OS2 World Community Forum
WebSite Information => Comments, Suggestions & Questions => Topic started by: Martin Iturbide on March 31, 2023, 07:04:33 pm
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Hello
I'm still waiting for ArcaOS 5.1 to get released (I hope they don't release it on April 1st), and I think that 5.1 is an important milestone for the platform. Finally UEFI will be available (spoiler) and after some months the Arca Noe will have to think more about the future of the OS and possible update their roadmap page (https://www.arcanoae.com/roadmap/).
So, should we just let Arca Noae made their roadmap or should we (The community) try to suggest something?
We already discussed two things:
- Hardware Compatibility Wishlist for 2023 (https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,3229.0.html)
- Software Wishlist for 2023 (https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,3233.msg37534.html#msg37534)
Of course that Arca Noae does not has the resources to make all our wild dreams a reality, but I want to pass a summary of these two discussion threads to Lewis to see if something is interesting for them to do or support. (As a suggestion, not a demand)
What else do you think?
Regards
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I would like to see modern WiFi on ArcaOS. The WiFi needs to come on automatically. if it can't connect to the last known access point, then it needs to find one from the previously used points. If it can't find one of those, then it can allow the user to do something.
I want to see memory managed better, so that more memory is available to the system. Modern computers seen to have less memory available to OS/2 than 15 year old computers. Virtual Box offers 3.5 GB, better than any hardware ArcaOS that I have. The RAM disk in ArcaOS is admirable. I'd like to see it extended so that programs had some access to it more directly than file i/o to the RAM drive.
I'd like to see support for the laptop button features such as brightness, speaker volume, camera enable and wifi enable.
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I second Neils posting. Especially the memory issue.
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I would like to see modern WiFi on ArcaOS. The WiFi needs to come on automatically. if it can't connect to the last known access point, then it needs to find one from the previously used points. If it can't find one of those, then it can allow the user to do something.
I want to see memory managed better, so that more memory is available to the system. Modern computers seen to have less memory available to OS/2 than 15 year old computers. Virtual Box offers 3.5 GB, better than any hardware ArcaOS that I have. The RAM disk in ArcaOS is admirable. I'd like to see it extended so that programs had some access to it more directly than file i/o to the RAM drive.
I'd like to see support for the laptop button features such as brightness, speaker volume, camera enable and wifi enable.
I too think that memory management has become too important to leave it as is. It was fairly good at its times but we are talking about literally an era before now.
Modern WiFi is another milestone that must be assessed ASAP, IMHO.
Mentore
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Quite a few ideas come to mind, but I'll list the ones I believe Arca Noae would be more likely to roadmap, at least in the long-term.
> A new release of OpenJDK: 1.6's time came and went some time ago, with it's LTS period ending just over 4 years ago. Given how many times it's been mentioned in Warpstock events since 2021, I'm somewhat optimistic that we will see this raised as a priority sooner than later.
> Improved memory management: As Neil has mentioned, a big peril of running ArcaOS on modern hardware is the increasing shortage of RAM which the user has access to. Having PAE would be a godsend and a half, but any kind of improved memory management is much welcome.
> An updated version of SNAP with support for more video chipsets: Moving away from VESA(Panorama) would not only help with performance/stability issues related to video playback and 3D rendering - it would resurrect an expansive library of software which hasn't been usable in quite some years due to being only GRADD-compatible. The last item in this list is an example directly affected by this.
> QEMU (or similar): Yes, I'm bringing this up once again. AN has stated their intentions on multiple occasions to address retro x86 gamers as a target demographic - even stating it to be the focus of a subsequent 5.1 update. Since we have WINOS/2 and DOS, adding the ability to run Windows 9x and maybe even early Linux distros would do quite well.
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Thanks for the feedback. Even that I know that Lewis and other guys from Arca Noae visit from time to time these forums, I don't want to loose the formality to send him an e-mail with our "Wishlist".
Regards
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Hi
Here goes my first draft. Grammar and spelling suggestions are also welcome, free free to modify the file and upload it.
I kind of think that we are missing more discussion on the "Platform Improvement Suggestion" area. Like what we should see as improvements on ArcaOS GUI and other internal components.
