OS2 World Community Forum

OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Setup & Installation => Topic started by: guzzi on December 14, 2013, 06:19:06 pm

Title: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: guzzi 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.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett 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.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Sigurd Fastenrath 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

Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Roderick Klein 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.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett 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.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Martin Iturbide 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" (http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Installing_eComStation_2.1_and_Windows_8_with_Dual_Boot#Geometry_Error) 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.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: eirik 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 (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 (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= (http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.netlabs.genmac.user/3531/match=) )

Eirik
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Neil Waldhauer 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.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Chenbiao 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!
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Joop 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 (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
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett 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.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Dave Yeo 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 (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.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett 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).
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: David McKenna 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!
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Eugene Tucker 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.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Alex Taylor on December 26, 2013, 05:07:44 am
Quote
Okay, now the disk integrity test is happy, but miniLVM complains about a corrupt partition table, and it will allow no actions.

Please open a bugtracker ticket on this if you haven't already.

MiniLVM and the disk integrity checker are always supposed to be in agreement about whether a disk is acceptable.  If that is not happening, then the integrity checker is presumably failing to detect some critical issue and that absolutely needs to be fixed.

BTW please don't conflate MiniLVM with LVM.  It is LVM that reports errors with the partition table.  MiniLVM is nothing more than a dumb GUI that reports what LVM tells it.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett on December 26, 2013, 06:12:16 pm
Quote
MiniLVM and the disk integrity checker are always supposed to be in agreement about whether a disk is acceptable.  If that is not happening, then the integrity checker is presumably failing to detect some critical issue and that absolutely needs to be fixed.

I am more inclined to think that LVM (I say "miniLVM" so you know what I was using) has a problem that needs to be fixed. Using a sub set of DFSEE to do the partitioning is probably the easy answer to the problem.

Quote
Please open a bugtracker ticket on this if you haven't already.

I would, but I am not sure what I am going to report. Presumably, Mensys has tested installs along side of Windows 7 PRO (with a recovery partition), on a 500 GB disk. I would be amazed if they haven't seen the problem. Of course they missed a lot of bad stuff in beta I.

In fact, "Manage Volumes" still reports a "corrupt partition table". It fails to identify the Lenovo recovery partition (at the end of the disk), and calls it "free space". I expect that that was the original problem. Windows, DFSEE, and Linux (PCLinuxOS now), don't have any problem with it. MiniLVM will allow me to change drive letters, and volume names. It will also install Air Boot. It just refuses to do anything that involves the partition table, since it thinks it is corrupt.

Can you tell me what the name of the integrity checker program is, so I can try it without having to go through the whole thing again?
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Chenbiao on December 26, 2013, 09:15:54 pm
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 (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

Thanks. Following your hint I tried the Wacom solution but it doesn't work neither. In the WinXP I found the Touchpad of Dell notebook is connected internally via PS/2 port but the Wacom drive is for usb connection. I think that's the reason.

Br.
CHEN.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Pete on December 28, 2013, 01:52:09 am
Hi All

Sorry to say I'm not very impressed with this beta partly due to lack of hardware support and partly because the installer gives you the option of deselecting items that it then installs anyway.

I installed to a Dell Latitude E5500 laptop. The installation was made more difficult than necessary because the touchpad was not working - nothing wrong with the hardware, just eCS does not seem to be able to drive a touchpad that is basically a PS/2 connected mouse. No, I did not have a mouse handy to use so it was a tiring Keyboard Only Advanced Install...

Maybe I should try a different mouse driver - IBM rather than AMouse maybe?

I'm not sure if the Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx 1Gb wired nic has a driver - I did not have a cable to try with.

I would prefer to get the Dell 1510 Wireless-N nic (made by Broadcom) working and would appreciate some pointers on attempting to get this working with Genmac.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett on December 28, 2013, 07:54:22 am
Quote
I would prefer to get the Dell 1510 Wireless-N nic (made by Broadcom) working and would appreciate some pointers on attempting to get this working with Genmac.

Have a look at: ftp://genmac@ftp.os2voice.org/ (ftp://genmac@ftp.os2voice.org/) (use the word "unsupported", lower case, and no quotes, as a password, if asked) for some tips (in the READMEs). There are two Broadcom wireless NICs, packaged in GenMU_TEST-0-2-4.wpi. You will need to supply the PCI ID of your device (should be something like "14E4:4353"), to know if it is one of them. If not, I can package the windows driver, if you supply it (as instructed), but that doesn't mean that it will work. Genmac does have limits, and most newer drivers just won't work.

Note, that the difference between GenMU-0-2-1.wpi and GenMU_TEST-0-2-4.wpi, is that somebody has reported that the drivers in GenMU-0-2-1.wpi have worked (doesn't mean they will work for you). The drivers in GenMU_TEST-0-2-4.wpi have been packaged, and less than two users (usually zero users) have reported that they don't work. That means that somebody should try them, and see if they can be made to work. Some of them are packaged with alternate windows drivers.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: guzzi on December 28, 2013, 06:28:57 pm
Quote
Please open a bugtracker ticket on this if you haven't already.

