Topics

1

Programming / [GCC] Unable to define getMemorySize()

« on: September 25, 2024, 02:25:59 pm »

Hiya all,

Trying to port NGSpice 4.2 (3.1 compiled just fine). Everything right until this:

get_avail_mem_size.c:26:2: error: #error "Unable to define getMemorySize( ) for an unknown OS."

Where can I find the definition of getMemorySize() under OS/2? Or should I try and clear this OS definition in configuring the environment?
TIA
Mentore

2

Programming / Strange autoconf / autoreconf / configure behavior

« on: May 21, 2024, 10:04:28 am »

Hi all, this is something I never saw before.

I was recently trying to port some other SDL / un*x software on OS/2, mostly emulators. Gone through an HP 48 emulator which works under SDL, but has no configure script - just configure.ac ready to be used with autoconf. But this is what I have after running it:


[D:\Sviluppo\Sorgenti\tmp\x48-master>]sh /usr/bin/autoreconf -sfvi
autoreconf.: Entering directory `.'
autoreconf.: configure.ac: not using Gettext
autoreconf.: running: aclocal  --output=aclocal.m4t
Can't open perl script "exe": No such file or directory
aclocal: error: echo failed with exit status: 2
autoreconf.: failed to run aclocal: SYS0193=0xc1: %1 non può essere eseguito in
una sessione OS/2

[D:\Sviluppo\Sorgenti\tmp\x48-master>]sh /usr/bin/autoconf
Can't open perl script "exe": No such file or directory

[D:\Sviluppo\Sorgenti\tmp\x48-master>]


I took a look at the auto* scripts and tried changing /@unixroot/usr occurrences to /usr, but no results. Of course it was a stupid attempt but the results didn't change.

Trying to port the latest version of SOX I get this at the end of the configure script:


configure.: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile
Usage: gawk [POSIX or GNU style options] -f progfile [--] file ...
Usage: gawk [POSIX or GNU style options] [--] 'program' file ...
POSIX options:          GNU long options: (standard)
        -f progfile             --file=progfile
        -F fs                   --field-separator=fs
        -v var=val              --assign=var=val
Short options:          GNU long options: (extensions)
        -b                      --characters-as-bytes
        -c                      --traditional
        -C                      --copyright
        -d[file]                --dump-variables[=file]
        -e 'program-text'       --source='program-text'
        -E file                 --exec=file
        -g                      --gen-pot
        -h                      --help
        -L [fatal]              --lint[=fatal]
        -n                      --non-decimal-data
        -N                      --use-lc-numeric
        -O                      --optimize
        -p[file]                --profile[=file]
        -P                      --posix
        -r                      --re-interval
        -S                      --sandbox
        -t                      --lint-old
        -V                      --version

To report bugs, see node `Bugs' in `gawk.info', which is
section `Reporting Problems and Bugs' in the printed version.

gawk is a pattern scanning and processing language.
By default it reads standard input and writes standard output.

Examples:
        gawk '{ sum += $1 }; END { print sum }' file
        gawk -F: '{ print $1 }' /etc/passwd
sed: couldn't write 34 items to stdout: Invalid argument
config.status: error: could not create Makefile


Another project - FUSE 1.6 for SDL. I'd really love to get one of the best ZX Spectrum emulators under OS/2, but I get the same result.
I already ported some other programs simply tweaking their makefile, so I am rather sure GCC and its companions work well. I can't for the life of me figure what happened, since I didn't tamper with /usr/bin (I seem to remember substituting clean.exe with another exe, but can't remember when).

Is there anyone who can hint me on what to do? Upgrading the auto* tools would be a good idea, can I find them on ANPM?

Thanks in advance,
Mentore

3

Programming / libALSA?

« on: April 30, 2024, 09:17:40 am »

Hello all,
I finally managed in setting up some projects on OS/2 - mainly focusing on emulatio.
As it seems, I have a QL Emulator under SDL/2 working - never happened before (there was UQLX but needed X11 and I never saw a working copy).

Now for the difficult part:
I'm working on a newer release of FBZX, a ZX Spectrum emulator I already ported before. It uses libpulse, OSS or libALSA for sound - and we don't have any of them.
As UNIAUD is based on ALSA, I'm wondering how difficult it may be to port libalsa under OS/2.
Thoughts, anyone? I'm pulling it from github right now.

Mentore

4

Programming / ArcaOS - Recreate a complete build environment?

