After some (hopefully enough) testing, Icaros' LiveUpdater 1.5.1 is finally available for download. This little package is intended to replace the current, limited Updater script of Icaros Desktop, improving on it in many ways. Once installed, LiveUpdater will be available in your AROS:Tools/LUPD directory, and you'll be able to install Icaros updates in many ways: the current CD-based one, and the new ISO- and Internet-based paths. Here's how to install it.

IMPORTANT! You need Icaros Desktop 1.1.1 already installed! I haven't tried with 1.1.0 and I don't warrantee it will work at all.

a. download wherever you like, for instance RAM:T
b. open a shell
c. enter these commands
work:
unzip RAM:T/Icaros-liveupdate-151.zip
cd icaros-liveupdate-151
execute installer
d. wait some seconds and reboot

(you can also simply double click on the archive icon to extract files, and doubleclick on the Installer one to install)

Since it won't be added to AmiStart automatically, you'll have to run it from the Tools/LUPD directory with Wanderer.

> Download LiveUpdater 1.5.1 (1,5 MB, zip file format)

When Icaros Desktop 1.1.2 update will be available, LiveUpdater will download and install it for you.

Steve "ClusterUK" Jones has sent an update about his cool Icaros-powered iMica systems. Replacing the external case with a bigger one, he can now mount form-factor, standard DVD drives cutting the overall costs of the system. The iMica is now sold, until the end of July 2009, for £199.


The new iMica: isn't it cool?

> more informations at ClusterUK's website.

Well, I'm really happy to announce that, thanks to the fundamental help of Yannick, Icaros Desktop will have live updates too. Yes: you launch the system, it goes to the Internet and then download new packages when available, and installs them. Our autoupdates will work somehow differently from what you're accustomed to on Linux (packages) and Windows (windows update): in practice, our LiveUpdater will automate the procedure that you followed in the past with update disks, without the need of burning a CD.

Here is how it will work:
1. searches the Icaros site for a update
2. downloads the latest ISO
3. mounts it as a virtual device
4. copies files
5. reboots

stop, that's all. The only issue, for now, is that I'd need many people trying the LiveUpdate feature before it goes gold. My goal is to make Icaros 1.1.2 available as automatic download too. So here is a LiveUpdater alpha version for brave people:

> DOWNLOAD IT! (1,5 MB)

what you have to do:

a. download wherever you like, for instance RAM:T
b. open a shell
c. enter these commands
work:
tar xvfz RAM:T/liveupdatealpha01.tgz
cd icaros-liveupdate-alpha
execute installer
d. wait some seconds and reboot

You'll get also some needed system files, like newest kernel and drivers. So maybe before point (d) make a backup of your DRIVERS: files. Then, just look in the Tools drawer, you'll find the LUPD one. Enter LUPD and start LiveUpdater. At the beginning, it will be very similar to old Updater (frankly, I forgot to update the body of the first requester, just ignore it), but then it will ask you for...



and you'll be able to start downloading new updates, or even mount them as virtual CDs. For now, the experiment will be made through a dummy update which does nothing but adding a 'cookie.txt' file in extras: if you can see it by choosing show > all files, you're done.

I also encourage the bravest of you of trying it with this ISO file:

> Download a fancy new AROS custom build (80 MB)

you should already know how to extract it. Please, try and report here!

I really would like to thank Neil Cafferkey for his recent work on AROS VESA driver, because his changes finally allow people with unsupported graphic cards (unluckily too much people) to use better resolutions than the old 4:3 ones up to 1280x1024. Now the VESA driver behaves differently: recent AROS nightlies have a less verbose boot menu, which allows to choose between the "best resolution detected" at a certain palette depth, or the best palette at a chosen resolution. Success depends on your graphic card and your BIOS. To see the new driver in action, just click on the top left thumbnail and look at this screenshot at its original size: you will notice my current work-in-progress Icaros Desktop installation on VMware, at 1920x1200 pixel, 24 bit color. Nice, isn't it?

Well, to get it, I had to follow some easy steps.
1) boot Icaros and update system files to a fresh build
2) choose any old VESA boot menu line
3) change VESA=1024x768x32 (or whatever) to VESA=1920x1200
4) press Ctrl+X
5) edit boot/grub/grub.fcg to have this always available
Icaros users should wait for 1.1.2, which hopefully will have this feature already included. If you can't find a matching resolution for your nightly build, please read this thread on Arosworld, it gave me the right hint!

Thanks to Sergey Mineychev, people from the world's largest country can now count on a translated version of our website in their own language. Sergey will mantain and keep updated the russian edition of icarosdesktop.org, which as already gone online at this address:

> http://ru.icarosdesktop.org

At the moment, the translation has just been started, so you won't fin the whole Icaros Desktop website in russian. However, new contents will be added and translated in the next days. Good job and thanks for everything, Sergey!

AmiStart is the custom toolbar placed on the bottom of Icaros Desktop's screen, allowing people to navigate with ease among filesystem and programs. From my humble point of view, it's the most modern and sofisticated application of its category, and it's also quite easy to customize, at least for its contents. However, since its introduction in VmwAROS 0.5, it has been criticized for being "too big on small screens" (sorry my friends, Icaros is not intended for 640x480 workbenchs anymore...), "difficult to customize" (why?) and so on. Recently, however, Haywirepc started a clear discussion on aros-exec about this topic, so we could finally track the main issues and choose a direction for fixing them. I poked around the sm.prefs file and AmiStart's right-click menus, in order to get a thinner, but nice and well contrasted look for Icaros toolbar. You can see the results on the top corner of this article, by clicking on it for a larger view. Here is a short list of the best improvements:



- bar is half high than before
- bar doesn't follow screens when you open new ones
- bar now covers 95% of workbench width (formerly was 90%)
- labels are placed right to images
- Directory Opus now works in his custom screen, even with AmiStart working
- menus are graphically identical each others
- bar closes menu when clicking outside of it (à la Windows)
- ugly task icon has been replaced. The same will be for screens in the final revision
- new basic color (whyte with 45% transparency) allow better contrast with labels
- analog clock and memmeters are gone, replaced by a simple digital clock
- calendar has gone away, but can be easily restored (read what follows).

You can download the new AmiStart revision by clicking on the following link:

> Download new AmiStart (1,4 MB, .tgz file format)

And here how to install.

1. Close AmiStart (even better: disable it with Services in Prefs and warm reset Icaros)
2. Download it with OWB, it will be placed in ram:T
3. Open a shell (rAros+W)
4. Type in
cd extras:
delete AmiStart
tar xvfz ram:T/AmiStart112.tgz
5. Enter AmiStart drawer and launch AmiStart (or, better, re-enable it with Services in Prefs, then warm reset Icaros)

Inside the AmiStart drawer you'll find a backup file for old default sm.prefs file, in the case you don't like the new look and you wish to restore the old one. If you want back analog clock and calendar, please right click on the bar, choose "open shape layer" and then "widgets". Please follow the mentioned aros-exec discussion to help or to give hints and feedbacks, this will help me finalizing a new look for AmiStart in Icaros Desktop 1.1.2.