Long Live OS/2. Why should you try ArcaOS?
Brief History
OS/2. The first time I’ve heard about this Operating System was somewhere in the late 1990s. I was a kid back in Russia and I’ve always had an eye on exploring different operating systems, including OS/2 and Linux. OS/2 was a stable and customizable alternative to Windows.
There is more to it and learning more about it gives a broader perspective on the market of operating systems in the 1990s. Initial versions of OS/2 were developed by both Microsoft and IBM. The “breakup” has happened around 1990 and between Windows 3.0 and OS/2 1.3 release. IBM continued to develop OS/2 until 1996 when Warp 4 was released. Afterward, it was clear that Microsoft took a lead and OS/2 can’t compete with it anymore. Only patches were released up until 2001 when it all stopped.
I was interested in learning more about it back in those days. There were some specific problems with it. It was much harder to obtain, it had more limited driver support and fewer applications worked there comparing to Windows. Much less.
Eventually, those were the primary reasons why the Operating System battle was lost in the favor of Microsoft and Windows. Oh, marketing was also not that great on the IBM side.
The idea of obtaining OS/2 never came to life to me until 2020. Since I’ve had…
