Getting AROS Up And Running Part 1

I've been wanting to get AROS working on a laptop for some time now due to my great need for an Amiga laptop.

Considering the number of old laptops I have it seemed possible that one of them would be capable of running one distribution or another.

Which combination to choose though, I have a Medion, Acers, Asus, Fujitsu Siemens, Toshiba and a couple of Samsungs.

Laptop size was not a consideration at this point, I just wanted one that booted and ran. The only thing I wanted it to do to start with was boot from the hard drive.

Which Distribution?

• AspireOS
• Icaros
• Broadway

I downloaded Icaros, for no particular reason and I brought down, from under the bed, a small selection of old laptops, A Medion, a couple of Acers (2 of the same model, Aspire 5920), a Fujitsu Siemens and a Toshiba.

Considering the age of some of them they had been butchered and were in various states, some had memory removed, 1 had no hard drive.

I first tried the two Acers only to find one had no hard drive or memory and the others screen didn't work, so I took the hard drive and memory out of one and put it in the other making one complete Acer laptop.

I thought I would do a little bit of research for compatible hardware on to see which hardware would be compatible but it seems that compatibility can be a bit hit and miss so I thought I'd just dive in and try each one until I found one that booted.

I decided I'd make a major effort and use the Acer that now had a hard drive and memory, I created a boot CD of Icaros and easily booted the Acer Aspire 5920 into AROS from the CD and this was nice to see, but could I install it and boot from the hard drive?

I was able to use the Install AROS application to wipe the hard drive then restart and install Icaros and finally boot from the hard drive but none of the software worked, were my hopes of an AROS machine dashed?

Then it dawned on me that AspireOS was a distribution that should work on Acers but would it work on an Acer 5920? I guess I'll give it a go and see. Again I had issues, this time earlier on, I was able to boot from the AspireOS CD and it looked more Amiga like than Icaros which pleased me but on running the Install AROS software I was unable to wipe the hard drive, again, was I dashed?

Icaros can wipe the hard drive but doesn't install properly and AspireOS wouldn't wipe the hard drive, what to do? Well, lets use Icaros to wipe the hard drive and then swap the CD and install from AspireOS, this, surprisingly worked a treat.

I took out the CD and restarted the Acer and it booted into AspireOS, it's a start. Would any of the software that comes with AspireOS work? Yes, woohoo.

There seemed to be a lot less software on AspireOS than on Icaros, for one Audio Evolution, my thought, can I copy Audio Evolution from the Icaros boot CD to my newly installed AspireOS laptop? Yes, another woohoo. Does it run from the hard drive? Yes, woohoo.

I'd like to get the Acer 5920 online but not sure if the Ethernet, Broadcom BCM5787M or the wireless, Intel 3945ABG work under AROS and even if they do I am unsure how the networking software works.

It has taken 2 days on and off, for me to get to this point and am quite happy with my progress. My ultimate goal it to get online, install Mason icons and make it more Amiga looking, install Hollywood and Hollywood Designer.

I intend following up this post with future information on my progress. Could this be the Amiga laptop that I have longed for? I have a MorphOS PowerBook, my E.M.M.A. (Emulated Machine, My Amiga) project and hopefully my AROS machine. If I can get all three working then I can do a comparison of all the systems.

If anyone has any information on my next step then please let me know in the comments below.

Michael Holmes

INTERVIEW WITH NIKO TOMATSIDIS

Interview with Niko Tomatsidis

1. Hello and welcome from us at Blitterwolf. For our readers could you tell us your name, country and occupation please?

A. Hi! Thank you for inviting me to do this interview.

My name is Nikos Tomatsidis. I'm born 1972 and live in Norway. I have father from Hellas and mother from Norway. Last 5 years I been working for a company in Oslo selling products for bathrooms. I'm also the IT manager for this company.

