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Category: Software

For people running another operating systems such as Windows, MacOS or Linux, remote control software has been a normal tool to use for years already. A lot of helpdesks for example use Teamviewer. We however do not have a tool that enables people to provide suppor to OS/2 user. Older software remote control packages such as Netop OS/2 from Danware or older software such as PolyPM is no longer sold or the software is insecure.

So for who is this webpage?

People who need OS/2 support:

If you are an OS/2 user of OS/2, eComStation or ArcaOS and you have an issue you want resolved with OS/2, the Dutch OS/2 foundation might be able you to help you. Other options you have is to contact Arca Noae or a ticket here (you need to have an account created here). You can also discuss your issue here on the forum OS2WORLD forum or OS2.org for example.

Another option that OS/2 VOICE now offers with this new remote control software, if you have a working internet connection under OS/2, we can login into your OS/2 system with your help! If you have an OS/2 issue you are really stuck with it send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and if needed we can set up a remote control session. The service is free of charge. and if we resolve your issue any donation to OS/2 VOICE foundation is welcome.  Any donations made to OS/2 VOICE will be used to hire OS/2 developers to develop open source software for OS/2. Note: None of the OS/2 VOICE board members will be hired to perform any of this work!

You do not have to modify anything on your network or OS/2 system to run this software. We send it via email, you can at any moment of the support session, close the remote control support session if you want.  The current version of the remote control software does not provide file transfer or a chat support. However we can access your desktop. The connection is also encrypted so other parties can not break in.

Companies providing remote OS/2 support (last updated 7th of October 2018) are:

Blondeguy

If you want to be listed service provider using this tool to provide OS/2 support to customers, please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

People who want to provide support to OS/2 users/companies.

If you want to provide support to OS/2 users or companies you can download the remote control tool here. The sources can be downloaded here.

  • Inside the ZIP is a document called helpdeskt.txt with instructions how to setup the server portion of the software.
  • You will need to setup a port forward in your router or cable/ADSL modem
  • For each customer you help you create a new package.
  • When you send the "client" package to the customer via email, you might need to rename the file extension from .EXE to for example .EXQ.  This is to prevent that certain email providers such as Gmail (Google) that do not except emails with attachements that contain  a file name with the file extension .EXE.

Credentials

The remote control software is based on SSH and VNC server + client. Rich Walsh put the software in this single package. If you encounter any issue's with the software or you have any suggestions please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Disclaimer/License:

The disclaimer is very simple. This software is provided to anybody who wants to use it at no cost. For this reason the developer Rich Walsh, the VOICE foundation and/or its board members can not be held accountable in any way for any damages. Its provided free of charge to the world and support is provided on a best effort basis.

The fuil license can be found in the "remote control tool", in the ZIP file is a file called helpdesk.txt. See the section "License and Acknowledgements" .

 

Details
Category: VOICE

Dear OS/2 community,

 

As summer is more or less over (we hope you enjoyed your holidays!), we would like to recall the ongoing efforts to port the current Qt 5 framework to OS/2! During the summer break we have not collected that much money over the last 2 months. Most likely this was caused by the vacation period.

 

10 months ago the Dutch OS/2 VOICE foundation (referred as “VOICE”) teamed up with bww bitwise works GmbH (referred as "bitwise") in order to make Qt 5 a reality on OS/2.

 

Why Qt 5?

 

We already ported Qt 4 to OS/2 and it is an ongoing story of success. Qt 4 enabled us to have numerous applications that were easy to port to OS/2 because Qt is a platform independent framework from ground up. Just think of Quassel, PSi, VirtualBox, qpdfview, SMplayer and many more. The latest version we have at netlabs.org is version 4.7.3 and it is showing its age.

 

“bitwise” has already started to tackle the job and a lot has been done already. You may monitor our twitter feed or hook directly into our github repository in order to see what is being done right now. The goal is to repeat the success story of Qt 4 on a more modern basis.

