I've been toying with the idea of building a native hardware solution so I can run some of my old OS/2 applications, and came across ArcaOS, which is supposedly an official IBM updated version of OS/2 Warp that works on fairly modest "modern" hardware (6th gen CPU or better).

Unfortunately, it's not free, and at $129 it's steep for a toy that might not work, so has anyone tried it? Any thoughts?
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

I've been toying with the idea of building a native hardware solution so
I can run some of my old OS/2 applications, and came across ArcaOS,
which is supposedly an official IBM updated version of OS/2 Warp that works on fairly modest "modern" hardware (6th gen CPU or better).

Its pretty nice and Legacy-correct. I've installed on hardware and in a VM fairly easily. It ran some OS/2 software that I tried, and I *assume* that it will run most with ease.

I think its a project worth supporting, however I also know its available if yer strong with torrenting or searching the right bbSes.



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Oldbieone to All on Thu Feb 23 2023 10:27 am

I've been toying with the idea of building a native hardware solution so I can run some of my old OS/2 applications, and came across ArcaOS, which is supposedly an official IBM updated version of OS/2 Warp that works on fairly modest "modern" hardware (6th gen CPU or better).

From what I've read, ArcaOS is not IBM-updated; it's owned by another company called Arca Noae under license from IBM.

Unfortunately, it's not free, and at $129 it's steep for a toy that might not work, so has anyone tried it? Any thoughts?

I haven't tried it - The main reason is the cost, and I can't say I'd have much use for it other than nostalgia (as it's derived from OS/2). I doubt I'd actually put it to use long-term.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: paulie420 to Oldbieone on Thu Feb 23 2023 11:33 am

I've been toying with the idea of building a native hardware
solution so I can run some of my old OS/2 applications, and came
across ArcaOS, which is supposedly an official IBM updated version

I think its a project worth supporting, however I also know its available if yer strong with torrenting or searching the right bbSes.

As much as I feel like ArcaOS is indeed a project worth supporting, for some reason I feel more enthusiasm for HaikuOS (a free open-source re-implementation of BeOS). Even though BeOS never really had widespread adoption, I had bought a copy of BeOS R4.5 around 1998 or 1999 after I heard it was ported to x86, and I installed it on a secondary PC. I thought it was a really nice OS - It was fast and responsive, and I think its GUI looked awesome. I think it would be interesting if HaikuOS reached a point where it's ready for daily use and could run things like Synchronet, Plex Media Server, etc..

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

As much as I feel like ArcaOS is indeed a project worth supporting, for some reason I feel more enthusiasm for HaikuOS (a free open-source re-implementation of BeOS). Even though BeOS never really had
widespread adoption, I had bought a copy of BeOS R4.5 around 1998 or
1999 after I heard it was ported to x86, and I installed it on a
secondary PC. I thought it was a really nice OS - It was fast and responsive, and I think its GUI looked awesome. I think it would be interesting if HaikuOS reached a point where it's ready for daily use
and could run things like Synchronet, Plex Media Server, etc..

I also really like Haiku. I run it on a VM and on some super old ThinkPad hardware. Its a really good choice IMO.

However, I think ArcaOS is most accepted by companies and industries still relying on software that runs their industrial machines - giving them a much more stable OS than running on an old [or new] 486... for sysOps who loved OS/2, I could see it totally worth the price of admission - but I, too, am not in that column.

I did spin it up to have a play - it was solid - but was removed; if I ever want to USE it, it will be with a license.



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbS>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)

Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Nightfox to Oldbieone on Thu Feb 23 2023 01:19 pm

I haven't tried it - The main reason is the cost, and I can't say I'd have much use for it other than nostalgia (as it's derived from OS/2). I doubt I'd actually put it to use long-term.

I loved OS/2, but I was running mostly DOS apps at the time. I wonder if my tastes have changed since then. My biggest concern would be finding a browser that's updated frequently.