Regards
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Martin, hi. I see this topic has been idle for a while. Still, the process of restoring archived eCS-2 material to my new AOS-5.1 system has suggested a couple of ideas.
1) Icons have switched from *.ICO to *.PNG, meaning it's complicated to re-use old designs I have come to know and like. PNG is a good format, mind (as it should be, considering its illustrious parentage, NASA &c) but maybe there could be an outwardly simple CLI tool (cf XCOPY, ATTRIB &c) which converts ICO to PNG? Ok, I once had to write code that generated PNG (of heat flow diagrams, FWIW) but left out compression, using PMView for that if I wanted to keep images, so I realise what I'm asking is not trivial.
2) I have long felt it'd be handy if chains of open directories could start with the top level header bar being given a distinctive colour which its children would copy. How about three or four tiny coloured rectangles at one end of the top header: a click activates that colour (temporarily), while a double click invokes a colour palette.
Anyhow, there's some wishing for folks to ponder. Meanwhile, thanks for sterling efforts invested so far.
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Drat. And double drat... I just realised I posted the above in the wrong section. Please feel free to ignore it, or move it to where it belongs, or make confetti out of it. ::)
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Martin, hi. I see this topic has been idle for a while. Still, the process of restoring archived eCS-2 material to my new AOS-5.1 system has suggested a couple of ideas.
1) Icons have switched from *.ICO to *.PNG, meaning it's complicated to re-use old designs I have come to know and like. PNG is a good format, mind (as it should be, considering its illustrious parentage, NASA &c) but maybe there could be an outwardly simple CLI tool (cf XCOPY, ATTRIB &c) which converts ICO to PNG? Ok, I once had to write code that generated PNG (of heat flow diagrams, FWIW) but left out compression, using PMView for that if I wanted to keep images, so I realise what I'm asking is not trivial.
2) I have long felt it'd be handy if chains of open directories could start with the top level header bar being given a distinctive colour which its children would copy. How about three or four tiny coloured rectangles at one end of the top header: a click activates that colour (temporarily), while a double click invokes a colour palette.
Anyhow, there's some wishing for folks to ponder. Meanwhile, thanks for sterling efforts invested so far.
Hi Andrew
I see that you aren’t that familiar with ArcaOS yet. The default is the use of icons. PNGs can be used if Dynamic icons are selected in the folder properties menu. There is no default PNG for each folder and icon. You have to manually select a PNG for a PNG to be used for each program object or folder. Otherwise, an icon is used. In eCS, you had both icon themes and PNGs themes that could be applied if I remember correctly. In ArcaOS, only the icon themes can be applied. Presently, there is no way to apply a PNG theme to the WPS.
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PNGs can be used if Dynamic icons are selected in the folder properties menu. There is no default PNG for each folder and icon. You have to manually select a PNG for a PNG to be used for each program object or folder..
David, it's far simpler and "automated" than that. In x\SYS\ICONS\BIGICONS there are over 200 png icons. Their use is controlled by 'bigicons.txt' (also in that directory). It's broken down into categories like WPS class, file type, object ID, etc. Make a backup copy then have at it (you may want to deliver a customized version with your png icon sets).
To get custom icons enabled, goto 'System Setup->Workplace Shell->Icon Size' (it's the very last tab) and check "Use custom icons". On that page, you can also make Dynamic icons the default and set the default size. You have to restart for custom icons to kick in. The other settings are live and happen immediately.
Note: the "default" default size produces icons whose physical size is the same as they would be if you were running your display at 1024*768. For example, at 1920*1080 you need a 56*56 pixel icon to get the same physical size you'd get at 1024*768 using a 40 pixel icon. At UHD (3840*2160), icons have to be 112 pixels to be that size.
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David && Rich: Thank you for the quick and concise explanations. Yes, I am still learning -- and am happy to hear I was wrong about ICOns and will investigate what you suggest when I resume putting go-faster stripes on my new AOS setup. (Mind, I did wonder, slightly, why Icon Editor is supplied, if ICO is history.) Meanwhile, I should stop posting in the wrong part of the Forum, lest rozzers/beadles/custodians/blokes-with-big-sticks come for me. 8)
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Quite a few ideas come to mind, but I'll list the ones I believe Arca Noae would be more likely to roadmap, at least in the long-term.
