Tag Archives: USB

USB XHCI driver preview available (v12.06)

USB Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of a preview release of our new xHCI driver. xHCI controllers are designed to support USB1, USB2, and USB3 devices.

This release is a preview release that has some limitations. The xHCI driver in this release is exactly the same xHCI driver that is included in ArcaOS 5.0.5 and has the same limitations regardless if you got it by installing ArcaOS or by installing this package.

The xHCI preview is only available for ArcaOS customers. The full GA release (coming soon) will be available to ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription holders for free, and to eCS and OS2 users for a small fee.
The xHCI preview is intended to be a one time only release. We don’t expect to release any updates to the preview. If there are updates to the rest of the USB stack before the full GA release of the xHCI driver, those updates will not contain the xHCI driver and may render the preview inoperative.
The xHCI preview requires that the version 12.06 USB stack be installed first.
The xHCI preview has no support. Please do not open tickets to report problems with the preview.
The xHCI preview has limited functionality. The limitations only apply to devices connected to an xHCI controller. If you have a system that has OHCI, UHCI, and/or EHCI controllers in addition to xHCI controllers, devices connected to these other controllers are not affected by the preview and will have full functionality as before.
- Isochronous transfer support is not implemented in the xHCI driver yet. This means that any kind of streaming media such as audio and video won’t work when plugged into an xHCI connected port.
- Problems have been reported with a small number of xHCI controllers. Depending on the specific xHCI controller(s) you have, your experience using the preview may vary.
Make sure your system is fully up-to-date. Specifically, you should be using the latest Arca Noae 14.201 kernel, the latest ACPI PSD, and not using the /VW switch for the PSD.

Unlike the USB stack package, the xHCI preview package is not “update only”. The installer in the xHCI preview can and will install the xHCI driver on your system, but only if you are running ArcaOS and only if you have detectable xHCI controllers in your system. If you are not running ArcaOS the xHCI driver package will notify you and will not run.

More information about the USB drivers can be found in the USB wiki. Information about the xHCI preview can also be found on the Troubleshooting Guide, and may be updated as more information becomes available.

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.

This driver package is not available for download from the Arca Noae OS/2 & eCS Drivers and Software Subscription.

If you are still running OS/2 and/or eComStation systems this may be a good time to consider moving up to ArcaOS.

USB driver package version 12.06 released

USB Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of release 12.06 of our USB stack.

This release has a minor fix that affects certain USBCALLS applications. Version 12.06 is the same version as in the recently released ArcaOS 5.0.5 so if you install or update to ArcaOS 5.0.5 you already have these drivers. As usual, this release is update only. It will only update an existing installation. It will not install USB support and will not install new drivers. 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.

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 12.05 released

USB Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of release 12.05 of our USB stack.

This release has only a few minor fixes and enhancements, but it is required in order to use the upcoming xHCI driver. This update is recommended for everyone. As usual, this release is update only. It will only update an existing installation. It will not install USB support and will not install new drivers. More information about the USB drivers can be found in the wiki.

USB driver package version 12.04 released

USB Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of release 12.04 of our USB stack.

This release has both minor and major changes including:

Fixed a trap in the USBCALLS driver.
Fixed some minor problems initializing devices in USBD.
A new USBMSD driver which brings significant stability and reliability improvements.
A new USBMOS driver for Moschip based USB to ethernet adapters.

This update is recommended for everyone. As usual, this release is update only. It will only update an existing installation. It will not install USB support and will not install new drivers. More information about the USB drivers can be found in the wiki.

Arca Noae progress report: USB, ArcaOS updater, multimedia

Here are some of the recent happenings around the Arca Noae labs and design studios:

We’ve recently made significant progress toward localizing various parts, particularly for German and Spanish, and will soon have a new test build of the CWMM classes in Spanish (a completely new translation for this component).

We continue to improve the update process for the next ArcaOS release, as we find edge cases where the current updater doesn’t quite finish due to unexpected conditions in the target system. (As a reminder, please check the ArcaOS Updating wiki page before beginning an update to the latest release. There you’ll find hints and tips to help avoid – or resolve – some known problems.)

When IBM left off USB driver development, OS/2 had a working, 16-bit USB 1.x and 2.0 driver stack. Fast forward to 2019, and this is no longer adequate for the needs of today’s hardware.

The Arca Noae USB stack is now fully 32-bit, and USB 3 support development continues to make good progress. Implementing USB 3 support has been tedious because the OS/2 USB architecture didn’t accommodate the peculiarities of USB 3 well.

Adding USB 3 support was not as simple as just writing a new xHCI driver. Significant changes were required throughout the entire USB stack, including changes to USBD and the OHCI, UHCI, and EHCI drivers. The xHCI driver as it exists today in beta testing works quite well. There are just a couple of things that still need to be done before we will be able to release it for general availability. One thing is to implement support for Isochronous transfers (audio and video devices). The second thing is to improve the error recovery speed. Error recovery speed was not an issue with USB 2 because USB 2 devices rarely, if ever, had errors. Super Speed (USB 3) devices operating at the new USB 3 speeds have higher error rates so the error recovery speed is important. We are actively working to resolve these last two issues.

Once the xHCI (USB 3) driver is released, the Arca Noae USB stack will make it possible to install and run ArcaOS on systems which lack USB 2.0 (EHCI) controllers. (Even though many modern systems advertise the availability of USB 2.0 ports, these ports are indeed wired to xHCI controllers. Without an xHCI driver, this will result in loss of keyboard and mouse control shortly after boot and the inability to mount the installation ISO from USB-attached media.)

Don’t have ArcaOS yet? Now is a great time to pick up a license or two and replace that aging Warp 4 or eComStation installation and get to know what’s new and improved. ArcaOS supports more modern hardware than any other OS/2 distribution available today, making hardware upgrades much easier than ever before.

Arca Noae progress report: Bits and Pieces

We continue to explore new ways to make the ArcaOS desktop experience more user-friendly and useful. To that end, we’d like to share some upcoming enhancements which should be available in the near future.

An update to the Arca Noae Removable Media Monitor widget for the XCenter is currently in testing which handles JFS, HPFS, and FAT32 media changes better, avoiding a trap which could otherwise occur when removing one device and inserting another without a proper eject operation.

We also have a component in testing now which transparently switches audio output from the built-in audio device to a USB audio device and back again when the USB device is attached or removed.

If you have a Brother laser printer, and have not been able to print to it, even via CUPS, we have some possibly good news for you: The brlaser CUPS driver package (RPM) has recently been updated to version 6.0.0, and our port should be moving from our experimental repository to the subscription repository very soon.

Don’t have ArcaOS yet? Now is a great time to pick up a license or two and replace that aging Warp 4 or eComStation installation. Better yet, why not upgrade to newer hardware entirely, and install ArcaOS fresh? ArcaOS supports more modern hardware than any other OS/2 distribution available today.

USB driver package version 12.03 released

USB Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of release 12.03 of our USB stack.

This release has some minor but important fixes that primarily affect Isochronous devices and hubs. This update is recommended for everyone. As usual, this release is update only. It will only update an existing installation. It will not install USB support and will not install new drivers. More information about the USB drivers can be found in the wiki.

USB driver package version 12.01 released

USB Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of release 12.01 of our USB stack.

This is the first official release of the 32 bit USB stack. This is a major update with significant changes. Note that this update changes the order of the USB base drivers in your CONFIG.SYS. This update will bring the USB stack in your system up-to-date with the recently released version of ArcaOS. If you have ArcaOS version 5.0.4 then you already have this update.

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

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.

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.