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WebSite Information => Article Discussions => Topic started by: Martin Iturbide on November 23, 2017, 06:24:05 pm

Title: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Martin Iturbide on November 23, 2017, 06:24:05 pm
Hi

ArcaOS was released like 6 months ago (May 15, 2017) and I think it will be a good time to have some discussion about what YOU think about ArcaOS.  I had seen people jumping on other forum threads giving their opinion on what should be a priority and what not. I think it will be better to use this thread to do that.

From my personal point of view I have my wishlist based on my needs and hopes which I complete understand differs from other opinions.

Short Term - Drivers
People still scream for drivers and there are different needs, but my personal needs is in this order:
- Wifi (Listed as Short Term Projects on AN Roadmap (https://www.arcanoae.com/roadmap/))
- USB 3.0 - In my case I need it to install ArcaOS on devices that does not have USB 2.0 ports, CDs or Legacy compatibility for USB. (Listed as Long Term Projects on AN Roadmap (https://www.arcanoae.com/roadmap/))
- GTP : To make it easy to install ArcaOS on HDD if you want dual boot.  (Listed as Long Term Projects on AN Roadmap (https://www.arcanoae.com/roadmap/))
- UEFI : It is where the market is going. There are some Intel PCs that does not have Legacy mode.
- Support for accessing unpartitioned/non-LVM USB sticks (large floppy) greater than 2GB. To make life easier also. (Listed as Long Term Projects on AN Roadmap (https://www.arcanoae.com/roadmap/))

Mid Term - Apps
ArcaOS does not have a roadmap of which software frameworks should be ported to have Apps under the platform. The easy way is to say it is "just and OS" and I don't care what it is running on it, but if you don't have apps, why use the OS on the first place?
It is obvious that they primary goal of ArcaOS was to run OS/2 applications made with OS/2's API (CPI, PM, SOM, WPS, REXX, etc) and I think that goal is accomplished with ArcaOS 5.0. Now what about the present? If someone wants to develop something for ArcaOS what it should use?
1) IBM OS/2 Toolkit was be repackaged and included on RPM, that was good. But maybe it needs more like a facelift to include more samples, and updated documentation on how to compile the samples today on 2017, and maybe even rebrand it with a new name and version to match ArcaOS.
2) ArcaOS Open Toolkit. I think it is worthy to promote that ArcaOS has open source libraries and tool that can be used to also create software under the platform. This should also be seen as an strategic part of the OS that allows developers to create and port software.  (Even if there are people that counts the microseconds comparing a PM app vs. a Qt App, those can keep using the classic OS/2 API)
3) Qt 5 is important to have it as part of the "open toolkit". Let's hope that can happen with Bitwise.
4) More frameworks. I think that there is missing one or two more modern frameworks on the platform, but this is something I didn't set my mind on. I feel like there are very interesting things on GTK and the Node.js frameworks.

Long Term
Maybe six months it is still not enough time to get a long term strategy. This is the hard spot and where everybody will reply to me "Don't fix what it is not broken".

Does the OS/2 platform should have a long term strategy? Or the strategy should be "Will the last person leaving, please turn out the lights"

When you buy ArcaOS you need to pay the "IBM tax" (the cost of the OS/2 license that IBM negotiated with Arca Noae), that is in part what makes ArcaOS expensive (Mainframe guys, please don't compare prices here). Also the soul of OS/2, which I think are CPI, PM, SOM and WPS,  are close source without any possibility to be enhanced, fixed or open sourced.

Maybe like Lynn H. Maxson said on some Warpstock, we need to progressively open source parts of OS/2. I had been told that  is almost sure that if someone wants to clone PM or SOM, the first version will suck very bad. They tell it to me like if there is no way to improve software over time or like version 1.0 has to be 100% bug free, which is not how the software development cycle works. Since this is a long term strategy I think it will be good to nurture the open source replacement from crappy to something that can work over time, instead of thinking it as a Big bang miss or hit thing.

Maybe:
1) Evolving XWorkplace to try to reduce the dependency on WPS classes until it became a fully parallel desktop workplace object classes running on SOM. (little by little)
2) Hacking PM and CPI to replace and improve some of the API functions (little by little).
3) Revolving SOM by trying to get the leftovers of Netlabs SOM and SOMfree to see if some useful SOM replacement can be generated from it. (little by little)

Why do I still insist on Open Source? Because we already had been dumped three times, one by IBM, second by Serenity Systems and the third by Mensys/XEU. Open source is just a way to reduce the risk in case of a fourth dump and eventually (with a lot of hard work) it will release us from the IBM tax.

So, let's have fun, post your wishlist.

Regards
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Sigurd Fastenrath on November 23, 2017, 07:15:53 pm
My (Long gone) "wishes" are almost like yours, slightly different and in this order:

- Sound
- WLAN
- USB 3.0

But: as it turns out ArcaOS is getting more and more closed source, so - even if these Drivers will be available those may be only licensed for ArcaOS I fear - may be not.

It started with the new kernels, ACPI followed (at least when it stops to work with "unsupported" kernel in SMP mode) and now it is going on with this LAN Update.

As it is advertised: "It is a good time to replace OS/2-eCS with ArcaOS" it is for me more like: "It is a good time to leave."

