Author Topic: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year  (Read 23469 times)

Martin Iturbide

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The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« on: December 26, 2018, 02:31:21 pm »
Hi

What do you think it will be interesting to do on the 2019 as community efforts for the platform?

The obvious for me will be to:
1) Keep supporting Arca Noae with ArcaOS.
2) Keep supporting Bitwise works to produce more open source software on 2019.
3) Support individual developers creating and porting software to this platform.

But what about from the community side and what us as individuals can do for the platform?
And I know we are already doing things like:
- People helping people on the forums.
- Insisting on collecting open source code and asking for more code to be released as open.
- Documenting EDM/2 and OS2World wiki.
- Articles, blog posts and videos posted from time to time on the Internet.
- Hobbes keeps sharing files and OS2site also collecting things.
(those came at the top of my mind right now)

But what other ideas do you have for next year that can be produced by the community?

There is no right or wrong answer, just want to brainstorm a little bit.

Regards
« Last Edit: December 26, 2018, 02:44:49 pm by Martin Iturbide »
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Re: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2018, 04:43:15 pm »
Quote
But what other ideas do you have for next year that can be produced by the community?

Try to make OS/2 interesting for potential users.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« Reply #2 on: December 28, 2018, 04:06:05 pm »
Quote
But what other ideas do you have for next year that can be produced by the community?

Try to make OS/2 interesting for potential users.

That is a good one. Sadly it is a problem without a clear solution. (here goes the long technicolor dreaming reply)

For the moment ArcaOS is an operating system to support OS/2 users (and business) to run the platform on newer hardware. I even talk about it with Lewis (Arca Noae) like two years ago when he was starting with ArcaOS, and that was the focus for ArcaOS initial days. For what I know (and what I can see on the test group) AN is working hard to bugfix, translate and try to create newer driver for ArcaOS on these days. So, trying to find more potential new (non OS/2) users is not on their main goal now, they try to support people/companies that uses and know OS/2 (or eCS) instead of attracting new ones. This is what I understand is the general AN strategy for the moment, but it is always to ask them directly.

Thinking more about it, what can attract other kind of users to this platform with all the lack of drivers that we have?

Idea 1 - Being cool:  Operating Systems is no longer about who had the best technology and cutting edge development. At the backend it had just to work, and on the frontend it has to look cool, which mean the frontend has to be appealing to the user.

Idea 2 - Finding a Niche: Finding a niche for OS/2 or ArcaOS is hard, we already use it as a desktop operating system, but competition is hard with a open source Linux and a Windows bundled on each PC. So finding a niche of industrial equipment, car radios, portable devices or anything that may be hot for the consumer will be desirable, but choosing an OS for a device between a $230 OS and a free of charge Linux / Android is always a challenge.

Idea 3 - Working on a Open Source Future: I came to the conclusion that the OS can not have a future while it's source code is controlled by IBM. Since IBM is not doing anything with OS/2's source code, non OS/2 users will not be willing to jump to the OS/2 train while Linux is open and while Windows is everywhere. So the idea will be to transform and progressively try to replace OS/2 components with open source replacements that offers a decent level of compatibility. It will never be an 100% exactly and compatible OS/2, but if we have a 60% of compatibility it will be good enough for a a lot of users. And at that moment, when it is shown that there is an OS not controlled by a single company that can screw you, it may have a path to grow and attract new users and markets. But this is a lot of work and people just get scared about thinking on cloning OS/2. (cheers to the people that don't get scared easily).

So,  to attract new users we can have from "idea 1" to the "idea n", mix the ideas, merge them and crunch them, but it is required money, time, vision, courage and good attitude :)

Going back to earth, it will be interesting to hear more ideas of what can be done on 2019 as a community.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
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Martin Iturbide

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Re: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« Reply #3 on: December 28, 2018, 04:14:55 pm »
Hi again.

A more "down to earth" idea for the 2019 that is ringing my mind is to try to make a RPM OS/2 software repository and re-package some OS/2 software as RPM and put them on a different RPM server.

