Messages

391

Article Discussions / Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions

« 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.

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.

392

Article Discussions / Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions

« 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. 

• No network adapters shown (but MPTS does show them)
• Unexpected error messages
• Crashes

In your ticket, please include the following:

• A copy of PROTOCOL.INI (taken from when the problem was occurring)
• A copy of CONFIG.SYS (likewise)
• Also, please try running "NAPS.EXE /D" from the command line (in the \ecs\system\naps directory).  The /D switch will cause debug output to be written to the VX console.  Please copy & paste ALL of the contents of this console into a file and also attach it to the ticket.  (You don't have to make any configuration changes unless asked to; simply starting up NAPS should be enough to begin with.)

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).

393

Article Discussions / Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta First Impressions

« 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).

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).

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.

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.

394

Programming / Re: Rexx?

« on: March 21, 2013, 04:41:48 pm »

The REXX 'SAY' instruction simply prints to standard output (STDOUT).  Unless you use a special REXX environment that redirects STDOUT (such as PMREXX), you will only see this when running the REXX program from a command prompt.

RxMessageBox only works within a process that is running as in graphical (PM) mode.  If you run within PMREXX ('REXX console' on the eCS desktop) then it should work (IIRC, anyway).  You can also convert a REXX script to a graphical program by using a tool like REXX2EXE (use e.g. 'rexx2exe myrexx.cmd myrexx.exe /p').

Normally eCenter widgets are not written in REXX.  I believe somebody wrote a special wrapper widget a few years ago which does allow this, however.  It might be in this package but I'm not sure (and I've never used it so I can't be any more help than that).

395

Article Discussions / Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta Demo CD English first impressions

« on: March 11, 2013, 04:26:05 am »

My Asus M4A78LT-M boots to a desktop, the Intel Pro/1000 nic is seen and used and I can get to the internet BUT there is no way that I can do anything with the drives on the machine - every time I try to open a drive it gives a windows like message that the drive isn't formatted (they are HPFS and JFS).  As a demonstration that is useless.

Please remember this product is a demo CD - it is not a 'live' CD in the usual sense.  Certain features are disabled to ensure that people cannot use the CD as a substitute OS.  In some cases, IBM specifically required that we disable these features for the free demo. 

Access to OS/2 native fs (HPFS and JFS) drives is intentionally disabled.  Printing is also disabled, as is SMB (Peer and Samba) support.

396

Article Discussions / Re: eComStation 2.2 Beta Demo CD English first impressions

« on: March 01, 2013, 08:20:27 pm »

If ATA hardware is detected, it will always load the OS2AHCI driver by default (and the DANI driver second) - unless it's running under a virtual machine.

397

Setup & Installation / Re: eCS 2.2 YUM/RPM question

« on: February 02, 2013, 09:27:34 pm »

How are they buried?  They've already got their own dedicated page where you choose HOME and PROGRAMS.

(eCS 2.2 will add the RPM base to that page as well.)

398

Setup & Installation / Re: eCS 2.2 YUM/RPM question

« on: February 02, 2013, 03:07:48 am »

I do have one question though, why does an eCS install default to using %bootdrive%/programs and %bootdrive%/home?

I'm not sure what else it could default to. 

399

Setup & Installation / Re: eCS 2.2 YUM/RPM question

« on: February 01, 2013, 07:48:40 pm »

Thanks for that bit of information Alex.  When you say view them do you mean just getting a list or actually extracting them - in other words do we now have a fully functional 7z?

Yes, you can extract them.  It uses either 7z or rpm2cpio, depending on which one it can find in the PATH, plus cpio.

Likewise Doug, all my applications are on one partition and where possible the data produced is on yet another.  The boot partition has OS/2 and that is it.

This is good policy, IMO.

Must it be on the boot partition or can it be on another and if on another will it allow multiple boot partitions?  That is the question that must be answered!

