Editing and compiling directly inside AROS One

Status: draft — being written and verified.

layout: default title: Developing Natively on AROS x86_64 nav_order: 11 —

Developing Natively on AROS x86_64

Notes from getting a real coding workflow going directly on an installed AROS One system — no cross-compiling from Linux required, just a shell and an editor on the machine itself.

GCC Is Already There

If you selected “Install Development Software” during InstallAROSOne, you already have a native compiler. AROS ships a GCC toolchain specifically patched for the AROS ABI — the official build repository targets GCC 6.5.0 by default, with some newer builds using later versions (8.3.0 has also been used). It lives under System:Development/ and works exactly like you’d expect from the shell:

gcc myfile.c -o myfile

No cross-compiler, no --sysroot juggling needed for this — that’s only necessary when building for AROS from another OS. Compiling natively on AROS itself, the toolchain already knows what it’s targeting.

Editing: MUI-Vim 9.2

The Vim available for AROS x86_64 (vim_9.2-x86_64-aros-v11.lha, by Ola Söder / sodero) is not a straight upstream port — it’s a from-scratch integration with a full MUI GUI on top of the Vim core. Worth knowing before you go looking for behavior that exists in “normal” Vim but might not be wired up the same way here.

No `:terminal`, no `+job`

Checking :version inside this build confirms it plainly:

-job
-terminal

Both compiled out. This means the usual trick of splitting a shell into the bottom half of the editor (:terminal) simply isn’t available in this build — not a configuration issue, just not compiled in. If you’re coming from a Linux/tmux-heavy workflow and reflexively reach for a split terminal instead of Alt-Tabbing (which doesn’t really exist as a concept on AROS/Amiga-style window management anyway), this is the one habit that has to change.

Summary

Native gcc is available out of the box with the Development install — use it directly, no cross-compilation needed
This Vim build is a MUI-native port, not a 1:1 upstream compile — check :version before assuming a feature exists
No terminal/job support here — :!command and :read !command are the practical substitutes for a split shell