Author Topic: ecs2.2 beta refresh  (Read 80371 times)

guzzi

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ecs2.2 beta refresh
« on: December 14, 2013, 06:19:06 pm »
Just downloaded the beta and saw that it is a new one. Looks like the drivers have been updated like in the demo.

Doug Bissett

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Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
« Reply #1 on: December 15, 2013, 04:17:27 am »
Just downloaded the beta and saw that it is a new one. Looks like the drivers have been updated like in the demo.

Works for me!

Well, I installed it on my Lenovo T510. I haven't done a lot of testing, but the install seems to be what I wanted, with no trouble.

It took a while to get the second beta, but Well done.

It seems that there are still a couple of minor problems that have not been fixed, but I have seen nothing, yet, that will cause trouble.

Sigurd Fastenrath

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Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2013, 11:21:07 am »
Just downloaded and tested it with my X230t.

The Installation went well once I changed the boot order from <first ahci, second danis> to <first danis, second ahci>.
I was not able to Format the Installation drive with JFS, HPFS went OK, - I guess it was due to my testing with cloning before.

So, in short:


PRO:

- Installation went well
- very fast booting
- AHCI and ACPI seems to work well
- Power Management etc. works well
- Split View and PNG Desktop (ecs.ru) are not set as Default anymore  :)
- USB seems to work well


CONS:
- still no Support for WLAN later 2007
- DOS16 and WINOS2 do not work due to Limitation of Panorama
- UNIAUD still not able to handle two Sound Adapters (HDMI and AC97) so still no Sound
- 512MB RAM Problem on modern core-i processors still there

But, yes, this is a really well Beta II!

I heard rumours David is working on WLAN Multimac for Intel chipsets, and I guess the 512 MB RAM Problem could be solved once Mensys is able to merge the enhancements of the OS/4 Loader with the ecs one.

It is really worth a try, finally. Well done


Roderick Klein

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Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
« Reply #3 on: December 15, 2013, 04:49:08 pm »
Please note the readme:

eComStation 2.2 beta III will follow before the final release.
This interim release is done to test that most issue's with USB, AHCI
and disk geometry problems are resolved.

This release does not address all bugs open currently in the eCS
bugtracker.

So another eCS beta III will follow and soon as a possible. But the device drivers prevented so many people from even installing eCS 2.2 beta I on many systems.
This beta should address most of the issue's like USB and Realtek and OS2SAHCI problems. We should at least say mayor progress.

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.

Doug Bissett

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Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2013, 07:00:50 pm »
Quote
This release does not address all bugs open currently in the eCS
bugtracker.

True, and I will add a new one, shortly. The Printer installer, and manager (Printman.exe), are using a non-English language on my systems. I have:
SET LANG=en_CA
but the language used appears to be Dutch (just guessing). The problem seems to be that printmen.msg is not in English.

I have now got it installed to my Lenovo ThinkPad L530. It still has the expected problems (512 meg memory limit, and sound problems), but it seems to be working okay otherwise.

I also installed it to my ancient test system (800 mhz Athlon on a Gigabyte motherboard). That one is a bit tricky because it doesn't have a DVD drive, and it won't boot from the USB DVD drive that I have. The trick is to burn a bootable CD with the BOOTIMGS directory on it. Then, boot the CD, and select use your own settings to add the USB support for the CD drive, and check off "install from CD" (perhaps that stuff should say "DVD", or "CD/DVD"). I also added another directory, that contains my eCS install keys, for convenience. Now, I boot from the CD, and it installs from the USB DVD drive.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
« Reply #5 on: December 16, 2013, 01:29:24 am »
and disk geometry problems are resolved.

Does this mean that Beta 2 fixes the limitation of the "disk geometry problems" which the only workaround was to erase all the Hard disk partition and re-create them with eComStation?

That will be so cool for dual boot machines.
Martin Iturbide
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eirik

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Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
« Reply #6 on: December 16, 2013, 02:21:14 am »
Dear Martin and others wondering on this,

(1) Even under the old boot manager it was possible to keep the Win partition (but the safety/utilities partition had to go).  Just shrink the win partion using LVM (see my December 2010 installation remarks for the Lenovo T410 on eComStation.ru: http://en.ecomstation.ru/hardware.php?action=item&id=1976 ).

(2) Even better - since the 1.03 release of the AirBot boot manager one is even able to keep the safety/utilities partition.  Again, use LVM to size partitions and mark, and make an installable partition where eCS is put.  Further details: see my Aug. 2011 installation remarks for eCS 2.1 on a Lenovo T410 on eComStation.ru: http://en.ecomstation.ru/hardware.php?action=item&id=2046 .

Please note that LVM and the both the old boot manager or AirBot v1.03 or later make the Win boot manager redundant. 

Also, thanks to the AirBot developer M. Kiewitz, past eCS developers and those now working on eCS 2.2 for making it possible to have eCS on modern hardware (too few thanks are given!). 

Finally - I now even have WiFi on my T410 with a little work-around (see http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.netlabs.genmac.user/3531/match= )

Eirik
« Last Edit: December 17, 2013, 09:30:35 am by Eirik Romstad »

Neil Waldhauer

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Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
« Reply #7 on: December 16, 2013, 03:41:18 pm »
The beta fixes my installation on Lenovo Thinkpad X60, which has normal issues of an aging laptop. Before eWPS would crash, both during installation and during normal boot. I'm guessing the problem was the battery widget, which still gives wrong information, but no longer crashes.

