Author Topic: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions  (Read 113289 times)

Holger Schuett

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #45 on: March 30, 2013, 08:53:33 pm »
Dear all,
I posted this earlier, or at least I tried to:
I tried to install the beta on two machines, a Thinkpad r52 and a lenovo x61. On the r52 I have a partition with winxp and one with ecs2.1. I faced the same problems as some have mentioned before:
my hdd was not recognized. I believe I tried in every possible way, I deselected the ahci, changed to Dani as first diver etc, The farest  I got was the second part of the installation after having tried the old ibm.add. Barbara states that she changed to the dani after part one of the installation, I didn't try that, but I also believe this is not what I am meant to do as a possible customer :).
X61: there were issues with this machine earlier, so I really do not want to blame anything on ecs2.2:
my first attempt was to install ecs.2.2 with the docking station attached.Everything seemed to work fine, ahci and acpi etc, but every time the installion was stopped in the second part, with the machine powering down; I believe the machine got to hot and turned off. Afterwards I attached a
external dvd and installed with the machine only running on battery, and everything worked out fine except the installation for the nic  and wireless drivers. ahci is installed, acpi works, there is no problem with the trackpoint. To the nic drivers: They are  recognized during the installation and everything seems ok, but finally they don't appear to have been installed. I failed to install them afterwards too, but as mentioned : this machine has problems running winxp too
My conclusion: I believe there is great progress concerning  the installtion on 'modern' systems
and despite all annoyances I would like to thank mensys and all other contirbutors for their continuing work.

muffetta

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #46 on: March 30, 2013, 09:05:11 pm »
Hi Barbara.

I'm a little bit lost, on which part of the "eComStation Boot Options Menu" is the one to disable "check disk function" ?

Hi, Martin,
Look at this pics,  those settings can start the installer on both my computers (Thinkpad T23 and ASUS K7V DeLuxe).
Skip harddisk integrity check, Edit CONFIG.SYS just to check myself. If you need danis506.add you can always load it from an external usb drive or simply copy it into the root of your boot partition (in this case editing config.sys is necessary). Help yourself with maintenance console (command prompt) then reboot and go!
Have a succesful installation  :D!

muffetta

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #47 on: March 30, 2013, 09:15:03 pm »
Naturally, if you are using ibm506.add, you need ibmatapi.flt to access your dvd, instead if you need danis506.add you need daniatap.flt (edit config.sys to verify).

ivan

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #48 on: March 30, 2013, 09:40:24 pm »
Naturally, if you are using ibm506.add, you need ibmatapi.flt to access your dvd, instead if you need danis506.add you need daniatap.flt (edit config.sys to verify).
In days gone by I have used the IBM506 add with the Daniatapi.flt without any problems, has something changed?

muffetta

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #49 on: March 30, 2013, 10:13:13 pm »

In days gone by I have used the IBM506 add with the Daniatapi.flt without any problems, has something changed?
[/quote]
Sincerly, never mixed, i dont know, but to access the dvd on my T23 using ibm1s506.add (just for try, becouse the T23 boot fine using danis506.add and daniatap.flt)i had to replace daniatap.flt with ibmatapi.flt.

Roderick Klein

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #50 on: March 30, 2013, 10:15:02 pm »
That the danis506.add driver is not working on all systems is not surprising. It has received maintenance to fix some bugs that have been reported and that broke some stuff it seems.
If you have not done so yet, please report a bug in the bug tracker. Also check the eComStation bugtracker if the defect you have is already open.  Thats saves us some time!

Basically the following issue's have been found and are being worked on.

* On some older systems the DANIS506.ADD driver does not see the CD ROM and/or HDD. Regression in the code needs to befixed.

* Some systems the OS2AHCI driver does not show the hard disc or you get an LVM error. Both items are under  research and if the people that reported the problem can follow the instructions we will be posting in the bugs over the next couple of days we should be able to fix these issue.

