OS2 World Community Forum

OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Hardware => Topic started by: Lars on January 22, 2024, 12:05:09 am

Title: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Lars on January 22, 2024, 12:05:09 am
Sorry, it's in German (unfortunately it's also not free):
https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2023/26/2317912025061981023

I suppose that this has also been.picked up by other IT press articles about the new X86-S architecture.
What it basically states is that Intel will now finally remove all 16-bit support (true for real mode, protected mode and VM86 mode), all segmentation, Ring 1 and 2 of the protection rings.
That means: NO OS/2 device driver will work, NO  OS/2 1.x application will work, no application with an IOPL segment will work, no VDM will work, some parts of the kernel will cease to work.

OS/2 is going to be put to it's well deserved, permanent rest.
The current x86 will likely live on for a couple of years but there clearly is no future for OS/2, not even in a virtualization environment like Virtualbox.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Digi on January 22, 2024, 12:23:30 am
Time to pay attention to the project http://osfree.org/ (http://osfree.org/)  :)
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 22, 2024, 03:19:40 am
Hello

This is part of our 64bit dilemma.

I guess, reading some similar news articles, that Intel is trying to save costs and complexity on their processors by cutting the "legacy" of them. Intel calls it the "64-Bit Mode-Only Architecture". Yes, that will be the final nail in the coffin for running OS/2 on real hardware. I guess some emulators like 86Box can evolve to run ArcaOS at that time, but real hardware will be gone for us.

It's good to have the heads up about this, but the question is what we should do, as a community and as the little market that Arca Noae has.  Is the answer to this question binary?

Option A: When the moment comes, let OS/2 and ArcaOS rest, switch to a different OS, and talk about the good old OS/2 times with our friends.
or
Option B: Try to do something and work in a different strategy for our community and software.

Option B will be the "Long Term Strategy" that I insisted on the past that we should have. The short term necessities are wifi drivers, more applications, translations, etc. But the long term strategy should be to finally "free / release" OS/2 from the IBM owned binaries.

My "Dreaming In Technicolor" idea will be to first (first step of several) having an approach to run OS/2 binaries over a 64bits kernel. Create a layer that can interpret OS/2 to keep running all the OS/2 experience like native applications, the PM and WPS (GUI), etc.

Ryan C Gordon, tried it with a different approach, try to interpret an OS/2 application over Linux. But it was too much work to clone all the OS/2 APIs in one shot.

The crazy/drunk idea will be to grab a 64bits open source multi-kernel and make OS/2 run interpreted (not emulated) from it. Like grabbing the Zircon kernel (from Fuchsia OS) and developing some layers of OS/2 interpretation over it for binaries, Kernel instructions and basic $Drivers. CPI, PM, WPS and native OS/2 apps think they are running over OS/2. (of course all OS/2 native drivers will be useless at that moment).

This will require a lot of knowledge on the OS/2 kernel and the Zircon kernel and a lot of effort too.


Reference:
- May 21, 2023. https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-proposes-x86s-a-64-bit-cpu-microarchitecture-that-does-away-with-legacy-16-bit-and-32-bit-support/
- 25 May 2023. https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/25/intel_proposes_dropping_16_bit_mode/
- Specification Proposal x86S - https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/envisioning-future-simplified-architecture.html
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Mentore on January 22, 2024, 08:43:09 am
Sorry, it's in German (unfortunately it's also not free):
https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2023/26/2317912025061981023

I suppose that this has also been.picked up by other IT press articles about the new X86-S architecture.
What it basically states is that Intel will now finally remove all 16-bit support (true for real mode, protected mode and VM86 mode), all segmentation, Ring 1 and 2 of the protection rings.
That means: NO OS/2 device driver will work, NO  OS/2 1.x application will work, no application with an IOPL segment will work, no VDM will work, some parts of the kernel will cease to work.

OS/2 is going to be put to it's well deserved, permanent rest.
The current x86 will likely live on for a couple of years but there clearly is no future for OS/2, not even in a virtualization environment like Virtualbox.

Dunno.
Basically this means we will build new machines on AMD CPUs.

(Jus' kidding, but not so much...)

Mentore
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Lars on January 22, 2024, 11:39:32 am
Taken the fact that AMD was the driving force to intoduce 64-bit mode and Intel just following, I very much doubt that AMD would put the burden onto itself to support legacy HW concepts that no current OS needs. That would throw them behind Intel with no benefit at all. You need the die for modern stuff (AI in HW or some such, larger on-chip cache, larger SIMD registers etc.) and not for stuff that is not needed at all any more.

