Tag Archives: arcaos

New product announcement: S/390 Backup Facility

Do you still run an IBM System/390 mainframe, or more specifically, an IBM Multiprise® 3000, with an OS/2-based Support Element? How much time could you spare in the event of a hardware failure, to recover to a standby system?

Arca Noae’s S/390 Backup Facility is a self-booting, self-contained, no-installation-required, CD-based utility, providing for the quick backup and restore of one of these original Single Board Computer systems or a more modern replacement.

Built on ArcaOS, this invaluable application suite brings you peace of mind and system recovery capability as never before. Back up to multiple USB devices & restore the entire disk array, including all partition data and files, or just a single partition. In fact, if all you need to recover is a single file, that’s easily done, as well.

Licensing for the S/390 Backup Facility is per-site, so with one purchase, all IBM Multiprise® 3000 Support Elements in the same location are protected. One full year of technical support is also included.

It’s Black Friday… Time for our annual Black Friday Sale!

Welcome to Arca Noae’s second Black Friday Sale!

If you’ve been waiting to get an ArcaOS license, either as a return to OS/2 after a long absence or because you’ve heard the buzz about the breakthrough Blue Lion distribution, or even if you’re a current ArcaOS licensee and want an additional license or two — or three — for some other systems, now is the time.

ArcaOS 5.0 personal edition licenses are on sale for just $109 from now through Sunday, November 25. Personal edition licenses include six months of support and updates, and after that, annual support renewals are available for a great price.

ArcaOS 5.0 commercial edition licenses are on sale for just $195 from now through Sunday, November 25, and include a full year of support and updates.

Get your ArcaOS licenses while they’re available at these great discounts!

Arca Noae at Warpstock 2018 in Calgary…and an ArcaOS Sale

This year’s Warpstock event is scheduled for September 14-16 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.There will be several sessions devoted to getting the most out of ArcaOS and OS/2, in general.

To celebrate this year’s event, Arca Noae will be running a sale on ArcaOS personal and commercial licenses for the duration of Warpstock, Friday through Sunday. This is a great time to get in on this fresh and exciting OS/2 release or to pick up additional licenses for more stations. ArcaOS 5.0.3 was recently released, and the first beta for 5.0.4 is already in testing. Version 5.1 is scheduled for release in 2019, with a host of new features planned, including NLVs for several popular languages.

More information about Warpstock, its history, past speakers and presentations, and this year’s event may be found on the Warpstock site.

If you can’t join us in Calgary, be sure to watch the live feed on the WarpEvents page on YouTube.

Once there, locate the WarpStock 2018 Live Stream URL.

Users with OS/2 can watch the stream in two ways:

Firefox with Flash pointing to the WarpEvents site; or
Grab the YouTube URL and play it in VLC (preferred; get the latest VLC, ported by KO Myung-Hun, from Hobbes).

To ask questions during the live event, use the #netlabs channel on IRC.

There will be up to date information on OS/2 World and the following social networks:

Critical fix available for ArcaOS 5.0.3 installations from DVD requiring USB keyboard and/or mouse

We have identified and corrected an issue in our production build system affecting the ArcaOS 5.0.3 ISO resulting in missing USB driver files normally loaded when booting from DVD.

If you normally install from USB flash drive or directly from the ISO you do not require this fix to install.

If, however, you normally install from DVD or from the ISO into a virtual machine which requires USB keyboard and/or mouse emulation, this fix is required in order to load the USB stack for the installation process.

The ending installation is exactly the same, with or without this fix, as no changes to anything installed to the local drive(s) have been made. This is only for the purpose of booting from the installation DVD and navigating through the installer.

Unfortunately, this fix requires a full download of a fresh ISO, as there is no practical way of inserting this small fix in an existing ISO or DVD. As a result, all currently cached ISOs here have been expired. At your convenience, please log into your customer portal, access your ArcaOS order from the Orders & Subscriptions page, and request a fresh ISO.

We apologize for any inconvenience this issue has caused, and thank you very much for your patience. Thanks also to those who reported the issue to us.

We’re celebrating the release of ArcaOS 5.0.3 with a Sale!

The release today of ArcaOS 5.0.3 seems like a great time to celebrate with a sale! How can you lose? Get the best build of ArcaOS to date and at a great price!

ArcaOS 5.0 personal edition licenses are on sale for just $109 from now through Wednesday, August 22. Personal edition licenses include six months of support and updates, and after that, annual support renewals are available for a great price, with their own built-in renewal discounts.

ArcaOS 5.0 commercial edition licenses are on sale for just $195 from now through Wednesday, August 22, and include a full year of support and updates. As with personal licenses, annual support is available at a discounted price for timely renewals.

Get your ArcaOS licenses today!

