Messages

1

Networking / Re: Sharing WSeB Server drives to Win 10/11 Clients

« on: Today at 09:58:16 am »

Hey Chris,

later versions of windows have deprecated SMB1 and the legacy NTLM authentication. https://winsides.com/enable-smb-1-0-cifs-file-sharing-support-windows-11/ might help....

I tried that for years after Windows 7 and higher SMB 1 support is complete broken is my experience. I tested with a lot of LAN MAN settings in the registry but gave up.
SMB 1 support from Windows 10/11 seems to be to much broken. Maybe some magic registry setting can get it to work. But I spent long nights on this.

Roderick

2

Hardware / Re: Observations on intel vs AMD

« on: November 10, 2024, 09:17:10 pm »

Roderick,

The MSI motherboard/BIOS will switch from UEFI/CMS mode to CMS/UEFI mode during boot if it does not detect GOP support in the graphics card, which pretty much insures that you see SOMETHING - at least with this motherboard/BIOS combination.  But the installer won't get the screen where you select system maintenance or install.  I submitted a ticket and some data to AOS to see it they would support the card in the installer and the answer was no - which I completely understand.

As you said, I can't detect a performance difference between Panorama and SNAP.

So the BIOS is displayed on the screen ? What about the ArcaOS boot menu when you install from install media ? Is the ArcaOS boot logo displayed ?
You saying that just the ArcaOS installer is never installed ? Do you have text output during boot or also not ?

Roderick

3

Hardware / Re: Observations on intel vs AMD

« on: November 09, 2024, 12:27:01 pm »

Hey Doug!

...desktop Ryzen 5 5600x on MSI PROB500-VC (circa late 2020) with very fast NVMe SSD and spinning hard drive.  The Ryzen 5 5600x and MSI PROB550-VC can still be purchased new as of this writing (Nov 2024). 
...
Performance
-----------------
Graphical: I am not gaming on any machine so for me graphical performance on all three are basically the same. The machines are running both panorama (T530) and SNAP in both accelerated (Ryzen) and non-accelerated mode (EliteDesk 800), and for me there is no noticeable difference in graphical performance.  This includes text mode scrolling in editors and command line prompts, as well as graphical performance in VLC while playing movies...

I am very interested in the AMD Ryzen stuff, especially in light of this being a configuration that allows you to run SNAP.

I have an old ATI X850XT PE video card here that, until I decide to buy one of these curved high-resolution displays, will continue to serve me in a dual-head configuration.

OK, so what GPU are you running? ...as this would certain appear to be a viable approach.

Further on, can you post the matching SysBench results for your combo? (I've attached mine)

I recently upgraded (yes, LOL, I am dealing with some rather ancient hardware here by today's standards, but alas, where is the fun in all this otherwise?) from a AMD Phenom II X6 110T (6-core) to AMD FX-8370 Piledriver (8-core) CPU configuration.

Without getting into the nitty gritty CPU architecture details, I have been somewhat dissapointed with the outcome...but hey, only $50 later it can hardly be thought off as 'wasted spend'!

So bottom line here being: performance benchmarks aside, it is the whole feel of the machine that needs to be right, and before one spends the $$$ to go there I would ideally love to be able to do some kind of an assessment as to what the outcomes may be.

Just some clarifications.

* UEFI GOP is an interface ArcaOS uses from the UEFI firmware.  So if a video card does not support UEFI GOP that is it.
Infact your BIOS might also not work (no screen output). I am not an expert at this.

* The loss of performance with the GPT filter driver is about 15%.  But with an SSD of NVMe storage you will not notice this.

* The usage of SNAP for multi screen support is the only way out. As you noticed. The SNAP and Panorama performance, you will not even notice it in practice.
Also SNAP is waaaay more complicated compared to Panorama. Panorama is a lightweight driver compared to SNAP.

Roderick

4

Hardware / Re: Observations on intel vs AMD

« on: November 08, 2024, 07:39:38 pm »

Roderick,

Thanks for the input.

I should have mentioned that  psd=acpi.psd /maxcpu=1  in CONFIG.SYS does fix the issues I have with Win-OS/2 software running on the Ryzen system, as does running those applications in full screen mode.  But running apps in seamless mode is pretty important to me. And I should make it clear that some Win-OS/2 applications run fine in seamless mode on the Ryzen machine. Some lock up the machine pretty quickly, some take a longer while to lock up the machine.  I do have a ticket open for this particular issue.

The title Intel vs AMD is somewhat misleading because I am not sure how much is just limited to the CPU and how much influence supporting chipsets, motherboard and bios have - but those other factors are usually closely related to the CPU selected.