I would, but I am not sure what I am going to report. Presumably, Mensys has tested installs along side of Windows 7 PRO (with a recovery partition), on a 500 GB disk. I would be amazed if they haven't seen the problem. Of course they missed a lot of bad stuff in beta I.

Perhaps related to this issue:
http://bugs.ecomstation.nl/view.php?id=3460
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett on December 28, 2013, 09:03:42 pm
Quote
Perhaps related to this issue:
http://bugs.ecomstation.nl/view.php?id=3460

Surely related, but I don't think it is exactly the same. I need to find the time to document what I did, and what the results are.

DFSEE is still happy. Win7, and PCLinuxOS, do not have any problems.  ECS 2.2, and 2.1, don't have any problems, other than LVM apparently thinks there is something wrong, and refuses to do anything with the partition table (which is no longer necessary, since DFSEE built a usable configuration).

I haven't confirmed it, yet, but I think the problem has something to do with the Lenovo (windows) recovery partition extending past what LVM thinks should be the last cylinder on the disk. MiniLVM displays the recovery partition as free space. I suspect that if I use DFSEE, to shrink the recovery partition by the smallest possible amount, that the problem would be solved, but I am not so sure that Win7 would accept that.

LVM is obviously way out of date, when it comes to managing partition tables. It needs to be updated, or replaced. DFSEE (or part of it) is the obvious answer to the problem, at this time.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Alex Taylor on December 29, 2013, 05:08:27 pm
Quote
Please open a bugtracker ticket on this if you haven't already.

I would, but I am not sure what I am going to report. Presumably, Mensys has tested installs along side of Windows 7 PRO (with a recovery partition), on a 500 GB disk. I would be amazed if they haven't seen the problem. Of course they missed a lot of bad stuff in beta I.

Never assume that your problem is self-evident or easy for the developer to reproduce.  We need to see the logs and work files generated by the disk utility (especially the *.rdf files which it places in %TMP%) in order to even begin to guess at what the problem is.

Quote
Can you tell me what the name of the integrity checker program is, so I can try it without having to go through the whole thing again?

DISKUTIL.EXE but it's not installed to the hard disk.  It's on the eCS install disc (IIRC in \ecs\install) - however you will also need s:\ecs\lang in your DPATH and s:\ecs\dll on your LIBPATH (replace S with your DVD drive letter) in order to run it.  Obviously this is set up automatically if you boot from the install disc. You can run the disk checker directly from the Maintenance Console, BTW.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett on December 29, 2013, 08:53:38 pm
Quote
Never assume that your problem is self-evident or easy for the developer to reproduce.

I think it is pretty easy to reproduce, as long as the initial setup has the problem.

I need to find some time to work with this. I need to do another restore to "factory default", and then do another eCS install, tracking what happens along the way.

I did find the reason why LVM is all worried about the partition table. The Lenovo recovery partition extended past what LVM seems to think is the last valid cylinder on the disk. When I used DFSEE to shrink that partition, by the smallest possible amount, the LVM problem went away. Now, however, Win7 (PRO, if that matters) refuses to use that partition. It is clean, and it can be read. Win7 simply refuses to use it (it probably assumes that it has been corrupted). Not an ideal solution, and it is deadly if the user failed to create the recovery media (DVDs).

I am pretty sure, that the initial "problem" that was fixed by the Integrity checker, during install, was that the Extended partition didn't start on a cylinder boundary. That seems to have been fixed properly.

As I said, LVM needs to be fixed, or replaced. DFSEE does the partitioning, without complaining about a non-issue, and as long as I leave the recovery partition alone, Win7 seems to be happy with it. Only LVM has a problem.

If eCS was to change to using DFSEE to do the partitioning (which seems to be the obvious answer), I suppose that miniLVM would also need to suppress the complaints, when a user wants to do other things with (mini)LVM.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Pete on December 29, 2013, 09:13:18 pm
Hi Doug

I am looking for a driver for 14E4:432B which is not in either of the packages you suggested.

I could happily supply you with the drivers - if I can figure out which files they are from the 50+ files in the Win2K through to Win Vista driver pack.

I would not be able to supply any Registry entries though as I'm running Win7 64 bit and it seems the drivers are different so I'd guess the Registry entries are as well.


Regards

Pete


Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett on December 30, 2013, 12:25:43 am
Quote
I am looking for a driver for 14E4:432B which is not in either of the packages you suggested.

Not surprising.

I got your message to the GENMAC mail list. Let's take this offline. It really doesn't belong here.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Mo on January 02, 2014, 01:20:48 pm
Works pretty well - installation ran without any issue on x200t with 256Gb SSD. Did not work with previous beta.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: kreso on January 17, 2014, 02:59:34 pm
To add my 0.002 cents. Installation does not work on Lenovo ThinkPad L540. TP is with UEFI BIOS, i5 CPU, 4 G of memory, etc. At the moment configuration is not important.
Installation fail way before HW detection. So here are the steps:
Boot from DVD OK
Enter my own value OK (same with express instal)
press ENTER ti save data OK
CRASH- Installer does not start and TP freezes completely. Only power down help.
Any idea ????
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 17, 2014, 03:10:29 pm
Hi Kresimir

Do you think it is the UEFI BIOS? Can you access this Thinkpad BIOS and check if there is something like "Legacy Boot Mode"?

