Ask AtheOS Creator Kurt Skauen About His Creature 278
Developer Kurt Skauen, programming for fun, ended up answering the frequent cries to write a graphical Free OS not tied to the X Window system by doing just that. His AtheOS has been mentioned here a few times before -- it's a Free (as in GPL) Operating System for Intel-and-compatible CPUs with an integrated GUI, a tendency toward POSIX, and more than a hint of BeOS. There are quite a few sites with more information about AtheOS, but you may have trouble just getting past the beautiful screenshots and nearly as beautiful AtheOS FAQ. (There are also ASCII parrots.)
Ask Kurt about the past, present, and future of AtheOS here (ask as many questions as you'd like, but please only one per post) and we'll forward the best ones to Kurt for his answers.
Windows apps? (Score:4, Interesting)
Now what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Other developers (Score:3, Interesting)
OO emphasis and other things (Score:2, Interesting)
Has anyone attempted to port X to AtheOS? (Score:2, Interesting)
AtheOS and GPL (Score:5, Interesting)
Greetings...
Another poster mentioned the idea that you were considering moving AtheOS to a different license. Is that the case?
Secondly, if you are considering putting it under a different license, why? And, why did you select GPL licensing for AtheOS as opposed to a number of different licensing choices out there? (Reguardless of if you are or aren't moving AtheOS from a GPL license.)
PPC (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you consider it likely that at some point in the near future AtheOS will develop a PPC port?
I realize that the AtheOS developers are very busy with the hard work they are doing and that there is no good reason for them to expend effort on a PPC port. However i was wondering if you think that there is enough interest among extant developers familiar with the ppc/chrp/macintosh platform that someone might feel like cobbling together a port.
That being said, i was checking and trying to figure out: does AtheOS have some kind of flexible arbitrary-server auto-upgrade "package"-style system along the lines of the debian apt-get? if not, are there plans to implement one, or perhaps port apt-get and dselect to atheos?
Please excuse my ignorance.
- mcc
(I am quite curious about AtheOS, and have been meaning for some time to try to check it out (well, or at least check out the screenshots and read the API documentation, since as implied above i do not personally have an x86 machine on which to test the OS..)-- i was thinking about looking over the atheos webpage yesterday morning, actually. I'm looking forward to learning more about this OS in the future.. if only i knew more now, maybe i'd have some better questions
how long (Score:2, Interesting)
CD-Rom support (Score:4, Interesting)
I much prefer to install software (at least anything over several megs) with a CD than over the net, and there are a lot of old documents that I have converted to CD for storage. I wouldn't want to buy a machine without a CD-ROM drive
Is bootable (or other) CD-ROM support planned? Perhaps many people would be able to sample AtheOS easier if they could (for instance) order a CD from Cheapbytes and install it locally, pass to a friend etc.
Considering the progress on the other aspects of the system, how important do you think this is, or are there technical difficulties (other than time) in getting CD-ROM support to work?
Best,
timothy
Design an OS with C++ (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Now what? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think he hasically created it cause he wanted to..
Why climb that mountain? yadda yadda..
Re:Other developers (Score:1, Interesting)
It's cool that he has accepted the patch, but you shouldn't assume that you can go mucking about with the kernel or libatheos/appserver and expect Kurt to accept the patch with open arms. Honestly.
Two questions (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sure you developed AtheOS in your free time and then let me ask you what is your day job? How do you find balance between the two especially when you are in that coding bubble that everything seems to be coming together well.
Secondly, (this may be for all
You're doing a great job! Good luck and keep it up!
Where did the name come from? (Score:2, Interesting)
Atheos as the perfect Unix client (Score:1, Interesting)
complains on is that X is not designed for fast graphics,
gaming etc. Also, allowing drivers to write directly to
the hardware to improve performance affects systems
security and reliability.
In other words, the Unix world lacks an alternative
for X, and trying to build a good client - for multimedia
purposes - around X in my opinion is not the best
solution.
If I were in your shoes, I'd try to aim Atheos' development
to do what Linux and other unices still can't do well
(multimedia), and not what they already perform near
perfectly (server and security tasks).
Of course the scenario I'm thinking of is a mixed network:
Unix machines to do firewalling, file serving and network
services, and Atheos machines that could allow great
multimedia performance without caring of security and
other issues.
I'd like to hear your opinion on this.
Thankyou, and keep up the good work!
AtheOS as a desktop OS? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Other developers (Score:1, Interesting)
Hell there are some things I'd like to change about os::Menu, but Kurt would more likely than not reject my patch, so I'd be wasting my time.
I'm just happy with coding my own applications though, and learning AtheOS.
Re:License Freedom? (Score:2, Interesting)
I have said that I'm might going to change the lisense to a more liberal one in case the GPL would cause problems for non-GPL drivers, apps, or other "third-party" components somehow. How you managed to twist that into "often threathened to close-source" is beyond me.
Kurt Skauen
Not just gaming (was Re:Windows apps? (Score:2, Interesting)
Besides, not needing windows to run Reason would truly rule!
Embedded devices? (Score:4, Interesting)
With Linux, a device developer has to get the core Linux kernel working and then build a GUI on top of it (XFree86 or a smaller X server). Palm OS doesn't have multitasking and isn't very scalable to powerful devices. Windows CE requires a royalty. AtheOS could provide a powerful operating system for embedded devices for free.
Re:unfortunate name, perhaps ... (Score:2, Interesting)
How does Atheos handle Binary Compatibility? (Score:5, Interesting)
This seems (to me, at least) the biggest problem with writing an OS in C++. How does AtheOS deal with this problem?
Application framework & Development (Score:4, Interesting)
Throwing out the baby with the bathwater? (Score:2, Interesting)