My understanding is not that great. But just like with OS/2 and Windows 3.1 the programs running are pretty agnostic when it comes to chipsets tec. It means they do not really talk to the BIOS or anything. This is not like a DOS application that talks to the BIOS.  That is why I keep leaning towards this is a possible timing issue somewhere.

Roderick

 

5

Hardware / Re: Observations on intel vs AMD

« on: November 08, 2024, 04:10:11 pm »

I am current running AOS 5.1 on three machines:

Lenovo T530 laptop with an 2.8-GHz dual-core Intel Core i5-3360M (circa late 2012) with SATA SSD

HP EliteDesk 800 G4 65 watt  mini desktop with an Intel i5 8500 (circa early 2018) with very fast NVMe SSDs,

A desktop Ryzen 5 5600x on MSI PROB500-VC (circa late 2020) with very fast NVMe SSD and spinning hard drive.  The Ryzen 5 5600x and MSI PROB550-VC can still be purchased new as of this writing (Nov 2024). 

I offer my very unscientific observations in hope that anyone considering a machine replacement for AOS may find them useful.  My observations center on two areas: performance and compatibility - although my own personal priorities are compatibility and then performance.

Performance
-----------------
Graphical: I am not gaming on any machine so for me graphical performance on all three are basically the same. The machines are running both panorama (T530) and SNAP in both accelerated (Ryzen) and non-accelerated mode (EliteDesk 800), and for me there is no noticeable difference in graphical performance.  This includes text mode scrolling in editors and command line prompts, as well as graphical performance in VLC while playing movies.

Boot up time: Boot time, from power on to desktop ready is.  T530 - 31 seconds, EliteDesk - 31 seconds, Ryzen 5 - 72 seconds.  All machines are running MBR disks and all go through Airboot - so the times include me hitting Enter as fast as possible in Airboot.  All are running CSM/legacy mode.  All machines have UEFI bios.  The relative differences between the machines stays the same when re-booting, i.e. a warm boot.  The longer boot time for the Ryzen is almost all in the "what the hell are you doing in there" bios setup time, that is the time between turning on the machine and getting the Airboot prompt. For a warm re-boot on the Ryzen there is a multi-second delay between clicking the Shut Down menu item in the Desktop pop-up menu and the display of the extended shutdown prompt.  I have to point out that the Ryzen is running xWorkplace and the two Intel machines are running AOS Enhanced Desktop.

Desktop restart time:  Here I am timing how long it takes for the Restart Desktop prompt to show after clicking on the Restart Desktop prompt in the Desktop popup menu. T530 and EliteDesk are essentially instantaneous, Ryzen 5 is 7 seconds.  The actual desktop restart process, once you hit OK at the Restart Desktop prompt is essentially the same.

The bottom line is the T530 with a SATA SSD and slowest CPU boots as fast as the EliteDesk with the fast NVMe SSD, and twice as fast as the Ryzen with the fastest NVMe SSD I could buy plugged in to PCIe gen 4 socket.  For boot times it appears Intel has a significant edge.

General Performance:  It is hard to directly compare the performance of the machines because they are used for different tasks.  The EliteDesk is used as a file and database server (WSeB). The Ryzen and T530 are used as general purpose machines and do a lot of compling.
 
Once I (finally) get the Ryzen booted it is the fastest of the three machines, which is mainly noticeable in application startup time and compile times.  I suspect this is mostly due to the speed of drive access.  The Ryzen is running PCIe gen 4 with a very fast NVMe SSD.  The EliteDesk is running PCIe gen 3 with the fastest NVMe SSDs I could buy.  The T530 is running a SATA SSD.   

Compatibility
------------------
I have significantly more money invested in software then I ever will have in hardware, so compatibility is very important to me.  I run, on a regular basis,  both OS2 and Win-OS/2 software (both Win16 and Win32s), some of which was released in 1992.  Software compatibility is generally not a problem with OS/2 software.  I have a couple of applications from 1992 that run on OS/2 - they have a few issues but run.  The compatibility issues mostly arise in Win-OS/2 and here things get complicated.

The T530 is more compatible with Win-OS/2 software than either the EliteDesk or the Ryzen - in most ways.  It will run applications in seamless mode that will not run in seamless mode on the Ryzen or the EliteDesk;. the EliteDesk will not run Win-OS/2 or DOS in anything other than full screen mode.

On the other hand, I can install some Win-OS/2 applications on the Ryzen that won't install on the other two machines - even though the Ryzen has problems running some applications in seamless mode.

The bottom line is that for compatibility  it appears there is more of a difference in how old the machine is than there is between Intel and AMD processors.  With older generally being better.

