User PK on the italian Amiga newsgroup it.comp.os.amiga made me aware of a misleading information included in Icaros user manual: a very old text line at page 13 says that a "FFS (system) partition is mandatory for compatibility reasons", which is absolutely not true anymore. Using a FFS system partition would, on the contrary, create only stability and speed issues. Please use SFS filesystem for both AROS: and Work: partitions instead, and remember that AROS SFS filesystem can handle only partitions up to 128 GB. Current version of InstallAROS, when let alone with a new blank drive, might create a larger one that would lead to unpredictable results. If you have this problem, please use HDToolBox to handle partitions or the great Gparted live tool, which should be enough easy to understand even for not skilled people. A newer version of the Icaros manual is already on our brand new official web space, just click on "Manual" in the top labels or follow this link. I apologize with anyone that had problems for this and thank for their patience.

You don't believe it? Well, you have to see this video! It shows MPlayer opening 4 videos (two of them at DVD quality) without any noticeable framedrop or audio syincing problems. This result was practically impossible under VmwAROS 1.0.2, at least using the old files and program versions. I'm sorry for the quality of the footage, but for now I can use only my smartphone for these kind of jobs...


Icaros Desktop 1.1 opening 4 videos on AROS from paolo besser on Vimeo.

I have also another good news for you. Since this distribution is growing in popularity, I finally activated a web hosting service, so there will be an official location for our files: free hosting services will be still used for temporary mirroring.

Version 1.1 of your new AROS distribution has finally been released. It's not perfect yet, but it's more stable, and includes all the most urgent features any hobbyst, usable operating system should have. Icaros Desktop has everything VmwAROS already had, with many improvements you'll surely love, like the integration of the modern web browser OWB (which can now open HTML file on your hard drive clicking on them, or launching some famous cloud-computing web applications straight from AmiStart), the addition of the wonderful PDF reader ArosPDF, the vastly-improved AmiBridge thanks to Janus-UAE 0.3 and many, many more.

New since VmwAROS 1.0.2:

- changed name to Icaros Desktop
- it's faster!!!
- added OWB
- added opening HTML files from hard drive
- Direct launcher for many web applications
- improved AmiBridge with Janus-UAE 0.3
- faster Amiga emulation: more sessions possible
- fixed Picasso96 support under emulation
- Running Amiga emulation full screen now possible
- added support for Amiga Forever 2008
- added ArosPDF and removed PoorPDF
- added status bar and other improvements to Wanderer
- updated system files to March 22nd, 2009
- added Drascula adventure game for ScummVM
- updated ScummVM to version 0.12
- added support for iMica network card
- added new background pictures
- updated and fixed MarranoFTP
- updated Radeon driver (better 24 bit support)
- added abrick and some other games
- updated amimemos, finder and simpleeditor
- MPlayer now supports encrypted DVDs
- Music and movie icon files access
- added mkisofs, ptplay, wiiloader and many others
- added awin for Windows-like keyboard shortcuts
- added lookhere image browser and viewer
- updated Wookiechat to version 2.11
- UHCI check before enabling USB support
- less verbose VmwUpdate, now called Updater
- improved overall system stability
- updated libraries and development chain
- updated QEMU files for Live! version



On the left: two sessions of MPlayer showing DVD-quality movie files. On the right, three popular websites shown in different OWB windows.



On the left: LookHere showing thumbnails of many images. On the right, ArosPDF and some others handy utilities like SabreMSN, Finder, ArosAMP and WiiLoader.



On the left: Commodore emulator VICE, Abrick and ArosPDF. On the right, improved AmiBridge now allows launching more AmigaOS applications without efforts (you need a fast PC, though!).

Icaros Desktop LIVE! is a complete distribution of the AROS desktop operating system. Icaros Desktop LIVE! comes on a bootable live DVD-ROM which runs directly on your hardware (it must be already supported by AROS). It can be installed on the hard drive and can coexist with Microsoft Windows XP, in a dedicated partition. A quick reference guide and some AROS PDF manuals are included. This version comes also with a Qemu-based virtual machine which allows Windows users to test the distribution in a safer (but slower) environment.