Intel taking that step is effectively Intel's confession that 16-bit and segmentation have no future at all.
As to the ring protection, it turned out that differentiating between "user" (Ring 3) and "system" (Ring 0) is already sufficient. For paging, these are already the only 2 "Ring Protection" levels (and they are consequently called "user" and "system").

Unfortunately, OS/2 offers use of Ring 2 (in conjunction with the IOPL flag in the EFLAGS register) to simplify I/O port access and therefore there are some applications that make use of that and would need to be rewritten to use a device driver instead. But see my statement about OS/2 device drivers ...

Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: ivan on January 22, 2024, 12:04:47 pm
This sounds very much like desperation on the part of Intel, they are seeing AMD taking over the desktop processor market with far better processors so they need something, anything, to get in front again.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Lars on January 22, 2024, 02:28:43 pm
If you want to delve into the details:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/envisioning-future-simplified-architecture.html

Currently, this is only a proposal. But it gives a very good idea of what Intel thinks is no longer needed.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Neil Waldhauer on January 22, 2024, 03:33:16 pm
Intel proposed Itanium 64 bit in 1989. It takes some time for these plans to come about. Even articles about the new 64 bit architecture from Intel mention cores that still provide X86 mixed with 64-bit only cores.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium)

Even if nothing happens for a while, it's worth thinking about how OS/2 runs on CPU features that matter very little to the CPU market.

The other thing that threatens OS/2 is the aging of its users. I predict that will be the actual cause of death.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Eugene Tucker on January 22, 2024, 04:11:34 pm
Good point Neil couple that  with a limited kernal and vanishing developers.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Lars on January 22, 2024, 05:24:55 pm
Intel proposed Itanium 64 bit in 1989. It takes some time for these plans to come about. Even articles about the new 64 bit architecture from Intel mention cores that still provide X86 mixed with 64-bit only cores.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium)

Even if nothing happens for a while, it's worth thinking about how OS/2 runs on CPU features that matter very little to the CPU market.

The other thing that threatens OS/2 is the aging of its users. I predict that will be the actual cause of death.

With Itanium 64 bit, while moving to 64-bit, Intel wanted to push through a completely new CPU architecture with a completely different instruction set. That failed because nobody wanted to immediately rebuy all their software.

But with x86-S, Intel wants to make room on their die, kicking out all the stuff nobody needs any more (freeing space for valuable things like for example an increased cache size) and also, because the twisted x86 architecture seems to introduce more security issues then would be necessary because the x86 architecture has become too complex.
That is a completely different motivation. It is in Intel's best interest to push this through as fast as possible. And it has become fairly easy because all major OSes and their applications are 64-bit already and also already fullfil all prerequisites to make them run on x86-S.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Dave Yeo on January 22, 2024, 06:08:22 pm
In theory, you could have a 286 emulator in ring -1 along with a program to take control when there was an illegal instruction trap and emulate the 16 bit instructions. Ring -1 is for hypervisors and such. The missing ring 2 and IOPL flag would be harder if even possible.
Not going to happen with the shortage of developers. Besides, in this 64bit world, hardware manufacturers no longer care about the lower 4GB's so what is happening, fractured memory leaving too little visible to 32 bit applications and the killer, the framebuffer being mapped above 4GB.
One thing is hardware lasts now, I just retired a 13 year old machine that was still running fine, just slow IO and a crappy EUFI. So there's another decade where OS/2 will run on older hardware. I doubt that I'll be around that long.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: JTA on January 22, 2024, 06:34:56 pm
There are two ways to run OS/2, better than it runs on hardware (which does have its limitations) ... the first is virtualization (Virtualbox), and the second is emulation (QEMU).

WRT virtualization (and OS/2), it allows things to be used long after most folks can't figure out how to keep using them on existing hardware ... their hardware dies, and they just stop using the old stuff. By virtualizing, the old stuff pretty much runs forever ... implement virtualization, perhaps by the AToF methods in the virtualization sub-forum, and OS/2 will run many, many years past the point where folks have stopped using OS/2 on "old" hardware.

WRT QEMU, it emulates the processor(s) that OS/2 ran on, and given a reasonable platform, you probably couldn't tell that OS/2 was being emulated.

I'd believe that both of these methods, and others that I haven't explored yet, will keep OS/2 running long past the point of current "old" hardware methods.

