Submitted by The highly anticipated version 2.0 of AROS distribution Icaros Desktop is now available for download. AROS is now an almost-20-years old open source attempt to rewrite the original AmigaOS 3.x operating system from Commodore, starting with its API documentation. Icaros Desktop extends AROS features with many 3rd party programs and libraries, providing a full preconfigured environment to allow modern tasks. In this new version, which has been released 2 years after the latest one, AROS’ Workbench clone “Wanderer” can be replaced by x86-native port of DirectoryOpus 5 Magellan, which has been configured to act like a modern GUI, old Amiga programs can run in a more polished emulation layer (AmiBridge) which does not require original Amiga ROMs and Operating System, and whole AROS system files have been replaced with a newer branch, which also includes a new, faster and more reliable TLSF memory manager. For full size screenshots and downloads, you can follow this link.
For whatever reason, AROS has never been able to do mode detection on the VMWare VGA device in QEMU, assuming a fixed 2560×1600 resolution. This has not changed in Icaros 2.0. If you’re running on anything smaller than that, stick to VESA XGA mode for the VM.
EDIT: this is apparently only true on Linux with KVM acceleration, as the included .bat has -vga vmware by default for Windows QEMU.
Edited 2014-11-04 03:53 UTC
Hi tidux, before posting strong statements like yours, you should know how VMware works. Shouldn’t you? For your information, VMware exposes all available VESA modes to guest operating system independently from current host video setting. This means, in other words, that you will get the maximum resolution allowed by VMware on guests even if the host is set to a smaller one. In order to sync resolutions on the fly, AROS should get a decent VMware SVGA driver to use instead of the VESA one. Unluckily, our VMware SVGA implementation is heavily outdated and Icaros prefers to use the VESA modes instead, which are faster and more reliable.
You can easily set the maximum resolution exposed by VMware to VESA driver in your virtual machine hardware settings, in the “Display” item. Just set it to your current LCD display resolution and VESA mode will behave accordingly. This information, however, has been written in Icaros manual and site for ages. Kind regards.
More. If you’re using VMware SVGA on KVM/QEMU, you can easily change resolution in GRUB configuration and live with that. Just select 800×600 or 1024×768 at boot screen, and change grub.cfg accordingly once you’ve booted into AROS. Permanent changes can be done once the system has been installed. Otherwise, you can change resolution at boot, on the fly, pressing E to the highlighted grub item, and modifying 800×600 to whatever you like (for instance, 1280×720 or 1920×1080). VBEINFO command will give you the list of all available resolutions. This is on the manual as well.
> In order to sync resolutions on the fly, AROS should get a decent VMware SVGA driver to use instead of the VESA one. Unluckily, our VMware SVGA implementation is heavily outdated
So it is a driver bug, got it. Haiku can select a bunch of different modes at runtime from that same virtual device, and starts off at a nice, sane 1024×768.
Edited 2014-11-04 12:56 UTC
Again: Haiku starts at 768 because it is NOT a VESA mode. If you select native on Icaros Desktop, it will fall back to VESA mode with VMware SVGA, thus opening at the widest resolution the VGA BIOS will pass to AROS kernel (which is 2560×1600).
Please select the Icaros Desktop 1024×768 menu item in GRUB to get the result you want.
This is a serious step forward. AROS is much more stable and usable now. Of course, there is still a lot that has to be done before it can become a “main OS” (like MorphOS is for me, only using Windows for tasks it can’t do) but all that hard work has paid off!
I’ve installed it nativly on my Acer Aspire ZG5. It’s a very weak mini laptop. Loading Windows XP or Ubuntu on it took more than 5 minutes and everything loads soooo slow.
On AROS it flies! The OS loads in a couple of seconds (!) after GRUB you passed BIOS and GRUB.
THAT, you surely have to agree, is quite impressive!
Thanks. I wonder what exactly MorphOS does to be considered “main os” that AROS can’t, but I’m happy you installed it successfully on your tiny notebook.
My main Icaros physical system is an Acer AspireOne A150 netbook as well, and even if older versions of the OS worked very well, now it’s considerably faster. For the interested people: I made a installation USB pendrive with the help of VMware on another computer, and then installed the system onto the netbook using the USB installation pendrive. In less than 30 minutes the system was ready to go.
Hi Paolone!
Don’t take it as critisism of your hard work. I love AROS and Icaros, but it’s still got some issues that needs to be ironed out (like HTML5 video).
Thanks for the hard work – it looks great! I’m downloading it as I write this.