{{Short description|Operating system}} {{About|the operating system|the Danish art museum|ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum}} {{Use mdy dates|date=June 2013}} {{Infobox OS | name = AROS Research Operating System | logo = | screenshot = Icaros131.jpg | caption = Icaros (AROS distribution) Desktop 1.3.1 with Amiga 68K integration (August 2011) | developer = The AROS Development Team | family = AmigaOS-like | source model = Open source | released = {{Start date and age|1995}} | latest release version = | latest release date = See distribution release dates | kernel type = Microkernel | supported platforms = IA-32, x86-64, PowerPC, m68k, ARM | license = AROS Public | working state = Current | website = {{URL|http://www.aros.org}} }}
'''AROS Research Operating System''' ('''AROS''', pronounced "AR-OS") is a free and open-source multi media centric implementation of the AmigaOS 3.1 application programming interface (API) which is designed to be portable and flexible. {{As of|2021}}, ports are available for personal computers (PCs) based on x86 and PowerPC, in native and hosted ''flavors'', with other architectures in development. In a show of full circle development, AROS has been ported to the Motorola 68000 series (m68k) based Amiga 1200,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.evillabs.net/wiki/index.php/AROS_m68k-amiga |title=AROS m68k-amiga |website=Evillabs.net |access-date=April 10, 2011 |archive-date=February 9, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230209044137/http://www.evillabs.net/wiki/index.php/AROS_m68k-amiga |url-status=dead }}</ref> and there is also an ARM port for the Raspberry Pi series.
== Name and identity == thumb|left|AROS Kitty AROS originally stood for ''Amiga Research Operating System'', but to avoid any trademark issues with the Amiga name,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Mendoza |first=Nicolas |date=May 5, 2007 |url=http://amigann.com/?id=3309 |title=AROS drops Amiga from its name! |website=AmigaNN |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 7, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110707133648/http://amigann.com/?id=3309 |access-date=September 7, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://merlancia.us/amiga-hyperion/35-5decmcewenexhibit5show_case_doc.pdf |title=Evert Carton of Hyperion Entertainment claims AROS is "probably illegal" |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110821193852/http://merlancia.us/amiga-hyperion/35-5decmcewenexhibit5show_case_doc.pdf |archive-date=August 21, 2011 |df=mdy-all |access-date=September 7, 2010}}</ref> it was changed to the recursive acronym ''AROS Research Operating System''.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.aros.org/ |title=AROS.org |website=AROS.org |access-date=September 7, 2010}}</ref>
The mascot of AROS is an anthropomorphic cat named Kitty, created by Eric Schwartz and officially adopted by the AROS Team in December 2002.
Used in the core AROS About and installer tools, it was also adopted by several AROS community sites and early distributions.
Other AROS identifiable symbols and logos are based around the cat shape, such as the Icaros logo, which is a stylised cat's eye, or AFA (Aros For Amiga).
== Current status == thumb|200px|Amiga family/development tree The project, begun in 1995, has over the years become an almost "feature complete" implementation of AmigaOS{{snd}} which, as of April 2026, has implemented 82% of amigaOS 3.1's components.<ref>{{cite web|title=aros.org implementation status|url=http://aros.org/introduction/status/everything.html}}</ref> This was achieved by the efforts of a currently 9 member team of developers.
Among AROS' milestones include, the complete gnu toolchain and SDL2 having been ported and experimental smp and UEFI support having been added.
It can be installed on most IBM PC compatibles, and features native graphics drivers for video cards such as the GeForce range made by Nvidia. As of May 2007 USB keyboards and mice are also supported. AROS has been ported to the Sam440ep PowerPC board and a first test version for the Efika was released in 2009.
