Author Archives: Lewis Rosenthal

ArcaOS 5.0.5 now available

Arca Noae is proud to announce the general availability of ArcaOS 5.0.5, the fifth maintenance release of ArcaOS 5.0 (Blue Lion).

ArcaOS 5.0.5 introduces support for xHCI (USB3) controllers to install on a wider array of systems than ever before. What’s more, for updaters, even if your USB controller was previously unsupported, and you had to install or update from DVD in the past, you may now boot into the installer from USB stick to perform the update. USB3-attached keyboards and mice should work, as well.

ArcaOS 5.0.5 includes over 100 updates, enhancements, and fixes since 5.0.4 was released. If you have experienced difficulty installing previous releases of ArcaOS on your hardware, the fixes and updates included in 5.0.5 may address your issue(s). If installing from USB stick, the image may be created using any major operating system at hand (Windows, Linux, MacOS, and of course, OS/2, eComStation, and ArcaOS). Once built the USB stick can be inserted into any USB port in the target system to boot into the ArcaOS installer/updater.

For a complete list of updates in this release, see the ArcaOS wiki. Be sure to review the README.TXT, as well, as this contains critical information to ensure that you get up and running fast, and includes tips for getting things adjusted right away.

This update is included with your valid ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription at no additional charge. To download your fresh ISO, simply visit your customer portal page, select the Orders & Subscriptions link on the navigation panel to the left, then click on the order for your ArcaOS license. Once there, click the download link to request a fresh ISO, and wait for your notification email.

If your ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription has already expired, and you missed your window of opportunity to renew at regular rates, you may still renew at less than the cost of a new ArcaOS license.

Final Reminder: Reinstate your expired ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription now

This is your final reminder that the window of opportunity to reinstate an expired ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription at a special price is closing Monday May 18.

Previously, it was impossible to reinstate an expired ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription that had been expired for longer than 1 year. That restriction has now been removed. It is now possible to reinstate an expired subscription. Through Monday May 18 you can reinstate an expired ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription for the price of a regular one year renewal. After May 18, an additional reinstatement fee will apply. So take advantage of this limited amnesty period and get your subscription back on track before it’s too late.

Even if you’ve never updated ArcaOS 5.0 since your first install, as long as you have an active Support & Maintenance subscription, you may download the latest 5.0.x release and install it as an update to whatever 5.0 release you are using. There is no additional licensing fee for downloading and using these updates.

Somehow, this always seems like something of a mystery, even though this wiki page should help clarify what is a major version, a minor version, and a release. This product in our store outlines the renewal process and this table lays out just what is included in each subscription.

One of the many benefits of regularly renewing your ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription is access to the latest released code. There are many exciting things coming for our subscribers. Don’t miss out on a great opportunity to get those updates and the next ArcaOS release as part of your renewed subscription.

ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription renewal window is closing

If you’ve let your ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription lapse, now is the time to get back on track.

Until now, if you let your ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription expire, you would need to purchase a new ArcaOS license to reinstate support. We are making some changes to enable customers to reinstate an ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription without purchasing a new ArcaOS license.

For a limited time, we are allowing all who have allowed their ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscriptions to expire — no matter how long expired — to reinstate them at current prices…but this window is closing rapidly. Once ArcaOS 5.0.5 is released (and that release is imminent), current ArcaOS licensees who have let their subscriptions lapse for six months or more will have to pay more to have their subscriptions reinstated for another full year. While this will still be less than the cost of purchasing a new license, it will be substantially more than the regular renewal price. This policy applies to personal as well as commercial licenses.

Please take a moment to log into your account at Arca Noae, locate your original ArcaOS order, and check to see when support is scheduled to expire (or has already expired) for your product. It is currently only possible to purchase one year of support per renewal, and only for the same number and type of ArcaOS licenses as were in the original order.

To review:

The cost of renewing ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscriptions is not changing. You will continue to be able to renew your subscription for the same price, and you will still be able to take advantage of the 10% early renewal discount (this discount is reflected in the invoice total).
If you let your ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription expire, you will be able to reinstate it by paying the full renewal price any time withing six months of the expiration date. However, during this grace period, the subscription will only be reinstated for the original time period. You will not get “extra” time by reinstating your subscription late. In other words, if you renew on the last day of a six-month lapse would only extend coverage for six months!
If you let your ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription lapse for more than six months, the cost of a one-year personal edition Support & Maintenance subscription will retail for $128. For a commercial subscription, the price would be $228.

