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WebSite Information => Article Discussions => Topic started by: Martin Iturbide on March 25, 2013, 05:13:12 pm

Title: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 25, 2013, 05:13:12 pm
Since today it is available for download "eComStation 2.2 Beta ISO" for software subscribers.

I was recommended to that if we found bugs to open it on the bugtracker (of check if it was already reported):
http://bugs.ecomstation.nl/my_view_page.php (http://bugs.ecomstation.nl/my_view_page.php)

Also take notice of the recommendations on "http://www.ecomstation.com/support/ecs22beta.phtml (http://www.ecomstation.com/support/ecs22beta.phtml)"

Please post your first impressions. Give all detail you can !!
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: solarsea on March 25, 2013, 06:01:25 pm
A hardware compatibility list for 2.2 would be great to have.

I intend to buy myself a H&S license once 2.2 is out and I'd to know if I have to change anything on my machine to get it running properly.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Pete on March 25, 2013, 08:50:54 pm
Hi Stanislav

If you post details of your hardware (mainboard chipset, lan, audio, video) there is a chance that you will get responses telling you what works - and what does not.

As far as I am aware we do not have USB3 or SATA3 support.
There is a good chance that audio will work with the uniaud driver and video with the Panorama driver (VESA mode); lan could be a problem, you may have to get a supported lan card to put in a PCI slot.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein on March 25, 2013, 09:07:39 pm
Get a system with an Intel mainboard chipset and ethernet NIC for wired support and you should be OK.

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Davorin on March 25, 2013, 11:16:43 pm
ISO file disappeared during loading?
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein on March 25, 2013, 11:18:56 pm
Well we had slight hick up :-(

We put the ISO online at 16:00 hours Amsterdam. But at 22:30 we withdrawn the ISO.
As I type this a new one is being uploaded. We discovered what I would call a critical defect.

The defect was in the fact that when installed to hard disc the two files \os2\boot\ usbohcd.sys and usbehcd.sys where still the IBM version.
We missed ONE pack file in which the files are. \os2image\disk_5\usb was correct.
Os2image\bundle0 missed an update.

The joys of IBM installer framework. Its pretty complex stuff.

Sorry for the inconvience. The new ISO just finished uploading and will be accessible within 10 minutes again.

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: guzzi on March 25, 2013, 11:22:17 pm
I tried to install it today. It came as far as the disk test in phase 1. Reported incomplete  LVM info on disk 1 and 2 and told me this is normal on a non-eCS system. This computer runs eCS though. It offered to fix the problems, I clicked ok (have a backup). After that I started the install again and it said drive 1 was ok, but 2 still had errors. Didn't show any partitios to install to. I broke the installation off and rebooted from harddisk. Bootmanger showed the wrong drive letters, but the system booted. Used DFSEE to fix the LVW info and reinstall bootmanager. Next try when I have more time and have figured out what's wrong with the lvm setup.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein on March 25, 2013, 11:36:53 pm
PLEASE PLEASE open a bug report. Otherwhise forum postings can not manage this!!

Sitting between the developers and forums make it just about impossible to make proper bug resolving possible.

In this case do an LVM /startlog:driveletter:\directory\log.txt. And put that in a ticket!
In combination with that disc layout we can find out whats wrong possibly and put the exact error message in the ticket
that the disc checker reports.

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Pete on March 26, 2013, 01:29:57 am
Hi All

I would love to give my first impressions but install failed to continue when I refused to complete a "Base path..." (UNIXROOT) entryfield.

I do not want the software and therefore do not need a UNIXROOT value.

I have reported this as a bug and hope that it will be fixed for the GA.

I do realise that I could have completed that field and then taken care to make sure that none of the software relying on UNIXROOT got selected for installation but I do not think install should stop there simply because the install routine is programmed to expect an entry.

I think the installer should recognise the empty path and *not* offer for installation any software relying on that path.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein on March 26, 2013, 11:15:37 am
Well that's not how the installer works. The page previous (the page before you specify the UNIXROOT path), thats where you need to make the selection. Click on the + for "System extensions"
"Then software compatibility extensions" and under "unix ports framework" You can switch the between the two options.

Because the option is select by default to install RPM (which is needed for ODIN and QT 4 and Java) on the next page that option is displayed
"the unixroot path".

So you can disable that option BUT you will not get Java 6, QT 4 and ODIN and Flash.

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Pete on March 26, 2013, 03:21:49 pm
Hi Roderick

I'll give that a try.

No, I do not want any software installed by yum/rpm - or yum/rpm installed. I already have the apps you mention, plus more, installed without the benefit of yum/rpm to a non-boot drive.

I'll simply take a WPS2REXX backup of my ecS2.1 Desktop, modify the cmd files generated by the backup and run only the cmd files required to create application/folder Desktop icons on my ecS2.2 Desktop.

It is a fairly simple way of "migrating" a working Desktop to a different drive.


Regards

Pete


Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Pete on March 26, 2013, 08:33:12 pm
Hi Roderick

The page you refer to is "Next" not "Previous" therefore it is necessary to complete the UNIXROOT field even though it is unwanted and unneeded.

As regards installation: needs a little bit of work I think.

1] DOS was deselected but there is a populated \os2\mdos directory and DOS drivers loaded at boot.

2] JAVA was deselected but I discovered that java11 gets installed anyway in \os2\java\java11

3] The correct NIC was detected and preselected during installation but the system has no connectivity after installation
This may be due to the use of a genmac driver listed as UNTESTED in the genmac help but as the help does not give any useful details about installation - the Manual installation page basically says "run the WPI file" - I cannot check config.sys entries. I can, however, point you to a driver that works fine with this nic Marvel 88e8056 http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/system/drivers/network/m88e8056.zip

4] What happened to the options to "use pretty clock" and the good search tool pmseek.exe - did I miss them somewhere?

This 1 is my fault: I accidentally installed the "enhanced file dialog" thingy. How do I get rid of that and reinstate the old file open/save dialog?


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Alex Taylor on March 26, 2013, 08:51:42 pm
As regards installation: needs a little bit of work I think.

1] DOS was deselected but there is a populated \os2\mdos directory and DOS drivers loaded at boot.

This is correct.  We have investigated this in the past.  You will notice that it is not a proper (full) MDOS installation. 

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).


Quote
2] JAVA was deselected but I discovered that java11 gets installed anyway in \os2\java\java11

Also correct.  The selectable option in the installer refers to OpenJDK (Java 6) only. 

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.

If you're really determined to excise Java 1.1.8 from your system (although it will gain you nothing besides 20 MB of disk space), you are free to uninstall it (from the Feature Install Base tree).


Quote
4] What happened to the options to "use pretty clock" and the good search tool pmseek.exe - did I miss them somewhere?

They're still there, in the same place as always: the Install/Remove folder, eComCenter Install/Configure.

Quote
This 1 is my fault: I accidentally installed the "enhanced file dialog" thingy. How do I get rid of that and reinstate the old file open/save dialog?

Also see the Install/Remove folder.  I believe the QuickGuide mentions this.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 26, 2013, 11:05:47 pm
I am really undecided about eCS 2.2, and the way that it installs. I managed to get the first version of the eSC 2.2 install CD ISO, just before it was replaced by what appears to be an older version (not sure what that is all about, I wish I had not erased the first download). The first version did a pretty decent install into VBox (latest) under Win7. However, since it was, apparently, an incorrect installer, USB wouldn't work in VBox, and I decided to change some options, I tried the second ISO. Five times, and I still couldn't get it to install properly. I use the ISO in VBox, and it does check out okay.

One of the problems was that I missed turning off the RPM/YUM junk (well hidden, in a not so obvious place). The installer crapped out in the middle of phase 2, because it couldn't install ODIN. ??????

Another problem, is that I set up VBox for two processors, and enabled the options that work with ACPI (works in eCS 2.1 in the exact same virtual machine). The installer would not recognize the two processors, and it would not install ACPI, even when I changed to Modern, with ACPI, instead of Virtual Machine.

Then, I changed VBox to use SATA/AHCI controllers.  The pre-boot stuff worked okay, but eCS stopped shortly after the logo went away. More work to do with that configuration.

So, back to the old default setup. ECS installed, without ACPI, without SMP,  and it somehow identified the virtual Intel gigabit NIC as an IBM NIC. Even eCS 2.1 got that right.

Okay. On to the real machines.

First attempt was on an old machine. I can't get that thing to read the DVD (not sure why, it was working). Abandoned that, for now.

Okay, try the Lenovo ThinkPad L530. First, there is a bad version of the USBEHCD.SYS driver, that won't work with USB mouses (at least on the two machines that I have that use that configuration). I am now looking at a "Press Enter to continue..." message, because Uniaud failed to load. This sort of works in eCS 2.1, but I need to use the later version of Uniaud, or it won't load (doesn't work properly anyway). Pressing Enter does nothing. Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing. I guess it is power off, and start again, leaving sound out of it, but not today, I have other things that need to be done...
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Andreas Schnellbacher on March 26, 2013, 11:43:52 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!
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Pete on March 27, 2013, 12:47:42 am
Hi Roderick

I have no idea if anything actually uses DOS but I usually delete the \os2\mdos directory and remove all DOS related lines from config.sys. I can tell you that running MPTS and installing/changing nics will definitely result in DOS network related lines reappearing in config.sys. I know that is beyond your control - unless the MPTS application gets replaced  :-)

With regard to java11: I can appreciate that you've decided to standardize on that as the java to use for system configuration tools such as lvmgui and tcpic configuration although I've not had any problems running those tools with java6.


