THANK YOU FOR VISITING AROSWorld.org. AROS Research Operating System (AROS) is a free software/open source implementation of the AmigaOS 3.1 APIs. It is designed to be portable and flexible, and ports are currently available for x86 and PowerPC based PCs in native and hosted flavours. Other architectures are in development.
AROS used to mean Amiga Research Operating System, but, to avoid any trademark issues with the Amiga name, it was changed to the recursive acronym AROS Research Operating System.
The project, started in 1995, has over the years become an almost "feature complete" implementation of AmigaOS - with currently only a few lacking areas of functionality. This was achieved by the efforts of a small team of developers.
It can currently be installed on most IBM PC compatibles, and features native graphics drivers for video cards such as the GeForce range made by NVIDIA. As of May 2007 USB keyboards and mice are also supported. AROS is also planned to run on PowerPC boards Efika and Samantha 440.
While the OS is still lacking in applications, a few have been ported, including E-UAE, an emulation program that allows 68k-native AmigaOS applications to run in the same way a majority must be run on AmigaOS 4.0. Some AROS-specific applications have also been written. AROS has TCP/IP networking support, and it is also available an early stage of web browser (Traveller), for test purposes, among other Internet-related applications.
AROS is designed to be source compatible with AmigaOS, but not binary compatible. Source code that will compile on AmigaOS should compile on AROS, but binaries already compiled for AmigaOS will not run, even if they are compiled for the same family of CPU. This unfortunately means that, unlike MorphOS or AmigaOS 4, AROS is not capable of running legacy software directly, only applications compiled for AROS. There are plans to integrate the Amiga emulator E-UAE directly into AROS to run AmigaOS applications, and even a bounty to run MorphOS software on the PowerPC build of AROS, but so far (January 2008) these objectives remain elusive.
This community site is for all current AROS fans and the new ones. You can post news, forum topics, pictures, share thoughts and collaborate on the future development of the OS.
Report any bugs or problems to admin at arosworld dot org.
I am not sure if this is a a good news or not but the graphic application Lunapaint, is going closed source.
From the web site:
"...All the previous releases have been released as open source software. I do still believe in oss, but for Lunapaint it does not make any sense. I haven't been approached by anyone wanting to contribute to the development, and so I don't really see a point in hosting the development on sourceforge - something which just complicates the development process for me and little benefits the user...."
However the developer assures that:
"..This is not all bad news - as it is being done while a new software initiative is being started for all the Amiga platforms. More info soon!"
A while back, a user named "Hardwired" started to put together some very good manuals for AROS. However, his free time is becoming less and less every day and he is looking for volunteers to help keeping them updated.
"I'm afraid that my life is taking a turn for the worst and my (very few!) free time has to be used for other important tasks. So what about AROS USER MANUALS? Well, i won't be able to update them at least until 2009." "There's a lot that AROS has to offer. Let's just keep our fingers crossed, and try to contribute as most as we can for AROS.
Speaking of which, if you have some free time, good knowledge of Amiga and AROS and have some good skills in using M$Word just drop-me an email and help-me in updating the AROS USER MANUALS... (hardwired ( at ) xsairsoft ( dot ) com - SPAM not welcomed!" Wondering around AROS
A new version of PortablE has been released. PortablE is an AmigaE compiler, written from scratch in E, and able to compile itself. It supports Amiga OS3, OS4, AROS & MorphOS.
The main changes for this release are:
Programs can now be compiled on an OS4 machine, thanks to support for GCC v4 & NewLib.
Programs can now be run from Workbench, and "wbmessage" is supported.
Shell return codes are now support, by returning a value from main().
Added a Run Time Type Information (RTTI) system for classes.
Fixed several bugs, including an OS4-specific one.
If you want to find out more, or wish to download it, then please visit it's home page:cshandley.co.uk/portable
AIConf '08 is an event for alternative operating systems and hardware. It will be held in the city of Papozze in the province of Rovigo, Italy, on July 12th 2008. During the event there will be presentations on MorphOS & Efika, AmigaOS 4, AROS, Linux and Haiku, plus a section dedicated to Amiga and retro computing and a tournament on Kick Off.
The new version includes a new 'emergency mode' dual kernel to support older ata peripherals, and allow AROS booting on PC which have problems with the current builds.
A heavlily improved development section and more and more games & utilities are included.
People currently using version 0.7 versions should backup their valuable data and clean up partition before installing version 0.8: it's safer. Regards,
The time to announce a new beta release of VmwAROS has come. The new edition of VmwAROS will obviously include more apps and games than the 0.7 ones, a new dual-kernel function to prevent boot issues on very old ATA chipsets and initial SATA support for selected controllers (feature obviously limited to the Live! version).
Jason Stevens has ported GLFrontier which is a SDL-/OpenGL-based reimplementation of the Space Opera classic Frontier: Elite 2 to AROS and deleted all OpenGL dependence.
The game only uses SDL for the graphics. Currently the game only works with 8 or 24 Bit screens. The keyboard support has still some problems.
Allanon 06/23/2008 07:55 I'm checking this site too for news an projects!!
HenryCase 06/10/2008 14:57 ...this space! Keep posting on the forum, let's kickstart the good times!
HenryCase 06/10/2008 14:56 Just a quick message to say that I'm still checking out the site every now and again. I've got some programming projects I've started that will be of interest to AROSWorld users, so watch
admin 05/27/2008 18:18 neongod, I agree! It looks like people are scared to ask around the forum, which is #1 activity source.
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compiler, written from scratch in E, and able to compile itself. It supports Amiga OS3, OS4, AROS & MorphOS. 
edition of VmwAROS will obviously include more apps and games than the 0.7 ones, a new dual-kernel function to prevent boot issues on very old ATA chipsets and initial SATA support for selected controllers (feature obviously limited to the Live! version).