The charm of OS/2 for me was being able to run DOS VDMs and create custom environments. I did so to run a DOS LAN program that didn't support OS/2 natively. That way, I could use a DOS VDM as a gateway between the DOS LAN and my OS/2 desktop. You could do something similar (and more) with a virtual machine in Windows nowadays.
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Nightfox to paulie420 on Thu Feb 23 2023 01:22 pm

As much as I feel like ArcaOS is indeed a project worth supporting, for some reason I feel more enthusiasm for HaikuOS (a free open-source re-implementation of BeOS). Even though BeOS never really had widespread

I was surprised by the maturity of a recent Haiku build. Does it run WIndows or DOS binaries?
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
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Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: paulie420 to Nightfox on Thu Feb 23 2023 04:36 pm

As much as I feel like ArcaOS is indeed a project worth supporting,
for some reason I feel more enthusiasm for HaikuOS (a free

I also really like Haiku. I run it on a VM and on some super old ThinkPad hardware. Its a really good choice IMO.

However, I think ArcaOS is most accepted by companies and industries still relying on software that runs their industrial machines - giving them a

Yeah, OS/2 is definitely more established.

I was thinking earlier this evening, I remember trying a driver in OS/2 years ago to allow connecting to my DOS RemoteAccess BBS via telnet in OS/2. I think that may have been a Ray Gwynn driver? I was thinking earlier tonight it might be fun to set up my old DOS RemoteAccess BBS in an ArcaOS VM with that driver and set up a telnet gateway door in my current BBS to connect to it.
I had previously started to work on setting up my RemoteAccess BBS as a door, which might work similarly though.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Thu Feb 23 2023 05:52 pm

I loved OS/2, but I was running mostly DOS apps at the time. I wonder if my tastes have changed since then. My biggest concern would be finding a browser that's updated frequently.

The charm of OS/2 for me was being able to run DOS VDMs and create custom environments. I did so to run a DOS LAN program that didn't support OS/2 natively. That way, I could use a DOS VDM as a gateway between the DOS LAN and my OS/2 desktop. You could do something similar (and more) with a virtual machine in Windows nowadays.

OS/2 was definitely good at running DOS programs and allowing using them in ways they couldn't be used in plain DOS.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Thu Feb 23 2023 05:54 pm

I was surprised by the maturity of a recent Haiku build. Does it run WIndows or DOS binaries?

I also tried a recent Haiku build in a VM and was surprised at its maturity. I don't think it runs DOS or Windows binaries though. I suppose it's possible that Wine might run in Haiku to allow running Windows programs, but I don't know for sure.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

Unfortunately, it's not free, and at $129 it's steep for a toy that
might not work, so has anyone tried it? Any thoughts?

I purchased a license and installed it on a Minisforum mini fanless PC (one of those cheap-o Chinese import things with crappy performance - https://www.minisforum.com/front/product/intel ). Honestly it runs fast and everything appears to work, I don't really have any noticeable issues. Thing is, I never used OS/2 back in the day and don't really know what I should do with it now :P

The one thing I'd call out is that in the current version of ArcaOS, secure boot is not possible, so keep that in mind when sourcing hardware.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (21:4/173)

Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: paulie420 to Oldbieone on Thu Feb 23 2023 11:33 am

Thanks for the feedback. Not saying I do or don't have torrent foo, but it seems like a worthwhile project if it's pretty native.
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Nightfox to paulie420 on Thu Feb 23 2023 01:22 pm

beOS really did have a nice GUI if I remember correctly. I never really did play with it much... now you've given me another idea, Nightfox. Can never have *too* many retro machines, can you? lol!
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Thu Feb 23 2023 05:52 pm

