By Corbin Davenport
Publication Date: 2026-03-10 17:14:00
IBM OS/2 was an alternative to Microsoft Windows throughout the 1990s, but Microsoft won out in the end, and the operating system was relegated to niche use cases. Over 24 years since the final OS/2 release, and 19 years since IBM’s support ended, the officially-sanctioned continuation ArcaOS is still going.
ArcaOS 5.1.2 was released on March 8, 2026, with bug fixes for UEFI-based computers, localization improvements, newer USB and NVMe drivers, and other minor changes. It’s not an exciting update, but its mere existence is strange and fascinating. Even though there are some modern enhancements, ArcaOS hasn’t diverged much from the final release of OS/2 Warp 4.52, which IBM put out in December 2001 before ending all OS/2 support in December 2006.
IBM and Microsoft developed the first few versions of OS/2 (also called “Operating System/2”) in the late 1980s and early 1990s, intended as the eventual replacement for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. However, the two…
