iMica

[Puni/Void]

Have any of you checked out the iMica AROS-machine from ClusterUK? If not, then you can find more information via this link:

http://www.clusteruk.com/

There's an offer now where you can get it for £199. If you want to build it yourself, the parts that are used is listed on the site.

I like the way AROS is progressing these days. :)

[Harrison]

That looks cool.

I'm not tried AROS for some time so might download the latest version tomorrow and have a play. :)

[woody.cool]

That looks VERY nice, but saying that, I have lots of PC hardware lying around.
Does anybody know what sound and graphics cards that AROS supports?
I have a VIA EPIA mobo sitting around doing nothing .... this would be a great way of using that.

I also notice, by looking at the site, that the sound drivers are currently unavailable!
To use this for anything other than browsing the net is currently not going to give the greatest experience ..... however, AROS is in 'early stages' of developement, so all these extra features will probably appear some time soon.

I have to admit, it's been some time since I've used AROS ..... when I last used it, there wasn't even an installer (you had to install it by hand)

[Tiago]

Looks nice.

199 pounds is a lot.

but +/- 58 pounds or 90 dolars for the Mboard+CPU is a better number, the rest of the
parts are easy to get, HD, som card, dvd... etc...

http://www.itx-warehouse.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductID=912
http://www.mini-box.com/Intel-D945GCLF2-Mini-ITX-Motherboard?sc=8&category=1178

Any of you guys did the instalation of AROS for VMPlayer ?

[Shoonay]

Any of you guys did the instalation of AROS for VMPlayer ?Well, I got the preinstalled version and it worked just fine.
Not that I played with it for long, there's not much to do anyways ;)

[Puni/Void]

I know that AROS supports the Sound Blaster Live! card with EMU10k.

Have a look here for information on supported hardware:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Aros/Platforms/x86_support

If you plan to give AROS a new go, try the Icaros package. Great stuff.


That looks VERY nice, but saying that, I have lots of PC hardware lying around.
Does anybody know what sound and graphics cards that AROS supports?
I have a VIA EPIA mobo sitting around doing nothing .... this would be a great way of using that.

I also notice, by looking at the site, that the sound drivers are currently unavailable!
To use this for anything other than browsing the net is currently not going to give the greatest experience ..... however, AROS is in 'early stages' of developement, so all these extra features will probably appear some time soon.

I have to admit, it's been some time since I've used AROS ..... when I last used it, there wasn't even an installer (you had to install it by hand)

[burns flipper]

I've never used AROS - the idea is that it is a replacement for WB3.1 but with improvements/bugfixes once it's complete? If it's just the OS then you could run it using UAE?

[Harrison]

It is a little more than that. The idea of AROS is to create a new native PC OS that you can install onto any PC hardware. It is heavily based on Workbench 3.1 and the developers are trying to make the project as compatible with existing Amiga software as possible, but that is only half the story, as they are hoping AROS will also be used as an OS in its own right by fans of Workbench.

A big difference between the original Workbenh 3.1 and AROS is that the project is also trying to make the OS compatible with current hardware, and to include support and the ability to use modern hardware. Something that isn't so easy when using Workbench 3.1 in WinUAE.

The AROS project has been going for over 10 years though, so it is a slow process, and at one point it was competely stalled with no development or progress happening for a very long time, but in the last couple of yers they have really accelerated development and got a lot of people on board working on the project, which is why it now is suddenly seeing so much interest, updates and ideas happening.

[Puni/Void]

For those interested, the latest issue of Amiga Future contains a big review of the iMica.

[burns flipper]

"trying to make the OS compatible with current hardware, and to include support and the ability to use modern hardware"?

How is that going to be sustainable? People at home are going to write their own drivers for the latest GeForce? And for scanners, soundcards, printers etc? For a project that relies on people contributing, I don't see this will work, especially if you have to buy specific hardware for a new machine and can't easily upgrade and still have eveything work. They would be much better doing something like a Linux derivative so that people can use things like drivers from that community.