DOH! - Of course, I had not got as far as looking in Install/Remove...


However, the real problem with my 2.2 beta install currently is the lack of network connectivity. It would also be good if we can figure out the cause.


Regards

Pete




Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: melf on March 27, 2013, 12:51:53 am
1st impression on a T43 (with first DVD version):
Installation was seemingly flawless, (and I like the percentage bar), but I noticed a fast flashing error message when Genmac was installed. This gave me the same problem as Pete had - no connectivity. The nifs never came into the IBMCOM directory and some files wasn't installed at all. I first tried to correct the error with the new Adapters and Protocol but it turned out to be impossible, with several craches of the program. I installed with Genmac wpi and then used the old mpts - this worked. However the new GUI was easy to use, no unnecessary steps.
I like the sharp png icons but apparently the size has been limited to only normal. Furthermore it is confusing with one type of icon on the desktop and another in ecenter for the same folder/program/datafile. I would really like to see these icons in the future, but consistency is needed. I guess this would require an updated ecenter. My drives folder in ecenter shows no drive letter when I press the icon, just "Hard drive" or "Floppy disk", opening the folder shows correct drive letters. Also the order is strange and impossible to order in a  logical way (C,D, A, B, S).
Installing a CUPS printer was really easy with the GUI but I couldn't print with it. I could print from the administration center but not from my print object. I notice some extra "material" like Dragtext, desktop view for Win computers and also possibilities to start up program automatically certain times. This is nice I appreciate it! I also notice that the suspend menu in ebutton now is there - at last.

I feel that eCS 2.2 beta is promising but needs some more work. I will bug report troubles, I promise...
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Pete on March 27, 2013, 04:34:01 am
Hi Melf

Yes, I was somewhat underwhelmed by the new Adapters and Protocols app and resorted to using the older MPTS to Change from the non-working genmac driver to the driver in this package http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/system/drivers/network/m88e8056.zip - which, after a reboot works well. I've filed a bug report about the problems with naps.exe (the new Adapters and Protocols app) but it would probably get a little more attention if other people file reports as well.

I would enter my next eCS bug report: I deselected all things yum/rpm related during install but still got yum/rpm installed regardless. However, it does not seem possible to create a new ticket at the moment as I get this message:-

APPLICATION ERROR #12

This account is protected. You are not allowed to access this until the account protection is lifted.

Please use the "Back" button in your web browser to return to the previous page. There you can correct whatever problems were identified in this error or select another action. You can also click an option from the menu bar to go directly to a new section.


Now to add a few more already installed apps to the 2.2 Desktop and use it for a while  :-)

Regards

Pete
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Michaelhz on March 27, 2013, 08:21:03 am
...
One of the problems was that I missed turning off the RPM/YUM junk (well hidden, in a not so obvious place). The installer crapped out in the middle of phase 2, because it couldn't install ODIN. ??????
...

Hi guys,

please stop blaming RPM/YUM! Its one of the best eCS-Invention we ever had! The configuration of all provided unix-apps is very easy. Updating to the latest porting-level also. So much easier to handle than e.g. Paul's build environment.
Recompiling svn-sources like odin runs out of the box. Things like this were a big problem every time before, because everyone had a slightly different configurated build tree.
So finally please accept that we heavily depend on unix-ported software. So lets make the developers (and software distributors) the life as easy as possible. I'd prefer to let them porting additional software instead of trying to comply with every users mood.

Best regards
Michael
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: melf on March 27, 2013, 10:02:02 am
Pete, I will add to your ticket on Genmac.

Michael:
i have been very critical to yum/rpm before but have decided to give it a real try. The possibility to make the nix installations to a directory of my own choice was nice. This means it doesn't visually disturb my normal directory layout on the specific drive and I know where I have it. I find the *nix structure a  little hard to appreciate, but I guess I will learn. I must admit that simple update processes are quite nice as long as I can decide if and when I want  to do it. The proposed GUI will probably ease the use a lot.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Pete on March 27, 2013, 02:15:56 pm
Hi Michael

We all have opinions - and mine is different to yours regarding yum/rpm.

Dougs post simply states that yum/rpm failed to install Odin causing the eCS Installer to fail.

Whether the fault is with yum/rpm or something running in the background needs investigating.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 27, 2013, 02:20:08 pm
Hi

We discussed a lot about RPM/YUM in the past. And I'm openly against Linux "Filesystem Hierarchy Standard" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard). It does not mean I'm a "Linux Hater" or "Open Source hater"  :P

Since there seems to be no going back with RPM/YUM, since the important eCS development is being done with Linux ported software, at least it will be interesting to try to keep the eCS File Structure organized.

1) Do not put the Linux FHS in the root directory of the OS/2 drive, give the option to move it, or put it inside another directory.

2) It should be defined completely how the "eComStation Filesystem Hierarchy Standard" is structured, and should be something simple and clean.  I wrote that sometime ago on an User Experience suggestion article (http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Comments_and_Suggestions_about_eComStation_User_Experience#Recommendation_.238_.E2.80.93_Directory_and_File_Structure).

3) About RPM/YUM. When we get a graphical RPM tools, and can have a RPM graphical application catalog, where you can download the programs and installs it on your machine, that day we call it the RPM/YUM triumph over this platform.

RPM/YUM is good, I had tried it. It is good to see how it install all dependencies of Qt or git, without worrying of having the versions up to date manually, but it requires to be more user friendly, which means GUI. The command line may be easy to use, but users do not get motivated by the "green screen" anymore. I personally want to be able to install and uninstall software with my mouse.

Regards
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Alex Taylor on March 27, 2013, 03:14:58 pm
First, thanks to everyone who's opened tickets on their issues. 

A particular note about the new Network Adapters and Protocols GUI (of which I am the author, BTW).  IMHO this component needs testing more critically than anything else barring ACPI, AHCI and USB.  I know when you have problems you just want to get a solution ASAP, but it's very important that any bugs get ironed out during the beta cycle.

If you experience any of the following w.r.t. the new NAPS GUI, please open a ticket on it. 

In your ticket, please include the following:

I should note that problems with non-working NICs immediately following installation are not related to the new NAPS utility, as that does not get used during eCS install at all.  That appears to be a different problem (and a mysterious one, since neither GenMAC nor its install logic has changed one iota since eCS 2.0).
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: djcaetano on March 27, 2013, 04:30:06 pm
  I´ve only installed it on VirtualPC, but I do have some cents to share... :)

My drives folder in ecenter shows no drive letter when I press the icon, just "Hard drive" or "Floppy disk", opening the folder shows correct drive letters. Also the order is strange and impossible to order in a  logical way (C,D, A, B, S).

   I have noticed that. It is nice the volume name / type of device is shown, helps a lot, but it would be cool if the user could select if he wants drive letter, volume name or both. The sorting criteria seems to be the drive letter (removable media first); it would be interesting to allow the user select if he wants to order by drive letter or volume name.

Installing a CUPS printer was really easy with the GUI but I couldn't print with it. I could print from the administration center but not from my print object.

  It is just me... or really there should be a "Printer" icon shadow on "System Setup"? In fact, I believe the base icon should be moved to "System Setup" and a shadow put on "Local System".

   Regards,

   DJC
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Zigulec on March 27, 2013, 06:52:32 pm
First impressions:
on 2 tested laptops (AMD, Intel) there seem to be severe issues with new AHCI driver (DVD boots, but no drives visible). Strange, since older eCS with older AHCI version runs ok.

Also, only 1 successful install attempt yet (on PATA/DANIS):
- Post-installation tasks just starts-up and does nothing
- No eComCenter created on the desktop
- No network available (somehow network interfaces just do not exist)

I will spare some of my time during weekend, wil do some more thorough testing and will raise tickets.
St.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein on March 27, 2013, 08:27:05 pm
Thanks all for the testing. Please open tickets. WHile having 2 days off I do monitor things and when have time will answer support tickets opened! Back in the office on friday.

Your feedback in the form of tickets is greatly welcomed and proper processed tickets we can hopefully quickly resolve the bugs!

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 27, 2013, 08:59:03 pm
So far, I have been doing quick installs, mostly to see what has changed. I did post:
Quote
First attempt was on an old machine. I can't get that thing to read the DVD (not sure why, it was working). Abandoned that, for now.

I did not realize, that that machine has a CD drive, not a DVD drive. Since I no longer have an IDE DVD drive (and it appears that my favorite computer store no longer has them either), I guess I cannot install to that machine. It is my main test machine, so I will probably make a modified installer disk that will fit on a CD.

At the moment, I am waiting for my IBM ThinkPad T43 (1871-W8M) to finish verifying the DVD. With this install, I am tracking what I am doing. It is really the first attempt, with the third download of the ISO, so I checked the disk. It just finished, and is  okay. This is also the first machine where I expect it to install properly. More later.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: melf on March 27, 2013, 11:12:43 pm
Doug, is there a third version of the DVD? The latest DVD I tried did not install on a T43, with less than deselecting all USB choices. Do we have a new one ? If so..with which version of USB drivers?
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 28, 2013, 01:26:38 am
well... not going to happen.
http://bugs.ecomstation.nl/view.php?id=3367

Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions - network problem resolved
Post by: Pete on March 28, 2013, 02:38:56 am
Hi Alex

Something in the eCS2.2 beta installer is changing what the genmac install logic is trying to do.