Given the popularity of all things "vintage", I'd also believe that OS/2 will be running such that the baton will be handed off to many more "generations" of OS/2 users.

I'm not sure we've seen all that virtualization & emulation has to give us ...
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 22, 2024, 10:44:48 pm
The other thing that threatens OS/2 is the aging of its users. I predict that will be the actual cause of death.

I'm scared to interpret this like my age group (40's) is going to be last one using OS/2   ;)
Let's try to get people on his 30's to the community !!!   ;D

Regards
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Digi on January 23, 2024, 03:57:00 am
The crazy/drunk idea will be to grab a 64bits open source multi-kernel and make OS/2 run interpreted (not emulated) from it.

http://osfree.org/ (http://osfree.org/) - The beginning has already been made. As I understand it, most of the Dos* functions have already been implemented.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Roderick Klein on January 23, 2024, 10:20:06 am
If you want to delve into the details:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/envisioning-future-simplified-architecture.html

Currently, this is only a proposal. But it gives a very good idea of what Intel thinks is no longer needed.

Its expected this will indeed be long term thing to happen. I understand the legacy bit takes up 12% of the space in CPU.
I read an article (I do not the have link handy) of one of the main AMD tech engineers and he said the proposal was every interesting.
However the engineer indicated the changes proposed are "very, very, very, very complex to make".

The other thing that this would imply is (the way I understand it) is that NO current VM would work anymore
to run legacy OS. Its the CPU that provides the virtualization support to hypervisor.

Roderick
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Eugene Tucker on January 23, 2024, 02:40:39 pm
I started with OS/2 2.0 in 1992. And have heard of it's demise pretty much since then. Yet I am still running it on two computer and I do have a third license for Arca OS 5.1. If I listened to the negative I would have been out of using it years ago. but here I stiil am I guess an old stubborn man. Nothing lasts forever. but this operating system has really beaten the odds. I used to do everything in Arca OS but now it is rather limited, but I still like using it. Intel will go where fiances and the market carry it along with AMD. Quantum computers are on the way and the old CPU designs are going to fade out too. Until then since my path is not a whole lot longer I will use and support Arca OS. signed Old Stubborn Coot
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 23, 2024, 03:20:47 pm
The crazy/drunk idea will be to grab a 64bits open source multi-kernel and make OS/2 run interpreted (not emulated) from it.

http://osfree.org/ (http://osfree.org/) - The beginning has already been made. As I understand it, most of the Dos* functions have already been implemented.

Hello Digi.

My only issue with OSFree is that they had done a great job, but I don't have the technical skill to see it's progress to promote it. My idea would be that OSFree should make some binary releases to replace close source source components of OS/2.

What I would want for OSFree it is for some of his open source code to became streamline inside ArcaOS to replace IBM binaries. It can be little by little, it can be only start by replacing "ver.exe", whatever. We need to replace IBM binaries for open source alternatives, and mainstream that binaries (with the source code).

Digi, if OSFree has already open sourced all Dos* functions, I think we need a way to have some DLLs compiled and try to replace the IBM's DLLs on ArcaOS to test how they work. If you want to write me, or create a new thread, we can do some testing of what OSFree has and with some brave users try those binaries to replace old close source ones.

Regards
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Lars on January 23, 2024, 05:18:53 pm
If you want to delve into the details:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/envisioning-future-simplified-architecture.html

Currently, this is only a proposal. But it gives a very good idea of what Intel thinks is no longer needed.

Its expected this will indeed be long term thing to happen. I understand the legacy bit takes up 12% of the space in CPU.
I read an article (I do not the have link handy) of one of the main AMD tech engineers and he said the proposal was every interesting.
However the engineer indicated the changes proposed are "very, very, very, very complex to make".

The other thing that this would imply is (the way I understand it) is that NO current VM would work anymore
to run legacy OS. Its the CPU that provides the virtualization support to hypervisor.

Roderick

Correct. Virtualization of OS/2 (and likewise: DOS and Windows 16-bit) will not be possible once x86-S is introduced. Only emulation will be possible (with a huge performance impact, of course).
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Dave Yeo on January 23, 2024, 05:42:16 pm
Correct. Virtualization of OS/2 (and likewise: DOS and Windows 16-bit) will not be possible once x86-S is introduced. Only emulation will be possible (with a huge performance impact, of course).

