Arca 5.1 on The Register

[Matt Walsh]

https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/04/arcaos_51/

Free publicity for Arca. 
Matt W

[Martin Iturbide]

Hello

I also sent ArcaOS 5.1 release news to Slashdot and got published on Sep 2.

Too bad this article was not available at that time, so I can include it on the news. I'm reading it right now.

Regards

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi again.

Sorry to focus only on the criticism, but that was my interest.

But there are downsides too. It is extremely finicky about disk partitioning, so you can more or less forget about dual-booting it with anything else except DOS. Don't try partitioning a disk with Linux tools such as GParted – do it entirely in ArcaOS. Either dedicate a machine to it, or put FreeDOS in a small C: partition and nothing else.

Yes, it is "finicky" (I needed to check the translator for that word). But I was able to dual Windows 10 with ArcaOS 5.0.x, but the process is not as easy as 1-2-3.  Gotta try with ArcaOS 5.1 and Windows 11 with UEFI and GPT someday.

We've also had no success with Wi-Fi. On most machines, it can see the wireless controller, and maybe list available networks, but we've not yet got it to connect to a single one. With wired networking, it's perfectly happy.

Sure, completely right. Wireless driver had been discussed for a long time.

It comes bundled with Firefox 45, which works very well, but the snag is that no later releases work because they contain code that requires compilers that don't support OS/2

An important criticism too, yes we have Dooble, but it still lacks some functionality. I'm not sure if there had been a plan change with the Otter browser. I see commits on the Bitwise Github, but there haven't been any updates/communication on what is going on with the plan.

Regards

[Roderick Klein]

Hi again.

Sorry to focus only on the criticism, but that was my interest.

But there are downsides too. It is extremely finicky about disk partitioning, so you can more or less forget about dual-booting it with anything else except DOS. Don't try partitioning a disk with Linux tools such as GParted – do it entirely in ArcaOS. Either dedicate a machine to it, or put FreeDOS in a small C: partition and nothing else.

Yes, it is "finicky" (I needed to check the translator for that word). But I was able to dual Windows 10 with ArcaOS 5.0.x, but the process is not as easy as 1-2-3.  Gotta try with ArcaOS 5.1 and Windows 11 with UEFI and GPT someday.

Martin,

The article is lacking some information, did he test the GPT support or MBR support in 5.1.0.  On how he describes this its plausible he used MBR disc layout, not GPT support.  And while the UEFI standard allows for MBR UEFI disc setup. I would certainly in UEFI boot stay miles awaaaaay away using MBR disk layout.

Now if you have a working setup with MBR and different operating systems next to ArcaOS leave it, no need to change a winning team.
Also the GPT.FLT does give a performance hit as the filter drivers translates the GPT disc layout to an MBR disc layout (this is emulated in memory).

For any setups with dual boots go for GPT setup. But that will require UEFI boot to be used.  GPT cleans up with so much of the OS/2 MBR headaches that exists.

Now what is a bit of tricky part that has not much todo with GPT disc layout is the boot order management. The UEFI firmware stores the order of UEFI loader in the NVRAM and some systems are pretty stuburn to accept an updated boot lists. ArcaOS support updating the NVRAM.

Other then that a Windows 10 or Windows 11 GPT layout  should a breeze.

Goto to the Administrator portion of the OS in the control panel-> disc management and resize your NTFS partition to create space for OS/2.
Disable secure boot, boot from the ArcaOS media.

Install ArcaOS et voila it should boot... The WIndows boot manager is replaced by AN launcher and you should have now ArcaOS and Windows next to each other and can select WIndows or ArcaOS at startiup.

I wrote the eCS 2.0/2.1 manual at Mensys for dual boot installations. I suggest you read the first 10 pages. That all still applies to ArcaOS MBR setup.
All of does MBR limitations are gone with GPT support. Its possible the GPT support has bugs in it, its new code. So far with all the testing I have done it worked every time.

Roderick

[Dave Yeo]

Linux used to come with "How to"s such as dual,triple and quadruple booting with OS/2, Linux, Dos and Win95. Basically do all partitioning with OS/2 fdisk, add stuff to Bootmanager and do an advanced Linux install to the pre-formatted partitions. Basically the same as now besides using lvm instead of fdisk. Don't have to screw with lilo anymore too.
Things seem to have gone backwards

[Roderick Klein]

Linux used to come with "How to"s such as dual,triple and quadruple booting with OS/2, Linux, Dos and Win95. Basically do all partitioning with OS/2 fdisk, add stuff to Bootmanager and do an advanced Linux install to the pre-formatted partitions. Basically the same as now besides using lvm instead of fdisk. Don't have to screw with lilo anymore too.
Things seem to have gone backwards

Did you ever try a GPT install ?

I need to be more precise its not per se the MBR disc layout that is picky. Its the LVM.DLL from IBM that marks disc and paritions tables all to quickly as corrupt and you can no longer do anything with the disc anymore with LVM.  But also the problem that if a disc is bigger then 512 GB you need to create all partitions with ArcaOS. Otherwhise you only have 512 GB of the disc you can access.

GPT has no of these shrort comings.

Roderick

Roderick




Roderick

[Martin Iturbide]

But there are downsides too. It is extremely finicky about disk partitioning, so you can more or less forget about dual-booting it with anything else except DOS. Don't try partitioning a disk with Linux tools such as GParted – do it entirely in ArcaOS. Either dedicate a machine to it, or put FreeDOS in a small C: partition and nothing else.

Yes, it is "finicky" (I needed to check the translator for that word). But I was able to dual Windows 10 with ArcaOS 5.0.x, but the process is not as easy as 1-2-3.  Gotta try with ArcaOS 5.1 and Windows 11 with UEFI and GPT someday.

OK, here it was something I was not expecting that completely change what I thought. Dual Booting ArcaOS and Windows 11 was super easy to me with UEFI and GPT. I tried it here on this forum thread.

Regards

[Roderick Klein]

As I wrote before. Go back to the eCS 2.2. or 2.1. manual I wrote back then. To some extend it shows the headaches of using MBR support with OS/2 and other operating systems.
Again if you have a working system, well stick to it.

The benefit of GPT discs are the following:
Not stuck any more with disk geometry headaches such as 512 GB, 1 GB or max of 2TB.
It breaks the 2 TB disc barrier with NVMe and AHCI discs.
No more arguments with Airboot and or boot manager.
DLAT sector on the disc is gone.
The LVM drive letter gets stored in a portion of the GPT partition.
So for OS/2 it looks like perfectly presented partition. But on the hard drive its normal GPT partition.
Also because it has its own partition type. If all goes well Windows should not offer to accidently format it.
Remember that NTFS, HPFS and JFS are type 7 on MBR...
You can use just any UEFI boot manager. Yo can even add ArcaOS or AN launcher to Windows boot manager.
With a GPT disc layout you can use just about any normal GPT disc editor.

The GPT limitations are currently:
It seems some Linux distro's at setup delete the LVM drive letter from the GPT partition. They should not do this.

Compared to Airboot the boot is now also determined by the NVRAM variable that is setup. Some systems you need to enter the UEFI firmware
to alter the order.

Roderick