I say this because when installing genmac for the Marvel 88e8056 during eCS 2.2 installation I have ended up with no connectivity on both installs -  the earlier dvd with IBM USB drivers and the later release with the 10.189 USB drivers.

With the latest install I used Warpin to uninstall genmac.

I then installed genmac directly from the dvd, rebooted and nic works. So, the genmac logic and actions work - unless it is during an eCS 2.2 install.

Investigation through comparison revealed the following problems when installing genmac during eCS install:-

1] This line was missing from the config.sys file:-

   DEVICE=H:\IBMCOM\MACS\GENM32W.OS2

2] The required NIF file did not exist in \ibmcom\macs - which is why naps.exe did not "see" the nic. I checked this by copying the required NIF into \ibmcom\macs and restarting naps.exe which displayed the nic and protocols.


It seems something in the eCS Install routine(s) screws genmac.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 28, 2013, 04:07:06 am
Doug, is there a third version of the DVD? The latest DVD I tried did not install on a T43, with less than deselecting all USB choices. Do we have a new one ? If so..with which version of USB drivers?

I got three different ISO files. The first was pulled, just as I finished downloading it. I read about an update here at OS2WORLD (about the USB driver problem), so I scrapped the first download, and got the second one. Then, there was another notice, which also describes how to tell if you have the good ISO. I didn't have the good one, so I downloaded again (good thing I have lots of bytes, and a fast internet connection). Now, I have the one that checks out.

AFAICT, the shipped USB drivers are the 189 version, which will not run my USB mouse on my Lenovo ThinkPad L530, or on my T510. I need to go back to the 186 version before they work properly.

Now, I have a problem on my IBM ThinkPad T43 (1871-W8M), where the Danis driver will not "see" my disk drive. It was suggested to try the IBM1S506 driver. I did a quick check, just going to the command line, using that option, and I can "see" the disk drive. I don't have the time, at the moment, to try an install using that driver.

Other problems that I see (on the L530) are:

I tried to change the NIC when it was first shown, to the IBMNULL driver, because I know that the realtek Multimac driver has a problem. The change didn't take, so the second boot went part way through (to NETBIND.EXE), and the machine rebooted. I booted to an alternate system, REMed the r8169.OS2 line, in CONFIG.SYS, and Phase 2 completed. It did the same thing for the Phase 3 boot. Again, I had to REM the line in CONFIG.SYS. Then, phase 3 completed. Okay, so what happened? First, i found both REMed lines in CONFIG.SYS, which means that Phase 2, somehow, decided that I really did want the r8169.OS2 line, and put it back in.

After I got eCS 2.2 installed. I used the new MPTS (looks very promising) to change the NIC driver to the RTGNDA driver (which is the only one that works with this NIC, and RTGNDA is NOT included in eCS 2.2). That appeared to go okay, but there are two optional lines required to make the driver work. I had previously modified the NIF file to default those two lines. The old MPTS does it properly. The new MPTS ignored the defaults, and I had to add them to PROTOCOL.INI, manually. It looks like the driver loads okay, but it is not getting the DHCP address. I need to spend more time to figure that out. It works with eCS 2.1. The only difference, that I have seen, so far, is that the old PROTOCOL.INI file is terminated with en EOF, while the new one is not. Adding that did not help.

All of the above have been reported.

I am going to have to install again, on the L530. I thought I had selected the new icons, but they are nowhere to be seen (they did show up on the first attempt, with the bad ISO).  I may wait for another update though. First, to figure out why the NIC on the L530 won't connect. It works fine with eCS 2.1.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: djcaetano on March 28, 2013, 01:29:04 pm
Finally I was able to test this beta on my machine at home (i7 on an Intel DH67CL mainboard). Finally eComStation is able to go beyond the preboot! :)
Unfortunatelly the good news stop there, since as soon as eCS starts loading, USB keyboard and mouse simply stop working. Since this mainboard doesn´t have PS/2 or serial/keyboard ports, I cannot proceed the instalation beyond the graphical shell starts (the Welcome! screen is the last one I was able to see). Problem already reported at bugtracker (I am not the only one... there was already someone with exactly the same problem).
Another thing: I was able to get to this point using Panorama drivers. When I tried SNAP (since this machine has an ATI Radeon X850 PCIe as videoboard, which is supposed to be supported by SNAP in accelerated mode), the boot hangs just after SNAP loading message is shown. Since it seems SNAP is not being actively developed, I don´t know it is worth to post something at eCS bugtracker.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 28, 2013, 11:10:02 pm
Okay, some progress, but some unexplained happenings too. I did a new install to my L530.

Quote
I tried to change the NIC when it was first shown, to the IBMNULL driver, because I know that the realtek Multimac driver has a problem.

I have no idea what happened there. I did a new install, and it got it right. I am pretty sure that I selected the IBMNULL NIC driver, because I know that the Multimac driver for the Realtek 8169 does not work with the Realtek 8168 chip that is in the L530. The only one that does, sort of, work is the old RTGNDA driver (which is not included in the eCS 2.2 install).

I had also selected the new icons feature, and it was not installed. This time, it is installed.

Quote
That appeared to go okay, but there are two optional lines required to make the driver work. I had previously modified the NIF file to default those two lines. The old MPTS does it properly. The new MPTS ignored the defaults,

Apparently, this is a bug, that will be fixed in the next release.

So, I now have a better install. Now, I am trying to figure out how to get the Drives folder to open drives in the Tree view (actually, I know how to do that), then how to get the Tree view to open directories in the Icon view, as it did before (I know how to do that too).

As noted, I know how to do both, the question is how do I do it globally, without having to change the properties of every drive, and directory, that I have?

I don't mind the new way of displaying data, BUT, if I go to a directory, and select a file that I want to COPY to another directory, I can't do it without opening an icon view in at least one of them. That seems to be an extra step that I shouldn't need to do. I also tried Pickup, and Drop/copy. The WPS hung, and wouldn't restart from CADH (it said that it did restart). I had to reboot.

Anybody else seeing this? Anybody know of a better way to do a copy, or move, using the Split View? Did I miss a setting somewhere?
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein on March 29, 2013, 12:31:27 pm
Finally I was able to test this beta on my machine at home (i7 on an Intel DH67CL mainboard). Finally eComStation is able to go beyond the preboot! :)
Unfortunatelly the good news stop there, since as soon as eCS starts loading, USB keyboard and mouse simply stop working. Since this mainboard doesn´t have PS/2 or serial/keyboard ports, I cannot proceed the instalation beyond the graphical shell starts (the Welcome! screen is the last one I was able to see). Problem already reported at bugtracker (I am not the only one... there was already someone with exactly the same problem).
Another thing: I was able to get to this point using Panorama drivers. When I tried SNAP (since this machine has an ATI Radeon X850 PCIe as videoboard, which is supposed to be supported by SNAP in accelerated mode), the boot hangs just after SNAP loading message is shown. Since it seems SNAP is not being actively developed, I don´t know it is worth to post something at eCS bugtracker.

The USB problem is known and should be easier to trace with the new USB drivers we include.  If the system does not hang you can use (with the proper setup) OS2 trace facility via the PMSHELL.
So I guess the the USB problem should be located without to much difficulty.

As for SNAP. Development is not stopped, SNAP is moved to the  background. Some research has been done however. Just nothing publicly visable!  Its just we moved the priority to other points such as ACPI. I don't claim full functionality. But the new ACPI compared to the 3.18 version has made mayor mayor progress (in my opinion). Also the USB drivers and OS2AHCI needed priority.
While some tickets raised on these topics (USB and OS2AHCI) in general we are in a pretty good shape.  We can consider looking at USB 3.0 when eCS 2.2 is shipped and SNAP.
SNAP BTW has more defects then just MTRR issue's. So rest assured SNAP will get back in the spotlight. But mayor work was needed.

At least so far I have not heard  of any positings about ACPI failing. I know they are out there does systems. But we are in much better shape.

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.,


Regards,

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Alex Taylor on March 29, 2013, 04:20:30 pm
So, I now have a better install. Now, I am trying to figure out how to get the Drives folder to open drives in the Tree view (actually, I know how to do that), then how to get the Tree view to open directories in the Icon view, as it did before (I know how to do that too).

As noted, I know how to do both, the question is how do I do it globally, without having to change the properties of every drive, and directory, that I have?

The only thing 2.2 does with the split view is to set 'DEFAULTVIEW=SPLIT' on each drive object.  Undoing that should be sufficient.

In other words, just change the 'DEFAULTVIEW=' setup string of each drive object.  All directories on the drive should pick up the change.


Quote
I don't mind the new way of displaying data, BUT, if I go to a directory, and select a file that I want to COPY to another directory, I can't do it without opening an icon view in at least one of them. That seems to be an extra step that I shouldn't need to do. I also tried Pickup, and Drop/copy. The WPS hung, and wouldn't restart from CADH (it said that it did restart). I had to reboot.

Anybody else seeing this? Anybody know of a better way to do a copy, or move, using the Split View? Did I miss a setting somewhere?

This is a known issue at the present time.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: djcaetano on March 29, 2013, 07:08:12 pm
The USB problem is known and should be easier to trace with the new USB drivers we include.  If the system does not hang you can use (with the proper setup) OS2 trace facility via the PMSHELL.
So I guess the the USB problem should be located without to much difficulty.

