Author Topic: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience  (Read 14680 times)

Holger Schuett

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ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« on: May 21, 2017, 01:49:58 pm »
Hi there,

I thought I would share my experiences too concerning ArcaOS, so here we go, but first off all : Thank you to all those who made this possible.

I have a Lenovo X61 which I used exclusively with ECS (2.2 Beta) and now with ArcaOS.
I made a complete backup of my ECS installation and then wiped the HD, as I intended to avoid any problems with a seocnd OS when installing ArcaOS.
And I must admit, I did not read any of the documents included concerning the installation, I was far too excited.

In the Boot options menue I chose Boot with menu for own values
In the pre-boot configuration program  I chose ACPI /modern hardware, left the panorama driver chosen and changed the mouse driver to smouse (for personal reasons I prefer this driver)
On the page with the drives listed (storage controllers etc) I made no changes, everything was correct.
On the network page the Nulldis-Driver was suggested? The X61 has the intel 4965 wireless card/chip built in so I chose the complementray Genmac, it was not detected automatically, but I was/am not sure if it should be detected. Everything else I left untouched  (no static IP configuration etc.)
On the boot options page I only changed the keyboard layout to german and checked the 'Skip hard disk validation' box.

I saved the changes and the installation proceeded to the graphical installation program.
Here comes the first surprise:  As mentioned above I had changed the keyboard layout to german, but in the graphical program the selection read US layout.
OK, no problem, I changed it again to german, but compared to ECS 2.2 I rememberd the changes having been stored.
I then proceeded and chose the custom installation to be able to choose which components should be installed.

Regarding the display drivers I found out that snap was listed there, it had not been listed in the preeboot menu? ( I prefer snap)
(I did not choose the Win/OS2 installation, only DOS support) and realizing RSJ CD Writer was not included I chose to install the CD/DVD utilities. I did not change any other values.

Concerning the network adapters: As mentioned I had previously chosen to have the Genmac for the Intel 4965 installed, but when the graphcial installtion programm proceeded to the network adapters page and I checked no driver was installed and it did not suggest any driver either, so I presume the Intel 4965 was not detected automatically? I chose it manually and added the protocol too.

Then I proceeded with the installation and some ten minutes later ( more or less) ArcOS booted to the desktop environment :-)

Beautiful and everything seemed to work as expected!
Then I started playing around a bit and proceeded with the configuration.

Snap works well here ( for my needs), better than with ecs 2.2, at least this is my impression. I adjusted the settings concerning colors, resolution etc. THe only thing not working is when selecting 'advanced' on the first page, I rember this used to call the command line tools for snap?

The I proceeded to setup my wireless network:
 I am not so happy here with the wireless lan monitor and, as I realized the DHCP client used is the isc dhclient. (On ecs 2.2 I always used the XWLAN 310 which in my case seems to be quicker when establishing a connection?). I might try to switch back, but right now I was able to establish the connection to my wireless network at home, so no big problem at all.

Sound: I installed with my X61 docked to the docking station using the built in optical drive. I had chosen the uniaud driver to be installed.
When booting with the x61 docked the sound works. With the X61 undocked sound did not work and it did not work either with ecs2.2. To be precise : If I connect an external speaker the sound is there but the internal speaker of the X61 does not work.
What I had to do was to call the unimix in the config.sys and pass the correct parameters,  then sound works with the internal speaker too. (Restrictions : The mute knob of the X61 works, the 2 knobs for the volume control do not work)

Printers: This is the most exciting experience with ArcaOS (for me)

I have a Samsung 2165W. With Ecs 2.2 I had tried to install the printer using cups and failed everytime. It was not listed in the supported printers and I tried to work around but failed. So actually I was only playing around a bit when I realized it was listed now when choosing Create Cups Printer and Samsung Printers. So I gave it a try and here I am happily printing!
(I don't know whom to say thank you too personally but I presume Paul Smedley ? and Alexander Taylor?)



Software (just a few comments):
Firefox works well, better than ever before with ECS 2.2, so thumbs up.
DVD Tools/Toys do not work with my  LG USB  DVD Writer? I have not yet looked into this, but according to the log there seems to be a problem with the apsirout... I will check later and I have a valid RSJ CD Writer I can install.
The graphical interface for changing the multimedia installation is missing, I don't know why?

