Author Topic: OS/2 Warp 3 - Installation  (Read 10816 times)

jkpalmer

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OS/2 Warp 3 - Installation
« on: April 22, 2017, 05:16:44 pm »
Hi,  I found my OS/2 Warp 3 CD (no diskettes to be found).

Can't find any printed manual, so would like to get pointed in that direction first.

I'm wondering if I can install on an old PC that I have and if so, what are the hardware limits / requirements.

Do I need diskettes to install or can I install straight from CD?

Help appreciated.

Jim P.

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Re: OS/2 Warp 3 - Installation
« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2017, 06:03:32 pm »
Hi,

The original warp 3 CD requires a lot of hand-holding to get it installed.  By its lonesome and without updates you'll at a minimum need to create some boot disks to get the process started.  If I recall there is a batch (or .cmd) file in the root folder of the CD that can create the disks for you.

But - the original install disks didn't work well with most hardware out there, so you'll need to update the boot disks with IBM's Warpinst - a package that IBM first released shortly after the release of Warp 3 when they started getting endless phone calls from users who couldn't get past the install without a trap.  You can grab it from:

ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/ps/products/os2/fixes/v3.0warp/english-us/warpinst/

For the original unpatched CD you will need either older hardware, or access to a Warp machine that is up and running.  For those with a copy of Warp up and running it used to be possible to create a patched install CD that you could boot directly from with a packaged called updcd but I don't know if this is still possible - I have not tried this package in several years.

I do see that updcd is still available on Hobbes, but I know that updcd would download fixes and patches from various sources on the web to do the magic that it does.  I don't know if it'll still work or not.

Ultimately it is still possible to make a working Warp 3 box if you have older hardware and the time to spare.  I've done it on Pentium 4 era PC's (around 12 years old now).  If you're working with the original CD the trick is to 1) find a machine with floppy drive, 2) create your fixed install disks, 3) if the machine is SATA based for its hard disks then you'll need the Danis506 drivers on the install media, 4) Don't use too large a hard disk or it'll fail, 5) If you do happen to get it up and running to a desktop you'll want to install the latest FP available for the machine or it'll be unreliable for you (the last one that IBM made available for Warp 3 is FP40, Warp 3 server they did release a FP43). 

I seem to recall that one time I tried to do a Warp 3 install with an unpatched CD I ran into an issue where it trapped if I had more then 512 MB installed.  Getting down to 512MB (or less) involved digging through old memory and such - but eventually I got it up and running.  After installing FP40 it would run when I put 2 GB into the machine (it still didn't recognize the full 2 GB as available due to the way the kernel handles memory on Warp 3).

Good luck!

Something to consider - given the fact that Warp 3 was released 23 years ago (1994) unless you're doing this for fun you might just want to wait for Blue Lion. 

Martin Iturbide

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Re: OS/2 Warp 3 - Installation
« Reply #2 on: April 22, 2017, 07:11:08 pm »
Hi Jim

If it is open for consideration I would recommend you first to install Warp 3 on a Virtual Machine (Virtualbox) on a host machine (Windows or Linux) for practice.
You require the floppies on Warp 3, there was no "boot from CD" edition on that version. So you need to grab the .DSK files from the CD, you require the first three diskettes and from that it will install from the CD.
 
On a VM I would suggest first to grab the three first diskettes images (the are inside the CD) and from the DSK format, transform it to .IMA (You can use WinImage on Windows). And conver the CD to ISO.  With those files run a VM and install the OS so you can get used on how was the install procedure. 

On real hardware:
Once you want to move to real hardware, you require the floppy drive, diskettes and to update the install diskettes so it recognize the CD and the HDD drive size (according to the size), just like Fahrvenugen suggest.

Depending on the hardware you will require to find the right drivers and install it to have network, better video, sound, etc.

If you install it and get some traps, messages and error, post it back here to check if we can help.

Regards

Note: I always wanted to create the "Updating Warp 3" wiki page just like I have for Warp 4.52 but I never got the time to create it.
« Last Edit: April 22, 2017, 07:18:59 pm by Martin Iturbide »
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Dave Yeo

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Re: OS/2 Warp 3 - Installation
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2017, 08:15:55 pm »
There's always the old warpupdates site. A lot of the links are now broken but Google is your friend.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060926004818/http://www.warpupdates.mynetcologne.de/english/site_contents.html

Fahrvenugen

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Re: OS/2 Warp 3 - Installation
« Reply #4 on: April 23, 2017, 09:23:53 pm »

Note: I always wanted to create the "Updating Warp 3" wiki page just like I have for Warp 4.52 but I never got the time to create it.

Martin,

At on point I'd actually had a long set of instructions on getting Warp 3 running on more recent hardware, back in the day I found myself regularly supporting Warp 3.  I'm not sure where my original file is but I did find through searching stuff that I've posted much of the information at:

http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,378.msg3311.html#msg3311 (referencing the German language updates)

http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,378.msg3312.html#msg3312 (referencing the German language updates)

http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,158.msg1227.html#msg1227

http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,177.msg1401.html#msg1401

Checking the various download links in those messages, most of them refer to the original IBM ftp locations and the files still appear to be available.


xynixme

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Re: OS/2 Warp 3 - Installation
« Reply #5 on: April 25, 2017, 01:29:56 am »
I'm wondering if I can install on an old PC that I have and if so, what are the hardware limits / requirements.

What's the old PC exactly (brand/model/type/CPU/memory/HD capacity/main components)?