Category Archives: Tips

What happens when a subscription expires?

Subscriptions must be renewed to remain in force. Allowing a subscription to lapse or expire will cause the following actions in the customer’s account:

The order details, accessed through the customer portal, will no longer have downloads available. Any updates or interim enhancements released in this manner will no longer be accessible.
Subscription-only content available from the relevant Arca Noae subscription repository/ies will no longer be accessible.
For ArcaOS, the ISO download will no longer be accessible.
Access to the Mantis bug tracker to open new issues, report on existing issues, or as a knowledgebase of reference material will no longer be available.
Subscribing again after a subscription has lapsed will not qualify for any renewal discounts.

We highly recommend maintaining archives of any downloaded content, as it may not be possible to access this again (even the last versions available when the subscription was in force).

How to access your personalized ArcaOS ISO

Emails get lost. Emails get stuck in spam traps. Emails…well, let’s face it, you should never underestimate the power of an email not to arrive when you need it the most.

We understand this. In fact, the second email notification (the one advising that the ISO is ready for download) was supposed to only include a brief note that the ISO was ready for download and that the customer should log into his or her account page here and access the order to reach the download link. Adding the download link to the second email notification was a convenience feature.

So, in case you have ordered and it has taken more than ten or fifteen minutes for the email to arrive, here’s what to do:

Access the ArcaOS Download Center from your customer portal. To access the ArcaOS Download Center:

Visit your customer portal on the main Arca Noae website. If not logged in, you may do so when accessing the above link.
From the navigation links on the left, select ArcaOS Download Center to view the list of your ArcaOS licenses and associated downloads.

Click the Download ISO button next to the ArcaOS license in question.

Tip: ISO downloads are only kept available for a limited time, after which they must be rebuilt. Visit the link referenced above, and instead of a download, you should receive a notice that your ISO is being prepared. Follow the same procedure as when you initially ordered (or as outlined here) to retrieve the download within a few minutes.

Convenience of shutdown/poweroff in a virtual machine

At one time, shutting down an OS/2 guest under VirtualBox meant full shutdown and virtual powerdown. With recent versions of VirtualBox (5.x), however, this has not been the case.

We’ve noticed, and we’ve done some work to address this.

Did you know that Arca Noae’s ACPI driver runs just fine under these latest builds of VirtualBox? Using the ACPI driver, it is possible to configure the OS/2 (or eComStation) guest machine for complete poweroff using ACPI, just as you might configure a physical workstation.

If you’ve thought that the Arca Noae Drivers and Software subscription didn’t bring value to your virtual OS/2 experience, think again. Now is a great time to subscribe.

Dramatically improve your virtual machine’s network performance

Current VirtualBox recommendations are to use the virtual Intel network cards for guest machines and to configure for bridged networking. Until now, the only choice for OS/2 was the older, IBM-supplied, Intel E1000 driver. The result? Performance just slightly better than the default AMD PCnet-FAST III virtual adapter.

Now, however, there is a choice. Arca Noae subscribers may use the all-new MultiMac Legacy EM driver (MMLEM). This driver is a breakthrough for virtual machines running under VirtualBox, with performance measured at more than twice the throughput of the older driver.

Some comparisons from netio 1.3 across a 1Gbps unmanaged switch, from an OS/2 VM running the latest 32-bit TCP/IP stack to a 64-bit Linux server running on bare metal¹:

E1000:

TCP connection established.
Packet size  1k bytes:  15.04 MByte/s Tx,  9168.71 KByte/s Rx.
Packet size  2k bytes:  19.64 MByte/s Tx,  11.99 MByte/s Rx.
Packet size  4k bytes:  22.38 MByte/s Tx,  13.58 MByte/s Rx.
Packet size  8k bytes:  23.72 MByte/s Tx,  17.62 MByte/s Rx.
Packet size 16k bytes:  24.83 MByte/s Tx,  20.62 MByte/s Rx.
Packet size 32k bytes:  19.52 MByte/s Tx,  17.82 MByte/s Rx.
Done.

MMLEM:

TCP connection established.
Packet size  1k bytes:  13.19 MByte/s Tx,  9183.80 KByte/s Rx.
Packet size  2k bytes:  18.65 MByte/s Tx,  12.20 MByte/s Rx.
Packet size  4k bytes:  27.93 MByte/s Tx,  14.98 MByte/s Rx.
Packet size  8k bytes:  39.91 MByte/s Tx,  19.29 MByte/s Rx.
Packet size 16k bytes:  50.39 MByte/s Tx,  22.74 MByte/s Rx.
Packet size 32k bytes:  28.07 MByte/s Tx,  19.19 MByte/s Rx.
Done.

