Hi,

We would like to understand how AROS is used by its users. Below you can find some questestions that will give us some insight. Please answer as many as you can. Don't worry if you can't answer all, even one answer will provide the information about AROS user base.


1. How long do you use AROS weekly?

2. What is the way you use AROS (multiple selection allowed):
a) AROS Linux hosted
b) AROS Native on real hardware
c) AROS Native on virtual hardware
d) AROS 68k under Win/FS UAE
e) Other (please describe)

3. What are your 3 main activities in AROS?

4. Think about the things that would make you use AROS more? Please be descriptive, but focus on things you,not community would need nor "in general would be needed" - in sense that if it was available, you would use AROS more.

NOTE: this is a counterpart of AROS-Exec.org survey (http://aros-exec.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=99499) for people not having AROS-Exec account. If you already posted on AROS-Exec, no need to duplicate here.

Last edited by deadwood on 30-May-2016 at 06:16 AM.
Last edited by deadwood on 30-May-2016 at 06:16 AM.
Last edited by deadwood on 30-May-2016 at 06:11 AM.
Last edited by deadwood on 29-May-2016 at 02:58 PM.

_________________
https://www.axrt.org

@deadwood
1., I don't, only when I have to. :) (Development related, usually.) Then it's a few hours.

2., a) b) c)

3., Help Alb42 with Free Pascal related stuff. Complaining about bugs and random stuff AROS does. Being disappointed about the upcoming ABI change on i386, which is still not there...

4., Don't break backwards compatibility with yourself (or make the ABI change finally, and be done with it, but having it "floating" since forever is the worst possible thing). A better Shell (sorry, the existing one just has too many random glitches for my taste). A proper SSH client with xterm support. A more polished "default" distro, so one doesn't have to depend on 3rd party distros for usability with everything and the kitchen sink included, which are additionally not even free for some hardware (Raspberry Pi, anyone?).

My background: I'm a MorphOS user/fan, and a Commodore Amiga (OS3.1 is the real deal, everything after is evil :P ) worshiper. I also use Linux a lot these days, even on the desktop. I also use OS X.

_________________
MorphOS, classic Amiga, demoscene, and stuff
"When a bridge is not enough, build a Viaduct!"
"Strip the Amiga community of speculation and we can fit every forum on a 720k floppy" (by resle)

@deadwood

1. I do not use it much. I wish I could use it exclusively.

2. B is what I prefer. A for Samsung Galaxy S5, someday. D would be great if it had 3D acceleration. I feel like it would complete it in some way.

3. Games, Web Browsing, Word Processor

4. I wish I had a NV 9800GT+ or newer video card and wish my Mainboard had an Aros Driver for sound. I use SB16 ad in card.

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John 3:16

I totaly love Aros. It is great now but I would like better laptop for it that is fully supported.
If linux hosted could get native gfx support it could be just what is needed.
Networking linux hosted should also be made more easy to set up.
Maybe odyssey for abi v.1 too.

@nikosidis

Quote:

If linux hosted could get native graphic support...

Seconded.

@deadwood

1. maybe 3-4 hours maybe, but really more like 12-15 hours per month :)

2.
a) Linux hosted
b) I have an old EeePC with AROS that I use randomly
d) Yes, playing around with m68k AROS on FS-UAE...
e) ... in hopes to have something usable on Minimig and MIST

3.
a) Tinkering, using DOpus Magellan, play around
b) Trimming down things for m68k
c) Banging my head attempting to AROS hosted on DragonFlyBSD going :)

4. Split in two directions
a) "Classic usage"
- better (faster) support for native Amiga chipsets
- a trimmed down 512k kickstart
- ARexx support somehow
b) "modern AROS"
- scale up... multicore, memory protection (did anyone experiment with multithreaded support on hosted?)
- new and improved networking stack, IPV6 already
- ARexx support somehow :D
- AROS hosted on OSX and DragonFlyBSD, hehe :)

As long as AROS remains "amiga fundamental" with a single memory space etc, I am not so worried about (or even keen on) Native. These days we have disk space in terms of terrabytes, and need filesystems that handle bitflips and other errors that are statistically unavoidable, and other features we need these days. AROS simply doesn't have the man power for this in my view. So, if I was dictator, focus would be on providing an awesome experience hosted, and natively on old m68k.

