OS2 World Community Forum

OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Setup & Installation => Topic started by: Sigurd Fastenrath on May 18, 2017, 08:50:38 am

Title: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience
Post by: Sigurd Fastenrath on May 18, 2017, 08:50:38 am
I would like to Report my personal experiences with Arcaos5 right from the beginning.

Please note:

- These are my personal experiences, yours may and will differ
- These are my personal opinions, yours may and will differ
- English is not my mothertongue, so if something sounds harmfull for some People - this is not my Intention!
- I will avoid to use personal emotions, just writing Facts
- It is not my Intention to harm Arcanoae nor anyone else related to the ArcaOS Project!
- I am very happy that at least there IS a new OS/2 Distribution!
- I do have great respect for all those involved in this Project!
- My Intention is to give some Feedback, besides a bug tracker, from a users Point of view
- I will go on with this thread once I have new experiences, just like a diary, but unfrequenty


Before:

I was able to get an iso of the ArcaOS5 as soon as it was released on May, the 16th (Europe time, it may have been the 15th in US). Besides other Hobbies one of mine is to collect some Laptops for some years now. As a result I do have a relativ wide range of Hardware from different periods with These I could test the ArcaOS.

I.e:

Thinkpads: 701c, Transnote, X41, X200T, W700, X230T, Helix 2, T450S
MSi Wind Netbook
Sony Vaio Pro 13
Samsung Serie 7 Slate PC
Microsoft Surface Pro 4 -> actually this is during the last 6 months the "one and only" Computer I am using any more.

Besides the Helix 2 and the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (both UEFI only without CSM) I was able to install OS/2 Warp 4.52 native on ALL of These devices.

I like to have the "original Software" as well on all devices, so all of them came with the AirBoot Manager and the OS with that those have been released in the past.

But - In the end I do not know exactly why, but I never became a member or the "beta" Team. So my first experience started on May 16th.


Start:

I decided to start with the W700 at first. I attach some Pictures here.  Unfortunately I still have not figured out how to insert a Picture here inside the text. If someone is interested in (like Martin may be  ;) ) one can use the Pictures the way he/she likes.
The W 700 has two HDDs, one with 320GB and one with 1 TB. Windows Vista is preinstalled but I already have spare room for the OS/2 Installation (i.e. used by mine before).

Picture ArcaOS0: here you can see the W700, on the left side the Surface Pro 4.
(http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1368.0;attach=1801)

Picture ArcaOS1: this is one of the preinstall screens, please notice the correct recognation of the Hardware in the bottom of the installer (I marked it manually with red)
(http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1368.0;attach=1803)

Experience:
- the Installation failed in several tries
- Problems occuring:
  - the Disc checker was not able to see all of the Hardware
  - the Disc checker tells me that it has to fix some of the LVM entries and so on, (please see Picture ArcaOS4) and adviced me to let it be repaired by it
(http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1368.0;attach=1809)

  - as this seems to work for Disc one, it never worked for Disc two, so I run into an endless circle where it allways tells me to repair Disc two each time I started the Installation from the beginning
  - I once get (by accident?) past this Point and than it says it has to resize one Partition
  - I stopped there after already some hours have gone by...

Conclusion: -> I will disassemble Disc two and give it later another try



Second: I started with the T450s, where my cloned Version of Warp 4.52 does make a good Job!

- Picture ArcaOS2: here you can see the T450s, with the Samsung USB DVD drive
(http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1368.0;attach=1805)

- Picture ArcaOS3: the Hardware is detected correct as well (I assume some Kind of BIOS Information is read and displayed here)
(http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1368.0;attach=1807)

It Comes with the Airboot Manager and Windows 8.1. It has two SSDs installed, one with 512 GB, one with 256GB.