I'm interested in the posts on newer laptops. It appears that Thinkpads in the xy10 series work, but in the xy30 have the memory hole. I have gotten my W500 WiFi to work, but I'm interested in how that would be on a newer laptop. I would like to see a reasonable function on a laptop currently for sale. The xy40 series is current.
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Chenbiao

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Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
« Reply #8 on: December 16, 2013, 10:51:34 pm »
Quite impressive.

I tried with a Dell Latitude E6420 and the installation was very smooth. ACPI runs with 4-cores i5 cpu, although the sound card was not recognized during the installation config but I forced to install the uniaud and after reboot it works fine. The network card works fine but the wifi can't be recognized. A pity is the touch pad doesn't work. Only possible to use external usb mouse.

Most important is I installed the eCS to a eSata SSD, it's just like a usb disk but can directly plug in the eSATA port. For me it means I'll never be bothered with the dual system installation on one HD anymore, just plug the SSD and start the computer with boot selection then I can use eCS without influence to the internal XP. Rrealy cool!

Joop

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Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
« Reply #9 on: December 21, 2013, 02:18:52 pm »
A pity is the touch pad doesn't work. Only possible to use external usb mouse.
Its not written with that much words, but you could download the Wacom Bamboo driver with http://joopn.home.xs4all.nl/os2ecs/download/Wacom_Bamboo00.zip .  In the manual are a few hints what to do with a new not automatic recognized system. You could try to do just that, may be it works.

Regards,
Joop

Doug Bissett

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Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
« Reply #10 on: December 22, 2013, 05:58:11 am »
Well, I just had an "interesting" install experience. I was messing around with Linux on my Lenovo ThinkPad L530, and really messed up the hard disk. Do NOT try to change partitions with Linux (specifically Linux Mint 16)  :( . Since I really don't have anything on that system anyway, I decided to restore it to "factory default". After I got windows running, and updated, I used windows to shrink the C: drive to about 140 GB. It also has a 1.5 GB windows boot partition, and a 10 GB recovery partition, at the end of the disk. That left a big empty spot in the middle of the disk, so I proceeded to install eCS 2.2 beta II. The disk integrity test failed, so I let it "fix" the problem. Okay, now the disk integrity test is happy, but miniLVM complains about a corrupt partition table, and it will allow no actions.

After using DFSEE (11.4, since that is what I have a CD for), to attempt to fix the problems, I tried again. MiniLVM still saw a corrupt partition table, and would allow no changes.

Back to DFSEE, where I created the partitions that I wanted, with no trouble.

Now, miniLVM is still not happy about the partition table, but it will allow install to the partitions that DFSEE created. It also installed AirBoot.

So, I formatted the eCS volumes, and installed eCS 2.2 beta II.

It does work, but somebody who has never seen eCS before hasn't got a hope of ever getting it installed, without some serious hand holding. The main problem seems to be that miniLVM is not capable of doing the job. Perhaps it needs to be replaced by DFSEE, but that is also far too complicated for a user who has no idea what (s)he is doing.

Dave Yeo

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Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
« Reply #11 on: December 22, 2013, 09:36:54 pm »
The problem is that OS/2 is old and particular about partitions starting on cylinder boundries while all other operating systems know that cylinders don't even exist anymore. You used Windows to change partition size and the boundaries ended up wrong. Same with Linux with the added problems that Linux will use the same reserved areas as the OS/2 LVM thus destroying the LVM info.
The advice has always been, only use OS/2 tools to do anything to the partitions except changing the partition ID.
There used to be howtos shipped with Linux including this, http://www.ru.j-npcs.org/usoft/WWW/HOWTO/mini/Linux+DOS+Win95+OS2 and some similar ones. Perhaps it needs updating and included with eCS.

Doug Bissett

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Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
« Reply #12 on: December 23, 2013, 08:26:30 am »
Quote
The problem is that OS/2 is old and particular about partitions starting on cylinder boundries while all other operating systems know that cylinders don't even exist anymore.

Well, that isn't quite what I was getting at. My main point was that miniLVM is far to particular, while DFSEE can do the job with no trouble. OS/2 itself (disguised as eCS 2.2) doesn't seem to care, once DFSEE gets the partitions set up.

Linux (Mint 64) somehow got the partition table out of sequence, which DFSEE complained about, but wouldn't fix. It did not destroy LVM info, and eCS was working fine, after it was messed up. I only noticed that there was a problem, when I ran DFSEE. I decided to restore to the default (factory) setup, partly to see what the eCS 2.2 beta II installer would do with it. There were other problems in Win7 PRO anyway. Without DFSEE, it would not be possible to install eCS 2.2 beta II on the Lenovo ThinkPad L530 (and probably most machines with similar setups).

David McKenna

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Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
« Reply #13 on: December 24, 2013, 05:09:51 pm »
 Finally got to try this and was able to quickly install on 3 different machines with full functionality: 1 laptop and 2 desktops of various age. I agree with Sigurd's list of Pros and Cons. The one con I would add is no multiple sound streams. Overall it is a good version of eCS and well worth trying out. Thanks Roderick and everyone at Mensys ... and Merry Christmas!

Eugene Tucker

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Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
« Reply #14 on: December 24, 2013, 05:20:47 pm »
The eCS 2.2 Beta II install went without a hitch for me.  Runs fine so far.