This raises the question of how virtualization works currently with a 64 bit system running 16 bit code. My understanding is that in 64 bit mode, 16 bit software doesn't work.
As for emulation, with JIT compiler, performance can be pretty good. The PowerPC OS/2 was supposed to run DOS/WinOS2 well, as well as some versions of NT such as the Alpha port.
I doubt that anyone will actually do it but possible.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Roderick Klein on January 24, 2024, 01:07:51 am
Correct. Virtualization of OS/2 (and likewise: DOS and Windows 16-bit) will not be possible once x86-S is introduced. Only emulation will be possible (with a huge performance impact, of course).

This raises the question of how virtualization works currently with a 64 bit system running 16 bit code. My understanding is that in 64 bit mode, 16 bit software doesn't work.
As for emulation, with JIT compiler, performance can be pretty good. The PowerPC OS/2 was supposed to run DOS/WinOS2 well, as well as some versions of NT such as the Alpha port.
I doubt that anyone will actually do it but possible.

I do not know how this works, but the CPU does not swtch to legacy mode. You will have to ask a CPU expert.

Roderick
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Lars on January 24, 2024, 10:43:06 am
Correct. Virtualization of OS/2 (and likewise: DOS and Windows 16-bit) will not be possible once x86-S is introduced. Only emulation will be possible (with a huge performance impact, of course).

This raises the question of how virtualization works currently with a 64 bit system running 16 bit code. My understanding is that in 64 bit mode, 16 bit software doesn't work.
As for emulation, with JIT compiler, performance can be pretty good. The PowerPC OS/2 was supposed to run DOS/WinOS2 well, as well as some versions of NT such as the Alpha port.
I doubt that anyone will actually do it but possible.

Quote
Compatibility mode (sub-mode of IA-32e mode) — Compatibility mode permits most legacy 16-bit and
32-bit applications to run without re-compilation under a 64-bit operating system. For brevity, the compatibility
sub-mode is referred to as compatibility mode in IA-32 architecture. The execution environment of compatibility
mode is the same as described in Section 3.2. Compatibility mode also supports all of the privilege levels
that are supported in 64-bit and protected modes. Legacy applications that run in Virtual 8086 mode or use
hardware task management will not work in this mode.
Compatibility mode is enabled by the operating system (OS) on a code segment basis. This means that a single
64-bit OS can support 64-bit applications running in 64-bit mode and support legacy 32-bit applications (not
recompiled for 64-bits) running in compatibility mode.
Compatibility mode is similar to 32-bit protected mode. Applications access only the first 4 GByte of linearaddress
space. Compatibility mode uses 16-bit and 32-bit address and operand sizes. Like protected mode, this
mode allows applications to access physical memory greater than 4 GByte using PAE (Physical Address Extensions).

So, with the existing "IA-32e" architecture, your OS can be running all in 64-bit mode while it can still execute applications containing 32-bit and 16-bit code (and data) segments. Obviously, Virtualbox uses this support to run 16-bit and 32-bit OSes like DOS, Windows 3.x and OS/2.

Once x86-S is introduced, Intel CPUs will no longer support this "compatibility mode".
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: JTA on January 25, 2024, 01:41:54 pm
Poked around on other forums, mentioning the X86-S spec, and folks there pointed out some VirtualBox tidbits:

  - old versions of VirtualBox emulated enough of a CPU such that they could run OS/2 when other virtualization products couldn't.
  - newer versions of VirtualBox no longer needed that emulation layer, as they could pass things thru to the CPU directly. But, to this day, VirtualBox still has pieces of QEMU in it.

Most likely, both VirtualBox and QEMU will be able to run OS/2 long after a particular x64-only CPU can't. I'd guess that Intel needs a new line of x64-only CPU's to carry them further into the server ecosystem. But I'd also guess that they'll continue CPU's that support legacy business apps for a long time (lots of money there).

If DOS, an OS that is older than OS/2, can be emulated and survive & thrive to this day, there shouldn't be any reason why OS/2 (all variants) can't be emulated as well, and prosper long into an x64 world. VirtualBox (virtualization) and QEMU (emulation) will get us there.

CPU's might take away a needed "layer of compatibility" on the one hand, but they almost always give back with "speed" on the other hand. Emulation developers do the rest ...
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Roderick Klein on January 25, 2024, 01:53:55 pm
Poked around on other forums, mentioning the X86-S spec, and folks there pointed out some VirtualBox tidbits:

  - old versions of VirtualBox emulated enough of a CPU such that they could run OS/2 when other virtualization products couldn't.
  - newer versions of VirtualBox no longer needed that emulation layer, as they could pass things thru to the CPU directly. But, to this day, VirtualBox still has pieces of QEMU in it.