Experience:

- in the end I got no working Installation again

- Pro:
   - the Installation process itself started from DVD where ecs 2.2b2 mostly failed
   - I had at least one succesfull attempt, that leads after a few Moments to a "not usable System"
   - I like the small program for the RAMdisk

- Con:
    - the Disc checker reported Problems as well, it was some Kind of Trial and error to get past this stage
    - I do not know why, but it took me several attempts to let the System see the Installation drive
    - a "full" Installation was never possible, each time the System stops during Phase 2 of Installation, while copyiing files, at 44%
    - Once I got a working System, i discovered the following (no real surprise though)
      - all the Things that did not work with my "tailored" System or "ecs 2.2b2" did not work as well (no Sound, no WLAN, so dossession, no winos2, no snap...)
      - starting a dossession leads to a unusable System
      - starting a winos2 session as well
      - Renaming folders leads to an unusable System -> I never had this before, I just wanted to translate some Folders from english to german - just like "drives" to "Laufwerke", but after that, and a reboot, alle Folders have been empty
      - as some hours past away as well I had to stop for the moment

-> Conclusion: I will try to get a working System with as much parts of the System as possible and extract a clone of it. But as well I will try to find a way to install it from DVD on this device.


- Picture ArcaOS5 and ArcaOS6 do Show some of the possbile choices during Installation.
(http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1368.0;attach=1811)
(http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1368.0;attach=1813)

To be continued.

Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: Sigurd Fastenrath on May 18, 2017, 11:58:50 am
A big step further   :)  :

Today I gave the T450S another try.

While a lot of Problems rised with the Disc checker I did this time the following:

- I enabled "Skip hard disk Validation" (see Picture ArcaOS7)

Later on during install Phase one it came to the Point where the Target drive has to be selected.
There was no drive shown. Once I checked the drives manually - but disabeld "Write corrections to disk" - (See Pictures ArcaOS8 to ArcaOS10) the drive letter showed up.  :)

The Installation then went through (I changed nothing else in the "selection menues" for Software and so on, jeust left it as it was).

As you can see on the Pictures ArcaOS 11 to 13 I then changed the "Fontsize" to BOLD 11, the "IconDisplay" to Dynamic and it Looks very comfortable with FullHD now. 8)

Next I have to figure out how to install additional Software from the DVD and test if it is stable.

 
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: Martin Iturbide on May 18, 2017, 06:16:21 pm
Hi Sigurd.

Thanks for sharing the pictures. I took the liberty to modify your post so the pictures can be see "in-line".

On this forum script (SMF Forum) you can put a image in line with this tags:
https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Img
(I can not post the tag directly here because I don't know how to make it look like regular text)

But I don't know if I'm using it right. I generally first post the text and pictures just like you did, after that I modify the article on other page and now I can put the IMG tags with the link of the uploaded pictures like "http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1368.0;attach=1811"

Regards
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: xynixme on May 19, 2017, 03:02:49 am
Quote
(I can not post the tag directly here because I don't know how to make it look like regular text)

Code: [Select]
[b]Bold[/b]
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: Sigurd Fastenrath on May 19, 2017, 11:42:12 am
Scenario 3: It tried an Installation in Virtualbox 5.1.22 inside Windows 10 Pro 64 1703 on the Surface Pro 4.

Result: Perfect!

I can not remember to never ever have had a better OS/2 Virtual Installation than this! Everything went perfect, from the beginning. Thums up!

EDIT: well, I do have one Problem: Sound! I may have choosen the wrong SoundblastDriver, have to take al look!

I attach some Pictures you might like to view:

Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: Sigurd Fastenrath on May 19, 2017, 01:08:41 pm
I am wondering: I can not find the programs to Change the Multimeda Adapter anymore... Where do I have to take a look, what am I missing (Did choose Soundblaster16 (without PNP) as first choice.

Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: Andreas Schnellbacher on May 19, 2017, 06:02:03 pm
Hi Sigurd,

Quote
(I can not post the tag directly here because I don't know how to make it look like regular text)

Code: [Select]
[b]Bold[/b]

Simple Machines Forum (SMF) uses Bulletin Board Code (BBC). Here's the manual. (https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Basic_bulletin_board_codes)
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: Sigurd Fastenrath on May 22, 2017, 07:35:53 am
To Close Scenario 3:

How to get Sound activated is written here: http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,1366.msg13063.html#msg13063 (http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,1366.msg13063.html#msg13063).
So ArcaOS5 is working quite good in Virtualbox.



