19.Jul.2025
AROSWorld (Forum)
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AROS: Update on the further development of the 64-bit operating system
Since almost two years Krzysztof 'deadwood' Śmiechowicz is reporting on his AROS-related projects in the AROSWorld forum at the title link. In his latest article, he writes about the current status in the three areas of browser/software/hardware and gives an outlook on the goal of advancing the 64-bit version of the free operating system.
On the browser front, it would be important to be able to use contemporary web services - also in order to be able to compensate for missing software with corresponding online versions. With the beta version of Odyssey 3.0, the developers now have a browser with the same Webkit engine as Wayfarer 3.0 (its current version is 10.3, though). This allows to use YouTube, Google Docs, Discord and many other web services that were not available on AROS a year ago. He has thus achieved his first functionality goal.
With regard to other software, missing functionality would have to be supplemented either by re-compiling or emulation - whereby the aim is not to get every 32-bit program running, but at least one from each category of all areas to be covered. So far, 26 software packages would have been adapted for 64-bit by supporters.
In terms of hardware, the problem is that 64-bit systems do not yet support all components that can be used under AROS/32-bit - for example NVidia graphics cards. The aim here would be to restore that support and hopefully add newer, easily available second hand hardware. With AROS Portable, which uses virtualization technology to run AROS on modern PCs from a USB stick, there would be a significant interim solution now until it can run natively on such systems.
In the long term, the aim would be to create and maintain two lines of development: For those who want to use AROS natively, as explained above, a selection of the existing 32-bit software must be adapted and made to run on selected 64-bit computer configurations in order to serve as a basis for enabling 64-bit distributions that outperform their previous 32-bit counterparts from the user's point of view.
For friends of the AxRuntime path, a Linux-native desktop would be to be created from which a selection of AROS ABIv0 programs (32-bit) and AROS ABIv1 programs (64-bit) as well as programs newly compiled for AxRuntime (64-bit) can be used. Existing distributions could then be re-created using Linux as a base without the user having to accept any loss of functionality compared to the respective 32-bit version. (snx)
[News message: 19. Jul. 2025, 08:18] [Comments: 0]
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