Archives

When will the next version of ArcaOS be available?

ArcaOS 5.0 shipped on May 15, 2017, with maintenance releases made available at varying intervals thereafter:

5.0.1 – July, 2017
5.0.2 – February, 2018
5.0.3 – August, 2018
5.0.4 – July, 2019
5.0.5 – June, 2020
5.0.6 – August, 2020
5.0.7 – December, 2021
5.0.8 – June, 2023

We anticipate a 5.1 release in 2023, with continuing 5.0.x releases for some time, as well as 5.1.x releases.

For prior release announcements, we recommend reviewing our archives.

Why do you ask for my address at the time of checkout or when creating an account? Are you selling my information to anyone?

Your information is completely confidential, per the terms of our Privacy Policy (the Policy). Per the terms outlined in the Policy, we collect certain information from you at the time of registration and at the time of purchase. In the case of a purchase, this information is used to process the transaction. For example, in order to process a credit card payment, we use the mailing address to verify the card number. Such verification reduces the incidence of fraud, thereby lowering our risk. This translates to lower per-transaction fees, which in turn means lower cost to you.

In the case of check, where we don’t need to verify the address to complete the transaction, this information is used as an alternate form of contact, in case something goes wrong with the email address provided.

We do not share any of your information with disinterested third parties, nor do we sell any of your information. In some instances, we provide name and email address to a third-party supplier in order to properly generate a permanent license key for you or to identify your order in case you need support in the future.

I’d like to pay via check. Is there anything special I should know?

We will gladly accept your personal or business check for your purchase. Please select the check payment option at time of checkout, and mail your check in US funds to:

Arca Noae, LLC
7 Loudoun Street, SE, Suite 2B
Leesburg, VA 20175-3012
USA

Please include your order number on the memo line of the check.

Upon clearing, you should receive a notification via email that your order is complete. If you do not hear from us within ten days, please feel free to contact us.

What forms of payment does Arca Noae accept?

Currently, Arca Noae accepts:

  • Major credit cards (via Stripe)
  • PayPal
  • Personal or business checks (USD only)
  • Direct bank transfer (US funds; $15 fee applies)

As of January, 2023, we are no longer accepting any form of cryptocurrency.

Are free software packages included in my subscription? If so, then why am I paying?

Your subscription entitles you to a wide array of applications and drivers as they become available. Some of these applications and drivers may indeed be freely available elsewhere, but not packaged and delivered in the same manner as Arca Noae provides them. In many cases, a portion of your subscription actually pays for the repackaging of these components to ease the installation and maintenance burden which is so often the greatest obstacle to keeping a modern system up to date.

A full discussion of the differences between archives, installers, and package managers is beyond the scope of this FAQ, but briefly, these three concepts may be defined as:

  1. Archives: single-file bundles of files, with or without placement information stored in the package; essentially, just a collection of individual files.
  2. Installers: applications whose sole purpose is to facilitate the unpacking of some type of archive in an orderly fashion, and (usually) to remove it (uninstall).
  3. Package Manager: an intelligent installer, capable of maintaining a database of installed applications and dependencies, which handles packages containing detailed information as to where files should be placed and what other packages may be needed in order for the installed software to function. In addition, when uninstalling a package, a Package Manager checks to see if anything else which depends upon that package to be uninstalled may be broken in the process, and warns the user.

Thus, some of the software contained in the packages we offer as part of our subscription may be freely available in archival format from a variety of other sources, yet our package management interface is unique, and we provide this software in packages to be delivered and maintained by our Package Manager.

I paid for a subscription. So when do I get a new version?

Updates and upgrades during your subscription term for all software entitlements are freely available to you. We do not guarantee any updates or upgrades, however, nor do we publish or predict when any updates or upgrades may become available. It is entirely up to you when (and whether) to check for them.

Some software which may be provided as part of your subscription entitlement may be mature, meaning updates are few and far between, simply because there is no pressing need for them. Other packages may be updated frequently.

We may post announcements in our blog when new releases of various components become available.

What’s the difference between a software subscription and an entitlement?

Consider a magazine subscription.

You purchase a one-year subscription to the magazine. Each month, a new issue is sent to you, for you to enjoy its content.

The content is the entitlement. You are entitled to the content in the magazine because you purchased a subscription. The subscription gives you access to your entitlement.

All of the software and drivers made available to you as a result of your subscription, including any periodic updates available during the term of your subscription, are entitlements. We sell a subscription, not an entitlement. The subscription grants you access to whatever entitlements we may make available to you.

How long is my subscription valid?

Your subscription is valid for a period of one year from the time of original purchase. Renewals extend the original period by one year, regardless when they are purchased.