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Messages - Roderick Klein

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 52
1
Storage / Re: Does anyone have a copy of the 386 HPFS Upgrade for WSeB?
« on: December 21, 2025, 06:02:48 pm »
The downside is that you can not load more drivers + kernel that use more then 16MB of RAM. Otherwhise your system may trap.
So if you load the ACPI PSD, UNIAUD, ETC ETC. You quickly run to that limit.

Roderick

2
Networking / Re: Network setup for VirtualBox
« on: December 18, 2025, 11:22:01 pm »
I've been using ArcaOS running under VirtualBox running on a Windows 11 host. Setting up the network is pretty confusing.

A laptop has a WiFi card and wired ethernet. I can connect either one to my network. I set up Adapter 1 as an Intel Pro/1000 MT desktop (NAT) so that it can get TCP/IP from either laptop interface.

But I want NetBIOS, too. I don't think I can get that from NAT. NAT is TCP/IP-only as far as I know. So I defined Adapter 2 as PCnet-FAST III (Bridged to the Ethernet interface on the laptop.) That only gives me NetBIOS over Ethernet, but that will be adequate. So far, so good.

But now I move to Linux host, and NetBIOS does not work. In fact, I'm not at all sure any Adapter 2 function works on Linux. Perhaps I should ask over in the VirtualBox forum, but there are more OS/2 experts here.

How are you implementing NetBIOS under VirtualBox?

You do not implement NETBIOS under Virtualbox best I can tell. But also do not use NAT as Netbios cannot be routed via NAT.  Also use the E1000 NIC not the PCnet=fast driver, that OS/2 driver is pretty bad. Or can you not define two E1000 NIC's ?

Roderick

3
Utilities / Re: Booting OS/2 with an Animation
« on: December 18, 2025, 02:05:55 pm »
Hello

ArcaOS is based in OS/2 Warp 4.52, and it does not support animations on the boot procedure. I think this old hack will not work today.

But I don't know if something can be worked out for the UEFI boot, but I guess there are other development priorities for ArcaOS.

Dreaming in technicolor here, I once saw a Linux that had a nice boot process. Just the boot logo animation and later the desktop. but you can optionally press "Esc" and remove the logo and see all the stuff running on the back, until the desktop is show on the screen.

Regards

The ArcaOS UEFI loader does support true color PNG files. But that is just it.
It seems you would need this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APNG
If this can be put in the UEFI loader even at all.

Roderick

4
Applications / Re: OS2VOICE RPM - ...and MMOS2 Updater
« on: December 18, 2025, 01:53:24 pm »
Hello Roderick

If you are around, don't forget to send a news with the public announcement of the OS2VOICE RPM !!
I would recommend if you can list all the software that you have on "release" for that announcement.

Regards

I have still been having some health issue's. Hopefully get back to this at the end of the year.

Roderick

5
Applications / Re: RSJ CDwriter question.
« on: December 18, 2025, 01:52:51 pm »
Hi,

Finally I get RSJ CDwriter working.
Less is more is not spend on ArcaOS, I've got a 64Gb partition and RSJ 6.03 won't work.
After increasing the partition to 8Gb it works!

Now I have a perhaps simple question; How can I burn an *.iso to a CD/DVD?
I just forgot it and I can't find it in the manual.

Grts,
Adrian

I would really be interested if its true that RSJ does not work on a partition bigger then 64 GB. Its possible but highly doubt your observation is correct. As I think you can also make files bigger with it then 2GB (burn ISO files) with RSJ.
At Mensys we used RSJ extensively on large partitions to burn ISO files.

Was this on a HPFS or JFS partition that this happened ? And it failed what error message did you get ?

Best regards,

Roderick Klein

6
Storage / Re: Does anyone have a copy of the 386 HPFS Upgrade for WSeB?
« on: December 17, 2025, 07:53:55 pm »
Thanks Kim,

Where is this screenshot from - is this from your own collection?

Are you able to expand on what any of those additional items are?

Thanks,
Richard.

