Messages

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Article Discussions / Re: Too many cases of "OS/2 is dead, dying, etc"

« on: March 18, 2024, 03:02:58 pm »

Whenever I read an article about "OS/2 is dead", I remember a Saturday night show in DE television, where they announced the death of Karl Ranseier (fictional character) each Saturday as a running gag. --> [Google translated article]

As long as there are articles about "OS/2 is dead", it's not really dead, as people still remember. : )
OS/2 is dead when the majority asks: "What.... is dead???"

Mathias

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Hardware / Re: Iomega ZIP 100 IDE

« on: February 06, 2022, 02:17:06 pm »

Just guessing out of nowhere, based on my own IDE-ZIP100 memories with DOS:

Did you try booting the machine with a ZIP diskette in the drive?
I remember, DOS never gave a letter to the drive, but the diskette, when using the IDE ZIP100 drive.

Perhaps it's the same with OS/2. Leave the disk inserted, and restart. - Does it have a drive letter now?

The USB ZIP100 however, does indeed still assign you a drive letter, when inserting a diskette while the operating system is already fully booted.

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Off Topic discussions / Re: Lo Res Car?

« on: February 06, 2022, 01:45:30 pm »

Doug de Muro was driving it, the other day.
Here's his review on the .... "car" : )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XDSGzrCG2o

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Events / Re: Preparing for Warpstock Virtual 2020 ...

« on: November 26, 2020, 07:47:45 pm »

Watched them all and found them to be very interesting! : )
Especially the news about DTA and how it is said to emulate a Soundblaster card for DOS games. - That's going to be ULTRA nice: As soon that works, playing the good old games with sound is just another level of enjoyment! - Excellent!

Also this helps BIG time promoting the operating system on the next retro gaming convention. *__*

It's said to be part of the upcoming ArcaOS 5.1, and if this DTA thing is stable until the next retro gaming convention, this time I'll be there with a new and fresh PC enclosure.... IF it will take place in May 2021 in the first place.. Let's hope we all are "allowed" to meet up and enjoy life again. : ))

Also thumbs up Sigurd! Found your presentation to be an eye opener, and it HAD to be presented. These presentations were too good to miss! : )
Especially using OS/2 as tablet (including touch input) was astonishing! I bet the majority of people saw this for the first time.

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Events / Re: Preparing for Warpstock Virtual 2020 ...

« on: November 06, 2020, 09:13:31 pm »

Greetings and GOOD LUCK for your presentation Sigurd! : )

Unfortunately beginning is 02am DE GMT+1, so... too early for me to watch it live.
Question: Will these streams be saved, so one can watch them later on?

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Internet / Re: FF 45.x and CPU spikes

« on: October 06, 2020, 09:58:58 am »

I'm also using FF 45.x and see weird behaviour at times on numerous OS/2 machines.
Like for instance when using tabs.

As long as I stay in one tab, it's all fine.
As soon as I open a second tab, the effect starts:

Imagine the following situation:
1st tab: A HTML file hosted on a webserver on the local network. (html 1.0 nothing special, no frames, no active stuff.. just a table with links, written in eFTEPM/2)
2nd tab: a website like duckduckgo.de or let it be google.com or something else.

Now, when I switch away from 1st tab, CPU usage rises to a constant 100%on one (changing) core. As soon as I switch back to the 1st tab, CPU usage returns to 0%.
Now you could say... "ha! It's gogle's fault... somehow!" - But I've also tested it the other way around:
Google first tab, the link collection html file in 2nd tab... and same game: As soon as you switch away from first tab, CPU usage rises... but not always...
Switch back to first tab, and CPU usage returns to 0%.

Sometimes the 0% CPU usage (idle) tab may change: It happens to be 2nd or 3rd tab at times.

Interesting: When you CLOSE the "idle tab", CPU usage remains on 100% on one core! Reopen the same website in a new tab does NOT change the game: CPU usage remains high, even if you switch to that newly (reopened) tab.

VERY weird. However, staying with one tab seems to eliminate that effect.

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Applications / Re: FreeRDP - we have options!!!

« on: October 02, 2020, 11:22:05 pm »

hehe yep, as said CTRL + ALT + key I did try, and it works. This is my workaround for the moment.

Target machine are: DE Windows Server 2012 R2, DE Windows Server 2016 and simple DE Windows 10.

Maybe I should write to Andrey Vasilkin and bring this to his attention. Maybe he just don't know.. : )
Well.. besides that effect, it ll works flawlessly. : )

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Applications / Re: FreeRDP - we have options!!!

« on: October 02, 2020, 04:32:33 pm »

I'm using FreeRDP also on my OS/2 box at work. It's kind of the control center from where I connect to everywhere via VNC or FreeRDP.

In general I DO like the FreeRDP client for OS/2 as it is quite stable, captures key combos (even when NOT in full screen) and most importantly it DOES simply work as expected... while linux clients like Remmina tend to "loose" their ability to map-through key combos to the remote system. Like for instance pressing ALT+F4 to close a window on the remote side.. works.. next time I do this.. it closes the remmina client, EVEN THOUGH I am in full screen .... >_< WOAAH!
So with the current Remmina release you'd always have to check, if the remote machine or the local machine is being targeted, by pressing WINDOWS + R to see if the remote machine either displays the "Run box", which is the proof that it currently works, OR nothing happens (as the local system cannot do anything with WINDOWS + R).. then you know.. it's broken currently, and you need to go out of full screen, and reenter full screen... and theeeere it works again... until it decides to stop working the next time you try it... or the 2nd to next time.. you never know.

This NEVER happened to me with FreeRDP on OS/2. Appears to be very stable and does the job just right.
Excellent stuff that!

