5 ms·

OS/2 Blue Lion due out, 28 year old OS gets a new version

25 points by orionblastar 11y ago

ctstover 11y ago
Do the eComstation people still have their distribution license?
- orionblastar 11y ago
  Yes this Blue Lion is made by a second OEM to license OS/2 from IBM.
orionblastar 11y ago
Here is the OEM website link with more details: https://www.arcanoae.com/blue-lion-go/ https://www.arcanoae.com/blue-lion-go/
mindcrime 11y ago
I have fond memories of OS/2 and would still love to use it on the one hand. But I've become radicalized as an Open Source / Free Software ideologue over the years, and now I wouldn't really want to use it as it's a proprietary product. :-( Not to say I wouldn't like to install it and play around for a while just to indulge some nostalgia, but I couldn't see making a wholesale switch. On the other hand, if osFree[1] ever manages to get a complete, working OS out the door... [1]: http://www.osfree.org/ http://www.osfree.org/
- orionblastar 11y ago
  Much as I like OSFree, it will be a long time before they get something working that can run most OS/2 apps on it. I have been donating to open source operating systems like ReactOS and Haiku OS in hopes they would get past the alpha stage and get into beta testing and then release quality. OS/2 Blue Lion is release quality or will be in the third quarter of 2016. It may not be open source but there are over 300 third party source code segments they use for OS/2 and each one of them has to be released from a commercial license to be used as open source. So making an open source OS/2 is going to be hard and take a long time. I just want to see something challenge Windows 10 that isn't GNU/Linux or OSX and is release quality and not an alpha like ReactOS or Haiku OS.
  - JdeBP 11y ago
    Has there been any progress in ReactOS and OSFree in the past few years?
    - orionblastar 11y ago
      Yes there has but not enough to get out of the alpha tests and into at least beta tests. I think they have a lack of funding, plus a lot of API calls are undocumented and they don't know how to implement them yet. If any company decides to give them money they might get sued by Microsoft or IBM over IP rights. As I recall ReactOS once had a source code audit to make sure they didn't add in any of the Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 or 2000 source code into it. Someone had leaked Windows Source Code to the Internet, and there was this big issue that ReactOS might have copied it into their source code. http://slashdot.org/story/06/02/01/1944257/reactos-code-audit http://slashdot.org/story/06/02/01/1944257/reactos-code-audi... That code audit slowed things down a bit. OSFree uses many opensource projects that were made to supplement the real OS/2 and combine them together to try and make an OS based on the L4 Microkernel using an OS/2 personality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L4_microkernel_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L4_microkernel_family Since they don't have the source code to the OS/2 Kernel they have to use an existing Kernel and modify it to run OS/2 code. So that makes it a lot harder. There was a Windows 98 clone called Freedows 98 that tried to do the same thing, but it got abandoned and even the Wikipedia article got deleted. If you Google for Freedows OS you might find some sources on it. Links go to a domain that is for sale, as it was abandoned a long time ago. Trying to make an open source clone of any commercial OS is hard. GNU/Linux was only possible because the FSF made the GNU part to rewrite Unix tools from scratch and Linus made the Linux Kernel to use the GNU tools to make Linux.
      - JdeBP 11y ago
        It wasn't deleted. Deletion in MediaWiki removes edit history from view, and the full edit history is still visible at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedows_OS?action=history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedows_OS?action=history . I wasn't really asking how hard it was. I know all about that. I'm one of the world's principal experts in what's involved in cloning OS/2 from the ground up. I was asking where they had got to, because I stopped keeping tabs some years ago and am wondering if I had missed anything in the period since. The OSFree roadmap doesn't appear to match its news announcements, so I doubt that it's accurate and up to date. (These things have a way of not being.)
agumonkey 11y ago
Just after the gateway thread, I dug about os2 2.0, and now this. It's very strange to see OS/2 still alive. And a conf.. Cool and weird at the same time. I wonder what the ecosystem looks like.
- orionblastar 11y ago
  ATMs, banks, and financial institutions invested a lot into OS/2 in the early 1990s. They want to run the same legacy software on modern machines so they need eComStation or Blue Lion to do that. OS/2 2.X runs great in QEMU and so does OS/2 3.0 WARP. I run OS/2 in a virtual machine because it is hard to get the older versions to run on bare metal. The cost of rewriting the legacy OS/2 software to modern Windows costs more than just buying a new OS/2 license for a modern PC that could run it on modern hardware.
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    I was mostly curious on how team develops on eCS or BL. What tools, what libs, practices.
    - orionblastar 11y ago
      I really don't know, but I do know that the OS/2 Kernel hasn't changed since IBM stopped developing for it sometime between 1996-2006. I found this for OS/2 development tools: http://www.altsan.org/os2/toolkits/index.html http://www.altsan.org/os2/toolkits/index.html http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Main_Page http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Main_Page https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_guide/Build_Instructions/OS2_Build_Prerequisites https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_g... Apparently there is a version of GCC for OS/2 that they can use to compile source code. http://os2ports.smedley.info/ http://os2ports.smedley.info/ If they pay bounties for converting over libraries from GNU/Linux to OS/2 then they can start porting apps over to OS/2 as well.
pharaohgeek 11y ago
I remember BEGGING my parents to buy me OS/2 2.1 for Windows as my only Christmas present when I was a kid. They'd bought me my own PC (386DX/40, 4MB RAM, etc.) sometime earlier and I was hooked. I wanted to play and experiment with EVERYTHING, and OS/2 looked fascinating. I loved the stability it gave, and the fact that it ran Windows better than Windows! I wish it were open-sourced and modernized to compete in this era (UI, device drivers, virtualization, security, etc.) It's a shame that will never happen.