Unfortunately I can not get this LAN Compnent Update as well, as the 6 months of ArcaOS Subsrciptions just shortly dissappeard before these LAN Update was released. My other SSS expires at 31.12.2017 and seems not to have this LAN Update included. Even if I could - it would not be licensed for OS/2.

Regarding USB 3.0 I remember David A. talking about the driver at Warpstock Europe in 2016 saying it was really Close at Hand.

As other Things turned out to be more important for ARCAOS - what is OK - it showed that my personal Needs are not on the list. So, yes, I can not expect or demand to have them.

Personal I will wait untill the next release after that 5.02, the possible ArcaOS 5.1 German Edition, to invest Money into OS/2, regardless it it is for SSS or funding. Untill then I will invest in something else  ;)

334 -> last and end  :)



 
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Martin Iturbide on November 23, 2017, 10:15:11 pm
Hi Sigurd.

I also remember hearing that USB 3.0 was almost ready.

I'm also experiencing some frustration with the time frame of the driver releases. I was expecting to see ArcaOS released (which I don't doubt it was a very hard work) and once that milestone was completed I was hoping that Arca's resources can be focused on releasing new drivers faster since they finished the hard work of putting the whole "installation package" together.

But it has only been 6 months, maybe I have the millennial disease of having things faster. I can not know for sure what is happening inside Arca Noae and with how many full time developers they are operating. Maybe they are trying to consolidate their corporate customers first to ensure their cash flow?

Once with Mensys I started to feel like it only cared about the corporate customers and the community (individuals) using the platform were only the extra change at the end of the month. But with Arca, I had talked to Lewis (Arca Noae) on the past and I also see his commitment with Warpstock (which is mostly an end-user based conference), so I still trust he wants an OS that can be used by both parties (Commercial and individual). So I still want to believe he is trying to sort all the hell of managing a company (money, taxes, personal, etc) and supporting an operating system. 

I think we need to keep pushing forward because there is no magic solution.

Regards

Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: ivan on November 23, 2017, 11:46:11 pm
USB 3.0 and 3.1 are needed.

Also the OS2AHCI.ADD needs work to allow it to a) work with third party chipsets (asmedia, AMD A320 etc. Ryzen support chips for example).

There is still a kernel fault when SMARTAHCI is run (if the AHCI.ADD from eCS 2 works with smartahci why doesn't the official one?).
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Doug Bissett on November 24, 2017, 05:26:26 am
First, I will state that I do NOT have any interest in ArcaOS, other than as a satisfied customer. I do some software testing for them, on a totally voluntary basis. Most of what follows is only my view of what is going on, and I do not have any sources, other than what I need to know to be able to test software.

Quote
But: as it turns out ArcaOS is getting more and more closed source, so - even if these Drivers will be available those may be only licensed for ArcaOS I fear - may be not.

Actually, that isn't entirely true. Arca Noae is adding value (sometimes by removing unproven, unstable , or legally questionable, features from some things) to most of their drivers etc. and they are building them, with some support available. Those drivers are available, for all "current" versions of OS/2 (warp 4, and up, AFAIK). through subscriptions. The base code is shared with the open source repositories, when it is possible to do it, but somebody else needs to build, and support, that code. I think the Arca Noae build system is kept private, and probably has patches etc. that public sources won't have. When you purchase a subscription, you support Arca Noae in making better drivers (and other things).

Note, that modifications to the kernel are not likely to be made available, unless you have a license for ArcaOS. That is, apparently, part of the deal with IBM, and isn't likely to change.

Quote
Unfortunately I can not get this LAN Compnent Update as well, as the 6 months of ArcaOS Subsrciptions just shortly dissappeard before these LAN Update was released. My other SSS expires at 31.12.2017 and seems not to have this LAN Update included. Even if I could - it would not be licensed for OS/2.

Perhaps you should have renewed your subscription. From what I know about the LAN update, it happened in the last couple of weeks, and I don't know if it will be released to the non-ArcaOS subscription (but I am inclined to think that it just hasn't got there, yet). Every subscription will run out, just before something gets released. That is one of the chances that you take when you fail to renew a subscription. It is not too late, just renew your subscription. Personally, I did let my SSS run out, because I have almost completed my conversion to ArcaOS, and I will use the ArcaOS subscription for updates.

UPDATE: On reading the announcement, it is obvious that the LAN Component Update can only be available as part of ArcaOS. Arca Noae is not licensed to make such changes to other versions of OS/2.

Quote
I'm also experiencing some frustration with the time frame of the driver releases. I was expecting to see ArcaOS released (which I don't doubt it was a very hard work) and once that milestone was completed I was hoping that Arca's resources can be focused on releasing new drivers faster since they finished the hard work of putting the whole "installation package" together.

One problem is, that the installer is not completed (and probably never will be, There is always something new to work into the mix), and the same guys who do that are the ones who do drivers, and other things. There are only so many hours available, and they can't do everything.  It is true, that USB 3, and WiFi, are high on the user's wish list, but neither one is as critical as being able to install the base system. Many new systems don't have CD/DVD drives any more, so that is part of what they are working on. USB stick install has proven to work very well, when the machine will properly handle it. Very few machines will do that, and a lot of effort has been put into making it work on most machines. We should be testing that soon.

