Preview: eComStation 2.2 Beta, the legacy of OS/2 lives on

[Andy Willis]

In theory it sounds nice but in practice here are some of the pitfalls of sticking to specific models/brands of computers.

1. Not every hardware vendor has the same model on sale everywhere around the world. I can mention one example we needed an HP workstation for a large customer.
It had different part numbers and different models world wide. Or some PC brands are not even for sale worldwide!

2. Some companies Mensys does business with has a preferred brand they want to use for example Dell. Such a list would then not work.

3. if we focus on a subset of hardware its still not going to safe us. Because how long will hardware be for sale and what happens if the vendor brings out a new BIOS with an ACPI in the BIOS that is suddenly broken. Years back I once had it with a T42 that had APM suspend/resume problems and another T42 did not. Turned out it was a BIOS revision problem...

To answer in short terms: "Using that Theory"  must be the reason why Apple failed during the last years, I guess..... 

Apple is not a good comparison when coming to hardware.  They own their hardware architecture. 

[Roderick Klein]

Well Sigurd sorry to see you leave. It was a pleasure working with you. About some of the bugs where you got no response. I sometimes called you or send you an email to give you access to the latest internal test versions of eCS and ACPI.  So that might have not been documented, I can't remember.

What I meant with fairytale is the ever lasting discussion about using APM laptops.  I call it fairytale because does machines have in my opinion died out. Certainly some people use them but the vast majority of people that preload eCS on native hardware use somehting new. Now that suspend resume does not on all machines is also something we still need to fix. But looking how eCS 2.2 is now working. We also don't have unlimited human and financial resources.

About the differences between Warp MCP 4.52 and eCS. Well yes if you patch in our current drivers I don't realy see where MCP is then that much different compared to MCP.
Apart from all of the other updated system components and downright old installer the *core* differences between kernel and other systems components from IBM such as workplace shell is almost no difference. So I don't realy know how eCS 2.x would be far more unstable then MCP 2. If you have that observation, then oke.

Also don't forget that eCS 2.x is also way more advanced then MCP 2 in terms of supported devices and installer.  But at its core is almost not the a different OS except bug fixes from IBM.
Infact the MCP 2 has know defects with fixpaks.

As for the fact that Apple is so successful. We don't have an Apple hardware factory. We get cooperate customers that simply knock on the door and ask if machine X,Y.Z. works.
There are basically no companies that ask for a specific model if its supported. They just ask if a model they have is supported.

Anyway thank you for your years of contribution Sigurd.

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.

[warpcafe]

Hi,

I know I'm late for ranting, and certainly this is not related to the context of the last posts, but:

Is it just me or is it completely ridiculuous and unprofessional (sorry, Mensys) to publish a demo for an operating system without WIFI support, especially if the actual OS in fact HAS support for Wifi? Were you not granted permission to include it?

I mean, hey, we're 2013, folks! I'm doing ten times more on wireless connections with phone, tablet or notebook/laptop than with an RJ45 cable attached to some plug. I wasn't upset, perhaps a bit disappointed on the inside, but I definitely was ... speechless. When the demo started up, I went like "hey, no, wait... this can't be real. Am I doing something wrong? No, they must be kidding". I sincerely cross fingers and light a candle that we'll soon see a demoCD refresh with a "WiFi supported!" sticker attached.

Frankly: I don't care if APM or ACPI versus suspend/resume works. I don't care that the lame Panorama now is faster than before (and still slower than my crappy Android phone while we're at it). I don't care about these incredibly improved, groundshakingly different desktop icons. And heck, I don't even care about USB improvements if I could trade all this for an OOTB WIFI support.

Regards,
Thomas

[Andreas Schnellbacher]

Is it just me or is it completely ridiculuous and
unprofessional (sorry, Mensys) to publish a demo for an operating
system without WIFI support, especially if the actual OS in fact HAS
support for Wifi? Were you not granted permission to include it?

I suspect that's not the point. Apparently all GenMAC drivers don't
work and that applies also for all elder MAC drivers I've tested.

Frankly: I don't care if APM or ACPI versus suspend/resume works.

I do. The current situation is that ACPI lets one install eCS and
also to work with it, provided that it's not the newest HW. Resume
doesn't work and on the first APM-able Notebook I've tested, ACPI
produces more heat than APM with SpeedStep enabled.

BTW: Apparently the demo CD doesn't even support suspend, at least
what I've tested.

I don't care that the lame Panorama now is faster than before (and
still slower than my crappy Android phone while we're at it). I don't
care about these incredibly improved, groundshakingly different desktop
icons.

Good points.

