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A 21st-Century Version Of OS/2 Warp May Be Released Soon (arcanoae.com)
dryriver writes: A company named Arca Noae is working on a new release of the X86 OS/2 operating system code named "Blue Lion" and likely called ArcaOS 5 in its final release. Blue Lion wants to be a modern 21st Century OS/2 Warp, with support for the latest hardware and networking standards, a modern accelerated graphics driver, support for new cryptographic security standards, full backward compatibility with legacy OS/2, DOS and Windows 3.1 applications, suitability for use in mission-critical applications, and also, it appears, the ability to run "ported Linux applications". Blue Lion, which appears to be in closed beta with March 31st 2017 cited as the target release date, will come with up to date Firefox browser and Thunderbird mail client, Apache OpenOffice, other productivity tools, a new package manager, and software update and support subscription to ensure system stability. It is unclear from the information provided whether Blue Lion will be able to run modern Windows applications.
Let me put it this way: if I had to use systemd/Linux or OS/2, I'd choose OS/2. Being able to boot properly is an important trait for any OS. OS/2 has this ability. Systemd/Linux often does not.
As much as I hate systemd, it really has no place in this conversation. You can get Linux without systemd, so you're presenting a false dichotomy in any case.
I've also had OS/2 corrupt itself on an unclean shutdown and fail to boot. I haven't had this with Linux since the early days of xfs.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
ArcaOS will have all that is on OS/2 Warp 4.52, Workplace Shell, SOM, Presentation Manager, DOS/Win16 (embedded). Running WPS on Linux may be harder, CPI needs to be cloned and open source so PM, SOM and WPS can be run over it. Visit OS2World.com forums if you have more questions.
If it can compete against the steaming pile that is Windows 10 and the eye candy which is Macs, this is a good thing. Being able to buy a license for a machine and use it without being forced to "upgrade" or have updates automatically installed whether you want them or not would be a great leap forward.
Being able to run software which is a few years old but does what you want would also be a big plus.
...in 1988, back while IBM and Microsoft thought they could work together. HA! I was a contractor and I made much money in my entire career working on the installation package with an in-house language that lack the ability for simple Boolean functions! That's right - no AND or OR or NOT! We beg to do it in C but were overruled. It was a such a stupid project. I learn that if stupidity is profitable, it will be repeated.
While Windows start-of-art was 3.11, OS/2 came out with Presentation Manager and true multitasking and I was in love! This was before Linux, before the Wide World Web and we crave to upgraded to an PS/2 Model 70 with a blazing 16 mHz 32-bit processor and curse to slow transistion from 5.25 to 3.5" floppy disks!
My favorite part was the clean interface, especially the Font Palette. I could set a font and and will be EVERYWHERE. I had just two folders on my desktop, Programs and Data. It's the cleanest, more elegant interface of my life.
All the lead people are mainframers. We used the same email system as Oliver North did. The low point of my three years there is when the Lead Designer, the Big Cheese of the project, went on a massive rant about the GUI and wanting me to justified it over the command line. He hated mice! He hated color - anything beyond monochrome was inappropriate for business! It was a obscenity-filled, homophobic rant.
Then the Great War between Microsoft and IBM started. I think over REXX and Visual Basic. IBM loved REXX and want to include for free but Bill Gates was reported to have something like, "Over my death body, they can buy my Basic". But truly, it was a Big Dick contest and they parted ways and Microsoft beget Windows 95 and IBM OS/2 Warp and eventually IBM threw in the throw and ECOMstation took over OS/2 in Europe. I just checked, ECOMstation2 does not Windows (yay) but still does DOS (in a box).
I never heard of a single report of malware for a native OS/2 or ECOMstation application. Ever. Have you?
I repair ancient Mazak CNC controls and other industrial controls. All the software is DOS/Win3.1 era stuff. No one wants to bite the bullet for new CNC systems because they can't find the mechanical quality to compare at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, there's probably not a single piece of electronics for these systems left in the world that hasn't already been through one repair cycle. Most of the PCB's I see have been patched, doctored, and abused to near death, but they keep coming. Mazak has quit all support for these dinosaurs, but they're still sitting on most of the schematics, source code, etc.
My boss would love to see a modern OS with good support for his ancient software packages that all the original vendors have walked away from supporting, and won't release anything for others to work with.
If Trump wants to impress me, he'll get around to doing something to clean up the copyright/patent fiasco that is killing so many smaller players like us.
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
OS/2 got interrupt handling exactly right. I could format a floppy, play Wolfenstein in a window, and have a mod tracker playing in the background on a 486/25. BeOS got close but was never quite as good.
My Linux machine today can't copy to a USB hard drive without making the rest of the system unusable.
It seems like Linux could still learn some tricks from these old OS's.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)