 

And there is a bonus…

 

We had to acknowledge that Firefox has become more or less undoable for us, from version 52 onward. Why? Please, read this article, it fully covers this topic http://articles.os2voice.org.

 

Now what about the bonus? A significant part of Qt 5 is QtWebEngine and that is the basis for many Qt-based web browsers (most notably, Falkon which is a new name for QupZilla). QtWebEngine uses Chromium, an open source web engine used by Google in their very successful Google Chrome web browser. The current plan is to port Chromium as part of QtWebEngine. But later this port may be used standalone, e.g. to port Google Chrome to OS/2 (if Google ever makes Chrome itself open source).

 

The leap from version Qt 4.7.3 to version 5.11 is a huge one. But we are on track:  25% have already been done as described in this roadmap.

 

And that brings us to the next item:

Good software does not grow on trees. Unfortunately not.

 

Both Herwig Bauernfeind and most notably Silvan Scherrer make little to no money from "bitwise" and work by and large for free. However “bitwise” is a commercial company driven by 3 OS/2 enthusiasts.

The 3rd “bitwiser”, Dmitriy Kuminov, is not in the position to work for free. Dmitriy works as a full time developer and unlike Silvan and Herwig, Dmitriy has to make a living from that. And driving a company brings costs for many kinds of stuff that has to be provided in order to make it run.

 

Dmitriy now works fully on the Qt 5 port. The goal is to get it going and provide it for free to the community.

 

That said, "bitwise" is not the manufacturer of ArcaOS and is not affiliated with Arca Noae LLC. Both companies are strategic partners, but beside that they are completely separate companies.

 

Therefore, we encourage all members of the OS/2 community to support us:

 * You can buy your license of ArcaOS or subscription via the "bitwise" online shop.

 

* You can make a direct donation via the OS/2 Paypal donation button:

Donation for BWW QT/browser campaign

Another new way to sponsor BWW monthly is by using Patreon. Each month you donate an amount you decide.

This is a statement that was jointly written by the Dutch OS/2 VOICE foundation and bww bitwise works GmbH.

 

Best regards,

 

Roderick Klein             &    The "bitwise" team

Dutch OS/2 VOICE foundation         Silvan, Herwig and Dmitriy



Details
Category: VOICE

Here is finally the 5th update of the VOICE QT 5/browser funding campaign. Sorry for the long delay again some private issue's
with the health of a family member required some attention . So where do we stand ?

The porting of QT 5 has began and the first part of what was outlined in the roadmap is finished.

A total of 5000+7825=12825 US Dollars were collected.
The funding campaign from Sigurd Fastenrath on os2.org collected a total of 4430 Euro.

OS/2 VOICE has currently spent the money in the following way:
Development for May and June have been paid with an amount of 4000 US Dollar per month.

To fullfill Sigurd his campaign OS/2 VOICE sponsored 1650 Euro. This was done, because the orginal target was set to
4250 Euro. And when the target would not be reached the whole campaign would have been withdrawn with no money collected. This money was directly send to bww bitwise works GmbH (hereinafter called BWW).

The people at BWW would like to thank everybody for sponsoring/donating. However as you may understand we need more money for this big project to keep moving forward. The current Qt version 4.7.3 we have on OS/2 (to be found as rpm at Netlabs) shows it's age and a lot newer applications need Qt 5 as a requirement. That's the version BWW is porting right now. There are several reasons this is such a large project. The most notable is that Qt (Qt 5) envolved a lot since version 4.7.3. In summary why Qt is important and usefull for OS/2 (ArcaOS): Qt makes software development smarter. It is a powerful plattform neutral framework that makes it easy to bring many applications to OS/2 that were written for various other plattforms. Right now we have more than 270 Qt based applications and with Qt 5 even more can be ported.

What BWW does in the background when working on major ports.