Good point, poindexter. But after slugging away with virtualization in my day job for more than a decade, and constantly running into driver compatability issues when trying to run virtualized gaming platforms, I've shyed away from using VMs at home and now run on native(ish) hardware. Like this box, for instance. It's a modified implementation of Windows 95 OSR 2.5 with DOS 7 that's running on AMD Athlon 2600+, with gigabit ethernet card with patched firmware, and Soundblaster Live card, as well as AGP video. I use it as my primary DOS/pre-2000 Windows gaming machine at home. DOS sees the video as VGA and sound as SB, and games like Myst, Quake, etc, play without giving driver issues. Back when I ran dosbox at home, I'd pop in a game and it was a 50/50 question as to whether I'd have useable video or any sound at all. Going hardware meant I didn't have that problem anymore. Plus there's sort of sick satisfaction in getting an OS that wasn't supposed to work on the hardware to see it as native. I also use it for "retro" technologies like USENET and accessing BBS, since the apps that were available for it far surpass modern equivalents to me, which all somehow seem like homebrew approximations. At leats the ones I've tried, anyway. Of course, web browsing is out of the question, even though I have a browser capable of modern TLS, I wouldn't visit any sites due to the inherrent security issues of such an old OS. Except for checking to see which Quake servers are active once in a while...
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: esc to Oldbieone on Fri Feb 24 2023 12:53 am

The one thing I'd call out is that in the current version of ArcaOS,
secure boot is not possible, so keep that in mind when sourcing hardware. secure boot is not possible, so keep that in mind when sourcing hardware.

This is good to know, thank you. I wasn't planning on putting it online, I just have a couple of old OS/2 games here, Galactic Civilizations, OS/2 Chess, and SimCity 2000, which was much better than the PC version and I used to spend hours playing on my dad's machine back in the day growing up. There was also a really slick FBI game, I forget the name of it though. Would be nice to play those again.
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Oldbieone wrote (2023-02-23):

I've been toying with the idea of building a native hardware solution so
I can run some of my old OS/2 applications, and came across ArcaOS, which is supposedly an official IBM updated version of OS/2 Warp that works on fairly modest "modern" hardware (6th gen CPU or better).

Why not run it in VirtualBox?

Unfortunately, it's not free, and at $129 it's steep for a toy that might not work, so has anyone tried it? Any thoughts?

The most recent version 5.0.7 is from 2021 and if there will be a newer version I don't think it's for free. Driver updates also need a subscription. For businesses who run legacy OS/2 software the pricing is fine. And Arca Noae have to pay there developers- For not knowing if it will work on your own hardware it is indeed steep.

From Wikipedia:

"During Warpstock 2021, Arca Noae announced that 5.0.7 would be the final maintenance release of 5.0, and that it would be followed by the 5.1 release.."

and

"Prior to the release of ArcaOS 5.0, ArcaOS 5.1 was originally planned for release in 2017 with a focus on supporting other languages including French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Dutch.[52] Following the release of ArcaOS 5.0, Arca Noae began discussing a 5.1 release in their roadmaps, along with proposed new features.[56] During Warpstock 2020, Arca Noae announced that 5.1 is expected to be released during 2021."


Maybe try OS/2 4.52 first? (it's available on archive.org)


Does anyone know if it's possible to get the OS/2 2.x theme / look and feel on ArcaOS?


⁂

---
* Origin: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. (21:3/102)

esc wrote to Oldbieone <=-

I purchased a license and installed it on a Minisforum mini fanless PC (one of those cheap-o Chinese import things with crappy performance - https://www.minisforum.com/front/product/intel ). Honestly it runs fast and everything appears to work, I don't really have any noticeable
issues.

Minimum requirements are a K6 with 512mb of RAM, an Atom CPU would be
overkill.

I wonder why it needs so much RAM compared with OS/2. I ran my BBS under
OS/2 Warp 3 on a 486 with 24 mb of RAM and was surprised at its
multitasking. My work box was similarly spec'ed.

Thing is, I never used OS/2 back in the day and don't really

know what I should do with it now :P

Presentation Manager, the window manager portion of OS/2 was "object
oriented", meaning you could click on anything and get a context menu.
Windows didn't do that back then, and it's something that later versions
of Windows emulated.

You could do things like drop a document onto a printer icon to print it
out, without figuring which app to open up, selecting the print menu,
etc.


