Messages

1

Setup & Installation / Fix Python Problems (Was: Re: ArcaOS 5.1)

« on: November 08, 2023, 05:33:15 pm »

Hello Rick and others!

This is a very common problem with an easy fix!

First, there was only Python2, which is EOL since years.
Now we have Python3 also.
Yum stuff requires Python2.

See also:
https://mantis.arcanoae.com/view.php?id=3523
and
https://mantis.arcanoae.com/view.php?id=3545

Select Python2 (2.7) and Python3 packages and one of the two Python unversioned packages (I suggest the one which sets the newer Python as default) and install them in one rush.
After that, everything will fall into place.

This is a known, but yet undocumented issue with the packaging (not with ANPN).

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja

2

Applications / Re: VLC 3.0.19 don't install !

« on: November 06, 2023, 11:17:47 pm »

Hello Klipp!

I'm currently on Linux Mint, so I can't test directly.

a) Wait for VLC 3.0.20 to be ported (it was just released a few days after 3.0.19).

b) The launcher StartVLC (even if just uploaded to hobbes) is from 2011 and might not work with recent VLC builds.

c) Do you have the requirements for VLC 3.0.19 installed?

d) Does VLC run from its bin or lib directory (need to find its DLLs)?

e) Are other DLLs of the same name already loaded or earlier in LIBPATH?

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja

3

Hardware / Re: Using a UPS to save SSDs

« on: November 06, 2023, 10:50:09 pm »

Addendum, soon after the above:-  I see that the UK chain store Argos is offering Western Digital's Elements 2TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive for just under GBP70.  WD is a brand I have associated with quality for decades: in the old days, they made stuff like a widely used disk controller chip and today they own SanDisk.  (In fact, a few days ago they announced a forthcoming split between their SSD and HDD operations.)  Would that rate as safe enough for archiving?

Argh! Nooooooo! From the german c't Magazine (even if this is a commentary and not a normal article):

https://www.heise.de/meinung/SSD-Ausfaelle-Western-Digital-verspielt-alles-Vertrauen-9352972.html

Especially the newer external SSD stuff from WD / SanDisk dies like flys, customer service is non-existing!

If you can afford it, I would highly recommend getting an "IODD ST400" USB 3.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure (I use its predecessor IODD 2541 regularly - it is a "must have" tool for anyone doing computer support/administration) plus a normal 2.5" SATA SSD from Samsung EVO 870 series (not QVO!).

SSD must be powered up at least every once or better twice a year.
For some IODD maintenance tasks like creating virtual sticks and disks or keeping your newest ArcaOS or Linux ISO in one piece on the disk, Windows is required.

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja

4

Web applications / Re: Dooble releases, Qt5 builds

« on: March 01, 2023, 12:58:53 am »

Hello Dave!

The DELete key doesn't work in text forms like the one here for typing a reply. Windows version from December and with QT6 doesn't suffer from this problem.

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja

5

Comments, Suggestions & Questions / Re: An application for BOOT from usb any ISO - Ventoy

« on: February 16, 2021, 11:55:34 pm »

After researching, I found a kind of improved successor of the Zalman device:

http://iodd.kr/wordpress/product/iodd-2541/

I got mine for €85,00 from Amazon.

It remembers the selected CD image and up to four virtual Floppies/Sticks/removable HDDs and has a keypad instead of a jog dial. Only if you use AES encryption, an always-on USB port is recommended, otherwise it would be hard to enter the password before the computer boots.

I have a Samsumg SSD QVO (don't buy this series with four bits per cell) which works inside a PC, but refused to operate in two other external enclosures. In the IODD-2541 it works.

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja

6

Programming / Re: Liberty Basic for OS/2

« on: November 22, 2020, 08:01:00 pm »

Hello Tuure and Dave,

Software from that age might not be compatible with SMP (or with current CPU speeds).
Your can try ACPI with /MAXCPU=1 or mark the executable as being not-SMP-compatible.
A third option would be to use the W4 Kernel together with its DOSCALL1.DLL.
Perhaps this helps - at least if it is SMP related.

I had to mark the graphics program IMPOS2 back in time on my WarpServer Advanced SMP to use only one CPU.
Only with eComStation SMP and JFS reached endusers, the stock OS/2 from IBM supported only a simple CPU.

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja

7

Networking / Re: How to reinstall Samba Client?

« on: September 30, 2020, 12:25:18 am »

The system installation uses a repository which resides on the installation media.
After installation, this repository is disabled in ANPM/YUM (you don't want to have the PC trying to access a DVD which is likely not present during each start of ANPM and contains more or less outdated software).
You can Manage your Repositories... with a right click ...