I don't want to use the netlabs RPM server since maybe loading Netlabs with games, new ported programs and old OS/2 programs will not be the best idea. I don't want to mix thing, since I wanted a less strict RPM repository for everyone to upload their packages and try to get a RPM spec consensus and easy to use templates for people to upload things.

OS2VOICE wanted to create his own RPM server and it looked like a good idea going that way, but it haven't created the server yet. So I was also wondering how hard or easy can be to configure an RPM server.

Regards
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RickCHodgin

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Re: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« Reply #4 on: December 28, 2018, 09:19:33 pm »
My vision has not changed.  I plan to begin full-time development on ES/2 around Christmas 2019.  I plan to work on ES/1 in segments/snippets over the summer, and I plan to direct all of my personal developer efforts toward ES/2 in 2020.

I would do it sooner if I had funding.  I have to move on a progression as things are today.

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Re: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« Reply #5 on: December 29, 2018, 12:17:40 pm »
Hi Martin! : )

Agreeing on all your aims for 2019, I'd like to add a thingy:

I wrote Lewis to let him know that I'll be taking a fresh ArcaOS PC to the (Computer Retro Gaming Night ) on May 11th of 2019 in Leipzig's HTWK (DE). Since he is planning to roll out ArcaOS in DE too, I'd like to help him where I can.

As a first step, I'll see how interests are on HTWK in Leipzig with gamers. Lewis agreed to send merchandise for ArcaOS, so there will be stuff to take with you. Also, since this is a gaming con, remembering good old Warp 3, I had many many DOS games running there, which were hard to start in MS DOS without endless memmaker sessions beforehand. In Warp3 they just ran fine, raising memory emulation lever all to the right. :D - ArcaOS can do this too!
Lewis mentioned, he's got plans to make ArcaOS known to retro gamers as THE retro gaming platform for DOS and Win3.x games.
Of course this will require some optimisations for special games, so in the end almost all the good old games can be run on ArcaOS. (Remember? "better DOS than DOS" in the 90'ies).

Currently I've got around 60% of all my DOS games running fine on ArcaOS, but 40%... well.. there are some issues like slowish execution, no sound, or it doesn't work at all.. no error messages whatsoever. - If "we" can establish ArcaOS and/or OS/2 in general to be THE DOS gaming platform, this will be helping a lot to make OS/2ish operating systems more widely known among gamers. - Needless to say this opens markets too...


Of course localisation helps spreading the product to other countries than the US too, so I'll keep translating parts of ArcaOS into DE in 2019 as well. Also some software testing as usual. : )

P.S.: If you have the opportunity to visit the retro gaming night @ Leipzig's HTWK, be sure to be part of it! Visiting is free, but also bringing your own exhibits is free of charge! Your audience are ~3.000 to 3.500 people visiting each year. - Your chance to present your stuff for free! : )) - Also a nice chance to meet each other and discuss OS/2 related topics :D
Pics: [ 01 ] [ 02 ]


edit:
OS/2 and ArcaOS needs a fresh browser! - Be sure to support [ the QT5 port ] to make some progress.
Also an open source graphical FTP client would be VERY helpful.. like Filezilla, also supporting SFTP...

And in general: ArcaOS needs a fresher, more modern look. Showing ArcaOS to people at work (all developers), they agreed it looks aged. And they wondered if this is REALLY an up2date operating system. - Sure they are used to Windows 10. I know it's always nice to have stuff running under the hood, but looks are also important to get the interest of customers. If it looks like back in the 90ies, only a very small ammount of people will give it a try. It needs to look MUCH more modern! To make it backwards compatible to also run on old computers, Windows (again) shows the way: Designs that can be turned on and off. Can be off (default) to save ressources and turned on if it needs to look nice (like for instance on modern PCs that have enough ressources to manage the "extra weight" of an overload of graphics).
« Last Edit: December 29, 2018, 06:27:49 pm by Martin Iturbide »

ivan

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Re: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« Reply #6 on: December 29, 2018, 05:29:27 pm »
Hi Mathias,

Regarding your general observations re appearance.  My observations are the exact opposite - I have lost count of the number of times people have asked if I can make their win10 look like mine.  People generally want colour on their computers rather than the bland colourless thing they get with win10.

