Category Archives: News

New MultiMac NIC driver package (20170811) released

Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of a new release of our MultiMac NIC driver package.

This package contains updated drivers to incorporate enhancements and fixes in the system libraries, including reliability and stability improvements, and message interrupt support.

As always, please read the .txt file that comes with each driver and also provided on the wiki. If you have problems with any of the drivers in this release, please read the Debugging Guide in the wiki first. If your problem cannot be resolved with the Debugging Guide, then the problem should be reported to the ticketing system.

More information about the MultiMac NIC drivers may be found in the wiki.

If you have ArcaOS, this driver package is available for download from the Arca Noae website 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.

If you have an Arca Noae OS/2 & eCS Drivers and Software Subscription, this driver package is available for download from the Arca Noae website as part of your Arca Noae OS/2 & eCS Drivers and Software Subscription. Please log into your account in order to access your software.

If you are still running OS/2 and/or eComStation systems and haven’t yet purchased a software subscription, this is a great reason to do so now. It may also be a good time to consider moving up to ArcaOS.

USB driver package version 11.16 released

USB Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of release 11.16 of our USB stack.

This is a maintenance release and includes minor fixes for stability and reliability.

If you have ArcaOS 5.0.1, then you already have this version and you do not need to download this update. If you have ArcaOS 5.0 installed, or are not using ArcaOS yet, then this version will bring you up-to-date.

More information about the USB drivers can be found in the wiki.

If you have problems with any of the drivers in this release, please read the Troubleshooting Guide in the wiki first. If your problem cannot be resolved with the Troubleshooting Guide, then the problem should be reported in the ticketing system.

ACPI Driver Package version 3.23.06 released

Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of our ACPI Driver Package for OS/2 and eComStation version 3.23.06.

This release contains the following changes:

Updated to ACPICA 20170629. See https://acpica.org/ for details.
Fixed a problem handling interrupts > 47
Implemented limited message interrupt support.
Prevent the use of interrupts > 31 on kernels which don’t support them.
Enhanced kernel detection due to problems with older kernels.

NOTE: This version will limit the number of interrupts to 32 for older kernels to avoid known problems which cause kernel traps. Most people will not be affected by this change. Please see the ACPI Requirements wiki for more details about this issue.

More information about the ACPI Driver Package may be found in the ACPI Driver wiki.

This release is an update for all users and is newer than the version in ArcaOS 5.0.1.

AHCI Driver Package version 2.03 released

Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of our AHCI Disk Driver Package version 2.03 for ArcaOS, OS/2, and eComStation.

This release contains the following major changes:

In version 2.03, Added support for message interrupts. This will allow certain motherboards with nonfunctional interrupt pin hardware to run. ACPI PSD version 3.23.06 is required for message interrupts to be enabled. Other minor fixes.
In version 2.02, Fixed interrupt handler issue for systems with multiple AHCI adapters.
In version 2.01, Major reorganization of the entire driver. Enhanced debugging support. Several minor fixes. Now a 32 bit driver.

This release is an update for all users. If you have ArcaOS, you need this update since ArcaOS 5.0 included v2.01 and ArcaOS 5.0.1 included v2.02. If you are still running eCS or OS/2, you need this update since the last released version for those platforms was v1.32 and a lot has changed since then.

More information about the AHCI Disk Package may be found in the AHCI wiki.

Have an enterprise Windows XP application and can’t upgrade Windows?

Talk to us about the possibility of wrapping that Windows XP (or 2000 or even NT 4) app and running it under Odin32. Similar to running an application in a container under Linux, the application itself is the only thing running in a Windows-compatibility environment, while the rest of the system is not subject to Windows security vulnerabilities on the LAN or on the internet. In this configuration, the only user training required is getting the system booted, authenticating to the network, and clicking the program object to start the same Windows application with which your users are already familiar.

Have a Windows application which requires LAN transport, but the version of Windows now in use is too outmoded for the latest file transport security? No problem. Applications running under Odin32 on ArcaOS which need to access network shares may do so using the integrated Samba 4 networking in ArcaOS, which appears to the application to be a local drive. All authentication, security, and transport encryption (if so configured) happens at the ArcaOS level, outside the Windows environment.

