Add ArcaOS as IBM OS/2 Version Type

[wbpayne]

Now that ArcaOS is out I think it would be good to add it to the GUI as an IBM OS/2 version. It works great in VirtualBox and should be added to the list.

[Socratis]

If there is no differences in the templates, there's no need to add something in the list, just for the sake of adding it. There are way more recognized and used OSes that don't make the cut.

Plus, no demo? No trial? You got to pay to even try it? Is this thing running with an existing OS/2 template? Couldn't tell...

[wbpayne]

Yes, I can guarantee it is running on an eComStation template. I am running it right now and it seems to be running fine here. I don't think it's urgent to have it in the list but it is trivial to add it so it should be done eventually.

Replying to socratis:

If there is no differences in the templates, there's no need to add something in the list, just for the sake of adding it. There are way more recognized and used OSes that don't make the cut.

Plus, no demo? No trial? You got to pay to even try it? Is this thing running with an existing OS/2 template? Couldn't tell...

[Lewis Rosenthal]

Related: #17271

[Lewis Rosenthal]

Full disclosure: I am the Managing Member of Arca Noae, LLC, and ArcaOS is our product.

There are major differences between eCS and ArcaOS in terms of base driver mix.

For example, ArcaOS does far better with SATA than IDE in terms of performance, and the minimum RAM should be bumped to probably 512MB.

No demo, no trial. Those were our terms with IBM. You've got to pay to even try it, yes.

In terms of there being "way more recognized and used OSes that don't make the cut," if you spend any time in a large enterprise environment in the finance of manufacturing sectors, you get a feel for how much OS/2 is still use. The difference for VBox is that when setting up a new VM, unless the user knows to change from IDE to SATA, he ends up with an IDE controller by default, and that's a big performance hit getting out of the gate (and a pain to change, as OS/2 drivers need to be swapped to handle the controller shift, and so forth). Best to start with SATA.

[Socratis]

Replying to wbpayne:

but it is trivial to add it so it should be done eventually

It's not as trivial as you think, it's not adding a single line of code, I still remember the pain of adding a "10.13" version for an existing "Mac OS X" family by simply copying an existing "10.12" version... ;)

Replying to LewisR:

For example, ArcaOS does far better with SATA than IDE in terms of performance

Inside a VM? Are we talking about performance in a VM or on a physical computer? Because the perfomance differences between an IDE and a SATA controller in a VM are minimal, if any.

No demo, no trial. Those were our terms with IBM. You've got to pay to even try it, yes.

That's a real bummer, but hey, if that's the deal, there's not much we can do... :(

In terms of there being "way more recognized and used OSes that don't make the cut"

I was referring for example to 1) MX Linux, 2) Manjaro and 3) Mint, the top 3 distros in the last year as they're ordered on ​DistroWatch. Those should be based on Debian, Arch and Ubuntu respectively, they don't have their own templates/icons.

The difference for VBox is that when setting up a new VM, unless the user knows to change from IDE to SATA, he ends up with an IDE controller by default

You know who's bought the software, you can easily address that with a couple of announcements and/or instructions on your website. ;)

But hey, I'm just a simple user, I'm not the one making the decisions. I'm just thinking out loud and trying to put things in perspective...

[Frank Batschulat (Oracle)]

fwiw, we talk about this OS product here:

​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArcaOS
​https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos/
​https://www.arcanoae.com/product-category/an-products/

[Lewis Rosenthal]

Sorry for the late follow-up. For some reason, I did not receive a notification.

For example, ArcaOS does far better with SATA than IDE in terms of performance

Inside a VM? Are we talking about performance in a VM or on a physical computer? Because the perfomance differences between an IDE and a SATA controller in a VM are minimal, if any.

Inside the VM, the performance difference is remarkable due to the difference between the drivers for IDE vs SATA.

In terms of there being "way more recognized and used OSes that don't make the cut"

I was referring for example to 1) MX Linux, 2) Manjaro and 3) Mint, the top 3 distros in the last year as they're ordered on DistroWatch. Those should be based on Debian, Arch and Ubuntu respectively, they don't have their own templates/icons.

