Tag Archives: arcaos

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.

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.)

ArcaOS Desktop updated to 1.0.15

Dynamic Icons

Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of ArcaOS Desktop (ANXWP) 1.0.15 in English, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Russian. This is a maintenance release containing bug-fixes and updates that have accumulated since the last release. The primary improvements include:

Desktop Properties notebooks

XFolder: Prevent doubled entries in the Background page’s File dropdown.
WPPgm/WPPgmFile: Prevent <Esc> from dismissing the Language tab dialog.

XCenter Widgets

Pulse: Fix spurious 100% CPU usage after a WPS restart.
Window List: Refactor/simplify button positioning and drawing.

Menus

Trash Can: Ensure the Open As default is correct.
XView: Display correct whitespace menus for root folders.

Startup and Shutdown

XStartup: Restart automatically after fixing the order of class-replacements.
XShutdown: Added an optional “XWP_ACPIDELAY=xxx” environment variable to change the default shutdown delay of 250ms.

Localization

Add translated strings in Font Folder and in a folder’s Details dialog.

See the Version Information topic of the ArcaOS Desktop Users Guide and Reference located in the Help Center for more details about this release.

Arca Noae would like to thank Rich Walsh for his work on maintaining and improving XWorkplace and ArcaOS Desktop.

If you have ArcaOS, this software 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 are still running OS/2 and/or eComStation this is a great reason to consider moving up to ArcaOS. This update includes reserved features licensed for use exclusively with ArcaOS.

Apache Log4j vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228)

On Thursday, December 9, 2021, the Apache Log4j project disclosed a critical security vulnerability which may result in remote code execution on systems running Log4j. The exploit has been aptly named Log4Shell (CVE-2021-44228).

Log4j is a logging component which runs under Java on many different platforms, and is useful not only for Java applications, but for other programs, as well. It is commonly bundled with unrelated software, simply as a means of providing a standard logging engine.

Arca Noae has completed a scan of our internal systems and has determined that we are not affected by this vulnerability. Further, ArcaOS has never included any Log4j components, and is also unaffected. However, because the exploitable feature in Log4j has existed for some time, it is possible that Java and other applications may have been installed under ArcaOS which utilize Log4j, and these systems may be at risk.

The feature used for the Log4Shell exploit is in the JNDI (Java Naming and Directory Interface) lookup class which was added to Log4j several years ago during the 2.0 beta cycle. Log4j versions through 2.3 required only Java versions up to 1.6, and so may be utilized by some OS/2-compatible applications.

Risk assessment

To determine whether any of your OS/2 systems may be at risk, start by searching all accessible volumes for log4j-*.jar. If any are found, determine the version of Log4j by examining the content of META-INF/MANIFEST.MF in the core jar file:

[c:\] unzip -c log4j-core.jar META-INF/MANIFEST.MF | less

Note the Implementation-Version line content.

Edge servers as well as firewalled systems running various applications may be at risk, as queries may be submitted to the Log4j engine from other applications and potentially from outside the network.

Mitigation

Although the exploit has been addressed in Log4j 2.16.0, because versions above 2.3 are not currently compatible with OS/2’s available Java Runtime Engine, it is necessary to mitigate the condition by removing the JndiLookup class from the classpath, e.g.:

[c:\] zip -q -d log4j-core-*.jar org/apache/logging/log4j/core/lookup/JndiLookup.class

Additional information

Older (pre-2.0-beta9) versions of Log4j lack this lookup class, and do not appear to be at risk for Log4Shell (though some earlier security advisories may have been issued). Further research may be needed based upon the version(s) of Log4j which may be in use on these earlier systems. Also, this is not the only security advisory for Log4j 2.0-beta9 – 2.3. This notification is only related to CVE-2021-44228.

Links

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-44228
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2021/12/10/log4shell-java-vulnerability-how-to-safeguard-your-servers/
https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/930724

ArcaOS 5.0.7 now available

In our continuing commitment to ArcaOS 5.0 (Blue Lion), Arca Noae is pleased to announce the general availability of ArcaOS 5.0.7, the seventh maintenance release of the 5.0 line.

ArcaOS 5.0.7 includes refreshed driver content, updated kernel and included software, as well as installation boot fixes since 5.0.6 was released in 2020. If you have experienced difficulty installing previous releases of ArcaOS on your hardware, 5.0.7 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 5.0 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 5.0 license. Once there, click the download link to request a fresh ISO, and wait for your notification email.

If your ArcaOS 5.0 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.

ArcaOS Desktop updated to 1.0.14

Dynamic Icons [Edit: Download links have been properly adjusted as of this writing, and should all be working. Apologies for any inconvenience.]

Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of ArcaOS Desktop (ANXWP) 1.0.14 in English, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Russian. This is a maintenance release containing bug-fixes and updates that have accumulated over the last year. The primary improvements include:

XShutdown

Power-off options have been simplified. The ACPI/APM shutdown option has been removed since the system always uses ACPI if it is available.
The shutdown sound which failed to play in Lite versions has now been restored.
The XShutdown dialog has been updated to suppress the list of BIOS-bootable partitions when booted in UEFI mode. It should also do a better job of handling situations where the data it collects from AirBoot is corrupt.

Folder Refresh

This feature has been completely rewritten to ensure that every filesystem update is reflected in the display within 1.5 seconds. The rewrite also fixes a bug where the code might try to delete a file that had been deleted then recreated.

Russian NLS (NEW)

Initial Russian language support has been provided by Yurii Zamotailo.

In addition, included is a minor update to Arca Noae Removable Media Monitor which suppresses attachment notifications (and subsequent failure messages) when USB floppy drives and some USB optical drives are plugged in.

See the Version Information topic of the ArcaOS Desktop Users Guide and Reference located in the Help Center for more details about this release.

If you are still running OS/2 and/or eComStation this is a great reason to consider moving up to ArcaOS. This update includes reserved features licensed for use exclusively with ArcaOS.