The next target was:

Scenario 4: ArcaOS5 and VMPlayer:

For this Scenario I opened an own thread:

http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,1378.msg13125.html#msg13125 (http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,1378.msg13125.html#msg13125)

Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: Sigurd Fastenrath on June 12, 2017, 11:04:04 pm
I am playing around with Virtualbox and VMware with different OS/2 versions. thanks to the 16 GB of Ram of my Surface Pro 4 I can use plenty of Virtualmachines at the same time.

During the last days I mad Images (with ImageBurn, my USB DVD Drive and Windows 10) from all of my Operating Systems CDs and DVDs (OS/2 from 1.3 to 4.52, eCS 1.1. to 2.2b2, MS DOS 6.22 and IBM PC DOS 2000, Windows from 3.11, 95, 98, XP, Server 2003, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10...) and stored them on a 200GB Micro SD Card. The same way with Games and additional Software for Dos, Windows and OS/2.

This makes it quite easy to install in virtual machines as I do not Need the Installation media "in real" I just have to attach the Image files to the CD Drive of the VM.  ;)

The Picture shows 4 different VMS under Virtualbox at the same time. I will try a lot of Things, i.e. I will try to connect the Warp connect to the Warp 4 Server and so on...

Just for fun - and it makes a lot of... :D

Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: Sigurd Fastenrath on June 12, 2017, 11:20:31 pm
With Virtualbox you can Scale the Resolution up to 200% whaz amkes it quite usable even on this very high resoltuion Display.

As there is full Sound Support with Virtualbox and if the additions are installed there is mouse and SNAP Integration as well as Network Support once you use the AMD PCNet Driver.

That makes really fun to Play the games like Trials of battle. Just insert the Image of the Game CD into the virtual CD drive of the VM and here we go. (Picture below)

What I really liked as well was the "Star Office for OS/2 3.0 StarCoach CD" that was included in Star Office 3.0. It included some really nice and Handy Videos to demonstrate the abbilities of StarOffice at a glance. There has been comment and Music as well.... (Picture below - unfortunaltely there are some grafic Errors, but those dissappaer once you start one of the Videos....)

Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: madbrain on January 06, 2019, 11:06:17 am
Scenario 3: It tried an Installation in Virtualbox 5.1.22 inside Windows 10 Pro 64 1703 on the Surface Pro 4.

Result: Perfect!

Did perfection include getting SMP to work (multiple processors) ? I couldn't get that part to work in Virtualbox with ArcaOS 5.0.3 .

Also, with the VirtualBox extensions, I couldn't find a way to select a custom resolution.

My real monitor is UHD 4K - 3840x2160 . The highest resolution available is 1600x1200 . I know about scaling in VB, but would like to see if it's possible to do better than that.
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: Lars on January 06, 2019, 12:37:31 pm
Scenario 3: It tried an Installation in Virtualbox 5.1.22 inside Windows 10 Pro 64 1703 on the Surface Pro 4.

Result: Perfect!

Did perfection include getting SMP to work (multiple processors) ? I couldn't get that part to work in Virtualbox with ArcaOS 5.0.3 .

Also, with the VirtualBox extensions, I couldn't find a way to select a custom resolution.

My real monitor is UHD 4K - 3840x2160 . The highest resolution available is 1600x1200 . I know about scaling in VB, but would like to see if it's possible to do better than that.

1) SMP does not work in Virtualbox and it likely never will. You are not alone. What I did was to use the SMP kernel and limit the number of CPUs with PSD=ACPI.PSD /MAXCPU=1 but you could also use the W4 kernel without any PSD

2) in order to use custom resolutions with either GENGRADD or PANORAMA you will need to add one for the virtual image itself.
For that you use vboxmanage with the "setextradata" command like so:
vboxmanage setextradata "VM name" "CustomVideoMode1" "3840x2160x32" (that is x-size x y-size x bit depth)
You find vboxmanage.exe in the Virtualbox installation directory.
What this essentially does is add a new BIOS screen resolution which can then be queried by GENGRADD or Panorama.
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 06, 2019, 05:08:25 pm
Hi Julien.

My real monitor is UHD 4K - 3840x2160 . The highest resolution available is 1600x1200 . I know about scaling in VB, but would like to see if it's possible to do better than that.