In fact the biggest stumbling block I have found for people that would otherwise use OS/2 (ArcaOS) is the total lack of USB 3 (most current laptops and desktops no longer have USB2 ports) and as you say a good browser that works with the latest secure sites.  It would also be a help if the video drivers could use modern video cards to their full potential.

I do hope that all goes well for you in Leipzig, I too have several Win3x games I would like to revive and play on OS/2 after all OS/2 was a better DOS than DOS and Windows than Windows back in the beginning.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« Reply #7 on: December 29, 2018, 06:40:05 pm »
Hi Mathias.

The "Computer Retro Gaming Night " sound great, please let me know if there is anything I can do to help (remotely). Remember that I run the OS2World gaming site, is not that hot, but maybe it can work for something. And maybe I can help you by digging out some old games for your showcase.

The "fresh look" on OS/2 will always be controversial since it is a thing of personal taste. "Make it look cool" it does not mean it has to look like Windows, MacOS or Linux, it is more challenge since it will need to maintain the looks on how people like to interact with OS/2 but without the "rough edges" (metaphoric) that OS/2 is showing in modern displays and higher resolutions. So it is controversial.

Regards
« Last Edit: December 29, 2018, 11:54:43 pm by Martin Iturbide »
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Re: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« Reply #8 on: December 30, 2018, 04:04:58 am »
The "Computer Retro Gaming Night " sound great, please let me know if there is anything I can do to help (remotely). Remember that I run the OS2World gaming site, is not that hot, but maybe it can work for something. And maybe I can help you by digging out some old games for your showcase.

I have written a Tetris-like game for Windows that I would be willing to port to OS/2.  It's two-player.  I would be willing to add socket/network support for play over LAN or Internet if anyone's interested.

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Re: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« Reply #9 on: December 30, 2018, 01:01:18 pm »
Martin, whoa! Never knew ¨Enigma¨ had an OS/2 port! How cewl! - Liked the DOS version A LOT back then!
Also excellent web site, the OS2World Gaming one! Besides the vast ammount of games, it`s easy to filter and look up what you want! - Thumbs up! : )

In this case, I need to look through ALL the OS/2 games, as I could also imagine to show OS/2 games besides the DOS games too.
Of course optimising DOS games to run nicely in OS/2 and ArcaOS is a huge task. I know time is an enormous factor. Perhaps we can try some of the ¨well known¨ DOS games and optimise them to run smoothly with the current ArcaOS release. : )

Andreas Schnellbacher

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Re: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« Reply #10 on: December 30, 2018, 05:05:33 pm »
There's not much we can do in 2019 for OS/2.

The system requires a recent browser

-  QT 5
-  QT 5 browser

and drivers to support newer hardware:

-  USB 3
-  WIFI
-  RAM (> 2 GB)
-  Fix/patch all remaining kernel problems with unloading high-loaded DLLs
-  UEFI (install on GPT partitions)
-  Video driver with more resolutions and better performance than Panorama/GRADD.

The hardware problems may be replaced with making the VirtualBox OS/2
extensions much more comfortable:

-  Scroll messages on mouse scrolling (like AMouse)
-  Act on the window below the mouse pointer (like AMouse)
-  Larger video resolutions
-  Shared folders (Valery apparently did a great job).

The distribution question from the past is finally solved with ArcaOS.

The future depends on that. Of course, sponsoring projects that gain
development is useful. Far behind that come other efforts. There exist
many of them, e.g.:

-  Help with documentation of projects.
-  Help with translation.
-  Help with announcements of project progression.
-  Make the source of abandoned software available.
-  Write reports about how to use software.
-  Develop software that is useful for others.

