Tag Archives: os/2

Blue Lion moves into beta testing

Per Arca Noae’s revised release schedule, and as announced at Warpstock 2016, Blue Lion (ArcaOS 5.0) moved into beta testing stage today. The first beta release has been made available to the test team, and we anticipate a rigorous round of installation, modifications, formatting, deletion, disk wiping, and all that other fun stuff which accompanies a healthy beta test.

We do not anticipate a public beta cycle nor are we planning a gamma release or an untold number of release candidates. Instead, we fully expect ArcaOS 5.0 to emerge from beta testing at the end of March and to become generally available at that time.

We wish to thank our loyal supporters, our beta testers, and our development team for their dedication to the Blue Lion project, and look forward to the next 60 days as we ready the next release of OS/2.

Pricing will be made available in the near future. Expect two tiers, much like our subscription service (Personal and Commercial), with the latter including prioritized support and a longer bundled maintenance period. Volume discounts will also be available.

Current release timetable for ArcaOS 5.0 (Blue Lion)

As announced at Warpstock 2016, ArcaOS 5.0 (codenamed Blue Lion) is currently scheduled for general availability March 31, 2017.

The movement into 2017 was necessary to ensure a finished product with the slate of planned features, including:

New XWorkplace (just released) with ArcaOS exclusive branding and features (e.g., the new Arca Noae Removable Device widget);
New desktop productivity apps, including DVD Tools, Archive Tool, Dynamic Icons, ArcaBar, Lucide Document Viewer, and much more;
New network filesystem connectivity;
New operating system kernel, with fixes and enhancements to better manage today’s larger applications, including Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and Apache OpenOffice;
New kernel loader to address shortcomings in IBM’s last version, and to provide some useful new features, such as use of installed system memory above 4GB as a RAM disk;
New installer, completely built from the ground up for ArcaOS;
New installation options, better suited to today’s systems, both bare metal and virtual;
Integration of latest RPM-provided content;
Integration of latest Arca Noae device drivers;
Updated SNAP accelerated video driver;
Much, much more…

The above list is not final, nor are all components assured to be in the release of ArcaOS 5.0, but they have been in the plan and in the works for some time.

We know that everyone is anxious for this release, and we share your enthusiasm! All we ask is that you bear with us a little while longer while we get things fully assembled and tested to better assure a smooth installation and operating experience.

Many happy returns of the season from the team at Arca Noae, and best wishes for a truly bright 2017!

Arca Noae’s support of open source projects: Ports and more by bww bitwise works GmbH

Following our last installment in this series which focused on Arca Noae’s commitment to Firefox development, we thought that pulling back the focus a little to give a broader perspective might be a good idea.

Development of various open source ports by our strategic partner, bww bitwise works, GmbH, enables building Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and many, many other modern and useful applications and components. While the Ports project is hosted at Netlabs, the bulk of the heavy lifting is done by bww bitwise works, with the resulting work product made available free of charge to everyone.

These packages are installable via YUM and RPM at the command line or via the free, easy-to-use, native OS/2 Arca Noae Package Manager (ANPM), straight from the OS/2 desktop.

Similarly, the Samba for OS/2 and OS/2-based systems project allows OS/2 to stay connected to the rest of the world – all for free, and this is just one more example of the great things this team is doing.

Sponsoring this critical work helps to ensure that new releases of Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and other cutting edge technologies are available on OS/2. If you utilize any of these technologies, and wish to see new ports, continuing maintenance for existing ports, or just want to say “thanks,” please visit our store and sponsor them.

Arca Noae’s support of open source projects: Firefox

Did you know that Arca Noae provides ongoing funding for continued Firefox development and maintenance on the OS/2 platform? Firefox development by our strategic partner, bww bitwise works, GmbH, enables building Thunderbird and SeaMonkey, too, as well as many ancillary components which are used by other programs, so like the space program, there are other technologies which grow out of this work and allow OS/2 users to get more out of their investment.

Sponsoring this important work helps to ensure that new releases of Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey are available to all. The Mozilla for OS/2 Project aims to keep relatively close to the official Extended Support Release (ESR) cycle for Firefox as outlined by Mozilla, with additional components released as they are ported and/or developed along the way.

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.

Blue Lion in the news

It’s happened again… We’ve been slashdotted…

It all started when James Sanders wrote this piece in Tech Republic, which among other bits of Blue Lion news, correctly reported the official product name of Blue Lion as ArcaOS 5.0.

As was to be expected, this news took on a life of its own, and pretty soon, we were slashdotted.

