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ArcaOS Wishlist - 6 months !!
Eugene Tucker:
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.
Roderick Klein:
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
Dave Yeo:
--- Quote from: 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.
--- End quote ---
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.
Martin Iturbide:
--- Quote from: Roderick Klein on December 30, 2017, 01:41:12 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
--- End quote ---
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
OS4User:
--- Quote from: Roderick Klein on December 30, 2017, 06:22:16 pm ---I have had two systems myself where a NIC and disc controller would not work without MSI IRQ support.
--- End quote ---
Interesting. Could you please describe your systems, especially what mobo is in them and output of PCI.exe.
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