> A new release of OpenJDK: 1.6's time came and went some time ago, with it's LTS period ending just over 4 years ago. Given how many times it's been mentioned in Warpstock events since 2021, I'm somewhat optimistic that we will see this raised as a priority sooner than later.
> Improved memory management: As Neil has mentioned, a big peril of running ArcaOS on modern hardware is the increasing shortage of RAM which the user has access to. Having PAE would be a godsend and a half, but any kind of improved memory management is much welcome.
> An updated version of SNAP with support for more video chipsets: Moving away from VESA(Panorama) would not only help with performance/stability issues related to video playback and 3D rendering - it would resurrect an expansive library of software which hasn't been usable in quite some years due to being only GRADD-compatible. The last item in this list is an example directly affected by this.
> QEMU (or similar): Yes, I'm bringing this up once again. AN has stated their intentions on multiple occasions to address retro x86 gamers as a target demographic - even stating it to be the focus of a subsequent 5.1 update. Since we have WINOS/2 and DOS, adding the ability to run Windows 9x and maybe even early Linux distros would do quite well.
1) OpenJDK would need somebody to work on at least 4 to 6 months. This would require somebody to have experience with OS/2 and WIN32 knowledge. Debugging ODIN is more difficult because of the more layers of code. The ODIN code would be the "fastest" way to port a new version of OpenJDK to OS/2. But the ODIN has not been updated for 15 years or more. So its a big haul up the mountain. If somebody can do this in his spare time I think is not possible. That is my estimate.
2) As mentioned before PAE is game over. All memory structures would need to be patched and all drivers updated.
I am still discussing some suggestions with Dmitry from BWW. But big changes to the kernel are extremely difficult.
3) Based on current expectations SNAP is what it is. And 3D support is not useful, what can use it on OS/2 ?
Have you looked closely how well Panorama these days performs ? The real enhancement would be support for more then 1 screen. Other then that I do not think SNAP will ever get updated.
4) Why QEMU ? To run as VM on ArcaOS ? Well then you can better use the current build of Virtualbox.
Roderick
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3) Based on current expectations SNAP is what it is. And 3D support is not useful, what can use it on OS/2 ?
Have you looked closely how well Panorama these days performs ? The real enhancement would be support for more then 1 screen. Other then that I do not think SNAP will ever get updated.
All modern browsers expect to have OpenGL available for use.
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PNGs can be used if Dynamic icons are selected in the folder properties menu. There is no default PNG for each folder and icon. You have to manually select a PNG for a PNG to be used for each program object or folder..
David, it's far simpler and "automated" than that. In x\SYS\ICONS\BIGICONS there are over 200 png icons. Their use is controlled by 'bigicons.txt' (also in that directory). It's broken down into categories like WPS class, file type, object ID, etc. Make a backup copy then have at it (you may want to deliver a customized version with your png icon sets).
To get custom icons enabled, goto 'System Setup->Workplace Shell->Icon Size' (it's the very last tab) and check "Use custom icons". On that page, you can also make Dynamic icons the default and set the default size. You have to restart for custom icons to kick in. The other settings are live and happen immediately.
Note: the "default" default size produces icons whose physical size is the same as they would be if you were running your display at 1024*768. For example, at 1920*1080 you need a 56*56 pixel icon to get the same physical size you'd get at 1024*768 using a 40 pixel icon. At UHD (3840*2160), icons have to be 112 pixels to be that size.
Rich, it may be some time before I have anything ready to try. I noticed all the icons listed are not in the bigicons folder. The folders are easy. It is the other icons. Building pngs I don't see takes time. If I am right, I can even add more program icons to the text and these icons won't be available unless the program is installed. I am also reducing the icons to 80x80. This is a good middle of the road size to lower or increase.
Here is what I am doing.
Resizing icons
Making new icons
renaming to reflect the size and make icon search more easier
rearranging some of the text to make things easier to find and updating the icon names
Then when finished, I have to hope everything works. I am a bad typist, mistakes will be made
I backed up the old big icons folder.
The new bigicons folder will contain all the newly updated pngs. I started with the yellow folder set although I like the red and black also. Once the icons other than folders are complete, it should be a lot easier make other folder sets.