* On some systems the USB driver don't work. eCS 2.2 ship with new USB host controller drivers and new mouse and keyboard drivers. Again over the next couple of days we will
we will post information that we hope will follow to we can debug these issue's. Again remote stuff remotely is not easy but we will make it as easy as possible.
One benefit compared to the IBM USB driver is that the new USB drivers contain tracing facilities

Its of no use to release a new beta RIGHT now. But the problem with Genmac not installing correctly with the beta has been resolved and the fix in CVS. Also the some problems in the NAPS GUI (MPTS replacement) and the CUPS wizard are partly/are being worked on. So your bug reports are useful! But some bugs take more time to fix then others.

The problem with OS2AHCI and LVM not working is already being looked in. So please stay tuned to your mailbox for feedback from out techteam. And as always
when possible provide \var\log\instlog.zip. That is a treasure room for us with information.

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.

MrJinx

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #51 on: March 30, 2013, 11:14:42 pm »
I have 2 laptops a Toshiba (AMD) and a Hannspree (Intel) that both were suffering from the lvm/drive not being seen problem.  I was able to over come it by turning off USB legacy support in the bios and turning off ACPI in the boot portion of the installer.
Both are AHCI controller types.
Find this to be weird since 2.1 installs on these machines without the bios change.

Not a good solution for all as many modern bios don"t have a choice for USB legacy.

I added ACPI back to the install phase and other than the genmac known issue, the install completed.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #52 on: March 30, 2013, 11:28:14 pm »
Thanks Barbara.

On the Thinkpad R51, switching to:
- "Skip Hard disc integrity check"
- Putting IBM's IDE ATA driver first, and second anything
...worked. I followed all the install procedure without problems.

I also noticed that in my case, the GenMac was not installed correctly on the Thinkpad R51.

Roderick. I guess the Dani's problem had been reported here:
http://bugs.ecomstation.nl/view.php?id=3378
...so I will be following it too.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
OS2World NewsMaster
... just share the dream.

Roderick Klein

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #53 on: March 30, 2013, 11:40:03 pm »
While the option is there and currently the disc checker is causing some problems. Be very carefull with recommdening people to just disable it without reason.

The genmac problem has been fixed in our build tree. Problem found!

Roderick Klein

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #54 on: March 30, 2013, 11:43:29 pm »
However, a few minimal files for VDM are always installed. (It
is the IBM installer that does this automatically.) We've found that
there is no way around this, as they are required by some core OS
components (I believe GRADD requires VDM support; IIRC something else
does too, possibly APM or somesuch).

Java 1.1.8 is now always installed. This was discussed a couple of
years ago in a problem ticket, although I don't have the reference
handy. Certain system components and configuration tools simply do not
work stably with any later version of Java. Attempting to allow
flexibility in this just caused too many ongoing problems and
compatibility issues. Given how small and unobtrusive a minimal Java
1.1 installation is, it was decided to simply install it always.
Please note that it is tucked out of the way in a system directory,
and adds absolutely nothing to CONFIG.SYS or the environment.

I'm aware that some users will be unhappy about this. This is one of
those issues where it's just impossible to satisfy everyone. Trying to
compromise just led to unhappiness and confusion anyway.

I'm sure it's time to replace both the IBM installer and the FI
installer - since a really long time. Unfortunately we're still
trying to get the eCS installer copy the selected files to the HD.
Instead we should concentrate on replacing system components. How to
install them is clear: Copy them to HD - it's as "easy" as unzip an
archive file after processing the selected options while regarding
the recognized HW.

Time to free resources - replace the installers!

It has been dream of mine to get all the installers out the door. I talked to severeal people to try it and I tried to work out EXACLT what for example RSPINST does.
And its not that easy as it looks. I worked on replacing minstall from IBM (which was broken) I worked with a lot of people trying to get RSPINST out the door.
It simply not going to happen unless somebody wants to volenteer and sit down for about 2 months.

We have currently better fish to fry then cleaning up more old installers. Just to even think of how rspinst works differently on DBCS installations...

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.

Eugene Gorbunoff

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #55 on: March 30, 2013, 11:48:04 pm »
It's necessary forget about DBCS in rspinst,

use rspinst created by eCo Software,

use LIP packages to distribute DBCS  NLV versions of eCS.

It's so easy!