I don't know how that works out in the enterprise arena where we still see a lot of OS/2 having been virtualized, and now being migrated to ArcaOS. IOW, there are definitions for OS/2 and eCS. OS/2 is no longer marketed by IBM at all. eCS is...well, I don't know about the availability of new eCS licenses. I can only speak to the availability of new ArcaOS licenses which are being sold currently and actively marketed. In fact, it was through ArcaOS that we were able to convince one of our enterprise customers to switch from another hypervisor to VirtualBox.

The difference for VBox is that when setting up a new VM, unless the user knows to change from IDE to SATA, he ends up with an IDE controller by default

You know who's bought the software, you can easily address that with a couple of announcements and/or instructions on your website. ;)

That's not as easy as one might think. Yes, we can add specific instructions to our wiki, but honestly, the vast majority of enterprise IT personnel need to be able to deploy these things quickly and in a logical fashion. Having to override the OS/2 defaults to install ArcaOS - while at the same time being reassured by Arca Noae that ArcaOS is OS/2, because it is - can lead to various misunderstandings around the world, whereas simply adding another OS type with logical defaults would seem to me to be a shortcut to the same result: more users installing the software more easily.

[Socratis]

Replying to LewisR:

Socratis: Because the perfomance differences between an IDE and a SATA controller in a VM are minimal, if any.

LewisR: Inside the VM, the performance difference is remarkable due to the difference between the drivers for IDE vs SATA.

Sorry if I sound like a broken record, I just want to get this right; are you referring to the VirtualBox emulation part, or the ArcaOS drivers? Because in users-test after users-test, in multiple Guests/Hosts combinations, there has not been a clear indication that the SATA is a clear winner over IDE. Or SCSI or NVMe for that matter...

IOW, there are definitions for OS/2 and eCS. OS/2 is no longer marketed by IBM at all. eCS is...well, I don't know about the availability of new eCS licenses.

I can only speculate when I'm saying that someone might have actually bought VirtualBox support for these OSes to be there as an available supported option.

whereas simply adding another OS type with logical defaults would seem to me to be a shortcut to the same result: more users installing the software more easily.

"More users installing the software more easily?" It's not like the software is free and available, and hordes are lining up to download it, is it? Someone has to jump through a lot of hoops to get their hands on it, mainly buying it! :)

Looks to me that you're trying to skip/avoid the simple 'wiki' instructions for your each and every, "known by name", customer by shifting the workload to an open source project.

Without even attempting to at least provide the patches that would make this a reality. At least go through the source code and see what needs to be changed, provide the patches and see if they get accepted.

Because it's going to be VirtualBox at the end that has to support your proposed addition. And it's kind of hard to support something that's not readily available...

Here's what *I* would do:

1. Get a ​VirtualBox support license from Oracle (starting at 6100$).
2. Give the VirtualBox team a free license for ArcaOS (or two, or more). Write it off is as a business expense. You can't force someone to buy your product in order to support it.
3. Ask for the inclusion of ArcaOS in the list of the new OSes.

In fact, since you're a commercial entity, if you're using the Ext. Pack I believe you should have already bought a license for it, according to the Licensing FAQ.

[Lewis Rosenthal]

Replying to socratis:

Replying to LewisR:

Socratis: Because the perfomance differences between an IDE and a SATA controller in a VM are minimal, if any.

LewisR: Inside the VM, the performance difference is remarkable due to the difference between the drivers for IDE vs SATA.

Sorry if I sound like a broken record, I just want to get this right; are you referring to the VirtualBox emulation part, or the ArcaOS drivers?

ArcaOS drivers.

For IDE, ArcaOS uses either IBMS506.ADD or DANIS506.ADD (the latter being the "performance" driver). For SATA, ArcaOS uses OS2AHCI.ADD which simply performs better in this environment.

IOW, there are definitions for OS/2 and eCS. OS/2 is no longer marketed by IBM at all. eCS is...well, I don't know about the availability of new eCS licenses.

I can only speculate when I'm saying that someone might have actually bought VirtualBox support for these OSes to be there as an available supported option.

