Development Plan

[deadwood]

Hello,

I will use this thread to share with you developments around my AROS-related projects. This will give you some insight in what you may and may not expect in coming months. First however I will give you a description of projects I maintain: AROS ABIv11, AROS ABIv0, AxRuntime.

AROS ABIv11
===========

ABIv11 is a code name I have given to my stable branch of AROS for 64-bit Intel and AMD processors. The code name is given to distinguish this version from the in-progress ABIv1 effort in main AROS repository. Stable branch in this context means that if a third party developer builds an application following these rules (https://github.com/deadw00d/AROS/blob/master/README.md#backwards-compatibility) today, I commit that the application will be working tomorrow, next month and in a year from now. This is the main place where changes from me and other developers happen.

ABIv11 is hosted in this branch: https://github.com/deadw00d/AROS
ABIv11 forms a base for the other two projects.

AROS ABIv0
==========

The version of AROS currently in use for 32-bit Intel and AMD processors. If you are using Icaros, Aros One or another distribution, you are most likely running ABIv0 as base system. Most of 3rd party applications available on Aminet or AROS-Archives are compiled for ABIv0.

ABIv0 is hosted in this branch: https://github.com/deadw00d/AROS/tree/alt-abiv0
ABIv0 "sits" on top of ABIv11. Most of the changes that are introduced to ABIv11, will eventually be flow to ABIv0 as well without additional effort from initial developers.


AxRuntime
=========

This is a set of Linux libraries that allows re-compilation of Amiga/AROS application into a native Linux application. More information is available here: https://axrt.org/index.php?tab=more

AxRuntime is hosted in this branch: https://github.com/deadw00d/AROS/tree/alt-runtime
AxRuntime "sits" on top of ABIv11. Most of the changes that are introduced to ABIv11, will eventually be flow to AxRuntime as well without additional effort from initial developers.

[deadwood]

The approach I'm taking is having a small number of milestones achievable in a couple of months. Once these are done, next will be announced which will depend on my availability as well as interest at that point in time.

Here are current plans, as of 20211120.

1) Bring over selected changes from AROS repository (https://github.com/aros-development-team/AROS) to ABIv11 [DONE]
2) Bring over selected changes from Apollo repository (https://github.com/ApolloTeam-dev/AROS) to ABIv11 [DONE]
3) Release next version of ABIv11 [DONE]

https://build.axrt.org/download/builds/AROS-ABIv11/amiga-m68k-20211217-165106.tar.gz
https://build.axrt.org/download/builds/AROS-ABIv11/linux-x86_64-20211217-172953.tar.gz

[OlafS3]

Sounds good  thanks

I am grateful that you do this

there are three issues I experienced on 68k with some of the applications and games

There was always a problem that the applicatios (f.e. a viewer) requested and expected f.e. a PAL screen but got something RTG related and then of course not worked
some of the applications open the file requester and then the system freezes. But only some, not all.
there seem to be a jostick related bug. In some games it seems the fire button is contantly pressed (while it is not). This again not affects all games

there are certainly other issues too,. The Vampire team did a lot of bugfixing on 68k.

[Amiwell]

Thank you very much Deadwood

[miker1264]

@deadwood

It's good to have a plan moving forward.
We appreciate all your efforts and your willingness to help.

We will continue to do testing and provide you with accurate reports to help find problems and get them resolved quickly.

Thanks again for your insight and wisdom. 

[aurabin]

Thank you deadwood that you still believe in AROS, I still didn*t won the lottery but I keep donating!

[AMIGASYSTEM]

https://github.com/deadw00d/AROS/blob/master/README.md#backwards-compatibility

One question deadwood, but are the updated distros ABIv0 found in this link usable, what are the improvements, can they be used?

[deadwood]

https://github.com/deadw00d/AROS/blob/master/README.md#backwards-compatibility

One question deadwood, but are the updated distros ABIv0 found in this link usable, what are the improvements, can they be used?

Updates for ABiv0 are released from time to time. I will make separate threads here when this happens. The 20180415 is still the latest release.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Ok Thanks

[cdimauro]

@deadwood: to me it's logical to have a common source "core" to every AROS "distro", and separate repos/branches for specific targets.


However isn't cherry-picking stuff to all such repos too much a burden to do & maintain?


Another question. It looks like that your is a fork from AROS "official repository". I think that you cherry-pick from there most of the stuff, right?


Having several repositories with some relationship between them looks a bit messy to me. Any idea about a common repo, to have a central place where to look at, and to also reduce the maintenance effort?

[deadwood]

@deadwood: to me it's logical to have a common source "core" to every AROS "distro", and separate repos/branches for specific targets.


However isn't cherry-picking stuff to all such repos too much a burden to do & maintain?

This depends on the traffic in other repos. Today it is managable. If there is a traffic of "tens" of commits per day, it might not be.

Another question. It looks like that your is a fork from AROS "official repository". I think that you cherry-pick from there most of the stuff, right?

My github repo is directly re-created from the AROS SVN commits if that is what you are asking about.

Having several repositories with some relationship between them looks a bit messy to me. Any idea about a common repo, to have a central place where to look at, and to also reduce the maintenance effort?

Don't know. My repo suits my specific needs and projects, similar to Apollo repo suiting theirs I guess.

[cdimauro]

Thanks for the clarification deadwood. One last question, since you mentioned: is the AROS SVN repo still used / the "master" repo, or is it moved to git (and development continues there)?

[deadwood]

Thanks for the clarification deadwood. One last question, since you mentioned: is the AROS SVN repo still used / the "master" repo, or is it moved to git (and development continues there)?

Since middle of 2019 SVN repo is no longer used.

[OlafS3]

@deadwood: to me it's logical to have a common source "core" to every AROS "distro", and separate repos/branches for specific targets.


However isn't cherry-picking stuff to all such repos too much a burden to do & maintain?


Another question. It looks like that your is a fork from AROS "official repository". I think that you cherry-pick from there most of the stuff, right?


Having several repositories with some relationship between them looks a bit messy to me. Any idea about a common repo, to have a central place where to look at, and to also reduce the maintenance effort?

I think you underestimate the problems the multi-platform one source concept has. For example in the last years it happened frequently that 58k stuff was broker after updates/changes. I also saw devs fixing other platforms after commits. You would need a big testing infrastructure and lots of external testers for that. Both does not exist. In my view it is better to have seperate branches with some coordination. At the moment the main branch is dead anyway so there is not a real problem there.

[deadwood]

Over last two weeks I've been working on re-design on ABIv11 C library. This is now pushed into repository and available.

You can find specification on new libraries here: https://github.com/deadw00d/AROS/blob/master/compiler/crt/SPECIFICATION

Be sure to note, that while libraries sound new, they build on years of prior work by Staf, Kalamatee, Jason and many others.

This also means, that effective today, stdc.library, stdcio.library and posixc.library are no longer part of the build of ABIv11. If you also created and published an application for ABIv11 that uses any of the deprecated libraries, please get in contact with me and we will figure out a solution.

If you have local builds of ABIv11, please rebuild them (including cross-compilers) from scratch after 'git pull'.