Retro Nanny

My Coding/interest projects around Amiga, retro gaming and "stuff".


EAB

Lemon Amiga

AROS.ORG

AROS-EXEC

AROS World

  Quick Links
Previous Posts
  • Rebelstar 2 - Audio Development (part 3)
  • Rebelstar 2 - Video Development (part 2)
  • Amiga tactical squad turn-based games
  • Rebelstar 2 - some initial developing info
  • Rebelstar 2: Alien Encounter - Amiga Remake
  • Recycling my old blog for new projects...
  • AROS Playground - Help Wanted
  • Been quiet lately...
  • Keeping a promise - More Kitty
  • AROS WORLD - finally becoming a portal for AROS

Archives
  • December 2007
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • January 2009
  • May 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • June 2012
  • August 2012
  • October 2012
  • March 2013
  • January 2014
  • April 2017
  • August 2025
  • October 2025
  • November 2025
  • December 2025
  • Current Posts

   AROS readable docs
 
Again my thoughts go to AROS document reading capability...
As I've read the AROS-EXEC thread Port TeX I was reminded a subject present with AROS manuals, the only format that is readable is not supported in AROS (PDF).
A good form of support would be a PDF datatype, but unfortunately that would require to rewrite the all datatype library from scratch (not to mention the datatype itself) - but I'm getting away from the subject.

In fact the manuals themselves are not written in any AROS app - until recently there wasn't even TeX, let alone any Word processing or similar type tool.

I've already dwell ed with AmigaGuide, but although they can offer some form of shell documentation or help online, it's not what I had in mind for the AROS USER MANUALS.

At this stage it might not be very important since most people run AROS in hosted systems. But to be self sufficient the AROS has to encounter some modern days common apps. And not just for the manuals, but in a increasingly manner every technical resource is being made available through PDF type files.

As for AROS manuals - hmmm... I will go on trying other forms.

Wednesday, 5 March 2008

   AROS WEB TRAVEL IN LIGHT SPEED...
 
Traveling the WEB with AROS is a near soon reality (pun intended) - thanks to ROB. It's latest entry in his blog includes a early demo of the WebKit in action.

So in the network front AROS will soon become a common reality - TCP/IP stack / FTP / IRC / Mail client are already available. One would think that AROS is nearly ready to replace you current Os in your machine. Well... That's a different story!...

I'm afraid some important missing aspects of AROS are still plaguing it, namely:
- the Wanderer is still lacking some features and needs some serious bug-fixing;
- lack of printer device for printing support and postscript support;
- lack of full USB support of disk devices (such as USB pendisks and Cameras...).

Other missing items (not so important include):
- lack of datatypes (animation, modern document file types and so on);
- lack of usb audio support (as well as other common boards).

So while in some fronts the AROS seems to get ahead it's father OS in other simple but important areas is behind. While this is daunting, it poses a serious question to some developpers such as ROB, Michal Schulz, and others supporting the fork option - What priority is to be given to different tasks ahead?

Of course most of the current users will not replace their current OS, but most likely try to accommodate both OS'es (or more). But I believe that one has to think development of an OS should be to turn it as independent as possible from others.
In that field I totally agree with ROB, let's not make a Linux Clone - let's "supplant Linux".
As such the AROS has to be fully I/O capable regarding all common available devices and platforms.

Well that's my lousy opinion and It doesn't count for much as I haven't wrote a single line of AROS code. And like they say: "Opinions are like arses - everyone has one..."

On a diferent front I uploaded the manuals to AROS-Archives: http://archives.aros-exec.org/
The manuals can be downloaded on the Documents/manuals/ category.

Also I've uploaded a small update of the user manual, 0.56 which adds a few appendixes and adds more info on the AROS customization.
I'm hoping to have some time free near to review and update the manuals. Hopefully soon I'll add a more specific network and PPC support...

Monday, 3 March 2008