While the OS is still lacking in applications, a few have been ported, including E-UAE, an emulation program that allows m68k-native AmigaOS applications to run. Some AROS-specific applications have also been written. AROS has TCP/IP networking support, and has available an experimental version of AMosaic web browser, for test purposes, among other Internet-related applications. The Poseidon USB stack has been ported to AROS.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.osnews.com/story/21548/Poseidon_USB_Stack_Bounty_Reached_Open_Source_AROS_Port |title=Poseidon USB Stack Bounty Reached: Open Source, AROS Port |website=OSNews |access-date=September 7, 2010}}</ref>
AROS is designed to be source-compatible with AmigaOS. On m68k Amiga hardware it is also binary-compatible, so binaries already compiled for AmigaOS 3 can be run on AROS.<ref>Wikibooks:Aros/Platforms/68k support</ref> On x86 IA-32 32-bit platforms Janus-UAE,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sourceforge.net/projects/janus-uae/|title=Janus-UAE on SourceForge |date=January 15, 2019 }}</ref> an enhanced E-UAE, integrates Amiga emulation directly into AROS to run AmigaOS m68k binaries nearly transparent to the user. {{As of|2011|08}}, original AmigaOS 3 operating system files are needed for the emulation.
The aim of AROS is to remain aloof of the legal and political spats that have plagued other AmigaOS implementations by being independent of hardware and of any central control. The de facto motto of AROS, "No schedule and rocking" both lampoons the infamous words "On Schedule and Rockin" from Amiga, Inc. CEO Bill McEwen, and declares a lack of the formal deadlines.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.amiga.com/corporate/amigadepartypack.shtml|title=AmigaDE Party Pack Announcement |website=Amiga Inc. |date=June 11, 2001 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010619055418/http://www.amiga.com/corporate/amigadepartypack.shtml |archive-date=June 19, 2001}}</ref>
A workable AmigaOS Kickstart clone for the Motorola 68000 processor was released on March 31, 2011 as part of a programming bounty.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.amiga.org/forums/printthread.php?t=55226 |work=amiga.org |title=Kickstart ROM Replacement (Phase II) Assigned |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101206191839/http://www.amiga.org/forums/printthread.php?t=55226 |archive-date=December 6, 2010 |access-date=April 7, 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.power2people.org/projects/profile/6 |work=power2people.org |title=Kickstart ROM Replacement (Phase II)}}</ref> The memory requirement is 2 MB Chip RAM and 1 MB Fast RAM. This software is a complete free open-source alternative to AmigaOS.
== Distributions == The main AROS system files can be downloaded in many flavors from the project website. These files are compiled straight from the SVN source tree at night time, and are available as nightly builds. Nightlies also include some third party applications to allow people using the system to perform some very basic tasks.
For final/average user, like Linux, there are several distributions available:
=== Icaros Desktop === Since April 2009, the name VMWAros has been changed into "Icaros Desktop" to avoid ambiguities with any existing copyrighted virtual machine of any kind. Amiga 68K emulation integration, 3D acceleration for Nvidia cards and latest updates of applications can be found there.<ref name="icaros desktop">{{cite web|title=icaros desktop|url=http://www.icarosdesktop.org/|website=icaros desktop|access-date=14 March 2017}}</ref> The latest version of Icaros Desktop is version 2.3 (released 22 December 2020).<ref name="Icaros Desktop releases">{{cite web|title=Download|url=http://vmwaros.blogspot.se/p/download.html|website=Icaros Desktop|access-date=23 May 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Pearce |first=Rohan |date=November 4, 2014 |title=Icaros, the Amiga-like desktop OS for x86, hits 2.0 |url=http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/558813/icaros-amiga-like-desktop-os-x86-hits-2-0/ |work=Computerworld.com.au |access-date=July 24, 2016}}</ref>
Since november of 2025, the icaros distribution has become unavailable. Its development had slowed down, with no new release in over 5 years until its unofficial discontinuation. <ref>{{cite web|title=until we meet again|url=https://vmwaros.blogspot.com/2025/11/until-we-meet-again-icaros-desktop.html}}</ref>{{unreliable source|date=April 2026}}
=== Broadway === Broadway is a distribution of AROS begun late 2009. The goal is to provide an easy-to-use and complete AROS experience. AROS Broadway contains some commercial software such as a media center, a cloud storage service, and an app store. The latest version is 1.0 preview 5, released April 16, 2016.<ref name="AROS Broadway">{{cite web |title=AROS Broadway |url=http://www.aros-broadway.de/ |website=www.aros-broadway.de |access-date=14 March 2017 |language=en |archive-date=September 29, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929114817/http://www.aros-broadway.de/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>
=== AspireOS === AspireOS is a distribution, begun in 2011, by Nikos Tomatsidis, which is focused on Dell Latitude D520 and Acer Aspire One 110, 150 computers. Latest version is 2.2, codenamed "Obitus", released November 2018.<ref name="AspireOS">{{cite web |title=AROS Aspire |url=https://sites.google.com/site/arosaspireone/ |website=sites.google.com |access-date=14 March 2017}}</ref><ref name="Obitus">{{cite web |title=AspireOS v2.2 codename "Obitus" is ready |url=https://ae.amigalife.org/index.php?topic=71.0 |website=ae.amigalife.org |access-date=23 May 2019}}</ref>
=== AROS Vision === AROS Vision is a native m68k distribution, which can run on both real hardware or in emulators like UAE.