[Harrison]

That is true. It would be very hard to include direct support for every piece of hardware on the market. Maybe compatibility for Linux or Windows drivers would be a good inclusion. But only time will tell.

The good thing about a lot of hardware these days is how it is all quite standardised. Most graphics and sound cards have built in support for generic drivers, so even if you can get the most from a piece of hardware, at least it will work. And most USB devices are quite standard these days, showing up as external drives to access their contents.

Things like printers and scanners are obviously more specific to each make, but again general TWAIN level support for scanners, and generic print drivers for each make do work with most makes and models.

There are normally ways around the requirement for specific drivers being needed. But obviously these will never be able to give the user the full feature set of the hardware connected.

Regardless, AROS is a really interesting and cool project that I am following closely. I even have a spare PC sitting here that I might install AROS on.

[woody.cool]

The good thing about a lot of hardware these days is how it is all quite standardised. Most graphics and sound cards have built in support for generic drivers, so even if you can get the most from a piece of hardware, at least it will work.
Graphics cards tend to adhere to the VESA standard, so using the VESA drivers is enough for basic graphics use. I've seen some insanely high resolutions with VESA drivers before.

[Puni/Void]

Have now started to collect various bits and bobs for an iMica machine. It was very expensive to bring it over here from the UK in postage (not mentioning the customs). I therefore figured I could build one myself from various parts.

Managed to get hold of a decent Sound Blaster Live! card, along with some cheap memory. :) Now for the motherboard and the case.

Anyone else planning to build one?

[Harrison]

Is there a list of fully supported hardware for AROS? I have loads of old PC hardware, and even 3 fully built and working PCs that are currently not being used and stored in a walk in closet, so maybe I have the parts to piece together a perfect solution.

[Puni/Void]

You can find information concerning supported hardware here (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Aros/Platforms/x86_support). There's also a lot to read on the subject at the AROS Exec Forum (http://aros-exec.org/modules/newbb/viewforum.php?forum=26) as well. :)

[Harrison]

Thanks for the link.

Near the bottom of the page did you notice the entry for iMica? It seems that currently AROS isn't fully compatible! It is showing the the chipset and IDE work, but SATA is running in legacy mode, there are no graphics drivers so it runs in vesa mode, there is no audio support (hence the addition of an extra PCI soundblaster live sound card), USB doesn't work, and Ethernet works slowly. So maybe iMica isn't the ideal AROS solution?

Looking through the page, I have to say it is quite hard to navigate and find information. They have tried to create useful information groupsed into device type, but most of it is untested, and you have to then sift through the remaining information below these tables to actually discover what is compatible. Hopefully with more time this will improve. It does seem a shame that with the length of time in development they don't seem to have been able to test the OS on a very large variety of hardware.

The good news is that I have a spare PCI Soundblaster Live Gold! So hopefully that will work perfectly. :) Not usre on the chipset but I think it matches the Live 5.1 so fingers crossed it is the one they have listed as working, but if not I will see if it does work and add that information to their site.

I also have a spare Audigy 1 sound card, but it is showing currently as no driver support.

And graphics card wise I have a few spare AGP cards including a Radeon 9600, 9800 Pro and older nVIdia TNT and Matrox G400 Max, and the site says it supports up to Radeon 9800 so that is good.

Ethernet I'm not sure. I have the option of built in ethernet ports, plus I have some spare Linksys PCI NICs that might contain 3com chips so could work.

I noticed nForce 2 is mentioned as working and I do have 3 spare Athlon XP boards with nForce 2 chips, but none are currently in a built system so would require a case, ram etc...

Realtek seems to work and as most older boards I have use that for onboard audio that could be something.

USB support seems quite hit and miss, and this is something I think they really need to make work for all hardware port types as USB is now the standard, with most external devices using it to connect. So it might be interesting trying to get this working. I do have a spare USB2 PCI card though so if I find the motherboard USB ports won't work I can at least try that.

This is quite exciting. I will have to give this a try later in the week. :)

[Harrison]

Just thought. If only certain hardware does prove to work, then anyone who can build a fully functioning system could have a system on their hands that suddenly increases in value on ebay!