Quote
USB 3.0 and 3.1 are needed.

So is GPT, and whatever that new one, for SSD, is. WiFi is also critical, but not as critical as some other things. Only a couple of people have any idea how to go about doing those things, or they are sitting back, and not contributing.

Speculation on what is being done, and what needs to be done, is not productive. If you need something, that isn't being done, make a business case for it, and see how many people support it. If only one person thinks they require something like punched card support, I doubt if they can make a business case for it, and they are even less likely to get others to support it. On the other hand, if a lot of people need USB 3 support, it may get bumped up the priority list. I do know, that those who are doing these things are working flat out, and they aren't about to release anything, until it is finished, and properly tested.

The scary part, for me, as a tester, is that I can sense that a number of things are coming down the pipe, and there will be a LOT of testing required, probably all at the same time that Christmas is coming.

I guess that I am trying to point out that griping isn't going to help. If you have some talent in software development, donate your time to a project. It doesn't need to be directly connected to ArcaOS, Many things need work. If you aren't a programmer, do testing for some project that somebody is working on. Help out with documentation (especially translations). Arca Noae has a group of people who are working on the project, at different levels. If you have a talent, that may be useful, make sure they now about it, but don't think you will step in, and run the project. It may also be possible that they already have enough people with your talent. Don't get discouraged, find another thing that you can do, that they may need. If Arca Noae can't use your talents, move on to some other project. There are lots of opportunities.

One thing, for sure: sitting back, and waiting for somebody else to do it, is simply going to prolong the wait.

I will point out, that not buying subscriptions is likely to make the time frame longer than what might be possible otherwise, but ArcaOS has no control over what a customer decides to do. Financial support can come quickly, or it may not come at all. Without support, not much will be accomplished.
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Lars on November 24, 2017, 07:38:50 am
<quote>
- Support for accessing unpartitioned/non-LVM USB sticks (large floppy) greater than 2GB. To make life easier also. (Listed as Long Term Projects on AN Roadmap)
</quote>

As I said multiple times this issue is already solved with my USBMSD.ADD driver. I am using "large floppy" sticks of 16 GB in size and it works just fine. AN is just too ignorant or self centered to pick up the changes I did. I think they have to solve it themselves.

Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Andreas Schnellbacher on November 24, 2017, 08:56:27 am
As I said multiple times this issue is already solved with my USBMSD.ADD driver.
I already have noticed that, but was too lazy to test that.

AN is just too ignorant or self centered to pick up the changes I did. I think they have to solve it themselves.
I guess that's sooner a time problem. I don't fully understand why so many parts of AN are closed source. Especially for the installer, the DDK problem doesn't apply. For USB, I don't support the second repository either. You should sooner discuss that internally.

I support Martin to make as much as possible available as OSS.
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Andreas Schnellbacher on November 24, 2017, 09:06:47 am
My wishlist (for more then 6 months):
1. Drivers, as named before.
2. Extended associations (XWP): Make it more stable.
3. Improve the future Web browser situation.
4. Replace IBM installation programs and use a single package manager. (That would be a huge change.)
5. NLS: Ease the creation and installation of NLS versions by distributing them as update packages of the en_US version. (That requires many changes of the current code.)
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Andi B. on November 24, 2017, 09:52:47 am
Personally I miss SNAP most in Martins driver list. Multi head and current Intel graphic support. Most probably Panorama can never handle this.
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Lars on November 24, 2017, 01:25:27 pm
As far as I remember Panorama requires VESA BIOS support.
For 2020, Intel announced the end of the legacy/conventional BIOS support.
From that time on there will only be "UEFI only" systems. As far as I understand that will also be the end of the VESA BIOS as we know it today. But correct me if I am wrong ...
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Martin Iturbide on November 24, 2017, 01:56:21 pm
AN is just too ignorant or self centered to pick up the changes I did. I think they have to solve it themselves.

Lar's just a little warning. I really don't like labeling people even if it is your own personal opinion. I know that ignorant may be a light word in different cultures, but in my side of the world I can get into a fight on a street if I call someone ignorant for jaywalking. Let's don't label, let's just say "I don't know why AN don't want to pick up the changes I did to support large floppy, they are free to do it" or something like "Hey pal, please don't jaywalk, use the pedestrian crossing for your safety" :)

I also agreed that it will be better that USB project will merge together and only have one release. Comparing it to Firefox releases, maybe Lars can do the quick version release and AN release the ESR version with more testing. But it is not "just code", working together has a lot to do with the personality of the developers involved, sometime they can not work together in the same project.

By they way, I recognize my own "ignorance" on this topic. I will keep asking about this subject on other forum thread. (http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?topic=1541.msg14972#msg14972)

Regards
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Lars on November 24, 2017, 05:04:49 pm
Ok, I apologize.

But given the fact that I have implemented this more than 1 year ago and that AN did not pick it up (which would finally allow me and everyone else to have only one USB stack,same holds true for all changes Wim Brul and me did to USBAUDIO.SYS) you might understand my frustation a little better. Whatever I did has always been visible and accessible by AN and in the past I communicated to them whatever I did. Since they have full access they could have also taken it and fix whatever they think is wrong with it.
Unfortunately I have been ignored for the most part.
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Martin Iturbide on November 24, 2017, 05:33:11 pm
No problem Lars. I also had felt the frustration on some different simple things that can be fixed with ArcaOS. The good thing is that you spoke it out.  Let's move on !!