Most likely, both VirtualBox and QEMU will be able to run OS/2 long after a particular x64-only CPU can't. I'd guess that Intel needs a new line of x64-only CPU's to carry them further into the server ecosystem. But I'd also guess that they'll continue CPU's that support legacy business apps for a long time (lots of money there).

If DOS, an OS that is older than OS/2, can be emulated and survive & thrive to this day, there shouldn't be any reason why OS/2 (all variants) can't be emulated as well, and prosper long into an x64 world. VirtualBox (virtualization) and QEMU (emulation) will get us there.

CPU's might take away a needed "layer of compatibility" on the one hand, but they almost always give back with "speed" on the other hand. Emulation developers do the rest ...

Its not that easy virtualization will full x86 emulation.  It has an impact on perfomance.

Roderick
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: ivan on January 26, 2024, 01:03:14 am
Has anyone considered that AMD might not blindly follow Intel down this road?  I see this as an attempt by Intel to gain relevance.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Mentore on January 30, 2024, 09:57:03 am
Has anyone considered that AMD might not blindly follow Intel down this road?  I see this as an attempt by Intel to gain relevance.

This may indeed be a possible scenario, also due to the technical challenges a complete 64 bit transition will create.

That said, I'm fairly sure that the actual x86 architecture will survive for long, before it can be considered a dead horse. Too many installed machines and too much software written for it.
I feel confident OS/2 will survive this generation  8)

Mentore
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 30, 2024, 02:32:03 pm
Hello

Sorry to keep philosophizing here:

Has anyone considered that AMD might not blindly follow Intel down this road?  I see this as an attempt by Intel to gain relevance.
If Intel does it (which we don't know if he is going to do it) and succeed reducing costs without any major technical/market impact, AMD will follow.

I guess it will be similar to the UEFI transition. How got impacted with that UEFI only transition in some machines? A little part of the Intel market (us), that they just don't care. The only worry for Intel was that Windows and Linux supported UEFI, and that's it.

This may indeed be a possible scenario, also due to the technical challenges a complete 64 bit transition will create.

I'm not sure of the technical challenge, if Windows and Linux works fine under a 64bit-Only processor, Intel will not care much about the rest (us).

That said, I'm fairly sure that the actual x86 architecture will survive for long, before it can be considered a dead horse. Too many installed machines and too much software written for it.
I feel confident OS/2 will survive this generation  8)

I hope for that. But I still have the itchiness that we should try what the Linux community accomplished. By being open source they are vendor free, they do not longer need IBM, Microsoft or anyone else to keep updating their OS. Distributions comes and goes for them, but the source code is always there to create, modify and expand their OS. Being more open source will allow us to reduce our issues with hardware changes, we will have something to reuse and update.

Regards
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Dave Yeo on January 30, 2024, 04:18:15 pm

I hope for that. But I still have the itchiness that we should try what the Linux community accomplished. By being open source they are vendor free, they do not longer need IBM, Microsoft or anyone else to keep updating their OS. Distributions comes and goes for them, but the source code is always there to create, modify and expand their OS. Being more open source will allow us to reduce our issues with hardware changes, we will have something to reuse and update.

Well, Microsoft and IBM are the top committers to the Linux kernel. Then there's systemd.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Roderick Klein on January 30, 2024, 04:25:52 pm
Has anyone considered that AMD might not blindly follow Intel down this road?  I see this as an attempt by Intel to gain relevance.

This may indeed be a possible scenario, also due to the technical challenges a complete 64 bit transition will create.

That said, I'm fairly sure that the actual x86 architecture will survive for long, before it can be considered a dead horse. Too many installed machines and too much software written for it.
I feel confident OS/2 will survive this generation  8)

Mentore

I share that viewpoint.

Roderick
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 30, 2024, 08:19:35 pm

I hope for that. But I still have the itchiness that we should try what the Linux community accomplished. By being open source they are vendor free, they do not longer need IBM, Microsoft or anyone else to keep updating their OS. Distributions comes and goes for them, but the source code is always there to create, modify and expand their OS. Being more open source will allow us to reduce our issues with hardware changes, we will have something to reuse and update.

Well, Microsoft and IBM are the top committers to the Linux kernel. Then there's systemd.