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B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@deadwood

1. Not very much yet/anymore
2c. Mostly toying with Icaros desktop distro under vmware,
3a. Stubbornly refusing to let the Amiga Coding Skills fade away.
3b. Compiling old snippets to check system compatibility
3c. Goto 3a
4. I need a laptop running AROS. Does not need to be the fastest machine on the block, but I need a native development environment fully dedicated to it and with full devices support.

@Tellurium

Welcome!

@deadwood

1. I used to use it daily for hours, but nowadays I just turn it on to try out Icaros on my ZG5. It's not often. Maybe once every three months.

The reason I stopped after being really active for a year was when Kalamatee said that he didn't care at all about the end users and just wanted a playground for himself. That made me lose faith that AROS could become a useful desktop OS anytime soon. Also, I don't like that it's yet another semi-retro OS (TM) with the same legacy problems as the others.

2. B. On my Acer Aspire One ZG5. It's not the best choice but it's still a practical one. I don't like emulation much.

3. None really.

4. A roadmap into a modern OS would help get my hopes up. MorphOS for me is the better semi-retro OS right now and I would welcome an OS that works like AmigaOS but is modern, even if that breaks the API. It can be it's own fork, and AROS 2.0 if you like. This half old half new isn't really appealing.

AROS has done a lot of impressive work under the hood, but Wanderer is still lagging behind. It needs to be updated and modernised. Zune needs to be finished.

These are the two things that would make me use AROS again (as I am very sympathetic of it): a future proof roadmap and a better desktop experience. The rest is obvious things like more drivers and more software but it's not as important to me at this stage.

_________________
Amiga Forum - Sweden's best Amiga Magazine

My MorphOS Blog

"Free speech includes other peoples right to offend you."

Thanks to people who answered so far and if you have not yet answered, please spend 5 minutes doing so - it is really appreciated by eveyone working on AROS.

_________________
https://www.axrt.org

@deadwood

1) Not as much as I wanted. I use it when I cross compile my stuff etc. and test compability. Maybe 1h week at most. I lack of spare time at the moment that's the biggest issue really =)

2) a and c

3) Coding/Verification and testing

4) Since I'm a huge MorphOS fan I would really love to see Ambient ported to AROS, I really like Magellan but Ambient is better when it's integrated into the system as it is under MorphOS and it's a fresh breath to the old style we Amigans are raised up with. I'm also a fan of AmIRC since that is my main IM source, that would be a bomb to have ported to AROS (I've been using this for more than 20 years now and other IRC-clients is not enough for me) =)

@deadwood

1. Not very often, couple of hours at most, at the moment (lack of time at home)

2. (a)Aeros on my Raspberry Pi and
(c)I have an older version of IcAros installed on a VM on my Mac

3. Just playing around with the system

4. Word Processor - I use Libre Office Writer on my other systems.
An up-to-date browser which allowed me to do everything I like to do on the web and yes, I do realise that Odyssey performs best on Aros).
I'd like to be able to use Aros natively on a Raspberry Pi (and, yes, I know there are great strides being made in this direction).

I should perhaps clarify that I don't have great hardware - an old netbook, a Dell mini10, unfortunately the version with the GMA500 graphics, so VESA is my only real option. I have an old single core PC and an old MacBook Pro, which is my main use for testing Linux distro's and anything else which takes my fancy

Keep up the good work

Last edited by OldAmigan on 02-Jun-2016 at 09:45 AM.