Just be carefull that you cannot use earlyminit=true with HPFS386.

Roderick

7
Virtualization / Re: Win-OS/2 - Open vbesvga.drv video driver
« on: December 14, 2025, 09:12:39 pm »
Hello

At the testing mail list, Lewis told me that ArcaOS  cannot recommend this driver and will not use any of the code. They don't specify why, but I'm guessing it does not detail the license of use and for commercial software this has to be clear as water.

I was suggested to open a ticket so they can try to solve the issue.
The ticket is right here for people that wants to follow it:
- mantis.arcanoae.com/view.php?id=3855

Regards

The WIN/OS2 driver for full screen and WIN/OS2 seamless session from IBM uses GRADD calls somehow and not BIOS calls. This route is possibly more stable then using the VESA based graphics driver. The other issue is that for UEFI boot with ArcaOS the video VESA BIOS is limited in functionality compared to a BIOS system. And this seems to even less receommend by Dixie.

Roderick

8
Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS 5.1.1 can't install on Acer Aspire.
« on: December 08, 2025, 06:29:50 pm »
Hi,

Changed the UEFI and disable secure boot.
Acer starts, boots from USB install stick.
When choosing to install on harddisk and start the installer it gives an error that "config.sys is not found on B:"
It doesn't matter if you choose default installation or own menu.
Any idea's?

I think it does somewhere very early in the boot that stops working. As suggest first try a new USB stick and if that does not work open a ticket at Arca Noae.
As we are most likely not able to help you here.

Question does it unzip the ZIP file files (BIN files).

Roderick

Hi, I'm using a Kingston 8Gb USB 3.xx stick. This works perfect to install ArcaOS 5.1.1 on a Lenovo T60.
I will try a 64Gb Sandisk USB 3.xx witch USB A en C.
For ArcaOS this a enormous sticks.
Size does matter, unfortunately not for ArcaOS.

Gras,
Adrian

Take into account the T60 is BIOS boot and your Acer laptop is UEFI boot. The USB stick supports both boot methods.

ROderick Klein

9
Storage / Re: Does anyone have a copy of the 386 HPFS Upgrade for WSeB?
« on: December 02, 2025, 06:47:47 am »
Hi Richard.

If you want to add Workspace On-Demand to your list that will be great.
- https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php?title=IBM_WorkSpace_On-Demand

The lastest version of IBM WorkSpace On-Demand for OS/2 was version 2.0. I always wanted to make it run, but it never worked for me. The idea would be to have one server with Wsfeb + WorkSpace On-Demand, and have one dumb workstation (thin PC) that will boot OS/2 Warp 4 desktop from the server.

Regards

Getting workspace on demand setup is not an easy task. That is what at the time got Serenity Systems the OEM contract for OS/2. Kim Cheung made Wisemachine. Orginally it was made to make workspace on demand setup a drag and drop.

Roderick

10
Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS 5.1.1 can't install on Acer Aspire.
« on: November 23, 2025, 12:37:36 pm »
Hi,

Changed the UEFI and disable secure boot.
Acer starts, boots from USB install stick.
When choosing to install on harddisk and start the installer it gives an error that "config.sys is not found on B:"
It doesn't matter if you choose default installation or own menu.
Any idea's?

I think it does somewhere very early in the boot that stops working. As suggest first try a new USB stick and if that does not work open a ticket at Arca Noae.
As we are most likely not able to help you here.

Question does it unzip the ZIP file files (BIN files).

Roderick

11
Events / Re: Warpstock 2025 USA - The end of my journey with ArcaOS
« on: November 21, 2025, 12:08:56 pm »
A few thoughts, FWIW, about the wifi discussion:

1) I was sitting next to a guy (Grant) at Warpstock who was using his iPad to provide internet to his Lenovo laptop running AOS 5.1.1 (I think it was through his iPad but might have been through his iPhone).  So it is possible.  If anyone wants the details I will email him and ask - if he isn't already reading this topic.