Yes, they are the top "Contributors", but they giving the changes under GNU GPL V2, which means they can not block access to the source code. If any of those companies cease to contribute, since it's open source, the Linux community has the option to take the source code and continue with other developers. The case differs from close source software, which depends on the author that has the source code.

Regards
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Dave Yeo on January 31, 2024, 07:41:20 am
That's why I mentioned systemd. Consider my phone and the majority in the world. Sure I can download the source code for the Linux kernel in my phone, what can I do with it? It's not like I have root and while my particular phone has instructions for rooting, unlike many, the kernel is still locked down by being signed and interacts with binary blobs.
Also consider IBM owned RedHat, you have to sign a contract to get access to the source, including the kernel which is likely patched.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 31, 2024, 01:37:50 pm
Hello Dave, I get your points about some modern issues with Linux, but my point is that open source is better than close source.
For me open source is the good things about Linux, not the linux kernel or architecture. I think it is clear that OS/2 will not turn into Linux by turning it open source. Open source and Linux are different things, I guess that is clear.

Consider my phone and the majority in the world. Sure I can download the source code for the Linux kernel in my phone, what can I do with it? It's not like I have root and while my particular phone has instructions for rooting, unlike many, the kernel is still locked down by being signed and interacts with binary blobs.
This is a different subject from open source. Yes and No, there are communities that provides ROMs for different phones since they have the time, source code (even with binary blogs) and skill to recompile the Android image. But here the issue is that the monokernel merge together with binary blobs drivers, even with that, the kernel source code is still available for the community.

This took me to a different topic, why there is/was Android fragmentation and you can not easily update the Android OS (being open source) in phones.
1) Manufacturer don't care about software, just selling new phones, they don't offer straight forward software update path.
2) Monokernel, having all drivers compiled within the kernel gives you an issue if you only want to update the kernel and let the drivers alone.
3) Processors in phones and tablets are not as standardized as Intel and AMD chipsets.  This may be why it was easier to update Windows or OS/2 on your PC by going to the store and buying a CDROM box back in the 90's, than updating today your Android's phone.

Also consider IBM owned RedHat, you have to sign a contract to get access to the source, including the kernel which is likely patched.
This is an issue now IBM's Redhat is becoming an bad open source citizen, finding legal tricks to do not share the source code as a the GNU GPL demands.

Since the Open Source won world wide and almost now every system has an open source base or components, the trick companies are doing is putting open source solution on the cloud, extend those applications, and since they are offered as a service they try to use that trick to don't share the source code back.

What should be the solution? Moving to a license like "GNU Affero General Public License" ? or going back to the 90's close source model ?

Even with the dirty tricks that companies are trying with Open Source today, I still prefer it over close source that will became future abandoware. Today ArcaOS uses a good quantity of open source software that had provides a lot of help. We have to endorse to have more open source replacement in OS/2, that does not means getting ArcaOS for free. ArcaOS already have the crown of the jewel drivers (ACPI, UEFI, etc), so there is not risk for them.  Software development in OS/2 (the little that we have) should go from a license selling to a subscription support selling strategy.

Sorry for my passion on this subject.

Regards
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Sigurd Fastenrath on January 31, 2024, 02:32:10 pm
OS/2 will survive for some years to come in the industrial business.

Private Customers will "die out" due to

- their age
- the uselessness of the System to private Users
- Memory Problem, no WLAN, no Localization,
- ArcaNoae showing no interest in private users

I would guess the number of German Users decreased during the last 3 Years, as there has allways been this tiring shifts of WLAN and German Local Version, to less of 10% of what have been before.

Yes, there are some people around using it for daily business but 99,9999999% of the Users do not even know what ArcaOS is.

It is impossible to persuade someone to have even a closer look at the system, because so many things are missing.

OS/2 had its time, that ended way back in 2005. It will never get opensourced nor will there be more private users, unless a miracle happens and ArcaNoae may solve the above problems, and add Bluetooth support and and and... But as David A. told me, there is no way to solve the memory problem.

It is much easier to use a Linux for free and install and use OS/2 in a Virtualization. There it can get it's tailored hardware.

Nor will ArcaOS ever be some kind of "Retro Plattform", as there are other, much more comfortable, customizable and free Solutions around like DosBOX, ScummVM etc.

It may sound to negative for some others, but that is my point of view, I just describe the facts without emotions, it is the way it is.

