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Internet / Re: Arca Noae should be directly involved in web browser development efforts
« on: April 27, 2025, 03:15:44 pm »What might be a better option would be a kind of XP Mode, like in Windows 7. A lean and fast virtual environment for running a modern browser. And as if that weren't dreamy enough, perhaps even seamless on the WPS.
It can work, however the big issue is that if you look how much memory the VM needs, plus the memory to run the OS + the browser. With the limited memory ArcaOS has it will pretty quickly run out of gas.
All discussions about PAE memory is sadly a big fat none starter. Idea's to make any program on OS/2 use PAE memory is a pipe dream. Now the current ArcaOS loader enables you to put a ramdrive in PAE memory. However the amount of addressable memory is not increased. The PAE code is extremely cool bit of codingin the ArcaOS loader. However it has a hidden cost in terms of performance. When you want to access memory above the 4 GB address range (for the ram drive) the loader effectively holds the CPU, switched CPU to PAE mode safe stack again and switch back. I am not describing it technically 100% accurate but PAE support via the UEFI loader has performance cost. There is BTW no other way to implement this.
Patch the OS/2 kernel to support PAE would possibly take about 6 to 12 months of full time. It would be a gigantic job. But then the drivers need to be updated for this.
I looked at this with Steve Levine years ago and its to much work that it will mostl likely never work.
One of the things that needs to be looked at is if the memory consumption of the QT webkit engine can be reduced. But this is currently under research. I will have more news on QT development. Tune into Warpstock Europe video stream, details on wwww.warpstock.eu.
Roderick