Keep posting the wishlist !!!
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Andreas Schnellbacher on November 24, 2017, 07:42:58 pm
Unfortunately I have been ignored for the most part.
I understand and correct my view. Good luck!
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: RickCHodgin on November 24, 2017, 07:53:33 pm
Ok, I apologize.

But given the fact that I have implemented this more than 1 year ago and that AN did not pick it up (which would finally allow me and everyone else to have only one USB stack,same holds true for all changes Wim Brul and me did to USBAUDIO.SYS) you might understand my frustation a little better. Whatever I did has always been visible and accessible by AN and in the past I communicated to them whatever I did. Since they have full access they could have also taken it and fix whatever they think is wrong with it.
Unfortunately I have been ignored for the most part.

If you want to help me work on ES/2, then you'd be able to implement to your heart's content. :-)

I really want to make ES/2 the best operating system in the world.  I want assistance from many people so that we are moving forward purposefully, correctly, deliberately toward the goal of empowering people with an amazing tool that doesn't spy on them, doesn't track their actions unless they explicitly and purposefully install a third-party tool to do such a thing (such as for monitoring their kid's traffic, or for law enforcement to monitor a convicted criminal's activity, etc.).

We can do it together.  I bet there are developers at IBM who are now retired who would like to come back now and help us with ES/2 since OS/2 and everything related to it will be completely out of patents in the very near future.
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Martin Iturbide on November 27, 2017, 01:09:39 pm
Hi

I spitted the subject to "Large Floppy Support Discussion - USBMSD.ADD (http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,1560.msg15088.html#msg15088)" seems there is required further discussion to clear some concepts.

Let's focus on the wishlist for ArcaOS.

It seems there was also some shift on the discussion that a different File System support might be also part of the wishlist.

Regards
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Martin Iturbide on December 28, 2017, 11:28:08 pm

Quote
But: as it turns out ArcaOS is getting more and more closed source, so - even if these Drivers will be available those may be only licensed for ArcaOS I fear - may be not.

Actually, that isn't entirely true. Arca Noae is adding value (sometimes by removing unproven, unstable , or legally questionable, features from some things) to most of their drivers etc. and they are building them, with some support available. Those drivers are available, for all "current" versions of OS/2 (warp 4, and up, AFAIK). through subscriptions. The base code is shared with the open source repositories, when it is possible to do it, but somebody else needs to build, and support, that code. I think the Arca Noae build system is kept private, and probably has patches etc. that public sources won't have. When you purchase a subscription, you support Arca Noae in making better drivers (and other things).

Hi Doug

I found an exception here. The OS2AHCI driver used to be completely open source (GNU GPL V2) and now the latest versions includes David's Drv32, which the binaries may be freeware but the source code is contaminated by the IBM DDK license (can not be made public).

They may have their reasons that with David's Drv32 they can do interesting things (but I haven't noticed that on OS2AHCI), but it is step back in a driver that used to be 100% open source software.

---

Everybody, keep posting our wishlist about ArcaOS. It seems to me that  the "Sound Driver" is starting to get a higher priority on the community wishlist.

Regards
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Andreas Schnellbacher on December 29, 2017, 12:22:30 am
They may have their reasons that with David's Drv32 they can do interesting things (but I haven't noticed that on OS2AHCI), but it is step back in a driver that used to be 100% open source software.
Martin, you argue as if we would have an alternative. IMO if there were one, we could start to think about ideas like that. Don't forget that we are all happy that David does driver development - and he does it well.

Which OS/2 driver is 100 % OSS? Is that possible at all?
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Martin Iturbide on December 29, 2017, 03:41:10 am
Don't forget that we are all happy that David does driver development - and he does it well.

Should I just shut my mouth and be happy?

Don't get me wrong but I don't want to repeat the old story when users were not happy with Mensys and eComStation and there was a reply saying "You should shut up and be grateful because they are the ones keeping OS/2 alive". The idea of a community is that people can have their opinion and express it freely.  I'm guessing that Arca Noae and the user community are mature enough to get constructive criticism and fell free to express their point of view.

The fact is that I don't like putting a proprietary library on which used to be an open source working driver. That can be see as vendor locking with private source code, instead of "locking" the customer with good service.

Regards.
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Doug Bissett on December 29, 2017, 07:11:09 am
Quote
They may have their reasons that with David's Drv32 they can do interesting things (but I haven't noticed that on OS2AHCI), but it is step back in a driver that used to be 100% open source software.

David's DRV32 is available, if you look for it. The IBM DDK is not available AFAIK, and anybody who has it is bound by the IBM license.

Quote
I'm guessing that Arca Noae and the user community are mature enough to get constructive criticism and fell free to express their point of view.

