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piAROS distro

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Jeff1138Member

Posted 2 days ago

#41

Hi,

Explaining Computers is testing on Pi 3A normal and smp https://www.youtu...dZwGkUKAmA

5 users reacted to this post

retrofaza, Argo, coffeecat, sonountaleban, aha

coffeecatMember

Posted 2 days ago

#42

It's a little sad that someone with such a following opens the system and shows past content. In the comments, I also see "pure nostalgia."

We have SMP, we have Crafts, we have Limpet, and it turns out to be like yet another way to run software from the Amiga 500.

Edited by coffeecat on 01-11-2026 11:21, 2 days ago

BohunSenior Member

Posted 2 days ago

#43

Well, the distro is reporting the status as of early October. The update is on my desk, but neither Limpet nor Craft are included because they're not available for aarch64.

coffeecatMember

Posted 2 days ago

#44

Bohun wrote:

@Bohun - Well, the distro is reporting the status as of early October. The update is on my desk, but neither Limpet nor Craft are included because they're not available for aarch64.

Limpet is on Raspi: https://github.co...tag/v0.8.0
Rest of the crafts - in progress, so far Vectorcraft is on Raspi

2 users reacted to this post

Bohun, Argo

BohunSenior Member

Posted 2 days ago

#45

Great news. I'll add Limpet to the new version of piAROS. I couldn't find Vector Craft.

By the way, the comments on this video have been very positive. In a while, when more software is available and I refresh the graphical page, we'll do a second opening – we'll send the information to Chris. It won't be just nostalgia anymore.

1 user reacted to this post

miker1264

BohunSenior Member

Posted 2 days ago

#46

My personal selection of the coolest comments on the film:

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Seeing the Workbench again gives me goosebumps.

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Isn’t it amazing how they made it so you can see which window is which, and how you can tell what’s a button you can press!?

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With all the chaos going on in the Linux world, it would be nice to see more developers support projects like this.

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Great video.
I'll share this in the Norwich Amiga Group 😊.
I've used Aros in the past, but very cool to have it running on a pi.

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What a great Sunday morning! You take a unique operating system and run it on a reasonably priced Raspberry Pi. Oh what fun! On top of that, Stanley the SD card was introduced! Stanley the Knife must be so proud! After this video, the rest of my day will seem rather dull. As always, looking forward to your next video!

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Even though these are said to be 'alpha' releases, they seem to be quite mature for that designation. It was neat to see such an alternative OS running on an R/Pi. Thanks for the video

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Okay, this has my attention. Cannot wait to see if this is a viable alternative to Pi OS.

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Wow, really cool, Chris. The Pi version looks surprisingly stable, and seeing wifi working really surprised me.
PiAROS looks GORGEOUS. Thanks for showing the setup., as I think it can be confusing knowing what to download. I think it's something that the team should do something about.
Worth remembering that Aminet is still alive and active. There are spreadsheets and all kind of stuff available. Also check out AROS Archives which also has software for AROS. It's not as active as Aminet though.
Amazingly cool project!

Edited by Bohun on 01-11-2026 14:42, 2 days ago

5 users reacted to this post

Argo, OlafSch, aha, x-vision, miker1264

OlafSchSenior Member

Posted 2 days ago

#47

I think ARM on RPi has the biggest potential to attract new users

2 users reacted to this post

Argo, miker1264

miker1264Software Dev

Posted 23 hours ago

#48

Jeff1138 wrote:

@Jeff1138 - Hi,

Explaining Computers is testing on Pi 3A normal and smp https://www.youtu...dZwGkUKAmA

Yes. I saw the video last night.

It was interesting to see someone outside AROS commenting on the features of AROS. But he relates it to Amiga 68k which may or may not be flattering. Though AROS is modern.

I also downloaded the iso from Archives to try it out. I downloaded the nightly for Raspberry Pi also.

I'm also trying to setup the build system for piAros. Are there setup instructions?

I have a fork of ABIv1 on my GitHub. I assume I can clone that & build it using RPi rebuild.sh if I can find it.

Edited by miker1264 on 02-11-2026 13:20, 23 hours ago

miker1264Software Dev

Posted 21 hours ago

#49

@Bohun

If you make your piAros Stargate Background into a mouse pad I would buy one! Super imagery!

BTW - I found the piAros scripts including rebuild.sh on axrt.org

I also found detailed instructions from deadwood on Raspberry 3 thread to install cross compiler.

Now the fun begins!