All in all this is a great experience, the system is very fast and responsive and for my needs actually almost perfect!!!!!

There is one point where I cannot not see any improvement yet compared to ECS 2.2 for example and this is power management.
As mentioned I installed with ACPI, this is the only way installation works on my X61. If my battery is fully charged, I have a maximum of 100 minutes left when running on battery. (If I for example boot a life Linux Mint I have about 3 Hours 30 Mins without any extra tuning)
Calling the power object in the System-Setup the performance is always stuck to maximum performance, no possibility to change this.
I know there is the acpid.cfg but the changes available or recommended do not provoke any significant change concerning power consumption.
The FN Keys for example to change the settings of the display do not work either, so I am stuck with a maximum power consumption when running on battery?
Suspend/Resume does not work with the acpi included, it worked with the previous version 3.23.04. Now the system supends but when waking up it goes to a complete reboot.

 But once again, thank you too all the people who worked hard on making this possible.

Cheers
Holger

 



 

Dave Yeo

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Re: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« Reply #1 on: May 21, 2017, 05:34:55 pm »
The wireless network setup is not supported at this time which is why you had to do it manually and the DVD utilities support for USB drives was not finished in time.
Both are planned for 5.1
Here, everything works on my T42 except hibernate. I have to use the APM route rather then ACPI.

Holger Schuett

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Re: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« Reply #2 on: May 21, 2017, 09:32:13 pm »
Hi Dave,
thank you for your reply and your remarks. Concerning the wireless network setup and the DVD utilities
I am glad to hear that both are planned for 5.1, but as said before, these are minor problems. The main issue remains the power management. I used to have a R52 which I gave away last year, on that machine power management worked fine, probably the same way as on your T42, I even was able to hibernate. FN keys worked etc.. Like you I had to use APM, but it worked.
On the X61 the APM route ends with a Trap, the only way to install is using ACPI, leaving me with the problems I mentioned.

Roderick Klein

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Re: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« Reply #3 on: May 21, 2017, 10:58:17 pm »
Hi there,

I thought I would share my experiences too concerning ArcaOS, so here we go, but first off all : Thank you to all those who made this possible.

I have a Lenovo X61 which I used exclusively with ECS (2.2 Beta) and now with ArcaOS.
I made a complete backup of my ECS installation and then wiped the HD, as I intended to avoid any problems with a seocnd OS when installing ArcaOS.
And I must admit, I did not read any of the documents included concerning the installation, I was far too excited.

In the Boot options menue I chose Boot with menu for own values
In the pre-boot configuration program  I chose ACPI /modern hardware, left the panorama driver chosen and changed the mouse driver to smouse (for personal reasons I prefer this driver)
On the page with the drives listed (storage controllers etc) I made no changes, everything was correct.
On the network page the Nulldis-Driver was suggested? The X61 has the intel 4965 wireless card/chip built in so I chose the complementray Genmac, it was not detected automatically, but I was/am not sure if it should be detected. Everything else I left untouched  (no static IP configuration etc.)
On the boot options page I only changed the keyboard layout to german and checked the 'Skip hard disk validation' box.

I saved the changes and the installation proceeded to the graphical installation program.
Here comes the first surprise:  As mentioned above I had changed the keyboard layout to german, but in the graphical program the selection read US layout.
OK, no problem, I changed it again to german, but compared to ECS 2.2 I rememberd the changes having been stored.
I then proceeded and chose the custom installation to be able to choose which components should be installed.

Regarding the display drivers I found out that snap was listed there, it had not been listed in the preeboot menu? ( I prefer snap)
(I did not choose the Win/OS2 installation, only DOS support) and realizing RSJ CD Writer was not included I chose to install the CD/DVD utilities. I did not change any other values.

Concerning the network adapters: As mentioned I had previously chosen to have the Genmac for the Intel 4965 installed, but when the graphcial installtion programm proceeded to the network adapters page and I checked no driver was installed and it did not suggest any driver either, so I presume the Intel 4965 was not detected automatically? I chose it manually and added the protocol too.