I found out that some UEFI Intel Mainboards has that feature, with that you can boot eCS.
http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Intel_Desktop_Board_DB85FL#BIOS_Settings

Regards
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: kreso on January 17, 2014, 11:48:17 pm
Hi Martin,
Yes, I can access TP BIOS. Everything what can be set to legacy mod is set to "legacy mode. AHCI - Compatible. All extra features for the CPU disabled.
There is an massage but it is way too fast that one can read what it says. After that massage TP hang hard. Nothing works except power button. I even let it sitting for long time just to verify if something is working in background.
Weird
   
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett on January 18, 2014, 06:30:39 pm
Quote
Everything what can be set to legacy mod is set to "legacy mode. AHCI - Compatible. All extra features for the CPU disabled.

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad L530, with UEFI BIOS. Look in the BIOS settings, under Startup. I have settings for UEFI/Legacy Boot, set to Both. Sub sections UEFI/Legacy boot Priority set to Legacy First. And, CSM support set to Yes.

Those settings make it work, for me, but the maximum memory seen was 512 meg (out of 4 meg). Have a look through the http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?topic=151.msg2533#msg2533 (http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?topic=151.msg2533#msg2533) thread for a possible solution to that problem.

Of course, you may have something entirely different that is causing trouble.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: kreso on January 18, 2014, 07:55:26 pm
Hi Doug,

You are right. I have same setting in BIOS. And yes I tried all different combinations of that setting. No go. My opinion is that there is something wrong with virtual floppy because installer does not start. And I do not know why. May be something in memory management or security (disabled in my case). One strange think. Together with lock up eCS spalsh screen show up.
No other massage or indication. Just eCs screen and hard lock TP. I do not know where it is coming from and why it is there. Unless installer very quick and that is just before GUI. That will lead that there is a problem With Panorama (used in preset up menu). To be honest I did  not try different option. I will try it this evening. I will post result here. 
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett on January 18, 2014, 09:44:43 pm
Quote
My opinion is that there is something wrong with virtual floppy because installer does not start. And I do not know why.

Well, it is not a virtual floppy, it is a virtual hard disk, but that should have nothing to do with the problem.

You say that the logo appears. That means that the boot did get started. It is also long before the video driver gets loaded, so Panorama likely doesn't have anything to do with it either.

At that time, ACPI is the most likely thing to cause problems. Try selecting Modern hardware, safe mode, which won't use ACPI. That works on my L530, but may not work on your machine. If it doesn't work, try adding the "/VW" parameter to ACPI (without the quotes).

When you start the install, use the Alt-F2 option, to display what gets loaded. The logo will stay until something replaces it. Usually the first thing to do that is the output from ACPI, but that happens long after ACPI loads. You should also select to NOT display the boot logo. That may hide error messages.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: kreso on January 19, 2014, 05:25:23 pm
Well, Your suggestions helped to determine where it stops. It stop on OS2LVM.DMD file. And yes it has to be in "Modern Hardware" Safe mode. "/VW" does not help.

Now I have to found why it stops on OS2LVM

Edit: Even the demo DVD stops on the same place
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett on January 19, 2014, 10:30:27 pm
Quote
Now I have to found why it stops on OS2LVM

Unfortunately, there could be a lot of reasons why that might happen.

How big is the hard disk?

Did you use windows (I assume it has windows), to shrink the windows partition, to leave room to install eCS?

You might be able to figure some of it out, if you get the bootable version of DFSEE, and use the Disk Analysis thing to record what is on the disk (you would likely need to send that to Jan, for interpretation).

I have also found that using windows, to shrink the windows partition, then using DFSEE to build the new partitions for eCS (being sure to leave all of the existing partitions alone), will make a usable configuration (to everything except LVM partitioning - the LVM runtime doesn't seem to care).
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: kreso on January 20, 2014, 03:48:32 pm
OK. Here are the answers:

1. 1 TB
2. Partitions were created with eCS on another TP but later touched(expanded) with win 8 - brand new HD, now win partition before
3. DFSEE is very good suggestion. I do not have one but this will not caused any problem.

I will try that this evening and post the result
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 20, 2014, 04:40:40 pm
... later touched(expanded) with win 8 - brand new HD, now win partition before

Sometimes when you modify the partitions size, from Windows, it turn the partitions unusable for eCS. I think the error that the eCS installer shows is that the geometry of the disk is wrong (http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/EComStation_2.0_-_Installation_Issues#Disk_larger_than_512GB_and_incompatible_geometry). The only want to correct that is erasing everything and repartitioning from eCS LVM.

It had happened to me using on Windows EASEUS Partition Master. I wonder which driver should we need to blame for this limitation? Which is the driver that need to be updated to support that kind of geometry?

Can you try running eCS installation CD, maybe on maintenance mode and check if the partition manager (LVM) gives you a geometry error?

Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett on January 20, 2014, 05:33:25 pm
OK. Here are the answers:

1. 1 TB
2. Partitions were created with eCS on another TP but later touched(expanded) with win 8 - brand new HD, now win partition before
3. DFSEE is very good suggestion. I do not have one but this will not caused any problem.

I will try that this evening and post the result

The problem is probably caused by the 1 TB drive. Windows sets them up in such a way that eCS doesn't understand the geometry. You should review the section about that in QCKGUIDE.PDF (in the root of the install DVD). You may also get some useful information from: http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/doc/eCs-2-on-modern-laptop-win7-rev-1.zip (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/doc/eCs-2-on-modern-laptop-win7-rev-1.zip) and: http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/doc/TAMING_WIN7_V0_2_1.zip (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/doc/TAMING_WIN7_V0_2_1.zip). Both of those may be a bit dated, but you may get some ideas from them.

The other potential problem is that using anything, other than (mini)LVM or DFSEE, to mess with partitions is almost guaranteed to screw it up, "touched(expanded) with win 8" may be the biggest problem.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Martin Iturbide on January 20, 2014, 06:47:31 pm
Doug,

I'm just curious, which component/driver of eCS should be updated for it to recognize the geometry that Windows sets up?

Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Alex Taylor on January 21, 2014, 03:39:03 am
What DASD drivers are you loading, and in what order?

The default is normally OS2AHCI --> DANIS506

I suggest you try playing around with those if you haven't already.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett on January 21, 2014, 04:40:41 am
Quote
I'm just curious, which component/driver of eCS should be updated for it to recognize the geometry that Windows sets up?

I am not sure if it is  OS2AHCI and DANIS506 (the source for both of them is available), or LVM. I suspect that LVM is causing a LOT of problems in eCS, on newer machines.

Quote
I suggest you try playing around with those if you haven't already.

On my modern machines, I use nothing but AHCI. I don't think it hurts to have DANIS506 in CONFIG.SYS, but it should never be used, so I normally remove DANIS506.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Dave Yeo on January 21, 2014, 05:09:42 am
Quote
I'm just curious, which component/driver of eCS should be updated for it to recognize the geometry that Windows sets up?

I am not sure if it is  OS2AHCI and DANIS506 (the source for both of them is available), or LVM. I suspect that LVM is causing a LOT of problems in eCS, on newer machines.


I think the root of the problem is our kernel, originally designed almost 25 years ago when hard drives were much smaller and actually used the cylinders, heads, sector thing. Now hard drives are just a series of blocks which are translated into the old style but some of our data structures are too small for some of these numbers giving the 1TB limit and the need for the chs to be balanced just right. The other problem is that traditionally partitions happened on cylinder boundaries and that is no longer true as of Win Vista while LVM (and maybe the kernel) still expects it.
The reason I think it comes down to the kernel is that if it was the drivers then it would have been fixed as the source is available.
Quick overview, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylinder-head-sector (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylinder-head-sector)
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: kreso on January 22, 2014, 01:23:02 pm
OK, guys. Lot of valid suggestions.
Some answers: It is AHCI. Tested AHCA->DANI, DANI->AHCI, Compatibiliti mode, etc. Basically everything what come to mine mind.
I will try with NEW untouched smaller (500 GB) HD to see if that will make any difference. But I do not still understand. Even when HD is touched by WIN, it should continue to boot after OS2LVM.DMD and later complain about HD and incorrect partition tables. But no, it fail during loading the BASEDEV, before even look to the hard disk, or I am missing something???

Edit: Even the demo5 DVD stops on the same place 
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Dave Yeo on January 22, 2014, 04:51:40 pm
The problem is the boot process, as I understand, EBR (the boot sector) has to have enough intelligence or be hard wired to load OS2BOOT which has a micro filesystem to find and load load OS2LDR which has a mini filesystem which has enough intelligence to find \ \os2 and \os2\boot to load the kernel and basedev drivers (perhaps OS2LDR can be extended to work around some of these problems?) Also need BootManager, airboot or whatever to pass the correct drive letter to the kernel for later in the boot process.
Seems in your case the system can't find and load from \os2\boot consistently.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett on January 22, 2014, 05:58:28 pm
Quote
Some answers: It is AHCI. Tested AHCA->DANI, DANI->AHCI, Compatibiliti mode, etc. Basically everything what come to mine mind.

If it will use AHCI, it should work with AHCI. Since this is a new machine, I expect that all of the devices will be SATA. That should be set to AHCI, and you don't need the Dani drivers. REM them out, in case there is some conflict.

Quote
Even the demo5 DVD stops on the same place

That would be expected. The demo uses the same setup, but the real disk (except FAT32) is hidden, somehow.

Quote
But I do not still understand

You, and a lot of other people.

Quote
Even when HD is touched by WIN, it should continue to boot

One of the main problems with LVM, is that it insists that it must understand everything, or it will do nothing (with no apparent way to override that). That is supposed to prevent damaging something, but in most cases, there really is no problem.