SUPPORT ICAROS DESKTOP!
After downloading, please consider donating. Every release of Icaros Desktop requires a lot of time and work, for a hobbyst project. Donations will be spent to enhance Icaros Desktop and to contribute to AROS bounties.

• Users of VmwAROS 1.0 and 1.0.1 should read the manual, chapter 3.1, to learn how to upgrade from their current installation to Icaros Desktop 1.1 and keep their data.
  

Icaros Desktop VE (Virtual Environment) is a complete AROS desktop environment running on VMware virtual machines. Targeted to final users and to developers, Icaros Desktop VE allows testing and using the AROS Research Operating system without really installing it on the hard drive. It can be a reliable way to access this interesting OS for people with powerful, but yet not supported hardware.

SUPPORT ICAROS DESKTOP!
After downloading, please consider donating. Every release of Icaros Desktop requires a lot of time and work, for a hobbyst project. Donations will be spent to enhance Icaros Desktop and to contribute to AROS bounties.

Emergency mode was VmwAROS' unique feature that allowed people using a older kernel too boot the system on incompatible hardware, using a very old version that simply didn't know anything about newer controllers. This very old kernel, however, has become completely useless, since it proved to be incompatible with many improvements AROS has got in the meanwhile. Last time I tried it, it wasn't even able to boot from DVD, so I decided it was time to move on. Instead of thrashing the whole "emergency mode", I re-worked it to use VmwAROS 1.0's kernel. I took this decision, because there are many people that could boot VmwAROS 1.0 flawlessly, but not 1.0.2 or current builds. This should help those users to boot Icaros Desktop 1.1 with ease. I'm really sorry for people with unsupported hardware, but the old emergency mode wouldn't work anyway. I hope AROS developers will find a solution also for them.

One of the best advantages of OWB, is that it allows people to use very useful web applications over the net, like Google Apps, Mail and Maps, but also some interesting services like Zamzar, Preezo, meebo.com and imo.im, which don't require a Java virtual machine to run. Since they can help using AROS for common tasks, like instant messaging, word processing, presentations editing and so on, I thought that a way to connect straight to them would be handy. So I created some launch scripts for OWB and placed them in extras:Networking/apps/Web Apps, linking this directory also to AmiStart main menu. You can see part of the result clicking on the top left thumbnail. Well, among them I have added also AROS-EXEC. That's not a "web application", but I don't think you may find a better place for AROS help...

Icaros Desktop 1.1 is not ready yet. Ok, this is not a big news, since if it was released, you'd surely have noticed that. There are many motivations for this delay. The first one, is that I like to do my best: I want to be sure that everything works fine on the widest range of computers, and that using applications won't bring users to 'dead ends'. This requires a big effort trying again and again every single program. Then, there are many changes to AROS that worth including in next version. Nick Andrews is updating Wanderer, making it easier to use, and filling some gaps. He has also included a nice status bar in windows, and now he's trying to fix behavior of volume icons on the destktop. But this is not the only improvement got by AROS in the meanwhile: many new apps have been ported to it, so I am trying - in my spare time - to follow both sides of the AROS world, system and applications. The results, for now, are fine: WiP version if Icaros Desktop 1.1 has a better look and many new features. It can browse the web with OWB and open HTML files on the hard drive with their icon, and now AmiBridge can open more instances of Janus-UAE for 68K applications. I've added also direct support for Amiga Forever 2008. PDF files are no more shown by PoorPDF, replaced by the proper application ArosPDF. Some problems like soft-reboots hanging seem to be gone, and stability has increased. Today I've rewritten many parts of the manual to reflect new features and to remove warnings and workarounds for many now-gone issues. Icaros Desktop 1.1 will be released "when it's done", but I hope you'll enjoy the results, then.