   Nice. How I can help on that? Is there a way to configure preboot menu to generate such output?
   Since there is no ports besides USB on this machine, I just can do *anything* without USB support. So, once eCS starts loading, only the reset and power-off buttons are functional. No keyboard, no mice... nothing.

As for SNAP. Development is not stopped, SNAP is moved to the  background. Some research has been done however. Just nothing publicly visable!  Its just we moved the priority to other points such as ACPI. I don't claim full functionality. But the new ACPI compared to the 3.18 version has made mayor mayor progress (in my opinion). Also the USB drivers and OS2AHCI needed priority.
While some tickets raised on these topics (USB and OS2AHCI) in general we are in a pretty good shape.  We can consider looking at USB 3.0 when eCS 2.2 is shipped and SNAP.
SNAP BTW has more defects then just MTRR issue's. So rest assured SNAP will get back in the spotlight. But mayor work was needed.

   Nice to hear that.

At least so far I have not heard  of any positings about ACPI failing. I know they are out there does systems. But we are in much better shape.

   Yes, and I thank you (and Mensys crew) for that. :)

   Regards!
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 30, 2013, 03:11:52 am
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.

There is also inconsistent operation, if I leave it at Split View. If I open a directory created by the SAMBA client, it opens in Tree View, not Split View. This could be very confusing for those who don't know what is happening.

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.

Quote
At least so far I have not heard  of any positings about ACPI failing.

ACPI, OS2AHCI, and Panorama, are working great. Thanks to all involved. It would be even better if Panorama would allow Doodle's Screen Saver to power off the screen automatically (especially on laptops), but that isn't essential.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 30, 2013, 02:04:13 pm
Hi.

I had been having problems installing eCS 2.2 Beta.

Thinkpad R51 (1830-PSO)
On this older Thinkpad, (on which eCS 2.1 keeps installing without problems)  the installation procedure does not longer want to recognize the HDD. I had tried disabling, AHCI, ACPI, and moving from Danis to IBMs. But I can not make the installer recognize the HDD.

I'm locked on the third screen (Installation Type) on which the installer is making a new HDD validation before selecting easy or advanced installation.

Thinkpad L420 (7856-3WS)
On this newer Thinkpad the trackpoint and trackpad is not recognized on the installer. But now with a new twist, it seems that the keyboard get disconnected after sometime and I can not finish the installation process with the keyboard. The external USB mouse is not working during installation. I will keep trying with this one.

DougB, did you have some similar problems with the trackpoint/pad on your Thinkpad. Do you have a pointer to the USB drivers you are using?
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: muffetta on March 30, 2013, 02:28:07 pm
Hi Martin,
About R51, it seems the same problem i had on my Thinkpad T23  (no hard disk detected and the 2 disk to fix, and try fix cause only reboot and loop).  I solved deselecting in pre-boot menu the check disk function, setting the first hd control to danis506 without parameters and none for the second hd control, verifing all end-phases using the Maintenance console. Using those expedients, i was able to insall eCS 2.2 beta on my T23.
I hope this can help you and others.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: muffetta on March 30, 2013, 03:07:04 pm
Seem also that danis506 does not load always (like on my desktop, ASUS K7V De Luxe), in this case you shoud use the classic ibm506.add without parameters. and change after into danis.
No ahci controller at the moment. Overall the sistem (T23 for now) seems faster than previous (2.1), great work for flash, more stable and fluid, i prefer snap video driver and uniaud rc4 from hobbes seems the only drive able to getting the Intel 82801CA-ICH3 CS4299 works quite well. A strange beep never heard before, starting the wps, and equal to the beep which crash sometimes the program "Imagination" (from ecosoftware) if you open a folder of mages and you are using the preview function, causing the wps reset.
Considering still in beta, a great job.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 30, 2013, 04:26:32 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" ?
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 30, 2013, 05:23:47 pm
Quote
DougB, did you have some similar problems with the trackpoint/pad on your Thinkpad. Do you have a pointer to the USB drivers you are using?

I keep the touchpad disabled, when that is possible. In my Lenovo ThinkPad L530, there is no such option in the BIOS. The windows driver will do it, but that doesn't carry over to eCS. At the moment, I have a piece of cardboard taped over the touchpad to keep my hands off of it. The Trackpoint has always worked with eCS 2.2, using the AMouse driver. My external USB wireless mouse will work fine, after I get the USB drivers back to the 186 version. I think the version in eCS 2.2 is 189, and that doesn't work with the USB mouse (even a wired one).  I got 186 from HOBBES, but it seems to be gone from there. Lars E. has posted elsewhere, that he will probably go back to the 186 version, if he can't figure out what is wrong. I should note here, that the L530, and my T510, only have EHCI adapters, they do NOT have OHCI, or UHCI, adapters. The mouse problem seems to exist only when an EHCI controller is supposed to handle the mouse.

Quote
the installation procedure does not longer want to recognize the HDD

I have that problem on my IBM ThinkPad T43 (1871-W8M). It looks, to me, like the included Danis driver is badly broken. I haven't checked it out, but it acts exactly like the Danis driver for the DEMO CD, which is not supposed to be able to access the hard disk. It was suggested to try the IBM1S506 driver. I was able to go to the command line using that, so I expect that it will work, when I find the time to try an install (I may just wait for the next beta, which had better fix the problem).

To be quite frank, I don't see how anybody could have ever tried the included Danis driver, and got an install off the ground. Installation, using the OS2AHCI driver seems to be okay, but I had a few odd things happen (or not happen) on one of my attempts on my L530.

It needs work, and it needs wider testing, before they even call it a beta. Some of the new things should be optional, not default (SPLIT-VIEW), until they are deemed to be worthy of making them the default.

I am also undecided about the new icons. Every time I look at the Drives icon, it looks like a toilet bowl. The others seem to be a bit "washed out", and generally, they are all blue, which may be part of the "washed out" problem, when they are on the default blue background.

I have also had to report, again, problems that I reported in eCS 2.0, and 2.1, which were supposedly fixed. They are very minor, but errors are errors, and they should be fixed.

BTW, for those of you who have SMP machines, if you use EXECMODE.EXE with the sp parameter, on REGEDIT2.EXE (the registry editor), searches in REGEDIT2 will be very much faster.

It seems that quality control is not a high priority at Mensys. Too bad, because that seems to be creating a LOT of extra work for them, and it is creating frustration for their users.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 30, 2013, 05:36:10 pm
It is looking very strange at my side.

With the same burned DVD, on the old Thinkpad R51 I can load LVM.

On the Thinkpad L420 I get errors that LVM is not on the system.

I'm re-burning the DVD again, just in case.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 30, 2013, 05:38:59 pm
Thanks DougB.

I think I found part of my problem with the mouse.

It is behaving strange, but since it is a  dual boot machine, it seems that Windows (or something else) is doing something to the mouse.  If I access the BIOS, do not change anything, and save and exit the mouse starts working.

http://bugs.ecomstation.nl/view.php?id=3333

Regards.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Pete on March 30, 2013, 07:56:59 pm
Hi Doug

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.

I did make the mistake of setting a drive view - once.

To recover I added an "Open as" option of "no view" with "e.exe" as the program to the drive Properties, Menu Page, Actions on menu ~Open as. I then selected that as the Default and shut the Properties notebook. I then reopened the notebook and deleted the no view option, did not select any other Default view and closed the notebook.

The drive then opened in Tree View with directories opening in Icon view.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Holger Schuett 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.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: muffetta 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!
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: muffetta 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).
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: ivan 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?
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: muffetta 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.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein 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.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: MrJinx 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.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Martin Iturbide 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
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein 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!
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein 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.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Eugene Gorbunoff 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!
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Doug Bissett 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).
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein 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.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Alex Taylor 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...

Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Doug Bissett 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.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: melf on March 31, 2013, 09:07:43 pm
Just a report on split folders. I just discovered that my folders no longer open in split view. I haven't made anything intentionally, so I do not know why this has happened. But it suggests that the setting should be "easy" to change globally.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Pete on March 31, 2013, 10:14:31 pm
Hi All

Subtitle: Printers bitch and Printing problem resolved

During eCS2.2 beta install I decided to not install cups - I already have it installed and working and planned to simply hook up my newly created eCS 2.2 printer object to this existing cups installation.

Of course, I soon discovered, probably as a result of not installing cups, that my eCS2.2 install does not have the cups OS/2 bits necessary to hook up to the existing cups installation.

However, the eCS2.2 installation does contain all the old printer drivers that anyone could possibly not need.

This seems wrong to me.

I think the ecups OS/2 bits - ecups.drv, cups.pdr, cupslpr.exe and associated documentation should have been installed.


I found the wpi files containing ecups.drv and cups.pdr but could not find cupslpr.exe anywhere on the dvd. Is it simply missing? - or is it created somehow by the CUPS Wizard? Looking at the docs it seems that is the case.

I had a look at CUPS Wizard hoping that it would help but it seems to be designed to create both cups and eCS printers at the same time. That is something that I do not want to do as I already have a working cups printer.

So, I copied cupslpr.exe from my eCS2.1 installation.

Having created an eCS printer from the ecups.drv package and hooked it up to the cups.pdr port I find that I cannot print.

Printing from an application results in a print job in the os/2 printer queue; in this case \var\SPOOL\CanonPIX contains *.SHD and *.SPL files but they do not get to the cups spooler.

