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Messages - Rich Walsh

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91
Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS Sluggishness
« on: November 01, 2023, 07:29:32 pm »
I can create a GPT partitions with other OS's just fine - ArcaOS is very picky when it comes to storage from my experiences. I did a BIOS wipe of the SSD and other OS's were able to detect the drive, allow me to create a GPT partition and install the OS. With ArcaOS I had to have it partitioned and formatted before the installer would even recognize it.

The OS/2 AHCI and NVME drivers hide disks they don't recognize to prevent OS/2 LVM from destroying exotic disk formats (e.g. LUKS). You can override this behavior by adding "/!U" to the BASEDEV=OS2AHCI.ADD line in 'config.sys'. For BASEDEV=NVME.ADD, add "/U" (yes, it's the opposite of AHCI). For more details (on an installed system) look in \SYS\DOCS\AHCI and \SYS\DOCS\NVME.

Another pitfall: once a disk has been layed-out using GPT, you can't repartition it unless you disable GPT.FLT in 'config.sys'. If the util I sent you can't partition your new disk, use another OS but don't create any partitions for OS/2. Use MiniLVM to do that so they are designated as "OS/2 Type 1" partitions. (MiniLVM knows how to create Linux and Win partitions, but gparted and Disk Manager don't know how to create OS/2 partitions.)

92
Setup & Installation / Re: UEFI: Dual Boot - Windows 11 and ArcaOS 5.1
« on: November 01, 2023, 06:18:24 pm »
If you do succeed in directly booting an old MBR/BIOS-based ArcaOS directly from rEFInd, post it here.

3 years ago while I was still working for AN, I added an undocumented feature which allows you to do exactly what you want:  seamlessly boot both UEFI and CSM-based installs with a menu entry for each in the boot manager of your choice. The only downside is that you lose the DOS video improvements that 5.1 UEFI offers.

I no longer have a CSM/UEFI machine, so I can't confirm that this feature is still in place in 5.1GA (though I have no reason to believe it has been removed). @Neil, if you'd like to try it, send me an email or PM. I'll send you the instructions. If they work for you, I'll post them here.

93
Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS Sluggishness
« on: October 31, 2023, 10:46:27 pm »
Well just for the shiggles I wiped the hard drive again and just did MBR instead of GPT. Created the EFI partition and another partition for ArcaOS. Everything worked. Booted up with no issues. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

MBR is a viable option if you plan to use the machine solely for OS/2. If you plan to install other OSes, it's a luser:

* Linux may install with some coaxing but Win certainly won't

* your SSD/NVME will run slightly slower and wear out somewhat faster because MBR partitions aren't MB-aligned the way GPT partitions are

* using MBR effectively disables the firmware boot manager on the machines I've tested. Rather than booting the first entry on the its boot-order list, it will *always* load BOOTX64.EFI. That's how some users were able to switch to reFind simply by replacing BOOTX64: they're using an MBR disk - on a GPT disk the machine would likely still load LAUNCHER.EFI per the boot-order list.

94
Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS Sluggishness
« on: October 31, 2023, 09:43:30 pm »
The GPT.FLT "slowdown" doubles boot time here from around 15 secs to just over 30 secs - very noticeable when you have got used to the 15 sec boot.

That seems border-line pathological. I disabled my AHCI driver so only the NVME drive would be visible. GPT.FLT took less than a second to complete its work. I reenabled AHCI so my Western Digital 500gb SSD was visible and GPT now took 7 seconds. Could that drive be configured in BIOS as "legacy" rather than AHCI? If not, then its performance certainly seems ..umm.. sub-optimal. If you don't use the drive when running OS/2, you may want to workaround this by telling AHCI to ignore that adapter (you'll still need AHCI if you have a DVD drive).

95
Setup & Installation / Re: UEFI: Dual Boot - Windows 11 and ArcaOS 5.1
« on: October 31, 2023, 07:16:00 am »
@Rich, the UUID, not the GUID. You're correct about the lack of JFS support, I'm not sure if the UUID is also saved somewhere else such as the EBR, seems likely. Have to boot to Linux and compare the UUID's being reported.

But this is beside the point. reFind isn't asking for a _filesystem_ UUID, it wants the *partition's* GUID - and there is no such thing on an MBR drive. Refer to the docs I cited above.

96
Setup & Installation / Re: UEFI: Dual Boot - Windows 11 and ArcaOS 5.1
« on: October 31, 2023, 06:53:10 am »
And it would be nice to be boot a particular BIOS partition. How would we get the UUID for each partition?

