Archives

My password for the main website is not working. How may I reset it?

To reset your password, follow this link. Enter your email address or account name (often the same as your email address), and click the Reset password button.

You should receive an email from us within a few minutes containing a link to your personalized password reset page. If not, please check your spam trap. If the message was not caught in your spam trap, please contact us.

Either click the link or copy/paste it into your browser. Enter a new password (the strength meter will remind you of the quality of your new password), and confirm it in the adjacent box. Click Save, and then proceed to the login page as usual, and use your new password to log in.

Note that this also changes the password for your login to the bug tracker.

I’m having a problem logging into the Arca Noae Mantis bug tracker. I cannot get my login to work. I just can’t. What do I do?

When logging into the Arca Noae Mantis bug tracker, you must have an account on this site. The main site, the online store, and the Mantis bug tracker all use the same username (or email address) and password. If you have lost your password you can ask for a password reset via the account link above.

If resetting your password still does not allow you to log in. Please contact us.

I’m having a problem using my software. What should I do?

  1. Best practices dictate that the first thing to do is check the documentation which came with the software. The documentation should provide some information as to where to go for technical support. If this is software or a driver which came from Arca Noae (either produced by us or sold through our store), then proceed to the next step.
  2. If the software or driver was produced by Arca Noae, your next stop for technical support should be either the main Support page or the Arca Noae wiki pages, directly. Every product developed by Arca Noae or licensed as an Arca Noae product has a support wiki. Find the wiki listed on that page. Usually, there is a link to a product-specific debugging, problem solving, or troubleshooting sub-wiki on the main product wiki. Follow the troubleshooting steps there. If this still does not help, or if the troubleshooting steps instruct you to do so, please open a ticket in the Mantis bug tracker, after gathering all of the information requested in the troubleshooting steps.
  3. If the software or driver was not produced by Arca Noae but was sold through our online store, and if the support information in the documentation is insufficient or if you do not receive a timely response from the developer, please contact customer service either through our Contact page or by emailing us directly at our customer service address. One of our staff will be happy to assist in getting you in touch with the developer. We do not handle tickets for software which we have not developed or licensed.
  4. If you are having a general problem with OS/2, eComStation, any other operating system, software, driver, or hardware which was not produced by Arca Noae nor purchased through our online store, please contact the developer or vendor of that component directly. Unless under support contract, we do not handle tickets for software which we have not developed or licensed.

I haven’t received my license key or software. What should I do?

We’re here to help!

First, check your email and ensure that you have received a copy of your order. Whether you have or have not, either go to the Contact page or send us an email directly to our support address explaining the situation. Please provide as much information as possible (date of order, order number, products ordered, whether you have received confirmation of payment from your credit or debit card provider, etc.). One of our staff will respond as quickly as possible, usually within a few hours.

When my subscription expires, will my drivers (USB, ACPI, JFS, etc.) continue to work?

Yes! Your drivers will continue to work as long as the hardware on which they are installed (or the virtual machine in which they are installed) remains compatible with them. In other words, there is no operating time limit imposed on the drivers (or any other software included in your subscription).

Your subscription entitles you to one year of access to upgrades, maintenance, and support for your software. When your subscription expires, you will no longer have access to these benefits, but whatever you have already downloaded will continue to function.

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.

I just renewed my Drivers & Software subscription. Where are my downloads?

Please select your original subscription order page to access your download links. If you instead visit a renewal order, you will find a link to the original subscription, identified as Access associated downloads here and appears directly below the name of the subscription (Support & Maintenance, Drivers & Software, etc.).

If you have any issues accessing your downloads, please don’t hesitate to contact customer service.

I need to download my software again. How (or where) do I do that?

Software packages included as part of an ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription are generally accessible from the ArcaOS Download Center. To access the ArcaOS Download Center:

  1. Visit your customer portal on the main Arca Noae website. If not logged in, you may do so when accessing the above link.
  2. From the navigation links on the left, select ArcaOS Download Center to view the list of your ArcaOS licenses and associated downloads.

Software packages included as part of the OS/2 & eCS Drivers & Software subscription content are generally accessible from the order details page for the active subscription. To access the order details page:

  1. Visit your customer portal on the main Arca Noae website. If not logged in, you may do so when accessing the above link.
  2. From the navigation links on the left, select Orders & Subscriptions to view the list of your orders.
  3. Select the order containing your original subscription order (a renewal order will include a link to take you to the original order, identified as: Access associated downloads here).
  4. Click the View button for the selected order to access the order details page.

Once on the order details page, your subscription packages will be available for download by clicking on each link.

Some other subscription content will be made available in our subscription YUM repository. This is an authenticated repository which may be added to your YUM configuration or to Arca Noae Package Manager. You will need your Arca Noae credentials handy when adding the repository to your configuration. See this wiki page for more information and refer to Arca Noae Package Manager‘s online help for guidance in adding the subscription repository to your configuration.