would need only 30-40h of work to make AROS
usable on PC but nobody has to time to do it :-(
- If AROS runs on top of another OS, is it close to UAE ?
Definitely not, UAE emulates the Amiga hardware. It's more compatible than
AROS (Amiga software runs unmodified) but slow. AROS emulates the
AmigaOS API: You must recompile your software. That's less compatible,
but you get the full speed of the native CPU.
- As AROS is not an emulator, it will run directly on the hardware.
So it will have to deal with all sort of existing hardware.
That means that to make AROS work, you will have to code some drivers.
But how will you get the needed technical informations to do so ?
We will use Linux/BSD drivers :-) The HIDD system will
allow us to compile and use them without having to copy the
source into the AROS tree, so this will mean no license trouble, too.
- Did you hear something about PowerOS ? Any contact with Titan Computers team ?
Yeah, one of the developers of PowerOS is on our developer list.
He helps us with the PPC port of AROS. I hoped that we could
merge AROS with PowerOS but they didn't answer my requests, yet.
I'm in close contact with Claus Herrmann and we discuss what we can do to merge the projects or at least work together :-)
- AROS is a rewrite of the AmigaOS. Now that OS3.5 is out, does AROS has a chance to implement what is new in 3.5 ?
H&P kindly donated us a OS 3.5 developer CD. We'll have a look at the
differences between 3.1 and 3.5 and see what can be done. We want to
avoid to split up the market if possible. OTOH, progress with OS 3.1
is slow, so 3.5 might have to wait quite some time (if we must finish
3.1 before we can move to 3.5).
Since 3.5 is a patch for 3.1, we will probably aim for 3.1 first and when that's done, "upgrade" to 3.5, too.
- It seems that buying a license of AmigaOS should be nice to put AROS out
of legal problems. Did you ask Amiga Inc about this ? What is the "price"
of the licence ?
They want money (eg. a percentage of every AROS sold) and we have none
(and we don't plan to sell AROS anyway).
We have selected a license which makes AROS completely free (it can even be used in commercial products) and creating a distribution is something we cannot afford (no time) and it also brings a lot of problems: Quality of the media, copying the media, distributing it to the resellers, etc. I would not mind if someone would make a deal with AInc (if they are still alive) along these lines but I will keep the AROS team out of this.
Amiga Inc had three years to think of something and I got nothing from them which ultimately means they are not interested in us in any way.
- In case AmigaOs will be released as open source will you rewrite AROS from
scratch or just implement the missing parts ?
We will just implement the missing parts and rewrite the stuff which is
wrong according to the knowledge we will gain by looking at the AmigaOS.