Icaros Desktop - manual.pdf - Aros - ccwrc

V1.2

Quick and dirty user/reviewer guide

by Paolo Besser

1. Introduction

The AROS Research Operating System is a lightweight, efficient and flexible desktop operating system,

designed to help you make the most of your computer. It's an independent, portable and free project,

aiming at being compatible with AmigaOS 3.1 at the API level (like Wine, unlike UAE), while improving on

it in many areas . These lines, taken from the official Aros.org homepage, explain in a few words one of

the most interesting open source projects available. Being distant from both Linux and Windows

experiences, AROS is growing as a true alternative for people bored by the complex and resources-hungry

competition. A niche OS , whose strongest features are speed, compactness, responsiveness, amazingly fast

boot time and tiny application dimensions, far different from the 200 megs word processors we use today.

However, like many other young or niche projects, AROS relies on few active developers. The team has

already done a great job, re-implementing most of the functions of the original AmigaOS while improving

them with modern features, such as an hardware abstraction layer, an original driver model, USB and

TCP/IP stack, which allow AROS to be used for virtually everything today. The main issue, anyway, is the

lack of drivers and applications, two holes that might be easily filled with more developers. Most of AROS

applications have been placed on a repository called "The Archives", located at http://archives.aros-

exec.org and a tool called AAEDT has been developed to help downloading software. These applications,

however, are often difficult to install and configure for a novice user. Even AROS itself, relying on the old-

age Amiga lifestyle, it's enough user-friendly for the middle/skilled user, but slightly difficult to manage

for newbies.

And here Icaros Desktop comes in. Icaros Desktop started in November 2007 as VmwAROS (VE), a pre-

configured AROS environment for the popular VMware virtual machines. It came with a collection of

applications and games already installed and configured, often with some hand-made scripts, that let the

user run them as easily as clicking twice on a icon. Icaros Desktop is now available in three different

flavours:

 Icaros Desktop VE (virtual environment) is a pre-configured virtual machine distributed as virtual

appliance, so it should work with latest versions of VirtualBox and VMware

 Icaros Desktop LIVE! is the same environment on a bootable live-DVD that runs on top of your real

hardware, and can be installed onto the hard drive. It can also run in a pre-configured QEMU

virtual machine, provided in the same archive.

 Icaros Desktop LIGHT is a reduced version of the LIVE! DVD, which provides the most important

features of Icaros Desktop, but can be stored on a single CD instead of a DVD. Only the CD ISO is

provided, there's no pre-configured QEMU virtual machine for it.

Other efforts had been made in order to let the user share files between the AROS virtual machine and the

host operating system, being it Linux , Windows or MacOS . Icaros Desktop comes with YAFS pre-installed

and launched at boot time, which allows user to transfer files with any FTP client. Even the network is

already configured to do this, and with some little poking in the configuration files it is possible to surf

the web, chat by IRC and so on. In order to make all these tasks even easier, newer versions of Icaros

Desktop come with DHCP support. A brand new version of ConfigIP, Icaros Desktop' network configuration

script, allows people choosing between automatic (DHCP) and manual settings.

This reference guide is targeted to both Icaros Desktop VE and Icaros Desktop Live! However, some of the

procedure may vary depending on the version you're using. Most of the options can be accessed only after

installing on a virtual machine or on a real hard drive. Please remember AROS is still in alpha stage and

might not fit your daily needs . There are still much more things you could do for AROS , than the ones

AROS can do for you ! For any further information, visit www.Icaros Desktop.org and www.aros-exec.org .

1.1 Using Icaros Desktop VE

Icaros Desktop VE has traditionally been a pre-configured virtual machine for VMware products. Due to

poplar demand, and in order to meet better quality standards, the VE version is now a virtual appliance

that should run on many different virtualization technologies. It will surely work on VirtualBox 3.0.12 and

afterwards, where it is possible to hear sound thanks to AC97 support.

1.2 Two ways to use Icaros Desktop Live!

Icaros Desktop LIVE! comes in a package formerly known as VmwAROS EXE (which won't exist any more),

which includes these files

IcarosDesktop-pc-i386.iso : the Icaros Desktop Live! ISO image you can burn into a physical DVD.

IcarosDesktop_manual.pdf : the manual you're reading

Emulator : a drawer that contains the free virtual machine QEMU

Win32-START.bat : a launch script for 32 bit Windows 2000, XP and Vista.

Win64-START.bat : a launch script for 64 bit Windows XP and Vista.

You can either run Icaros Desktop Live! as a normal operating system for a real PC or simply “look at” it by

running it into the included virtual machine. There are advantages and drawbacks in both cases.

1.2.1 Using Icaros Desktop as a real operating system

If your hardware is supported by AROS , you can consider installing it onto the hard drive, and use it as

an alternative operating system along with any other eventually installed in the same hard drive. You will

need some blank (unpartitioned) space on the drive, and maybe you'll have to edit a little GRUB2

configuration files to access all the other systems (Windows should be added automatically at the end of

the list by AROS installer, but if you have any other OS installed, you have to edit /boot/grub/grub.cfg file

accordingly). For security reasons, you might prefer to use a blank EIDE drive for Icaros Desktop, so you

will be sure you won't hurt any existing and important data.