I don't speak for Arca Noae, but it is my view that they have started a project to continue OS/2 into the future. They cannot do that without financial support, and they do a LOT of work to make it happen. There is nothing wrong with charging to build drivers, etc., and that is exactly what they are doing. Plus, they support their work to the best of their abilities (and their abilities are incredible). If you wish to do that for free, by all means do so. You might find that it isn't as easy as you might think. AFAIK, the source is being made available for all open source software. Whether you can build the drivers yourself may depend on a lot of things.
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Sigurd Fastenrath on December 29, 2017, 10:20:41 am
The IBM DDK is not available AFAIK

You mean this here? : https://archive.org/download/IBMDDKit2004 (https://archive.org/download/IBMDDKit2004)

I don't speak for Arca Noae, ....

 ::)  .....
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Martin Iturbide on December 29, 2017, 02:00:34 pm
Hi

Like I said before, even that DRV32 is freeware (https://88watts.net/software.html), it's source code it still govern by the IBM DDK license. It has been used to add (I don't know which) functionality to the AHCI driver. What I would consider something better, is that DRV32 source code became a netlabs close source project just like Lars has done with the USB drivers, so Netlabs can also share the ownership of it to have a chance that if 5 or 10 years David no longer wants to work on DRV32, it can be switched to other developer. With that DRV32 will still respect the IBM DDK license and there will be change to don't get "lock".
 
Regards
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Roderick Klein on December 29, 2017, 11:59:54 pm

Quote
But: as it turns out ArcaOS is getting more and more closed source, so - even if these Drivers will be available those may be only licensed for ArcaOS I fear - may be not.

Actually, that isn't entirely true. Arca Noae is adding value (sometimes by removing unproven, unstable , or legally questionable, features from some things) to most of their drivers etc. and they are building them, with some support available. Those drivers are available, for all "current" versions of OS/2 (warp 4, and up, AFAIK). through subscriptions. The base code is shared with the open source repositories, when it is possible to do it, but somebody else needs to build, and support, that code. I think the Arca Noae build system is kept private, and probably has patches etc. that public sources won't have. When you purchase a subscription, you support Arca Noae in making better drivers (and other things).

Hi Doug

I found an exception here. The OS2AHCI driver used to be completely open source (GNU GPL V2) and now the latest versions includes David's Drv32, which the binaries may be freeware but the source code is contaminated by the IBM DDK license (can not be made public).

They may have their reasons that with David's Drv32 they can do interesting things (but I haven't noticed that on OS2AHCI), but it is step back in a driver that used to be 100% open source software.

---

Everybody, keep posting our wishlist about ArcaOS. It seems to me that  the "Sound Driver" is starting to get a higher priority on the community wishlist.

Regards

I think I invited people to checkout David his presentation from Warpstock Toronto 2017.
They are working on USB 3.0 and an audio drivers is in the works to replace UNIAUD.
Look up the video on youtube in which he explains it in more detail.

Roderick
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: David Graser on December 30, 2017, 04:17:55 am
Yes, USB is necessary since most usb devices are now 3.0.  I am wondering about the encryption that these devices demand that you do.  Don't do the encryption and the drive is useless.  I was also wondering about WIFI.  This is something I have been waiting for a long time. 

David



Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Doug Bissett on December 30, 2017, 05:43:01 am
Quote
Yes, USB is necessary since most usb devices are now 3.0.

No, USB  3 is not necessary. USB 3 devices will work with USB 2 cables, hubs, and controllers, at USB 2 speeds. However, a USB 3 driver is becoming much more important now that many new computers don't have USB 2 controllers. This is likely more important than WiFi.

Quote
I am wondering about the encryption that these devices demand that you do.  Don't do the encryption and the drive is useless.

The only device that I have seen with "so called" built in encryption was easily fixed. First, you probably want to use DFSEE to image the drive, so you can put it back to the way that you got it. Then, use DFSEE to wipe the front end of the disk. Now, it is just an empty USB device,waiting for you to put proper partitions on it, and format it. There may be something new, that I don't know about.

Quote
I was also wondering about WIFI.  This is something I have been waiting for a long time.

Yeah, WiFi is about 10 years over due. I do know that most of the project has been done, but other things are taking the developers time.
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Martin Iturbide on December 30, 2017, 01:01:14 pm
Quote
Yes, USB is necessary since most usb devices are now 3.0.

No, USB  3 is not necessary. USB 3 devices will work with USB 2 cables, hubs, and controllers, at USB 2 speeds. However, a USB 3 driver is becoming much more important now that many new computers don't have USB 2 controllers. This is likely more important than WiFi.

Remember that people has their own priorities. I think that USB 3.0 is not necessary just because of the USB 3.0 devices, it is necessary because there are machines that comes without CD and with only USB 3.0 ports (with no USB 2.0 legacy option on the BIOS), so you can not install OS/2 or ArcaOS on that machines because of that. (Or you can take out the HDD and load the image, but the USB ports will be useless. ) And present laptops are going this way. I also remember that discussing this at Warpstock some guy said that USB 3.0 is more important than Wifi because of this. His priority was that OS/2 remains installable on machines and before of that it cames the wifi driver.

Regards
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Roderick Klein on December 30, 2017, 01:28:12 pm
Quote
Yes, USB is necessary since most usb devices are now 3.0.

No, USB  3 is not necessary. USB 3 devices will work with USB 2 cables, hubs, and controllers, at USB 2 speeds. However, a USB 3 driver is becoming much more important now that many new computers don't have USB 2 controllers. This is likely more important than WiFi.