Quote
Seems in your case the system can't find and load from \os2\boot consistently

I think that the problem is that Win sets up to use too many sectors (CHS), and eCS can only use half that many (perhaps it is only OS2BOOT that has that problem, since eCS can use those disks for data). the result is that eCS can read the first half of a logical track, but not the second half. It depends, exactly, where the files get put, whether something will work, or not. When the partitioning is done by eCS, or DFSEE, the number of sectors is set to something that eCS can understand, and windows can also use that. The "problem" is that you cannot just change the number of logical sectors, without wiping the whole disk. That gets complicated when there is a recovery partition involved (I do hope that you made the recovery DVDs, so you will be able to get back to factory defaults). The other problem, is that halving the number of sectors, doubles the number of cylinders. If that number becomes larger than what eCS understands, you still have a problem.

At the moment, I suspect that windows has set it up with too many sectors. http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/doc/TAMING_WIN7_V0_2_1.zip (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/doc/TAMING_WIN7_V0_2_1.zip) describes one possible way to work around the problem (and it is somewhat dated), but I have no idea if it will work, for you.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: kreso on January 24, 2014, 01:26:40 pm
Yes, all of the points mentioned are valid. But, this stop(hang, trap or what ever) happend during the load of the drivers (os2lvm.dmd in this case). Disk integrity check did not even start. But any way more to try. Report about progress will follow.
Thanks
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Eugene Gorbunoff on January 24, 2014, 01:39:39 pm
disable ACPI driver, disable USB drivers
(edit config.sys ->
REM USBEHCD.SYS
REM ACPI.PSD
..

Boot from DVD, chkdsk e: /f

Try boot again

Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: nyao on January 31, 2014, 06:02:40 pm
Hi Kresimir.
I have a same trouble.
I tried eComStation Demo CD.
But,It was stopped with a message as "Installed OS2LVM.DMD".

Lenovo ThikPad E440 (Windows7,Corei3-4000M,4GB Memory,500GB HD)
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Eugene Gorbunoff on January 31, 2014, 07:57:10 pm
E440 => Modern laptop with UEFI.
So, try activate Legacy OS, disable UEFI.


I tried eComStation Demo CD.
But,It was stopped with a message as "Installed OS2LVM.DMD".

Lenovo ThikPad E440 (Windows7,Corei3-4000M,4GB Memory,500GB HD)
Title: eCS2.2 Demo CD
Post by: BigGoofyGuy on February 01, 2014, 03:33:44 am
E440 => Modern laptop with UEFI.
So, try activate Legacy OS, disable UEFI.


I tried eComStation Demo CD.
But,It was stopped with a message as "Installed OS2LVM.DMD".

Lenovo ThikPad E440 (Windows7,Corei3-4000M,4GB Memory,500GB HD)
http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,194.0.html (http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,194.0.html)
The other thread where I found sites that one could do the changing of the bios so one can boot from the DVD drive.

http://www.canbike.ca/information-technology/2013/03/12/asus-uefi-boot-from-cd-dvd-x55u.html (http://www.canbike.ca/information-technology/2013/03/12/asus-uefi-boot-from-cd-dvd-x55u.html)

http://www.top-password.com/blog/set-windows-8-pc-to-boot-with-legacy-bios-mode-instead-of-uefi-mode/ (http://www.top-password.com/blog/set-windows-8-pc-to-boot-with-legacy-bios-mode-instead-of-uefi-mode/)

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417361,00.asp (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417361,00.asp)
I was able to use this one to be able to boot from the DVD to try the eCS 2.2 demo CD. It worked quite well on my Asus X55U.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: nyao on February 01, 2014, 08:06:22 am
Thank you all.
But,this stoped.

Btw,I found this tips.
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail.page?DocID=HT076615
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: kreso on February 03, 2014, 04:44:59 pm
So I'm not the only one.
I did not found valid setting to go beyond OS2LVM.DMD. I tried every possible option in BIOS and follow all posted links but NO GO.
INSTALLED OS2LVM.DMD is last driver before hard hang(only power-off helps).
I even completely recreate a 1TB disk geometry with DSFEE to no veil.
May be, just my be I found a culprit of the problem - INTERNALL SSD drive - 16GB LSS-16L6G.
I clean the drive with DSFEE but when I try to create a partition, despite DSFEE report successful creation, nothing happen. Drive is still in unallocated status.
And there is no setting in bios to disable that drive except in BOOT menu.
I do not want to disassemble everything to remove that drive. It is not visible or accessible from standard drive & memory cover.
Any other idea   
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: kreso on February 21, 2014, 02:55:54 pm
Still nothing. Is there anybody with lenovo tp l540 with ssd built in who successfully installed eCs 2.2 ???
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett on February 24, 2014, 04:59:14 am
Still nothing. Is there anybody with lenovo tp l540 with ssd built in who successfully installed eCs 2.2 ???

I haven't go that configuration, but I will make some guesses, that might help.

If I am correct, the SSD is just a mini card, and not a full SSD drive. I don't know if it occupies the first disk position, or if the real hard disk occupies the first disk position. I suspect that the SSD comes first.

