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Messages - valerius

#1
2Ian: Sorry for an incovenience, I really didn't thought that it is possible to get permission from a corporation like IBM to an individual like you -- thought that it was possible only for corporations like Mensys/Serenity. The reasons are its bureaucracy and money -- it is known how ended up the petitions to opensource OS/2, for example. So, if IBM allowed it to you, then it knew what it did, and it could not allow it to random people. So, you were appreciated by IBM for something. So, my big apologies, I only wanted some justice. I was mistaken, I'm sorry

P.S. also, I am, together with many OS/2 users, very thankful to you for your site support, because some files are hard to find on other sites, even they're missing sometimes on IBM's sites -- as IBM forgot about OS/2 and removed many files. So, I want it the long live. Also, I want to say that other sites are carefully collecting OS/2 files, so if we would persecute them as pirates, then only several 'legal' sites will remain, so if they suddenly became down, the community will be in danger. So, if to follow the law literally, we could destroy our community itself. So, it has benefit only for people like I named previously, these people blackmail the community sites and try to make FUD. Yes, they're formally right, but make that for their own profits.

WBR,
valery
#2
2RobertM: The question was directed to Ian, I don't asked os2world to host any files. And there was a bit of joke here, so do not treat it too seriously :) I want everybody to understand me correctly: I mean, os2site hosts many OS/2-related binaries, and nobody sues him. His site is very useful, I don't want to be shut it down. But I interested in his answer, what is the secret? Nothing personal for Ian, just want to have understood...

PS: And no desire to scandal, we've already got a productive dialog with Martin on #os2russian, so need to be more constructive and understand each other...

WBR,
valery
#3
2Ian Manners: An interesting thought has come... If this is not a secret -- everybody knows that your site contains many OS/2 kernels and fixes. But aren't they OS/2 binaries (which cannot be redistributed without IBM's permission)? So, do you have a special permission given by IBM? Could you open a secret to other sites' admins -- how is it possible to distribute OS/2 files when even eCS Demo CD is not permitted to redistribute? I'm just curious -- I am do not sell my CD/flash too, get no profit/just for fun, but it's illegal. So, maybe, I just could ask you to host it on your site (if you agree, and maybe, OS/4 files too?).

PS: If you have no IBM's permission to do so, what makes your site to be different from 'warez' ones, when you say other sites are?
#4
2Yan: Yes, I already thought about a HOWTO or a tool like PE builder which could be supplied together with my own files... But the problems are 1) the lack of time 2) the distributions of  OS/2 files is a carefully chosen collection of files, so versions does matter very much. For example, IBM's versions of os2ldr hang on many machines when booting from flash disk, so I worked with OS/4 team for their os2ldr to be fixed. And much drivers must have definite versions too. So, I must pass all such problems to user's shoulders. And, as it was noticed, many users will stop using it because of the problems. So I see no good exit from this situation :(

PS: The os2 dot ru is not my site and my files were only hosting there. I am also have no relation with OS/4 project (I can participate here only as a tester, not more).
#5
2Martin: Was very surprised that my personal projects 'Flash512' and 'BootCD' also got blacklisted. Their purpose is demonstrate the new OS/2 booting technology I invented. (Flash512 is a 512 Mb bootable flash with OS/2, BootCD is a newer boot disk using the new method of booting from 'ramfs.ifs' RAMdisk). I specially removed things like ACPI or Panorama from the disk, but as you understand, could not remove Warp4 files as then there will be nothing to boot. Yes, so, OS/2 community must remain  without the Live CD/flash again, and nobody cares. Somebody cares about IBM's copyrights though IBM doesn't care about OS/2 for a long time...

Yes, I had an idea to make something like PE builder, but for OS/2, but I have no time for that. So, then I'll remove my boot disks from public area, if you insist. Then those interested in my boot disk will need to ask me to give them 'hands to hands'.

