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ArcaOS

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ArcaOS
ArcaOS Logo
ArcaOS 5.0.5 desktop
DeveloperArca Noae, LLC (based on code from IBM, Microsoft, and other various developers)
Written inC, C++, REXX, Java, assembly language
OS familyOS/2
Working stateCurrent
Source modelClosed source
Initial releaseMay 15, 2017; 8 years ago (2017-05-15)
Latest release5.0.6 / August 31, 2020; 4 years ago (2020-08-31)
Package managerANPM (based on RPM and YUM)
Platforms32-bit x86
Kernel typeHybrid kernel
Default
user interface		Workplace Shell, cmd
LicenseProprietary software with open-source components
Official websitewww.arcanoae.com

ArcaOS is an operating system based on OS/2, developed and marketed by Arca Noae, LLC.[1] It was codenamed Blue Lion during its development.[2] It builds on OS/2 Warp 4.52 by adding support for new hardware, fixing defects and limitations in the operating system, and by including new applications and tools.[3][4] It is targeted at corporate users who need to run their OS/2 applications on new hardware, as well as personal users of OS/2.[5]

As with OS/2 Warp, ArcaOS is a 32-bit[6] single user, multiprocessing,[7] preemptive multitasking[8] operating system for the x86 architecture.[9] It is supported on both physical hardware[10] and virtual machine hypervisors.[11]

Features

Hardware compatibility

ArcaOS supports symmetric multiprocessing systems with up to 64 processor cores, although it is recommended to disable hyperthreading.[7]

Development continues with a stated goal to add wider compatibility for more modern computing platforms, including UEFI and GPT support. It has limited PAE support (RAM in excess of 4GB is utilized as a RAM disk[5]).

ArcaOS includes device drivers for a number of network adapters, either using Arca Noae's MultiMac[12] technology, which employs FreeBSD driver code, older IBM and third-party-supplied drivers, or a selection of GenMAC[13] drivers. Support for wireless networking is somewhat limited, though MultiMac support for select chipsets is planned.

ArcaOS supports USB 2.0 and 3.0 connectivity.

Most audio support utilizes the Uniaud[14] generic audio driver, now maintained by Arca Noae. Uniaud is based on ALSA. In addition, a selection of device-specific drivers are included with the OS distribution.

Video support is provided by Panorama[15] generic unaccelerated VESA driver, or SNAP[16] accelerated video driver. While acceleration is supported for a limited number of graphics chipsets, and other features such as zooming and multi-head are also available for a limited number of chipsets, SNAP lacks support for many modern chipsets (though support for additional chips is planned).

As of version 5.0.6, ArcaOS is ACPI 6.1-compliant[17] to ACPICA 20200717.[18]

Storage drivers are available for IDE and AHCI, and a select number of SCSI adapters are supported. An NVMe driver is under development.[19]

Software

In addition to the software bundled with OS/2 Warp 4, ArcaOS includes some further software, such as:[20][21][22]

As of 2020, a project is underway to port QtWebEngine (based on Chromium) to OS/2 and ArcaOS in order to support the Falkon browser.[23]

Cross-platform compatibility

Some of the compatibility subsystems in ArcaOS - a Bash shell (bottom left), QBASIC in a DOS window (middle), and the Windows 3.1 Program Manager (top right)

ArcaOS includes a capable DOS VDM, and ships with a modified version of Windows 3.11, WinOS2, capable of running 16-bit Windows applications.[24] It is also capable of running some 32-bit Windows applications utilizing Odin (a project based in part on Wine).[5] ArcaOS provides a Unix compatibility layer named kLIBC which facilitates porting open source Linux applications to ArcaOS.[25] While some of these ported Linux applications are included with the distribution itself, more of these may be installed as RPM packages from several available YUM repositories.

Filesystems

ArcaOS's native file system is JFS, though HPFS is also supported (the OS may be booted from either filesystem). FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32 are also supported using either the kernel's own FAT driver or an IFS driver.[26]

ArcaOS supports several other file systems through the use of additional IFS drivers, such as CDFS and UDF.

NetDrive for OS/2[27] provides access to Samba 4 shares via its own IFS driver. The ArcaOS distribution includes a limited license version of NetDrive but the fully licensed version is capable of mounting a number of other local, native, and foreign file systems.

Hardware requirements

The minimum hardware requirements for ArcaOS 5.0.x are as follows:[9]

Processor Intel Pentium Pro or AMD K6
Memory (RAM) 512MB minimum

2GB recommended

Graphics Card VGA video card with VBE 2.0 support[28]
Storage space 2GB of available disk space
Removable media Installation requires DVD-ROM drive or USB flash drive
Firmware Traditional BIOS, or UEFI with CSM enabled
Input devices PS/2 or USB keyboard and mouse

History

Origins

ArcaOS was formally announced on October 23, 2015, at the Warpstock 2015 event (an OS/2 and eComStation user group event) under the code name "Blue Lion" by Arca Noae's Managing Member, Lewis Rosenthal.[4][2]

Some of the planned features for Blue Lion announced at the time were:[4]

  • new SMP kernel
  • new pre-boot menu
  • new OS installer with support for installation from USB memory stick and across a network
  • device drivers already produced by Arca Noae as part of their Drivers & Software Subscription[29]
  • the latest Workplace Shell enhancements
  • updated CUPS print subsystem
  • updated PostScript printer driver pack
  • ultimately available in several languages besides English, namely, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Dutch[30]

At the time of the announcement, the initial release was projected for late third quarter of 2016, but Arca Noae also stated that no actual release date had been set.[4]

The name "ArcaOS" was first published in a Tech Republic article[31] on May 26, 2016, while the arcaos.com domain was registered December 20, 2015. In the same Tech Republic article, Lewis Rosenthal was quoted as saying that the first release of ArcaOS would be version 5.0, as it follows onto the last release of OS/2 Warp from IBM, which was 4.52. He also stated that ArcaOS 5.1 will provide French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Dutch versions of the operating system.