« on: February 05, 2024, 09:22:11 am »

Hello all, starting a new topic which I hope will be useful to other people.
I'm about to finish a complete ArcaOS VM - meaning I installed all the system, the applications that I want to work with (Graphics, DTP, Math, Emulators, Games and so on) and now I'm finishing a big development section.
So I went and installed VACPP 4 (the text editor and the CLI compiler are my needs), OpenWatcom, various REXX environments, and os on. But now I'm stuck with GCC environment.

In the past I heavily relied on Paul Smedley's build environment, but as far as I can see, there's no mention of it in his website. Since there are many interesting projects involving GCC I'd really like to get a complete GCC based build environment, but somehow feel a little stuck (too used to Visual Studio I'm afraid).

From where can I start? I guess a GCC recent version (not sure of what would be the best), discarding EMX, then make, autoconf suite, cmake, what else?

Any help will gladly be appreciated - we may use this thread to estabilish an up to date information source for us programmers out there...

TIA
Mentore

5

Programming / Installing VisualAge 4 on ArcaOS 5.x

« on: January 05, 2024, 03:05:14 pm »

Hello all,
been trying to install this old beast under my ArcaOS powered VM.
It seems, though, that even installing Netscape Communicator + Feature Install I can't get past the installation splash screen. Also rebooting the VM and reinstalling FI alone doesn't get me anywhere.
ISTR there was something helpful for installing VAge without that nightmare known as Feature Installer - I mean, what the hell did IBM developers think when they deployed something like that?

So, any help would be greatly appreciated. TIA,
Mentore

6

Programming / BREXX - Classic REXX implementation

« on: June 28, 2023, 01:53:15 pm »

Just stumbled across this:

https://github.com/vlachoudis/brexx/blob/master/README.md

Since we have a "rather" old classic REXX version, we might think about a replacement?

Mentore

7

Comments, Suggestions & Questions / ArcaOS 5.0 on xxxxxx.com

« on: January 17, 2023, 07:59:13 am »

Hello all, and most notably @Roderick Klein and all the people directly involved in ArcaNoae.

I just checked xxxxxx.com, which is a site containing "abandonware" software, constantly growing. I don't have trouble with abandonware software, but I'm seeing listed ArcaOS 5.0.

Which is DEFINITELY NOT ABANDONWARE.

I'm trying to warn the site and ask them to remove every copy of ArcaOS from their system. I'm asking all you os2world people to do the same.

Thanks all
Mentore

8

Setup & Installation / Cluster solution (AKA parallel programming) on OS/2 architecture?

« on: April 15, 2022, 08:26:23 am »

Hello all. Just a few thoughts here.
I recently was given some eeePC net-top boxes (Intel N160/270, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB hard drive each) mounting Windows 7 OS, and found they are perfectly targeted by linux distros.
Somehow the idea of connecting them in a private LAN and using them as a parallel PC solution (clustering) came to mind and, lo and behold, I found a Linux solution for this. Basically this should turn a group of PCs roughly identical in computing power in a "single" machine working on all the CPUs and resources of its components. This would mean having a "single" 7 CPUs PC with 14 GB RAM and more than 1 TB MSD, expandable adding other machines (more or less: of course there's much overhead due to LAN and other quirks).

And it's all OK and right. But: I was wondering if somehow a similar solution exists (or could exist) on OS/2 architecture? I seem to remember there was a PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine) software on Hobbes but never gave it a try.

I'll look at https://www.csm.ornl.gov/pvm/pvm_home.html (if it still exist) and maybe study a little. In the meantime I'd love to hear your opinions (having a 8 CPUs OS/2 machine with 16 GB RAM would be fun).

Mentore

9

Setup & Installation / ArcaOS USB installation - Rufus?

« on: October 10, 2021, 10:48:42 am »

Hello all,
I finally got some free time to install ArcaOS beta in a Virtualbox environment.
Everything seems working fine so far. Have to install some applications, but I already saw some things that still need Italian translation - will make a checklist to discuss with my teammates. Now for a little problem:

I'm actually having issues trying to use AOSBoot and create a bootable USB stick. Everything goes well until the script ejects the thumbdrive and I re-insert it. Then, AOSBoot complains it can't format the USB stick and aborts.

Now: I'm not sure if this is due to the thumbdrive being "only" 4GB capable, or maybe because I didn't "touch" it with LVM, so I'd really love to understand how to use it with good results.

Speaking of USB boot sticks, I came across a USB tool named Rufus (https://rufus.ie/) which allows to create a bootable USB for linux distributions or windows ISO files. Sadly it doesn't recognize ArcaOS ISO as bootable or suitable for transferring it on an USB stick.