I also have something published about this subject on the OS2World wiki (https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/ArcaOS_5.0.x_as_a_VirtualBox_5.2.x_Guest#Getting_Higher.2FCustom_Resolutions). But I have no experience with 3840x2160.

Regards
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: madbrain on January 06, 2019, 06:34:12 pm
Hi Julien.

My real monitor is UHD 4K - 3840x2160 . The highest resolution available is 1600x1200 . I know about scaling in VB, but would like to see if it's possible to do better than that.

I also have something published about this subject on the OS2World wiki (https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/ArcaOS_5.0.x_as_a_VirtualBox_5.2.x_Guest#Getting_Higher.2FCustom_Resolutions). But I have no experience with 3840x2160.

Regards

Thanks. I tried it, but I couldn't get any custom resolution to work, not even the 1920x1080 which you have as an example, so I must be doing something wrong. I am using Gengradd with the custom DLL from the OS/2 additions.
Your example has SNAP, but then you recommend Gengradd also. Which one do you actually use ?
I can try SNAP, but I'm reluctant to do so as I'm not sure how to switch back to GENGRADD afterwards.
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: madbrain on January 06, 2019, 06:36:06 pm
1) SMP does not work in Virtualbox and it likely never will. You are not alone. What I did was to use the SMP kernel and limit the number of CPUs with PSD=ACPI.PSD /MAXCPU=1 but you could also use the W4 kernel without any PSD

Ah, that is too bad. Is there any way to get SMP to work in any other virtualization software ?

Quote
2) in order to use custom resolutions with either GENGRADD or PANORAMA you will need to add one for the virtual image itself.
For that you use vboxmanage with the "setextradata" command like so:
vboxmanage setextradata "VM name" "CustomVideoMode1" "3840x2160x32" (that is x-size x y-size x bit depth)
You find vboxmanage.exe in the Virtualbox installation directory.
What this essentially does is add a new BIOS screen resolution which can then be queried by GENGRADD or Panorama.

I tried this, but not having luck with GENGRADD. New resolutions are not shown in the guest.
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience
Post by: Lars on January 06, 2019, 08:30:35 pm
1) You could try VirtualPC. I just don't know where to find that. I also have never used it.

2) Try Panorama instead (I already did and it also works ok). Maybe it does a better job in checking what video modes the BIOS offers.
Or try to halve the x-size and y-size values. Maybe there is a maximum value for x-size and y-size. I would not be surprised if there were.
Or, maybe that is essential, increase the video aperture size for your VM. You need at least 3840*2160*4 = 32 MB of video aperture size.

What I can say is that I have added a 1920x1080x32 mode, I am using GENGRADD, and that works ok. Consequently, my video aperture size is set to 16 MB.
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: Dave Yeo on January 06, 2019, 08:34:46 pm
I can try SNAP, but I'm reluctant to do so as I'm not sure how to switch back to GENGRADD afterwards.

They're all gradd based so you should be able to just install whichever over the other one. See the readme's or run setup.cmd with no parameters IIRC.
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: Andreas Schnellbacher on January 06, 2019, 08:58:35 pm
They're all gradd based so you should be able to just install whichever over the other one. See the readme's or run setup.cmd with no parameters IIRC.
Yes, the video driver is replaced by the os2additions. It doesn't depend on what was installed before.

Regarding the screen resolution and vboxmanage: The maximum resolution I could get was 1600x1200.

About VirtualPC: It supports more screen resolution, but is quite slow, compared to Virtual Box. The difference in networking is extreme. My personal experience is that it's quite unstable with newer kernels and ACPI, even on a single-core CPU. It was stable years ago with elder drivers.
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: madbrain on January 10, 2019, 09:55:27 pm
Regarding the screen resolution and vboxmanage: The maximum resolution I could get was 1600x1200.

1600x1200 is also the same I could achieve, and that works out of the box without using vboxmanage. So it seems custom resolutions are not working at all in virtualbox.
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience
Post by: madbrain on January 10, 2019, 09:59:06 pm
1) You could try VirtualPC. I just don't know where to find that. I also have never used it.

Since it hasn't been supported since 2011, I think I will skip.