So if you have let your ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription lapse, now is the time to reinstate it. We urge all ArcaOS licensees to renew support early and take advantage of the 10% renewal discount for the best value in their subscriptions.

The online store should send renewal reminders 7 days before expiration, 3 days before, and finally on the expiration date; however, several factors may impact delivery or receipt of these reminders, including change of email address, spam filters, and other factors beyond our control. Check your account portal and make a note of your expiration date(s) so you don’t miss out!

Remember what your active Support & Maintenance subscription includes:

Access to professional support for your product (elevated priority for commercial licensees);
Access to the very latest drivers, fixes, features, and software included in ArcaOS or added later;
Access to the latest release of the same minor version of ArcaOS as originally purchased (so, a Support & Maintenance subscription for ArcaOS 5.0 provides access to all 5.0 releases, as they become available: 5.0, 5.0.1, 5.0.2, 5.0.3, 5.0.4, and the upcoming 5.0.5);
Future benefits when the next minor release of ArcaOS becomes available (5.1).

For more information on subscription services, check out our comparison page.

A brief, but very heartfelt thank-you to all of our friends

I don’t often post personal notes on the Arca Noae blog, but as I have been spending some time reviewing our sales over the past couple of months, I noticed something important, and I didn’t want this to go unmentioned.

While the world has been turned upside down for many of us, and for still others, finding new and different ways to work and to put food on the table has been challenging (not to mention staying healthy and well-distanced from COVID-19). Yet somehow, some way, quite a few ArcaOS, eCS, and OS/2 users have managed to not only renew support but to purchase additional licenses and – perhaps most importantly – purchase sponsoring units for our friends and hard-working developers.

Make no mistake, the whole Arca Noae team will come through this just fine. However, we’ll come through just a little better off, though, with friends like you out there. I — we — greatly appreciate everything you do for our hard-working developers, customer service staff, and admins striving to make our computing platform of choice even better.

So, from all of us, THANK YOU. Stay safe and healthy as we continue to weather this storm together. There truly are better days ahead, and we have some great things in store for 2020 (and we’re still working hard on them).

Lewis Rosenthal
Managing Member
Arca Noae, LLC

ArcaOS 5.0.4 updates for 2020-02-26

Dynamic Icons Several packages included in ArcaOS 5.0.4 have been updated or refreshed today, and are 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. Specifically, these are:

Dynamic Icons 2.5.2.1 (refreshed)
Archive Tool 1.03.03 (updated from 1.0.0)
ArcaOS Desktop 1.0.13.1 (updated from 1.0.12+)

In addition, it is now easier to identify which packages have been updated since the last ArcaOS ISO release.

More updates are on the way to the Support & Maintenance subscription channel as we continue our work on the next release of ArcaOS. Watch for more announcements right here.

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.

Driver and Software Preview Releases: Some General Guidelines

From time to time, we may make feature preview releases available. Driver and software preview releases differ from new GA releases and testcase packages in several ways. Consider testcase packages first:

Packages uploaded to the testcase files area are made available to specific customers to evaluate the effectiveness of various changes to our GA versions, usually to address one or more issues reported in specific trouble tickets. Feedback from the affected customer(s) is requested when we provide these packages, and these links are limited to only the custmer(s) involved in the related ticket(s), not for general use, and as always, not for sharing with other users.
Sometimes, we may go through several testcase revisions. Usually changes which have been vetted through this process will end up in the next GA of the package. Once the GA is released, all customers with related subscription access to the new package will be able to download and install it.
Testcase packages are almost always time-limited, and the remaining time will be prominently displayed in the banner during bootup or for other software, at program start. If a new GA of the package is not available when nearing the expiration, simply follow-up in the ticket to request a refresh.