... ZIMA TASTES BETTER WHEN IT'S ILLEGAL
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Oldbieone to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Feb 24 2023 06:23 am

Good point, poindexter. But after slugging away with virtualization in my day job for more than a decade, and constantly running into driver compatability issues when trying to run virtualized gaming platforms, I've shyed away from using VMs at home and now run on native(ish) hardware.

I had a garage with a folding table set up with old hardware at one point, but I downsized to a house with no garage. All my legacy OSes are running in VMs under a Proxmox server in a little homelab I set up out of "distressed" hardware.

The main server is a Thinkpad with a dim screen and missing keys. It would, however, support a SATA-3 SSD and 32 GB of RAM, so it's a server with a built-in UPS. :)

It runs the BBS, a test Windows AD environment, a couple of Linux installs for testing, and DOS, Windows95 and Minix VMs. Not all at once, though.
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Oldbieone to esc on Fri Feb 24 2023 06:33 am

This is good to know, thank you. I wasn't planning on putting it online, I just have a couple of old OS/2 games here, Galactic Civilizations, OS/2

Stardock makes Galactic Civilizations for Windows now.

Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

Hello poindexter FORTRAN!

** On Friday 24.02.23 - 09:27, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Oldbieone:

The main server is a Thinkpad with a dim screen and missing keys. It would, however, support a SATA-3 SSD and 32 GB of RAM, so it's a server with a built-in UPS. :)

I've heard that people simply replace the CCFL with LED strips
to restore the backlight.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1000006253912.html


--- OpenXP 5.0.57
* Origin: Ogg's WestCoast Point (21:4/106.21)

Ogg wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

The main server is a Thinkpad with a dim screen and missing keys. It would, however, support a SATA-3 SSD and 32 GB of RAM, so it's a server with a built-in UPS. :)

I've heard that people simply replace the CCFL with LED strips
to restore the backlight.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1000006253912.html

One of the reasons I stick with Thinkpads is the ease of
repair/upgrades. I'd thought about the backlight upgrade on my T43, but apparently it's even easier on the newer ones - the bezel snaps in.



... I'll be unstoppable when I get started.
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
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Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Oldbieone on Fri Feb 24 2023 09:27 am

I had a garage with a folding table set up with old hardware at one point, b I downsized to a house with no garage. All my legacy OSes are running in VMs under a Proxmox server in a little homelab I set up out of "distressed" hardware.

This weekend I took my retro machine offline to do a SSD install. I cloned the IDE to the 4GB disk-on-modlue just fine, but whatever I did I could not get it to boot to it as primary HDD. It would give me an "invalid system disk" error even though it was sys'd. I could install it as a slave, and boot to it, but not as a primary drive. I gave up on it and cloned the drive to a 32GB IDE and got that installed, so at least I have a clone when the inevitable happens.


So the BBS is on a Stinkpad? Pretty cool....
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Nightfox to Oldbieone on Fri Feb 24 2023 07:54 pm

Stardock makes Galactic Civilizations for Windows now.

I had no idea, thanks for the heads-up, Nightfox!
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Oldbieone to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Feb 27 2023 10:48 am

So the BBS is on a Stinkpad? Pretty cool....

Yes, not directly. The Thinkpad is running Proxmox VE, a virtualization environment. I have several containers running home lab services like AdGuard, a dashboard and so on. The BBS is running in a Windows 10 32-bit virtual machine.

What's cool about that is that I can take a snapshot before upgrading the BBS. If I break something, I can revert to that snapshot and restore the entire system.

Before, when I ran the BBS on bare metal, though, I could take the BBS laptop with me and connect from public wifi when my power or internet went out. That way, I could at least download mail from my uplinks and pass them onto the BBSes that feed from mine.
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Oldbieone on Mon Feb 27 2023 11:10 am

Yes, not directly. The Thinkpad is running Proxmox VE, a virtualization
a dashboard and so on. The BBS is running in a Windows 10 32-bit virtual machine.

That's a neat idea!

What's cool about that is that I can take a snapshot before upgrading the BB If I break something, I can revert to that snapshot and restore the entire system.