My suggestions:

Don't try to install eCS on the SSD (at least for now). You may need to use either LVM, or DFSEE, to put the LVM information on it, but leave the drive letter set to NONE, if you do. You also need to shrink the windows partition on the real drive (I am not sure how windows handles that), to make room for the eCS volumes. Use windows to do that. I suspect that you will need to use DFSEE to create the new volumes, to avoid the problem where LVM will see an invalid partition table, and refuse to do anything. After that, a normal install should work (but there are no guarantees). Adding AirBoot (the new boot manager), could be a bit tricky. I am not sure where that will get put, it may be in the MBR on the SSD drive, or it might be in the MBR of the hard drive.

Please ask questions, if you need to, but more configuration information would help (what it comes with, and what you are trying to accomplish).
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Sergey Posokhov on February 24, 2014, 11:15:11 am
Still nothing. Is there anybody with lenovo tp l540 with ssd built in who successfully installed eCs 2.2 ???

I had a similar problem with model 510.
I finally found an option, "Wipe out HDD drive" somewhere in installer, and it helped.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: kreso on March 08, 2014, 09:31:37 pm
Sorry for late reply. I will try to make it clear. TP l540 came with Win 7 pre-installed. Configuration is standard except that LSS SSD. I suppose that image tu upgrade to win 8 was on that disk. All other components are standard for this kind of machine: i5CPU, 4 GB memory, Intel graphic, DVD, 1TB HD (new, installed by me. same behaviour with smaller HD).
SSD is second disk.
1TB was partitioned with DFSEE. So there is no reason for OS2LVM.DMD to complain.

So here are the steps:
1.Booted from installation CD   OK
2. Pre-installation menus present and adjusted according my wishes     OK
3. F10 ->save changes->reboot OK
4. Start installer-> hard hang on OS2LVM.dmd->only power off worked to reboot laptop

That is the place where it stops the installation. Installation did not continue to graphical installation desktop so no installation volume/partition
visible.
My understanding is that that is still config.sys loading before switching to normal installation desktop.

Installation was attempted with all possible BIOS settings as well with default setting from installer on two different HD's (500 GB & 1TB) with
same outcome->hard hang on OS2LVM.DMD file.

I am out of ideas what can be wrong and how to continue. And yes CD was burned several times just to make sure that is burned OK(very low
speed->x2)

Any ideas??

Thanks   
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Joseph M. Kempf on March 22, 2014, 10:56:05 pm
Finally, I found an opportunity to complete a new mid-tower build with a MSi FM2-A75MA-P33 motherboard with an AMD A10 6800K CPU.  My first attempt to install eCS v2.1 crashed with a TRAP error, so then I tried the eCS 2.2 beta refresh.  The beta v2.2 installed lickity-split to a Kingston SSD and booted up so very fast!   Beta v2.2's version of the Realtek 8169 NIC drive is working with the on-board Realtek RTL8111E.  I couldn't be posting this comment otherwise. So far there is no hint of audio from the on-board Realtek ALC887.  We'll see about that.  So far so good.  Now I'll begin installing software.  Wish me luck.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Greggory Shaw on March 23, 2014, 01:43:20 am
... So far there is no hint of audio from the on-board Realtek ALC887.  We'll see about that.  So far so good.  Now I'll begin installing software.  Wish me luck.

My board has a ALC887 and works with the stock uniaud driver from eCom 2.1 - try those !
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Pete on March 23, 2014, 09:28:43 pm
Hi Joseph

You may want to check what the output of unimix -list > mixer.txt shows (unimix.exe is a command line mixer which you should find in \MMOS2).

You may find that Volume is set to 0; my laptop, Acer Travelmate 5320, needs to have a cmd file run at startup to (re)set the volume at every boot as it seems the hardware sets Volume to 0 on power off.

To change a setting you need to use the correct unimix command. Here is an explanation from an old unimix readme file that does not seem to get included with eCS:-


What is UNIMIX?
===============

UNIMIX is command line mixer, wich works with UNIAUD.
The goal of this mixer is allow user to control all of UNIAUD features for
given audio card/mixer.
The controls set for given card depends from audio hardware/features, so
common mixer cannot handle all of them. UNIMIX gives such possibilities to
user.
Currently UNIMIX is only command line mixer. PM version is under development

Usage
=====
With UNIMIX you can get list of controls (IDs, names, bound and current values)
To change value of control you have to know it's ID.
To determine full list of all controls you have to run:

unimix.exe -list

then you will got list of all controls. Each control looks like that:

Control ID: 1
Interface: virtual mixer device
Device(client): 0, subdevice (substream) 0
Name: [Wave Playback Volume]
Index: 0
Element type: integer type
Count of values: 2
Value:
 Bounds: min: 0, max: 100, step: 0
  value 1: 100
  value 2: 100

What we have?
Our control ID is 1
this control has 2 values from 0 to 100 and carrent values are 100

to set new value (to 50 for ex.) you have to run:

unimix.exe -id1 -cnt1 -val50
unimix.exe -id1 -cnt2 -val50

now, control will looks like:

Control ID: 1
Interface: virtual mixer device
Device(client): 0, subdevice (substream) 0
Name: [Wave Playback Volume]
Index: 0
Element type: integer type
Count of values: 2
Value:
 Bounds: min: 0, max: 100, step: 0
  value 1: 50
  value 2: 50



Hope the above helps.