In contrast, preview releases serve a different purpose and are subject to different terms of use:

Preview releases are made available to all customers with related subscription access.
Preview releases generally are not updated (one preview is provided before GA).
Preview releases may be time-limited. If a preview release is time-limited, that does not mean that another preview will be made available.
If a time-limited preview release has expired and a GA version has not yet been released, it may be necessary to uninstall it.
No trouble tickets are accepted for problems with preview releases. These are not beta tests. A preview may simply be feature-limited version of what would otherwise be considered finished software, or it may be a preview of as-yet-unfinished software that will be coming soon. Because these releases are previews – and may not be fully functional – reports of missing functionality, unexpected behavior, etc. are not relevant and will not be addressed. Please read the documentation that comes with the preview for a description of its particular limitations.
Preview releases may be completely broken or disabled by a subsequent update of another related GA package. As an example, if installing a preview release of a network driver, and later updating the network stack package, that preview release driver may cease to function. This is not unexpected behavior, and not a software fault. To continue to use the preview, simply return the system to its previous state, wait for the GA release of the driver, and then update the driver and the rest of the stack.
No feedback via email or tickets is requested for preview releases. They are for your benefit and use only, and intended to provide a sample of what is to come.

In the near future, we hope to bring preview releases for various works in later stages of development.

All previews will be available through the ArcaOS Support and Maintenance Subscription, However, some preview packages may not be available through the Arca Noae OS/2 & eCS Drivers and Software Subscription, so now may be a good time to consider moving up to ArcaOS.

Dynamic Icons version 2.5.2 for ArcaOS released

Dynamic Icons, the new spin on Sunny Icons from eCo Software, specifically enhanced and built for ArcaOS, has been updated to version 2.5.2, 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 includes a new unified Icon page in the WPS Properties notebook with the ability to easily switch between and browse for either a traditional icon file or a PNG image. In addition, it is now possible to add one-line comments to the “bigicons.txt” icon list file (see the online help from any Icon page for more details).

What Arca Noae’s upcoming UEFI support means for ArcaOS

The UEFI Forum As we previously mentioned here, Arca Noae has been working to develop a solution to install and boot ArcaOS on UEFI-based systems. Many of these laptops, desktops, and servers lack a traditional BIOS, rendering them – until very recently – unsuitable for OS/2 (and thus, ArcaOS). Likewise, tablet devices and Chromebooks have been almost beyond our grasp, with very few exceptions.

If you have attended any OS/2-focused events in the past year, you may have witnessed demonstrations of UEFI-based installations of ArcaOS. We are extremely pleased to announce that this functionality is in our betas for ArcaOS 5.1, and should provide a very smooth and similar installation experience to our current system install (DVD, USB, or hard disk partition).

The work is not yet finished, and much remains to be completed, particularly in the area of DOS video support. Our objective, of course, is to have a fully functioning ArcaOS environment on this type of hardware, complete with full screen and windowed DOS and Win-OS/2 sessions. We are very close to accomplishing these goals.

ArcaOS 5.1 will be an upgrade from ArcaOS 5.0. For a more complete list of planned enhancements for 5.1, as well as what’s in beta now for 5.0.5, please visit our ArcaOS Roadmap page.

Don’t have ArcaOS yet? Now is a great time to pick up a license or two and replace that aging Warp 4 or eComStation installation and get to know what’s new and improved. ArcaOS runs the vast majority of existing OS/2 Warp 4 software, because it really is OS/2 – just better. ArcaOS supports more modern hardware than any other OS/2 distribution available today, making hardware upgrades much easier than ever before. An ArcaOS 5.0 license now means steep discounts on future upgrades, including 5.1.

Arca Noae progress report: ArcaOS in your language

Translation work continues for ArcaOS. General availability of German and Spanish editions of ArcaOS are anticipated for the 5.0.5 release, with more languages slated to follow. We are making tremendous strides toward achieving the goal of a non-English reader to be able to install and run ArcaOS with minimal effort.

Translators are invited to join a core team working on the project. If you have the linguistic skills, enjoy a challenge, and would like to participate in a truly fun and rewarding endeavor, please let us know. Translators automatically become members of the test team, with early access to development releases (among other benefits).

Potential localized versions of ArcaOS include:

German
Spanish
French
Italian
Dutch
Portuguese
Japanese
Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditioinal)
Korean
Russian

(This is by no means a promise to deliver any of the above. Partial work has at least been done on most of the above translations, however.)

Need a language not listed above? Need one of the above languages completed sooner? Talk to us about specific localization needs for your enterprise.

Public services back online

Our Mantis bugtracker is back online, email announcements are running, and we are able to build new ArcaOS images for immediate delivery.

There is still work to be done, but for customers and subscribers, things should be back to normal.

Thanks to everyone for being patient and supportive through this trying time.