An AROS port that uses Cygwin might be a bit problematic from a legal standpoint; atleast if we'd like to distribute any binaries of it. The thing is that the Cygwin runtime library (basically what implements the UNIX-on-Windows compatability) is GPL (not LGPL), so anything that links against it has to be GPL too.

There is an alternative library called MingW which doesn't have this problem (it's LGPL I think), but I don't know how compatible it is.

In any case the only thing that Cygwin would give us is easy "porting" of emul.handler and X11 driver. Task switching would probably have to be implemented from scratch (or atleast differently) anyway; I don't think it's compatible with Linux/BSD on that level.

I've never thought about that, but it could work. I'm getting the SFU 3.5 and the X11 server (don't forget that as AROS in *ix uses X11 for graphics).

Why not AROS for SFU?

It's free now.

Windows Services for UNIX

I would be happy about a cygwin version too. Not as real platform target, but maybe for testing and development. My systems normally run Windows (don't ask me why). I already managed to run AROS on VMWare, but if I want to develop, I need to run Linux (on VMWare) and start AROS from there. Why not using Cygwin? Some days ago I tried to build AROS on Cygwin and every problem I found were 'ELF-issues'. I fixed some, but I ran again into other. It can't be rocket science to fix it...

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But I am
Judging from what I have seen so far, I think you have to do everything that you need to do for Cygwin anyway.
This means, when you start with a Cygwin port instead of an SDL port, there is only one difference: You have a working version of AROS much earlier. You'll have your SDL port at the same time (perhaps one day later or what I think is more likely: You'll even have your SDL port earlier, cause the Cygwin port already attracted more developers).
Or am I missing something? Does the Cygwin version need more than a workaround for the ELF problem?

im not sure if i agree that cygwin is the best aproach.

otoh, if we have a sdl target, could be re-used for any OS that has sdl support, thought!

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Cygwin is in any case the first step for a Windows-hosted version. After this is done, you can still start a bounty to get it running without Cygwin.
The Cygwin-port was already started years ago, it's in .unsupported.
I think, a Windows/Cygwin-version could attract a bunch of developers. Me for example, I'd look into an AROS-version of QuarkTex if AROS is running in Windows.

I'd call the bounty "AROS running on Windows/Cygwin", just like the Mac-bounty is called.

Maybe it would better to help colinux people to get framebuffer system up and running (currently only 10fps) and fix our framebuffer hidd. Then makeing of "distro" with only couple of linux files + aros stuff would be easy and no need of windows hosted. Or if you are makeing windows hosted then see how they made it.

SDL?!?!!? ;oP

Bah not Cygwin!!