Andreas

[onlineuser2]

Hi,


Frankly: I don't care if APM or ACPI versus suspend/resume works. I don't care that the lame Panorama now is faster than before (and still slower than my crappy Android phone while we're at it). I don't care about these incredibly improved, groundshakingly different desktop icons. And heck, I don't even care about USB improvements if I could trade all this for an OOTB WIFI support.

you are right.   wifi, wifi, wifi !!!!!!!!

hi

[Roderick Klein]

Hi,

I know I'm late for ranting, and certainly this is not related to the context of the last posts, but:

Is it just me or is it completely ridiculuous and unprofessional (sorry, Mensys) to publish a demo for an operating system without WIFI support, especially if the actual OS in fact HAS support for Wifi? Were you not granted permission to include it?

I mean, hey, we're 2013, folks! I'm doing ten times more on wireless connections with phone, tablet or notebook/laptop than with an RJ45 cable attached to some plug. I wasn't upset, perhaps a bit disappointed on the inside, but I definitely was ... speechless. When the demo started up, I went like "hey, no, wait... this can't be real. Am I doing something wrong? No, they must be kidding". I sincerely cross fingers and light a candle that we'll soon see a demoCD refresh with a "WiFi supported!" sticker attached.

Frankly: I don't care if APM or ACPI versus suspend/resume works. I don't care that the lame Panorama now is faster than before (and still slower than my crappy Android phone while we're at it). I don't care about these incredibly improved, groundshakingly different desktop icons. And heck, I don't even care about USB improvements if I could trade all this for an OOTB WIFI support.

Regards,
Thomas

The genmac drivers are in the detection logic of OS2CSM and are in the driver collection on the CD. They however not seem to load. Our internal testing this did worked on a T42.
So I'm suprised it did not work. Hence the reason its also a beta.

[Roderick Klein]

Hi,


Frankly: I don't care if APM or ACPI versus suspend/resume works. I don't care that the lame Panorama now is faster than before (and still slower than my crappy Android phone while we're at it). I don't care about these incredibly improved, groundshakingly different desktop icons. And heck, I don't even care about USB improvements if I could trade all this for an OOTB WIFI support.

you are right.   wifi, wifi, wifi !!!!!!!!


hi

Let me answer Andreas his point. I wrote on os2.org as well. Tests an a T42 and T40 with suspend and resume have so far worked.
You can switch to legacy mode. As for the hot CPU. What version of ACPI was this that you tested with ?
I don't know with which version you tested.

All recent versions of ACPI  implement HLT support on the SMP kernel. So you should get the same result my T61 is right now 44 degrees celcius.
But we have not really received bug reports if recent version of ACPI don't work with the HLT on older notebooks to keep the CPU cool.
The HLT instruction has been implemented in the x86 CPU's since the first versions of the CPU (earlier then the 286).

So either you are running an older version of ACPI (pre-dating  3.20 version) or we do have a bug. But as long as there is no bug report
its guess work what you report is based on.

And as I have written before. The whole ACPI upgrade and USB was needed. So the wifi support is in the beta demo CD (the website also mentions this as a beta!).
I will look at this over the weekend. Final release of the eCS demo CD will be in the second week of April together with eCS 2.2 German and English final version.
Beta of eCS 2.2 will be released next week.

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.

[warpcafe]

Hi,

I have to be more precise with my criticism.
The actual WiFi adapter(s) are supported, albeit by having to select them manually from the "advanced" preboot menu's last screen.
The problem is that, well, XWLAN is not on the CD. Or am I just too stupid to find it? The bottom line is: I have an (apparently) WORKING WiFi adapter, but cannot tell it to connect to an SSID... or enter the according WPA2 password.

Regards,
Thomas

[Roderick Klein]

One advantage of public transport compared to driving my motorcycle. I can work on eCS on my laptop in the express bus :-)

I'm currently running final tetss on the virtualbox hang on the geneproto.exe and virtualbox that should be fixed.As for Xwlan on the todo list. But for the gemac drivers.
The driver

A) Is not auto detected by the preboot.

B) My intel 3945 chipset in my T61 does not load correctly.

The primary reason to bring out the demo CD is to show some other things amoung Panorama and ACPI progress. While not there yet it shows we remain on the move...

Regards,

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.

[Marc]

I wish they would publish current motherboards that work.  I've been using OS/2 since 2.0 and have been real happy with it but my diiema  is this.  The IDE chipset on my board is shot. The cd rom and floppy don't work.  Since I have SCSI hard drives I installed an SCSI cd rom.  Now I suppose I could set the CD rom to id  0 and change the hard drives to 1 and 2 and install the new ec-com station but another problem came up.  Now the printer port reports errors and won't work plus my printer is old and needs replacing and of course getting a printer to work with OS/2 is a hit or miss and I'm getting too old to put much effort and money into something that won't work, so I hope the final version comes with a list of hardware that works.