Try a quick web search for “ArcaOS 5.0” and you’ll see what we mean…

Some of the comments which follow these articles can be quite humorous. Many people have fond memories of OS/2 (2.0? 3?), but have never had an opportunity to run it on modern hardware or even on a gigabit LAN, nor have they had the experience of running modern software on the platform, such as Firefox 38.8.0 ESR or Apache OpenOffice 4.1.2. (Both of these current applications have been ported and made possible on the OS/2 platform by our good friends and strategic partners, bww bitwise works, GmbH. You may find more great stuff from bitwise in our store.) For those of you who do take the time to post and respond in these venues, our heartfelt thanks for updating some of the users who seem a little out of step.

Of course, there are some great comments by well-respected people in the tech arena, like Brian Proffit and Brian J Dooley (thanks, guys).

Whatever your preferred language, enjoy the read, and be sure to add your own comments, including your more recent experience with OS/2 and the difference modern drivers and software make.

Arca Noae at Warpstock Europe 2016

Arca Noae principals David Azarewicz and Lewis Rosenthal will be on hand at this year’s Warpstock Europe event to discuss some of the great offerings from Arca Noae, including latest driver development and the upcoming Blue Lion release.

Expect more details in the coming days, and be sure to visit the event page for general information and the Arca Noae store to register and purchase your tickets.

Still running mature software? Arca Noae can help

There was some news made recently when Orly Airport in Paris, France suffered some apparent downtime of its Windows 3.1-based DECOR system which provides Runway Visual Range (RVR) information to pilots. Tech news media was abuzz with ridicule for any enterprise still running what it termed as such “antiquated” systems (referring to both DECOR and Windows 3.1, and in several instances, referring to Windows XP and “UNIX” as similarly antiquated (see here, here, and here for examples).

Unfortunately, what many of these news outlets don’t understand is that after all of the years in service, it simply may not make economic sense to replace a working system simply because there’s a new OS or application version available (likely with new and unknown flaws and potential pitfalls). Perhaps a newer version of a critical application did away with what is to that customer a must-have feature, or perhaps the application has been orphaned altogether, and nothing else currently available seems to be able to do as efficient a job as what is already in place.

Arca Noae understands the value of these systems. OS/2 still provides “a better DOS than DOS and a better [16-bit] Windows than Windows” due to its preemptive multitasking capabilities and crash protection, so multiple Windows 3.1 and/or DOS sessions may be started and run independently of one another, where a critical application is less likely to be brought down simply because some other application crashed in a different session.

If you have a need to run mature applications on OS/2, Windows 3.1, or DOS, Arca Noae can help extend the life of your investment in those platforms and those applications. Our OS/2 & eCS Drivers and Software package subscription – available now – can assist in running OS/2 or eComStation on newer hardware. Our upcoming OS/2 release, codenamed Blue Lion, is being designed to provide an installable solution to deploy new systems with an updated OS/2, fully capable of handling those mature DOS and Windows 3.1 applications, as well as native OS/2 applications and ported Linux applications on modern hardware or in a virtualized environment.

Perhaps you need expertise in handling such a transition or in maintaining your mature infrastructure. Arca Noae’s experienced engineers and consultants can provide those services, as well, practically anywhere in the world. Need us? Contact us.

New Blue Lion FAQs added

We’ve been getting so many great questions about Blue Lion, along with some really positive feedback to the product, our mailbox is overflowing! We’re most grateful to the OS/2 community for this input.

To help answer some of the most frequently asked questions, we’ve started updating our FAQ page with some Blue Lion issues concerning content, scheduling, pricing, and logistics. We’ll add more as we move forward with development.

Meanwhile, if you have a question about Blue Lion which isn’t listed in the FAQ, or a comment or request you’d like to share, please feel free to contact us.

Finally, if you’d like to stay informed concerning Blue Lion’s progress and development status, please feel free to register on our website and you’ll be automatically subscribed to receive emails when our blog is updated. Remember that we don’t sell or otherwise share any email addresses or personal information with any third parties, so your account data is completely confidential (please review our Privacy Policy for more information).

Calling all OS/2 developers!

If you have had experience coding for OS/2, we want to hear from you. Arca Noae is actively seeking new devs for various phases of Blue Lion and related development. All positions are for independent contractors (no employees), some are volunteer, and some (for more detailed, technical work) will be compensated.

Please send an email of inquiry to dev-info AT arcanoae DOT com, and we will respond with a brief questionnaire including a request for references. If accepted, you will be asked to execute a standard non-disclosure agreement.

If there is something which you’d like to see in Blue Lion, whether as a desktop enhancement, an included application, or a device driver, and you feel competent to provide it, please let us know!