Nikos Tomatsidis

2. When was your first experience with the Amiga and what were your thoughts?

A. I remember a friend of mine got A500 from his parents to learn some serious computing stuff. At that time A500 where way out of reach for me and most at my age. Some years later I bought a used A500 from a classmate.

3. What Amiga systems do you currently own?

A. None, unfortunately.

4. How many Amiga systems have you owned in your lifetime?

A. I had A500 first. After that A1200 with different accelerators. That last years I had A4000 with Cybervision, Delfina soundcard and Cyberstorm PPC.

5. Do you prefer using Classic or Next Gen hardware?

A. I like hardware to be up to date. I want a computer where I can do most of my tasks.

6. What Amiga Operating System between 1.x and 4.x do/did you like to use most?

A. I never had Amiga OS4. Some years ago I was considering buying a next gen. Amiga but I'm glad I never did. AROS and MorphOS are more appealing in my opinion and just as "Amiga" as OS4. The original Amiga died with the original owners.

7. Did you have your most favourite played games on Amiga and what were/are they?

A. There are many. First that comes to mind are MYTH, Super Cars II, R-type II, ATR, Super Stardust, Killing grounds.

8. Best Amiga system of all time for you?

A. A1200.

9. Best Amiga game of all time for you?

A. R-Type II.

10. What are your thoughts about what happened to Commodore - Amiga?

A. It is a shame that Commodore managed to get bankrupt. From what I understood they where first of all a gfx chip maker and the competition from IBM compatible PCs made it difficult.

I guess they found no way to invest in new hardware and possibly rewrite the OS to support other CPUs. I remember even Commodore made IBM compatible PCs as a last attempt to survive.

11. What do you think of Amiga and the new owners after Commodore?

A. I remember I had big hopes from whoever took over the name. At a time it was showed some prototype of some new Amiga that did not exactly impress regarding hardware specs.

When Hyperion took over the hopes went up as they already had a great history with both Amiga software and hardware and they brought AmigaOS to PPC and so on. Unfortunately they did not succeed. Choosing wrong architecture was only one of the failures from them. The history after Commodore is just sad and I guess it is too late for anyone to bring back Amiga as a platform to compete with the big hardware and software makers.

12. What got you involved in the AROS project?

A. To see how bad Amiga was managed I was glad to see some very talented people starting their own project to bring AmigaOS to a modern platform and let the people (users) be in charge of the OS. That resulted in AROS, an open source operating system (www.aros.org).

From around 2002 I've been following the project with great interest.

13. Can you tell us what you have been doing for the AROS project?

A. I'm no coder myself but I know most of the developers. I've done a lot of beta testing for the OS and programs.

I supported developers with money to get things done.

It is very important that developers get feedback from what they are doing.

I started my own AROS distribution called AspireOS some years ago www.aspireos.com.

14. Can you tell us more about AspireOS?

A. At the time I started it we had Icaros Desktop. It is to date by far the most used AROS distribution. In my opinion it was too big in size with too much alpha software etc. I did not like the default configuration much either.

I always wanted some hardware that was fully supported and maybe even named as official hardware for AROS.

With Stefen and some others that luckily happened with the netbook ACER Aspire One 110. That is where AspireOS name came from and I configured the OS to run easy on that hardware. The reception was good and I got nice feedback. Sadly it has not been maintained for the last 2 years. For now I recommend Icaros Desktop if you like to try AROS. I hope to bring some nice update to AspireOS in January.

AspireOS

15. What do you see as the future for Amiga or Amiga like OS?

A. With the lack up updates to OS4 and the lack of communication that Hyperion have showed that last years, I see no way they could do anything significant for the future. MorphOS is also kind of stuck with PPC and the lack of modern hardware is not exactly future proof.

AROS is maintained buy a few very dedicated developers and it is very up and down regarding the progress that is being done. The lack of structure and plan is maybe why AROS is not more wide spread. On the other hand this "do what you want attitude" has kind of worked.

Michael Holmes