Author Topic: New OS/2 distribution  (Read 25559 times)

Eugene Gorbunoff

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New OS/2 distribution
« on: October 24, 2015, 01:53:21 am »
As you know, Arca Noae signed the agreement with IBM corporation and goes distribute New OS/2 -- http://ecomstation.ru/commentnews.php?id=2443

Several questions to Arca Noae:
1) What is the market for Blue Lion?
What application will be the main application of this OS?
and what new application (or applications) wll be developed?
Else, what is the difference from eComStation?

2) How to become reseller of computers with OS/2 pre-installed. The OS can't be distributed on USB flash or DVD only. It should be pre-installed on computers. This is the main (real) channel of modern OS distribution.
Else, what is the reason to spend efforts to the development.

3) The system should include 30 .. 50 additional applications / extenders / utilities by default. Only those applications which are included to CD1 are distributed among all users. Standalone apps which are not included, are used by 0.001% of users. Question: Show the list of applications, utilities, extenders which will be included to CD1. Else, poor state of the developers of OS/2 applications will not change.





Martin Iturbide

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Re: New OS/2 distribution
« Reply #1 on: October 24, 2015, 05:48:47 am »
Hi.

Just for people not following Eugene's conversation. Arca Noae announced at Warpstock that is going to work on a new OS/2 distribution called codename "Blue Lion" (it is not the final name of the product). The distro is not ready yet, it's timeframe is for the 3Q of 2016. (but it can change)

They announced that they have an agreement with IBM to distribute Warp 4.52 and SMP binaries. There is no much planning beside of what you can hear/see on the "Arca Noae News" Video.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
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... just share the dream.

ivan

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Re: New OS/2 distribution
« Reply #2 on: October 24, 2015, 11:20:55 am »
3) The system should include 30 .. 50 additional applications / extenders / utilities by default

Why would one clog up the computer with that many bits of junk? 

What are really needed are such things as working printer drivers that allow printing over a network connected print servers and don't need the reading of the chicken entrails to get working, RAID drivers for software RAID setups, a way to control the 'dll-hell' that OS/2 appears to have fallen into at the moment and so on.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: New OS/2 distribution
« Reply #3 on: October 24, 2015, 01:35:09 pm »
Hi Ivan.

3) The system should include 30 .. 50 additional applications / extenders / utilities by default

Why would one clog up the computer with that many bits of junk? 

I think that they refer to all the software that is included to make Warp 4.5 more modern, like XWPS, Warpin, Firefox, Qt, OpenJDK, etc, etc. I don't think that it means to put all software as possible, but just something similar to eCS to make Warp 4.5 more current, otherwise it will ship with WebExplorer :)

Regards.
Martin Iturbide
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ivan

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Re: New OS/2 distribution
« Reply #4 on: October 24, 2015, 04:35:18 pm »
Hi Martin,

We already have all that in our standard install DVD that we use when replacing hardware so I never considered them as additional applications.

Sergey Posokhov

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Re: New OS/2 distribution
« Reply #5 on: October 24, 2015, 05:02:32 pm »
The system should contain no additional applications nor AppStore nor WarpIn, no shared libraries, no WPS extenders, no candy icons, no animated pointers, and the only one installation file format should be ZIP and ZIP and ZIP and only ZIP.
 :)

Sigurd Fastenrath

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Re: New OS/2 distribution
« Reply #6 on: October 25, 2015, 12:59:41 pm »
I would like to suggest the name (in case it is not protected by others, O did find some hotels using it, but.....):

Blue Marlin 

(not Merlin, but a Reminiscence to it  :)  )

Would make a good Logo/Pet as well  ;)

Lion seems to be occupied by Apple and sounds like emulating it.


Jan-Erik Lärka

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Re: New OS/2 distribution
« Reply #7 on: October 25, 2015, 02:22:40 pm »
Hi Martin,

We already have all that in our standard install DVD that we use when replacing hardware so I never considered them as additional applications.

No one want to use a bare bone eCS, or any other OS for that matter, one want more and new drivers, but also software, that's perhaps more important to end/home users to keep up with the rest of the world. A dated web browser has to be replaced at once and should therefore not be included, just as similar software that change fairly often.

You may have a standard DVD with a lot of corporate software you can apply in a chunk, as the end user it's not available to me so the question raised by Eugene is very relevant. Several of the original OS/2 applications could need attention, both in design (color and graphics) but also function and capabilities. Some has been replaced by new versions and now feel better while others persist, but why not include some new standard software with the OS?

Fairly statical but useful to many would include things like:
A GUI (or Wizard/SmartGuide) front end to diskinfo.exe would be interesting.
Wouldn't mind a file recovery tool paired with an optional setting for JFS to always write .LONGNAME EA's or special inode filename info.
QT4 ODBC DataBase Manager + unixODBC backend
TCP/IP configuration tool
New Image/Icon Editor

Not every software is bug free to begin with, but with the proper attention and feedback, exchange of knowledge and relevant information by testers, end users and developers, the software evolve into something better.