Don't know what I'm doing wrong but I feel Rufus may be another simple way to obtain an USB ArcaOS installation media. What do you think about it? In the meantime I think I'll try burning a bootable DVD, if AOSBoot keeps failing me (puzzles me how I seem unable to use it, though!!!).

TIA
Mentore

10

Programming / Porting Lilypond to OS/2 - eCS - Arca Noae

« on: November 05, 2019, 11:05:05 am »

Hello all,
currently we OS/2 users can benefit from at least four or five music typesetting programs:

• NotaMusica 2.6 (beta 2.7) - commercial, discontinued
• Plain MusixTeX - pretty uncommon, powerful but TeX is required (and am I right in saying we really lack a current TeX?)
• MUP MUsic Publisher (ported by me, not up to date with the current release) - easy to compile, requires text input
• ABC Music composer (idem)
• Philip's Music Writer (idem)
• Lastly, we should have also some simple guitar fakebook software like Chordii or Chordpro (ported by me)

Now I'd really love if we could make one step beyond and start using some real beast like LilyPond. I actually am not able to fire up my old eCS box (pretty old indeed - at least 4 years without upgrading hardware), but I'd like to tackle this huge piece of art. I know it still needs text input just like ABC or Mup, but it seems to have more features, so...

Now for the serious part. Among the requirements I can see Guile 1.8.8 and some other things it needs:

    GNU Autoconf
    GNU Bison                       (Use version 2.0 or newer.)
    GNU Compiler Collection  (Use version 3.4 or newer (4.x recommended)).
    GNU gettext                    (0.17 or newer)
    GNU Make                       (Use version 3.78 or newer.)

These listed above we should already have. I'm not sure about the following ones (my thoughts on them in italic):

    Flex
    FontForge (recommended using at least 20100501); it must also be compiled with the ‘--enable-double’ switch, else this can lead to inaccurate intersection calculations which end up with poorly-rendered glyphs in the output.

    MetaFont
    The mf-nowin, mf, mfw or mfont binaries are usually packaged along with TeX.
    MetaPost
    The mpost binary is also usually packaged with TeX.
So, we should indeed have TeX updated!!!

    Perl
    Texinfo (Use version 4.11 or newer.)

    Type 1 utilities (Use version 1.33 or newer.)
    Cyrillic fonts (Often packaged in repositories as texlive-lang-cyrillic.)

    TeX Gyre ‘OTF’ font packages. As of LilyPond version 2.19.26, the previous default serif, san serif and monospace fonts now use Tex Gyre’s Schola, Heros and Cursor fonts respectively. Also See Fonts.

    The following font families are required:
    Schola, Heros and Cursor.

What are your thoughts about this? Do you think it's actually possible for us to have this beast under OS/2? (Yes I'd love to use it with my machine without having to boot a Linux / Win PC).

11

Hardware / Mouse weirdness

« on: December 04, 2017, 10:03:24 am »

Hello all, long time no see :-) I've been lurking a lot but without having too much to add. Recently, though, I came across a strange problem.

I've a rather old machine built by myself. Nothing too fancy, it's just an old Intel dual core with 2 GiB RAM, working only with eCS 2.1 GA. When I say "rather old" I mean "It has a PS/2 keyboard port and mouse port".

I used to work on it with an USB mouse connected to the PS/2 port via an adaptor and it worked fairly well (it's still smoother than my last laptop with an i5 CPU and Windows 10, mind you).

In the last few days, though, strange things have happened:

1 - my old mouse stopped working its left button, so I tried to use an USB mouse. It worked the first time and then no more.

2 - I tried another old PS/2 mouse (but this could be not working) and no success.

3 - I bought a new (wired, not wireless) USB mouse and tried to connect it to all the USB ports, other than the PS/2 port with its adaptor, and nothing - no mouse movements.

4 - everytime I connect the mouse to the USB port, eCS beeps (it's the same beep that occurs when I connect an USB pendrive or other MSD).

5 - Amouse is installed and Amouse USB driver too. Amouse control panel seems to detect the mouse, but the pointer does not move and pushing any of the mouse buttons doesn't do anything.

Now I want to take some time to try and see if the eCS installer actually sees the mouse. The same I'll do with some other OS installer (say, some linux).

Maybe this is the right time to think about migrating to ArcaOS...

Some ideas, anyone?
Mentore

12

Applications / [ANPM] No repository, no packages

« on: June 21, 2016, 11:09:51 pm »

Hello everybody.
I'm trying to learn to use Arca Noae Package Manager. After installing and rebooting, I opened it up and into the "Repository" window found nothing listed.

Yet, if I try to add a repository from the list provided in the Arca Noae site, the program tell me the repository has already been added. Still there's no packages I can view.

