Topics

1

Programming / DOSBox-x - infinite loop in configure/make

« on: November 05, 2024, 10:22:02 am »

Hello all,
I'm having a real PITA trying to port DosBox-x under OS/2 with the latest tool (Gcc 9.2.0, the rest is up-to-date with ANPM netlabs repo).

I've issued the usual autoreconf and given a detailed configure script call with these options

./configure --prefix=/DosBox-x --enable-sdl2 --enable-force-menu-sdldraw --disable-sdlnet --disable-opengl --disable-alsatest --disable-alsa-midi --disable-libslirp --disable-x11

But then I notice that the created makefile contains a lot of calls to am<things> (which should be autotools) and starts configuring again, everytime restarting all the process with these starting lines

CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.};" && cd . && /usr/bin/sh D:/Sviluppo/Sorgenti/dbox/dosb
ox/missing aclocal-1.16
 cd . && /usr/bin/sh D:/Sviluppo/Sorgenti/dbox/dosbox/missing automake-1.16 --fo
reign
CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.};" && cd . && /usr/bin/sh D:/Sviluppo/Sorgenti/dbox/dosb
ox/missing autoconf
/usr/bin/sh ./config.status --recheck
running CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/bin/sh /usr/bin/sh ./configure --prefix=/DosBox-x --en
able-sdl2 --enable-force-menu-sdldraw --disable-sdlnet --disable-opengl --disabl
e-alsatest --disable-alsa-midi --disable-libslirp --disable-x11 CC=gcc.exe CFLAG
S=-O2 -g -DOS2 LDFLAGS=-Zomf -Zhigh-mem -Zmap -Zbin-files -Zargs-wild -Zargs-res
p LIBS=-lcx CPP=/usr/bin/cpp.exe CXX=gcc.exe CXXFLAGS=-O2 -g -DOS2 --no-create -
-no-recursion

What puzzles me is the continue reference (in bold) to config.status --recheck which starts again the configuration process. I'm searching in forums and other places but without any hint. I also tried to remove and force --recheck to disappear from the config* files and the created makefiles but without any result - it still keeps regenerating files which loops indefinitely.
Even trying to use bash instead of sh changes nothing.

I really can't understand what the problem may be - I remember in the past I got stuck on a similar issue with another project, but solved it modifying an already available makefile. Can't get a grip on this.

Mentore

2

Programming / [SDL2] SDL_ListModes and emulation

« on: October 30, 2024, 12:29:37 pm »

You guys, something interesting here.
First of all the good news: I FINALLY got to compile a working release of FUSE, one of the best ZX Spectrum emulators available as open source https://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse-emulator/.

Configure and Make went successful but I encountered two major problems:

• the font file fuse.font used in the SDL version got broken during compilation. I solved it replacing the broken one with a pre-compiled version from a Debian distribution. OK, I cheated, but too little time to investigate on this;
• The executable crashed during SDL graphic mode initialization.

In the source file ui/sdl/sdldisplay.c there's a function named

uidisplay_init( int width, int height )

which calls SDL_ListModes like this:

modes=SDL_ListModes(NULL, SDL_FULLSCREEN|SDL_SWSURFACE);

where modes is of type SDL_Rect **modes; as per documentation.

I noticed that SDL_ListModes returns three available modes but only the first one seems somehow valid.
Trying to access modes[1] or modes[2] immediately crashed the program. SDL documentation was not helpful as I hoped.

The obvious solution was to force selecting modes[0] like this


#if defined (__OS2__)
   mn = 0; // Remove useless warning
   mw = modes[0]->w;
   mh = modes[0]->h;
   fprintf (stderr, "OS/2 system: resolution is %d x %d\n\r", mw, mh);
#else
...rest of original code follows...


I'm currently uploading everything on Hobbes, with source and utilities.
Did someone else encounter this problem? It seems almost like SDL2 under OS/2 works only in full screen mode. This may also explain why I can't start sUQLx (a Sinclair QL SDL emulator) in windowed mode, even if I try to force it.

Mentore

3

Programming / harfbuzz (TeX Live)

« on: October 16, 2024, 02:08:41 pm »

Hello all,
I'm in the process of compiling the latest version of TeX live for OS/2.
I just stopped with a really strange error (make log attached) regarding namespaces and I can't wrap my head around it.
Searching this forum for harfbuzz I found it in the wonderful Qt6 development thread from the GOAT, Paul Smedley, so the question is:
is harfbuzz somehow available under OS/2? Or, on a second instance, is it possible to work around this (for me) never seen problem?

I feel we could use a new TeX version...