Question. There seems to be a lot of repetition on the open office icons. There are all kinds of different icon names using the same icons. It seems a lot of these are repetition. Is it me or is there a reason for this?
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I noticed all the icons listed are not in the bigicons folder.
That figures - it was always a mess. (Don't blame me :) I worked on the code, someone else handled the icons). I see it has been cleaned up a bit but still needs work.
Basically, don't worry about what's in the BIGICONS folder or in 'bigicons.txt'. Consider it a blank slate you can use to do whatever you want. Make a copy then delete stuff you don't want to support and add stuff you do - not just programs but WPS classes and file types too. It's your choice, not "theirs"...
To make things easier, open 'config.sys' and locate "SET BIGICONS=", then change the path to point at your icons folder. While your folder can be anywhere, the final product (say, 'DGicons') should probably go in 'x:\sys\icons' for consistency.
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3) Based on current expectations SNAP is what it is. And 3D support is not useful, what can use it on OS/2 ?
Have you looked closely how well Panorama these days performs ? The real enhancement would be support for more then 1 screen. Other then that I do not think SNAP will ever get updated.
All modern browsers expect to have OpenGL available for use.
Simply put putting full OpenGL support in SNAP is simply not going to happen. Its to much work to implement it.
I wish it could we do not have the human resources in the community, sorry.
Roderick
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Rewriting Presentation Manager and OS/2 Video drawing to support OpenGL may be beyond our means.
Writing OpenGL to create a surface that is only used by Qt or even only used by the web browser might be easier. Leave the rest of OS/2 alone. It does not expect any OpenGl features anyway. What do you think?
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We do have an old MesaGL which, even using software rendering, works fairly well. Unluckily as Roderick says, manpower.
SDL is another library that would benefit.
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Hello
About the subject in general, I want to send the summary of what we discussed here to Lewis. I'm attaching the presentation file, just in case someone wants to add something else.
About the idea of supporting "OpenGL" or "MesaGL" on OS/2. What will be interesting and less time consuming for the moment is try to only identify the goal, a draft architecture idea and the steps/tasks on how to do accomplish the goal. After knowing the steps/tasks and difficulty of each one we can confirm or deny the impossibility of the task.
-- I split that topic to "3D Support for OS/2 - OpenGL - MesaGL - Etc (https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?topic=3487.msg42006#msg42006)"
Regards
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I would like to see modern WiFi on ArcaOS. The WiFi needs to come on automatically. if it can't connect to the last known access point, then it needs to find one from the previously used points. If it can't find one of those, then it can allow the user to do something.
David A started to work on a driver arcitecture to be able to port drivers from FreeBSD for this or something like that, right? Didn't seem to be easy, but a basic driver for a certain chipset would be intreseting to see.
I haven't seen if there where progress, or if bumps in the road has appeared.
I want to see memory managed better, so that more memory is available to the system. Modern computers seen to have less memory available to OS/2 than 15 year old computers. Virtual Box offers 3.5 GB, better than any hardware ArcaOS that I have. The RAM disk in ArcaOS is admirable. I'd like to see it extended so that programs had some access to it more directly than file i/o to the RAM drive.
Modern applications seem to be designed to use up a lot of memory, something that follow over and can't be avoided when ported to this platform.
Wouldn't mind if someone could do magic how ArcaOS/2 use memory and pass on to applications.
Regards
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I would like to see modern WiFi on ArcaOS. The WiFi needs to come on automatically. if it can't connect to the last known access point, then it needs to find one from the previously used points. If it can't find one of those, then it can allow the user to do something.
David A started to work on a driver arcitecture to be able to port drivers from FreeBSD for this or something like that, right? Didn't seem to be easy, but a basic driver for a certain chipset would be intreseting to see.
I haven't seen if there where progress, or if bumps in the road has appeared.
A bigger matter than the driver is to manage connecting to access points and managing security. David had commented that the network driver was done.
I want to see memory managed better, so that more memory is available to the system. Modern computers seen to have less memory available to OS/2 than 15 year old computers. Virtual Box offers 3.5 GB, better than any hardware ArcaOS that I have. The RAM disk in ArcaOS is admirable. I'd like to see it extended so that programs had some access to it more directly than file i/o to the RAM drive.
