If you’ve been waiting for us to get ahead of our server load issues, you shall be greatly rewarded. We have taken steps to address the issue, and traffic seems to be flowing more consistently.
Thank you for your patience, and for all of you who have already ordered and downloaded your personalized ArcaOS ISOs, thank you for your business!
In order to make the installation of Blue Lion as smooth and intuitive as possible, we need to update and maintain an extensive database of hardware we are likely to encounter during installation and the drivers associated with the various devices installed in current machines.
Luckily, during the installation of eComStation, a file is created: MACHINE.CFG, stored in <boot drive>\ecs\install\rsp. This file contains all of the relevant data we need to update our current database.
We are asking for community assistance to gather as many MACHINE.CFG files as possible. If you have installed eComStation systems, please attach the MACHINE.CFG file from each one to an email (you may attach multiple files to a single email or send separate ones) addressed to hardware-info at arcanoae dot com. This file should not contain any personally identifiable information, but to be sure, please review before attaching.
Many thanks from the Blue Lion Dev Team for your assistance!
At one time, shutting down an OS/2 guest under VirtualBox meant full shutdown and virtual powerdown. With recent versions of VirtualBox (5.x), however, this has not been the case.
We’ve noticed, and we’ve done some work to address this.
Did you know that Arca Noae’s ACPI driver runs just fine under these latest builds of VirtualBox? Using the ACPI driver, it is possible to configure the OS/2 (or eComStation) guest machine for complete poweroff using ACPI, just as you might configure a physical workstation.
If you’ve thought that the Arca Noae Drivers and Software subscription didn’t bring value to your virtual OS/2 experience, think again. Now is a great time to subscribe.
Current VirtualBox recommendations are to use the virtual Intel network cards for guest machines and to configure for bridged networking. Until now, the only choice for OS/2 was the older, IBM-supplied, Intel E1000 driver. The result? Performance just slightly better than the default AMD PCnet-FAST III virtual adapter.
Now, however, there is a choice. Arca Noae subscribers may use the all-new MultiMac Legacy EM driver (MMLEM). This driver is a breakthrough for virtual machines running under VirtualBox, with performance measured at more than twice the throughput of the older driver.
Some comparisons from netio 1.3 across a 1Gbps unmanaged switch, from an OS/2 VM running the latest 32-bit TCP/IP stack to a 64-bit Linux server running on bare metal1:
E1000:
TCP connection established. Packet size 1k bytes: 15.04 MByte/s Tx, 9168.71 KByte/s Rx. Packet size 2k bytes: 19.64 MByte/s Tx, 11.99 MByte/s Rx. Packet size 4k bytes: 22.38 MByte/s Tx, 13.58 MByte/s Rx. Packet size 8k bytes: 23.72 MByte/s Tx, 17.62 MByte/s Rx. Packet size 16k bytes: 24.83 MByte/s Tx, 20.62 MByte/s Rx. Packet size 32k bytes: 19.52 MByte/s Tx, 17.82 MByte/s Rx. Done.
MMLEM:
TCP connection established. Packet size 1k bytes: 13.19 MByte/s Tx, 9183.80 KByte/s Rx. Packet size 2k bytes: 18.65 MByte/s Tx, 12.20 MByte/s Rx. Packet size 4k bytes: 27.93 MByte/s Tx, 14.98 MByte/s Rx. Packet size 8k bytes: 39.91 MByte/s Tx, 19.29 MByte/s Rx. Packet size 16k bytes: 50.39 MByte/s Tx, 22.74 MByte/s Rx. Packet size 32k bytes: 28.07 MByte/s Tx, 19.19 MByte/s Rx. Done.
(Note that the falloff between 16 and 32k appears to be an issue within VirtualBox itself, as the same tests, when run against the host machine, actually report an improvement in throughput for the 32k packet size over the 16k one. A 32-bit Linux guest does not show this falloff.)
As you can see, peak transmit throughput, using 16k byte packets, went from 24.83MByte/s (198.64Mbps) to 50.39MByte/s (403.12Mbps). If you are transferring large files across your network to and from your OS/2 VM, this implies a possible reduction in the amount of time it takes for such transfers by more than one half2.
