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OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Applications => Topic started by: Martin Iturbide on January 03, 2023, 05:42:42 pm

Title: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 03, 2023, 05:42:42 pm
Hi, Happy New Year

I always like to discuss our wish list for each year and get some discussion. Why? because software is a thing that changes with time, and what was good some time ago changes too.

My wishlist has:

- Otter - We still require a solid webbrowser.
- Qt6 - I have my hopes with Paul here :)
- OpenJDK - Java Runtime enviroment
- Eclipse - Development IDE

This is the open source Wishlist we discussed on 2022-09 (https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,2713.msg35815.html#msg35815).
- The GIMP (http://www.gimp.orgh/).  Photo edition tool
   - To port this it is required to port GTK+ first.
- Inkscape (https://inkscape.org/). illustration tool
- Audacity (https://www.audacityteam.org/). Sound recording editing tool
- QEMU (https://www.qemu.org/). Machine emulator and virtualizer.
- Openscad (https://www.openscad.org/) . The Programmers Solid 3D CAD Modeller.
- QCAD (https://qcad.org/en/). 2D CAD
- R - Statistics, 3-D and dynamic graphics
- TeX live (https://tug.org/texlive/). Recent version of the TeX typesetting program, successor to teTeX.
- Kate (https://kate-editor.org). Text editor.
- Notepad++ (https://notepad-plus-plus.org/). Text Editor
- Peazip (https://peazip.github.io/). Archiver tool
- OBS (https://obsproject.com/es). Video streaming, desktop recording.
- KDevelop (https://www.kdevelop.org/). Development IDE.
- Lazarus (https://www.lazarus-ide.org/). Development IDE.
- wxWidgets (https://www.wxwidgets.org/).  C++ library GUI API (Update it)
- LibreOffice (https://www.libreoffice.org/) - Since OpenOffice seems to be evolving to slow

Regards
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Remy on January 03, 2023, 09:14:37 pm
I would like add Upplay QT5
(High need here and for those enjoying high end music / streaming)
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Eugene Tucker on January 03, 2023, 11:02:01 pm
Definitely Audacity. I would also like to see Falkon browser as it passed Otter up in working features.
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Dave Yeo on January 04, 2023, 03:00:43 am
Falkon is a KDE browser, so would need at least parts of KDE ported I assume.
OTOH, if it was possible to port KDE, that would result in lots of other software being portable. Whether KDE is fully portable to OS/2, I have no idea. One gotcha I see is everything uses 3D graphics to be pretty and take advantage of modern graphic cards and their accelerated 3D drawing.
Anyways while wishing, we could wish for KDE. Then there's GTK, which would also be hard to port (like QT but likely harder) but would also give many programs such as the Gimp
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: David McKenna on January 04, 2023, 12:11:08 pm
Hi Martin,

  I like your list, and while we are dreaming, would like to add updated software OpenGL (which is an actual component of OS/2).

Regards,
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: JPM on January 04, 2023, 02:42:35 pm
Would be nice if ArcaOS 5.1 would finally be finished.
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Dave Yeo on January 05, 2023, 06:30:00 am
Eventually, we're likely to need ipv6 support. Probably mean a new TCPIP stack, a major job.
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Mentore on January 06, 2023, 05:19:16 pm
Eventually, we're likely to need ipv6 support. Probably mean a new TCPIP stack, a major job.

Indeed a major rewrite, since the TCP/IP stack available does know nothing about IPv6. Maybe many low level drivers to be rewritten from scratch: I'm afraid of possible problems related to 64-bit needs...

Mentore
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: ivan on January 06, 2023, 05:58:03 pm
It sounds as if the real answer would be a 64 bit kernel and support programs.  Something I assume will never happen.
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Roderick Klein on January 06, 2023, 06:21:18 pm
Eventually, we're likely to need ipv6 support. Probably mean a new TCPIP stack, a major job.

Indeed a major rewrite, since the TCP/IP stack available does know nothing about IPv6. Maybe many low level drivers to be rewritten from scratch: I'm afraid of possible problems related to 64-bit needs...