PS: These files are not related to OS/4 (the boot disks contain only OS/4 loader and kernel, together with IBM ones)
#6
2RobertM: The issue was that this post was about technical problems, and somebody just turned the conversation to pEracy. My previous post was just an illustration of methods of 'pErate fighters'. I will not advocate pErates but Codex's site does not contain public warez area. Do you see warez under anonymous login? OS/4 downloads are hosted at anonymous ftp area where no warez nearby. And it has no relation with 'warez' or pEracy. As I told, it's only label.

PS: It's seems OS/4 people doesn't care of this thread, So, I'll stop advocating it then :(
#7
2all: BTW, just now -- I talked to e-co on his channel and he has threatened to me -- he insisted me to remove the mention of his name. When I rejected his claim, he *banned me from his channel* :) -- Just for all to know. The same way he threatens to admins of all sites and writes letters to ISP's of admins if they don't agree. He shut down almost all ftp sites in exUSSR in fact.

PS: WTF, does he thinks his name is Unnamable? Is he megalomaniac?
#8
2IBManners: Not sure if ff4 is Codex, Linking to this site is not permitted on our forums admin (more likely, he is not, I think). But in fact, the former Linking to this site is not permitted on our forums admin, Konstantin Okounkov agreed to pass him the site maintenance. It is still available as http://old.Linking to this site is not permitted on our forums, though, he attempts to create a new site with new content So, he has some legal rights to own the domain name..

Regarding the http://Linking to this site is not permitted on our forums -- in fact, there are some problems with DNS. So, probably, it is not related to ban list etc.

2all: Please, don't flame OS/4 team for pEracy and likewise. They work hardly. The only thing they need is feedback, but not bare word accusations in pEracy. Or you just repeat after e-co? E-co's claims about pEracy are not proven and are bare word. So, is it good to declare a team of programmers to be pErates and put a spoke in their wheel?  It is common now to put labels on everybody, and the worst label is pErate. Indeed this is just cunning manipulation.

ff4 posted news here about the project progress. Is that prohibited to post news about OS/2-related projects? There is a new PXE microfsd created, this is in fact a great news. So, let's discuss technical problems here, and test it, not to put labels on somebody

WBR,
valery
#9
No, osFree is not like Wine. It is complete OS/2 implementation on the base of L4 microkernel and some microkernel services. Those services are not a complete 'Operating system', but a some  'construction kit' for building OS'es. If it could be based on Linux or windows, then it could be like WINE (it is based on another API), but osFree is not based on other OS API. It is based on a microkernel and some generic services.

Regarding the command prompt, -- I don't think we must make it similar to OS/2 cmd.exe, and command prompt to be in square brackets ;) It is just a test program, minicmd.exe, which is intended to be a minimal OS/2 application, for which API is implemented. It is 1) minimal 2) can start extermal programs 3) may be, the 'dir' command will be implemented, for completeness. But it should not copy the behaviour of cmd.exe or 4os2.exe. When we will implement enough API's, we'll simply change it to a real 4.os2.exe -- why reinvent the wheel? :)

PS: is theuserbl == AlexT ? and why not using the realname? AlexT is one of OS/4 developers, from whom I heard similiar claims...

PPS: AlexT says that it is not he... But very similar...
#10
Hi, demetrioussharpe.

Really, we just benefit from using L4 together with l4env, not a bare microkernel. So, many thanks go to its authors. For example, we have a base for implementing files support -- a l4vfs subsystem, into which we must only write our own file servers, which integrate into it. Also, for textmode application support, we already have stdin/stdout/stderr support in form of terminals server which serves files which can be used as stdin/stdout/stderr for programs, so we have some kind of lego constructor. which speeds up the development. So, this is not a miracle :) And also, there is a generic graphical virtual consoles support too (a terminal server attaches a virtual console for each its terminal, so, if we extend the terminal server, we could also create VIO support). Also, some other primitives exist, like virtual memory construction via region map and dataspaces; event semaphores, mutexes, signals... They support some base functionality, so we can use them to implement OS/2-kind semaphores, thread and exceptions.