(Note that the falloff between 16 and 32k appears to be an issue within VirtualBox itself, as the same tests, when run against the host machine, actually report an improvement in throughput for the 32k packet size over the 16k one. A 32-bit Linux guest does not show this falloff.)

As you can see, peak transmit throughput, using 16k byte packets, went from 24.83MByte/s (198.64Mbps) to 50.39MByte/s (403.12Mbps). If you are transferring large files across your network to and from your OS/2 VM, this implies a possible reduction in the amount of time it takes for such transfers by more than one half².

In addition, while the above tests were run using the Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM) virtual network card in the guest, the MMLEM driver also supports the Intel PRO/1000 T Server (82543GC) and Intel PRO/1000 MT Server (82545EM) virtual network card options available in VirtualBox 5.x, either of which may yield even better throughput (the older IBM-supplied driver does not support these server-class cards).

There are other benefits of the Arca Noae Drivers & Software subscription for virtualized users of OS/2, including full shut down and virtual power off of the VM when using Arca Noae’s ACPI PSD. So if you thought there wasn’t much value in subscribing just to run virtual machines, you might want to look again.

Guest machine running eCS 2.1, configured with 2GB RAM, Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM) virtual network card, 32-bit TCP/IP stack, default sockets. Host machine running openSUSE LEAP 42.1 x64, 16GB RAM, single Intel 82567LF-2 onboard network adapter, and default adapter settings. NETIO target (host) machine running openSUSE 13.2 x64, 32GB RAM, dual Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5708 onboard network adapters, in bonded active backup configuration, with default adapter settings for the physical bond slaves. Switch was Cisco SR2024 (unmanaged 10/100/1000).
Many factors contribute to overall network throughput, including protocol, aggregate traffic, CPU activity, etc. These figures are meant as a guideline and not a guaranty of performance.

Stubborn renewals…made easier!

In case you renewed your subscription outside the 30-day grace period and previously experienced difficulty accessing your downloads, we are happy to report that the problem has been resolved. If for some reason you are still having difficulty, then by all means, please contact customer service.

In addition, we’ve improved the order details page for renewal orders and added a link to the original subscription, to make it easier to access your downloads.

Edit 2020-06-07: This link is identified as Access associated downloads here and appears directly below the name of the subscription (Support & Maintenance, Drivers & Software, etc.).

Thanks again for everyone’s patience and understanding while we worked to resolve these issues. We appreciate your business, your continued support of Arca Noae and our shared computing platform of choice, and we look forward to seeing many of you at an OS/2-focused event sometime this year.

Stubborn renewals

In case you have renewed your subscription outside the 30-day grace period and are experiencing difficulty accessing your downloads, please contact customer service. We are aware of the issue and are working to resolve it. We appreciate your patience.

Another area of some confusion is the lack of download links on the order details page for the renewal item itself. Once you have successfully renewed your subscription, simply visit your original subscription order details page (where you have been accessing these links all along), and all of your downloads should work as expected. If not, just drop us a note. We’re working to improve the flow and presentation of the content.

Edit 2020-06-07: Since this post was originally written, we’ve improved the order details page for renewal orders and added a link to the original subscription, to make it easier to access your downloads.

This link is identified as Access associated downloads here and appears directly below the name of the subscription (Support & Maintenance, Drivers & Software, etc.).

Upgrade entitlement for some third-party software in our store

If you are already a registered licensee of Keith Merrington’s SearchPlus, SigmaMD5, or EasySync, there is no need to purchase any of those packages again from us in order to obtain the latest version(s).

Interested upgraders should go to Hobbes and search for the program name(s) and download them there. As of this writing, your existing registration entitles you to free updates. Just download and install.

While you are visiting Hobbes, we encourage you to donate. The Hobbes OS/2 Archive is an all-volunteer effort, and not a university-sponsored project. Thus, Hobbes exists solely from the appreciation of the OS/2 community. Arca Noae fondly acknowledges this longstanding and valuable resource.

Where’s my stuff?

It may not be apparent if you haven’t yet ordered, but upon completing your order, all of your downloadable products will be accessible from your account page. Just click the Account link on the main menu, log in (if you haven’t already), and your recent orders will be listed on your account page.

Clicking either the order number or the View button will open the details of the order, including handy links to download your software.

Upgrade entitlement for some third-party software in our store

Searching for something? – Try our OpenSearch plugin

As we continue to add content and products to the Arca Noae site and online store, we thought it might be handy to have a way to search that content from Firefox or SeaMonkey (or any other browser which is OpenSearch-compatible).

To add it to your browser, simply follow this link to the Mycroft Project, click the Arca Noae link, and allow the search provider to be added to your browser.