That's all not much different from that of 15 years before.
« Last Edit: December 30, 2018, 05:15:42 pm by Andreas Schnellbacher »

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Re: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« Reply #11 on: December 30, 2018, 07:36:45 pm »

Currently I've got around 60% of all my DOS games running fine on ArcaOS, but 40%... well.. there are some issues like slowish execution, no sound, or it doesn't work at all.. no error messages whatsoever. - If "we" can establish ArcaOS and/or OS/2 in general to be THE DOS gaming platform, this will be helping a lot to make OS/2ish operating systems more widely known among gamers.

Hi Mathias

Have you tried the vcompat.sys driver? It claims to fix some things that will allow more DOS games to work. http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/util/system/vCOMPATv035b.zip I'm not really a gamer so I can't say how well it works but it might be worth a look. It also addresses the 2GB disk size limit issue.

Gregg

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Re: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« Reply #12 on: January 01, 2019, 03:09:38 pm »
Martin, whoa! Never knew ¨Enigma¨ had an OS/2 port! How cewl! - Liked the DOS version A LOT back then!
Also excellent web site, the OS2World Gaming one! Besides the vast ammount of games, it`s easy to filter and look up what you want! - Thumbs up! : )

In this case, I need to look through ALL the OS/2 games, as I could also imagine to show OS/2 games besides the DOS games too.
Of course optimising DOS games to run nicely in OS/2 and ArcaOS is a huge task. I know time is an enormous factor. Perhaps we can try some of the ¨well known¨ DOS games and optimise them to run smoothly with the current ArcaOS release. : )

Was there not a couple of years ago also a website from an eComStation user who updated the migrate.exe database included in OS/2 to load DOS games ?

Its not that difficult if that would be stored centraly.

Martin do you remember that website I am talking about ?

Best wishes for 2019!

Roderick

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Re: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« Reply #13 on: January 01, 2019, 11:52:15 pm »
There's not much we can do in 2019 for OS/2.

The system requires a recent browser

-  QT 5
-  QT 5 browser

and drivers to support newer hardware:

-  USB 3
-  WIFI
-  RAM (> 2 GB)
-  Fix/patch all remaining kernel problems with unloading high-loaded DLLs
-  UEFI (install on GPT partitions)
-  Video driver with more resolutions and better performance than Panorama/GRADD.

The hardware problems may be replaced with making the VirtualBox OS/2
extensions much more comfortable:

-  Scroll messages on mouse scrolling (like AMouse)
-  Act on the window below the mouse pointer (like AMouse)
-  Larger video resolutions
-  Shared folders (Valery apparently did a great job).

The distribution question from the past is finally solved with ArcaOS.

The future depends on that. Of course, sponsoring projects that gain
development is useful. Far behind that come other efforts. There exist
many of them, e.g.:

-  Help with documentation of projects.
-  Help with translation.
-  Help with announcements of project progression.
-  Make the source of abandoned software available.
-  Write reports about how to use software.
-  Develop software that is useful for others.

That's all not much different from that of 15 years before.

Well in this case we need to provide financial support to BWW that helps to finish QT.

Being at Sigurd Fastenrath his OS/2 meeting in Cologne about 3 weeks ago, Lewis Rosenthal gave a Q&A to the people. He mentioned USB 3.0 is close to going into beta. And they are looking at UEFI.

What do you mean with bugs about loading DLL's high. Are these bugs reported to Arca Noae ?

Roderick

Dave Yeo

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Re: The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year
« Reply #14 on: January 02, 2019, 12:28:34 am »
What do you mean with bugs about loading DLL's high. Are these bugs reported to Arca Noae ?

See the mozturbo thread, which actually started on the Arca Noae testing list. Basically when DLLs are loaded high and then unloaded, the address space is not released. Rich found the issue and filed an issue with Arca Noae.
Work around of not unloading the DLLs works good, for the first time in years I can get up time longer then 2-3 days. Had 8 days before the wind storm took out the power.