Edited by miker1264 on 02-11-2026 16:07, 21 hours ago

1 user reacted to this post

Argo

miker1264Software Dev

Posted 14 hours ago

#50

Wow! I downloaded the Pi_Aros distro that was uploaded on Nov 2, 2026 from Internet Archive. I am so impressed.

I'm so excited about the possibilities of AROS running on Raspberry Pi. I'm running a Pi400 if you're curious... and everything I tested works! Sure, there are a few small anomalies here and there but it's mostly working.On startup it complains about a missing icon for dopus4, but the icon is there. So, it's a minor inconvenience.

It boots so fast it feels like my Amiga 1200 with PiStorm32 Lite running Caffeine OS (Amiga OS 3.9+).

The Pi400 is a wedge design similar to the Amiga 500/600/1200 so of course it feels really familiar.

I don't know what font is being used but I really like it and MUI/Zune looks so good on the Raspberry Pi.

I'm going to start contributing to this effort right away. First, I have a bunch of custom window themes and I will make some more colored drawer icons. One of the really nice things about Pi_Aros is that it used a FAT32 micro sd card. So I just put it in my card reader and transfer files. For my real Amiga I also use a FAT32 CF Card via PCMCIA slot.

Edited by miker1264 on 03-11-2026 05:47, 7 hours ago

2 users reacted to this post

Argo, aha

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IcePicNewbie

Posted 5 hours ago

#51

I had some weird issue with my RPI500 where the mouse pointer would be visible and usable, but the whole display is all black.
I could drag the screen down and get a grey background visible.

After a few long sessions with a clanker, it figured out my RPI500 leaves alpha channel as 0x0, which makes all "gfx" transparent, and hence black.

If anyone else get this, I have a small patch for it made by claude, that made the display work for me at least:

more patches/vcgfx-hvs6-opaque-screens.patch
diff --git a/arch/arm-native/soc/broadcom/2708/hidd/vcgfx/vcgfx_hvs6.c b/arch/arm-native/soc/broadcom/2708/hidd/vcgfx/vcgfx_hvs6.c
index 53d6d685..dfaf688b 100644
--- a/arch/arm-native/soc/broadcom/2708/hidd/vcgfx/vcgfx_hvs6.c
+++ b/arch/arm-native/soc/broadcom/2708/hidd/vcgfx/vcgfx_hvs6.c
@@ -292,6 +292,15 @@ BOOL vc4_hvs6_takeover(struct VideoCoreGfx_staticdata *xsd, ULONG fb_phys,
hvs6_plane(dst, src, (UQUAD)fb_phys, fb_pitch, st->h6_FbPTR0,
0, 0, fb_width, fb_height);
}
+
+ /* Screens are opaque, and every plane but the cursor is built from this
+ * slot: take fixed alpha whatever the firmware entry carries. AROS bitmaps
+ * have alpha 0, so with per-pixel alpha (CTL0 bits 19:18 = 0, as the
+ * Pi 500 firmware leaves them) nothing of a screen shows. The cursor
+ * clears the bits again for its own alpha. */
+ hvs6_wr(dst + HVS6_ENT_CTL0 * 4,
+ hvs6_rd(dst + HVS6_ENT_CTL0 * 4) | HVS6_CTL0_ALPHAMASK);
+
hvs6_wr(hvs6_slot(st, HVS6_SLOT_CUR), HVS6_CTL0_EMPTY);
hvs6_wr(hvs6_slot(st, HVS6_SLOT_END), HVS6_CTL0_END);

If the AROS project have issues with AI code (understandable if so) please read the diff and let yourself be inspired by it to fix it with your own code.

jimazJunior Member

Posted 5 hours ago

#52

IcePic wrote:

@IcePic - I had some weird issue with my RPI500 where the mouse pointer would be visible and usable, but the whole display is all black.
I could drag the screen down and get a grey background visible.

After a few long sessions with a clanker, it figured out my RPI500 leaves alpha channel as 0x0, which makes all "gfx" transparent, and hence black.

I had the same issue earlier and got a suggestion here in another thread to just update the firmware on my pi 500 (I updated it from Raspberry Pi OS) and this fixed the alpha issue, so no patch needed. But even Raspberry Pi OS itself contains this alpha correction in their code, so it won't hurt to get this included of course.

Edited by jimaz on 03-11-2026 08:46, 4 hours ago

1 user reacted to this post

Argo

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Users who participated in discussion: amigamia, nikos, aha, terminills, Argo, pixie, miker1264, OlafSch, Jeff1138, jimaz, Bohun, coffeecat, 8cOv2G3N, IcePic

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