Posting this from my Icaros netbook...
Friday, November 20, 2009

In Italy we say "un'immagine vale mille parole", an image worths one thousand words, and I frankly couldn't be happier this time: Hitchhikr has posted on AROS-EXEC a new driver for RTL8169 and similar network adapters, which eventually covers also my netbook's one. So now I can do networking with Icaros on my Acer Aspire One, and that's another important piece of the puzzle, before having a complete Icaros mini-laptop. Since I recently got also 1024x600 resolution correctly supported (thanks, Csami) and USB was already working fine, the last thing that I really miss on the netbook is sound. But I'm faithful it will come, a day or another. It would also be good to have wireless connection, but wi-fi requires some more work for AROS developers, and cabled networking is already a great news.

Posted by Paolo Besser 23:41 Links to this post    

WANTED! New official desktop theme for version 1.2
Friday, November 13, 2009

Icaros 1.1.6 update is on the works (slowly, slowly, but it will come), and I am collecting ideas and files also for the next point release, which will be obviously called 1.2. For that release, I'd love to have a new look. Icons will be the same, but I start feeling the default OS4-like windows borders a bit... abused. Unluckily, I am not a good graphic artist, even if I contributed some artistry in the past, so I need your help. What I am looking for, is mainly something that will remember, for look and functionality, the current theme, because I feel that Amiga is well represented by the classic window shapes, but I don't want it to look too much like AmigaOS 4.0. I'd love that Icaros Desktop had its own "personality", with a theme that is clean and immediately recognizable as the Icaros Desktop one. So I am asking the community for help. I'd love to get some new themes from you, and the best one will become the new official Icaros theme, for versions 1.2.x. Would you be the author of the next Icaros look? Join this discussion and read the guidelines. Themes can be posted to archives.aros-exec.org, or a link may be provided in the following forum discussion:

> Click here for the discussion on AROS-EXEC with graphic guidelines

Posted by Paolo Besser 12:28 Links to this post    

Yet another GLExcess/Gallium3D video
Monday, November 2, 2009

Ok ok, we have talked about this before, and GLExcess running on AROS with hardware 3D acceleration is no more a fresh news. However, I noticed that current videos are not very well done, so I decided to grab the TV output of my Icaros machine (yes, you can connect an AROS machine to a standard TV set if you like, you just need a good video card) with a Pinnacle Dazzle, and this is the result: isn't it nice?

Posted by Paolo Besser 02:03 Links to this post    

Sorry, I couldn't resist...
Saturday, October 31, 2009

I don't like comparisons between operating systems' boot times. There's something completely odd about them: an operating system should be valued for its stability, its reliability, its user-friendliness, compatibility and price, not for its boot times, which practically don't matter when you use a computer. That's why, when I saw this video, I really couldn't stop myself.



This video is from tuxradar.com, it compares four 64-bit operating system on a not-better-specified "same configuration" booting to the desktop and automatically load their frontpage in a browser. That's great. They also have a sure winner, since Ubuntu 9.10 took only 40 seconds to accomplish this task. And this is great too - no jokes - since my Fedora installation would take much more and Linux in general is not considered a champion about boot times. But, well, I guess if someone would do better, and...



Icaros is the second best operating system all over the world! It takes 16 seconds less than Ubuntu 9.10 to boot to the desktop and load the tuxradar page (considering also network times). Unluckily, we are still behind the Commodore 64, which boots to its... ehm... operating system in less than 3 seconds.

PS: and yes, this is intended as a funny post, not a real comparison.

Posted by Paolo Besser 21:35 Links to this post    

New OWB is coming, here's the italian catalog
Tuesday, October 27, 2009

After a little pause, Stanislaw Szymczyk has come back and updated his port of the Origin Web Browser (OWB), adding some nice missing features like the upper menu and a quite amount of speed in page rendering. Some bugs, which prevented OWB to correctly hande some sites, have also been fixed. Before the official 0.9.9 release, he has published three RC versions. You can get the latest one here, which includes these modifications:

RC1
- Added support for multiple browser windows
- Added support for popup windows
- Added main application menu
- Moved bookmarks menu to main application menu
- Added StartOWB tool displaying splash window while OWB is starting (logo created by mihcaels, thanks man!)
- Replaced text search window with search panel
- Fixed bug #69: Can't login on www.vcast.it. It say that cookies are not active on the browser
- Fixed bug #81: After sending a private message on AROS-Exec, the links on the new pages are not working
- Fixed bug #85: Long bookmarks are cut
- Fixed bug #88: Reloading AROS-Exec causes it to look weird
- Fixed bug #91: Problem with cookies from www.ppa.pl
- Updated OWB source code to revision 1097

RC2
- fixed the cookie jar problem
- fixed one serious bug causing random crashes during exit...
- ...and few minor ones (window title not changing when switching to an empty tab, empty tab title displayed non-translated sometimes)
- updated Polish locales.

RC3

- middle mouse button now opens links in new tab
-failed fontconfig assertion message shouldn't appear on exit anymore (let me know if it does)
-fixed a bug causing browser hangs after clicking on select tag widget when select option list is displayed
-included recent catalogs updates

Unluckily for italian people, locale file for italian language was not available in the 1st and 2nd RC (I don't know what happens for the third, sorry). I have updated it and given a straight compile. It isn't perfect due to some issues with accented letters, but at least it is usable. I have much improved my original translation, modifying some voices and adding all the missing ones. If you need it, you can download the catalog from the following link:

> Download the italian catalog for OWB 0.9.9 RC2

Just save it in extras:Networking/Apps/OWB/Catalogs/Italiano, replacing the original italiano.catalog with this one, and you'll be able to use OWB 0.9.9 RC1 and RC2 in Italian.

Posted by Paolo Besser 14:28 Links to this post    

Gallium 3D, try it by yourself!
Monday, October 26, 2009

The incredible coder Krzysztof "Deadwood" Smiechowicz has released an "alpha demo" of 3D acceleration under AROS, and you can already use it on Icaros Desktop 1.1.5, you just need a GeForce card supported by the nuveau driver (GeForce 4, FX, 6 and 7 series, except probably some cut-down models). Following the link below, you will get an updated version of AROS MESA-demos and, for your delight, a gallium-enabled port of Paolo Martella's GLExcess demo, which runs incredibly well on AROS. I have personally tested it at 1152x864 pixel on a GeForce 7800 card, and it runs amazingly well, at full framerate and without major issues (just some graphic glitch, mainly due to the status of the nuveau driver, still in development). To grab your little great demo of the incoming AROS' 3D capabilities, just follow this discussion on AROS-EXEC, and don't forget to write your feedback or to report any issue you'd encounter.

> Gallium 3D demo released on AROS-EXEC

INSTALLATION PROCEDURES:
1. download the gallium-0.1.zip archive with OWB
2. double click on it to extract it on a hard drive, a directory called Gallium-0.1 will be created.
3. select show -> all files and enter the Gallium-0.1 directory
4. open a shell with rAros+W
5. give these commands
stack 1000000
glexcess-gallium 0 xxxx yyyy
(where xxxx and yyyy are your favourite screen resolution, eg 1280 1024 for 1280x1024 resolution)
6. enjoy!
Please remember you need a GeForce card. AROS must be booted with VESA graphics.

Posted by Paolo Besser 16:42 Links to this post