The benefit (for me) also is, that connections to remote hosts (or applications) come as a WPS icon, which visually shows if connected or not.

Imagine a situation like that:
10, 15 or even 20 hosts, all connected at the same time via FreeRDP, showing they are connected via the WPS icon.
Now somebody connects to one of these hosts, disconnecting your session.
On a windows machine... you'd now start to find out which RDP session got disconnected.
On a OS/2 machine you see that right away, since the WPS icon shows, it's not in use anymore!

AWESOME. This way you can save time and can connect right back.

But, where there is light, there are shadows also, and so I DO have one complaint:
FreeRDP on OS/2 somehow cannot manage the third level key assignments on DE keyboards.
As for example when I want to type a \ backslash, I'd usually do ALT_GR + ß
ß alone does work...
But ALT_GR does not work over FreeRDP.
So, as a workaround I always need to use CTRL + ALT + ß to send the \ backslash to the remote machine.. which is a bit odd.

This is not critical, but becomes annoying, when you constantly are reminded that ALT_GR is not properly supported by the FreeRDP port to OS/2.

Besides that effect, FreeRDP is AWESOME and needs to be supported. : )

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Applications / Re: Arca / proxmox

« on: September 20, 2020, 09:38:01 pm »

Nope, I do not have my own Proxmox machine.
But I could try this at work. I'm sure this can be set up to run ArcaOS just fine.

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Applications / Re: Arca / proxmox

« on: September 18, 2020, 09:11:06 am »

I just get hung up on arca splash screen never goes any further...

Did you set up the VM correctly? You can set up machine type, CPU type (maybe go for 486 or legacy).
Did you try to choose another virtual HDD controller?

What did you try? : ]

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Applications / Re: Arca / proxmox

« on: September 18, 2020, 09:06:18 am »

We are using Proxmox at work for hosting purposes. It's offering support for high availability, it's got a nice web console, you can clone VMs and all the lot of features. (And best of all: for non business use it's free of charge!)
Worth a try, Martin.

We're using Proxmox with both, Windows and Linux machines inside, and works excellent.

A couple of weeks ago a student here in our company was given the task to find out what's faster: VMWare ESX, Mircosoft HyperV and Proxmox.

The conclusion was: VMWare ESX is on the same level with Proxmox, performance wise and feature wise. Pricing was won by Proxmox though.

Microsoft HyperV is lacking features like cloning VMs. (You'd need the MUCH more expensive Windows Datacenterserver version in order to support cloning)

So.. all around the Proxmox thingy looks like a good choice if you don't want to spend a fortune to host VMs on a dedicated and headless machine. You'll get a good feature set paired with fair pricing. AND: You'll get it right away without paying for software lessons that people at VMWare see as mandatory. ; )

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General Discussion / Re: Search machines, what to use?

« on: September 13, 2020, 09:33:29 pm »

I've switched to DuckDuckGo also, quite a while ago. I've tested numerous others, but DuckDuckGo appears to find "relevant" things almost as good as Google.
Usually "what you look for" is one of the two topmost search results at the duck.

In rare cases, I need to visit Google, but I usually only do that if the duck does not find what I am looking for.
In 99% DuckDuckGo shows exactly what I look for, and helps me find exactly what cures a problem.. also at work.

So.. why not use it? : )

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Utilities / Re: "Pack this tree" on XWorkplace - ArcaOS

« on: September 11, 2020, 10:49:18 am »

I have to change the M$ flat style icons to OS/2 sloped ones, if anyone knows a quick way of doing that please let me know.

Hmm.. I suppose you could use the eStyler to change to another "theme". These usually include icons also. This way you can "go back" to Warp4 style, Warp3, etc within seconds.

For my case, I always loved how Warp3 looked like, especially the sunken edges on select bars in menus.
Warp4 already came with flat select bars in menus, and.. for my taste.. wasn't looking as good anymore.
So.. if you perhaps know a way how to get the sunken edges back... : ]

Two examples:
Warp 3: https://www.operating-system.org/betriebssystem/bsgfx/ibm/os2-scr-08.gif
Warp4: https://www.operating-system.org/betriebssystem/bsgfx/ibm/os2warp4-scr-a5.png

Mind the difference:
The Warp3 screenshot has sunken edge (no colour) select bars (see the "Öffnen" menu entry), while Warp4 already had the blue background (XP-style) select bars already. (See the "Open as" menu entry)


So.. if anyone knows a way (or maybe thirdparty eStyler "theme") to get the sunken edge select bars in ArcaOS.. please let me know *__*


modified: Added links

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Networking / Re: [SOLVED] Moschip USB to Ethernet for OS/2 not workingon USB1 port

« on: September 11, 2020, 10:41:28 am »

Btw..

rating should be "awesome" all stars for:
https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/DeLock_USB_2.0_Ethernet_Adapter

.. as it works flawlessly with USBMOS.OS2, and requires nearly no configuration at all. (just set up DHCP and you're fine)

The only downside for this card might be the fact, it's got only 100 MBit/s.
But on a notebook.. well.. that's enogh (for my kind of usage).

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Networking / Re: [SOLVED] Moschip USB to Ethernet for OS/2 not workingon USB1 port

« on: September 11, 2020, 10:37:19 am »

Hi Martin! : ))

I see! But why MCS7830.OS2?
This card works with the USBMOS.OS2 driver. =)

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Card and driver were already working on all other computers.
Infact I only bought this card because I was told it works well with ArcaOS "out of the box", just selecting the Moschip USB driver in NAPS.
Just on the Thoughbook it didn't work suprisingly. Problem was: Correct network driver, but missing USB drivers in config.sys.

Now it works on all my machines with the USBMOS.OS2 driver. \o/