It’s been a long time since so much was happening at once. This month we got a cumulative update to the base version of the ABIv0 system, we got a new version of the web browser, and on top of that, x64 versions of important software started to appear. To paraphrase the Commodore slogan: “Are you keeping up with the AROS?”. I hope so!
Deadwood has prepared Update 2 for the current base version of 32-bit AROS (ABIv0_20220318-1), which is a collection of fixes from the past 5 months (for Wanderer, Zune and the C language library, among others). Update 2 also includes update 1, so it can be applied directly to an existing installation of 20220318-1.
To download the system ISO and update 2 and see the full list of changes, visit:
https://github.com/deadwood2/AROS/releases/tag/ABIv0_20220318-1
The biggest development is certainly Odyssey Web Browser version 2.0. The Webkit engine was updated from August 2015 to February 2019 (more than 50,000 changes!). As a result, Youtube, as well as many other modern sites, once again work in the AROS browser. In addition, the media player from the Wayfarer 1.21 browser has been ported, and decoding acceleration based on SSE instructions has been enabled. A new system update is required for it to work properly.
In today’s world, where websites are becoming more demanding by the day, updating a web browser is a never-ending journey. Consider donate to Deadwood, as updating the Webkit engine to today’s version is still countless hours of work. You can also contribute to the development by downloading and testing the browser. Even if you don’t use AROS on a daily basis, it’s worth a try if only on a virtual machine under Windows
We can expect the official release of OWB 2.0 in 64-bit in the near future. Why the future of OWB is in 64-bit was perfectly explained by Deadwood in his article on JavaScript and JIT. Fortunately, more and more software is being compiled for the 64-bit version of AROS. Thanks to Daremon, there is already a 64-bit Python and Perl, so we have a whole native toolchain for 64-bit. In addition, Daremon has compiled the libMAD audio library, and gamers will be happy to see 64-bit versions of Doom 3, GemRB, ResidualVM and ScummVM engines. ALB42 has also made its ePub reader Legadon available in a version for ABIv11. Will next year be the year of the total shift to 64-bit?
Back to the 32-bit present:
Serk118 has updated its GLFW 3.4 and Raylib 5.0 ports.
Raylib 5
Raylib is a programming library that allows you to enjoy programming video games; no sophisticated interface, no visual helpers, no gui tools or editors…. just coding in a purely Spartan way. With this update we also get:
rFXGen
(Author: raylibtech.itch.io/rfxgen, port by Serk118)
A simple and easy to use sound effects generator.
Features:
- Predefined sound settings (Coin, Shoot, Explosion, PowerUp…).
- Support for multiple waveform types (square, sawtooth, sine wave, noise)
- Up to 5 sound slots for storing generated sound (temporary recording)
- Loading
.rfxfiles with sound generation parameters - Saving
.rfxfiles with sound generation parameters (104 bytes) - Exporting wave data as
.wav,.rawor.h(byte array) - Configurable sample rate, bits per sample and channels during export
- Multiple GUI styles with support for custom (
.rgs) - Support for batch conversion of
.rfxto.wavfrom the command line - Command-line audio player for
.wav,.ogg,.mp3and.flacfiles - Completely portable (single file, no dependencies)**.
- Free and open-source.
RayGui
(Author: github.com/raysan5/raygui, port by Serk118)
Raygui was designed as a helper module for Raylib to create simple GUI interfaces using raylib’s graphical style (simple colors, plain rectangular shapes, wide borders…), but can be adapted to other engines/frameworks.
RayGui.
kMusicPlayer
(Author: github.com/notkatsuu/kMusicPlayer, port by Serk118)
kMusicPlayer is a visual music player built with C and Raylib. It provides a simple visual interface for playing your favorite music tracks.
Main Features:
- Music playback: Easily play your favorite songs. Supports .mp3 and .wav formats.
- Waveform visualization: Visualize your music with waveform rendering.
- Threaded music loading: Fast music loading with threaded loading.
- Simple control: Control playback with simple keyboard shortcuts in RayGUI.
Koala Seasons
(Author: www.raylib.com, port by Serk118)
Fight the elements! Fight the enemies! Save the world! How long will you be able to survive? This game was originally developed by emegeme as a benchmark for Raylib on Android devices.
Other news in the AROS Archives:
BeeBase (v. 1.1)
(by Steffen Gutman)
BeeBase is a relational, programmable database system with a graphical user interface for all Amiga systems, as well as for Windows, Mac and Linux. BeeBase’s strength lies in its graphical user interface and programming capabilities. It allows data processing in various ways, such as automatic calculations after user input, report generation, data import and export, etc.
BeeBase.
Amifish (v. 2.0)
(Author: Domenico Lattanzi)
Amifish is a chess program created to play chess on Amiga systems, using the power of one of the most powerful chess engines in the world: Stockfish, developed by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba, Joona Kiiski and Gary Linscott. A chess engine is a console program that plays chess by receiving strings as commands and generating strings on the output as the result of calculations. Stockfish and many other engines are compatible with a standard called UCI (Universal Chess Interface). The name Amifish was created by combining the words Amiga and Stockfish (although the project is open to all engines compatible with the UCI standard), and is a lightweight program for amateurs, designed to play chess, with only the most important options implemented.
To play against the computer, you need the Stockfish chess engine, which can also be downloaded from AROS Archives.
Amifish
GemRB (v. 0.8.8-0)
(by The GemRB Project)
GemRB is a portable, open-source implementation of version 8 of Bioware’s Infinity Engine. It runs the games Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment as well as their extensions and mods. The engine requires data files from the original games. The port for AROS was prepared by Daremon.
Legadon (v. 0.3)
(author: ALB42)
A simple ePub reader for AROS. ePubs are simply zip files with XML and HTML files that describe an electronic book. Legadon extracts the text from the HTML and shows it to the user as plain text in a text box.
CabExtract (v. 1.11)
(Author: Stuart Caie, port by Farox).
A program to extract Microsoft Cabinet files. Cabinet files (.CAB) are a form of archive that Microsoft uses to distribute its software and things like Windows Font Packs. The cabextract program unzips these files.
Unshield (v. 1.5.1)
(Author: David Eriksson, port by Farox)
Tool to extract .CAB files from .exe InstallShield file.
SetScreenMode (v. 1.0)
(Author: Nigel Tromans)
Set_Screen_Mode is a small Hollywood application to automatically set the screen mode at startup from a preset list.
Note: Set_Screen_Mode is only useful if your AROS installation is using native graphics.
It was created to allow machines that are moved between different displays (such as laptops with an internal screen and externally connected monitors) to automatically boot into the preferred screen mode for each display, and to help screen displays that are difficult to use (for example, those that are unable to display the default 640x480 mode).
Set_Screen_Mode reads the available screen modes provided by the display and compares them with the modes selected by the user in an ordered list. It is also possible to force a mode even if it is not in the list, or to completely ignore the modes set for Set_Screen_Mode.