I've seen many broken BBS's since I got back into the scene. I think a lot of sysops tend to put all their eggs into one basket, so to speak, and build on bare metal or throw something together on their home desktop with no thought of continuity of operation should something break. You have a good solution here :)
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Oldbieone to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Feb 28 2023 07:10 am

I've seen many broken BBS's since I got back into the scene. I think a lot of sysops tend to put all their eggs into one basket, so to speak, and build on bare metal or throw something together on their home desktop with no thought of continuity of operation should something break. You have a good solution here :)

Synchronet is a pretty good package for resiliency. There aren't a lot of dependencies, so you could just copy the c:\sbbs\ directory to an external hard disk every couple of days. If I lost my boot disk or my system, I could throw together something and copy that folder from external to the new system. I've had to do that before. :(
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Oldbieone on Tue Feb 28 2023 11:01 am

Synchronet is a pretty good package for resiliency. There aren't a lot of dependencies, so you could just copy the c:\sbbs\ directory to an external hard disk every couple of days. If I lost my boot disk or my system, I
could throw together something and copy that folder from external to the
new system. I've had to do that before. :(

That's great. I wondered why so many seem to be using Synchronet!

When something works, why "fix" it, right?
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

On 28 Feb 23 07:10:18 Oldbieone wrote...

I've seen many broken BBS's since I got back into the scene. I think
a lot of sysops tend to put all their eggs into one basket, so to
speak, and build on bare metal or throw something together on their
home desktop with no thought of continuity of operation should
something break. You have a good solution here :) --- SBBSecho

To which Darklord replies...

Heard that story way too often (broke, no fall back position). It's one
of the reasons why I love the Lightning ST mod for my Atari Mega ST4.
I've got USB support. I literally stick a card reader with an SD card in
it, into the USB port on the Mega ST4, drag 'n drop my entire C:
partition over to that drive and bam! instant backup. I then take it to
my Mega STe, drop it off there via the internal Ultrasatan drive (SD
cards, 2 slots), then to my Kubuntu Linux laptop, then finally, last (and least), the Win10 box. I do that regularly once a month, or more often if
I do any major changes/updates. That should keep me pretty protected as
far as data loss goes.

I'm thinking I might add a friend or family member for an "off-site"
backup as well. Hey, ya never know when Murphy (and his annoying law!)
might show up, right? :)


/\
Dark><Lord
\/

--- RATSoft/FIDO v09.14.95 [JetMail 1.01]
* Origin: STar Fleet HQ - Real Atari! bbs.sfhqbbs.org:5983 (21:3/171.0)

Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Darklord to Oldbieone on Tue Feb 28 2023 02:39 pm

Heard that story way too often (broke, no fall back position). It's one
of the reasons why I love the Lightning ST mod for my Atari Mega ST4.
I've got USB support. I literally stick a card reader with an SD card in
it, into the USB port on the Mega ST4, drag 'n drop my entire C:
partition over to that drive and bam! instant backup. I then take it to
my Mega STe, drop it off there via the internal Ultrasatan drive (SD
cards, 2 slots), then to my Kubuntu Linux laptop, then finally, last (and least), the Win10 box. I do that regularly once a month, or more often if
I do any major changes/updates. That should keep me pretty protected as
far as data loss goes.

Forming COOP plans was my bread and butter for a decade, so planning for recovery has become ingrained. I used to run a 1/4 rack at home for streaming years ago, built with failover in mind. Electricity bills soon made that an expensive overkill, lol!

Now I just use cloud services.

For my personal machines, I take weekly images and save them to removable solid state media. Except this retro gaming machine I'm using right now, and I just do a weekly clone to a second internal HDD.

I'm thinking I might add a friend or family member for an "off-site"

backup as well. Hey, ya never know when Murphy (and his annoying law!)
might show up, right? :)

LOL!! True, true :P
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

On 01 Mar 23 06:27:08 Oldbieone wrote...

Forming COOP plans was my bread and butter for a decade, so planning
for recovery has become ingrained. I used to run a 1/4 rack at home
for streaming years ago, built with failover in mind. Electricity
bills soon made that an expensive overkill, lol!

