Is OS/2 Coming Back?

mstansberry writes "Is IBM considering relaunching OS/2? One source close to IBM says Big Blue plans to repurpose OS/2 services atop a Linux core. IT managers ask, why now?" Hey, back in simpler times OS/2 was super badass. Both of the guys who ran it were hard core.

Comments

WPS

[Improv]

I would be delighted to switch my window manager back to the Workplace Shell (well, provided that there were keyboard shortcuts). I would not be so delighted to again deal with the SIQ lockups (but I imagine a port of WPS to X11 wouldn't have that problem, except to the extent that its own components might themselves use their own queue). I also would worry about EA corruption, which was always a concern with OS/2 as the collection of cruft in EAs kept growing and often a little mistake led one to need to repair them (or reinstall the system).

Anyhow, point is if I could just have the interface back, with some light Unix sensibilities injected, I'd be happy to switch from WindowMaker back to WPS. (Actually, having Stardock's Object Desktop as part of that would be a huge plus).

Re:WPS

[DJRumpy]

Although I agree a new flavor of Linux is never a bad thing, the strengths that made OS/2 a contender back in the day don't exist now. There were very few viable desktop operating systems back then to choose from. Today is a vastly different landscape. From a technical standpoint this is interesting stuff, but certainly not something to write home about. I just don't see something like this making much of an impact to the current landscape.

Re:WPS

[PopeRatzo]

There were very few viable desktop operating systems back then to choose from.

You think there are more "viable" desktop operating systems available today than back when OS/2 was released?

Are you sure?

Re:WPS

[Lumpy]

Os2 was still used heavily up until a few years ago. Many ATM machines ran it because it was 8000% more stable than any of microsoft's Operating systems.

Honestly OS2 can certainly thrive it has big blue's name behind it, If they make a Linux distro with it that is really hardened and stable, they can own several markets quite quickly.

Look at the government. They dont have a stable OS to use for any military operations.

I know a lot of people that wish that microsoft would make a real industrial OS instead of a Consumer grade OS with some security slapped on it for servers. They could do it, they choose not to because it's cheaper to maintain a single codebase and simply enable or disable features.

Re:WPS

[mollog]

First off, you make an ASSumption that IBM is trying for a desktop operating system. Bad assumption.

I spent years working as a test technician and test engineer installing operating systems and testing hardware. I have experience with AIX, SunOS, Solaris, Novell NetWare 2.1, 2.2, 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 4.0, 5.0, etc., IBM OS/2 1.31, 2.0, Microsoft OS/2 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.31, MS DOS 2.0, 2.1...6.1.?, Microsoft Windows NT 3.51, 4.0,..., HP-UX 9.?, 10.*, 11.*, SCO Unix, Linux Slackware, SCO Unix and others. I also have exposure to MS Xenix, HP 3000, HP 1000, and others.

Of the lot, I liked IBM OS/2 2.0 the best. Most stable, easiest to use, powerful. You would have had to be there at the time to understand why IBM OS/2 2.0 didn't do better; Microsoft waged a marketing war to prevent OS/2 2.0's success. The irony is that Microsoft had rights to the IBM source code and used much of the OS/2 2.0 source code to improve its products. You could find copyright and version strings with IBM's copyright in areas such as file system code.

Microsoft isn't the biggest because it writes the best code. Only a Microsoft bigot would believe that.

And people who believe that Microsoft will continue to dominate clearly don't remember how it used to be that IBM dominated the market. IBM is still important, but it's turn as being number one is over. Microsoft, too, will fade. Its importance as a operating system is waning as the use of computers becomes network focused. Even with all its experience with writing operating systems, and its dominance of the operating system market, Microsoft couldn't make inroads into new markets such as cell phones and mobile devices.

Microsoft is a one-trick pony and that trick is being upstaged by actors who are far better.

Re:WPS

[VolciMaster]

Look at the government. They dont have a stable OS to use for any military operations.

Yeah: vessels going to sea today that were designed 10+ years ago are all running Windows NT (if they went with an MS OS). There's a scary thought: the most advanced weapons every devised run on Windows NT.

Typical

[chill]

This is just typical of IBM Services missing a delivery target.

The article is really an April 1st joke, but the 12th was the closest they could come. Probably need a few more contractor billable hours next time.

Re:Typical

[girlintraining]

I believe I speak for most geeks when I say, simply:

*facepalm*

Those Two Guys

[technomancerX]

You seem to miss the thousands of banks and financial institutions that were using it as well. OS/2 was far more prevalent in large businesses than it ever was with home users.

OS/2 never went away

[MrEricSir]

OS/2 is still running ATMs, train systems, all kinds of important things. It never went away.

An updated Workplace Shell would be great

[realmolo]

Gnome and KDE are fine, but if IBM really wanted to, they could make them both obsolete pretty quickly with an update WPS interface. Plus, let's face it, at this stage in the "Linux on the desktop" battle, Linux *needs* an official, fully-funded commercial desktop environment. The Gnome vs. KDE battle is retarded, and both DEs are starting to get kind of nutty. IBM could restore sanity.