Since I installed (long ago) a somehow broken RPM/YUM and then tried to deinstall it, I wonder if maybe something undeleted could be messing up things.

Ideas, anyone?
TIA
Mentore

13

Programming / Linking problems in compiling a MAME spinoff

« on: April 24, 2016, 05:32:54 pm »

Hello all.

Time allowing, I'm trying to compile / recompile some old discotinued projects.
I recently came across some old MAME sources (until 0.60 I think), and thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if the old MAME 0.37 b14 from Marty Amodeo would work with those more updated sources. I thought, "Well, if that would allow emulating even a single game more, or make the old ones work better, it would be worth the work" and then I started diff-ing the newer sources with the old ones.

You wouldn't believe it but it compiles 
Just, it does not link completely... Upon linking it prints these linker errors:

obj/mame/os2/os2.o: Undefined symbol _ss_deregister_all_funcs referenced from text segment
obj/mame/os2/os2.o: Undefined symbol _WindowProc referenced from data segment
obj/mame/os2/dart.o: Undefined symbol mciSendCommand referenced from text segment
obj/mame/os2/dart.o: Undefined symbol mciSendCommand referenced from text segment
obj/mame/os2/dart.o: Undefined symbol mciSendCommand referenced from text segment
obj/mame/os2/dart.o: Undefined symbol mciSendCommand referenced from text segment
obj/mame/os2/dart.o: Undefined symbol mciSendCommand referenced from text segment
obj/mame/os2/dart.o: Undefined symbol mciSendCommand referenced from text segment

Attached is the os2.mak makefile I'm using. It's identical to the old one present in the 0.37 b14 release, I just changed the -Zmt option with -Zexe to make it link with the new gcc from Paul Smedley (trying gcc 5.10 right now). Also the original makefile was not modified.

The obj files are present and I have downloaded, installed and configured the Warp 4.52 toolkit, so from now on it seems I'm stuck here.

BTW: I of course know there's SDLMAME from the great KO Myung Hun and appreciate it really much - also, I know that I cannot port the latest MAME, which architecture has greatly changed. But I love the old MAME GUI and am accustomed to it. Plus, alas, SDLMAME crashes from time to time...

Hope to hear some news from you.
TIA
Mentore

14

Programming / ptrace and QtCreator

« on: June 22, 2015, 11:58:01 am »

Hello all, kind of a different question. Once sure that Qt programs are compiled, I got back porting QtCreator 2.1 (the latest under Qt 4.7, AFAIK).

I got stuck, still, in compiling qtcreator_process_stub, an utility executable which was present also in the 1.3.1 version of Qt Creator for OS/2.

The source makes use of two ptrace calls, which I had to modify to make it compile (I'm not listing the modifications I'm making: Qt Creator 2.1 is really old, so I don't think it would be possible to include them in the official sources). And it compiles well but fails linking, complaining the absence of _ptrace from symbols.

This is indeed correct: I searched for ptrace in my development tree and found only the ptrace.h neader file - no .c, .cpp, .cc nor library file. Searching in the usual places didn't take me further.

From Wikipedia I'm seeing ptrace is useful but rather obsolete, so I was wondering if there's a ptrace for OS/2 or I have to delete those calls to make our version of QtCreator work. The one who developed the 1.3.1 version for OS/2 would be really of help in this circumstance.

Thanks in advance,
Mentore

15

Programming / [Qt ports] Can't understand linking problem (-Zexe / -Zomf)

« on: June 19, 2015, 06:49:18 pm »

Hello all.

I'm getting back to porting Qt programs, but I'm having troubles in linking. Here's the scenario: I decided to port Socializer (facebook QT browser) to try and have a native facebook browser native.

Being a Qt 5 application, I solved the JSON problem with an alternative library - works.

The program compiles but doesn't link. If I use -Zomf, the prelinker stops reporting a bunch of undetermined references, while using -Zexe it's g++ (ld) which stops saying it doesn't recognize the -O option. Needless to say, but there's no '-O' option in linker switches.

I also tried to

I attach here the makefile and the error messages reported. I'm currently using GCC 4.73, but the errors are the same. I even tried to delete all the -Z* linker options, and linking stops complaining it can't find the Qt libraries with errors like this:

U:/usr/i386-pc-os2-emx/bin/ld.exe: No such file or directory for QtGui4

or

U:/usr/i386-pc-os2-emx/bin/ld.exe: No such file or directory for QtWebKit4

but the library files (.lib files) are there. I'm really puzzled by this behavior. (Of course it's my ignorance on how gcc / ld work.)