2) Grant is an assembly language programmer - his preferred language.  One of his goals is to get bluetooth running on OS/2.  He has an ODB2 car scanner that he wants to be able to read using OS/2.  So we MAY get some bluetooth support, for at least some devices.

Anybody gots Grant contact information ? If so would somebody please send him my contact data (or he contact me) on roderickklein at xs4all.nl.

As for Bluetooth support. I am no expert in this but this might be a bit a big one to get working as I get the impression you would need a Bluettooth to support a bluettooth device. You need to for exaple talk to Bluetooth transmitter in your PC. So I wonder how much work it would be.

Roderick Klein

12
Events / Re: Warpstock 2025 USA - The end of my journey with ArcaOS
« on: November 16, 2025, 10:46:28 pm »
Quote
who have the knowledge, time and interest
  • who have the knowledge
  • time and
  • interest

Tell me when you have a candidate for only one of the above 3 questions.

Seriously, I've been the maintainer of xwlan and our port of wpa_supplicant for about a decade. Although I've fixed and extended a lot and invested countless hours, even these two project are far from what we would need today. And that's only an interface to a driver. I know porting or writing a wifi driver would be a lot of more (huge more) work. From my experience the majority of 'non programmers' don't even get feedback. Not to talk about helping out with testing or writing readme's..... So dream on.

Look I am not an expert but heck you ask Copilot.com at least as *some* form of start. This list comes pretty close to what is needed to write an OS/2 wifi driver. Maybe not all is needed. But let this list sink in:
1. Device Identification & Initialization
   PCI/USB/SDIO bus interface code to detect the chipset.
   Proper vendor and device IDs so the OS can bind the driver.
   Initialization routines to set up registers and memory mapping

2. Firmware Loader
   Many WiFi chipsets require proprietary firmware blobs.
   The driver must include routines to load firmware into the chipset at startup

3. MAC Layer (Medium Access Control)
   Implements 802.11 protocol logic (association, authentication, encryption).
   Handles packet framing, retransmissions, and QoS.

4. PHY Layer (Physical Layer) Control
   Manages radio tuning, modulation, and channel selection.
   Provides APIs for setting frequency bands and transmit power.

5. Network Stack Integration
   Hooks into the OS networking subsystem (e.g., Linux cfg80211 and mac80211 frameworks).
   Provides standard interfaces for scanning, connecting, and data transfe

6. Configuration & Management Utilities
   User-space tools or APIs (like iwconfig, NetworkManager, or custom utilities).
   Support for WPA/WPA2/WPA3 security via integration with supplicant software

7. Interrupt & DMA Handling
   Efficient handling of hardware interrupts for packet transmission/reception.
   DMA (Direct Memory Access) setup for high-speed data transfer.

Skipping power management

9. Error Handling & Logging
   Debugging hooks, kernel logs, and recovery routines for failed transmissions or firmware crashes.

13
Events / Re: Warpstock 2025 USA - The end of my journey with ArcaOS
« on: November 16, 2025, 10:09:25 pm »
Hello
wished i was a programmer to contribute to the development of a WIFI-driver.
What about the idea to start a project to develop one together - online with the help of all who have the knowledge, time and interest - step by step. Would that be feasible?

Even that the Andi B's comments are right, I was wondering if a more dirty/non-elengant/hack aproach can be worked out to have wifi drivers with less effort. Like just focusing on some basic wifi first and maybe not fully functional first. Maybe going back the 32bits windriver wrapper idea, or focusing on some USB wifi dongles.

Regards

Read my lengthy reply to Sigurd if it was all that simple, really I wish it was. Sadly its not.  I have been looking at all of this.

What we need understand as community is what I described below:

You effectively have two approaches.

1. Port a driver, copy paste chunks and get a driver.

2. Come up with library or wrapper that does this.  This what David tried twice with Linux and FreeBSD.  But it backfired because simply a case of badluck. The bad luck that Linux changest the kernel somehow and then it happened again with FreeBSD.

