Author Topic: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions  (Read 83535 times)

Tiny Frogware

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #45 on: August 30, 2023, 04:09:53 pm »
So, if I want to switch my current install of 5.0.8 CSM to 5.1 UEFI to take advantage of the improved DOS and Win-OS/2 support I would need to make the appropriate BIOS changes and then wipe my current install and do a clean install or could I go from CSM to UEFI via the upgrade path?

From what I've read in this thread and my understanding I think I could accomplish this via an upgrade and then follow the steps as Rich posted to finish the CSM to UEFI conversion. Just want to make sure I'm understanding it all.

Thanks,

  Tony.

Neil Waldhauer

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #46 on: August 30, 2023, 06:25:58 pm »
On the other, hand, the only way to also have Windows 10, Linux and MacOS (!) on the T480, was to install a second flash drive just to have ArcaOS on it and have my boot manager reboot through the BIOS to have boot the MBR disk.

What boot manager do you use? It would be nice to mix UEFI and non-UEFI disks on a system.
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Jochen Schäfer

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #47 on: August 30, 2023, 06:30:34 pm »
I use Refind.

Rich Walsh

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #48 on: August 30, 2023, 07:01:27 pm »
Do you know, whether the EFI files installed via MiniLVM are the same as the ones on the USB stick?

The binaries are the same but they're configured to run the installer. MiniLVM will install and configure them for normal usage, and will create a new entry in your machine's Boot List so they can be found. Currently there's no way to create this entry manually so you probbly have to use MiniLVM to get a complete installation. (FYI... the EFI boot files can be found on your installed system under 'C:\sys\install\UEFI' in the 'EFI\OS2' directory.)

Edit: I see that you are using reFind. If so, create an 'EFI\OS2' directory on your EFI System Partition (ESP), copy the files from your installed system, then create an entry in reFind that points at '\EFI\OS2\os2ldr.efi'. Specify the drive letter of your installation as a commandline argument. No MiniLVM steps required.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2023, 07:16:02 pm by Rich Walsh »

Greg Pringle

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #49 on: August 30, 2023, 08:56:33 pm »

What boot manager do you use? It would be nice to mix UEFI and non-UEFI disks on a system.

I would like the same thing due to large amounts of data on MBR disks.

Rich Walsh

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #50 on: August 30, 2023, 09:05:30 pm »
if I want to switch my current install of 5.0.8 CSM to 5.1 UEFI [...] could I go from CSM to UEFI via the upgrade path? [...] I think I could accomplish this via an upgrade and then follow the steps as Rich posted to finish the CSM to UEFI conversion.

FWIW... I don't have the final 5.1GA yet _and_ I don't have a dual CSM/UEFI machine any more, so I can't test most of this stuff the way I normally would. However, after doing 100+ UEFI installs, many with non-standard configurations, I think I've gotten the hang of it...

If the installer will let you do an upgrade when booted in UEFI mode then you should end up with all the files needed to boot either way. The only difference between a fully-functional CSM system and a UEFI system are these two lines in 'config.sys':

[CSM]
DEVICE=C:\OS2\MDOS\VSVGA.SYS
SET VIO_SVGA=DEVICE(BVHVGA,BVHSVGA)

[EFI]
DEVICE=C:\OS2\MDOS\VEFI.SYS
SET VIO_SVGA=DEVICE(BVHEFI)

So, if you run into problems getting UEFI going, you can update config.sys accordingly then revert to CSM.

Be aware that if you don't already have an ESP (EFI System Partition), creating one on an MBR drive has some gotcha's. First, it must be a primary partition - 256MB is typical but an OS/2-only system can get by with ~8MB (1 cylinder). More important, when scanning an MBR disk, most systems will examine each FAT32 partition looking for '\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI' and will ignore any other files. MiniLVM's install routine accomodates this by putting 2 copies of 'launcher.efi' in '\EFI\BOOT', one of which is renamed BOOTX64.EFI.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #51 on: August 31, 2023, 02:23:05 am »
So, if I want to switch my current install of 5.0.8 CSM to 5.1 UEFI to take advantage of the improved DOS and Win-OS/2 support I would need to make the appropriate BIOS changes and then wipe my current install and do a clean install or could I go from CSM to UEFI via the upgrade path?

Hi Tony.

Lewis did a Warpstock 2022 presentation about ArcaOS 5.1 Upgrades.
- http://www.warpstock.org/filemgmt_data/files/ArcaOS%20Upgrades.pdf
- https://youtu.be/xzB1VyK-qEc?list=PL4pjffCdj7wRQFpS0pYUewRXlm2wHgNy3&t=1507
It's kind of confusing, but I think this is Scenario 7, which you have to proceed as Scenario 2, which means backup everything and install ArcaOS and restore apps and data.
I think it is a wipe and clean install.

This presentation was from Nov of 2022, not sure if things changed with the 5.1 release.
Everybody: I think it is good to read the slides called "Reasons to use GPT", "Reasons to not use GPT", "Reasons to use UEFI" and "Reasons not to use UEFI", those are very straight forward and simple.