_________________
Fred Booth
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A500, A600, A1200 c/w Mediator and 030
AmigaOne and OS4.1
Mac LCII, G4 Powermac running OSX + Amigakit and MorphOS 3.0
Dell Mini 10 Netbook running IcAros and AmigaForever+Amikit+AmigaSys
2006 Macb

@deadwood

Quote:

1. How long do you use AROS weekly?

Not that much as I would like - just few hours/year.

Quote:

2. What is the way you use AROS (multiple selection allowed):

Quote:

b) AROS Native on real hardware

For my experiments with hardware demanding applications (eg. DosBox).

Quote:

c) AROS Native on virtual hardware

When trying new distributions.

Quote:

d) AROS 68k under Win/FS UAE

When trying new distributions.

Quote:

3. What are your 3 main activities in AROS?

As written above:
Emulators, general usability tests (what is new etc.), benchmarks.

Quote:

4. Think about the things that would make you use AROS more?

Hard to say. AROS has most features I need (Odyssey, plenty of emulators, MS Office compatibility via DosBox). Still I use my OS3 (and even far more limited OS4) configurations regularly, but AROS only rarely. It may be that "feeling" thing, but this answer certainly doesn´t help you.

Last edited by pavlor on 01-Jun-2016 at 07:45 PM.

@Yasu

Kala sometimes is hot headed but is not the only dev thank god

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Scarabocchi Binari - Italian AROS Blog
Binary Doodles - English language AROS Blog

@Chain-Q

Quote:

Chain-Q wrote: [...] A better Shell (sorry, the existing one just has too many random glitches for my taste).

I'd like it very much if you could elaborate on this very topic, please. Also, which is the Shell of your system (what is the output of "Which Shell")? Aren't some of those glitches related to the console?

Anyway a list of those bugs would be very useful.

@Develin

AmIRC works on Aros Vision by default (MUI 3.8 mode)

1. A couple of hours a week
2. d
3. working on my distrbution and programming for it
4. general support of modern printers and other thirdparty devices would be good. Hosted versions should be perfect integrated with underlaying OS (graphics) and Poseidon should be usable there. Then hosted would be perfect solution. And Win Hosted should offer full support. I think there is a big needed for something easy to use without installation of VMWare or needing dedicated hardware.

Last edited by OlafS25 on 03-Jun-2016 at 01:00 PM.

Hi,

So far 36 people replied across threads on AW.net and A-E.org. Please spend a few moments to answer the 4 easy questions. Once we go over 50 replies I'll provide some summary.

_________________
https://www.axrt.org

@deadwood

1) not so much due to lack of hardware support for AMD cards and lack of network drivers
2) B - real hardware
3) curiosity right now - I'd love to see support for more hardware like Raspberry Pi 3 which would give it mass-appeal.
4) I am not a fan of Linux, I would love to run AROS on Raspberry Pi 3 to be a web+mail+database server but relegated to Linux for such things. Right now I'm setting up and experimenting with web hosting services using Raspberry Pi 3 hardware and mounting NAS devices to them for mail and backup storage. Get real AMD drivers, if DirectX12 proves anything its that AMD has always had the better design that software was never taking advantage of.

Drivers
Drivers
Drivers

If AROS is truly free, why is the ARM port behind a quasi-paywall?

Sell preconfigured Raspberry PI 3 hardware with AROS distro on it like other vendors do with their own distros on popular sites like Amazon... It's not hard making money on free software. Charge for the service of 'pre-configuration'.

If you know how to write drivers...once AROS is out in the wild more, then you can sell your work back to the hardware vendors for inclusion on their own website so that they can add AROS to the list of supported operating systems instead of to us users. Follow the Linux logic of gaining broad support, the Amigoid logic has been failing.

Last edited by Lou on 07-Jun-2016 at 06:05 PM.

*bump*

_________________
https://www.axrt.org

@deadwood

Just promoted your survey on one Czech/Slovak forum. There are few AROS users in our countries...