Modern applications seem to be designed to use up a lot of memory, something that follow over and can't be avoided when ported to this platform.
Wouldn't mind if someone could do magic how ArcaOS/2 use memory and pass on to applications.
Regards
I think you misunderstood my point. The hardware is taking more and more memory from the 32-bit address space. Of the 4 GB available, 2 GB or less remains on most recent systems. By comparison, Virtual Box leaves OS/2 nearly the entire 4 GB space.
You are right, though, about memory-hungry programs. I don't know how much longer one Chrome browser tab will fit into 32-bit address space.
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You are right, though, about memory-hungry programs. I don't know how much longer one Chrome browser tab will fit into 32-bit address space.
I regularly need to restart Chrome to avoid exhausting 16GB(!) of RAM on my linux laptop. Memory Saver (in newer Chrome) helps with this, but it's still a memory pig.
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I noticed all the icons listed are not in the bigicons folder.
That figures - it was always a mess. (Don't blame me :) I worked on the code, someone else handled the icons). I see it has been cleaned up a bit but still needs work.
Basically, don't worry about what's in the BIGICONS folder or in 'bigicons.txt'. Consider it a blank slate you can use to do whatever you want. Make a copy then delete stuff you don't want to support and add stuff you do - not just programs but WPS classes and file types too. It's your choice, not "theirs"...
To make things easier, open 'config.sys' and locate "SET BIGICONS=", then change the path to point at your icons folder. While your folder can be anywhere, the final product (say, 'DGicons') should probably go in 'x:\sys\icons' for consistency.
Update:
It will be a few more weeks until I have something to test. Everything was such a mess, I can see why it hasn't gone much further.
I have made lots and lots of new PNGs to replace the icons that have no PNG equivalent. Making entries in the script for system objects that were not included along with new PNGs.. Still working on the text structure to something more easier to work with. Renaming icons so a person can know what icon it affects.
Now up to 323 PNG icons from a little over 200. I am thinking it may be close to 400 pngs when I am done.
I was wondering, if problems occur after testing, can I boot up and replace with an earlier WPShell backup before testing with another script?
Can one add comments to the text like one does with rexx scripts?
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I would like to see modern WiFi on ArcaOS. The WiFi needs to come on automatically. if it can't connect to the last known access point, then it needs to find one from the previously used points. If it can't find one of those, then it can allow the user to do something.
David A started to work on a driver arcitecture to be able to port drivers from FreeBSD for this or something like that, right? Didn't seem to be easy, but a basic driver for a certain chipset would be intreseting to see.
I haven't seen if there where progress, or if bumps in the road has appeared.
A bigger matter than the driver is to manage connecting to access points and managing security. David had commented that the network driver was done.
Focused on the way ArcaOS/2 behave to connect to access points and handle security is of course the next step.
Where are those drivers for wifi?
I've only seen drivers for ethernet.
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Making entries in the script for system objects that were not included along with new PNGs.. Still working on the text structure to something more easier to work with. Renaming icons so a person can know what icon it affects.
[...]I was wondering, if problems occur after testing, can I boot up and replace with an earlier WPShell backup before testing with another script? Can one add comments to the text like one does with rexx scripts?
First, a terminology thing: if you're referring to 'bigicons.txt', then we're talking about a type of text-based INI file and *not* a script (i.e. it doesn't do anything on its own). AFAIK, there's nothing you could do to it to blow up the system, so don't worry about system backups and the like. The worst that could happen is that you won't get the PNG you wanted.
Next... the basic structure of the file ([application] entries followed by "key / value" pairs) must be preserved. And, the names of the applications (e.g. "CLASS", "TYPE") must remain unchanged because they're hard-coded. Beyond that, you can rearrange the applications and reorder the individual key/value pairs.
The file gets read once at WPS startup, so if you make changes to it, restart the Desktop to put them into effect. To enter a comment or comment-out a line, put a semicolon at the very beginning of the line.
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I want to see memory managed better, so that more memory is available to the system. Modern computers seen to have less memory available to OS/2 than 15 year old computers. Virtual Box offers 3.5 GB, better than any hardware ArcaOS that I have. The RAM disk in ArcaOS is admirable. I'd like to see it extended so that programs had some access to it more directly than file i/o to the RAM drive.