Thank you for your note
WBR,
valery
#11
Quote from: cyber on 2011.05.11, 13:43:17
The next release will be 0.0.5, with an earliest projected release date being not known.

Version 0.0.5 will be the nearest official release. It is official milestones only. But we upload many unofficial builds, so the progress can be seen. The date is not known because all we write the code at our spare time, so no strict plan available. It depends on our free time and enthusiasm :)

Quote from: cyber
Well, with just one programer writing code, I will be to old when osFree reach 0.0.12 version.  (OOREXX) :(

So, attract new people, promote the project, tell about it other people, sponsor it, participate in it... Many OS/2 users are too passive unfortunately :( But not so long time ago two people had impressed with our project news and said that they maybe, will join it. So, maybe someone will help us to progress more quicker. Maybe, you too, if you really wish it ;-)
#12
hi all,

I am one of osFree developers.

Actually, we uploaded an unofficial demo, and showed it to several people, but did not announced it. Martin Iturbide wrote us a readme, but it need some more documentetion and bugfixing before we announce it. But if the info is leaked, we must do something sooner ;-)

Actually, what is on Sigurd's screenshot is a l4 'run' program. It is intended to show some system information, start/kill tasks, reboot, etc. You can see some help if you press 'h' key. It is not what we wrote, but it is a helper program from l4 environment.

The main screen is that of a 'l4con' server which provides several virtual screens. It waits untill a client connects to it, and shows its screen in a separate tab. On the lower screen line, you can see 9 digits from the right, three of which are marked with green. -- That are those tabs for virtual screens. You can switch virtual consoles by pressing Shift-left/Shift-right or Shift-F1/Shift-F2/... Each virtual desktop can be browsed back/forth by Shift-PgUp/Shift-PgDn or Shift-UpArrow/Shift-DownArrow (to scroll by line). The 'l4con' server shows on the screen the window of that application which is first connected to it. When a new app is connected to it, it shows it's screen

Actually, there are three virtual screens here. The 3rd one is 'run' program, it is started last, so it's window is showed on a screen. though, the main for us is 'minicmd' and OS/2 personality window. -- It is on the second tab. And the 1st tab is the 'logcon' server window. It shows the system log. The logcon server is a version of log server which shows system log on a screen -- the debug of all l4 servers. The 'run' program shows some system info, can start/kill tasks and reboot the system (you can see the help screen if you press 'h' key).

But the main for us is osFree OS/2 personality, it is showed on the 2nd tab. Actually, you can see here the minicmd screen and nothing more. c:\minicmd.exe is a small minishell program -- the 10 kilobyte LX executable started as protshell=. It is  a minimal shell-like application which uses a minimal subset of OS/2 API. (It uses about a dozen API's)

In this demo, minicmd can start a second (third, ..., N-th) copy of itself, if you enter 'c:\minicmd.exe' at its prompt. The 2nd copy is started, its Process  ID is showed. You can exit from Nth copy to n-1-th by entering 'exit' command.

For external commands, in this setup there is also 'mini33.exe' -- the most minimal LX executable. It does not contain the C startup code and uses only one DosPutMessage API from msg.dll. All -i't does, writes a 'I'm really small!' message to the screen.

You can see that only after starting an external program a command prompt is shown, so here a synchronous DosExecPgm API is implemented.

Also, so far, we implemented a minimal API for starting simple C written programs (a minimal set of API's needed by libc functions of Watcom). (it is in a newer versions, not yet uploaded to the web site). We have a small test program working, which uses 'printf' C function to output its command line args and environment variables. So, args and environment passing is implemented too, though some bugs still present. Also, there is a test for DosScanEnv API which shows a PATH variable.

