We can surely look at it. We’ve done this for other companies, both on bare metal and in virtualized environments. Often, we’ve found that the original installation packages (if they ever did exist) are nowhere to be found. We can still work with what you have, given a functional image of an example system.
Contact us to discuss your needs. We work under short or long term contract, with full non-disclosure agreements. In short, your information is confidential, and we are dedicated to making existing OS/2 software continue to be useful.
We also provide extended support agreements for companies and enterprises in need of OS/2 talent to maintain their infrastructure.
An image file of a CD or DVD (or Blu-ray Disc) is commonly called an ISO file or ISO image. It is so named for the ISO 9660 filesystem used for CD media, but the term also applies to the other optical formats.
Sometimes, it is useful to not only burn ISO files to disc but go the other way around, for purposes of transmission or more portable archival storage.
DVD Tools as provided with ArcaOS does not include a direct ISO creation utility, however, the full DVD/CD Toys suite, does. This applet is called Save Image, and works similarly to the Copy Disc applet in both DVD Tools and DVD/CD Toys. (DVD/CD Toys includes a number of very useful features for handling audio discs as well as other handy functions.)
For occasional use or for those who are comfortable at the command line, ArcaOS does include CDRTools, which includes readcd.exe. To use readcd.exe to create an ISO image, open an OS/2 window and type:
readcd dev=0,1,0 -f=<filename.iso> -retries=32 <Enter>
where the value for dev corresponds to the address of your CD, DVD, or Blu-ray drive (you may get the address by using the Device Info applet in the DVD Tools directory) and <filename.iso> is the full path and filename of the ISO file to be created.
DVD/CD Toys is much more user friendly, and if image creation will be a regular activity, it is highly recommended.
The primary indicator of a usable Unix Compatibility Subsystem is the presence of a valid location for %UNIXROOT%. In general, this should be the root of a local volume (results may be unpredictable when this is directed to a network share or removable media which may not always be available). To test for this, open an OS/2 window and type:
set UNIXROOT <Enter>
This should return the value (if set) of the %UNIXROOT% variable. On that volume, look for the directories as discussed on this wiki page. This is a good indication that there is a working subsystem in place.
The Unix Compatibility Subsystem is built around a component known as kLIBC, which is itself a project hosted at OS/2 Netlabs. The subsystem consists of a collection of applications generally ported from Linux, and when built from source using the gcc compiler, become native OS/2 applications.
This subsystem brings a whole new world of modern, maintained applications to the OS/2 platform.
While this subsystem is installed as part of ArcaOS, earlier OS/2 Warp 4 distributions may take advantage of this environment and run these applications as well. All that is required to get started is to download and install Arca Noae Package Manager (ANPM), available from this page.
See this wiki page for more information about the Unix Compatibility Subsystem.
ArcaOS includes a robust Unix compatibility subsystem. This subsystem is built around a component known as kLIBC, which is itself a project hosted at OS/2 Netlabs. kLIBC provides rudimentary symbolic link support for applications built with the kLIBC gcc compiler. These applications are generally ported from Linux, and when built from source using the gcc compiler, become native OS/2 applications, with some added benefits, among them being symbolic link (symlink) support.
It is important to note that not all such gcc-compiled applications support use of symbolic links, although with just the base kLIBC components installed, it is possible to create symlinks for any file accessible by the operating system. While symlinks may be created, it is up to the specific application or command processor (shell) as to whether they are read and interpreted as symlinks or merely text files.
ArcaOS (and essentially, any other OS/2 distribution capable of using the libc06* DLLs) supports symbolic links, or symlinks. A symlink is implemented by creating a small text file in the directory where the link is located that contains the path to the target file, and then marking that file as a symlink file by creating a special extended attribute (EA) attached to that file. To any ordinary OS/2 program, the symlink file looks just like an ordinary text file. But to libc/kLIBC programs it is a link to a different target file. It is important to remember not to strip the SYMLINK EA off of a symlink file or you will break the symlink functionality. Without the SYMLINK EA, the file will look like a regular text file even to libc/kLIBC programs instead of linking to the target file.
See this wiki page for more information on symlinks in ArcaOS and the Unix compatibility subsystem, in general.
OS/2 has been around for a long time, and one of the great strengths of the platform is a strong user-to-user community of professionals and power users willing to assist in solving problems and giving quality advice.
Several good places exist on the internet, depending upon the type of information desired and one’s preferred method of communication (mailing list, newsgroup, or forum). Here is a sampling of links to get started:
OS/2 VOICE (see the Resources menu)
OS/2 World (see the forums)
eComStation mailing list at Yahoo! Groups
eCS-Technical mailing list at Yahoo! Groups
There is an excellent selection of Hebrew fonts linked from this page. These are free to download, install, and use. We have plans to package a number of these fonts either for inclusion with ArcaOS or for downloading from one of our software repositories.
This is a known issue for DOS and 16-bit Windows sessions (Win-OS/2) under OS/2, eComStation, and ArcaOS (and probably more). It is not a defect in ArcaOS, and is in fact due to a number of limitations in DOS itself (which can’t normally see disks larger than 2GB, anyway).
The workaround is to install a small TSR in your AUTOEXEC.BAT which limits the amount of free space exposed to DOS to 2GB. The file is 2GBFIX.COM, and is available from the excellent Hobbes file repository:
https://hobbes.nmsu.edu/?search=2gbfix
Download the file, unzip, and read the very simple directions in the included 2GBFIX.TXT.
While you’re downloading that file from Hobbes, be sure to browse other great software available there, and consider donating. Hobbes is a true resource for any OS/2 user, and is completely free for all.
An alternative solution is to download and install the V2GB.SYS driver in CONFIG.SYS:
http://www.tavi.co.uk/os2pages/v2gb.html
The advantage of this solution is that it does not take up additional space in the VDM (Virtual DOS Machine).
Note that neither of these solutions is developed nor supported by Arca Noae. References here are for convenience, only. Unintended side-effects may occur with the use of either of these suggested workarounds (e.g., in the case of V2GB.SYS, running “dir” in a DOS session while this driver is active will close the session once the command completes). Be certain to disable any workarounds for this before opening a trouble ticket for the DOS subsystem itself.
Arca Noae engineers are monitoring the responses by hardware manufacturers and other operating system vendors. The current status of our analysis and official policy statement is reported in this blog post (which will be updated as necessary).
Additional information and links regarding these security concerns may be found in that post, as well.
In general, yes.
ArcaOS ships with the Base, Net, and Win Runtime packages to support various components included with the operating system (including the enhanced File Open Container). You should feel safe updating these whenever we post an update (we test these for regressions on ArcaOS). While the WPS Runtime does not ship with ArcaOS, it may optionally be installed to provide its functionality.
ArcaOS 5.0.1 shipped with the following eCo Runtime versions:
- Base – 2017-03-20
- Win – 2017-03-20
- Net – 2016-05-06
Visit our eCo Software Runtimes download page to check for updated packages.