Mentore

About 98% of the code in the TCP/IP stack drivers such as socketsk.sys is recompiled FreeBSD code, It would possibly be easier to dump the old stack on OS/2 that we have and if somebody has the time port combined IPv4 and IPv6 stack. There are light wheight combined stacks for embedded systems that should be able to run on OS/2. Not needing 64 bit support.

How much work this would be. I had a URL to an open source IPV4/IPv6 stack but I lost the link.

Roderick
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: roberto on January 06, 2023, 10:31:26 pm
It would be interesting to add to that list a program that I do not remember the name, but that was a copy of the Dbexpert, for Linux. If someone remembers it.
saludos
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Andi B. on January 07, 2023, 09:57:00 am
For what do you really need IPv6?

My own LAN is running IPv4 as it always did. If I've ever have a need for outside IPv6 connection, I'm pretty sure my LTE and my xDSL modems will do the conversion for me. For me there's no sense in making a direct connection from the outside world to one of my private systems except VPN. What are your use cases for IPv6?
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: SoundChaser on January 07, 2023, 05:27:58 pm
Frankly (and I have all of Stevens' TCPIP books here) IPv6 couldn't be lower on my list. We're still on IP-beta (aka v4) in 2023 and the migration was supposed to be completed by 2010. Like FM radio, it's here to stay.

As a community, we need developers. People to back the work of Paul, David, the folks at BWW, etc. The very first thing new developers want is a friendly development environment.

On ArcaOS it is sort-of there. At least there's ANPM/yum for dependencies management. There should be a single 'awesome ArcaOS' git(Hub,lab) with everything you need to get up to speed with a tested stable development kit. That means OpenWatcom 1.9 and gccand all the environment scripts sorted out and standardized, a modern editor... and I know someone can take a few hours to set up by themselves. Bullshit. It's just yack shaving and non-productive. I want Suntan Special for developers.

Once that is in place, a developer community can actually get started to support ArcaNoae, bww and Paul on Qt6, blink/chromium, KDE apps (thanks qt6) and only then - maybe - gtk apps.

But I tell you the developer experience is currently very opaque, cumbersome and error-prone.

Since the most urgent need is on C/C++ side, I obviously wasn't talking about REXX development.
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 07, 2023, 05:39:45 pm
Hi SoundChaser

There should be a single 'awesome ArcaOS' git(Hub,lab) with everything you need to get up to speed with a tested stable development kit. That means OpenWatcom 1.9 and gccand all the environment scripts sorted out and standardized, a modern editor... and I know someone can take a few hours to set up by themselves. Bullshit. It's just yack shaving and non-productive. I want Suntan Special for developers.

I take these words like some kind of "ArcaOS Developer Kit" should exist. Not matter if it is on github, or any other place.
An idea to combine development tools, compilers,  libraries and source code samples in one single package. Like some kind of OS/2 Toolkit and IBM Device Driver Development Kit, but trying to bring to 2023 for the ArcaOS platform.

Regards
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: SoundChaser on January 07, 2023, 05:55:14 pm
Most desperately so.

Should I use GCC (in absence of clang, it's to only sane choice) or OW? well it depends to who you talk. Many developers only swear by OpenWatcom which is an utterly confusing mess since a developer took on him the burden to revamp the stack with variable-to-absent consideration for testing on ArcaOS or OS/2 4.5 .

If one is to port an app... EMX? Klibc? BWW libc? It appears that bww is the only viable choice, but with all the references out there on the other previous iterations, it makes it still very confusing.

Once you decided the target libc, how to have the auto-tools and cmake recognize the ArcaOS SDK requirements (linker?!)

Each step in the way is a mix of forum or mailing list archives digging, archeaology and sweat. There's some fun in that, but it's not productive. And most hobbyist developers won't know where to look and they'll go back tinkering with their RPi instead. Much more developer friendly.

Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Andi B. on January 07, 2023, 07:31:02 pm
Quote
Should I use GCC (in absence of clang, it's to only sane choice) or OW? well it depends to who you talk.
I don't think it depends on who you talk but on what you want to do. You also have to add to your list IBM VAC3.65/3.08.

A few thoughts about this from my side -
1) if you wanna port something from Linux -> yum install gcc, wlink and the other stuff from bww including libc(x) is your choice.
2) if you wanna start some simple C stuff from scratch - you may start with OpenWatcom and the IDE supplied including the debugger wd(w). But if you have some experience with gcc, of course you better go the 1) way
3) if you wanna write a device driver - probably OpenWatcom is your choice. Maybe you wanna use Davids driver samples for that. Or otherwise if you start with a DDK example you may need an older version of Watcom and/or MASM and/or ICC....
4) if you wanna contribute to some existing project - you don't have much choice. You may need gcc or VAC3.xx or Watcom or a mix of that.

For all of the above you may sometimes need or like to have idebug from the VAC3 or VAC4 environment or ICAT. But it depends. There are people out there who never want to use a debugger. Most of the time because they never knew a decent debugger like idebug or f.i. the debugers integrated in some mikrocontroller development environments. But...

Sum up, reality is more complex than can be handled by one unified solution.
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on January 07, 2023, 08:13:56 pm
...As a community, we need developers. People to back the work of Paul, David, the folks at BWW, etc. The very first thing new developers want is a friendly development environment.
...
There should be a single 'awesome ArcaOS' git(Hub,lab) with everything you need to get up to speed with a tested stable development kit. That means OpenWatcom 1.9 and gccand all the environment scripts sorted out and standardized, a modern editor... and I know someone can take a few hours to set up by themselves. Bullshit. It's just yack shaving and non-productive.
...
But I tell you the developer experience is currently very opaque, cumbersome and error-prone.
...

You have captured what has been the Achilles Heel of trying to get any DEV work done on our platform.

The old stuff (say VAC 3.08/3.65/4.0) has been largely abandoned (although it also seems like equally undeserved treatment), while the newer stuff (say latest GCC, etc.) isn't spelled out anywhere as to how it maps onto our OS/2 platform. I'm talking here stuff like: how does the IBM OS/2 Dev Toolkit mix with the generic GCC stuff? Should one keep these separate, or combined? How is RPM part of all this?

In summary: we have a minefield of a DEV environment! Who wants to take a trip through that when the "skull and crossbones" warning sign is staring you right in the face? Yeah...those who enjoy doing that sort of a thing (me included), but it makes for an insurmountable obstacle for everyone else.

Beyond this...even with all the right tools, etc, etc. being available, you still need someone to lend you that "helping hand". We get this here on the forum, but what would go extremely far would be having an 'OS/2 Dev Class' organized, where on let's say weekly basis we would all do an on-line session to plug away through some coding examples...basically, a modern-day on-line course!!!

This could tackle things like:
1) What IDE environments are available?
2) What compiler/library/runtime environments are availble?
3) What are the basic pre-reqs one must acquire before coming to the "big boys" table, that being: get some basic C/C++ experience, understand OS/2 pecularities such as "..xxx..."
4) Sample Project
5) Sample Project Debugging
6) ...you get the idea?

So until that happens we simply will not develop any extra DEV "bench strength", which will eventually kill the platform.
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 07, 2023, 08:16:16 pm
Hi

I think I can agree with SoundChaser.

Even if we can discuss and even agree on which tools and libraries to use, it should be wrote down somewhere. And since Arca Noae is the company selling ArcaOS, they have some authority to post the documentation and suggest things about ArcaOS modern development.

For example, for me is obvious that bww Libc should be used instead of EMX, but where is documented that?
It is not like forcing developers to use something, but to document a suggested standard of developent tools.