Installing Icaros Desktop on the hard drive is the best way to enjoy all AROS features: amazingly fast boot

times (about 12 seconds on the average nowadays PC, but can be even faster), instant-response to user,

sound support (if you have the right audio cards) and accelerated 2D for most ATI and Nvidia cards (if you

have problems, though, you can switch to VESA modes). There is no real drawbacks in using Icaros Desktop

on real hardware, just the time spent preparing, installing and configuring it. You can even just use the

Live version without installing it: but you won't be able to save your preferences, files and boot/loading

times will be dramatically slower.

1.2.2 Using Icaros Desktop Live! in the QEMU virtual machine

Icaros Desktop Live! includes a free, open source virtual machine to let you “test” the OS even without

installing it on your real hard drive. It can run inside Windows exactly as any other applications.

Depending on your operating system version, just run the Win32- or Win64-START batch files to launch

QEMU and the Icaros Desktop Live! DVD without the need of burning it on a physical DVD-R. You will be

almost in the same conditions of a user who has launched the DVD on a real computer. In fact, you will

need to install Icaros Desktop on a virtual hard drive (it's provided with the virtual machine, so no

problems here) and configure it to get the most of it. QEMU doesn't use your real hardware, so you will

need to configure AROS using the QEMU emulated hardware.

Sound

Newer revisions of QEMU (including the one provided with Icaros Desktop Live!) include a Intel AC97 audio

card emulator, which is loaded when starting Icaros under Windows using either the 32 or the 64 bit batch

files. In order to hear sound from AROS, though, you'll have to set the “AC97” audio drivers in prefs/AHI

for music, unit0 and unit1.

Networking

Networking in QEMU is possible, and network should be configured automatically.

After Installation

Once you'll have installed Icaros Desktop on your virtual machine (follow chapter 3 like it was on a real

computer), you will need to edit your WinXX-START.bat with the notepad, in order to switch the boot

peripheral from the virtual DVD drive to the virtual hard drive. In a nutshell, you must change the -d

option from “-boot d” to “-boot c” and allow QEMU access to your real DVD drive, turning “-cdrom

..\Icaros Desktop-pc-i386.iso” to “-cdrom <drive_letter>” (where <drive_letter> could be D, E, F or

whatever one your Windows is using for the DVD drive). Please do a safe copy of the original bat file.

Gaining speed on 32 bit Windows

This version of QEMU includes the Kqemu driver for acceleration under 32 bit versions of Windows (2000

and later versions). Please run the inskqemu.exe file in the \emulator\kqemu drawer. Kqemu doesn't

support 64 bit operating systems, hence it's not used in the 64 bit launch script for Icaros Desktop.

1.3 Before you start using Icaros Desktop Live!

AROS is still alpha software and this means it could not work correctly on your computer. If you are totally

new to AROS, you'd want to know the following:

1. the RAM Drive (RAM:) is a volume mounted directly in your system memory. It can be used as a fast

place to unpack files or a temporary buffer for your operations. Remember that its contents will be lost

when you reset or power off the machine;

2. hard drives and other volumes can have labels. You can use the RELABEL command to change them. In

a shell, you can use both labels and volume identifiers;

3. this is a Wanderer window, with icons inside. Icons in AROS are meant to identify important files

only , and can be used to open the described file with a different tool, to set file properties and so on.

They are mostly PNG files with the .info extension;

4. this is the AROS shell . AROS is not Linux so you won't use it all the time, however you'll find that using

the shell can be far easier than clicking thousands times on the left mouse button;

5. this nice bar is not part of AROS itself, but is a program called AmiStart . It will help you launching

programs and previewing images. Just remember it behaves differently from Windows start menu . You

can delete icons by throwing them outside. You can add new ones by dragging them from Wanderer. To

close a menu, just select an option in a parent menu. To close all, click on the Icaros Desktop button on

the left side.

1.4 Wanderer

AROS' Workbench is called Wanderer. You can copy programs and files simply dragging their icons from

their location to another. You can open Windows and launch program by clicking twice on their icons. Now

let's talk about windows. This is a window:

It has some tools you should understand to get handy with AROS:

1. The close gadget ( ) is on the left side of the title bar, and closes the window.

2. The iconify button ( ) on the right allows either to reduce the window to the minimum size, or

expand it again.

3. The depth gadget ( ) on the top right corner places the window before or after the others. AROS

behaves quite differently from most operating systems: clicking on a window won't give it the focus

immediately. You can hide a window under the others either if you're using them or not.

4. The scroll bars (

) allow you to show hidden parts of the window

contents.

5. The dimension gadget ( ) on the right bottom corner resizes the window as you like. This is the only

active part of the boundaries which allow you to do so.

6. The parent button ( ) goes up in the directory tree, opening the parent one.

7. The path field (

) shows the current path of the window. You can edit it

to go wherever you want in the filesystem.

8. The title bar ( ) shows the window name. You can move windows

wherever you want, handling them by their title bar, keeping the left mouse button pressed.

NOTE

In this manual we'll often talk about directories calling them drawers instead of folders . That's an

heritage from the Amiga age that AROS had proudly taken.

Icaros Desktop - manual.pdf

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