Regards
« Last Edit: September 01, 2023, 03:04:51 pm by Martin Iturbide »
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Tiny Frogware

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #52 on: August 31, 2023, 02:27:08 pm »
Thanks Rich and Martin for the info. I appreciate it and it's given me some things to consider as I decide the best way to proceed with stepping up to 5.1.

@Rich
 My ArcaOS machine, an Acer Aspire m5-581tg Ultrabook has a small, 10GB SSD in addition to a regular 500GB drive. The SSD has an ESP so I should be ok in that respect if I try the upgrade path.

@Martin
 The slides and video were very helpful. Definitely makes things a lot clearer now as it explained the differences in the various options.

 I always backup whether upgrading or doing a fresh, clean install so I may try to upgrade and if that doesn't work then I'll just do a clean install. I really want/need full DOS and Win-OS/2 support, including sound.

Best wishes,

 Tony.

christech

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #53 on: August 31, 2023, 05:30:06 pm »
I finally got the 5.1 update to install. It was a matter of changing a setting in BIOS. Are there any optional packages that didn't get installed when doing an in-place update?

Rich Walsh

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #54 on: August 31, 2023, 10:52:28 pm »
I may try to upgrade and if that doesn't work then I'll just do a clean install. I really want/need full DOS and Win-OS/2 support, including sound.

After I got my copy of 5.1, I simulated an upgrade from CSM to UEFI to see what the result would be. The video installer recognized that the drivers needed for UEFI were missing, so it installed them. However, two other files that aren't part of the video package weren't installed, namely 'AOSLOGO' (the new PNG bootlogo) and 'VBIOS.SYS' (a patched version of the original dated 5/11/2020).

The result is a seemingly functional system that's missing the bootlogo and may bomb out playing some crazy DOS game. On the whole, I wouldn't recommend going the CSM->UEFI "upgrade" route until there's a package that does a comprehensive job.

Tiny Frogware

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #55 on: September 01, 2023, 06:54:01 pm »
The result is a seemingly functional system that's missing the bootlogo and may bomb out playing some crazy DOS game. On the whole, I wouldn't recommend going the CSM->UEFI "upgrade" route until there's a package that does a comprehensive job.

Thanks for your efforts Rich. All things considered, I believe my best option is going to be to do a full backup and then a fresh, clean install of 5.1.

Best wishes,

 Tony.

ivan

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #56 on: September 01, 2023, 08:13:24 pm »
How does all this work if you have a 2GB boot partition with other partitions for such things as 'utilities', programs', 'home' etc?  I have never put everything on the boot partition because that prevents updating and leaving data alone.

Dave Yeo

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #57 on: September 01, 2023, 08:56:51 pm »
You just need a small ESP primary partition on your boot HD. You could perhaps shrink your 2GB boot partition down to 1.9GB and use the empty space to use as the ESP partition. As Rich said, if only booting OS/2, it can be as small as one cylinder.
My current ESP, which also has the refind bootmanager on it to boot Linux,
Code: [Select]

U:\>du -h
96K     ./EFI/BOOT/keys
696K    ./EFI/BOOT/icons
624K    ./EFI/BOOT/icons-backup
4.0K    ./EFI/BOOT/vars
1.9M    ./EFI/BOOT
944K    ./EFI/OS2
0       ./EFI/tools
2.8M    ./EFI
2.8M    .

David McKenna

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #58 on: September 02, 2023, 01:41:44 am »
 Wanted to upgrade my ArcaOS server (C: - no other OS) to ver 5.1 UEFI onto an NVME disk from an SSD disk. The NVME disk can only be booted in UEFI mode on this computer, although it is visible in ArcaOS otherwise (as disk E:). The SSD disk had ver 5.0.8, so I formatted the NVME disk (E: = 500GB) to JFS with a small (4GB) empty space at the end and while booted to the SSD did an XCOPY C: E: /H/O/T/S/E/R/V. Then shut down and removed the SSD disk (C:) from the computer.

 Then I set the BIOS to disable the CSM and booted the ArcaOS 5.1 install DVD. Booted to the system management page (in UEFI mode), then used the disk management tool to set the NVME drive's main partition to C: (instead of E:) and then created the EFI partiton in the 4GB empty space (disk Y:}. Rebooted again to the DVD, then from system management installed the boot menu from the disk management tool to disk Y:.

 Now I rebooted the DVD again and ran the install. Chose to update/upgrade C: and it all worked! Now I have ArcaOS 5.1 in UEFI mode on my server (serves Apache, ftp, CUPS, and SAMBA). All DOS and WinOS2 sessions work too - a first! Hope this may help someone else to upgrade without totally wiping their current install...

Regards,

Tiny Frogware

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Re: ArcaOS 5.1 - First Impressions
« Reply #59 on: September 02, 2023, 04:51:32 pm »
Now I rebooted the DVD again and ran the install. Chose to update/upgrade C: and it all worked! Now I have ArcaOS 5.1 in UEFI mode on my server (serves Apache, ftp, CUPS, and SAMBA). All DOS and WinOS2 sessions work too - a first! Hope this may help someone else to upgrade without totally wiping their current install...

 Thanks for sharing the details of your success on going from 5.0.8 CSM to upgrading to 5.1 UEFI. Hopefully my own upgrade will go as smoothly.

Best wishes,

 Tony.