Modern applications seem to be designed to use up a lot of memory, something that follow over and can't be avoided when ported to this platform.
Wouldn't mind if someone could do magic how ArcaOS/2 use memory and pass on to applications.
Regards
I think you misunderstood my point. The hardware is taking more and more memory from the 32-bit address space. Of the 4 GB available, 2 GB or less remains on most recent systems. By comparison, Virtual Box leaves OS/2 nearly the entire 4 GB space.
You are right, though, about memory-hungry programs. I don't know how much longer one Chrome browser tab will fit into 32-bit address space.
What hardware itself use up can't be used by the OS anyway, so we need some redesign of how the system handle and manage memory.
Modern hardware come with a lot of ram, something ArcaOS/2 presently can't make use of either, that is not something for each application or devleoper to sort out. Each application should just have to be assigned a "virtual" address range (from 0 to ...) that the OS translate into real memory space.
I let someone else with more knowledge think about how to do it, but the problem has to be addressed.
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I would like to see modern WiFi on ArcaOS. The WiFi needs to come on automatically. if it can't connect to the last known access point, then it needs to find one from the previously used points. If it can't find one of those, then it can allow the user to do something.
David A started to work on a driver arcitecture to be able to port drivers from FreeBSD for this or something like that, right? Didn't seem to be easy, but a basic driver for a certain chipset would be intreseting to see.
I haven't seen if there where progress, or if bumps in the road has appeared.
A bigger matter than the driver is to manage connecting to access points and managing security. David had commented that the network driver was done.
Focused on the way ArcaOS/2 behave to connect to access points and handle security is of course the next step.
Where are those drivers for wifi?
I've only seen drivers for ethernet.
Based a presentation from Warpstock 2021, I imagine they are in the AN labs. If you have a WiFi driver without the ability to connect to an access point, I'm not sure what use it would be. I don't see AN releasing a network driver that can't find a network.
I also think that XWLan was going to be the starting point for writing that software. I don't know if there has been any progress in the past two years. In a way, I'd prefer that GL.iNet was the starting point, but either one is a big project.
I think that USB Ethernet adapters took the same developer resources, and perhaps offers another route to WiFi support.
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Based a presentation from Warpstock 2021, I imagine they are in the AN labs. If you have a WiFi driver without the ability to connect to an access point, I'm not sure what use it would be. I don't see AN releasing a network driver that can't find a network.
I also think that XWLan was going to be the starting point for writing that software. I don't know if there has been any progress in the past two years. In a way, I'd prefer that GL.iNet was the starting point, but either one is a big project.
XWLAN was/is the software which handles the connection to wireless access points and handles secure connections to them via wpa_supplicant. A network/wifi driver needs an interface the way XWLAN can handle it. Usually this is what genmac does/did.
There's no sense in playing with XWLAN anymore as long as there is no progress in wifi drivers. So I stopped doing that a few years ago. I also stopped porting new versions of wpa_supplicant because of that. I don't have any information nor have seen any test wifi driver.
XWLAN works pretty well with wifi drivers it knows. Although the user interface is not designed the way current/new users expect it to be. It is more likely ThinkVantage Access Connections was 20 years ago. And for that time it was a good thing. But current users expect other/simpler setups. So basically XWLAN provides all you need to handle a secured connection with wpa_supplicant up to WPA2 (not WPA3) with a network driver which offers an interface XWLAN understands.
But it's UI is outdated. There's also the possibility that the interface to the wifi driver may be not sufficient for current needs. But it a hen and egg problem. Until no one offers a wifi driver no one will look into that. Moreover as time passes by it may be useless to look at it anyway cause the UI also is not what users expect today. So maybe David came to the conclusion it's not useful to implement a XWLAN compatible interface into his driver. Or maybe he only don't understand or don't like to compile XWLAN, I don't know. The thing is you need more than a wpa_supplicant and more than a driver and more than an UI which saves some connection details. You also need some logic which switches TCP/IP interfaces and acquires new IP addresses and handles the network switch over. This is what XWLAN does with the help of ISCs dhclient (which I also worked on cause the OS/2 integrated DHCP client is so buggy). And this is all together which makes things so complicated.