Now I just use cloud services.

For my personal machines, I take weekly images and save them to
removable solid state media. Except this retro gaming machine I'm
using right now, and I just do a weekly clone to a second internal
HDD.

I'm thinking I might add a friend or family member for an
"off-site"

backup as well. Hey, ya never know when Murphy (and his annoying
law!) might show up, right? :)

LOL!! True, true :P --- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32 * Origin:
realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

To which Darklord replies...

I know it's unreasonable, but for some reason I have an inherent distrust
of the cloud.

I know, I know...it's just one of those things, and honestly, it's
probably just me. <shrugs> :)


/\
Dark><Lord
\/

--- RATSoft/FIDO v09.14.95 [JetMail 1.01]
* Origin: STar Fleet HQ - Real Atari! bbs.sfhqbbs.org:5983 (21:3/171.0)

Darklord wrote to Oldbieone <=-

I know it's unreasonable, but for some reason I have an inherent
distrust of the cloud.

Not unreasonable, I'm sure you've had at least one vendor/provider pull
the rug out from under you.

Cloud services are great for startups and small companies, but they're a slippery slope of charges as you get bigger. My company is a huge AWS
client, and I was interested to read a blog post from the CTO at
37Signals, the people who make Basecamp. Interesting company.

They're pulling out of the cloud and posting numbers to support their
decision. At scale, there's an argument for doing it yourself.

"All Cloud All The Time" is a popular mantra among tech leadership, but
it comes at a cost. I'm interested to get more into hybrid cloud
offerings, where you can use on-premise and cloud services
interchangeably. If you have a workflow that doesn't need to be
accessible, doesn't need resiliency, keep it local.



... ZIMA TASTES BETTER WHEN IT'S ILLEGAL
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)

DL.. it isn't just you...
I have no trust in or use for the cloud...

Except when it was a cloud of smoke back in my old pot-smoking days of yesteryear.

--- RATSoft/FIDO v09.14.95 [JetMail 1.01]
* Origin: STar Fleet HQ - Real Atari! bbs.sfhqbbs.org:5983 (21:3/171.0)

On 03 Mar 23 10:11:12 Bf2K+ wrote...

DL.. it isn't just you... I have no trust in or use for the cloud...

Except when it was a cloud of smoke back in my old pot-smoking days
of yesteryear.

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To which Darklord replies...

Ah, but then we're talking about "enlightenment" with that cloud of
smoke! (and Cheech and Chong immortalized it!)... :)


/\
Dark><Lord
\/

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On 03 Mar 23 10:11:12 Bf2K+ wrote...

DL.. it isn't just you... I have no trust in or use for the cloud...

Except when it was a cloud of smoke back in my old pot-smoking days
of yesteryear.

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To which Commodore Clifford replies...

"The Cloud" is just someone else's data center.

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Commodore Clifford wrote to Bf2K+ <=-

"The Cloud" is just someone else's data center.

I understand that, but having hardware someone else manages (and back
up) is worth something. This, I say, after running crappy hardware in my
house open to the public for 30+ years.

I have a Synology NAS that I bought used a year ago. I don't know how
old it is, save for the fact that the OS is going EOL soon. I could take
all my stuff off of the cloud and run everything on it, but I don't want
to deal with what to do when the hardware fails.



... Meaningless in the absence of time. What never was is never again.
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Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Commodore Clifford on Wed Mar 15 2023 06:50 am

I have a Synology NAS that I bought used a year ago. I don't know how
old it is, save for the fact that the OS is going EOL soon. I could take
all my stuff off of the cloud and run everything on it, but I don't want
to deal with what to do when the hardware fails.

What you do is to have the content duplicated in yet another file server. That s is commonly known as a backup.

I got a bunch of EOLed SOHO NAS units at a huge discount from a local store the other day. EOLed units kind of suck, but as long as you place them in an isolated environment you should be fine. If you just firewall them so they cannot get traffic from the Internet and they cannot initiate their own connections you should be fine.

