[GEM Development] GEM Desktop & Linux

[Liam Proven]

On 3 November 2011 16:54, Thomas Clayton <topcatdrc at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Liam,
>
> That was an interesting side-trip thru the web for me. First, I linked out to your google page, then to that woman-in-a-corset's page,

Er, which woman in a corset is that?!

I know several, actually - and I daresay my G+ account links to quite
a few. It's one of the terrible burdens of being a bit of an old goth.
;¬)

> then National Novel Month,

Which I really must start doing...

> then back to her page finding a nice cartoon about friendship and a picture of cats on a car hood (for one of my sisters - the catSS owner) -

OK, really lost now!

> and I hadn't even gotten to any GEM related subject matter, yet!

:¬)

> AFrOS runs over ARAnyM and
>
> ARAnyM is a software virtual machine (similar to VirtualBox or Bochs) designed and developed for running 32-bit Atari ST/TT/Falcon operating systems (TOS, FreeMiNT, MagiC and Linux-m68k) and TOS/GEM applications on any kind of hardware - be it an IBM clone (read it as "PC" :-), an Apple, an Unix server, a graphics workstation or even a portable computer.

I've tried Aranym. It's pretty impressive, actually. I was not an ST
type but it's a very good effort at making an all-FOSS environment for
running serious ST apps on x86 hardware.

> Later on, I think it said something about a mini- ?linux?.

MINT, I guess. MINT is like GNU - a recursive acronym: MINT stands for
Mint Is Not TOS. TOS is the original Atari ST OS, based on DR
CP/M-68K.

Gradually, all the bits of TOS got replaced, initially with enhanced
3rd party commercial replacements, then, ultimately, with FOSS ones,
until eventually the team behind Aranym realised that they could build
an entire, complete ST GEM-compatible OS from the ROM up out of FOSS
components. The result is Afros.

Sadly, brilliant as it is, it was a bit too late - most of the
hardcore ST types had migrated to other OSs by then. Shame, really.


> Any way, Jeff can look that up for himself. (It is NOT acting as an X-WM - which is what I think he's interested in.)

No, it isn't. X.11 is not involved. It would be more a case of porting
it to svgalib, I would think. That means no graphics acceleration,
though, pretty much. (AIUI anyway.)

> The other two ref.s have been mentioned here, before, and are GOOD.
>
> Thanks again, for the respite - from work.

Glad to be of service!


-- 
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
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