Hardware Requirements

Intel Pentium Pro or higher, or an AMD K6 or higher. 64 Bit CPUs are supported (however ArcaOS will run in 32-bit mode). Computers with ARM CPUs are not supported. The Vortex86 CPU is not sufficiently compatible to run ArcaOS.

The system’s BIOS (including a UEFI BIOS) must properly enumerate and set up all required devices in the system. Systems with a BIOS (including a UEFI BIOS) that does not properly enumerate and set up all the required devices in a system are not compatible with ArcaOS (and OS/2 in general).

If you are going to use the ACPI driver (ACPI.PSD), the system must have a fully functional ACPI that properly reports all hardware including any additional plug-in cards. The ACPI driver has workarounds for some common minor ACPI defects, so systems with these minor ACPI defects will work. Systems with a seriously broken ACPI will not work properly or may not work at all.

For UEFI-based systems, a fully-implemented CSM (Compatibility Support Module) is required (this may be identified as “legacy support” in system setup).

A hard disk or SSD drive with traditional MBR partitioning with cylinder alignment (GPT is not supported and MiB alignment is not supported).

For audio, a chipset supported by Uniaud 2.0 (ALSA 1.0.24).

LAN and/or WLAN chipset supported by MultiMac, GenMAC, or other drivers.

For USB, USB 1.1, USB 2.0 and/or USB 3 standards-compliant USB controllers.

Arca Noae is continuously working to keep a current Hardware Compatibility List. The following are some general guidelines. Most mainboard chipsets will work, but we do not recommend Nvidia chipsets. Almost all video chipsets will work with the Panorama driver. For supported network cards please visit the MultiMac wiki to see which NIC chipsets are supported. Make certain your system has support for USB 1.x, USB 2.0, and/or USB 3. Any overclocking settings must be disabled so that the CPU, memory, and/or other system components are not being overclocked. Overclocked hardware is not supported. Any HyperThreading settings should be disabled. HyperThreading is not recommended and not supported. SCSI hardware may cause problems because the OS/2 SCSI drivers require an old style system configuration that won’t work on modern systems. SCSI hardware is not recommended for use with ArcaOS on modern systems. If you have a need for a specific SCSI system, contact Arca Noae customer service for a quote on a custom SCSI driver.



You may also find this related wiki page useful, listing some hardware known to work with ArcaOS.

Software Requirements

ArcaOS 5.0 will not migrate an existing OS/2 or eComStation installation. However, if you have a spare partition you can install ArcaOS 5.0 next to the current OS/2 installation. It is always good practice to have two tested (backed up and restored) backups of any data located on the system to which you are installing, even if installing to current free space. ArcaOS 5.0 has been tested with numerous existing OS/2 software packages, and should be compatible with most applications which have been produced for OS/2 which were compatible with OS/2 Warp 4.



Virtualized Installations

Tested hypervisors: VirtualBox 5.x, 6.x; VMware ESXi 5.x, 6.x; VMware Workstation Pro 12.x, 15.x; Connectix Virtual PC; Microsoft Virtual PC 2004; Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 256MB RAM for guest OS bare minimum; 1024MB recommended VT-x compatible host hardware, with VT-x enabled in the host and the guest (host computers with ARM CPUs are not supported under any hypervisor) ACPI enabled (for complete shutdown/power off of guest under VirtualBox and VMware hypervisors, and perhaps others) PC-Net III or Intel virtual NIC (Intel supported by MultiMac)



Application-specific Requirements

Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey

2GB RAM 512MB available space on installation volume 8GB available disk space on profile volume long filename support (JFS, HPFS) for profile data



OpenJRE (Java 1.6)

2GB RAM 512MB available space on installation volume