Versions of AOS
-----------------------
The T530 will run earlier versions of AOS than 5.1, but Win-OS/2 will not run on that machine until AOS version 5.1.  You cannot install any version earlier than AOS v 5.1 on the Ryzen - the installer will not work.  You can install an earlier version of AOS on a different machine and move the drive over to the Ryzen but USB,  and perhaps networking, will not work.

I didn't try to install an earlier version than 5.1 on the EliteDesk but I suspect an earlier version would not install.

This is not unique to AOS.  By way of comparison you cannot install Win7 on the EliteDesk without heroic efforts and strange incantations.  The fact that you can install and run AOS on the latest hardware is truly an accomplishment.

Hope this is helpful to someone.

Couple of notes. The difference between speed of UEFI and MBR boot should be just about 0. The difference between how ArcaOS in UEFI mode AND MBR starts might down to less then maybe half a second difference's if not less.

Its not down to CPU support for DOS and WIN/OS2 support. What is the most likely cause is the speed of the system and possibly, memory layout.

If you have an issue with WIN/OS2 programs and it can be reproduced then open a ticket at https://mantis.arcanoae.com.
You can also try run the system with the line psd=acpi.psd /maxcpu=1 in the config.sys. This will run with one core.

Some installers can not handle volumes for ArcaOS bigger then 2 GB and might hang.
So that are some things you can try to pinpoint issue's.

Based on how I understand the video subsystem in OS/2 works for WIN/OS2 this should just works and this mostly is routed via GRADD (VMANWIN.SYS I think the driver is called).
But in a UEFI environment there MIGHT be unknown bugs.  Every bug report you could report to Arca Noae can help improve the code.
But its hard to debug VDM (DOS/WIN/OS2 code).

Roderick

6

Setup & Installation / Re: OS/2 Warp 4 Tutorial on ArcaOS 5.1

« on: November 01, 2024, 11:41:30 pm »

Best I can telll the configuration is in this file in the Warp 4 CD.
S:\OS2IMAGE\FI\FEATURE_\WARPGUID\INSTDATA.INI
This creates the different objects during the install of Warp 4.

I think the main Warp training lives in the file
S:\OS2IMAGE\FI\COACHES\OS2\HELP\_cchsys.db
It seems the proper class needs to be registered.

Aaah this is part of the OS/2 help.
https://www.os2world.com/wiki/images/f/fc/W4WPS-fig16.jpg

Roderick

7

Setup & Installation / Re: OS/2 Warp 4 Tutorial on ArcaOS 5.1

« on: November 01, 2024, 11:13:10 pm »

To full fill my attempt of turning ArcaOS 5.1 in OS/2 Warp 4, I try to get the Tutorial to run.

I copied all the necessary files etc. like I did so many times before, beginning with some ( I do not know exactly wich ) Version of ArcaOS the Tutorial does not work as designed.

It creates the Training Folder on the desktop, but instead of showing the application it opens teh help file with the viewer, please see attached picture.

I guess this is the problem: the files must be connected to the viewer in some way.

Is it possible to turn this back for the tutorial program?

What do I have to do to get it up and running?

Thanks in Advance!

You made me interested let me see if I can figure this one out. I know what guide you mean....
It also plays a VLC animation I think that Warp 4 course.

Roderick

8

Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS5.1 together with Debian, Win7 and OpenSuse - first UEFI & GPT impressions

« on: November 01, 2024, 11:02:50 pm »

I'm building up a new desktop system because I think it's time to replace my 4 core Intel one with a newer 8 core AMD. Bought an Asrock B550M Pro4 and a Ryzen 7 5700G. The system isn't nearly setup as I like but I think I should share some findings. This was the first time I played (have to play) with UEFI boot and GPT disks.

I have to say -
Concrates to ArcaNoae. I was surprised that handling EFI partition, UEFI boot with the AN Launcher and even creating a GPT partition on a 8TB drive works with ArcaOS5.1. Some things work even way better than with other tools/OSes.

More details - I started with a 2TB NVMe Samsung 980Pro. I partitioned this traditionally as MBR with Airboot and setup a ArcaOS partitions. But also made an EFI partition. I also reserved 3 partitions for Debian (swap, root, home). Also reserved some space for Win7 (which I didn't use later on but...). After the ArcaOS installation basically worked I installed Debian 11 in the reserved partitions. This went fine. But I can't get Debian 11 to offer more than 800x600 resolution. Some of the describes ways on the internet to use newer Ryzen with Debian 11 didn't work for me. Btw. ArcaOS supports only 2560x1440 on this system instead the desired 3840x2160 (needs a ticket and I hope David can fix this). So had to switch to Debian 12. This now works with the Ryzen integrated GPU in full 3840x2160.