ArcaOS 5.0.3 now available

Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of ArcaOS 5.0.3, the third maintenance release of ArcaOS 5.0 (Blue Lion).

ArcaOS 5.0.3 is (again) the result of many hours of collaborative work to keep up-to-date and to further refine ArcaOS 5.0. Post-install fixes are included, and these will be made available for separate download as part of the ArcaOS 5.0 Support & Maintenance subscription. In the interim, a full download of the refreshed media image is required to obtain all of these fixes and updates.

ArcaOS 5.0.3 includes over 40 updates and fixes since 5.0.2. The USB stick image package (available as a separate download for ArcaOS licensees with current support and maintenance subscription) has also been updated to incorporate the latest changes in ArcaOS 5.0.3.

A bootable ArcaOS 5.0.3 USB stick may be created from any major operating system at hand (Windows, Linux, MacOS, and of course, OS/2, eComStation, and ArcaOS). Once the image is restored, eject, re-insert, and simply copy your personalized ISO (separately downloaded) to the stick per the included directions (also detailed in the ArcaOS support wiki). The stick may then be inserted into any USB 2.0-controlled port in the target system, and used to boot into the ArcaOS installer.

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 5.0.3 updates as critical.

If you have experienced difficulty installing ArcaOS 5.0.2, the fixes and updates included in 5.0.3 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.

It’s the 4th of July! Time for a Sale!

Arca Noae is launching our first ever 4th of July Sale!

ArcaOS 5.0 personal edition licenses are on sale for just $109 from now through Sunday, July 8. Personal edition licenses include six months of support and updates, and after that, annual support renewals are available for a great price, with their own built-in renewal discounts.

ArcaOS 5.0 commercial edition licenses are on sale for just $195 from now through Sunday, July 8, and include a full year of support and updates. As with personal licenses, annual support is available at a discounted price for timely renewals.

Get your ArcaOS licenses today!

Support FreeRDP for OS/2!

If you have a need to access a remote Windows desktop, the best option is using a Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) client. Using RDP, the local system’s drives may be mapped (redirected) into the remote system to access local files, and even audio from the remote system may be redirected to the local system.

Currently, the RDP client of choice on OS/2 is RDesktop, ported by Andrey Vasilkin. However, RDesktop is showing its age, and a newer, more active project, FreeRDP, has become very well known.

Andrey proposes porting FreeRDP to OS/2, which poses its own set of challenges, so in order to do that, he needs support from the OS/2 user base. This project will take several months, but when he is done, all users of OS/2 warp, eCS, and ArcaOS will have a free, modern, remote access tool.

Sponsoring units for this work may be purchased in the Arca Noae store, in $15, $25, $50, and $100 increments, and of course, it is possible to purchase multiple units at one time.

As with all of the sponsoring collected through Arca Noae 100% of your donation (subject to currency conversion) goes to the project or to the developer. Arca Noae absorbs any related transfer fees.

ArcaOS 5.0.2 Bootable USB Stick Image 2018-02-12 Package Released

AOSBoot USB stick Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of our new ArcaOS Bootable USB Stick Image 2018-02-12 Package.

This package follows onto the included USB stick creation utility shipped with ArcaOS 5.0.2, allowing you to create a bootable USB ArcaOS 5.0.2 installation stick without a running OS/2 system. The package includes native binaries to restore the stick image from Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as OS/2. Once the image is restored, eject, re-insert, and simply copy your personalized ISO (separately downloaded) to the stick per the included directions, which are also detailed in the ArcaOS support wiki. The stick may then be inserted into any USB 2.0-controlled port in the target system, which is then booted into the ArcaOS installer.

If you are still running OS/2 and/or eComStation systems and haven’t yet moved up to ArcaOS, this is a great time to do so. It’s never been easier to install any OS/2-based operating system.

ArcaOS 5.0.2 now available

Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of ArcaOS 5.0.2, the second maintenance release of ArcaOS 5.0 (Blue Lion).

ArcaOS 5.0.2 is the result of many hours of collaborative work to update and refine ArcaOS 5.0. Post-install fixes are included, 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.

ArcaOS 5.0.2 includes well over 60 updates and fixes since 5.0.1, and introduces for the first time ever available, the ability to boot an OS/2-based operating system from USB stick media and perform an installation. This new facility – AltBoot – should enable ArcaOS to be installed on many systems where traditional DVD-based booting has not been possible.

A bootable ArcaOS 5.0.2 USB stick may be created from any major operating system at hand (Windows, Linux, MacOS, and of course, OS/2, eComStation, and ArcaOS). The USB stick image package will be made available as a separate download.

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 5.0.2 updates as critical.

If you have experienced difficulty installing ArcaOS 5.0.1, the fixes and updates included in 5.0.2 may address your issue(s).

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