Then I proceeded with the installation and some ten minutes later ( more or less) ArcOS booted to the desktop environment :-)

Beautiful and everything seemed to work as expected!
Then I started playing around a bit and proceeded with the configuration.

Snap works well here ( for my needs), better than with ecs 2.2, at least this is my impression. I adjusted the settings concerning colors, resolution etc. THe only thing not working is when selecting 'advanced' on the first page, I rember this used to call the command line tools for snap?

The I proceeded to setup my wireless network:
 I am not so happy here with the wireless lan monitor and, as I realized the DHCP client used is the isc dhclient. (On ecs 2.2 I always used the XWLAN 310 which in my case seems to be quicker when establishing a connection?). I might try to switch back, but right now I was able to establish the connection to my wireless network at home, so no big problem at all.

Sound: I installed with my X61 docked to the docking station using the built in optical drive. I had chosen the uniaud driver to be installed.
When booting with the x61 docked the sound works. With the X61 undocked sound did not work and it did not work either with ecs2.2. To be precise : If I connect an external speaker the sound is there but the internal speaker of the X61 does not work.
What I had to do was to call the unimix in the config.sys and pass the correct parameters,  then sound works with the internal speaker too. (Restrictions : The mute knob of the X61 works, the 2 knobs for the volume control do not work)

Printers: This is the most exciting experience with ArcaOS (for me)

I have a Samsung 2165W. With Ecs 2.2 I had tried to install the printer using cups and failed everytime. It was not listed in the supported printers and I tried to work around but failed. So actually I was only playing around a bit when I realized it was listed now when choosing Create Cups Printer and Samsung Printers. So I gave it a try and here I am happily printing!
(I don't know whom to say thank you too personally but I presume Paul Smedley ? and Alexander Taylor?)



Software (just a few comments):
Firefox works well, better than ever before with ECS 2.2, so thumbs up.
DVD Tools/Toys do not work with my  LG USB  DVD Writer? I have not yet looked into this, but according to the log there seems to be a problem with the apsirout... I will check later and I have a valid RSJ CD Writer I can install.
The graphical interface for changing the multimedia installation is missing, I don't know why?

All in all this is a great experience, the system is very fast and responsive and for my needs actually almost perfect!!!!!

There is one point where I cannot not see any improvement yet compared to ECS 2.2 for example and this is power management.
As mentioned I installed with ACPI, this is the only way installation works on my X61. If my battery is fully charged, I have a maximum of 100 minutes left when running on battery. (If I for example boot a life Linux Mint I have about 3 Hours 30 Mins without any extra tuning)
Calling the power object in the System-Setup the performance is always stuck to maximum performance, no possibility to change this.
I know there is the acpid.cfg but the changes available or recommended do not provoke any significant change concerning power consumption.
The FN Keys for example to change the settings of the display do not work either, so I am stuck with a maximum power consumption when running on battery?
Suspend/Resume does not work with the acpi included, it worked with the previous version 3.23.04. Now the system supends but when waking up it goes to a complete reboot.

 But once again, thank you too all the people who worked hard on making this possible.

Cheers
Holger

Choosing smouse with SMP might now work correct I have seen traps with this as well. Since its the same SMOUSE.SYS as with eCS....

Just iike with eCS I recommend people to *not* by default switch off the disc checker _unless_ you have issue's.

From what I understand about ACPI from AN is that its not something that is official supported. (Also based on what David mentioned at Warpstocks).

Can you post the log about cdrecord ? (You can open the and copy paste that to the forum).

I also just installed as a test on anther box, works without to many issue's.

Roderick

Holger Schuett

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Re: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« Reply #4 on: May 22, 2017, 09:52:46 pm »
Hi Roderick
Quote
Can you post the log about cdrecord ? (You can open the and copy paste that to the forum).
sorry, I already had the DVD Tools uninstalled before I read your reply, so no log left. I might try another install and keep it in mind then.
Quote
From what I understand about ACPI from AN is that its not something that is official supported. (Also based on what David mentioned at Warpstocks).
Hm, not quite sure what this means, I thought the ACPI is provided by AN?