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I am wondering about the encryption that these devices demand that you do.  Don't do the encryption and the drive is useless.

The only device that I have seen with "so called" built in encryption was easily fixed. First, you probably want to use DFSEE to image the drive, so you can put it back to the way that you got it. Then, use DFSEE to wipe the front end of the disk. Now, it is just an empty USB device,waiting for you to put proper partitions on it, and format it. There may be something new, that I don't know about.

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I was also wondering about WIFI.  This is something I have been waiting for a long time.

Yeah, WiFi is about 10 years over due. I do know that most of the project has been done, but other things are taking the developers time.

Having worked on this project with David at Mensys at the time the Wifi driver project got a mayor blow by the LInux guys making changes of some kind. It made updating of the E1000E driver that is hosted at Netlabs just about impossible. Basically from what I can tell from the presentation from David at Warpstock is that Arca Noae has library that is used to compile FreeBSD sources.  That is how they created the new NIC drivers.
That is what put the WiFi drivers on hold.

For the same reason UNIAUD based on Alsa seems to be RIP.  They made to made changes to the Alsa code. David mentioned they are working on a FreeBSD audio driver.

Roderick
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Roderick Klein on December 30, 2017, 01:41:12 pm
Hi

Like I said before, even that DRV32 is freeware (https://88watts.net/software.html), it's source code it still govern by the IBM DDK license. It has been used to add (I don't know which) functionality to the AHCI driver. What I would consider something better, is that DRV32 source code became a netlabs close source project just like Lars has done with the USB drivers, so Netlabs can also share the ownership of it to have a chance that if 5 or 10 years David no longer wants to work on DRV32, it can be switched to other developer. With that DRV32 will still respect the IBM DDK license and there will be change to don't get "lock".
 
Regards

While I really happy with the work you Martin are doing and have been doing to collect API documentation and source code for drivers and applications.  I think its possibly time for a new strategy. What can be done with all of this source code ? As a community we can try to collect more source code. But the vast majority of work is not being done by the community. I can understand why that its happening as writing device drivers is a time consuming job.
While I can understand that you are not happy with the DRV32 library...

Practically speaking who is working on drivers for example ? And I do not think we need even more examples as Netlabs and hobbes has tons of driver sources stored already. Also checkin into SVN at Netlabs with revision history so people can see what and why was modified. When do we have enough source code ?

Roderick
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: ivan on December 30, 2017, 02:14:32 pm
Quote
Yes, USB is necessary since most usb devices are now 3.0.

No, USB  3 is not necessary. USB 3 devices will work with USB 2 cables, hubs, and controllers, at USB 2 speeds. However, a USB 3 driver is becoming much more important now that many new computers don't have USB 2 controllers. This is likely more important than WiFi.

Remember that people has their own priorities. I think that USB 3.0 is not necessary just because of the USB 3.0 devices, it is necessary because there are machines that comes without CD and with only USB 3.0 ports (with no USB 2.0 legacy option on the BIOS), so you can not install OS/2 or ArcaOS on that machines because of that. (Or you can take out the HDD and load the image, but the USB ports will be useless. ) And present laptops are going this way. I also remember that discussing this at Warpstock some guy said that USB 3.0 is more important than Wifi because of this. His priority was that OS/2 remains installable on machines and before of that it cames the wifi driver.

Regards

I couldn't agree more Martin.

There used to be workrounds for the odd motherboard problems  but with the current crop of boards we have to be even more selective.  A lot of them are using the ASMedia chip for USB (mainly 3 but also some 2) and the documentation specifically says that it won't work with OS/2. (Linux has managed to get a partial workround) which makes more than 50% of modern boards useless.

There are also problems with usb on the AMD Ryzen support chipsets even though they are supposed to support usb 2 as well as 3 but for some reason they don't work with our usb drivers so the two boards I have just run Linux rather than my preferred OS/2 (ArcaOS).
 
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Roderick Klein on December 30, 2017, 04:17:57 pm
We have Lars Erdmann and Wim Brul working on the UBSMSD and USB audio driver.
Other then that not much driver development is being done by the community (Or did I miss anybody). As I typed before I can understand why, writing drivers is not an easy task and its timing consuming. Especially when it comes to debugging drivers then run into trouble.

What I think would be great is if we can see if we can some more development going again.  From what I can tell developers such as BWW already get very little feedback and Lars I think also does not get that much amount of feedback. Hence my other reason why I think at certain moment you have enough source code as community and see what we can do with that source code. As in put it to good use.

One thing I think that would be great community project is to use the Arca Noae ACPI toolkit and see if we can create a tool that can

* Warn when your battery runs low on your laptop. I miss that Thinkpad feature and I do no get an audio beep.

* A tool that dim the backlight of your LCD screen when you are running on battery power. Doing this is laptop depended but might be possible in some cases via ACPI or in some cases via the VESA BIOS. It could dramticly extend the battery live of your laptop.

Just one idea. on how to keep OS/2 really useable so people stick with the platform. Then it also makes more sense to talk about a full blown OS/2 open source replacement. You need a go in between if such a project even has a fighting chance. The above is just one example of what we could do to try and improve the useability of OS/2.