Doug Bissett

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #56 on: March 30, 2013, 11:53:57 pm »
Quote
Setting a drive view can be a problem - I find it best left blank which seems to default to opening in Tree View with directories opening in Icon View.
\

Yes, that is what it is in older instals. I tried your solution, but now the icon won't open with a double click. I need to play some more...

Quote
On some older systems the DANIS506.ADD driver does not see the CD ROM and/or HDD. Regression in the code needs to befixed.

I haven't tried to verify it, but the Dani driver on the eCS 2.2 install CD seems to work, EXACTLY the same as the Dani driver on the DEMO CD. Mix up, perhaps???

Quote
On some systems the USB driver don't work. eCS 2.2 ship with new USB host controller drivers and new mouse and keyboard drivers.

These problems have been known to exist for a couple of WEEKS before you released the eCS 2.2 install ISO. Why would they be on the install ISO?

Now, I installed to my main system, and the Multimac Realtek driver (v3.1) included, kills my NIC (a plug in card with a Realtek 8169 on it). The only way to get it to work again (even in windows), is to completely power off the machine, and pull the plug for a couple of minutes. If you load that driver again, you need to go through the same procedure. The Multimac Realtek driver 2.1 works, but it is noticeably slower than the other Multimac drivers. This problem was also known, more than a few days before the eCS 2.2 ISO was released.

When I first installed to my Lenovo ThinkPad L530, I tried to change the NIC driver to the IBMNULL driver, because I knew there could be problems with the Multimac Realtek driver. That, apparently, was completely ignored. After I had to REM the NIC driver, at each reboot, I ended up with an install that did not include the Big Icon feature. I had also selected that (there may have been other things). Anyway, I did a re-install, and those things got picked up. Then, I found that each drive icon had been set to use the Split View. Well, okay, but after trying to use it that way, it quickly became obvious that it is not usable with Split View. Why would that become the default?

Okay, so I installed to my main machine. An Asus M3A78-EM motherboard. It seemed to go well, but no network access. That was when I realized that the BAD Multimac NIC driver had been included. I had made exactly the same selections as for the L530. This time. the Drive icons are NOT defaulted to Split View. They work as they always have, which is much better than Split View. Why the difference??? Better yet, how do I get the Split View turned off properly? Every method that I have tried, causes other problems, which looks like I will have to change the menu properties for every directory that exists.  I suppose I could just try another install, and hope it does whatever it did on the M3A78-EM.

I still haven't decided what I can do to get eCS 2,.2 installed to my old test machine, which has a CD drive, not  a DVD drive (and, it seems that IDE DVD drives are getting difficult to find). A quick review of the DVD contents doesn't reveal where the extra space went, but i suspect that it is CUPS, and RPM/YUM, that use most of it. Both of them could be on a second CD, they are not necessary for the install, and many people will have no use for either one anyway. It also seems that there are a lot of things that could be ZIPPED, and almost as many that are duplicated.

To Roderick:

Overall, the installer works well, on new machines. It does not work as well on older machines. I find it difficult to believe that anybody actually tried it on older machines that need the Dani driver. Of course, that is what beta releases are for.

You also need some sort of Quality assurance, to be sure that incorrect drivers, or programs that have not been individually verified as working by a number of users, do not end up being distributed. It may sound like that would add to your workload, but I know that you would find otherwise, once it is in place. Having two, or three, people sit down and install to a couple of different machines, is just not going to please very many people, as you can see by the results from the first beta (which is more like an Alpha release IMO).

Roderick Klein

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #57 on: March 31, 2013, 12:31:13 am »
You also need some sort of Quality assurance, to be sure that incorrect drivers, or programs that have not been individually verified as working by a number of users, do not end up being distributed. It may sound like that would add to your workload, but I know that you would find otherwise, once it is in place. Having two, or three, people sit down and install to a couple of different machines, is just not going to please very many people, as you can see by the results from the first beta (which is more like an Alpha release IMO).

Well the first hint the Q&A has taken place quite extensively is in the fact we first wanted to release the beta at the beginning of December and we where 3 months later.
If you look at the bugs report on the 2.2 beta of all the about 60 bugs opened they are down to 5 or 6 top bugs that are all the same problem in danis506.add, os2ahci and USB drivers.
Last minute the beta was delayed again to fix the problem with the T500 laptop and os2ahci. There are still issue's and another bug report will go out tomorow to fix an issue on os2ahci that should fix 3 or 4 identical OS2AHCI bugs.

