Hello
I want to discuss these for months, but I had been holding back, I don't know if it is for fear or lack of time to organize the thoughts.
Sometimes when we discuss about OS/2-ArcaOS we say: "The Graphical User Interface needs some love" (Figuratively speaking
).
1) The question would be, what features you think ArcaOS and OS/2 are lacking when referring to the GUI that you think will be useful?
- Since this is a personal option question, there are no right or wrong answers. I just want to know more about it.
2) Once you install ArcaOS or even OS/2, what utilities (or customization) do you use to improve the GUI as you like?
- For example, for me now it is must XWP 1.0.16 with xCenter big icons
- Or some others like X-It to have more function buttons on their desktop windows.
Again, this is not a discussion to impose a way to working with your machine, just to try to see what I (or We) may be missing while working with the ArcaOS GUI.
Regards
I was a VERY enthusiastic OS/2 user for both personal and work in the 1990s until IBM said they weren't going to support OS/2 anymore, at which time I switched to Mac. Note that I never "loved" using Macs nearly as much as I did OS/2.
Well I'm retired after programming and systems analysis for 40 years and now I can use any [censored by me] operating system that I damn well please and I'm very excited and very worried about OS/2 as of today (March 1st, 2026).
1) There WILL come a time when 32 bit computers are hard to find or will be expensive. Not that computers in general are Inexpensive. But you know what I mean. What will happen to OS/2 in the future? Windows is VERY substandard compared to OS/2 as a user experience for me. Apple, since Steve Jobs died, has no direction because the people running the show have no clue about design and function for an operating system. Linux is FAR too fussy for me. I want to spend time using my applications, not fiddling with things to get the operating system working. OS/2 is like a Honda where it is stable and with a little general maintenance it can run for a LONG time without reboot or other stupid things that you have to do with Windows like rebooting once a month or even once a year unless there is a big update to the OS (meaning OS/2).
So ... my BIG question is this. I KNOW that one or more groups has tried to create an open source version of OS/2 in the past and that petered out and died. To be blunt, without a 64 bit version of OS/2, the companies that currently pay for support will wither and die and the OS/2 will die due to lack of income for Arca Noae and we will be left with whatever the last updated version of OS/2 that we have at that point. I don't want that to be the case.
2) We NEED a version of OS/2 that is inexpensive even if that means creating a limited version of OS/2 that will allow nerds that are interested in alternate OSs to be able to try out OS/2 and see why people like or in my case LOVE OS/2.
3) Now that I'm back to using OS/2 I will be trying to start creating small programs to get myself back up to speed on OS/2 programming. Again, it's been close to 30 years since I wrote programs in C or C++ for OS/2 so I need to get reacquainted with it.
Are there any resources for programming in OS/2 that someone can point me to including a compiler. I've been trying to find resources other than the Arca Noae website which doesn't have any of this kind of information.
4) I want to find people that are interested in talking about OS/2 and working together on projects that I might be able to help out with. Unfortunately most of my programming for the last 15 years has been with Visual Basic which I HATED but it paid for my mortgage and my retirement. And no, I didn't work for Microsoft or any company where I made money from stock. I worked for organizations that didn't have stock but did have a retirement package through a union.
Hopefully someone will see this and respond.