Thanks all
Mentore

4

Programming / [GCC] Unable to define getMemorySize()

« on: September 25, 2024, 02:25:59 pm »

Hiya all,

Trying to port NGSpice 4.2 (3.1 compiled just fine). Everything right until this:

get_avail_mem_size.c:26:2: error: #error "Unable to define getMemorySize( ) for an unknown OS."

Where can I find the definition of getMemorySize() under OS/2? Or should I try and clear this OS definition in configuring the environment?
TIA
Mentore

5

Programming / Strange autoconf / autoreconf / configure behavior

« on: May 21, 2024, 10:04:28 am »

Hi all, this is something I never saw before.

I was recently trying to port some other SDL / un*x software on OS/2, mostly emulators. Gone through an HP 48 emulator which works under SDL, but has no configure script - just configure.ac ready to be used with autoconf. But this is what I have after running it:


[D:\Sviluppo\Sorgenti\tmp\x48-master>]sh /usr/bin/autoreconf -sfvi
autoreconf.: Entering directory `.'
autoreconf.: configure.ac: not using Gettext
autoreconf.: running: aclocal  --output=aclocal.m4t
Can't open perl script "exe": No such file or directory
aclocal: error: echo failed with exit status: 2
autoreconf.: failed to run aclocal: SYS0193=0xc1: %1 non può essere eseguito in
una sessione OS/2

[D:\Sviluppo\Sorgenti\tmp\x48-master>]sh /usr/bin/autoconf
Can't open perl script "exe": No such file or directory

[D:\Sviluppo\Sorgenti\tmp\x48-master>]


I took a look at the auto* scripts and tried changing /@unixroot/usr occurrences to /usr, but no results. Of course it was a stupid attempt but the results didn't change.

Trying to port the latest version of SOX I get this at the end of the configure script:


configure.: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile
Usage: gawk [POSIX or GNU style options] -f progfile [--] file ...
Usage: gawk [POSIX or GNU style options] [--] 'program' file ...
POSIX options:          GNU long options: (standard)
        -f progfile             --file=progfile
        -F fs                   --field-separator=fs
        -v var=val              --assign=var=val
Short options:          GNU long options: (extensions)
        -b                      --characters-as-bytes
        -c                      --traditional
        -C                      --copyright
        -d[file]                --dump-variables[=file]
        -e 'program-text'       --source='program-text'
        -E file                 --exec=file
        -g                      --gen-pot
        -h                      --help
        -L [fatal]              --lint[=fatal]
        -n                      --non-decimal-data
        -N                      --use-lc-numeric
        -O                      --optimize
        -p[file]                --profile[=file]
        -P                      --posix
        -r                      --re-interval
        -S                      --sandbox
        -t                      --lint-old
        -V                      --version

To report bugs, see node `Bugs' in `gawk.info', which is
section `Reporting Problems and Bugs' in the printed version.

gawk is a pattern scanning and processing language.
By default it reads standard input and writes standard output.

Examples:
        gawk '{ sum += $1 }; END { print sum }' file
        gawk -F: '{ print $1 }' /etc/passwd
sed: couldn't write 34 items to stdout: Invalid argument
config.status: error: could not create Makefile


Another project - FUSE 1.6 for SDL. I'd really love to get one of the best ZX Spectrum emulators under OS/2, but I get the same result.
I already ported some other programs simply tweaking their makefile, so I am rather sure GCC and its companions work well. I can't for the life of me figure what happened, since I didn't tamper with /usr/bin (I seem to remember substituting clean.exe with another exe, but can't remember when).

Is there anyone who can hint me on what to do? Upgrading the auto* tools would be a good idea, can I find them on ANPM?

Thanks in advance,
Mentore

6

Programming / libALSA?

« on: April 30, 2024, 09:17:40 am »

Hello all,
I finally managed in setting up some projects on OS/2 - mainly focusing on emulatio.
As it seems, I have a QL Emulator under SDL/2 working - never happened before (there was UQLX but needed X11 and I never saw a working copy).

Now for the difficult part:
I'm working on a newer release of FBZX, a ZX Spectrum emulator I already ported before. It uses libpulse, OSS or libALSA for sound - and we don't have any of them.
As UNIAUD is based on ALSA, I'm wondering how difficult it may be to port libalsa under OS/2.
Thoughts, anyone? I'm pulling it from github right now.

Mentore

7

Programming / ArcaOS - Recreate a complete build environment?

« on: February 05, 2024, 09:22:11 am »

Hello all, starting a new topic which I hope will be useful to other people.
I'm about to finish a complete ArcaOS VM - meaning I installed all the system, the applications that I want to work with (Graphics, DTP, Math, Emulators, Games and so on) and now I'm finishing a big development section.
So I went and installed VACPP 4 (the text editor and the CLI compiler are my needs), OpenWatcom, various REXX environments, and os on. But now I'm stuck with GCC environment.