Pete
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Joseph M. Kempf on March 29, 2014, 10:26:40 pm
Thanks Pete and Greg:

I'll try both of your suggestions later this coming week.  This past week has been busy.  Much of my little free time has been dedicated to updating my Win XP installs in advance of the 4/8/14 end of service date for XP.  I run a critical application in XP inside OS/2-eCS hosted virtual machines.  I must say that this application works very well host by eCS v2.2 beta on up-to-date equipment.  I  expected that this application would be unstable running in SMP mode on four cores of a CPU in this beta.  For that matter I'm enthusiastic about this  eCS beta so far.  I have had what would be an unexpected number of crashes accessing a SATA DVDRM and a USB floppy drive though.

Joe
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Joseph M. Kempf on April 22, 2014, 03:49:06 am
Hi Joseph

You may want to check what the output of unimix -list > mixer.txt shows (unimix.exe is a command line mixer which you should find in \MMOS2)....
Hope the above helps.

Pete

Having first checked the bios and then the OS/2 hardware manager I tried unimix.exe as follows with disappointing results.

[C:\]unimix.exe -list
Command line mixer for UNIAUD32. Version 1.1
Detected UNIAUD version 2.02.01
Detected 2 audio adapter(s)
Error: invalid number of PCM instances for adapter 0
Control list for adapter 0

Any thoughts?

Thanks


Joe



Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Silvan Scherrer on April 22, 2014, 10:41:35 am
As you have two cards, you need a newer unimix. download latest driver from http://svn.netlabs.org/uniaud

regards
Silvan
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Joseph M. Kempf on April 23, 2014, 03:34:43 am
Thanks for this advice Silvan.

The version of unimix.exe included in the most recent uniaud update package was created on 9/22/2010.  The version that shipped and installed with eCS beta 2.2 was created on 9/23/2013 and is thus three years newer.

The older version produced the following error message.
[C:\]unimix.exe -list
Command line mixer for UNIAUD32. Versio
Detected UNIAUD version 202.01
Error: invalid number of PCM instances

It seems as though I'm going to learn a bit more about uniaud.  Webpage http://trac.netlabs.org/uniaud states:
Quote
The latest beta version of Uniaud32 is 2.02.01 which is based on ALSA 1.0.24. This version has had very little testing. It is currently unknown if there are any problems with this version. Try it at your own risk and backup first
My version is the beta 2.02.01.  I may have to install an earlier stable version, say maybe: Uniaud32 v.1.9.26 

Should I install two sets of uniaud drivers, one for each on-board sound chip?

BTW: I tested it on an ASUS A88x-Plus motherboard and generally find eCS beta v2.2 much to my liking.

Can anyone tell what is a "PCM instance"? ;-)
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Silvan Scherrer on April 23, 2014, 10:14:24 am
Thanks for this advice Silvan.

The version of unimix.exe included in the most recent uniaud update package was created on 9/22/2010.  The version that shipped and installed with eCS beta 2.2 was created on 9/23/2013 and is thus three years newer.
Ok so latest beta seems to bring latest unimix.
What does your unimix -card show?

regards
Silvan
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Joseph M. Kempf on April 24, 2014, 03:47:05 am
I had a moment to run the newer version of unimix on my ASUS A88X and this is the result:

Quote
[C:\]unimix.exe -list
Command line mixer for UNIAUD32. Version 1.1
Detected UNIAUD version 2.02.01
Detected 2 audio adapter(s)
Error: invalid number of PCM instances for adapter 0
Control list for adapter 0

[C:\]
As you can see unimix.exe properly identifies the version of uniaud32 that ships with  eCS v2.2 beta.  It detects the two on board audio "adapters".  Then it reports an error I do not understand.

Thanks

Joe
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 24, 2014, 06:03:21 am
What options are in our BIOS about the sound? Here I can disable or enable sound and when sound is enabled I also get a choice of basic sound which I'm using or (forget the exact term) multi speaker sound which I've never tried and I doubt that our Uniaud would support it, possibly reporting the same PCM error due to the number of channels. Have to test at some point.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 24, 2014, 06:10:39 am
The option I was thinking of is something like "High Definition Front Panel Support" and now testing having it enabled Uniaud still works here so that guess is wrong. Still you should double check your BIOS
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Joseph M. Kempf on April 24, 2014, 12:39:11 pm
Thanks for entering the conversation Dave.

The eCS beta v2.2 is installed on an ASUS A88X-Plus and a MSI FM2-A75MA-P33.  Both motherboards use an AMD A10-6800K CPU with 4Gb of RAM.  No PCI or PCI-X cards have been installed on either board.  The on-board NICs work well, to my delight.  So does the on-board video.