It has been answered, repeatedly.  I don't see what the confusion is.  It can go on any partition and is entirely self-contained.

At the moment there appears to be a move towards emulating windows with everything being placed in the boot partition.  As far as I can see this is a retrograde step and should be resisted. 

Why do you seem to have this impression?  Who has ever said that it has to be on the boot drive?  It does not.

400

Setup & Installation / Re: eCS 2.2 YUM/RPM question

« on: February 01, 2013, 07:38:55 pm »

Thanks for all the answers, but I still have no idea about my questions:

1. there is a minimum space of 6GB required for a "full" install of eCS 2.2? +
3. has YUM/RPM to be installed on the boot drive or is it possible to install it on a seperate drive?
(as these depend on each other)

I thought I answered these about two weeks ago on the eCS mailing list.  However, I'll answer again.

1. No.  A default install I think takes a bit less than 1GB, but you will obviously want extra space on whatever drive you keep applications, data, and/or your temporary directory.  That has always been the case, irrespective of RPM/YUM.

3. No, you can install it on any drive as long as it supports long filenames.

2. will the installer quit if there is less or deselect RPM/YUM applications (JAVA, ODIN, QT I guess)
4. or do one have to have two partitions for the installation (one for OS one for YUM/RPM) allways?
5. If it is necessary to install YUM/RPM on the bootdrive - does it will go in a seperate folder or "mess up" the whole boot drive with the needed folder structure?

2.  No, the installer will not quit.  If you deselect RPM/YUM in Advanced install, then Odin, Flash, Java and Qt4 will also be automatically deselected.

4. No. 

5. It is not necessary, so: no.  Whatever drive you install on, by default three directories will be used: /var, /etc and /usr.  I acknowledge this is somewhat awkward as you already have an %ETC% directory and a /var directory which may end up separate.  However, there is no way for us to change this, given how RPM is designed.  We recommend thinking of it like this: RPM installs a self-contained "sandbox" for Unix-ported applications.  Those applications will use the RPM-managed directories; other applications will use the "regular" directories.

That said: The installer (in Advanced mode) simply asks where you want the RPM root path to be.  It defaults to the root directory of a drive.   However, it is theoretically possible to enter a subdirectory (e.g. "x:\rpm") instead, in which case all the RPM directories will be created under that.  We do not encourage users to do this, as there is no guarantee that all RPM-managed applications will support this kind of setup.  (The ones included with eCS do seem to work this way, though.)

Sorry, but I am not able to find the answers to that - "simple" - questions.

As far as I understand the whole YUM/RPM is needed to install ODIN and QT - as JAVA and Flash are not ready....

True, but since Java and Flash depend on Odin, they can't be installed via the eCS installer without RPM as well.  (You can perfectly well install them yourself later, of course, if you know how.)

The most important questions of these are to me:

Does YUM/RPM hast to be installed on the Bootdrive and will it go in a seperat folder?

Might it be possible to answer this easy question with an easy YES or NO?  - > Thanks in Advance!

No; and, it depends.  See above.

401

Setup & Installation / Re: eCS 2.2 YUM/RPM question

« on: January 28, 2013, 08:31:43 pm »

RPM will be in eCS 2.2 beta.  The basic install includes the RPM framework, EMX, GCC4CORE, kLIBC, COREUTILS and Python.  (If you choose not to install RPM, then GCC4CORE, EMX and COREUTILS will be installed from their older standalone packages.)

The following eCS components will be installed using RPM/YUM

• Odin (required for Flash 11 and Java 6)
• QT4

It's somewhat possible that Flash and/or Java might be repackaged for RPM but I don't expect that to happen before the public beta.  (Note that while Flash and Java are not themselves installed via RPM at the moment, they both require Odin, which is - therefore you do have to install RPM in order to install either Flash or Java during eCS install.)

BTW, ivan: Since eCS 2.1, the include Archive Viewer utility can view and extract RPM files.