German and international magazine Amiga Future has covered VmwAROS (now Icaros Desktop) in two different articles, overally 4 pages: a complete review of the first "point release" of our distribution and an amazing interview with myself. I say it's amazing because usually I am the one that makes the questions, and this time I had to answer... Anyway, I must thank the editor in chief Andreas Magerl and all the editors involved for the space they have kindly dedicated to VmwAROS, and for taking so much care, in their magazine, of the whole AROS world. In issue 77 there are also many AROS related news and this is really important. On Amiga Future's website you can read the first page of the review: please buy the mag (and support who is somehow supporting us) to read the second. I only quote a passage that should make us all feel really proud: "if you seriously try AROS, you'll certainly reach the conclusion that it's become an amazingly stable, advanced and absolutely worthy AmigaOS-like operating system".

Well, I think you've already noticed by yourselves, but the name of this site has changed. It has been a suffered decision, since after a whole year of development and public relations, some important reviews on sites and magazines, the VmwAROS name has become really popular among the community, and a name change may confuse people. However, I finally had to agree that it was also a bit misleading. VmwAROS had born in november 2007 as a "complete AROS environment running on VMware" but, only 6 months later, has been released for the first time as a complete, live distribution for PC. I spent many and many hours of my life explaining this in Amiga-related forums but, after a whole year of so, there were still too much people that thought VmwAROS was simply "AROS for VMware", which is not anymore or, at least, it is only half true. From now on, there will be no more VmwAROS, but Icaros Desktop instead. And it will mainly be a complete AROS distribution (as like as VmwAROS LIVE! had been in the past) aiming to run on supported PC hardware, being it physical or virtualized. The name VmwAROS will be kept only for the underlying technology of the distribution: think about it as a "company name", even if there is no company behind it. Links to old VmwAROS version will be kept as long as the files will be still available, and this site will be always reachable using the address www.vmwaros.org for some time (until the domain name will expire). Old links will continue working, since the vmwaros.blogger/blogspot.com will be the same. Many VmwAROS occurrences in the distribution files will be kept for compatibility reasons. Starting from today, however, the new official URL for this distribution is www.icarosdesktop.org.

"Icaros Desktop" name is inspired by Icarus (Ἴκαρος, Íkaros), a mythologic character that tried to fly but fell to his death, joined with the AROS name and followed by the "Desktop" word (which is our main target). Please notice that 'Icarus' has much in common with the japanese word Hikaru, which means ray of sun. I have to thank Joao "Hardwired" Ralha for the inspiration and all the beta-testers that joined our private discussion about the new name.

Next version of VmwAROS won't be 1.0.3, but 1.1. It won't be available as update disk, but it will require a complete reinstall. Users of versions 1.0.x, however, will be still able to update their system without loosing their data, they will have to follow a simple procedure which will be described with the release. I had to take this decision principally for some recent changes in AROS bootstrap code, which aren't compatible with VmwUpdate and could lead to some stability issues with current files.

But there is also another motivation: it's time for a serious cleanup. VmwAROS now includes some programs which still require very old system files to work, first of all the ones that look for obsolete 'v41' muimaster.library. This library has changed version numbering on january 2008, and during the whole year we made those applications work using a customized one. This lead to many little and big issues with newest programs, which had always to be tested twice to be sure they wouldn't create problems under VmwAROS. The most common and noticeable drawback of this, is the Zune prefs panel that's not working, unless the user choose the new muimaster.library using SwitchMuiMaster. Well, this will come to an end. SwitchMuiMaster will still be present, but the custom library will now be disabled by default. That's already happening when installing the custom build for OWB (and no-one complained). A list of the applications that will be removed from VmwAROS is here: please refresh and recompile them, and they will be happily included again in further VmwAROS 1.1.x updates. Thank you.

PS: Oh, well, I almost forgot that VmwAROS 1.1 will include many great additions, like the new ArosPDF reader from Craig Kiesau, the OWB browser and the latest release of MPlayer. And many, many more, as usual. Release date still to be announced.

Our friend Stephen Jones has started selling his iMica One system, the first commercial computer using VmwAROS as main operating system. Based on the Intel Atom® 330 dual core processor, this little beast comes in the tiny mini-itx form factor, inside a black and elegant plastic case. Obviously, AROS perfectly fits into this machine, supporting both audio and networking from day-one. Just see these pages for further informations:

> iMica system overview
> iMica One video teaser