I ran some informal numbers recently (in fact they were going to be published in a Linux Magazine article, but the editorial team decided it was not wise to name the cloud offerings being compared). Having a pseudo-enterprise NAS of the sort True NAS users would recommend ends up costing you about the same money than buying business grade cloud storage past a certain point, with the advantage that a high-end NAS has your files local. ie. if you need to do disaster recovery and your backups are in the cloud, you are gonna suffer every second it takes to restore those 16 TB you have up there.



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Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Commodore Clifford on Wed Mar 15 2023 06:50 am

I understand that, but having hardware someone else manages (and back
up) is worth something. This, I say, after running crappy hardware in my house open to the public for 30+ years.

The fire in the OVH datacenter demonstrated that trusting the cloud to keep your data backed up is not necessarily a wise move.

I know people has lost up to six months of work due to issues with free or low-cost storage. If you care to read the ToS of cloud providers, they typically don t guarantee your data to be properly backed up unless you pay extra or get specific plans.

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Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Arelor to poindexter FORTRAN on Wed Mar 15 2023 06:26 pm

The fire in the OVH datacenter demonstrated that trusting the cloud to keep your data backed up is not necessarily a wise move.

If I were to run a BBS on a cloud server, I'm not sure they'd know how to back it up the way I want anyway. I might want one backup that just contains the files for the BBS, and perhaps another backup that contains my home directory contents, and perhaps a backup that would be an image of the OS drive.

Nightfox
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Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Arelor to poindexter FORTRAN on Wed Mar 15 2023 06:21 pm

What you do is to have the content duplicated in yet another file server. That s is commonly known as a backup.

What I'm doing now is using a HDD in my desktop to host my media, and using Resilio Sync to sync those folders to my NAS. The NAS backs up to an external drive, and shares the media via DLNA. I suppose that's 3 copies, but nothing offsite.
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On 15 Mar 23 19:02:36 Nightfox wrote...

Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used? By: Arelor
to poindexter FORTRAN on Wed Mar 15 2023 06:26 pm

The fire in the OVH datacenter demonstrated that trusting the
cloud to keep your data backed up is not necessarily a wise move.

If I were to run a BBS on a cloud server, I'm not sure they'd know
how to back it up the way I want anyway. I might want one backup
that just contains the files for the BBS, and perhaps another backup
that contains my home directory contents, and perhaps a backup that
would be an image of the OS drive.

Nightfox --- SBBSecho 3.20-Linux * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)

To which Commodore Clifford replies...

They're not going to care... all they'll do is image whatever they have
for you and it's up to you to figure that out. So whatever kind of
"storage account" you have set up with whatever cloud provider you have
out there will be restored. The structure of that data is not their
concern, it's yours. If you have that structured out to "emulate" a
dozen floppy drives, that's what you'll get back when they restore a
backup. It's different with each type of storage account out there, but
it's basically about "what you had, that's what you get back".

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Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Nightfox to Arelor on Wed Mar 15 2023 07:02 pm

Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Arelor to poindexter FORTRAN on Wed Mar 15 2023 06:26 pm

The fire in the OVH datacenter demonstrated that trusting the cloud to keep your data backed up is not necessarily a wise move.

If I were to run a BBS on a cloud server, I'm not sure they'd know how to ba
a backup that would be an image of the OS drive.

Nightfox
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I am not sure how they are keeping backups when they use giant hypervisors. They probably just snapshot them away, which is ok but does not guarantee a consistent backup of asynchronous applications.

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Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Arelor on Wed Mar 15 2023 07:09 pm

Re: Re: ArcaOS 5.0 - the "new" OS/2 Warp. Anyone used?
By: Arelor to poindexter FORTRAN on Wed Mar 15 2023 06:21 pm

What you do is to have the content duplicated in yet another file serve That s is commonly known as a backup.

What I'm doing now is using a HDD in my desktop to host my media, and using --- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
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That sounds sensible.

My personal stuff is backed up to a bunch of both local and remote (as in, I control the remote location) fileservers. My personal playground server I just dump(8) over the network to an expedient NAS built from a raspberry pi :-)

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