Holger

guzzi

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Re: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2017, 10:18:21 pm »
Hi Roderick
Quote
Can you post the log about cdrecord ? (You can open the and copy paste that to the forum).
sorry, I already had the DVD Tools uninstalled before I read your reply, so no log left. I might try another install and keep it in mind then.
Quote
From what I understand about ACPI from AN is that its not something that is official supported. (Also based on what David mentioned at Warpstocks).
Hm, not quite sure what this means, I thought the ACPI is provided by AN?

Holger

I think what Roderick means is that power management in ACPI is not supported by Arca Noae. If I remember correctly Davis said at Warpstock because it is hardware vendor specific.

Dave Yeo

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Re: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« Reply #6 on: May 22, 2017, 11:08:29 pm »
Hi Roderick
Quote
Can you post the log about cdrecord ? (You can open the and copy paste that to the forum).
sorry, I already had the DVD Tools uninstalled before I read your reply, so no log left. I might try another install and keep it in mind then.

In x:\var\log\warpin.log, search for something like,

WarpIN 1.0.22 install log opened
Date: 2017-05-06, Time: 21:46:18
--------------------------------
21:46:18.52 Opening archive "S:\cid\server\arcapkg\dvdtools.wpi"
21:46:18.53 Calling WIArchive::open("S:\cid\server\arcapkg\dvdtools.wpi")

Pete

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Re: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2017, 04:22:49 am »
Hi All

Installed fairly easily to a Dell E5500 laptop.

What does not work: No network support for Intel 5100 wireless included = no internet, peer network or printing; Not good.

Attempts to get the wireless nic working have failed so far. During boot genmac displays something like "no valid hardware-info in protocol.ini for wrnd$32" or similar when using the genmac driver that worked fine with eCS.

Even if I get the nic working I still will not be able to print due to the missing cups backend, bjnp.exe, required by Canon wireless printers - No, USB connectivity is not an option.

Sorry, but I am not keen on xcenter and would prefer to use Warpcenter. Any ideas if this is possible?

How do I get rid of the Trashcan? - Even better, Can I install a full XWP rather than the cutdown version included in ArcaOS?

Overall: looks pretty, seems reasonably responsive but is not much use on this fairly basic laptop due to lack of connectivity and printing.

Installed fairly easily to a Dell E5500 laptop.

What does not work: No network support for Intel 5100 wireless included = no internet, peer network or printing; Not good.

Attempts to get the wireless nic working have failed so far. During boot genmac displays something like "no valid hardware-info in protocol.ini for wrnd$32" or similar when using the genmac driver that worked fine with eCS. Even if I get the nic working I still will not be able to print due to the missing cups backend, bjnp.exe, required by Canon wireless printers - No, USB connectivity is not an option.

Sorry, but I am not keen on xcenter and would prefer to use Warpcenter. Any ideas if this is possible?

How do I get rid of the Trashcan? - Even better, Can I install a full XWP rather than the cutdown version included in ArcaOS?

Bit surprised to see a [Boot Drive]:\ecs directory...

Overall: looks pretty, seems reasonably responsive but is not much use due to lack of connectivity and printing.
Regards

Pete

Dave Yeo

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Re: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« Reply #8 on: May 23, 2017, 04:49:11 am »
an x:\ecs directory is a regression, we weeded out all references to eCS early in the beta program but obviously missed something.
You can just over install the full XWP over the light version, therefore keeping the USB drive widget and then uncheck the trashcan in which ever settings page it's in.
Warpcentre should be installable the old way, adding WARPCENTER to the set autostart line in config.sys.
You'll have to open issues for your network and printing problems.

Pete

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Re: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« Reply #9 on: May 23, 2017, 05:27:34 am »
Hi Dave

Not sure how my post got "doubled"...

Networking problems resolved - uninstalled the arca supplied genmac and installed the genmac2.2.1 release plus driver package. Of course, I then found that File and Print Client was not installed - possibly I missed selecting that during installation.

Good to know that XWP should "over install" without problems. Shame I do not like the xcenter as the USB widget looks interesting...

On to uninstalling the cups stuff and installing a working, non-rpm, cups setup.


Regards

Pete

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Re: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« Reply #10 on: May 23, 2017, 03:54:49 pm »
Hi All

Out of interest I have managed to get this laptop close enough to connect to my printer using USB.

