Icaros Desktop 1.1.3 update ready for download

A new, important update for Icaros Desktop is ready for download. It adds to your operating system USB support, thanks to the much awaited Poseidon stack from Chris Hodges, which has successfully passed a huge (at least for AROS habits) beta testing session. USB should now work on about 80% of PC platforms out there, supporting both USB 1.1 and 2.0 controllers and devices, allowing easier file transfer on most pendrives and memory cards formatted with FAT and SFS filesystems. Poseidon is also able to detect a wide range of USB devices, including mice, keyboards, joysticks and other human controllers, audio cards, network cards, printers and scanners but - chill down - unluckily this won't mean you can actually use them. While there should be no problems at all for mice, keyboards and other similar devices, AROS still lacks of some important libraries and system components which would allow full and standardised support for other USB devices. And this is the motivation why this release is called "1.1.3" and not, for instance, "1.2": we've got a new important piece of the puzzle, a wonderful and promising feature, but this is a great starting point, not the final goal. Chris Hodges has opened a door which allow AROS to make huge leaps forward, but the walk has just begun. From now on, though, you won't be forced to use PS/2 mice and keyboards anymore: they should be recognized and mounted automatically at startup.


REQUIREMENTS

In order to install Icaros Desktop 1.1.3, you need at least Icaros Desktop 1.1.2 already installed and running on your system. You can use LiveUpdater to download it from the Icaros Website, or use one of the following addresses for manual download and installation.


DOWNLOADS

> Download the update CD from Icaros Desktop website (83 MB, tgz file format)
> Download the update CD from Icaros Mirror Site #1 (83 MB, tgz file format)

> Download 7-zip for your operating system


WHOLE DISTRIBUTION

> Download complete Icaros Desktop 1.1.3 Live! DVD ISO


New from Icaros 1.1.2

- Added Poseidon USB stack, initial release
- Support for most OHCI, UHCI and EHCI (2.0) USB controllers
- Support for USB mice and keyboards
- Support for most pendrives and memory card readers
- Almost every USB device should be detected
- Updated system files to july 31st, 2009 nightly build
- Added Automatic Updates to LiveUpdater
- Added Njam arcade game
- Added AFS file extractor
- Added PNG crush and scale2x utilities
- Updated SabreMSN to version 0.55
- Updated AutoDocReader to version 1.6
- Added manual for OWB


KNOWN ISSUES OF THIS RELEASE

- an usb disk can be detected by Poseidon but filesystem is not mounted (AROS fat.handler problem)
- plugging in the same disks multiplies disk icons (AROS problem)
- slow transfer speeds for fat formatted disks (AROS fat.handler problem)
- warm reset does not work (AROS PCI problem)
- with some OHCI+EHCI configurations pluging out keyboard causes freeze
- most USB devices correctly recognized but still not supported (lack of drivers/libraries)