Author Archives: Lewis Rosenthal

Welcome to the new ArcaOS Download Center!

Along the way to the much anticipated ArcaOS 5.1 release, we have been working behind the scenes to upgrade our build and delivery systems. To this end, you should notice a welcome addition to your customer portal: the ArcaOS Download Center.

In the left navigation area, you should see this new link. Clicking it will bring you to a consolidated listing of your ArcaOS licenses and associated downloads. No more scanning through all of your orders to find the right one.

We hope you enjoy this new feature.

Beware of used ArcaOS licenses offered for sale

Happy New Year!

Recently, we’ve become aware of several ArcaOS licenses being offered for sale on various platforms. This post is a reminder to check the validity of any used license before paying for it.

All ArcaOS licenses are generated by Arca Noae. If you order through one of our authorized resellers, that reseller places an order for your software with us, and we provide the custom ISO for you, registered to an account in your name.

While it is entirely permissible to transfer a license (see paragraph 9 of the ArcaOS End User License Agreement ), such a transfer must include a hard copy of the license and proof of entitlement. Proof of entitlement means some documentation to prove that the company or individual transferring the license does indeed have the right to do so (it must indeed be registered to that company or individual).

Upon transfer, the transferor must notify Arca Noae of the transfer and provide contact information for the transferee. Without this, it will not be possible to renew support for that ArcaOS license – including a late renewal.

It is worth noting also that only the ArcaOS license is transferable. Support is not. Thus, when an unsuspecting user purchases an existing ArcaOS license and he or she wants to access related downloads for updates or even request an updated ISO, a new ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription will be required. The cost of the used license plus new support may be far more than a new license with included support and the ability to renew that support at a discount.

If you are considering the purchase of a used ArcaOS license, be sure to ask for a copy of the registrant’s name, email address, and serial number, and contact us first so that we may be able to determine whether the license is, in fact, legitimate. If it’s not, it will not be valid for purchasing a Support & Maintenance subscription, so technical support, updates, discounted upgrades, and bug fixes will never be available.

Arca Noae PNG Icon Set version 2022-12-14 released

Dynamic Icons Arca Noae is pleased to announce a minor update to our PNG Icon Set included with ArcaOS, which is now available as part of the Support & Maintenance subscription for your ArcaOS product. Please log into your account and see your ArcaOS order details page to access your software.

Version 2022-12-14 includes a full set of Apache OpenOffice 4 icons, as well as the OS/2-specific QuickStart icon.

Icons in this set are released under LGPLv3, and include original and derived images from several sources.

If you are still running OS/2 and/or eComStation systems and haven’t yet moved up to ArcaOS, this is a great reason to do so now. If you’ve already made the switch, but haven’t renewed renewed your support subscription, this is also a good time. Not sure what’s coming next? Have a look at our product roadmap pages.

Dynamic Icons version 2.5.2.2 for ArcaOS released

Dynamic Icons, the latest spin on Sunny Icons from eCo Software, specifically enhanced and built for ArcaOS, has been updated to version 2.5.2.2, and is now available as part of the Support & Maintenance subscription for your ArcaOS product. Please log into your account and see your ArcaOS order details page to access your software.

Version 2.5.2.2 allows for dynamic text sizing in its dialogs and fixes folder details view settings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just a brief post to send our best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends. The Arca Noae family is sincerely grateful for all the support you show for us and for our mutual platform of choice, ArcaOS. It was great to see and hear from so many of you while we were at Warpstock in Orlando, earlier this month.

We have news concerning the upcoming release of ArcaOS 5.1. Our required infrastructure enhancements continue, and we anticipate the release of ArcaOS 5.1 in the very near future. Look for a post here concerning upgrade and new license purchase options.

Be safe, and enjoy this Thanksgiving in good health with close friends and family.

Join Us at Warpstock 2022 in Orlando

Warpstock 2022 will be live once again, November 4-6 at the Country Inn & Suites, Orlando Airport. Arca Noae staff and developers will be there with the latest ArcaOS news and how-to sessions, as well as a host of other OS/2 experts ready and willing to share their knowledge and expertise.

Register before August 1 and receive a $30 Early Bird discount on a full conference registration or $20 on a daily conference registration! Spouses/family members/guests/office mates attending sessions also receive great discounts, and non-attending guests are FREE. Students with valid student ID are welcome to attend sessions at no charge, with full benefits! (This is a great opportunity for Computer Science majors and aspiring young developers and engineers to gain some exposure to a platform which is still in use in the manufacturing, finance, and insurance sectors around the globe today.)

Major topics of discussion this year will center around ArcaOS 5.1 and new disk and installation options. As always, we welcome questions and feedback from both new and experienced users.

Cryptocurrency acceptance temporarily suspended

Pursuant to CoinPayment Inc’s recent decision to withdraw from the US market, we are temporarily unable to accept cryptocurrency for any store purchases while we evaluate a replacement platform. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause, and want to assure everyone that we are working hard to get our crypto gateway back up and running as soon as possible.