Seems that if you use DFsee, use F6 to select your partition and then use Mode=JFS-->Display Superblock towards the bottom is the Linux Vol UUID.

This is almost certainly not what is needed - how would a bootmanager that offers no JFS support be able to find this? Partitions on GUID Partition Table (GPT) disks have externally-identifiable GUIDs, partitions on MBR disks do not.

If this is an MBR (as I suspect it is), then you'll have to use one of the other methods available to identify the partition (see the "Volume" section in 'configfile.html#stanzas'). OTOH, if this is a GPT disk, getting the GUID is easy: open MiniLVM, right-click on the partition, and select 'Copy GUID to clipboard'.

97
Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS Sluggishness
« on: October 31, 2023, 05:54:55 am »
continue boot to see where boot stops - I have a hunch it may be GPT.FLT. I base that hunch on the fact that since adding an SSD on SATA1 my NVMe based system takes noticeably longer to boot and the slowdown is with loading GPT.FLT

Nope. I've been suffering this hang for over 2 years and have never seen any indication that drivers of any sort are the cause. The kernel displays its copyright banner and then dies without anything further being displayed. If I were to make a WAG, I'd put my money on the PSD, as Roderick said.

As to GPT.FLT, the noticable slow down from adding a SATA drive (I see it too) just demonstrates NVME's superior responsiveness. That driver has to do a remarkable amount of work to get its MBR emulation set up, and dealing with a drive whose throughput is at best 25% that of NVME takes its toll on startup time. On my system, I don't consider the additional 3 seconds required to be much of an issue.

98
Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS Sluggishness
« on: October 30, 2023, 09:27:43 pm »
when I rebooted to finish the installation I am stuck on the ArcaOS logo screen.

Sad to say, that happens to me a _lot_ - as often as 1 out of 3 boots. I haven't found any fix or workaround other than the Reset button.

99
Setup & Installation / Re: UEFI: Dual Boot - Windows 11 and ArcaOS 5.1
« on: October 29, 2023, 05:25:25 am »
In my experience, rEFInd works really good with ArcaOS.

reFind is very nice - I used it before AN Launcher was written. IIRC it has an option to scan all disks for bootable partitions and may workaround the problem.

Here's another workaround that I think is far easier: just switch the boot order in the firmware so that the SATA drive boots first, then add AN Launcher to that disk's ESP.

* open MiniLVM and assign each of your two ESPs a drive letter (say, U: and V:)
* on the menu, select System->Boot Menu->Update/Install
* select the ESP partition on the SATA drive
* save your changes then boot into the firmware/BIOS
* change the boot order for hard drives so the SATA drive is first
* when you exit the firmware, it should boot AN Launcher on the SATA drive

If the Launcher menu doesn't have an entry for Win11, boot into AOS. Open Drive U: or V: (whichever is on the SATA), then open \EFI\BOOT\LAUNCHER.CFG. In the [menu] section, add "Win11 = \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi". Save, then reboot and see if the copy of Win on the SATA boots.

100
Setup & Installation / Re: UEFI: Dual Boot - Windows 11 and ArcaOS 5.1
« on: October 28, 2023, 04:25:31 am »
Attaching the SATA disk does not get an automatic entry in AN Launcher or either Windows Boot Managers.

AN Launcher is very low-function - by design - so there was never the slightest possibility that it would add an entry on its own. I had hoped for more from Win's Boot Manager but no such luck - it's far worse. You''ll have to used 'bcdedit' when booted to a Windows command line to add an entry.

Quote
I guess I need to ask AN how to get the SATA Windows installation to boot from AN Launcher if I decide to use the SATA disk.

Good luck on that...  In my earlier posting I left out all the ugly details in an attempt to keep it simple. Since that didn't work out, here's an introduction to harsh reality:

AN Launcher is incapable of running an .EFI file located on another disk because it doesn't know how to parse a UEFI disk identifier. If you look at 'launcher.cfg', you'll see that all paths start at the root directory of the _current_ disk. For example:
  Win11 = \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi

If you wanted it to reference another disk, it would have to look something like this:
  Win11 = HD(2,GPT,9f11367c-448a-4272-92b8-af7e9c01973c,800,82000)\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
Even if AN Launcher could parse this, you'd have a lot of fun trying to construct it.

In any case, industry-standard practice is to have only one EFI System Partition (ESP) and to rely on each bootloader to know how to navigate multiple disks on its own terms - and all of them do. As such, there's no reason to have multiple bootloaders for a single OS. (FYI: while OS/2's boot manager and osloader are separate binaries, grub and WinBM act as both boot manager and osloader.)