OpenOffice gives an error message when the 1st print job fails "Error during spooling to cups server". I checked localhost is set in HOSTS and tcpip configuration has Use host list first checked. I changed the cups.pdr cups server from localhost to 127.0.0.1 but that makes no difference.

I've obviously got something wrong, somewhere...

I compared the various gcc*.dll and libc*.dll files in H:\ecs\dll (eCS2.2 install) and L:\ecs\dll (eCS2.1 install with working os/2 cups printer).

I discovered 1 difference: L:\ecs\dll contains libc064x.dll

I was not sure whether libc064x.dll would make a difference but I copied it to H:\ecs\dll and repeated my print test from OpenOffice (1.1.5). Success!!!


As libc064x.dll does not get installed by eCS and does not seem to be part of the cups packages installed with eCS I can only guess that the port created by the CUPS Wizard does not need libc064x.dll


I hope the above is useful to anyone struggling to get an existing cups setup working with an eCS2.2 printer.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Davorin on March 31, 2013, 10:47:30 pm
I installed ECS 2.2 on one partition and left an installation of 2.0 on another one.
When I booted into 2.0 later, all the drives that were opened under 2.2 would open in icon view mode and folders couldn't be opened by double clicking on them.
The view mode can be changed from the drive's properties menu while the folder settings can be changed under System setup - Workplace Shell.

After opening the drives in Split View mode, the contents of the folder in the right pane are sorted into columns.
Horizontal scrolling is necessary to view the entire contents. It would be convinient if the scroll wheel could be used to horizontally scroll through the contents.

Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: melf on April 01, 2013, 11:46:37 am
Just a report on split folders. I just discovered that my folders no longer open in split view. I haven't made anything intentionally, so I do not know why this has happened. But it suggests that the setting should be "easy" to change globally.

Quoting myself, this is kind of mysterious. Except for the above mentioned, I discovered another change, namely that some programs now minimize to desktop, in spite of my setting in workplace shell, that it should minimize to viewer. Seems as most do it, eg, FF, OO, Maul, VPC and more. So far only PMView and DVD Toys does not.

It also seems as folders in my D drive opens in icon mode, while only folders on C drive opens in split view. Confusing!
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Holger Schuett on April 01, 2013, 11:54:15 am
Quote
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.

I really believe Doug is right about this, and I must admit I am getting quite annoyed with the beta right now: I managed to install finally on my R52. I used the Ibm1s506.add and the *flt in the beginning and had to switch to the daniatap.flt after part 1 of the installation.
But: no nic and no wireless after finishing the installation. For the nic I can choose either the original Broadcom dirver or a genmac, the wireless is supported by genmac, I never had an issue there with ecs2.1.
Now I was able to get as far as the nic and the wireless are listed while booting and seem to be installed but nothing works after boot is finished.
Then I found out that apm no longer works. Just to explain, usually I use ecs2.1 on this system with apm working like a charm, suspend resume, everything works great.
So when I decided to give the 2.2beta another try I chose the legacy mode for installation, just like I have done many times before with ecs2.1.Ok, so this is a beta and I really am willing to send a bug report concerning apm, but: first I have to overcome the dani.problem, then I find myself without a Nic or wireless working to find out that apm does not work having spent several hours with an installation which should be no problem at all.
Why has the way the Nics or the wireless are installed been changed? Ok the new interface for the network installation (naps) looks good, but I would rather appreciate if it would work. I can not get rid of the feeling, that the focus has been only on apic working and all other issues have been neglected and that there are problems now due to this, that never occured before
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Alex Taylor on April 01, 2013, 03:44:27 pm
Please note: we have discovered that GenMAC is failing to install properly, which explains most if not all of the networking problems people have experienced after installation. 

This is one of those weird breakages that slipped through into the beta due to a flukish circumstance that managed to circumvent all our testing.  This also explained why I was for so long unable to reproduce the problem: internal builds do not have it.  It's the build process for the final uploaded ISO release itself that caused the failure in GenMAC. 

At any rate, it is likely that anyone who has non-functional networking following the install has been hit by this problem.  The solution is to reinstall \CID\SERVER\ECSPKG\GENMAC2.WPI from the installation DVD.  (It may be necessary to then reconfigure the NIC(s) using NAPS or MPTS.)

I would like to reiterate: these problems are not caused by the new configuration GUI.  However, they have exposed some limitations in the new GUI w.r.t parsing a malformed or corrupted configuration. An updated version which addresses this will be provided in the next release.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Holger Schuett on April 01, 2013, 05:28:54 pm
Sorry Alex if this sounded like I wanted to blame the new GUI for everything, this was not my intention. I really appreciate that there are people working on ecs. Only this time it was quite frustrating trying to install, inspite of this being a beta version.
By the way: I did reinstall the genmac.wpi, but not the one from the dvd but one I had downlaoded from netlabs, is there a difference?
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Doug Bissett on April 01, 2013, 06:08:42 pm
Quote
Please note: we have discovered that GenMAC is failing to install properly, which explains most if not all of the networking problems people have experienced after installation. 

Well, that is not the only network problem that exists. It is also not the most serious.

WARNING: If you install using the Multimac r8169 driver, supplied with eCS 2.2, it may disable the interface on your NIC. The symptom is exactly the same as if you had pulled the cable. The BAD part is, that the interface will not enable again (even in windows), until you remove ALL power from the NIC. On laptops, that usually means power off, pull the plug, and remove the main battery. On desktops, it means power off, and pull the plug. After a minute, or so, turn it all back on, and it should work again until you try the bad driver again. Then you start over.

Apparently, this does not affect all Realtek NICS, but I have at least two of them that have the problem, and I know of one other case where it has happened..

Many users are going to have the problem, and assume that eCS 2.2 has killed their NIC. At the same time, they will not be able to get on the internet to find out how to recover from the problem.

This problem existed before eCS 2.2 was released, and David A. (at least) knew about it. That driver (along with a few others) never should have made it into the eCS 2.2 beta.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein on April 01, 2013, 10:51:20 pm
Quote
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.

I really believe Doug is right about this, and I must admit I am getting quite annoyed with the beta right now: I managed to install finally on my R52. I used the Ibm1s506.add and the *flt in the beginning and had to switch to the daniatap.flt after part 1 of the installation.
But: no nic and no wireless after finishing the installation. For the nic I can choose either the original Broadcom dirver or a genmac, the wireless is supported by genmac, I never had an issue there with ecs2.1.
Now I was able to get as far as the nic and the wireless are listed while booting and seem to be installed but nothing works after boot is finished.
Then I found out that apm no longer works. Just to explain, usually I use ecs2.1 on this system with apm working like a charm, suspend resume, everything works great.
So when I decided to give the 2.2beta another try I chose the legacy mode for installation, just like I have done many times before with ecs2.1.Ok, so this is a beta and I really am willing to send a bug report concerning apm, but: first I have to overcome the dani.problem, then I find myself without a Nic or wireless working to find out that apm does not work having spent several hours with an installation which should be no problem at all.
Why has the way the Nics or the wireless are installed been changed? Ok the new interface for the network installation (naps) looks good, but I would rather appreciate if it would work. I can not get rid of the feeling, that the focus has been only on apic working and all other issues have been neglected and that there are problems now due to this, that never occured before

The feeling there has been to much focus on ACPI is not true. And on that statement you have to believe me on my word :-)

As for the USB drivers. The beta was not released of eCS 2.2 until all issue's where traced and fixed on our equipment. We had 1 system that would hang on the USB drivers after the last device driver was loaded, this delayed the beta release with 3 days. Just like ACPI the USB drivers have been tested on very broad range of systems. Also the USB drivers shipped in eCS 2.2 beta are not 100% the same compared to Lars Erdmann his drivers. The drivers had been slightly modified by David and tested on his 10 systems at home.  Also all systems in the Mensys office where used to test the USB drivers and to test booting from USB CD ROM (another 30 systems or so). And all these systems are of different brands and chip sets BIOS makes etc.

Just like other components, like ACPI and Panorama the DANIS506.ADD driver has received internal and beta testing by other people. It has just not been tossed in the eCS 2.2 beta.


As for the suspend/ resume with r51 and APM. This was discussed on os2.org. The suggestion was raised to load the preboot menu by default in  "legacy mode"(with APM installed by default). But this would make older laptops work with suspend/resume. But some laptops like T61 crash on APM.SYS just loading. Besides that with eCS 2.1 the default install mode would be "modern hardware safe mode". APM.SYS is not installed by default.

Alex discussed where the Genmac problem came from. Now back to working away the bugs and replying.

Roderick Klein
Mensys  B.V.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein on April 01, 2013, 11:31:52 pm
Quote
Please note: we have discovered that GenMAC is failing to install properly, which explains most if not all of the networking problems people have experienced after installation. 

Well, that is not the only network problem that exists. It is also not the most serious.

WARNING: If you install using the Multimac r8169 driver, supplied with eCS 2.2, it may disable the interface on your NIC. The symptom is exactly the same as if you had pulled the cable. The BAD part is, that the interface will not enable again (even in windows), until you remove ALL power from the NIC. On laptops, that usually means power off, pull the plug, and remove the main battery. On desktops, it means power off, and pull the plug. After a minute, or so, turn it all back on, and it should work again until you try the bad driver again. Then you start over.

Apparently, this does not affect all Realtek NICS, but I have at least two of them that have the problem, and I know of one other case where it has happened..