Now we have a 'os2srv' server -- the OS/2 Server -- the main OS/2 personality server. It parses config.sys, spawns other servers and finally, calls run=/call= programs and starts a protshell=c:\minicmd.exe program. There is two more servers, execsrv and os2fs. The 1st one mainatins all executable modules in the system (EXE/DLL ones). For that, it loads lx.ixf and ne.ixf -- IXF drivers. IXF stands for Installable eXecutable Format driver -- an ELF shared library supporting LX/NE/ELF/etc format executables loading. So, each executable format support is separated to a separate module. They are analogous to IFS for file systems. So, execsrv loads all neeeded executables/libraries on demand. Libraries are loaded to a shared arena. Also, I want to move all shared-memory related API's support to execsrv, so it also will maintain all the shared memory and shared sepaphores etc.

The os2fs server is a filesystem server. It maintains all the FS-related API's. In the future, I plan to implement IFS support in os2fs server, so it will provide IFS'es with FSH_* helpers through FSHELPER virtual DLL and mount filesystems, end export these filesystems to other personalities. In l4env there already exists some FS support in l4vfs subsystem. Ihe idea is to have the central 'name_server' which implements a root of a hierarchical namespace,
in which other servers are mounted. In our setup, there are two more l4vfs servers, 'simple_file_server' which mounts to the '/file/system' mountpoint, and terminals server, 'term_con', which mounts to '/dev'. Each terminal, /dev/vc0, /dev/vc1,... corresponds to each client's stdin/stdout/stderr. So, it implements stdin/stdout/stderr for programs. the 'simple_file_server' exports GRUB or FreeLDR loaded modules as a flat filesytem, mounted to /file/system dir. Also, other file-alike entities, like pipes, registry keys can be added to the same namespace.

I plan to make os2fs server as one of a l4vfs servers, so, it will export OS/2 filesystem to other personalities. I plan to port ramfs.ifs to osFree, so it will be the 1st IFS. The IFS drivers are planned to be LX executables (DLL's), called by os2fs server, which will implement a FS router. For ramfs.ifs, no block device drivers or os2dasd/os2lvm analogues are needed (it is a 'remote' filesystem). And it uses only 5 FSH_*-helpers, so it will be the simpliest case to implement ;) I plan to make API's needed for unzip.exe, and instead of using 'simple_file_server', I will pack all needed files to a zip file, and unpack them to a ramdisk ;-)

Beside the servers, the important part for OS/2 executables support is 'os2app' l4env program. It is 'OS/2 application container'. It is started by l4 'loader' server as 'os2app --stdin /dev/vc0 --stdout /dev/vc0 --stderr /dev/vc0 c:\minicmd.exe'. So, the 'os2app' program is started, it is passed a terminal name which will be used as stdin/stdout/stderr, and an OS/2 app to load. It starts as a separate l4 task, in the separate address space, prepares the needed OS/2 app address space layout, loads an OS/2 application and all needed DLL's (they are loaded by execsrv server, and then are passed to 'os2app' task.). Then 'os2app' prepares OS/2 application info blocks (TIB and PIB), gets OS/2 app command line parameters and environment, etc, and then starts the OS/2 app by calling its entry point.

After all, 'os2app' contains a kal.dll virtual library, which contain the calls to L4 and OS/2 personality servers to implement OS/2 API's. OS/2 API's are in doscalls.dll. Unlike the 'classic' OS/2 but like in OS/2 Warp (PowerPC edition), it is a real disk file. DOSCALLS.DLL functions are implemented on top of KAL.DLL functions. So, the border between KAL and DOSCALLS is the border between 'L4 world' and 'OS/2 world'  ;)

So, we'll trying to make additional progress. The main problem now is that at the moment only me is making something for osFree, other team members are busy now ;( So, any help is welcomed, especially if someone will help me with programming ;)

PS: I am trying to post this for the 2nd time, the previous time I tried, the message is dissappeared and I was log out from forum, so I needed to type thsi message again ;(

WBR,
valery