Maintain your critical applications on OS/2, DOS, or 16 or 32-bit Windows, on modern hardware or virtualized, while running on a secure, stable, maintained platform: ArcaOS 5.

Note: Any application accessing the public internet may be at risk. ArcaOS itself cannot defend a Windows application running under it against such exploits, if that application is vulnerable to attack.

Crediting your remaining OS/2 & eCS Drivers & Software subscription toward ArcaOS

As promised (though a little late), for those of you wishing to trade in your remaining OS/2 & eCS Drivers & Software subscription time against the purchase of ArcaOS, you may now do so by following the directions on the Subscription Trade-up Request form, located here. The form includes handy tables listing the cash value of your remaining time as well as the number of equivalent months of an ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription, for both personal and commercial licenses.

Three request options are available to you:

Additional time on your included ArcaOS support & maintenance subscription; or
Credit toward the renewal of your included ArcaOS support & maintenance subscription; or
Cash rebate (considered for ArcaOS purchases made with 12 months remaining on the subscription being traded)

You will need some information regarding the subscription being traded and your ArcaOS purchase. Simply fill in the form and submit. Please allow 7-10 days before acknowledgement of your submission.

Even if you ordered your subscription and/or ArcaOS license through one of our partners, Arca Noae will handle your trade-up request.

Last days of introductory pricing for ArcaOS 5.0 personal edition

The 90-day introductory period for ArcaOS 5.0 is drawing to a close, and with it, the sale price for ArcaOS 5.0 personal edition. There is still time – through August 15 – to get your license(s) for ArcaOS 5.0 personal edition at a $30 discount. That’s a savings of more than 23%.

ArcaOS 5.0 has been extremely well received by the press, developers, engineers, and users alike. More great features are in the works, and a license for 5.0 today ensures a great discount on 5.1, anticipated late 2018.

Want to learn more about using ArcaOS? Come to Warpstock 2017 in Toronto!

Warpstock as an event has been around since 1997. Since its inception, the goal of Warpstock has been to educate and expose users to OS/2, its available software, and how to get the most out of the environment. In addition, Warpstock has always been a great venue for meeting developers and engineers involved with OS/2 and its derivative operating systems, including eComStation and ArcaOS.

This year’s Warpstock event is scheduled for September 8-10 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Several key members of the ArcaOS development team will be on hand to present, answer questions, and take suggestions to improve the operating system as we continue to move toward the 5.1 release, planned for later next year.

More information about Warpstock, its history, past speakers and presentations, and this year’s event may be found on Warpstock’s site: http://www.warpstock.org.

Come join us in Toronto!

ArcaOS 5.0.1 now available

Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of ArcaOS 5.0.1, the first maintenance release of ArcaOS 5.0 (Blue Lion).

ArcaOS 5.0.1 is the result of many hours of work to adjust things discovered after the release of ArcaOS 5.0, particularly impacting installation of the operating system. Of course, there are many other post-install fixes included, as well, and these will be made available for separate download as part of the ArcaOS 5.0 Support & Maintenance subscription shortly. In the meantime, a full download of the refreshed media image is required to obtain these fixes and updates.

If everything is working in your current installation, it may be prudent to wait for the subscription content to become available, as Arca Noae has not classified any of the 5.0.1 updates as critical.

If you have experienced difficulty installing ArcaOS 5.0, the fixes and updates included in 5.0.1 may address your issue(s).

For a complete list of updates in this release, see the ArcaOS wiki.

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.

JFS Driver Package version 1.09.07 released

Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of our JFS Journaling File System Driver Package for OS/2 and eComStation version 1.09.07.

This is a maintenance release and does not contain any significant changes. This release contains the following changes:

Minor cosmetic changes. No code changes were made which affect disk operations.
Changed command parser to add an option to call existing chkdsk functions
differently.

This release is the same driver that is included in ArcaOS 5.0. If you recently purchased a license for ArcaOS 5.0, it is not necessary to download and install this package — you already have it.

This driver package is available for download from the Arca Noae website as part of your Arca Noae OS/2 & eCS Drivers and Software Subscription. Please log into your account in order to access your software.

More information about the JFS Package may be found in the JFS wiki.

If you are still running OS/2 and/or eComStation systems and haven’t yet purchased a software subscription, this is a great reason to do so now.