I'm all for it, personally. But I also think it's obvious that this is just a rumor.

Re:An updated Workplace Shell would be great

[Improv]

I'd be wary of suggesting that we ever will or should have an official desktop. Some competition and cross-pollination helps us share interface ideas that work after having separate communities really find out what doesn't. Those of us who actually used OS/2 generally also find the very idea of "IBM will save us" to be ridiculous. IBM long neglected, ignored, and occasionally kicked the OS/2 community. They're not really the poster child for sanity. We liked the product, but were very wary of big blue itself.

Also, as a general hint to other people, whenever somebody says "let's face it", it's a good clue that they're being a douche. It's an empty, self-congratulatory phrase.

Interesting..

[Wovel]

For a lot of companies, if something works there is no reason to mess with it. As hardware gets old and is difficult to replace with devices supported by OS/2, this may be attractive for some companies. In the past 12 months I have visited clients running critical applications on OS/2 and Xenix, while it is easy for an outsider to say "Just upgrade it to a newer application", replicating all the business logic and surrounding process would be costly and disruptive.

EA corruption

[tepples]

I also would worry about EA corruption

Did EA even make any games for OS/2?

Re:EA corruption

[Warphammer]

Humor value noted, but for those wondering, he's talking about Extended Attributes, the big database of stuff about files, stored on HPFS. Kind of like a Resource Fork on a Mac file. EA corruption was one of the more annoying things you'd have to deal with on an OS/2 system. Examples of EA data would include the file's icon, data type (which would refer back to which program to open it), etc. Without it, a lot of the system would get really unhappy. There was even a hack IBM came up with to let you have EAs on FAT volumes, but that was a little less nice.

My OS/2 story

[boristdog]

When I worked for the state there was a company contracted to develop a whole suite of Windows applications to move us off the old VAX green-screen interfaces into the modern world. Most of the department ran on Windows NT 4.

So naturally, the contractor developed all of their applications on a Windows NT 3.51 emulator running under OS/2.

Aaaaand after millions of dollars spent, the contractor demonstrated their applications (working flawlessly under the emulator in OS/2) got their money and high-tailed it, leaving us IT schlubs to implement the applications. All the apps immediately crashed when we attempted to run them in the real NT 4 environment. We never did get them working, except on the few workstations actually running OS/2 with an NT emulator.

Your tax dollars at work. Remember kids, watch your specifications when hiring a contractor!

IBM Software

[Nerdfest]

Buying software from IBM just encourages them to write more.

Re:Not everyone likes POSIX

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Although there are a lot of virtues in UNIX programming, some people just don't like it. They prefer richer APIs that Windows and OS/2 provide.

I have a revolutionary idea: Let's put only the necessary primitives into syscalls and let rest of the rich APIs be served by user-space libraries. Chances are the applications won't give a damn.

Wasn't *that* uncommon in its heydey

[elrous0]

"2 guys who had it" jokes aside, back around 1994-95, OS/2 was way more common than Linux seems to be today. I knew several friends who had it and it blew Win 3.1 away. I actually considered getting it myself, until MS started touting Win 95. I remember them selling OS/2 pretty much everywhere you could buy software. IIRC, you could even buy it at Walmart. I suspect this was one of the main reasons that MS launched such a heavy-duty ad campaign for MS 95 (one of the biggest software ad campaigns ever launched up until then). After Win 95 came out, it pretty much disappeared, but there for a while it was pretty well regarded in computer-savy circles as a superior choice to Windows.

Everyone has used OS/2. They just don't know it.

[The Breeze]

Up until rather recently, a large majority of bank ATM's ran OS/2.

Many call centers ran software that used OS/2.

OS/2's attempt to reach the consumer market were laughable - they sponsored the OS/2 Fiesta Bowl in the 1990's, without explaining to the public what OS/2 even was - but the software was everywhere in the corporate world it seemed. (for those slashdotters who don't know what the Fiesta Bowl is, it's one of the biggest college football ball games.)

Ford car dealerships ran a satelite uplink system that required OS/2.

I used it to ran a multiline BBS. It was good stuff. Even today, many of the guts (and filenames) of Windows stem from MS's long ago partnership with IBM....the more stable portions of Windows.

Not sure what the relevance of it today would be, but it was more widespread than you might think.

Re:Why not bring back Amiga OS?

[butlerm]

The Amiga had proper co-operative multitasking around a decade(!) before Windows

Amiga multitasking was pre-emptive, not cooperative. Much better. Windows multi-tasking was cooperative (if that) until Windows NT/95. Pre-emptive multitasking was where Amiga OS had a ten year advantage over common versions of Windows. The Mac didn't get co-operative multitasking until System 7, and pre-emptive multitasking on the Mac didn't come until Mac OS X.

The main problem with AmigaOS was that there was no security or process isolation to speak of. That made it _extremely_ fast, but also rather vulnerable to a variety of problems.