Personally I will try to have more success with the Lenovo Z13 Gen 2, just for fun, just to answer my eternal question I do have with OS/2 on modern hardware: will OS/2 run on it? And even if I get the Sound, with help from Paul and others, to work, the device will still be a "Technical Demo", nothing you can reliable work with.

What I would really like to see, was an OS/2 like Interface on Top of a Linux Kernel and System, building a clone of the WPS on Linux. In my opinion the only way to keep the OS/2 feeling alive in the future. But this is unlikely to happen as well.

All the best!
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 31, 2024, 08:56:27 pm
Hi Sigurd

What I would really like to see, was an OS/2 like Interface on Top of a Linux Kernel and System, building a clone of the WPS on Linux. In my opinion the only way to keep the OS/2 feeling alive in the future. But this is unlikely to happen as well.

Just a similar GUI or OS/2 applications running over Linux?

Ryan C. Gordon tried that in some way that, but his goal was to run OS/2 software/games over Linux (interpreted like Wine or Odin), but he found out that cloning all the API was too much for him.
- https://github.com/icculus/2ine
Read "You have no idea how much effort went into getting this stupid white square on the screen."
- https://www.patreon.com/posts/project-2ine-16513790
He made a OS/2 application of white screen to run on Linux.

What it would be interesting it to don't got for all the API in one shot. Maybe starting only with the base CPI and see how can the rest of API (PM, SOM, WPS) can think they are still running under an OS/2 kernel. Of course, all OS/2 driver will be render useless in this kind of project.

But I'm a "hybrid kernel man" (That's part of the new masculinity  ;D ), that why I dream of running the OS/2 Personality over Zircon.

Regards
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Lars on February 01, 2024, 06:52:08 am
What OS/2 applications do exist where you would not find an equivalent under Linux (or Windows)?
And more importantly: what developer would bother with OS/2 development tools?
I can tell you from my own experience that this becomes an increasing problem. One version of Watcom being incompatible with the next and unfortunately picking the "official" version does not help because it is the one that is buggy.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Martin Iturbide on February 01, 2024, 06:08:51 pm
Hi.

One version of Watcom being incompatible with the next and unfortunately picking the "official" version does not help because it is the one that is buggy.

I split the "OpenWatcom Discussion (https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?topic=3580.msg43382#msg43382)" to other thread.

Regards
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Mentore on February 02, 2024, 08:01:13 am
What OS/2 applications do exist where you would not find an equivalent under Linux (or Windows)?
And more importantly: what developer would bother with OS/2 development tools?

I got the feeling this is the main question and the main topic keeping the OS/2 architecture alive in the community (apart from the big commercial customers, which have economic interests in keeping their OS/2 installed base up-to-date).
It's the user experience.
I for myself have used OSes starting from the ZX Spectrum, saw and played with the first Mac and Amiga 1000, I still have three Spectrum(s) and a Sinclair QL, a Commodore 64, a 128 and an Amiga, I use Windows on a daily basis starting from Win 3.1, used Linux and still use Linux on the PC placed under the family TV, installed many unix flavors and window managers from fwm to KDE, GNOME, Ubuntu-based, Free BSD, Slackware, OpenSuSE, I even tried Sun Solaris 10 (still have three install DVDs for it).

I always find myself more comfortable with OS/2 GUI and overall with its system, even though I often get annoyed by its shortcomings.
Just an example: our CMD shell is lacking many features, like file and directory completion, a good command history, a complete 32 bit environment (it's still 16 bit IIRC), but nonetheless I feel pretty much at home into it.

So yes, I know I'll somehow keep at least an OS/2 machine at home, virtualized or on a bare metal machine. This, and the big investment I made in all these years, are my reasons.

Quote
I can tell you from my own experience that this becomes an increasing problem. One version of Watcom being incompatible with the next and unfortunately picking the "official" version does not help because it is the one that is buggy.

And this is a typical user community problem. We are shrinking, there's no doubt about it... Sadly I don't have real answers here.

Mentore
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: andreas on February 02, 2024, 05:22:32 pm
Sometimes i feel like I am the only one who uses OS/2 really "as a user". I'm not a programmer, just using it for my work daily. And I'm very happy with it!
Many people complain and i understand why. But i don't need my sytem for any internet-/game/-programming stuff. I use it mainly for writing, calculating, reading and organizing. also for handling my music files. For this OS/2 is perfect. Using it since vers. 2.11.
I wouldn't want any other OS to work with.
Am I really the only one?