=== Apollo OS === ApolloOS is a m68k compatible distribution made for its custom for-retail hardware. Compatible with AmigaOS 3.1.<ref>{{cite web|title=apolloOS' official website|url=https://www.apollo-computer.com/apolloos.php}} </ref>
=== AxRuntime (AxRT) === AxRuntime is an aros derived tool for developing amiga compatible applications in linux environments. It may work on other unix-like OS', depending on library support. It is also reported to work on windows 10/11 as well, though it was not designed for them. In practice it similar to aros' own hosted environmet, that is, a version of aros running on linux. <ref>{{cite web | title=AROS/Arch/All-runtime/Docs/Distribution at alt-runtime · deadwood2/AROS | website=GitHub | url=https://github.com/deadwood2/AROS/tree/alt-runtime/arch/all-runtime/docs/distribution }}</ref>
== Influence on AmigaOS and MorphOS == Haage & Partner used small pieces of the AROS source code for AmigaOS 3.5 and 3.9.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.aros.org/documentation/faq.html#what-is-the-relation-between-aros-and-haage-partner |title=What is the relation between AROS and Haage & Partner? |access-date=September 2, 2010}}</ref> Large parts of MorphOS (AmigaDOS, Intuition<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.amigahistory.co.uk/morphoscritics.html|title=Ralph Schmidt responds to criticism that MorphOS is 'stolen' AmigaOS code |access-date=September 2, 2010}}</ref> and more) have been ported from AROS.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.aros.org/documentation/faq.html#what-is-the-relation-between-aros-and-morphos |title=What is the relation between AROS and MorphOS? |access-date=September 2, 2010}}</ref>
== System requirements ==
=== x86 === * CPU, newer than Intel 80486 (recommended minimum clockspeed of 700 MHz for desktops and 1 GHz for laptops/notebooks/netbooks)<ref name="wb_x86"/> * Floating Point Unit (FPU)<ref name="wb_x86"/> * 256 MB RAM<ref name="wb_x86">{{cite web |title=Aros/Platforms/x86 support |url=http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Aros/Platforms/x86_support&oldid=2529522 |date=May 27, 2013 |website=Wikibooks |access-date=June 8, 2013}}</ref>
== See also == {{Portal|Free and open-source software|Amiga}} * Zune (GUI toolkit) * AmigaOS 4 * Emulator * Virtual machine * Porting * Open-source software * MorphOS * List of computing mascots * :Category:Computing mascots
== References == {{Reflist|30em}}
== External links == {{Wikibooks|Aros}} {{commons category}} * {{Official website|www.aros.org}} * [http://www.icarosdesktop.org Icaros Desktop] * [http://www.aros-broadway.de AROS Broadway] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230929114817/http://www.aros-broadway.de/ |date=September 29, 2023 }} * {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20120715052933/http://www.aeros-os.org/ AEROS]}} * [http://www.aspireos.com AspireOS] * Wikibooks Hardware Compatibility * [https://archive.today/20130101082549/http://members.shaw.ca/guis/aros.html Old AROS Bootable CD screenshots]
{{AROS}} {{AmigaOS}} {{Microkernel}} {{Hobbyist operating systems}} {{FOSS}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aros Research Operating System}} Category:1996 software * Category:Free software operating systems Category:Hobbyist operating systems Category:Microkernel-based operating systems Category:Microkernels Category:PowerPC operating systems Category:Window-based operating systems Category:IA-32 operating systems Category:X86-64 operating systems