The USBPRT Auto Monitor is not running on this laptop - not needed for cups printers - and when I plug in the USB lead the xcenter USB widget does it's USB device attached bit and follows that with something about Unrecognised device. Looks like that widget needs fixing.

Testing USB attached cups printing was a total "filter failure" - gstoraster failure.


Regards

Pete



Alex Taylor

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Re: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« Reply #11 on: May 24, 2017, 02:06:35 pm »
What does not work: No network support for Intel 5100 wireless included = no internet, peer network or printing; Not good.

ArcaOS ships with a special GenMAC package that does not include any drivers that we were unable to get legal permission to distribute.

(In addition, I'm pretty certain the 5100 is not a standard GenMAC-shipped driver to begin with.)

If you need a GenMAC driver that isn't included with ArcaOS, the correct procedure is to uninstall GenMAC (if installed) using WarpIN, then obtain the 'full' GenMAC package from NetLabs or elsewhere and install that.


Quote
Sorry, but I am not keen on xcenter and would prefer to use Warpcenter. Any ideas if this is possible?

It's easy, just turn off the autostart option in the XCenter properties, then edit CONFIG.SYS and add ,WARPCENTER to the SET AUTOSTART line and reboot.


Quote
How do I get rid of the Trashcan? - Even better, Can I install a full XWP rather than the cutdown version included in ArcaOS?

Just uninstall XWorkplace from WarpIN, then install the full version.

Quote
Bit surprised to see a [Boot Drive]:\ecs directory...

That should NOT be there from anything ArcaOS installed.  Are you sure you didn't install a software package from elsewhere that might have created that?

Pete

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Re: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« Reply #12 on: May 24, 2017, 06:48:49 pm »
Hi Alex

Correct, the Intel 5100 driver is not amongst the standard drivers but was packaged by Doug (Bisset) it I recall correctly. Without that driver pack ArcaOS would be in the bin by now.

Is the genmac included with ArcaOS is limited to using the drivers supplied with ArcaOS? - Explains why I could not get the nic working until I uninstalled that genmac and installed the 2.21 version.


The \ecs\dll directory structure is not from the ArcaOS install. Investigation reveals that WPIVIEW110.WPI creates that directory structure during its installation. Interestingly there is no "\ecs" in the libpath so how wpiview.exe finds that dll I have no idea...


Regards

Pete






roberto

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Re: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« Reply #13 on: May 24, 2017, 08:27:34 pm »
Hello,
I have problems also with the DVD, only works with the dvd in the boot with the dvd of the arca50.
When I insert the w-xp-dvd, it does not work. For vbox.
Dvd-tools shows me this in log:
>> C:\usr\bin\cdrecord.exe -scanbus
**ERROR: Cannot open ASPI-Router (aspirou$) !!
C:\usr\bin\cdrecord.exe: No such file or directory. Cannot open or use SCSI driver.
C:\usr\bin\cdrecord.exe: For possible targets try 'cdrecord -scanbus'.
C:\usr\bin\cdrecord.exe: For possible transport specifiers try 'cdrecord dev=help'.
Cdrecord-ProDVD-ProBD 3.01 (i386-pc-os2-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2015 Joerg Schilling
NOTE: this version of cdrecord is an inofficial (modified) release of cdrecord
      and thus may have bugs that are not present in the original version.
      Please send bug reports and support requests to <rdpe@     modify        gmx.com>.
      The original author should not be bothered with problems of this version.

Warning: This version of cdrecord has not been configured via the standard
autoconfiguration method of the Schily makefile system. There is a high risk
that the code is not configured correctly and for this reason will not behave
as expected.
Warning: This version of libscg has not been configured via the standard
autoconfiguration method of the Schily makefile system. There is a high risk
that the code is not configured correctly and for this reason will not behave
as expected.

--Pete, printer problems, I test to print with e.exe, and fail, only print the text in one line, but others programs work for me with psprint

Saludos
« Last Edit: May 24, 2017, 09:24:53 pm by roberto »

roberto

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Re: ArcaOS5 Another personal Experience
« Reply #14 on: May 24, 2017, 09:29:19 pm »
The other problem I have, is with the sound. With arcaos50, it does not work for me, but if I install UniaudUpdate-1.09.06-1.09.26.zip, the develop version works. The runtime version does not work for me.
Saludos