Hope, OS/2 will not die!
Thanks to everyone who keeps it alive! Hope you guys don't get extinct...
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Per E. Johannessen on February 02, 2024, 05:45:42 pm
Quote
Am I really the only one?

No, you're not.
I'm using it for both personal and business, and if we had a working browser and odbc (dBase) driver it would be nearly perfect.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Dave Yeo on February 02, 2024, 06:48:43 pm
Same here, though once again the browser is becoming a problem. While Linux is nice in that the hardware just works, it works well enough under OS/2 and Linux just feels klunky, and of course Windows just gets in the way thinking it knows best.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Pete on February 02, 2024, 06:51:09 pm
Hi All

I have to join in to say that I have been looking for a replacement OS since IBM announced OS/2's demise in 2000(?) and have not found anything that I am as happy to use.

The main problem I am currently bumping into is the same as everyone else: We do not have a capable browser. Seamonkey (and, I guess, Firefox) no longer work very well - if at all - on a lot of websites; Doodle (qt5) is simply too flaky to use due to crashes and system hangs.

Thanks to all who have kept OS/2 alive to date.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Dave Yeo on February 02, 2024, 08:08:00 pm
The trick with Dooble is to mark as many DLLs that it uses to load high as possible. Also the profile can get corrupt after crashes and hangs so needs to be wiped out. Good trick is to save a copy of the profile after some personalizing, before a crash and use that to replace it if it gets corrupt.
Helps a lot to have the blocklists etc installed as well, a lot of problems come with ads and the JavaScript they use.
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: ivan on February 02, 2024, 09:40:16 pm
Hi All,

I have a way round the browser problem.  I use an ITX board with Linux and a USB/HDMI KVM switch, most of which was salvaged from the local dump (I did buy the KVM new).

When our Firefox won't display a site I just switch over to the Linux unit and a few seconds later the site is up (always assuming NoScript allows it).
Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Edmund Wong on March 21, 2024, 06:47:39 am
Hi All

I have to join in to say that I have been looking for a replacement OS since IBM announced OS/2's demise in 2000(?) and have not found anything that I am as happy to use.

The main problem I am currently bumping into is the same as everyone else: We do not have a capable browser. Seamonkey (and, I guess, Firefox) no longer work very well - if at all - on a lot of websites; Doodle (qt5) is simply too flaky to use due to crashes and system hangs.

Thanks to all who have kept OS/2 alive to date.


Regards

Pete

It's not just the OS/2 version of SeaMonkey is having issues with websites.  The windows version (2.53.18.x) is becoming a continual chore as websites no longer work properly.     

I don't know much about all this hardware talk(I'm only a user); but I'm guessing it'd take a huge dev group to 'modernize' OS/2.  Having a 64bit OS/2 system would be nice; but since from what I'm seeing in this thread,  the number of people that can actually do that is slowly decreasing by the year.  Am I right?   Is it possible to even modernize the OS/2 code or does it require a rewrite? 

Ed




Title: Re: The last nail in OS/2's coffin
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 21, 2024, 01:29:37 pm
Hello Ed

Having a 64bit OS/2 system would be nice; but since from what I'm seeing in this thread,  the number of people that can actually do that is slowly decreasing by the year.  Am I right?   Is it possible to even modernize the OS/2 code or does it require a rewrite? 

There had been some discussion about the 64bit kernel for OS/2. - "OS/2 - ArcaOS 64Bits Kernel Discussion (https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,2661.0.html)"

I'm not an expert but for what we have discuss I can say:
- We don't have the required labor resources to create a 64bit kernel at this moment.
- If we create an OS/2 64bit kernel, it has to be compatible with 32bits, otherwise all the OS/2 software won't work.
- There is no source code available (legally) of the OS/2 kernel, which make it more labor intensive to implement.
- In the case we get an 64bit kernel, we need to have the development tools to start creating 64bit OS/2 applications.
- If we remember the old days, the market had a difficult change to 64bits. Intel Itanium failed, Windows versions were incompatible (Windows XP 64bits), they have to fall back, wait more years to have a easy going 32bits to 64bits application transition.

So, yes it is kind of hard right now. Buy maybe if AI evolves for software development, some development can be automatized requiring less labor.

What is OS/2? the kernel? the applications? the WPS?. My idea is that maybe OS/2 is the desktop experience and the applications we use. That why my approach is more to have an already available 64bit kernel and create the OS/2 interpretation over it.

Regards