I've to say ArcaOS installation went smooth but Debian was even easier to install. Debian also honors my partitioning (made with ArcaOS), means it didn't destroy anything in contrast to OpenSuse.

Now the hardest thing to install was Win7. Original W7 installation media don't work with NVMe and don't support XHCI controller. So I had to find patched ISOs prepared for newer systems. These don't wanna install on MBR disk because MS allows UEFI only on a GPT disk. So I put in another 2TB Crucial T500 NVMe. I prepared this with the ArcaOS installation stick as GPT and made the partitions for Win. As I was there I also installed onto the GPT disk another ArcaOS test installation. This time with UEFI support (extra EFI partition).

I also installed reFind cause I read it should be a good UEFI launcher. After playing a lot with all the options I have to say I like the AN Launcher better. I couldn't configure reFind to suppress unneeded ArcaOS, Win and Debian entries. In contrast the AN Launcher is easy to setup. It's also cool that with ArcaOS you usually give a drive letter to the EFI partition and so you can edit the config files there easily. For Win you need extra (time limited) software to access this TTBOMK. Probably you can do this from Linux too but I don't know Linux good enough to find out how until now.

Bad thing about all this UEFI stuff is that when installing different OSes or try to start from a stick you constantly need to go into BIOS setup and rearrange boot order. Or maybe this is a bad habit of my Asrock board. But especially Win changes things to start only Win next time. So you have to change in BIOS the right disk (EFI with your launcher) constantly.

Good thing about AN Launcher is also it seems to have some kind of fall back mode. If selected partition does not exist it shows a list of partitions on different disk you can chose to start. Needed this a few times.

OpenSuse installation destroyed the LVM information on my first disk. So one of my ArcaOS installation couldn't be started anymore. Tried with DFSee to repair but gave up. Used the ArcaOS installation stick and surprise, surprise, the disk checking tool mentioned the problem and was able to fix it. Thanks ArcaNoae. Even for me as a long time DFSee user it was way easier to let the disk checker do it's work than playing with DFsee myself.

I also put into a 8TB disk drive. At first I created a standard 2TB partition with MiniLVM. But afterwards I found out you should better use PTE.exe for that. With that you can create GPT partitions which are needed for such big drives. Luckily every ArcaOS installation has included gpt.sys in config.sys. So you can use such partitions even when added later on.

I also put into temporarily a 1TB SSD (SATA Crucial MX500) which I used to transfer data. When trying to copy a few partitions with all in all about 700GB of data ArcaOS reproducible hangs. I thought David had fixed the AHCI driver for this (I had a ticket about and lot of work went into solving this) but it seems there are some situations where it still does not work. Crucial offers firmware xx46 which should fix some very rare hangs in corner cases so I updated the SSD firmware from xx45 to xx46 (this time used Win for that cause way easier than the other options). I thought I've already updated this drive last year but not sure anymore. I'm not really sure all problems are gone now but at least I could copy my 700GB in a few 100'000 files finally.

So still under construction and will take a long way to setup a final ArcaOS main partition (probably when DE arrives) also take some time to prepare the Win7 I need it and a lot to discover with Debian and OpenSuse. But the first steps are done and ArcaOS works on bare metal here. Writing this with Seamonkey, the copied profile from the old system, and even with this long text no hang until now ;-). Six of the eight cores usually sleeps at idle. Hyperthreading is disabled although I looked nice to see OS/2 showing 16 cores. When Seamonkey is running power consumption is about 70W. Without about the half. Win uses less, Debian even less. Btw. Win7 can't handle 3840x2160 too. Such a shame AMD don't support this GPU anymore although it's a few years old anyway. If anyone knows a trick for Win7 and still read until here, please...

While its not rulled out. The likelihood of conflicts between different OS partitions with GPT is way smaller then with MBR disc layout.
Nice to hear the install went that smoothly.

Roderick

9

Setup & Installation / Re: WSeB Server parts on ARcaOS 5.1 with installed Samba - what to deinstall?

« on: October 30, 2024, 11:12:43 pm »

Sigurd, what bldlevel does your copy of LANINST.PGM report?

Hi Steven,

I unfortunately can not find a file with this name on my pc, where I do have the copied CID files form the WSeB CD as well. (A full serach ended with no result).

Where should this file be located?

Thanks again!

Aaah this is soooo fun. Anyway on the WSeB CD (this can depend on the language). On an English WSeB its located in:
\CID\SERVER\IBMLS\IBM500S1
In that directory is:
SRVRINST.ZIP

In that ZIP file on my system is LANINST.PGM.