25 points by orionblastar 11y ago

ctstover 11y ago

Do the eComstation people still have their distribution license?

orionblastar 11y ago
Yes this Blue Lion is made by a second OEM to license OS/2 from IBM.

orionblastar 11y ago

Here is the OEM website link with more details: https://www.arcanoae.com/blue-lion-go/ https://www.arcanoae.com/blue-lion-go/

mindcrime 11y ago

I have fond memories of OS/2 and would still love to use it on the one hand. But I've become radicalized as an Open Source / Free Software ideologue over the years, and now I wouldn't really want to use it as it's a proprietary product. :-( Not to say I wouldn't like to install it and play around for a while just to indulge some nostalgia, but I couldn't see making a wholesale switch. On the other hand, if osFree[1] ever manages to get a complete, working OS out the door... [1]: http://www.osfree.org/ http://www.osfree.org/

orionblastar 11y ago
Much as I like OSFree, it will be a long time before they get something working that can run most OS/2 apps on it. I have been donating to open source operating systems like ReactOS and Haiku OS in hopes they would get past the alpha stage and get into beta testing and then release quality. OS/2 Blue Lion is release quality or will be in the third quarter of 2016. It may not be open source but there are over 300 third party source code segments they use for OS/2 and each one of them has to be released from a commercial license to be used as open source. So making an open source OS/2 is going to be hard and take a long time. I just want to see something challenge Windows 10 that isn't GNU/Linux or OSX and is release quality and not an alpha like ReactOS or Haiku OS.
- JdeBP 11y ago
  Has there been any progress in ReactOS and OSFree in the past few years?
  - orionblastar 11y ago
    Yes there has but not enough to get out of the alpha tests and into at least beta tests. I think they have a lack of funding, plus a lot of API calls are undocumented and they don't know how to implement them yet. If any company decides to give them money they might get sued by Microsoft or IBM over IP rights. As I recall ReactOS once had a source code audit to make sure they didn't add in any of the Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 or 2000 source code into it. Someone had leaked Windows Source Code to the Internet, and there was this big issue that ReactOS might have copied it into their source code. http://slashdot.org/story/06/02/01/1944257/reactos-code-audit http://slashdot.org/story/06/02/01/1944257/reactos-code-audi... That code audit slowed things down a bit. OSFree uses many opensource projects that were made to supplement the real OS/2 and combine them together to try and make an OS based on the L4 Microkernel using an OS/2 personality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L4_microkernel_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L4_microkernel_family Since they don't have the source code to the OS/2 Kernel they have to use an existing Kernel and modify it to run OS/2 code. So that makes it a lot harder. There was a Windows 98 clone called Freedows 98 that tried to do the same thing, but it got abandoned and even the Wikipedia article got deleted. If you Google for Freedows OS you might find some sources on it. Links go to a domain that is for sale, as it was abandoned a long time ago. Trying to make an open source clone of any commercial OS is hard. GNU/Linux was only possible because the FSF made the GNU part to rewrite Unix tools from scratch and Linus made the Linux Kernel to use the GNU tools to make Linux.
    - JdeBP 11y ago
      It wasn't deleted. Deletion in MediaWiki removes edit history from view, and the full edit history is still visible at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedows_OS?action=history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedows_OS?action=history . I wasn't really asking how hard it was. I know all about that. I'm one of the world's principal experts in what's involved in cloning OS/2 from the ground up. I was asking where they had got to, because I stopped keeping tabs some years ago and am wondering if I had missed anything in the period since. The OSFree roadmap doesn't appear to match its news announcements, so I doubt that it's accurate and up to date. (These things have a way of not being.)

agumonkey 11y ago

Just after the gateway thread, I dug about os2 2.0, and now this. It's very strange to see OS/2 still alive. And a conf.. Cool and weird at the same time. I wonder what the ecosystem looks like.

orionblastar 11y ago
ATMs, banks, and financial institutions invested a lot into OS/2 in the early 1990s. They want to run the same legacy software on modern machines so they need eComStation or Blue Lion to do that. OS/2 2.X runs great in QEMU and so does OS/2 3.0 WARP. I run OS/2 in a virtual machine because it is hard to get the older versions to run on bare metal. The cost of rewriting the legacy OS/2 software to modern Windows costs more than just buying a new OS/2 license for a modern PC that could run it on modern hardware.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  I was mostly curious on how team develops on eCS or BL. What tools, what libs, practices.
  - orionblastar 11y ago
    I really don't know, but I do know that the OS/2 Kernel hasn't changed since IBM stopped developing for it sometime between 1996-2006. I found this for OS/2 development tools: http://www.altsan.org/os2/toolkits/index.html http://www.altsan.org/os2/toolkits/index.html http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Main_Page http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Main_Page https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_guide/Build_Instructions/OS2_Build_Prerequisites https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_g... Apparently there is a version of GCC for OS/2 that they can use to compile source code. http://os2ports.smedley.info/ http://os2ports.smedley.info/ If they pay bounties for converting over libraries from GNU/Linux to OS/2 then they can start porting apps over to OS/2 as well.

pharaohgeek 11y ago

I remember BEGGING my parents to buy me OS/2 2.1 for Windows as my only Christmas present when I was a kid. They'd bought me my own PC (386DX/40, 4MB RAM, etc.) sometime earlier and I was hooked. I wanted to play and experiment with EVERYTHING, and OS/2 looked fascinating. I loved the stability it gave, and the fact that it ran Windows better than Windows! I wish it were open-sourced and modernized to compete in this era (UI, device drivers, virtualization, security, etc.) It's a shame that will never happen.