ArcaOS 5.0 was released May 15, 2017.[32] The Register published an article about the release on May 19th, 2017.[33] There were two editions released: a commercial edition, intended for enterprise use (including 12 months of upgraded/prioritized technical support), and a personal edition, targeted at non-business users (including six months of standard technical support) at a reduced price. Pricing was listed as $229 per license for the commercial edition, and $129 per license for the personal edition, with $99 promotional price in effect for the first 90 days following release.

Release History

ArcaOS Releases
Release Date Major Changes[22]
5.0.0 2017-05-15[32] First public release
5.0.1 2017-07-09[34] Installer fixes and driver updates
5.0.2 2018-02-10[35] Added ability to boot from USB media
5.0.3 2018-08-19[36] Updates to software and drivers
5.0.4 2019-07-21[37] Update facility which allows ArcaOS to updated without reinstalling
5.0.5 2020-06-06[38] USB 3.0/xHCI support
5.0.6 2020-08-31[39] Installer fixes and updates

References

  1. ^ "ArcaOS 5.0 from Arca Noae is the new release of OS/2 for the 21st century". arcanoae.com.
  2. ^ a b OS/2: Blue Lion to be the next distro of the 28-year-old OS
  3. ^ "About ArcaOS". Retrieved 2020-08-31.
  4. ^ a b c d Blue Lion Announcement at Warpstock 2015
  5. ^ a b c Lunduke, Bryan (23 May 2017). ""OS/2 Based ArcaOS" - Lunduke Hour - May 23, 2017" – via YouTube.
  6. ^ "Do you have plans for a 64-bit ArcaOS?". arcanoae.com. Retrieved 2020-09-05.
  7. ^ a b "ACPI Requirements". arcanoae.com.
  8. ^ "Have a glimpse of the new ArcaOS desktop". arcanoae.com. 2017-05-21. Retrieved 2020-09-05.
  9. ^ a b "System Requirements for ArcaOS 5.0". arcanoae.com. Retrieved 2020-09-04.
  10. ^ "Tested Hardware". Retrieved 2020-09-05.
  11. ^ "Virtual Machine Configuration". Retrieved 2020-09-05.
  12. ^ Arca Noae wiki: MultiMac NIC Drivers
  13. ^ Project: Generic MAC Wrapper Driver (GenMac)
  14. ^ Arca Noae wiki: Uniaud - Audio subsystem
  15. ^ Arca Noae wiki: Panorama Video Driver
  16. ^ Arca Noae wiki: Arca Noae SNAP Graphics for OS/2
  17. ^ "ACPI Driver Requirements". arcanoae.com. Retrieved 2020-09-06.
  18. ^ "Readme for the ACPI Driver Package". arcanoae.com. Retrieved 2020-09-06.
  19. ^ "Roadmap: Drivers". Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  20. ^ "Third Party Work". arcanoae.com. Retrieved 2020-09-08.
  21. ^ "Have a glimpse of the new ArcaOS desktop". arcanoae.com. Retrieved 2020-09-08.
  22. ^ a b "ArcaOS 5.0 Changes". arcanoae.com. Retrieved 2020-09-04.
  23. ^ "Warpstock Europe Conference 2020". youtube.com. 2020-05-17. Retrieved 2020-09-09.
  24. ^ "Compatibility Subsystems". Retrieved 2020-09-08.
  25. ^ "Getting to know the Unix Compatibility Subsystem (kLIBC)". arcanoae.com. Retrieved 2020-09-08.
  26. ^ "FAT32 Installable File System Driver". Retrieved 2020-09-04.
  27. ^ NetDrive for OS/2
  28. ^ "Panorama". arcanoae.com. Retrieved 2020-09-04.
  29. ^ Is the world ready for a bare-metal OS/2 rebirth?
  30. ^ OS/2 comes back from the dead
  31. ^ OS/2 resurrected: Blue Lion becomes ArcaOS, details emerge for upcoming release [1]
  32. ^ a b ArcaOS 5.0 release announcement
  33. ^ at 02:00, Simon Sharwood 19 May 2017. "What is dead may never die: a new version of OS/2 just arrived". www.theregister.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-10-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  34. ^ "ArcaOS 5.0.1 now available". arcanoae.com.
  35. ^ "ArcaOS 5.0.2 now available". arcanoae.com.
  36. ^ "ArcaOS 5.0.3 now available". arcanoae.com.
  37. ^ "ArcaOS 5.0.4 now available". arcanoae.com.
  38. ^ "ArcaOS 5.0.5 now available". arcanoae.com.
  39. ^ "ArcaOS 5.0.6 now available". arcanoae.com.
  • Arca Noae – Website of the developer of ArcaOS
  • OS/2 World – Community of OS/2, eCS and ArcaOS users
  • VOICE – The Virtual OS/2, eCS and ArcaOS Users group and newsletter
  • EDM/2 – Electronic Developer Magazine for OS/2
  • Bitwise Works – Developer of open source Software for OS/2 and ArcaOS
  • eCSoft/2 – The Complete OS/2 Software Encyclopedia
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