Dear friends, as you’ve probably noticed, Icaros Desktop has been “frozen” for quite a while. Although I’ve occasionally checked in on the community and its forums, no new release has appeared in over five years. Yes, I’ve made a few small updates here and there, but nothing that truly justified a new release — or reignited the spark of enthusiasm that once drove both me and you. To put it simply: Icaros Desktop may have reached its destination.
I’ve just taken down the Patreon page, because I no longer feel right about receiving your support — however small — for something that hasn’t moved forward in so long. Perhaps one day I’ll find meaning in the work done over these years and build a small, useful release again. But for now, I need to share a few honest thoughts.
AROS has grown a lot since the Covid years. There’s now an excellent, actively maintained distribution called AROS ONE, and I strongly recommend you switch to it from now on. I simply don’t have the time to dedicate to this system anymore — a system I still love deeply, and to which I gave so much of my time and heart. From time to time, I’ll still check the latest AROS builds, see how far things have gone, and who knows — maybe the desire to distribute it again will return someday. I tried integrating the latest ABIv0 builds, but they no longer even boot. Fixing that would mean rebuilding everything from scratch — fifteen years of work, piece by piece — and, honestly, the motivation isn’t there right now. Maybe one day it will be. Today, it’s not.
And maybe it doesn’t need to be. Icaros Desktop belongs to a 32-bit world that AROS is, thankfully, leaving behind. The same little AROS that many once dismissed as “pointless” or even “illegal” has become the only Amiga-like OS truly moving forward, building a full ecosystem around itself. I hope my friend Deadwood will one day integrate Kalamatee’s SMP work into ABIv11 — that would be the final, decisive step, proving how the open-source spirit of AROS has triumphed where others only made promises.
In a world that runs on 64-bit, continuing a 32-bit project would be anachronistic. The little money I’ve earned through Icaros Desktop will probably go toward 64-bit bounties instead. I don’t want to hold AROS back by encouraging people to cling to old software or hardware. Thanks to future emulation, even legacy apps will find their place again. So it makes sense to step aside for now — to wait, to watch, and to see what comes next. Maybe Icaros Desktop will return one day, perhaps in a simpler form, but on a stronger, more future-proof platform. The 32-bit path is a dead end.
So, farewell — for now. Thank you for the journey we’ve shared, for your support, your encouragement, and even your criticism. I gave Icaros everything I could. This website will stay online, waiting for whatever comes next. But at least it will stop looking back at me with those sad eyes — caught between “I wish I could” and “I could, but I won’t.”. It’s been a wonderful journey. Now it’s your turn to move forward — at least for a while.