Roderick

While I can't see the fun in this, maybe because of my german sense of Humor, I will Look there.

It was meant somewhat sarcastic.. Some of the installers are pretty complex/different per installer of OS/2.

Roderick

10

Setup & Installation / Re: WSeB Server parts on ARcaOS 5.1 with installed Samba - what to deinstall?

« on: October 30, 2024, 05:45:48 pm »

Sigurd, what bldlevel does your copy of LANINST.PGM report?

Hi Steven,

I unfortunately can not find a file with this name on my pc, where I do have the copied CID files form the WSeB CD as well. (A full serach ended with no result).

Where should this file be located?

Thanks again!

Aaah this is soooo fun. Anyway on the WSeB CD (this can depend on the language). On an English WSeB its located in:
\CID\SERVER\IBMLS\IBM500S1
In that directory is:
SRVRINST.ZIP

In that ZIP file on my system is LANINST.PGM.

Roderick

11

Setup & Installation / Re: Switch from CSM to UEFI

« on: October 29, 2024, 03:05:06 pm »

Perhaps it isn't that hard. I think you could do this experiment.

Install ArcaOS 5.1 on the system you have now.
Install the new graphics card and switch to UEFI
Install ArcaOS 5.1 on a different volume.
Compare the Config.sys. I think only a graphics has changed.
Make that change and copy the files it refers to to the first ArcaOS installation config.sys
See if the first installation now boots under UEFI

Make sure you have space to make the new boot volumes and also the EFI volume.

you also need an ESP partition.... Effectively UEFI boot no longer uses an MBR.
Airboot stops working to any dualboot options will have to be setup again.

Roderick

12

Hardware / Testing if a UEFI system can work with ArcaOS....

« on: October 29, 2024, 01:50:20 pm »

This tool used to be limited to the ArcaOS install media (syseval). You can now download it here:
https://www.arcanoae.com/wiki/arcaos/uefi-diagnostics/
Its a UEFI tool tool so it does not run under ArcaOS, Windows or Linux, and you need to load as UEFI tool.
It seems pretty simple... (See website for instructions).

Roderick

13

Setup & Installation / Re: WSeB Server parts on ARcaOS 5.1 with installed Samba - what to deinstall?

« on: October 29, 2024, 01:45:16 pm »

Sigurd,

This

  SS:ESP=05c7:00003732  SSACC=00f3  SSLIM=00003fff

indicates we failed with stack overflow.  Of course, this does not tell us why.  We need to see to logs to get some idea of what the installer was doing at the time of the exception.

Hi Steven,

attached are the only two log files related to lan server stuff, I was able to find.

There are no Server related logs in \var.

Thank you very much,

Sigurd

At this point I would say I do not think there is anything else we can really do. Unless Steve has questions. For some unknown reasom that PGM file crashes. But the root cause is not known.
Did you test it on another system Sigurd ?

Roderick

14

Setup & Installation / Re: Switch from CSM to UEFI

« on: October 29, 2024, 01:44:02 pm »

I have Win10 but since it's been run with CSM it has not created any ESP partition. AFAIK updating Win10 to Win11 requires UEFI so I assume that the updating process will create the ESP partition, (the Win10-disk has enough free space).
Before updating to Win11 I think I will disconnect the AOS-disk and only have the win-disk and another empty disk in the system.
If the win updating goes well I'll install latest AOS to the empty disk.

Finally I plan to re-connect the older AOS disk and wonder if there is something I have to do manually or will it be seen automatically and added to whatever boot manager AOS 5.1 sets up?

The graphics card is a Radeon RX 7800 XT and I have no idea about the size of the frame buffer or where it is put.
 
I have checked https://www.arcanoae.com/wiki/ and the info is good for a new installation however I initially had a hope of "converting" an existing AOS installation to UEFI. Couldn't find any info for that scenario so I'll go for a new 5.1 installation.

The reason its not a common support scenario is indeed because if it works it works. Its also not that easy to automate conversion to a UEFI system.  The primary thing is that you need a new partition and converting the HDD to gpt disc layout is more complex yet again (if you want this). Could Arca Noae have developed this code ? Perhaps. But its pretty complex code.

Roderick

15

Setup & Installation / Re: WSeB Server parts on ARcaOS 5.1 with installed Samba - what to deinstall?

« on: October 27, 2024, 06:41:43 pm »

Thank you Roderick and David, but none of the tipps helped. The same POPUPLOG.OS2 as before.

What logs are in \var\log ? Do a dir /od.

Roderick