Quote
2) Try Panorama instead (I already did and it also works ok). Maybe it does a better job in checking what video modes the BIOS offers.
Or try to halve the x-size and y-size values. Maybe there is a maximum value for x-size and y-size. I would not be surprised if there were.
Or, maybe that is essential, increase the video aperture size for your VM. You need at least 3840*2160*4 = 32 MB of video aperture size.

What I can say is that I have added a 1920x1080x32 mode, I am using GENGRADD, and that works ok. Consequently, my video aperture size is set to 16 MB.

Neither Panorama nor Gengradd worked for me with Virtualbox. I couldn't get any custom resolution to work, not even 1920x1080x32. There is obviously a step I'm missing somewhere. I have video aperture size set to the maximum 128MB.
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: Andreas Schnellbacher on January 10, 2019, 10:15:51 pm
So it seems custom resolutions are not working at all in virtualbox.
No, that's not true. You need vboxmanage e.g. for wide screen resolutions. But apparently the maximum of pixels is limited to the amount of 1920*1200.
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: madbrain on January 10, 2019, 10:27:26 pm
So it seems custom resolutions are not working at all in virtualbox.
No, that's not true. You need vboxmanage e.g. for wide screen resolutions. But apparently the maximum of pixels is limited to the amount of 1600*1200.

I found the following thread :
https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?topic=1433.0

This poster indicates getting 2560x1440x32 to work . But it required setting up a new VM . Very weird.

I ran the following, and none of these resolutions are showing in my ArcaOS VM after reboot in the "Screen" dialog of Panorama. So, I don't think it's a 1600x1200 limitation blocking me. There is something else at play.

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage.exe setextradata global GUI/MaxGuestResolution any

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage.exe setextradata global "CustomVideoMode1" "1920x1080x32"

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage.exe setextradata global "CustomVideoMode2" "2560x1440x32"

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage.exe setextradata global "CustomVideoMode3" "2560x1600x32"

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage.exe setextradata global "CustomVideoMode4" "3840x2160x32"

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage.exe setextradata global "CustomVideoMode5" "1366x768x32"
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience by Sigurd
Post by: madbrain on January 10, 2019, 11:08:44 pm
I found the following thread :
https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?topic=1433.0

This poster indicates getting 2560x1440x32 to work . But it required setting up a new VM . Very weird.

Tried a new VM, and still had zero luck getting any custom resolution to show up, either with GENGRADD, SNAP, or Panorama.
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 11, 2019, 12:20:27 am
Hi Julien

I tried it on ArcaOS 5.0.2 with Panorama and also GENGRADD (included on the OS/2 guest addons of Virtual box) and works for me with 1920x1080 resolution.

I haven't used it "global", I go directly with the name of the VM. (VM turned off)
"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" setextradata "ArcaOS 5.0.3" "CustomVideoMode1" "1920x1080x32"
On the next boot the resolution appeared on the screen settings.

But I as told before I don't anything with 2560x1440 resolution to try ArcaOS inside a VM.

Regards
Title: Re: ArcaOS5 - My personal experience
Post by: madbrain on January 11, 2019, 12:36:15 am
Hi Julien

I tried it on ArcaOS 5.0.2 with Panorama and also GENGRADD (included on the OS/2 guest addons of Virtual box) and works for me with 1920x1080 resolution.

I haven't used it "global", I go directly with the name of the VM. (VM turned off)
"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" setextradata "ArcaOS 5.0.3" "CustomVideoMode1" "1920x1080x32"
On the next boot the resolution appeared on the screen settings.

But I as told before I don't anything with 2560x1440 resolution to try ArcaOS inside a VM.

Regards

Which version of Virtualbox are you using ?

I tried both Ecomstation 2.0 and ArcaOS 5.0.3 - no go. Even for 1920x1080x32 .

Edit: it just worked for that resolution. Maybe it has to do with me uninstalling / reinstalling many different versions of Virtualbox .

Edit2: I can't add any other resolution, even lower res. Even weirder, I can't stop 1920x1080 from appearing in the list in the VM anymore, even after removing the extradata completely from the VM as follows :

vboxmanage setextradata ArcaOS CustomVideoMode1

The 1920x1080  just continues to show as an option in the VM after reboot in Panorama under ArcaOS.
Same with GenGradd under ECS.