The osFree project has published its first screenshot. "osFree is an open source free (non-commercial) software development project. Goals of the projects are to replace all (or most) of OS/2's subsystems with open-source analogues. The base compatibility system is OS/2 Warp 4 (Merlin), but that doesn't mean we won't be supporting features of newer versions of OS/2 like OS/2 WarpServer for e-business and eComStation by Serenity Systems."
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Member since:OS/2 was a big clunky OS that reminded you that its owners liked to build operating systems for big old mainframes. It barely seemed to fit on a PC.
It was way ahead of its time and could be a pain in the kneck to install. I recall video drivers running at ring zero and crashing the whole OS.
Once you had it installed correctly it would run forever and was as solid as a rock.
There was very little software for OS/2 but it could run Windows programs.
Member since:2005-07-12
OS/2 Warp 4 could be made to run on a 4MB machine (as you could completely drop the GUI and run it using a freeware third-party text shell), and its resource usage has always been significantly less than Windows NT and its descendants.
OS/2 Video drivers do not run at Ring 0 -- you must be thinging of Windows NT 4?
OS/2 is lacking in certain types of software, but the fact that it runs DOS and Windows stuff makes up for some of that lack, putting it ahead of all but Windows and Linux in terms of available software. And maybe MacOSX, though it's a specialized case.
Member since:2005-10-02
OS/2 was and is an efficient OS with a minimal footprint on the system.
OS 3.X could easily run in 4 MB of RAM while NT required at least 16 and the same for Win95.
Software could be a bit problematic, but most major applications got ported to OS/2 one way or the other. And those who weren't could still run due to the great support for DOS and Windows applications. Especially the DOS support was great. Much better than anything I've seen later, apart from DOSBox 
Member since:2005-07-12
Member since:
The UI had queing issues, causing it to 'hang'. Other than that, it wasn't like DOS at all. It took years for Windows to reach a similar level, and even then the desktop under Windows isn't nearly as nice.
Being an old OS/2 advocate, I'm in the 'let it go away like the Amiga' crowd. (Of course, there are plenty of current Amiga fans, so what do I know!)
Currently, everything seems to be either Unix, Unix-like, or repeating the lessons learned in Unix (that would be Windows). So, why not just use a *nix and be done with it?