In the past I heavily relied on Paul Smedley's build environment, but as far as I can see, there's no mention of it in his website. Since there are many interesting projects involving GCC I'd really like to get a complete GCC based build environment, but somehow feel a little stuck (too used to Visual Studio I'm afraid).

From where can I start? I guess a GCC recent version (not sure of what would be the best), discarding EMX, then make, autoconf suite, cmake, what else?

Any help will gladly be appreciated - we may use this thread to estabilish an up to date information source for us programmers out there...

TIA
Mentore

8

Programming / Installing VisualAge 4 on ArcaOS 5.x

« on: January 05, 2024, 03:05:14 pm »

Hello all,
been trying to install this old beast under my ArcaOS powered VM.
It seems, though, that even installing Netscape Communicator + Feature Install I can't get past the installation splash screen. Also rebooting the VM and reinstalling FI alone doesn't get me anywhere.
ISTR there was something helpful for installing VAge without that nightmare known as Feature Installer - I mean, what the hell did IBM developers think when they deployed something like that?

So, any help would be greatly appreciated. TIA,
Mentore

9

Programming / BREXX - Classic REXX implementation

« on: June 28, 2023, 01:53:15 pm »

Just stumbled across this:

https://github.com/vlachoudis/brexx/blob/master/README.md

Since we have a "rather" old classic REXX version, we might think about a replacement?

Mentore

10

Comments, Suggestions & Questions / ArcaOS 5.0 on xxxxxx.com

« on: January 17, 2023, 07:59:13 am »

Hello all, and most notably @Roderick Klein and all the people directly involved in ArcaNoae.

I just checked xxxxxx.com, which is a site containing "abandonware" software, constantly growing. I don't have trouble with abandonware software, but I'm seeing listed ArcaOS 5.0.

Which is DEFINITELY NOT ABANDONWARE.

I'm trying to warn the site and ask them to remove every copy of ArcaOS from their system. I'm asking all you os2world people to do the same.

Thanks all
Mentore

11

Setup & Installation / Cluster solution (AKA parallel programming) on OS/2 architecture?

« on: April 15, 2022, 08:26:23 am »

Hello all. Just a few thoughts here.
I recently was given some eeePC net-top boxes (Intel N160/270, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB hard drive each) mounting Windows 7 OS, and found they are perfectly targeted by linux distros.
Somehow the idea of connecting them in a private LAN and using them as a parallel PC solution (clustering) came to mind and, lo and behold, I found a Linux solution for this. Basically this should turn a group of PCs roughly identical in computing power in a "single" machine working on all the CPUs and resources of its components. This would mean having a "single" 7 CPUs PC with 14 GB RAM and more than 1 TB MSD, expandable adding other machines (more or less: of course there's much overhead due to LAN and other quirks).

And it's all OK and right. But: I was wondering if somehow a similar solution exists (or could exist) on OS/2 architecture? I seem to remember there was a PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine) software on Hobbes but never gave it a try.

I'll look at https://www.csm.ornl.gov/pvm/pvm_home.html (if it still exist) and maybe study a little. In the meantime I'd love to hear your opinions (having a 8 CPUs OS/2 machine with 16 GB RAM would be fun).

Mentore

12

Setup & Installation / ArcaOS USB installation - Rufus?

« on: October 10, 2021, 10:48:42 am »

Hello all,
I finally got some free time to install ArcaOS beta in a Virtualbox environment.
Everything seems working fine so far. Have to install some applications, but I already saw some things that still need Italian translation - will make a checklist to discuss with my teammates. Now for a little problem:

I'm actually having issues trying to use AOSBoot and create a bootable USB stick. Everything goes well until the script ejects the thumbdrive and I re-insert it. Then, AOSBoot complains it can't format the USB stick and aborts.

Now: I'm not sure if this is due to the thumbdrive being "only" 4GB capable, or maybe because I didn't "touch" it with LVM, so I'd really love to understand how to use it with good results.

Speaking of USB boot sticks, I came across a USB tool named Rufus (https://rufus.ie/) which allows to create a bootable USB for linux distributions or windows ISO files. Sadly it doesn't recognize ArcaOS ISO as bootable or suitable for transferring it on an USB stick.

Don't know what I'm doing wrong but I feel Rufus may be another simple way to obtain an USB ArcaOS installation media. What do you think about it? In the meantime I think I'll try burning a bootable DVD, if AOSBoot keeps failing me (puzzles me how I seem unable to use it, though!!!).

