Arca Noae is continually working on support for new drivers for new hardware and applications with its business partners and developers. These are some of the projects we currently seeing active development efforts or are in the planning or “future consideration” stages.
Short Term Projects (Current work)
These are projects which are currently under active development. Completion of these projects is expected fairly soon.
New RPM packages for the Arca Noae Drivers & Software Subscription
We are working to add regularly updated usb.ids and pcidevs.txt listings for up-to-date hardware identification. Subscribers will be able to add the Subscription repo to Arca Noae Package Manager to be able to download and install these updates on demand.
Enhanced printer support for OS/2 (with and without CUPS)
A new printer driver package as part of the Arca Noae subscription is in the works. This package will consist of an updated PostScript printer driver for OS/2, usable both with and without CUPS. OS/2 and eComStation users with a need to print to newer PostScript-compatible printers should be pleased with the enhancements planned for this driver package.
USB 3.0 host controller support
We are currently developing a USB 3.0 HC driver.
Medium Term Projects (Next work)
These are projects which are expected to at least develop into test versions in one year or less.
New Ethernet and Wireless network drivers
With the aid of the MultiMac framework, Arca Noae already provides support for some Intel, Nvidia, and Realtek chipsets based on Linux drivers. Changes in the Linux driver architecture have made maintaining these drivers and porting new drivers increasingly difficult. As was announced at Warpstock 2014, Arca Noae is working on an alternative new library for porting FreeBSD drivers to OS/2. That milestone has been reached and we are now producing drivers using this library. We are now working towards the next milestone and we are making steady progress on the first Wireless driver using this new library. The project is complex and taking more time than expected, but we are making progress. The first driver being ported is the Intel WiFi Link 4965 and 1000/5000/6000 Series 802.11 network, so this driver will be the first one produced when the library begins working well enough to produce a wireless driver.
New updated version of the SNAP video driver
Arca Noae has acquired a license for the sources for the SNAP video driver for OS/2. We now have a development team in place, and will be producing a new version of the SNAP video driver for OS/2 with fixes and improvements. While marketing is still undecided, discussions have centered around not only including the new SNAP in Blue Lion, but also packaging it as a separate product.
New Sound Driver
OS/2 has been using the Uniaud audio driver to support audio cards and audio chipsets on mainboards for years. The Uniaud driver is still available but no further updates are planned. Instead the FreeBSD sound driver has been ported to OS/2. It still needs the MMOS2 interface and once that is written this new sound driver will be available as part of the Arca Noae subscription.
Long Term Projects (Speculative or Open-ended)
These are issues which are under investigation, considered highly speculative, or are proceeding at a slower pace for one reason or another. Some of them may become active projects; others may never see the light of day. All will receive consideration, but no promises are made as to whether any of them may actually become reality.
Support for SATA RAID and SAS controllers
We are investigating the development of drivers to support a limited set of SATA RAID and SAS controllers under OS/2.
Support for accessing unpartitioned/non-LVM USB sticks (large floppy) greater than 2GB
We are closely watching and participating in experimental work regarding access to large (usually FAT32-formatted) unpartitioned and non-LVM partitioned media. This will make transferring data between other operating systems and OS/2 easier than ever before.
Support hard disks larger than 2 terabytes
Currently OS/2 supports hard disks up to 2 Terabytes. Several possible solutions for larger disks are being investigated.
Support for booting OS/2 from hard disks with a GPT partition layout
The MBR support in the BIOS has been replaced by the GPT disk layout which is part of the UEFI standard. Current research seems to indicate that we can provide GPT support via something called a hybrid MBR.