Many users are going to have the problem, and assume that eCS 2.2 has killed their NIC. At the same time, they will not be able to get on the internet to find out how to recover from the problem.

This problem existed before eCS 2.2 was released, and David A. (at least) knew about it. That driver (along with a few others) never should have made it into the eCS 2.2 beta.

Sadly the Realtek dossier is far from simple.  And eCS 2.1 also had the same issue!
That the old driver from 2.1 works for you has serious issue's and would cause kernel traps on other systems.

While these details may be boring to you as users its kind of Realtek its fault. Sounds nasty ?
The same problem (to some extend even happens in some cases). David told me this problem also is referenced in the Linux Realtek sources he ports to eCS
Realtek makes a complete and utter total mess of its cipset and PCI id's it uses.
In other words some chip ID's have so many revisions its a night mare to trace the changes.

On Windows I also had one time. Installed and yes the NIC was dead. Downloading the Realtek driver from realtek.com.tw fixed the problem.
We still need to further improve this driver. But looking for example how easy it was to port the e1000e.os2 and Nvidia driver  (also updated it).
Does 2 NIC drivers have no issue's.

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Doug Bissett on April 02, 2013, 08:00:54 am
Quote
s for the USB drivers. The beta was not released of eCS 2.2 until all issue's where traced and fixed on our equipment. We had 1 system that would hang on the USB drivers after the last device driver was loaded, this delayed the beta release with 3 days. Just like ACPI the USB drivers have been tested on very broad range of systems. Also the USB drivers shipped in eCS 2.2 beta are not 100% the same compared to Lars Erdmann his drivers. The drivers had been slightly modified by David and tested on his 10 systems at home.  Also all systems in the Mensys office where used to test the USB drivers and to test booting from USB CD ROM (another 30 systems or so). And all these systems are of different brands and chip sets BIOS makes etc.

I hate to have to point this out, but Lars knew about the problem with USBEHCD.SYS, days before the release of eCS 2.2 beta. Obviously, somebody decided to ignore the situation. Whether the beta should have been delayed, yet again, or released with the far more stable 186 version of the USB drivers, is a decision that needs to be made. It is true, that a few people had problems with version 186, but they were far fewer than those who had trouble with the 189 version. Then, if you made other changes, that were basically untested by those who did have known problems, I don't feel sorry for you at all. You deserve all of the flack that you are going to get.  I do feel sorry that eCS users don't have a good product to test.

Quote
Sadly the Realtek dossier is far from simple.  And eCS 2.1 also had the same issue!
That the old driver from 2.1 works for you has serious issue's and would cause kernel traps on other systems.

Fair enough, but that is no excuse for releasing a driver that was known, days before release, to have a very serious problem on some systems. I have two systems with different Realtek NICs, and both of them experienced the problem where the interface was disabled, until I did a full power off to get them reset. FWIW, the only driver that works with the Realtek 8168 in my Lenovo ThinkPad L530, is the old RTGNDA driver, which is not included with eCS 2.2. It is not perfect, but working most of the time, is a lot better than not working at all, and causing serious problems that the average user would have no idea what to do about.

In fact, I haven't got around to checking the on board Realtek 8168, that died the first time I tried the old r8110 driver (it was new at the time). The symptoms were exactly the same. It had been working with the GENMAC driver before that (with a few problems). It may actually work if I enable it, and load a good driver in it.

Quote
Realtek makes a complete and utter total mess of its cipset and PCI id's it uses.

I realized that a couple of years ago, yet you recently recommended Realtek NICs. When I got the L530, I found no place where they mentioned the wired NIC chipset. I specifically got an Intel WiFi, looking forward to support from Multimac. If I had realized it had a Realtek wired NIC, I probably would not have got it. My older T510 has an Intel wired NIC, and a Realtek WiFi, which is also waiting for Multimac. I guess I will get the T510 repaired (something died in the power control circuits), and switch the Intel WiFi with the Realtek one. The L530 has other problems, so it might as well be totally useless, and live in the windows world.

FWIW, The WiFi in the L530 is an Intel 8086:0891. I can get GENMAC to load three windows drivers, and they all seem to work, but I can find no way to get the radio turned on (there is no physical switch). It acts exactly like a wired NIC with the cable disconnected. I can load the driver, assign an IP address with IFCONFIG, and I can PING it, but that is the end of the road. I think there are a number of other machines, with Intel WiFi NICs, that have the same problem.

Today, I also observed a very interesting phenomenon. I was doing some big file copies, using SAMBA client on the machine with a Realtek 8169 chipset, and the r8169 Multimac driver. It was doing a sustained data transfer at about 9,000 KB/s. At the other end was a SAMBA server running with an NVIDIA chipset, and the Multimac driver. I then started up an RSync data transfer, using the L530, with a Realtek 8168 chipset, and the RTGNDA driver. It was running happily at about 32,000 KB/s, to the same NVIDIA  chipset, which was happily handling about 41,000 KB/s data rate. This is, of course on a 1 GB network. Looking on the internet, it is suggested that a 1 GB network should be able to run near 60,000 KB/s. In fact, my antique IBM ThinkPad A22e, running an Intel 100 Mbs NIC, runs at  sustained speed of about 8,000 KB/s. There is a serious problem with the Realtek Multimac driver, which needs to be fixed, since it seems to be a popular brand with many manufacturers using it.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein on April 02, 2013, 11:02:23 pm
But the driver we shipped for USB is based Lars his work and David made changes to the code and was extensively  tested on the systems we have access to.
It has also been tested in all equipment with USB mouse/keyboards and USB sticks. So it has just not been sling shotted out the door.

About the realtek driver is only things where that simple. The original DVD ISO that was released (with the broken USB drivers), from what I can tell from CVS log.
revision 1.3
date: 2013/03/25 19:52:03;  author: atr;  state: Exp;  lines: +188 -196
R8169 driver test build with improved DemoCD support
----------------------------
revision 1.2
date: 2012/11/25 02:39:06;  author: atr;  state: Exp;  lines: +204 -145
Latest Multimac drivers, latest PNGdesk.

Just after I did that CVS checkout for the first DVD ISO the driver from 2012 was still in the ISO. The original first eCS 2.2 ISO was build 2 PM (a few hours before Alex checked in the new driver!).
So it was not a last minute checkin. infact this driver has a fix to also load firmware files from CD for the demo CD.  As for the defect is the defect the same as with the previous driver that you opened the ticket ? Anyway if you want to talk about Q&A in overall amount of trouble report with all drivers this simply seems to be the best driver we could get out that was 0.2.2. build. That you got a much newer version was "bad" luck. Not a last minute fix.

As I explained the problem does not occur with all Linux distro's but its certainly true the Realtek NIC's are not the easiest to get working.  And don't take my word for it. The comment is (according to David) in the Linux sources (problems with realtek revisions).

If you could consider the this a beta or alpha ? Looking at the extremely complex overhaul and the amount of defects reported up until now. If you compare it with previous eCS versions.
Vast amount of bugs have been fixed and don't stick up. But this last statement is certainly vastly debatable :-)

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein on April 03, 2013, 01:09:42 am
If you look at the overal list of drivers updated in eCS 2.2 its this.

ACPI.ADD large updates and bugs fixed.
APM.ADD /acpideamon same thing.

AMOUSE.SYS (suspend resume fixe)

IBMKBD.SYS (suspend/resume and SMP fix

UNIAUD16.SYS added ACPI suspend/resume
(no new chipset support currently).

e1000e.os2 mayor code updates and added suspend/resume support. Same thing is true for Intel

danis506.add also received fixes to fix suspend/resume issue's with ACPI.
It also received further updates and fixes to support new chipsets and fix an until now never reported +512 GB disc geometry bug.
The last bug was found by the tests performed at Mensys.

Panorama code has had mayor updates and gotten PAT/MTRR updates and wide screen enabler for Intel/ATI.
Fixes to the OS2AHCI driver.
The bootable JFS code has received a mayor clean and has a mini kind of cache system build in and the amount of disc I/O reads it needs todo
is reduced very far.  (this is used to read JFS before JFS.IFS is loaded).

New USBMOUSE and USB keyboard and USBHID.SYS driver.

Updated TCPIP32.DLL and DOSCALL1.DLL to fix SMP problems in the code.

Then the USB host controller UBSEHCD.SYS, USBUHCD.SYS and USBOHCD.SYS and USBD.SYS.

Looking compared to previous beta's of eCS and the amount of bugs we can filter get its down to basicly about 6 mayor bugs.

Thats the device driver portion of it. We include Cups, Java 6, Java RDP client. INI cleaner DMT.

I'm gladd with the bugs of course not. But I do hope its shown that eCS has receved mayor maintance to try and keep it much easier to run.
(Apart from the bugs we now have).

I want to post this list of device drivers, hope I did not forget any.

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: eirik on April 03, 2013, 02:38:10 am
Having followed the eCS 2.2 beta debate, but not installed eCS 2.2, my impression is that we are looking more at an alpha build.  If this release had been called an alpha build, people would not have had so high expectations that things were going to work "almost out of the box".  Many of the frustrations that people have voiced are because they expected more from a beta build.

OS/2 and its successor, eCS, have until now not been associated with the MicroSoft testing strategy -- let's release it, and see what happens.  Calling this release a beta gives those associations.  The way I read things, I will probably not install eCS 2.2 once the GA is released, but wait a bit to see if other issues are sorted out.  This loss in faith is bad for eCS and for the enthusiasm among eCS users.

