
OS/2 Blue Lion due out, 28 year old OS gets a new version - orionblastar
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/os2-blue-lion-to-be-the-next-distro-of-the-28-year-old-os/
======
mindcrime
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
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
Has there been any progress in ReactOS and OSFree in the past few years?

~~~
orionblastar
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-
audi...](http://slashdot.org/story/06/02/01/1944257/reactos-code-audit)

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
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.)

~~~
orionblastar
Last time I tried OSFree they didn't have an ISO available just the source
code. It has been a while as they have ISOs now:
[http://www.osfree.org/doku/en:download](http://www.osfree.org/doku/en:download)

I just downloaded the latest ISO and set up a VirtualBox virtual machine for
it. It boots into a command prompt but there is no fdisk.exe or other programs
to format a hard drive and install it on a hard drive that I can see. It seems
as if it runs limited DOS and OS/2 CLI programs and hasn't made the GUI
available yet.

I can see in command line mode there is no mouse support yet. The L4 Kernel
has an OS/2 personality and it looks like there is a doscalls.dll file to
handle the DOS API calls. There are os2app os2fs and os2srv directories but
they are empty. I assume they are for OS/2 apps, file system support, and
server (LAN Manager, SMB) that haven't been added yet.

It has a long way to go but back when I last checked a few years ago they
didn't even have an ISO yet. The ISO boots and goes into a command line mode
and that is about all it does.

Yeah they aren't keeping up with the road map, the same thing happens with
ReactOS and others.

------
pharaohgeek
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.

------
agumonkey
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
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
I was mostly curious on how team develops on eCS or BL. What tools, what libs,
practices.

~~~
orionblastar
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_g...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_guide/Build_Instructions/OS2_Build_Prerequisites)

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.

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

------
ctstover
Do the eComstation people still have their distribution license?

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