Compunding the problem further: UEFI has a builtin boot manager (that's what you're looking at when you go into the firmware). If you believe the specs, you should be able to add entries that point at any disk, and the firmware should boot them in the specified order (i.e. if the first entry fails to boot, it moves on to the next one). Sadly, that isn't the way many manufacturers have implemented it. If you're booting from Disk 1, Lenovo, Dell, and others will try all of the entries that reference Disk 1 before they ever try Disk 2. Consequently, putting an entry for Disk 2 at the top of the list has no effect because the firmware will (likely) find something bootable on Disk 1. This is the underlying reason for that "industry-standard practice" of having a single ESP which is always on the first disk: to workaround non-compliant firmware.

If you decide you still want to use the SATA drive, I'd suggest you use Bing to search for "add OS to Windows Boot Manager" for instructions on how to use 'bcdedit.exe' (there are also some 3rd-party BCD editors available to ease the pain).

101
Programming / Re: shared memory value - Odin win32k or DosQuerySysInfo???
« on: October 28, 2023, 01:52:18 am »
Here are screenshots of the final(?) product.

'mmap-v085.png' shows the widget and its details window which you can toggle on/off by clicking the widget.

 'mmap-v085-props.png' shows the Properties dialog which offers "live" updates (i.e. drop a color, the graph changes immediately). It also demonstrates that you can move the window elsewhere if needed - doing so will display an 'X'  button to make closing it easier.

This will probably show up in the XWP that follows the soon-to-be-released v1.0.16.

102
Setup & Installation / Re: UEFI: Dual Boot - Windows 11 and ArcaOS 5.1
« on: October 26, 2023, 05:45:38 am »
How do I setup AN Launcher on the NVMe drive to boot the Windows11 install on SATA1?
Do I simply copy the SATA1 \EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi to NVMe \EFI\Boot\winx64.efi or id there some other tweak needed?

My best _guess_ (since I haven't tested this) is don't do anything except attach the SATA drive. Most definitely, do not go moving .EFI files around.

Remember that you are not booting Windows per se, you are booting the Windows Boot Manager and _it_ is booting Win. Either it will discover the new copy on its own or you'll have to add it (however that's done). This is little different than booting one or more versions of Linux via 'grub'.

103
Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS Sluggishness
« on: October 20, 2023, 01:11:46 am »
I can try that util Rich if you want to share it.

I sent you a PM with a link to it.

Quote
I'm zero'ing out the drive each time on my macOS machine: diskutil secureerase 0 /dev/diskx and it takes a few hours so I'm confident it's wiping the entire drive.

This sounds like a remarkably bad idea! You are wearing out your SSDs needlessly. Only the first and last 100 sectors (at most) need wiping. In any case, if you end up with a bad GPT layout (or you want to revert to MBR) there's a way to repartition it without doing a wipe. It involves making a few temporary changes to config.sys, so I'll save that until it's needed.

104
Setup & Installation / Re: ArcaOS Sluggishness
« on: October 19, 2023, 11:42:05 pm »
Initdisk gave me the "broken header 2" error that I got from my first attempt (I selected GPT)

If you'd like I can PM you my 'mkgpt' utility that was supposed to go into 5.1 but got replaced by 'initdisk'. I _know_ that this one works (for me at least), so if bombs out then you have a disk issue.

105
Programming / Re: shared memory value - Odin win32k or DosQuerySysInfo???
« on: October 18, 2023, 07:10:41 pm »
running your monitor and comparing it's output to the likes of 'Free Shared Mem' util, or Alex's 'mem', I am not quite seeing the same numbers.

First off, my apologies. A dumb arithmetic error gave you 512mb more high memory than you actually have. The attached 'memry07.zip' fixes the error.

Quote
This is pretty neat stuff. I have been dreaming of building a GUI "browser" that basically visually maps the current memory utilization, goal being: make it human digestable!!!

That's been my goal as well which is why I've spent the last few days working on my "memap" XCenter widget. Below are some screenshots: the widget at its default size (nice and small), the widget expanded for greater visibility, and the widget showing its details window. Since you may want to monitor the details as you open and close stuff, I've made the details window movable so you move it elsewhere to keep it from getting covered. Note that this is a work-in-progress and subject to change (in particular, the details window).

BTW... the scaling for high and low memory differs. For low memory (bottom line) each box represents 64k. For high mem (top line) each box is total_high_mem / 8. Because I have 2gb of high mem, each box is 256mb; if you have 1gb, each box would be 128k.

Edit: added a screenshot of an alternate layout for the Details window. Which one is better?

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