Overal the eCS beta has been tested on more then 50 different models of machines to determine if ACPI worked in APIC and SMP mode and Panorama worked properly with MTRR setup.
eCS 2.2 beta has also been tested on T42 R40 and T40 at the Mensys office.

The reason we like todo as much as possible Q&A in house is because a lot of issue's are not EASY for end users to debug. I have spent over the last 6 months or so some very long days in the Mensys office to slam bugs out of the USB drivers with David and Lars, debug ACPI and NIC drivers.

Looking at the list of of device drivers modified and looking at the results so far (I don't like bug reports :-)). But looking at how it works I don't consider it that bad.
eCS 2.2 is the biggest overhaul of eCS ever. Just about every device driver has been updated involved in the boot process.

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.

Alex Taylor

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #58 on: March 31, 2013, 05:43:51 pm »
Quote
In other words, just change the 'DEFAULTVIEW=' setup string of each drive object.  All directories on the drive should pick up the change.

I can find nothing that says DEFAULTVIEW=, in each drive object. Care to be a little more specific? Where do I look?

If you mean the Default action, in the Open As menu, yes, I can set that to Tree View, but then every directory also tries to open in Tree View, when they used to open in Icon View (which is usually what I want). I can change each directory to open in Icon view, but it could take days to change all of them.

It's stored in the object setup string.  I don't think there's actually a GUI option to set it, although you can use a Setup String object (from the Templates folder) to try setting "DEFAULTVIEW=DEFAULT;".

OTOH, I just tried this and the results were... inconsistent, to say the least.

However, I've just suggested another possible solution in your ticket #3403.

Quote

Quote
This is a known issue at the present time.

Okay. If that is the case, I would suggest that Split View should not be the default setting.

Not my decision...


Doug Bissett

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Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
« Reply #59 on: March 31, 2013, 07:44:00 pm »
Quote
Well the first hint the Q&A has taken place quite extensively is in the fact we first wanted to release the beta at the beginning of December and we where 3 months later.

I think you don't understand Quality Control. The first rule is to take action to be sure that nothing can go wrong. The second is to be sure that nothing did go wrong.

One thing that you could do, is create a database of files, versions, and file dates, for all files included on the CD/DVD. Use a program to verify that only files that have been verified to be working properly are included. If the program finds some other file, it needs to be thoroughly investigated, to find out why it is there. If it should be there, and has been verified to work properly, the database needs to be updated (then, you need to find out why the database didn't get properly updated). If it shouldn't be there, it needs to be replaced by a file that should be there, or it needs to be removed (and whoever put it there needs to have their hand slapped). Doing that would save many hours of testing, and problem analysis, when a wrong file gets inserted somehow. I would expect that it should be up to the file owner, to get the proper file submitted, along with the supporting documentation, and a statement that they consider the file to be stable. Then, somebody else needs to check it out, and put it into the master file repository, and update the database, when appropriate.

In the eCS 2.2 installer, it is obvious that the USB problems could have been averted, and the Dani driver problem probably could have been averted, without anybody actually having to spend an hour to install on a machine that might be affected, then spending another hour to try to figure out what is wrong. I expect that other problems may have been caught too.

Quote
It's stored in the object setup string.  I don't think there's actually a GUI option to set it, although you can use a Setup String object (from the Templates folder) to try setting "DEFAULTVIEW=DEFAULT;".

OTOH, I just tried this and the results were... inconsistent, to say the least.

However, I've just suggested another possible solution in your ticket #3403.

Your suggestion from ticket #3403 seems to work, but I haven't used it much. I think I will leave the Setup String alone. If somebody comes up with a proper way to return to the old way of doing it, it would be good to automate it. I suspect that many users will find Split View to be "entertaining", but not very user friendly.

Quote
Not my decision...

I know. I won't speculate on who might be responsible for the decision, but it is obvious that they were working with incomplete information, or it would not have been done.