Roderick
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Eugene Tucker on December 30, 2017, 04:58:03 pm
In truth we need USB 3.0 and WiFi equally as much for the future of OS/2. If everyone supported ArcaOS I wonder if that would be a stimulus to more driver development. Let's face it Ecomstaion is a bridge to nowhere right now.
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Roderick Klein on December 30, 2017, 06:22:16 pm
Again I invite everybody to look at David Azarewicz his presentation he gave at Warpstock in Torinto this year. He is working on Wifi and USB 3.0 and a new audio driver.  All of these projects are moving along and from how I understand his presentation they are in a far reaching stage. But its all a lot of work.

If you look at the postings they have been doing they are also working on updating the base OS:

Such as adding MSI interrupt support to OS/2 and to the drivers that need to use them.
I have had two systems myself where a NIC and disc controller would not work without MSI IRQ support.
They also for example expanded the IRQ support of the kernel from 48 to 64 IRQ's because some of the more modern mainboards so peripherals work.

So a lot of stuff continues to be worked on. I would imagen why they would do USB 3.0 first as I do find any USB 2.0 host controller support in computers being sold in stores.

Roderick




Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Dave Yeo on December 30, 2017, 06:30:41 pm
In truth we need USB 3.0 and WiFi equally as much for the future of OS/2. If everyone supported ArcaOS I wonder if that would be a stimulus to more driver development. Let's face it Ecomstaion is a bridge to nowhere right now.

The problem is a shortage of knowledgeable OS/2 device developers. Not all developers can write device drivers as different developers seem to have different expertise. David is probably working as fast as he can, so to develop more drivers would mean finding someone, hiring them and training them in OS/2 development. A good developer is likely to cost upwards of $200.000 a year (cheaper if hired in a cheaper country) including all the various overheads, which means selling  a few thousand licenses at least per developer, perhaps quite a few more depending on the profit margins of ArcaOS. Meanwhile our community is shrinking and in this time of "free" software including operating systems, it's hard to imagine much new blood to buy licenses.
Even Windows seems to be free to most people as it comes bundled with the hardware.
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Martin Iturbide on December 30, 2017, 06:52:35 pm
While I really happy with the work you Martin are doing and have been doing to collect API documentation and source code for drivers and applications.  I think its possibly time for a new strategy. What can be done with all of this source code ? As a community we can try to collect more source code. But the vast majority of work is not being done by the community. I can understand why that its happening as writing device drivers is a time consuming job.
While I can understand that you are not happy with the DRV32 library...

Practically speaking who is working on drivers for example ? And I do not think we need even more examples as Netlabs and hobbes has tons of driver sources stored already. Also checkin into SVN at Netlabs with revision history so people can see what and why was modified. When do we have enough source code ?

Roderick

We will never have enough source code !!  Collecting source code and documenting the OS/2 API is already advanced but it is not finished yet.  Knowledge it just a base to create things. I still do not think that the knowledge to create device drivers is completely consolidated and public. We need more documentation and articles about this subject.

But you are right by asking what comes next.

In the device drivers area I still think that there should be alternatives to the IBM DDK Source code samples, the IBM DDK binary tools can be used (since some version of the IBM DDK were available with free registration on the web) but I think that some open source samples are still needed.  It will be interesting to try to create an open source friendly IBM DDK Samples alternative. (maybe BSD license)

For drivers based on the IBM DDK samples it will be satisfactory to me to create close source projects, but that are collaborative and governed by an organization like Netlabs, just like Lars is doing with his USB drivers. It is not the best thing for open source to use IBM DDK based drivers, but giving the source code changes rights to a third party will make me happy on this area to reduce the risk that the developer loose interest and we may lost the source code.

On the other hand we need device driver developers which is the hardest part. But I think it is also worst to have the rare case of having someone that has the will to create driver, but can not find examples or documentation on how to do it on OS/2. If someone wants to sponsor a device driver or try to raise money to create one, I will jump into that ship as long as it is an open source driver or at least that the source is giving to a  third party non-profit organization that will share the rights and may continue the development in the future. Maybe with the exception that for the moment it will not be desirable a device driver of the ones that are on the
Arca's roadmap, just to don't step other firemen hose.

(please remember this are my personal opinions).

Regards
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: OS4User on December 30, 2017, 08:16:51 pm
I have had two systems myself where a NIC and disc controller would not work without MSI IRQ support.

Interesting. Could you please describe your systems, especially what mobo is in them and output of PCI.exe.
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Lars on December 30, 2017, 08:37:55 pm
Here you go with 2 drivers that I have written:

http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/system/drivers/misc/mchnchk2.wpi
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/system/drivers/misc/syscall.wpi

The WPIs contain all the source code. While they might not serve a practical purpose for most people, they are a live example of what can be done in a device driver.

And here is another one (including source code).
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/system/drivers/misc/os2pcat3.wpi

The latter is a PSD. Hopefully the source code contains enough comments for people to understand :-)
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Roderick Klein on December 30, 2017, 09:01:27 pm
While I really happy with the work you Martin are doing and have been doing to collect API documentation and source code for drivers and applications.  I think its possibly time for a new strategy. What can be done with all of this source code ? As a community we can try to collect more source code. But the vast majority of work is not being done by the community. I can understand why that its happening as writing device drivers is a time consuming job.
While I can understand that you are not happy with the DRV32 library...