Resolving issues with GMail and OAuth 2.0 requirements

At the end of May, 2022, GMail discontinued use of standard authentication methods for POP3, IMAP, and SMTP connections. The available OAuth2 authentication mechanism in the latest SeaMonkey and Thunderbird for the OS/2 platform is unable to properly complete the authentication procedure with GMail, and will leave the application in a hung state.

There are several methods to work around this, but perhaps the easiest is simply to generate what Google calls an app password, which is, quite simply, a 16-digit passcode which gives a non-Google application or device permission to access your Google Account.

To generate the app password, follow the directions available here. Remember, that in order to do this, you must have 2-Step-Verification enabled for your account.

Once you have generated the app password, copy it to your clipboard. Open SeaMonkey Mail or Thunderbird, and access the server settings for your GMail account. Ensure that the authentication method is set for Normal password (Google will not accept encrypted passwords for this). Make the same change for the GMail SMTP server. Note that in both cases, SSL/TLS should be selected for the connection security, and specifically not STARTTLS. Close the settings dialog and attempt to access the account. You should be prompted for a new password. Paste the app password into the prompt.

To configure a second system to access the same account, simply paste (or type) the same app password. This technique should work for other mail clients, as well.

For questions, there is an informative discussion in the OS/2 World forum on this very topic.

Some thoughts on the importance of driver updates for virtual machines

Just as bare metal systems may benefit from updated drivers for their existing (or newly added) hardware, the emulation of hardware in virtual machines may change or may be better leveraged by OS/2-based guests (OS/2 Warp, eCS, or ArcaOS) by utilizing the latest drivers available from Arca Noae.

We have seen instances where virtual machines are configured with a sort of “set it and forget it” mindset on the part of the user, believing that hypervisor updates will not impact configured virtual machines. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Various hypervisors (VirtualBox, etc.) may indeed alter the emulated PC BIOS and emulated firmware for other components (networking, USB, etc.).

If your virtual machines are running ArcaOS, keeping your ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscriptions in force and applying the latest available updates will not only keep your drivers up to date, but the ArcaOS kernel, as well. In addition, other components of ArcaOS which affect usability may also be updated through subscription downloads (ArcaOS Desktop, bundled applications, etc.).

If your virtual machines are still running OS/2 Warp 4 or eComStation, keeping your OS/2 & eCS Drivers & Software subscriptions in force will allow you to keep your drivers current, as well as any other included content. (Note that kernel updates are not included in the OS/2 & eCS Drivers & Software subscription, as the ArcaOS kernel itself is not licensed for use with any distribution other than ArcaOS. If you have a need for the advanced features provided by the ArcaOS kernel, the best upgrade path is to purchase a license for ArcaOS.)

In conclusion, simply consider that virtual machines are, from the point of view of the operating system, just computers, after all, just like their bare metal counterparts.

GPT usability in ArcaOS 5.1.0

In our last post we discussed that the upcoming ArcaOS 5.1.0 release will be able to make use of laptops and desktops that only support booting in so-called UEFI mode.

When booting ArcaOS in UEFI mode, the disk partitioning scheme may use the traditional Master Boot Record (MBR) or the newer GUID Partition Table (GPT). Although MBR has been extended to support disks up to 2TB, with ever-growing disk sizes, this may be too limiting for devices which could otherwise support handling more data than this. Also, if installing to a disk which is already configured using GPT, releases of ArcaOS prior to 5.1.0 require a full wipe and repartition of the disk. This inconvenience should no longer be an issue in ArcaOS 5.1.

Thus, ArcaOS 5.1.0 will be able to utilize GPT disk layouts with the following benefits:

Support for hard disks and solid state drives larger than 2TB attached to AHCI or NVMe storage controllers.
On systems equipped with a single drive and Windows pre-installed using a GPT layout, there should be no need to wipe and repartition, as long as there is room for ArcaOS to create at least one partition for itself.
GPT eliminates many of the LVM issues you may have encountered in the past when preparing a disk to install ArcaOS next to other operating systems, such as Linux and Windows because ArcaOS will use the same LBA partition alignment method (for GPT disk layouts) as these other operating systems.

GPT usage has been integrated into the ArcaOS installation partitioning tool (Logical Volume Manager), giving you a seamless experience while installing and maintaining ArcaOS.

Of course, ArcaOS 5.1.0. will continue to support your existing hard disks that have been partitioned using an MBR disk layout, too. In fact, a mix of GPT and MBR disks is also possible, and you will also be able to install ArcaOS in a UEFI environment on an MBR disk (GPT is completely optional, and never a requirement).

It is also important to remember that while ArcaOS 5.1.0 will support hard disks and SSDs larger than 2TB, OS/2 filesystems are currently limited to 2TB per partition. Thus, in order to fully utilize, say, a 12TB device for ArcaOS, you would need to partition this into multiple volumes, each no more than 2TB in size. (Also, for volumes in excess of 64GB, you must select JFS as the filesystem.)