Messages

1

Setup & Installation / Re: UEFI: Dual Boot - Windows 11 and ArcaOS 5.1

« on: November 03, 2023, 08:43:33 am »

I was recently shown such a layout on ESP:

Code: [Select]

EFI
    BOOT
        LAUNCHER.CFG
        LAUNCHER.EFI
    WINDOWS
        {all stuff without changes}
    OS2
        OS2LDR.BIN
        OS2LDR.EFI
    QSINIT
        qsinit.efi
        qsinit.ldi

Here is no bootx64.efi at all.

LAUNCHER.CFG:

Code: [Select]

[menu]
ArcaOS (C:) = \EFI\OS2\OS2LDR.EFI C:
Windows 11  = \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
QSINIT      = \EFI\QSINIT\qsinit.efi


2

Hardware / Re: Lenovo Thinkcentre M73p

« on: October 16, 2023, 08:59:58 pm »

I'm running an M920q (tiny) now.

Hi Neil

Does this model have UEFI, com port and VGA output?  I think this will not be a bad choice for me.

Also curious if uniaud works and if there is a driver for the network card (OS/2).

3

Applications / Re: OS/4 (technical details only)

« on: September 10, 2023, 06:27:39 pm »

By the way: in 2018 the OS/4 team released a DOSCALL1.DLL.
Is that still necessary or will the standard OS/2 DOSCALL1.DLL (for the SMP Kernel) do?

OS/4 Team rewrote almost all  himem unsafe Dos Api. This required changing both the kernel and DC1. In order not to generate incompatible kernel/DC1 pairs, DC1 was placed in the kernel binary. So now OS/4 kernel is not using DOSCALL1.DLL file at all.

4

Applications / Re: OS/4 (technical details only)

« on: September 08, 2023, 01:29:30 pm »

To finalize the case with swap

Code: [Select]

SWAPPING ENHANCEMENT NOTE:

    Beginning with version 6259, the OS/4 kernel provides a Direct Memory Swap
    (DMS) feature and increases maximum swap size to 4GB (was 2GB). DMS uses
    4GB+ memory only. To activate DMS add EMSSWAPSIZE=XXX to your config.sys
    with desirable amount of 4Mb pages to be used for DMS.

    E.g.: EMSSWAPSIZE=300 switches on DMS and allocates 1.2GB memory for it.

    Min value is 1, max is 1024.

    The system uses DMS first, if the memory allocated for DMS is full, then
    it uses a swapfile as usual.

    If system has more 4GB+ memory then it uses for DMS it can be used for emsFS.ifs.
(from HowTo)

5

Applications / Re: OS/4 (technical details only)

« on: September 06, 2023, 03:33:31 pm »

Is it possible to put the swapper.dat to the emsfs ram drive?

Theoretically, yes  (some extra steps are necessary and may be some fixes too),  but it will be slower than DMS for sure.

6

Applications / Re: OS/4 (technical details only)

« on: September 05, 2023, 09:05:55 am »

Before upgrading the kernel and with the IBM kernel unzip works correct. This happens with every zip archive.

I have just checked  - it works ok for me  (unzip  is the same ver)

7

Applications / Re: OS/4 (technical details only)

« on: September 04, 2023, 06:34:46 pm »

The line EMSSWAPSIZE=300 is not known as a valid statement; boot continues, but the line is ignored.

In kernel log you can see something like "Swap to 4Gb+ is set, size 1360Mb"

Just ignore the message  about ignoring a line.

But you said that kernel can see 3.5GB of mem  -  I was not able to force system to swap until restricted  visible mem to 1GB.

8

Applications / Re: OS/4 (technical details only)

« on: September 04, 2023, 01:58:30 pm »

Version 6259 which is the last version is booting.

Then everything is ok, HowTo is updated, pls check.

Why does emsFS not take the 2,8GB which are unused from 4GB+?

It could be emsFS restriction.

9

Applications / Re: OS/4 (technical details only)

« on: September 03, 2023, 02:43:03 pm »

now my system does not start anymore

Hi

Try some previous version.

10

Applications / Re: OS/4 (technical details only)

« on: August 31, 2023, 10:12:03 am »

Hi Bernhard

So far OS/4 kernel takes 1200Mb of 4Gb+ mem for swapping,  emsFS.ifs takes the rest.

11

Applications / Re: OS/4 (technical details only)

« on: August 23, 2023, 10:34:04 am »

Wiki has a quick explanation about PSE-36 mode, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSE-36 seems fine for a ram disk (and likely for swap support as the 4MB page size wouldn't matter) but not so good as a PAE replacement

In our case it  has  sense  to compare PAE and PSE-36 in a OS/2 scope but not globally.

In fact  - os/2 drivers and kernel expect that physical addresses  are 32 bit width. (It is possible to change but huge amount of code has to be completely rewritten.)

Thus, 4Gb+ memory can be used for ramdisk or swap area only (almost).

OS/4 Team  to access 4Gb+ mem  chose PSE-36 for certain reasons:  access will be faster and simpler.

In case PDD and kernel gets transited to 64 bit physical addresses, PAE will be more suitable for sure.

Separately, I want to stress, transit to 64 bit physical addresses will not give some tangible gain - rather a loss.  PAE pte is twice bigger then PSE-36 one. Thus, page tables will consume twice more memory (and address space too).  And the system will remain 32 bits and all the problems of insufficient address space will remain.  So it is senseless.

12

Applications / Re: OS/4 (technical details only)

« on: August 23, 2023, 09:52:09 am »

...what happens if I had allocated some of that space to a RAMDISK? Will that config be respected, or is it that I effectively lose that space in my RAMDISK?

If you run OS/4, only emsFS.ifs based ramdisk will work with 4Gb+ mem.

13

Applications / Re: OS/4 (technical details only)

« on: August 22, 2023, 11:21:30 pm »

Does the CPU permanently run in PSE-36 mdoe ? Or do you switch between the 32 bitr mode and PSE-36 mode ?

permanently

14

Applications / Re: OS/4 (technical details only)

« on: August 22, 2023, 11:08:52 pm »

But the OS/4 kernel does access the memory above the 4GB memory region with PAE.

Again, the same answer: OS/4 does not use PAE at all

How is this done then ?

OS/4 uses a 36-bit page size extension (PSE-36)

15

Applications / Re: OS/4 (technical details only)

« on: August 22, 2023, 09:33:26 pm »

hi

I assume the OS/4 kernel also has to swttch to PAE mode and back to 4 GB adress mode (do not know the proper term).
How often does this switch occur ?

OS/4 does not use PAE.

What is the difference in peformance between Dixie his ram disc wih HPFS and the OS4KRNL ?

I have not heard that somebody tested it, me neither.

Is the difference you have no IFS layer ? Is this raw traffic to the ram disc ?

No IFS, no ram disc - just a direct swap with 4Gb+ memory ( using  memcpy ).