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ROLF is a GUI framework for Linux to provide a look and feel similar to that of RISC OS. Many people have suggested replacing the kernel of RISC OS with something more modern while keeping the user interface that everyone loves, and this is what ROLF attempts to do!

Unlike systems such as ROX which only provide some RISC OS like applications on top of an existing window manager, ROLF replaces the whole GUI system with one that mimics the RISC OS Wimp. This makes it possible to run existing RISC OS applications with minimal overhead by passing the SWI calls through to the ROLF equivalents. ROLF runs on x86 and ARM hardware, with appropriate emulation layers to run existing code.

Simon Willcocks has been developing ROLF on and off for about 10 years, and will be telling us about some of the challenges he has faced along the way. As Simon lives in Germany this is a rare opportunity to hear about this project direct from the source and put forward questions and suggestions.

Simon is looking for other programmers to join in with the development and also inspire him to put in more work on it :-)