In addition, while the above tests were run using the Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM) virtual network card in the guest, the MMLEM driver also supports the Intel PRO/1000 T Server (82543GC) and Intel PRO/1000 MT Server (82545EM) virtual network card options available in VirtualBox 5.x, either of which may yield even better throughput (the older IBM-supplied driver does not support these server-class cards).
There are other benefits of the Arca Noae Drivers & Software subscription for virtualized users of OS/2, including full shut down and virtual power off of the VM when using Arca Noae’s ACPI PSD. So if you thought there wasn’t much value in subscribing just to run virtual machines, you might want to look again.
There will be plenty of information on hand at this year’s Warpstock Europe event. Here’s a sampling of what to expect from Arca Noae:
Saturday, David Azarewicz will be presenting on device driver progress and plans for the future (Blue Lion will be a milestone, but not the end of the road, by any means).
Also on Saturday, Lewis Rosenthal will be discussing what to expect in the Blue Lion package. While all of the details have not been set, we have a pretty good idea of what will be included.
Later in the afternoon, Steven Levine will pick up on Arca Noae SNAP. Learn what is coming next for this accelerated video driver.
We will return on Sunday with an update on YUM and RPM and how these technologies play an important role in Blue Lion by Lewis Rosenthal, as well as future plans for the well-received Arca Noae Package Manager.
Arca Noae’s last presentation on Sunday will be from Alex Taylor via Skype, discussing printing and fonts.
Between Arca Noae staff and the other presenters, there should be something for everyone. Arca Noae is the exclusive source for Warpstock Europe tickets. If you haven’t yet purchased your tickets, please visit our store today.
Arca Noae principals David Azarewicz and Lewis Rosenthal will be on hand at this year’s Warpstock Europe event to discuss some of the great offerings from Arca Noae, including latest driver development and the upcoming Blue Lion release.
Expect more details in the coming days, and be sure to visit the event page for general information and the Arca Noae store to register and purchase your tickets.
We’ve added a new item to our Presentations, Whitepapers, & Case Studies page.
Blue Lion – A First Peek was a presentation given by Lewis Rosenthal via Skype to the Dutch OS/2 Users Group (eCS-gg), Saturday, January 9. The discussion focuses on Blue Lion’s new Preboot environment, including screenshots of current alpha builds, and references some planned features of the new installation media and maintenance environment. The presentation is provided as a PDF.
If you are already a registered licensee of Keith Merrington’s SearchPlus, SigmaMD5, or EasySync, there is no need to purchase any of those packages again from us in order to obtain the latest version(s).
Interested upgraders should go to Hobbes and search for the program name(s) and download them there. As of this writing, your existing registration entitles you to free updates. Just download and install.
While you are visiting Hobbes, we encourage you to donate. The Hobbes OS/2 Archive is an all-volunteer effort, and not a university-sponsored project. Thus, Hobbes exists solely from the appreciation of the OS/2 community. Arca Noae fondly acknowledges this longstanding and valuable resource.
Our own David Azarewicz and Lewis Rosenthal will be presenting at this year’s Warpstock Europe, in Munch, Germany, June 6-7. This will be a rare opportunity to hear from two of the Company’s principals about what Arca Noae is presently doing, and what is planned for the future.
You may find out more about their discussion topics on the Warpstock Europe 2015 Presentations page.
In addition, Steven Levine will be presenting via Skype. You may find out more about Steven’s planned discussion on the above Presentation page, as well.
Arca Noae is pleased to announce that we have engaged Howard Winter in our Customer Relations department. Howard will be responsible for answering your pre-sales and order fulfilment inquiries via email and telephone.
Howard brings his years of experience with sales and marketing along with his OS/2 expertise to Arca Noae, enhancing the capability of the Company to handle customer (and potential customer) concerns.
Effective immediately, Customer Relations and pre-sales telephone numbers are:
US: +1 571 758 5218
UK: +44 1727 238802
Expect to see more of Howard online, too.