Unfortunately, again, the choice and vintage of drivers shipped with IBM OS/2 Warp 4 vs eComStation vs ArcaOS are considerably different. There is no AHCI driver shipped with Warp 4, for example. So, while an IDE attachment makes perfect sense for an IBM OS/2 Warp 4 guest (no AHCI driver shipped with the product), starting off that way for ArcaOS limits the user to one of the available IDE drivers; switching the drive to a SATA attachment requires a reformat and thus, essentially, a reinstall.

The only sensible default for ArcaOS in this environment is SATA, which requires manual adjustment before installation to avoid wasting time and effort.

whereas simply adding another OS type with logical defaults would seem to me to be a shortcut to the same result: more users installing the software more easily.

"More users installing the software more easily?" It's not like the software is free and available, and hordes are lining up to download it, is it? Someone has to jump through a lot of hoops to get their hands on it, mainly buying it! :)

Looks to me that you're trying to skip/avoid the simple 'wiki' instructions for your each and every, "known by name", customer by shifting the workload to an open source project.

???

There are thousands of licensed ArcaOS users overall and we have enterprise customers with hundreds of (and in one case, over a thousand) virtual machines running ArcaOS.

"skip/avoid the simple 'wiki' instructions" is hardly applicable when there are many other in-the-box defaults for very similar OSes (different Linux distros, for example, may have nearly identical configurations yet are separately listed; as a Novell-certified SuSE engineer, I am familiar with the defaults for SuSE Linux and there are apparently no differences from, say, Fedora, aside from the icon).

Without even attempting to at least provide the patches that would make this a reality. At least go through the source code and see what needs to be changed, provide the patches and see if they get accepted.

Because it's going to be VirtualBox at the end that has to support your proposed addition. And it's kind of hard to support something that's not readily available...

What's not "readily" available? The OS was released for general availability in May of 2017, and it has seen multiple maintenance releases since that time. It is available for purchase from various resellers and from Arca Noae directly, on our website. It's a commercial product. That doesn't make it somehow "not readily available."

Windows is supported this way, and it is a commercial OS. The argument that somehow only OSS should be supported in this manner rings hollow. I'm not asking for an addition. I'm asking for reasonable defaults, specifically, a single change to SATA as the disk attachment. We can provide patches, of course.

I wonder if Microsoft provided patches to set up all of the various Windows flavors which are selectable (going back to Windows 3.1).

Here's what *I* would do:

1. Get a ​VirtualBox support license from Oracle (starting at 6100$).
2. Give the VirtualBox team a free license for ArcaOS (or two, or more). Write it off is as a business expense. You can't force someone to buy your product in order to support it.
3. Ask for the inclusion of ArcaOS in the list of the new OSes.

In fact, since you're a commercial entity, if you're using the Ext. Pack I believe you should have already bought a license for it, according to the Licensing FAQ.

This is completely beside the point. We are not an end user using VirtualBox in a production environment, and our use of the product for testing with ArcaOS does not require the use of the extension pack. In fact, for most ArcaOS users in this environment, there is really no need for the extension pack, unless a particular end user wants to use a virtualized EHCI or xHCI USB controller for some reason.

Why should we, as an OS developer, have to purchase a support license for a product we neither directly support nor sell? Did Novell? Did Microsoft? Did Red Hat? Did IBM? Did Apple?

If the answer is no, that ArcaOS will not be added as a separate OS selection, then this ticket should be closed. I'm only trying to advocate on behalf of our customers who also utilize VirtualBox for what seems to me to be a rather trivial enhancement. I wasn't looking to get into some silly argument about the merits of selling a commercial OS. If what is being asked of us is to provide the patches to effect this change, that's fine. Right now, there is nobody assigned to this ticket, and we have no clear direction.

[Socratis]

I won't go anymore into why I think that this doesn't make sense to me, I've already tried to explain it more than once. I only have a comment about the "readily available" part.

Your OS is not readily available. It's available for sale. Only. I can get every single OS out there for a test drive (a.k.a. readily available), except maybe OSX. Yours? No way!

And that (in my mind) is the biggest turn off for an OSS project. An unsurpassed hurdle.