Practically speaking who is working on drivers for example ? And I do not think we need even more examples as Netlabs and hobbes has tons of driver sources stored already. Also checkin into SVN at Netlabs with revision history so people can see what and why was modified. When do we have enough source code ?

Roderick

We will never have enough source code !!  Collecting source code and documenting the OS/2 API is already advanced but it is not finished yet.  Knowledge it just a base to create things. I still do not think that the knowledge to create device drivers is completely consolidated and public. We need more documentation and articles about this subject.

But you are right by asking what comes next.

In the device drivers area I still think that there should be alternatives to the IBM DDK Source code samples, the IBM DDK binary tools can be used (since some version of the IBM DDK were available with free registration on the web) but I think that some open source samples are still needed.  It will be interesting to try to create an open source friendly IBM DDK Samples alternative. (maybe BSD license)

For drivers based on the IBM DDK samples it will be satisfactory to me to create close source projects, but that are collaborative and governed by an organization like Netlabs, just like Lars is doing with his USB drivers. It is not the best thing for open source to use IBM DDK based drivers, but giving the source code changes rights to a third party will make me happy on this area to reduce the risk that the developer loose interest and we may lost the source code.

On the other hand we need device driver developers which is the hardest part. But I think it is also worst to have the rare case of having someone that has the will to create driver, but can not find examples or documentation on how to do it on OS/2. If someone wants to sponsor a device driver or try to raise money to create one, I will jump into that ship as long as it is an open source driver or at least that the source is giving to a  third party non-profit organization that will share the rights and may continue the development in the future. Maybe with the exception that for the moment it will not be desirable a device driver of the ones that are on the
Arca's roadmap, just to don't step other firemen hose.

(please remember this are my personal opinions).

Regards

Well let me ask you this question then. What should the source code contain ? I will explain to you why we are pretty complete. Look which drivers OS/2 can load. IFS, storage drivers, NIC and audio for example.
We have plenty of examples of these drivers at Netlabs and on hobbes. If you even start looking in more detail you will see the DANIS506.ADD and OS2AHCI will have a small portion of code that talks to OS/2.
The OS/2 kernel/OS2DASD driver make calls to storage driver and its most likely these API's you are interested in to have documented. The other code in the DANIS506.ADD and OS2AHCI is not that interesting if you for example want to create a new open source version of OS/2. Lets say you would want that kernel to be able to load OS/2 drivers.

With audio, NIC and IFS drivers its the same thing. Most of the code is mostly not OS/2 related. If you want to write a driver for OS/2 you can go two ways. The first one really sucks. This I think could be example where you end up with up: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/datasheets/ethernet-controller-i350-datasheet.pdf Happy reading and then writing code based on all the registers.

Or you do how the Multimac project started out:
http://trac.netlabs.org/multimac/browser/trunk/e1000e/e1000hw.c
If you skim the code you will get somewhat of a feel what is happening and what the code does. It talks to chip.
Most of that code is not even OS/2 code specific. Its just C code that talks to the hardware and thanks to C code being a standard open watcom can compile the code. 

Both these scenario's take up a lot of time and requiring patience and working accurately. Such as checking into SVN so you can track what changes you made. If a driver does crash you system you need to use a kernel debugger via a serial cable or grab a memory dump. Then it can still be very time consuming and a detective job to find why a driver you wrote blows up.

Anyway I kind of what to explain to you that for anybody who wants to write device drivers for OS/2 it should be possible with the current code we have. But you need to have patience, time and understand what you are doing. Drivers work at ring 0 of a computer and an error can make the OS crash or hang. 

As I see it the DANIS506.ADD driver is mature but the code will most likely never be updated. But when Mensys had the first OS2AHCI driver developed the developers that worked on that code looked at the DANIS506.ADD driver to spot what they needed to pay attention to on how to interface with OS/2 its API calls.

Both JFS.IFS and FAT32 are basically the same API calls into the OS2KRNL the rest is file system specific code.
Maybe now you understand if you want developers to write code why I said we always have had enough code.

As when it comes to the DDK as I understand a portion of the DDK code is in Open Watcom and the guys rewrote portions of the DDK code. How much of the DDK code is in the Open Watcom I can not tell you.
While I share you hope the DDK can be rewritten I think with our current human resources we have its not practical to expect this to happen anytime soon.

This is why invited you to work with the people in the forum and with OS/2 VOICE is you want to start working on projects such as one I suggested. We are collecting funding. Any further OS/2 development will need more people on the platform that also means users.

I have been looking for people to help repackage software in RPM software rpm.os2voice.org could get large library I simply lack the time for it with a day job. But getting more applications is what I need people to help me with.

I hope the stuff about the driver stuff was useful if you have questions let me know.

Everybody have a good 2018 and thanks for helping to keep OS/2 on the move.

Roderick
Title: Re: ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 02, 2018, 02:13:50 pm
I have been looking for people to help repackage software in RPM software rpm.os2voice.org could get large library I simply lack the time for it with a day job. But getting more applications is what I need people to help me with.

Hi Roderick.

I think this project is a good idea. Why don't you create a new thread for this topic and let the people know what do you already have and what it is needed.

Regards