This doesn't need to help with Samba, but you could also install netlabs-exp and disable it afterwards (sometimes new stuff on netlabs-rel requires something from netlabs-exp - but that should be reported and after that it's usually fixed in a few days).

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja

8

Hardware / Re: Question about a sound card and GPU

« on: September 28, 2020, 11:09:36 pm »

Hi Mr. X,

if you use an analog video cable and have a monitor with more than XGA resolution, then it might be wise to invest into an ATI/AMD graphics card. Intel has crippled the RAMDAC in the video portion of their CPUs, so trying full HD gives a bad picture quality.
Digital video outputs are okay (DVI, HDMI or DP), but OS/2 might not like all variants (and only one at a time anyway).

There was only a very limited set of older ATI cards where a two monitor setup (VGA + DVI) was supported under OS/2 by the SNAP driver. Both screens must have the same resolution, the desktop can be either cloned (same content) or (extended side by side); I used it with the maximum (given by DVI) resolution of 1920x1200 pixels and 16.7 million colors.

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja

9

Setup & Installation / Re: QT5

« on: September 28, 2020, 10:48:57 pm »

Hi ivan, regarding your offtopic question, you could try this:
TYPE part*.txt >>complete.txt

Every part should end with a blank line (otherwise you would get the last line and the first line of the next file joined into one line).
If the parts are in alphanumeric order, this should suffice (and if complete.txt exists, you should delete it before, otherwise everything is appended again).
If they are not ordered, you could write a batch file (for the first redirect, you could then use ">" instead of ">>" to create a new complete.txt without trying to delete it first).
In a linux shell like dash on OS/2 you would use "cat" instead of "TYPE".

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja

10

General Discussion / Re: Search machines, what to use?

« on: September 14, 2020, 12:14:51 am »

I tried DuckDuckGo, and as long as searching for english content, the results were not as goot as Google but still okay. Searching for german content usually did not give any useful results, so I returned to Google (about two and a half year ago).

Both StartPage.com and Ecosia might be good alternatives to enhance privacy, StartPage uses Google in an indirect way, Ecosia is the default search engine in FireFox on Linux Mint and tries to compensate for energy used by searching.

For translations, have a look at DeepL.com - while still not perfect, the result is usually superior compared to those of other machine translators.

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja

11

Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS 5.0.6 released

« on: September 01, 2020, 08:47:45 pm »

I've tried to update one of my test/service partitions that had ArcaOS 5.[0.]1 with the USB stick. Phase 1 continued, but after reboot from harddisk for phase 2, it can't find the USB stick anymore. The USB drivers doesn't seem to work.

If that stick was connected to XHCI (USB 3.x) and your old installation had not upgraded the USB drivers to support XHCI before, then this result is (sadly) expected.

Due to the current installer design, it is necessary to install USB 12.06 and XHCI prior to the update for systems requiring XHCI.

This is not only an ugly documentation failure, but might have even worse consequences:
When this happened to me by upgrading from 5.0.1 to 5.0.5 from a stick, it killed FireFox & Co., so you can't then even download the missing drivers to continue installation ...

I'll have to invest a little more time into my ticket https://mantis.arcanoae.com/view.php?id=2914 ...

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja

12

Applications / Re: DOSBox Issue - STDCPP6?

« on: May 26, 2020, 07:12:20 pm »

Presuming you are using ANPM [...] you need to add the repo to the available repos list.

With ANPM running click Manage -> Repositories to open the Manage Respositories window.
Click Repository -> Add -> *YUM Repository and fill in the Add Repository form with these details:
[...]
Hopefully, if I have not forgotten a step, you should now have access to netabs-exp.

That's the old and hard way.

As long as you have netlabs-rel as repo, installing the package netlabs-exp is all you need to do.

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja

13

Applications / Re: WarpIn 1.0.23 - Where is it?

« on: May 17, 2020, 09:22:06 pm »

In ArcaOS 5.0.5.

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja

14

Events / Re: WSE 2020 Frankfurt canceled

« on: March 19, 2020, 09:43:17 pm »

"Good" doesn't sound right for cancelling WarpStock Europe this year.

It's a sad, but absolutely necessary decision and the right thing to do under the current circumstances.

I don't know how many people registered for WSE, but I urge everyone to donate that small conference fee to bitwiseworks for the QT5 and browser project!

Even with perhaps around thousand Euros from WSE, we are still far from reaching the goal of 42.000 EUR (and even paying further development beyond that)!

Greetings from Germany,
Sandra-Asja

15

Marketplace / Re: ebay Stuff

« on: March 04, 2020, 09:30:32 pm »

Be sure to use an ancient CD drive or a software tool which reduces drive speed from something like 52x down to 4x or the disc will likely be destroyed because of unbalanced mass. If the drive has no spindle to click the CD on, the risk is even higher.

Greetings,
Sandra-Asja