Mensys should admit they were too fast this time, rename this release to an alpha, keep the tracking system to get more test reports for a month or so, then sort out reported problems and release a working beta.  Most users have up and running systems (otherwise they would not be users), and they are unlikely to install something they think is bound to fail. Please, restore our confidence by not overselling. Less confidence is the same as less customers.  Or to be in a positive mood: more confidence is more users.  And that is needed if eCS is to survive.

The vision behind the extensive eCS 2.2 work is excellent and needed if eCS is to run on modern hardware.  That type of customer confidence is also needed for survival.  But this confidence is based upon the first confidence that originates from promises being held.

Eirik
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: ivan on April 03, 2013, 04:13:48 pm
Just a couple of questions based on what I see here.

First, is the emphasis now for installing on notebooks?

Second, why is Intel video given a wide screen boost and not Nvidia?   Out of the several hundred machines we maintain for clients we have ONE with an Intel video - and it runs headless -  while the remainder are about 60% ATI and 40% Nvidia video based.  For those clients that want wide screen 1920x1200 (16/10) monitors we are scouring the second-hand sites and getting as many ATI PCIe cards as we can that are listed in the Snap readme.

As a supplementary question, did anyone ask what hardware support was actually required or is the support based on the hardware that a limited number of people have for testing?  If the later is the case, did anyone consider asking for volunteers to do testing - even if it was under an NDA - and if not why not?

I would love to be able to go to our clients and say with confidence that there is now available a version of OS/2 that will install on ANY computer they would like to purchase.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein on April 03, 2013, 04:35:57 pm
Just a couple of questions based on what I see here.

First, is the emphasis now for installing on notebooks?

Second, why is Intel video given a wide screen boost and not Nvidia?   Out of the several hundred machines we maintain for clients we have ONE with an Intel video - and it runs headless -  while the remainder are about 60% ATI and 40% Nvidia video based.  For those clients that want wide screen 1920x1200 (16/10) monitors we are scouring the second-hand sites and getting as many ATI PCIe cards as we can that are listed in the Snap readme.

As a supplementary question, did anyone ask what hardware support was actually required or is the support based on the hardware that a limited number of people have for testing?  If the later is the case, did anyone consider asking for volunteers to do testing - even if it was under an NDA - and if not why not?

I would love to be able to go to our clients and say with confidence that there is now available a version of OS/2 that will install on ANY computer they would like to purchase.

To answer your question about the Panorama  video wide screen enabler. Research to get Nvidia wide screen enabler to work has done. And in the test-lab it sort of worked. But we have not been able to figure what needs to be done to the Nvidia BIOS to get this work properly. Its currently on the backburner. So yes we worked on this but did not get the wide screen enabler for Nvidia to work yet duo to lack of documentation on Nvidia side partly. So its peaking at Linux code and debugging the old fashion way. This is pretty time consuming :-)

With this version that has not been an emphasis to install on notebooks. What do you base this question on ? 

If you want to be beta tester please send me an email rwklein at mensys.nl. No NDA needed, its very informal. See other posting about the beta testing.
If eCS 2.2 can run on an modern PC. We hope so. We have tried to combat as many problems as possible. We tested on very modern boxes we could get our hands on.
The new DB2 server running in the Mensys office with DB2 7.2 runs on a 6 core Xeon CPU box. Just get a system with an Intel gigabit controller.

Regards,

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Roderick Klein on April 03, 2013, 04:38:12 pm
Hello Eirik

I see people reporting the problems with eCS 2.2 we released.
People are free to call it anything they want.  All the components included in eCS 2.2 have received internal and external testing or have been around longer
and have not shown up eCS 2.2 out of the blue. Also different versions of the DVD ISO file since january of this year have tested by other people outside of Mensys (not people even on the development tested the ISO and have been giving feedback.

In fact if people want to call eCS 2.2 beta an alpha what would the should eCS 2.1 GA product be called ? When you look at the amount of bug reports that have been found with eCS 2.1 GA version. Systems without ACPI that would crash when screen01.sys loads. That is fixed now. The current problems realy reported are down 3 most irritating issue's.

* The danis506.add seems to have 1 regression that causes older laptops not to boot, analyses is already on the way.


* The problem with the Genmac driver was because the TAG thats in ecs\inst_flg file contained the word beta. Turned out these defect has been in the
genmac2.wpi file ever since it was created.


* The defect in the USB driver.

The way Q&A work has been done at Mensys has never been realy been different for the last 10 years since I have always done this.

Regards,

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta (release of final version)
Post by: Roderick Klein on April 03, 2013, 04:42:31 pm
As for Eirik his question.

The eCS 2.2 beta  won't be made GA next week. The beta period will be extend the end of the third week of April (at least). That means the original time frame to release the GA of eCS 2.2 is dropped.

Roderick Klein
Mensys B.V.



Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Doug Bissett on April 03, 2013, 06:10:36 pm
Quote
The way Q&A work has been done at Mensys has never been realy been different for the last 10 years since I have always done this.

We noticed. It has always been "late", and the end result has always had more problems than a user would expect. This was not unexpected in early releases, as everybody was learning. It is becoming more irritating because the record isn't getting any better. It is still "late" and there are still more problems than expected. Some of the problems are not really unexpected, but you (or somebody in the team) knew about more than one of them, before the beta was released. That should have stopped it, or you should heave gone back to what is known to work for the majority. I would also suggest that announcements of new public betas should not take place, until you have one, in hand, that works for your testers (obviously, you need more testers, to do Alpha testing), Then, the only changes that get made, would be to correct a found problem, then the beta test starts over again. When all of your testers agree that it works as expected, then you announce a public beta, and nothing changes unless a serious problem is found.

The fact that the wrong USB drivers got included, on the first download, demonstrates that somebody lost control of the product quality, and/or nobody did proper testing of the product before it was released. Announcing it, then delaying it, demonstrates that you do not have control over the product.

It seems that you need to have a list of machines that need to be tested, including newer and older laptops. Then, you need to know who can do testing for those machines (more than one, when possible - preferably an experienced user, and somebody who is not a techie), and be sure that they test specific parts that have been changed. In many cases, the test only needs to include changing a driver (like Dani), to be sure that it still works, after somebody changes something. Once all of the testers agree that something new works, it can be inserted as a candidate for the next beta, or GA. At that point, if somebody wants to change something, they (or you) need to make a business case for it, and the testing starts over. If it passes, it goes into the next release. If not, it goes back for repair, and the testing starts all over again. As soon as a product is deemed to be stable, it gets packaged as a beta, is tested by the testers, THEN you announce a new beta, or GA, and NOTHING changes. If somebody finds a problem, the process starts again.

Once a Public beta has been announced, the next Alpha cycle starts. Any new changes go into that, not into the current beta, which gets repaired only (nothing new), and eventually becomes the next GA, after found problems are repaired, and everybody (including the person who found a problem) agrees that it works as expected.

I am not saying that EVERYTHING needs to be fixed for any specific beta, or GA. You should be able to make an exception list, with known problems, and work arounds, when possible. From that information, a user can make a more intelligent decision about whether to participate, or not. Blindly falling into a problem that can disable a NIC (even in windows), without warning, is not going to impress many people. There will, of course, always be new hardware, or somebody will introduce a new program, that will surface problems that did not get caught, but they should be pretty rare.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Pete on April 03, 2013, 09:17:43 pm
Hi Roderick

Would the USB drivers be responsible for what seems a slow boot time here? - or is the new kernel involved?

The eCS logo is onscreen for a long time compared with eCS2.1 and total boot time is double eCS2.1 (Time in Minutes:Seconds):-

      Boot logo on screen      Boot time total

eCS 2.1                00:07                               00:45

eCS 2.2 beta       00:55            01:35


Anyone else seeing longer-than-eCS2.1/eCS2.0 boot times?

I'm seeing the occasional problem of the system boots to a working Desktop but the USB mouse is totally unresponsive, the pointer on screen does not move and neither button works. The last time this happened I experimented with pulling out the usb mouse lead then plugging it back in. Hey, Presto! - a working mouse. However, this is not a good "workaround" as it involves crawling under a desk to get at the usb mouse lead.

The above is not a problem that I have seen when using Lars Erdmanns USB Controller drivers build 10.186 with IBMs USBD.SYS 10.162


Regards

Pete


Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Doug Bissett on April 04, 2013, 05:14:45 am
Quote
I'm seeing the occasional problem of the system boots to a working Desktop but the USB mouse is totally unresponsive,

This is one of the symptoms that the USB drivers can cause. I have reverted to the 186 version, and have had no more problems with that sort of thing.

I have noticed that boot times seem to be shorter with eCS 2.2 (once I get it going properly). I haven't actually timed it. If you are seeing a problem at the time the logo is on screen, it could be a number of things. The most likely, is that BootDly.SYS is inserting a ridiculously long delay after a SCSI driver is loaded. Inspect your CONFIG.SYS for such a thing. AFAICT, the delay may be needed if you boot from a SCSI device, otherwise, it is not really needed. Some experimenting may be needed to find a more reasonable delay, if it is needed at all. My SCSI card runs my scanner. No delay is necessary for that.

Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Doug Bissett on April 04, 2013, 06:04:43 am
I decided to tackle my old test machine. The machine has a CD drive, not a DVD drive. It also seems that it is difficult to find an IDE DVD drive. So, I got a USB DVD drive.