Regards
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: ivan on January 07, 2023, 09:27:25 pm
Another thing I would like to have is a reliable bluetooth driver.
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: SoundChaser on January 07, 2023, 10:18:59 pm
I've been stuck in isolation for a week during which I've been toying with my ArcaOS setup (still have to try out the HOBLink files to see if it works on my end, but I digress) and that week has been fairly educational:

- there's a fair amount of source code of OS/2 software from the "golden age" (1993-2000) period. A lot of these came from the GNU/Linux ecosystem and were ported to OS/2 at the time using EMX. If I understand correctly the current state of things, to refresh these usually means *reverting* many of the former port to the then-incomplete EMX port of the application and actually re-do the port to the current BWW libc. "libc retargeting", if you wish. If you are curious, my goal was to have a baseline VIM working with bww' libc and it built and linked, but something's broken at VIO level. My hope were high - and perhaps I was close to my target - but in the end it was a bitter experience.

- there's a fair amount of source code of Linux software that begs to be ported. The QT porting efforts does unlock many of such ports, yet depending on the runtime target of the Qt port itself (is it leveraging bww? libc? Odin32? EMX? Combo?), it can have a profound impact afterwards. I think Paul's approach of porting gcc and sticking to the GNU toolset is the right approach. I'm curious about how the graphics part is done though.

- What about OpenWatcom then? Well, to my understanding, it remains the tool of choice for device driver and OS/2-only development, when you wish to try Petzold's PM book samples or OS/2 Toolkit, porting Win16 code or code from the surprisingly active DOS community.

IMHO, the IBM C/Set|VAge should be considered legacy and worth installing on any developer machine for the debugging tools they provide and when that particular compiler is required. Otherwise, it's a dead end.

Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Dave Yeo on January 08, 2023, 02:34:16 am
@SoundChaser, About EMX and klibc (now libcn), klibc was basically a rewrite of the EMX libc, as well as updates. Generally, a program built with EMX can easily be rebuilt with klibc. For example, I needed to open a zoo archived program, found a zoo.exe from about 1991 built with EMX, it wouldn't run but had the source, doing make and it rebuilt and ran fine with the GCC and klibc.
There are somethings that EMX does better. Better select() for example. For XFree, it is a requirement. It also had better console support, something really lacking in klibc. Of course it is ancient and missing a lot of stuff.
There's likely some old ports of vim on hobbes if that is your preference, OpenWatcom ships with a decent vi too, has a menu, mouse support, full VIO app.
You can build OS/2 programs with GCC, OpenWatcom and the old VACPP compilers, all using the latest toolkit if you choose. If you want to write stuff for the WPS, using SOM, you pretty well have to use the VACPP compilers.
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: SoundChaser on January 08, 2023, 03:51:22 pm
Having the libcn in a lesser state than EMX is... well, as a developer I understand that there's so much to do and so little time, so applying YAGNI principle, if these calls were not required when the libs were leverage for a given port (say firefox), it's understandable they aren't at the same quality.

However, when it's time to port, what should be the target now? It should be libcn. But... I understand it can't be used for console apps? Nonsense.

Perhaps the priority of the development community (not putting the burden on one dev, but more in a collegial way - if we want to conquer the hill, we need a strategy) should be to give some love to that runtime while moving forward porting stuff. But where to start? Is what's missing documented at all, or is it the knowledge of a few devs?

Back to vim.  I'm using the OW version and it's pretty good. I was using it as a porting exercise, knowing that if I'd checkout the commit before the os2 support was removed, it _should_ build. It did. But as you confirmed, console appears broken in many ways. I wanted to port console apps, so unless the libcn is fixed I can't... and no problem to debug and eventually contribute to libcn, yet back to my original comments, the setup time is somewhat time-consuming and error-prone.

Still, I want to give credits to the folks at BWW who documented a lot. Now it needs to reach next level. One toolset for porting, one toolset for legacy (PM and DOS or win32s ports) and reduced friction setup for both. I'm probably oversimplifying, still I think a hobbyist purchasing ArcaOS should be able to code in less than an hour, that's not really the case right now.

Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Dave Yeo on January 09, 2023, 03:08:09 am
Hi SoundChaser, don't take it to mean that OS/2 has completely broken term support, just that libc is missing stuff like termios, TIOCGWINSZ and such. They could be added if someone knows what they're doing.
For example, recently worked with the mpg123 maintainer to fix console support on OS/2. There's old EMX stuff still around, _scrsize() will still get you the console size and poking around klibc source, I found a 32 bit wrapper for KbdCharIn() to get keystrokes. There is a problem in that our VIO is at heart 16 bit and it is not easy to directly call a 16 bit API.
You can look at things like the source for ncurses to likely find other workarounds but ideally would be to support the right functions.
What do you mean about,
Quote
Back to vim.  I'm using the OW version and it's pretty good. I was using it as a porting exercise, knowing that if I'd checkout the commit before the os2 support was removed, it _should_ build. It did.
You're not using the fork on Github are you? Don't use that, it was forked a while back and is missing a bunch of various recent fixes, high memory, linker having HLL debug symbol support etc. The maintainer is kind of reckless with commits (not enough testing).
Unluckily http://www.openwatcom.org/ (http://www.openwatcom.org/) is still down and has been for too long. There's a recent build at ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/openwatcom/ (http://ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/openwatcom/). I guess the source needs a new host or at least the latest checkout posted somewhere.
As for documentation, the EMX docs are a good start, things have been simplified but most of the public functions are still there and generally EMX source compiles fine with libcn. I think this has the documentation, otherwise in the same directory, https://www.os2site.com/sw/dev/emx/emx_v09d/emxview.zip (https://www.os2site.com/sw/dev/emx/emx_v09d/emxview.zip) which is worth browsing.
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: SoundChaser on January 09, 2023, 03:32:01 pm
I'm using the 1.9 build, which iirc I downloaded from github using a link from BWW docs, but that I'm not sure anymore. I'll have to validate with my firefox download history... I agree with you on the fork, I bet their OS/2 build is broken.

Thanks for all the insights!
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Andi B. on January 09, 2023, 05:36:27 pm
For the OS/2 full version/installer Franks 2.0 (1.9+) builds are the more or less last official and most preferred version. Have to search for the link...

I think I've dowloaded the last (or near the last) official OW and 4os2 sources from the perforce repository before it went down. I've set up a non-official git repository for 4os2. For OW Steven and/or Michal (?) wanted to setup one at that time. Unfortunately it seems he doesn't find the time to do this. One problem is if I setup a git repository then it does not include the change history. So it's not so useful as it should. Moreover I wanted to have the official maintainers to set up a new official home.

Anyway if there is an urgent need I can try to upload the (nearly) latest perforce sources at sourceforge. Unfortunately checking in to my bitbucket account (my preferred place until a few months) doesn't work anymore.
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Gregg Young on January 09, 2023, 08:29:28 pm
You're not using the fork on Github are you? Don't use that, it was forked a while back and is missing a bunch of various recent fixes, high memory, linker having HLL debug symbol support etc. The maintainer is kind of reckless with commits (not enough testing).
Unluckily http://www.openwatcom.org/ (http://www.openwatcom.org/) is still down and has been for too long. There's a recent build at ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/openwatcom/ (http://ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/openwatcom/). I guess the source needs a new host or at least the latest checkout posted somewhere.

Hi Dave

The latest source for openwatcom from openwatcom.org is at https://github.com/StevenLevine/openwatcom-v1.  The OW 2.0 beta 4 is at ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/openwatcom/open-watcom-c-os2-2.0-beta-4.exe. This is my build from the latest sources. This should be either identical to or very close to Frank's last build. 4OS2 is at https://github.com/StevenLevine/4os2. My understanding is that Perforce decided not to continue providing a license to openwatcom.org for free. 

Thanks

Gregg
Title: Re: Software Wishlist for 2023
Post by: Dave Yeo on January 09, 2023, 10:05:00 pm
Thanks Gregg, was wondering if Steven had got around to posting the source. I posted the URL's on openwatcom.contributors newsgroup, which is still carried on various servers, open september, aioe and astraweb at least.