We (OS/2 VOICE and BWW) try to make all OS/2 users aware of what work is being done to keep software ports created. Next to major projects such as Firefox and Qt BWW maintains a total of over 260 projects for OS/2 which are distributed via Netlabs RPM. To get a better understanding of what BWW does, please look at the presentation SIlvan Scherrer he gave at Warpstock Europe 2018. Dmitry Kuminov (the main developer at BWW) also gave a presentation at Warpstock Europe 2018.

It gives a better idea what massive amount of work BWW has to do to keep a lot of applications on our favorite operating system  running. What Dmitry explained is that porting software to OS/2 is sometimes a very labour intensive process because certain libraries need to be ported first. Some libraries (DLL) we do not have on OS/2 or we have older versions and they need to be updated. This is why porting applications to OS/2 can take longer or even a lot longer.

We need your donations

100% of your donation will go to BWW.  All information in these postings has been jointly written and approved with BWW.

Previosly OS/2 VOICE did not have a Paypal account. If you want you can now donate with Paypal directly to VOICE. We found a way to make administration easier for our treasurer. This is especially convenient for people living in the European Union. If you want to send a wire transfer please visit the ourwebsite for details.

Donation for BWW QT/browser campaign

But you can of course also donate via the Arca Noae website. This is handy if you want to make a donation in US Dollars. I

Details
Category: VOICE

The new browser funding campaign from OS/2 VOICE for bww bitwise works GmbH (hereinafter called BWW), has so far collected $12,650.00.

The following roadmap is provided by BWW . The roadmap estimates where made after research was finished in March of 2018. Please note that estimates are a best effort estimate and no work has been done on QT for a few years. It might go faster, but it might take longer to finish the project. BWW might encounter issue's along the way that may result in the project taking longer. As mentioned in update number 3 we are moving towards a QT based browser. And the QT libraries are a mayor step in this process! QT libraries make up about 90% of a QT based browser.

The table below lists the project milestones and estimated time frames for each milestone. Note that the order of subtasks with is not necessarily chronological as some components intermix so that they should be worked on in parallel.

Task Estimated time:
1. Port qtbase submodule
This consists of the following parts:		 12 months
1.1. Port basic tools
This includes qmake, moc, uic, rcc and some other console tools.		 1 month
1.2. Port Qt Core
Basic classes like file and console I/O, various utility functions.		 2 months
1.3. Port GUI (excluding OpenGL)
Classes for basic 2D drawing in desktop windows and GUI application
management.		 3 months
1.4. Port Qt Network
Only IPv4 parts will be ported to OS/2 due to the lack of IPv6 support.		 1 month
1.5. Port Qt SQL
This includes porting a number of SQL drivers (mysql, sqlite).		 2 weeks
1.6. Port Qt Test 2 weeks
1.7. Port Qt Widgets
This module contains the most code for the ​qtbase​ submodule and requires most effort. Not all classes of this module are to be ported to
OS/2 due to limitations of the platform.		 4 months

2. Port qtwebengine submodule

This includes porting not only Qt wrappers for Chromium but also individual Chromium components such as Skia and much more.

 6 months

The total time to reach the primary target is estimated at ​18 months​.

You can buy sponsor units for the project here: https://www.arcanoae.com/shop/os2-voice-browser-sponsorship/

Of your donation 100% goes to BWW. BWW has developed software exclusively for OS/2 since 2012 and has made mayor contributions to providing free downloadable software to the OS/2 community. But they need your support!

For people want know more about this project you can download the PDF here. The status of the port can be followed on the following URL from BWW. This page is currently empty (5th of May 2018), but will soon contain more information about the status. The reason OS/2 VOICE started collecting funding before the project is being started is because we need a lot of money.

Currently BWW is working to wrapping up Firefox 45 so its stable enough for a final release. This browser is being finalized so we have a stable browser until the new QT browser is finished.

 

 

  1. Browser funding campaign update 3
  2. LAN server installation utility
  3. OS/2 VOICE foundation in 2018
  4. Update on the VOICE browser funding campaign
  5. Sponsorship needed for new OS/2 web browser
  6. OS/2 voice an update from the chairman