Later today or this weekend I plan to methodically test all options such as swap in and try speakers that I know work on other devices.  I''ll systematically test all options on both motherboards with all BIOS options enabled and disabled. Yesterday however I physically tested sound on the front panel of the ASUS A88X and probed it with unimix.exe.  I tried front panel sound enabled and disabled.  I tried front panel AC97 sound enabled and HD sound enabled.  The system remained silent.

Do I read you response correctly Dave?  You have tested UNIUAD32 v2.02.01 on an ASUS A88X with front panel enabled for High Definition and you found that sound works?  Did you test it on a similar motherboard with High Definition enabled?   Should I focus on the High Definition BIOS option rather than the AC97 option?

Thanks for your time and answers you-all.

Joe
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 24, 2014, 04:18:40 pm
Thanks for entering the conversation Dave.

Do I read you response correctly Dave?  You have tested UNIUAD32 v2.02.01 on an ASUS A88X with front panel enabled for High Definition and you found that sound works?  Did you test it on a similar motherboard with High Definition enabled?   Should I focus on the High Definition BIOS option rather than the AC97 option?

Thanks for your time and answers you-all.

Joe

I tested on an Intel board. I thought the High Definition option wouldn't work here but it did. Different sound chip from you and no HD option here.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: guzzi on April 25, 2014, 01:56:08 am
Is it possible to disable one of the sound chips in the bios? That's what I'd do as a start. Test both of them separately.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Joseph M. Kempf on April 26, 2014, 06:55:57 pm
Thanks again for your time gentlemen.

The uniaud-readme text provides troubleshooting instructions. 

LBMix gives an error message
Quote
Mixer API Initialization failed
  Recall unimix.exe didn't quite work either.  Uniaud32 /V at boot up provides the following information:
Quote
HD - Audio generic at 0xfeb44000 irq 18
Detected Mixer: ATI ID aa01
Hardware manager indicates two IRQs are assigned to one of the sound-chips (the 2nd).  The first sound-chip has no IRQ assigned.  Since the on-board USB controllers and the NIC also are assigned non-exclusive use of IRQ 18 I wonder whether there is an IRQ conflict.  The on-board NIC and USB controllers work but not the audio.  I'm going to check an eCS v2.1 installation where audio works but not a similar on-board NIC.  I may try to reset the IRQ but I'll read the ACPI help files first.    As I suspect this may be a hardware issue I'll swap out the beta UNIAUD36 v2.02.01 drivers for the stable older 1.0.21 version if and when other options fail.

I'm thinking that IRQ 12 or 15 might be good choices?


Thanks

Joe
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 27, 2014, 06:41:03 am
In my limited experience the network card seems to fail first from IRQ conflicts. Previous box where my nic card worked for less then a minute was solved by moving the card to a different slot which gave it a different IRQ.
My current box and Warp 4, to get the builtin networking to work, I have to disable sound and the PATA (DVD) controller, otherwise I have sound and access to the DVD drive but no networking.
ECS 2.1 is better but sometimes after booting up the network only receives. Usually an power off reboot fixes it but sometimes it takes a couple of reboots and eventually it will stop working with the record being 2 weeks before it failed.
On my system there doesn't seem to be a way to change IRQs for the builtin stuff either.
With ACPI, there doesn't seem to be access to the low IRQs unless you use the /VW switch in which case you lose the high IRQs.

Simplest is to experiment, go into the BIOS and disable everything you can besides sound while still being able to boot and test. You can also disable drivers in config.sys but I find it easier and more sure to just disable in the BIOS and hit return during boot when a driver can't be loaded.
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Joseph M. Kempf on April 29, 2014, 01:09:18 pm
I've had similar experiences with network cards, Dave.  It seems odd when Firefox, Opera and Slpr return error messages in eCS v2.0 or v2.1 and yet  browsers work in Windows XP running as guest in VPC in the same eCS v2.0 or v2.1 host.

I'll find time this week or next to read more of the ACPI help resource.  I want to give the eCS v2.2 and Uniaud32 v2.02.01 betas a thorough tryout. Going through the motherboard manuals and reconsidering jumper and bios options seems a good idea.  It is good to have the on-board NIC work and to know that new NIC drivers work with newer network devices.  Managing IRQs has always been tricky and I have used and unused old PCI OS/2 sound cards on hand  as a backup resource.

Thanks again all.  I'll report on my progress.

Joe
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: mickhead on July 16, 2014, 02:23:38 am
Greetings:

How on installed 2.2 system are we shut off PNG icons?

Some person said to make the default size to normal yet see no affects.

Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: Doug Bissett on July 16, 2014, 04:41:37 am
Greetings:

How on installed 2.2 system are we shut off PNG icons?

Some person said to make the default size to normal yet see no affects.

On a blank spot on the desktop, right mouse click. At the bottom to the menu, there is "Display". Expand that by clicking on the arrow. The top entry is "Default", which will be selected. Click that, and it will be deselected. Now, you can select "Normal", and the PNG icons will be off. To turn them back on, select "Default".
Title: Re: ecs2.2 beta refresh
Post by: mickhead on July 16, 2014, 06:11:52 pm
Thank you for  assisting. The feature is not at all stable.