The first problem is that the machine will not boot from a USB CD/DVD drive. Okay, I made the diskettes. After remaking one bad diskette, I got it to boot, and loaded all four diskettes. It asked for the driver update diskette, which I didn't try, but also gave me a message that the code had not loaded properly, for some reason. Okay, I pressed a key, and the preboot menu showed up. So, I proceeded. The install started, and came to an abrupt halt, when the disk drive could not be "seen". The Dani driver problem (I thought somebody said that only affected a few laptops). So, start over, and select the IBM1S506 driver. Now, the USB DVD drive could not be read. After I powered everything off, and started again, the USB drive was okay, so I proceeded. All went well until it did the first reboot. Now, the USB drive could not be read, again. Okay, I know that is one of the symptoms of the USB drivers, so I rebooted to an alternate boot system, and put the 186 USB drivers in. While I was at it, I put the Dani driver, and DaniFLT.FLT, from eCS 2.1 in and changed the CONFIG.SYS. Rebooted again, and off it went, for a couple of minutes. Then it stopped. No indication of any problems, but it was going nowhere.I realized that I had forgotten to REM the NTFS.IFS and HPFS.IFS lines in CONFIG.SYS, so I rebooted, did that and rebooted again. It continued, and now I am waiting as it is apparently installing CUPS. I think i will kill it because it should not take that long, even if it is downloading it. Hmmm. It took the rest button to break it loose.

More about this saga, if I ever get the time to do it.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Gregg Young on April 07, 2013, 02:04:48 am
I finally got the time to do some in depth testing. I avoided the genmac problems. Who knew that having an "UNSUPPORTED" nic would be a good thing. It would be nice to have the option to install the base genmac driver.  NAP doesn't install my unsupported driver correctly but MPTS does. The USB & DANI drivers work for me.

The install went fine except for the error between boots "Operating system missing, system halted". Rebooting fixed this. This is caused by a space in the drive label name. It is probably a quoting issue in how the new setboot (eCS 2.1 and higher) passes the name to boot manager.

Drag text doesn't install correctly. The DTProgram template gets the Ftp class instead of the DTProgram class. Not a huge issue and uninstalling DTProgram and reinstalling it fixes it. Split view is also problematic independent of rather you like it or not. Because split view is installed by running a REXX script to set the "Drives" default view to split view any drive that is added after the install (all network and virtual drives) don't default to it. I couldn't get the script to set the additional drives either. Not sure why. The other problem as already discussed is the lack of an easy way to change to the standard behavior.   

PNG Desktop was much more of a problem. If I installed it the phase 3 boot always failed to populate the desktop forcing an additional reboot. The Amouse object failed to install in the settings folder and since mouse settings aren't really optional this represents a reason to remove this completely if it can't easily be fixed. The issue of drive labels verses letter which has previously been discussed needs to be addressed also. Lastly, the Drag Text file template icon is lost if you open its properties.

I think this is a very good showing for a beta. I have submitted bug reports for the issues listed above.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Pete on April 09, 2013, 06:15:19 pm
Hi Doug

I tried to resolve the usb issues I'm seeing by deleting USBOHCD.SYS and USBEHCD.SYS then installing the files from the 10.186 build by Lars Erdmann

Rebooted  to a working Desktop with Mouse "active"

I hoped the above had cured the problem but find it has not - 2 of 5 boots have resulted in no mouse "active" when the Desktop has loaded.

I then tried replacing USBD.SYS and USBHID.SYS with the IBM 10.162 builds

Rebooted with no problems, mouse works.

A few reboots later - and no changes to config.sys file - I find boot stopping after loading the genmac marvbell 88e8056 driver.

This is about the time that the usbmouse.sys driver should load...

I tried turning off my Logitech M570 Trackball - just purchased to replace my ancient wired Microsoft Trackball - and then turning it on. No difference...

I pulled the wireless receiver from the USB socket - Boot continued; I reinserted the wireless receiver and the mouse worked fine when the Desktop had loaded. Interesting... I suspect the USB drivers are not even "seeing" the attached mouse until the wireless receiver is reinserted. But, Why not?

This combination of Lars Erdmanns controller drivers build 10.186 and IBMs 10.162 USBD.SYS and USBHID.SYS works fine on this hardware when booting from my eCS2.1 volume. This seems to indicate the problem is not just related to USB drivers.


Regards

Pete

Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Doug Bissett on April 09, 2013, 08:07:17 pm
I think that Lars has been doing great work with the USB stuff. However, it seems that the poorly written, and even more poorly followed USB specs are causing problems for him. Throwing in "unusual" devices, like a trackball, doesn't help. It may become a case where users will need to mix, and match, the different parts to find a combination that works. At least Lars is willing to continue trying.

GENMAC also has some very strange problems (that likely won't get fixed), but I haven't seen any evidence that either driver will interfere with the other (doesn't mean that it doesn't happen).

ECS 2.2 beta seems to have picked a couple of bad combinations of both of those drivers, and there are some other problems that may affect what you are seeing. Right now, I am waiting to see what the next beta does. The current one seems to have a number of problems, that have been identified, but working around one, may be causing others to show up. It becomes a chicken and the egg problem, which can waste a whole lot of time.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Pete on April 09, 2013, 08:50:18 pm
Hi Doug

Throwing in "unusual" devices, like a trackball, doesn't help.


I would not consider a trackball an "unusual" device; it is nothing more than an upside down mouse  ;-)

Yes, lets see if the next 2.2 beta - if there is 1 - resolves the issues people have reported.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Pete on April 11, 2013, 03:32:17 am
Hi Doug

I think I've found the cause of my usb "mouse" problem: USB Legacy support was Enabled in the mainboard BIOS.
Changing that to Disabled has resulted in no problems when booting using the IBM 10.162 builds of usbd.sys, usbhid.sys, usbehcd.sys and usbohcd.sys and the mouse has been active when the Desktop has loaded.

Lars 10.186 builds do not like my wireless trackball as they cause boot to stop until the usb receiver is removed from the usb port.

I've yet to retest the usb drivers supplied with eCS 2.2 beta

I've also discovered the cause of the slooow boot time I've been experiencing with eCS2.2 beta: BASEDEV=OS2AHCI.ADD /Q
Putting REM in front of that line has improved matters greatly - about the same boot time as my eCS 2.1 installation.


Regards

Pete
Title: A different OS2 Loader - Link
Post by: Sigurd Fastenrath on April 11, 2013, 08:46:22 am
For those, looking for this QS Loader, as long at it is there :P

- I am not responsible for any damage or soemthing else you will get while following/using this link:

http://212.12.30.18/other/QS_LDR.ZIP (http://212.12.30.18/other/QS_LDR.ZIP)

I personally did switch back to OS/4 Loader so far.

Martin or wohever: please let me know if this link does violate forum rules or whatever, thanks!

EDIT: Oh sorry, it is on the wrong discussion, could you move this to the "Warp 4" one please, thanks and sorry!
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Joop on April 14, 2013, 10:51:01 am
Hi Doug

I think I've found the cause of my usb "mouse" problem: USB Legacy support was Enabled in the mainboard BIOS.
Changing that to Disabled has resulted in no problems when booting using the IBM 10.162 builds of usbd.sys, usbhid.sys, usbehcd.sys and usbohcd.sys and the mouse has been active when the Desktop has loaded.

Lars 10.186 builds do not like my wireless trackball as they cause boot to stop until the usb receiver is removed from the usb port.

I've yet to retest the usb drivers supplied with eCS 2.2 beta

I've also discovered the cause of the slooow boot time I've been experiencing with eCS2.2 beta: BASEDEV=OS2AHCI.ADD /Q
Putting REM in front of that line has improved matters greatly - about the same boot time as my eCS 2.1 installation.


Regards

Pete
Pete,
You need need to upgrade to MOUSE.SYS and USBMOUSE.SYS version IBM:10.163 or AMOUSE
version NB:2.7 or later. If not than only an attached USB pointng device will not work, with lower version you need to attach an ordinary mouse to serial or ps port. Have had similar problems with Wacom tablets. Also be sure its in the right order in your config.sys.

Regards,
Joop
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: Andreas Schnellbacher on April 20, 2013, 07:13:48 pm
Roderick, excuse me for the late reply.

eCS should better consist of update packages.

Instead of this, it still uses old IBM installers.

It's still not possible to update an eCS version. That lack of possibility
leads for many (if not most) users to no updates.

With a packaging system, you'll reach those users as well. I mean to
package all system components into common packages. BTW:
RPM/YUM is able to fulfill the specs.

Do we really need the IBM installer? I'm sure that installation could be
make easier,  10 times faster and more reliable without it.
Title: Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions
Post by: ivan on April 20, 2013, 11:38:37 pm
Andreas, i seem to remember Roderick, or one of those involved with, eCS saying that they were not able to change anything with the base OS/2 because of the licence they have with IBM so they are stuck with the old installer.

I know you are pushing the RPM/YUM installer, I also know that there has been some debate about that and I am yet to be convinced that we, as end users, actually need it.  So far zip and warpin are more that adequate to do the job if installing applications on OS/2.  Using either of those I only need one file on a usb stick to install the same application on all the workstations I supervise and maintain so the question is, why reinvent the wheel?

I do agree with you that Mensys would have a potential market if they prepared a CD of all the updated addons and made that available separately.