______
I have created a large tree with software on my main machine that I go through and install from just to get what I want, but it has to be maintained as new software appear, one has to visit sites here and there and follow download links.

It seem that everyone want to tinker with the system their own way, so to not close the door but rather allow everyone to do that I would like to extend my suggestion in an earlier post in another thread. Lets have an updated online software catalogue that developers would announce their software in, just as they announce them here at os2world, paired with a front end for the end user.

That way the OS doesn't have to include outdated software but rather a convenient online software catalogue. The front end should of course be able to use local paths to already downloaded software.
_____
My wish is that the new distro would rather merge the Live DVD and the OS installer concepts
   The user/admin can either just use it to surf the web or monitor the network without leaving the computer and do some selected stuff ("LiveCD" usage)
   and/or
   start the OS installer to tweak things with a fairly populated desktop and get the feel for the system while he/she wait for the installation to finish (in the background).

Regards,
Jan-Erik
Software tester, database recovery, automated software tests, technical support resource
of MONITOR ERP System AB, a standardized Resource Planning System for the industry

Home user of eCS-OS/2 as main OS.

ivan

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Re: New OS/2 distribution
« Reply #8 on: October 25, 2015, 10:49:20 pm »
Hi Jan-Erik,

I do agree with you on most points but there is absolutely no reason why someone can't have most of those things on a DVD.

I have attached the addons-read.me from UPDCD of 2005 for general information and since it is rather quiet on this evenings shift I just made an UPDCD with all the latest addons on that list I could find, I even went as far as including the required DLLs in the tools section. 

Then I installed it in a VM and everything is there and working.  Yes, it could be better and yes there are a few tweaks that might be needed by some people.

UPDCD is not perfect and would benefit from someone going over the REXX scripts and adding new ones for those items that are not on the addons list (openjdk 6 is one such item as are the fonts and font install programs of Alex Taylor and QT4 with some of the QT4 applications).

Unfortunately my knowledge of REXX is almost non existent which makes it almost impossible for me to do anything about creating new scripts although I can mess with those that are there to make them do what I need but I seldom get it right first time  :(
 

Dave Yeo

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Re: New OS/2 distribution
« Reply #9 on: October 26, 2015, 12:16:59 am »
I notice that you have XFree86, does it work for you and what level of kernel are you using.
I've tried installing XFree86 in eCS 2.1+ and it seems to be missing some functionality in xf86sup.sys that is needed for the fonts and working pttys. I believe that xf86sup.sys needs updating to work correctly with the newest kernels.

ivan

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Re: New OS/2 distribution
« Reply #10 on: October 26, 2015, 01:32:28 am »
Hi Dave,

I cheat a bit with XFree86 and use the XFree86-4.5.0-runtime.wpi and then use what is available with the Gimp-2.2.8.wpi install and libs and HobLink as the server.  So even though xf86sup.sys is there in the xfree86\usr\x11r6\lib directory I don't think it gets used, it is not in config.sys.

Dave Yeo

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Re: New OS/2 distribution
« Reply #11 on: October 26, 2015, 05:01:38 am »
OK. My Hoblink is only licensed for use on OS/2 V4 and refuses to run on eCS which was why I was trying to get XFree86 to run. I did get it kind of running using the VNC server but it wasn't really good enough to use.

Greggory Shaw

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Re: New OS/2 distribution
« Reply #12 on: October 26, 2015, 05:55:14 am »
OK. My Hoblink is only licensed for use on OS/2 V4 and refuses to run on eCS which was why I was trying to get XFree86 to run. I did get it kind of running using the VNC server but it wasn't really good enough to use.

If you have eCs 1.2 there's a trick to run Hoblink on 2.0 not sure if it works on 2.2 ?

Does anyone know how to do it ? Well actually can someone send me the file needed I have a 1.2 license. I may or may not save it to my current setup for historical reasons and safe keeping
« Last Edit: October 26, 2015, 06:14:01 am by Greggory Shaw »

Dave Yeo

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Re: New OS/2 distribution
« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2015, 06:24:42 am »
I never owned eCS 1.x so can't use the ecsreg.ini trick.  It's a strange license as I can look in INI.INI and see my name and serial number and it runs fine on my Warp V4 partition. It was a freebie they gave out just before discontinuing it IIRC.

ivan

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Re: New OS/2 distribution
« Reply #14 on: October 26, 2015, 02:20:16 pm »
Hi Dave,

Isn't eCS based on OS/2  4.52 the same as CP2 for WSeB?  I ask because that is what syslevel.os2 says our WSeB is and Hob x11 runs here without problems and like you we got it in the days they were giving it away.  All we use it for is Gimp and a couple of MySQL DBs.