OSNews

A lot of people are asking "why not use XFree?" and "why not port OpenTracker?". The answer is because AtheOS features its own GUI (written from scratch with blood and tears), it does not need, in any way, XFree or anything similar. AtheOS GUI is C++ based, fully multithreaded and fully integrated to the rest of the system, things that XFree can not offer. Having XFree running in a rootless/server mode, side by side to the native GUI (the way it runs under MacOSX and QNX), is not a bad idea at all though. As for OpenTracker, we should not forget that OpenTracker is in some sense a 'client' of the BeOS filesystem, not just the Be Desktop. Kurt tried in the past looking into a port (after a hoard of AtheOS/BeOS users pressing the matter), but Tracker is so tied to the BeOS API & design, that the port has proved difficult. However, Kurt has already promised to update the kernel in order to introduce a full port of PostgreSQL 7.1 for AtheOS 0.3.8.

Personally, what I would like to see on AtheOS, is not applications. AtheOS is an interesting OS experiement in my book, so trying to port Mozilla or the Evolution email client does not really fulfill the goal of AtheOS, at least not at this point in time. Personally, I would like to see a jump to GCC 3.x which generates better code. Aterm fixes to support ncurses properly with full coloring. A better VM and kernel scheduler. Enable write-combine (MTRR support in other words) and double/back buffer everything, which can help increase considerably the speed of any 2D driver (including VESA) and offer a flicker free GUI. Support for NTFS or CD-ROM devices, as WindowsXP users already cannot install AtheOS without the use of a dozen of floppies. Also, another imperative feature request is the addition of a native debuger, as the only way to debug your applications on AtheOS today is... printf().

1. "Installation"
2. "The Desktop"
3. "The Internals"
4. "Development Model"
5. "What's Missing"
6. "Epilogue"