TIA
Mentore

13

Programming / Porting Lilypond to OS/2 - eCS - Arca Noae

« on: November 05, 2019, 11:05:05 am »

Hello all,
currently we OS/2 users can benefit from at least four or five music typesetting programs:

• NotaMusica 2.6 (beta 2.7) - commercial, discontinued
• Plain MusixTeX - pretty uncommon, powerful but TeX is required (and am I right in saying we really lack a current TeX?)
• MUP MUsic Publisher (ported by me, not up to date with the current release) - easy to compile, requires text input
• ABC Music composer (idem)
• Philip's Music Writer (idem)
• Lastly, we should have also some simple guitar fakebook software like Chordii or Chordpro (ported by me)

Now I'd really love if we could make one step beyond and start using some real beast like LilyPond. I actually am not able to fire up my old eCS box (pretty old indeed - at least 4 years without upgrading hardware), but I'd like to tackle this huge piece of art. I know it still needs text input just like ABC or Mup, but it seems to have more features, so...

Now for the serious part. Among the requirements I can see Guile 1.8.8 and some other things it needs:

    GNU Autoconf
    GNU Bison                       (Use version 2.0 or newer.)
    GNU Compiler Collection  (Use version 3.4 or newer (4.x recommended)).
    GNU gettext                    (0.17 or newer)
    GNU Make                       (Use version 3.78 or newer.)

These listed above we should already have. I'm not sure about the following ones (my thoughts on them in italic):

    Flex
    FontForge (recommended using at least 20100501); it must also be compiled with the ‘--enable-double’ switch, else this can lead to inaccurate intersection calculations which end up with poorly-rendered glyphs in the output.

    MetaFont
    The mf-nowin, mf, mfw or mfont binaries are usually packaged along with TeX.
    MetaPost
    The mpost binary is also usually packaged with TeX.
So, we should indeed have TeX updated!!!

    Perl
    Texinfo (Use version 4.11 or newer.)

    Type 1 utilities (Use version 1.33 or newer.)
    Cyrillic fonts (Often packaged in repositories as texlive-lang-cyrillic.)

    TeX Gyre ‘OTF’ font packages. As of LilyPond version 2.19.26, the previous default serif, san serif and monospace fonts now use Tex Gyre’s Schola, Heros and Cursor fonts respectively. Also See Fonts.

    The following font families are required:
    Schola, Heros and Cursor.

What are your thoughts about this? Do you think it's actually possible for us to have this beast under OS/2? (Yes I'd love to use it with my machine without having to boot a Linux / Win PC).

14

Hardware / Mouse weirdness

« on: December 04, 2017, 10:03:24 am »

Hello all, long time no see :-) I've been lurking a lot but without having too much to add. Recently, though, I came across a strange problem.

I've a rather old machine built by myself. Nothing too fancy, it's just an old Intel dual core with 2 GiB RAM, working only with eCS 2.1 GA. When I say "rather old" I mean "It has a PS/2 keyboard port and mouse port".

I used to work on it with an USB mouse connected to the PS/2 port via an adaptor and it worked fairly well (it's still smoother than my last laptop with an i5 CPU and Windows 10, mind you).

In the last few days, though, strange things have happened:

1 - my old mouse stopped working its left button, so I tried to use an USB mouse. It worked the first time and then no more.

2 - I tried another old PS/2 mouse (but this could be not working) and no success.

3 - I bought a new (wired, not wireless) USB mouse and tried to connect it to all the USB ports, other than the PS/2 port with its adaptor, and nothing - no mouse movements.

4 - everytime I connect the mouse to the USB port, eCS beeps (it's the same beep that occurs when I connect an USB pendrive or other MSD).

5 - Amouse is installed and Amouse USB driver too. Amouse control panel seems to detect the mouse, but the pointer does not move and pushing any of the mouse buttons doesn't do anything.

Now I want to take some time to try and see if the eCS installer actually sees the mouse. The same I'll do with some other OS installer (say, some linux).

Maybe this is the right time to think about migrating to ArcaOS...

Some ideas, anyone?
Mentore

15

Applications / [ANPM] No repository, no packages

« on: June 21, 2016, 11:09:51 pm »

Hello everybody.
I'm trying to learn to use Arca Noae Package Manager. After installing and rebooting, I opened it up and into the "Repository" window found nothing listed.

Yet, if I try to add a repository from the list provided in the Arca Noae site, the program tell me the repository has already been added. Still there's no packages I can view.

Since I installed (long ago) a somehow broken RPM/YUM and then tried to deinstall it, I wonder if maybe something undeleted could be messing up things.

Ideas, anyone?
TIA
Mentore