The win32 wrapper is complete dead end. Simply because no more 32 bit drivers are being made for Windows. You know when Willebald Meyer created Genmac it was a lot of work I am not discounting that at all. But to some degree he also got lucky and here is why. The NDIS network stack on OS/2 and Windows where pretty close (no surprise of course).
One of the changes is that NDIS stack on Windows started to change that much (and the driver as well). To an extend keeping Genmac up with the changes on Windows became to much for one person to keep up with.

I wonder if people even fully grasp the parallels between Multimac and Genmac. To put it differently Willibald Meyer looked a generic solution to not write the drivers.
But wrote drivers to support the Windows drivers. My conclusion Genmac stopped working simply because the technical changes between Windows and OS/2 become to big.
ReactOS I think also only supports 32 bit wifi drivers, not 64 bit.

ReactOS seems be in the same boot as we are.

https://reactos.org/wiki/Supported_Hardware/Wireless_Network_cards

Roderick


14
Events / Re: Warpstock 2025 USA - The end of my journey with ArcaOS
« on: November 16, 2025, 05:31:08 pm »
First of all I listened to many hours of the Warpstock stream and I do not think that Lewis said it such a way as one line answer. Like ooh who needs Wifi, in my opinion Sigurd did not picked up the message 100% correctly.  David mentioned if he could hand over to another developer he would welcome that.  He did not state (from what I heard) he would stop development.

And while I perfectly understand everybody is entitled to his opinion and call stuff excuses.  They way I understand the idea is Arca Noae works on drivers to keep ArcaOS to boot on new hardware. And that is logic order in my opinion. So as David and Lewis mentioned. IBMKBD.SYS was updated to support systems without a 8042 controller, we take NVME support for granted. USB 3.0 took waaaay longer then every expected. And now David is working an update to ACPI as discussed by Dmitry.  And why do we not have Wifi drivers.

We you can port drivers to another OS in two ways.

1. You rewrite the code to match OS/2. from Linux/FreeBSD that is very, very time consuming.

2. The second option is that you write a driver library so you work more efficiently.

Option two we started with when David still worked on eCS at Mensys and worked on the Multimac driver system. With library he could with almost changing no code and push out Linux kernel NIC support on OS/2 within a few hours per driver.  Work was resumed to push this towards Linux and when it was not far from being finished. Well the Linux guys changest the kernel in such a way that broke the Multimac library to a high degree.  And that was the end of the dream of portable wifi drivers, blown. I once heard from David at one of the Warpstocks
then one binary for the Wifi Intel driver (that not working yet, it was not finished). One binary was 400 KB in size. I think that is just the size Uniaud32.sys.
Wifi drivers are so waaaay, waaaay much more complicated then ethernet drivers.

So after the Linux option went away David started from scratch on Freebsd. Some concept but it takes time to build such library. Every call the driver source make need to mapped somehow to work on OS/2.  So ethernet drivers started to appear. And when stuff got closer for Wifi with a FreeBSD library well the FreeBSD modified the kernel sources.

Now David his work to port the 2.5 gigabit drivers is slowed down also as he encounters option 1 I mentioned. Porting code. All of that is way more labor intensive.
So for people to sit there that nothing was done on wifi drivers etc.

Cutting long story short. Serious efforts where made for wifi drivers and mostly failed because of bad luck. If Linux or FreeBSD did not modify its kernel sources we would have had the wifi drivers. Indeed wifi drivers are one of the most complex driver types around just about. Panorama, AHCI, NVME, ACPI and USB is so much easier, but why is that ? Well the interfaces are to high degree standard.

Now porting the new Intel and Realtek ethernet drivers might also take longer because of the same changes to FreeBSD kernel.
Its not recompiling the code....

Just my humble opinion.

Roderick

15
Applications / Re: OS2VOICE RPM - ...and MMOS2 Updater
« on: November 13, 2025, 05:35:51 pm »
The repodata is still broken. This is server side issue.
This will be looked at later. But you can download via rpm.os2voice.org with a browser.
Remember you can also need to download and install the CWMM 031 WPI next to this one. Otherwhise Timidity will not work.

I am currently dealing with some health issue so not online much.

Roderick

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