Hi mph, and welcome.
How far has the protected memory development come along? The site mentions it. But I don't know if it has been updated in a while.
afaik It has not been updated. Memory protection is a big word btw. It is more a basic protection, not memory protection as is used in modern day era/wording.
Can Aros build itself? Just wondering if I need to dual boot or not.
Yes. If not then it is considered a bug :-)
But it is far easier to develop Aros on another system, as AROS can be a bit unstable at times and lacks a few tools to make life easier.
For instance there is even axrt (from deadwood) that let's you compile AROS software on *nix and let it run natively there as well.
What are the actual system requirements? Its not actually i386 is it? Does a system need PAE or SSE?
68020, armv6 (or is it even lower ? dunno), ppc, i386. Which flavour you wish answered ? It does not need PAE or afaik SSE.
edit: AROS is compiled for 32 or 64 bit and inherits its corresponding limitations.
If it required something like SSE, is that something that can be changed when building?
The AROS sources are available so if you wish to compile it with or without certain processor specific features then you should be able to (provided that you know what you are doing/am able to fix any issues that might pop up)
Is multitasking cooperative? Or preemptive-ish?
afaik
cooperative (whoopsie) I meant preemptive.
Is there any task priority control?
yes, you can set a task to a certain priority at least when started. See the taskmanager to see information on priorities (snoopy)
Is there some documentation of the AmigaShell?
Keep in mind that Aros has an extended shell in comparison with the classic AmigaShell.
If not mistaken then you can type help <name of command> in a shell to get a gui popup explaining the command (courtesy of Mazze)
There is also a pdf distributed with Icaros Desktop that explain the dos commands.
further reads:
Using Aros by the shell ->
http://www.aros.org/documentation/users/shell/index.phpAros DOS commands ->
https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Aros/User/DOSAmigaOS4.x amigados ->
https://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/AmigaOS_Manual:_AmigaDOSBesides those Aros also supports the n*x shell sh (you can invoke it from the commandline, not sure if development tools need to be installed though)
How would one go about changing a MSR value, before the the privilege is lost?
I have no idea. Perhaps a AROS OS developer is able to answer that for you.
Does the bootloader have to be GRUB? Could Syslinux be setup, after install?
GRUB2 or uboot afaik and uboot because some hardware depends on it.
During boot, has any one ever encountered just the word "grub" and no further boot progress?
yes :-)
Is there support for parallel and serial ports? If so, can direct access be achieved (like with Dos/Win3x)?
At least for serial. I do not have experience with addressing the parallelport. Classic OS supported the parallelport so it should work (tm)
Is midi supported though USB or just software emulated? If it isn't just software emulated, is it supported through ports other than USB?
not afaik. I seem to remember that fellow Aros user Dizzy once worked on/at the USB stack, but i can't remember if that included midi.
There is midi support within the OS, but i do not know for sure to what extend.
Can an ISO be mounted?
Yes, either manually by a mountlist or by a special GUI tool (which name eludes me atm)
Is there a recently compiled Software ISO library?
No sure what you mean there. A custom software library ? or one provided by the Aros OS ?
fwiw, i program in Pascal and use the iso lib that is written in native pascal so that i am able to manipulate.extract iso files programmatically.
I'm confident there is such a 'library' around somewhere for c as well.
Does anyone actively use the p2p software for Amiga/Aros (other than IRC)?
hmz, not sure if i would qualify irc as p2p. Files can be exchanged by any network protocol (ftp/samba/http).
What is the difference between AmigaShell and AROS-Shell?
Aros shell should behave exactly the same as classic AmigaShell and add some extra things (improvements/bugfixes) on top of that.
Has there always been an error when you quit Wanderer?
Any workbench that you quit would produce such an error because when you quit wanderer (just a workbench) you are literally asking the "gui" to quit.
But perhaps you expected something else to happen ?
Can you launch a shell without Wanderer?
Yes. you can do that directly from the startup-sequence. And if you like omit starting a workbench alltogether.
If you need at least one shell open to open programs with workbench, is there an escape option? Like adding & to a command in linux bash.
I am not sure what exactly you are asking there (i'm a bit tired, so please forgive me).
Can you add shell commands at boot?
Yes,. You can launch complete (custom) shell script if you would like so. The startup-sequence will be launched first (located in s directory) and
somewhere in there the user startup is executed.
Can you disable Wanderer startup at boot?
Yes, just omit it or replace it inside the startup-sequence with something else that is more to your liking.
I guess that's it, for now. I know I've asked a lot. But others will be able to search it up now.
A lot of questions indeed :-)
In case you wish to know more just ask, although i am not a system developer so am nort always able to answer things that are deeply embedded into the os.
edit: typos and some further clarity.
