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WebSite Information => Comments, Suggestions & Questions => Topic started by: lmotaku on March 16, 2013, 05:08:59 pm

Title: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: lmotaku on March 16, 2013, 05:08:59 pm
It's cool to see something new being renewed and added to, however I can't help but wonder what would be the benefits of installing OS/2 or it's derivative?

By the looks of things it'd be great for nostalgia purposes and testing, but it doesn't seem to have a logical purpose other than that in the Operating system world.
To explain, it's just recently or subsequently achieved full 32bit support, when we are in a 64bit computing world. The only benefactor or use OS/2 would have is on an older server/PC.
But the question is who would run a server with a 133mhz processor? I'm sure it's good for students and people looking to fiddle around with, but as for general purpose "who" would benefit from OS/2?

It appears they're also trying to sell eComStation. I wouldn't buy it, it should be GPL for the purposes I labeled above. Unless I'm not seeing something.
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 16, 2013, 07:16:20 pm
Hi Larry, welcome.

From a Business point of view, eComStation is being sold to the companies that requires to run OS/2 legacy application, and that will be too expensive to migrate to other software or platform. So Mensys strategy is to update OS/2 to run on newer hardware for that customers.

From the community point of view, we like OS/2, we have been using it from a long time and it is our personal preference. Maybe I will be lying if I say that eComStation is the best of all operating system, but I'm not lying when I say it is my personal choice.

I understand that it is very hard to attract new users to this community with the costs that eComStation currently has, but it can not be free of charge. The code still belongs to IBM and Mensys has to pay royalties. I even tried to convince Mensys to make an eCS VM free of charge, without support, AS IS, and only for non-commercial use, but they told me they can't.

I hope that someday we can have an open source clone of OS/2, but that something that is going to take time and we require a lot of help (If you want to help coding, documenting, testing you are welcome). OSFree (www.osfree.org) is trying to build this clone but require more resources and developers.  From the other side, any GPL software that can be included on eComStation will also be a step further on this dream.

Regards
Martin
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: lmotaku on March 16, 2013, 07:53:27 pm
Thanks Martin, I appreciate the thoughtful and thorough response. I am 24, about 15 years ago I started dipping into linux operating systems such as Knoppix and FreeBSD. By that time OS/2 had lost all of it's momentum, for the generic consumer anyway. Started with Windows 3.1 I think it was in public school, then Windows 95/98se in my early teens. Not to go off topic too much about my history, I'm always excited to try and experiment with operating systems as you can tell. OS/2 has always been something of slight interest to me, but it was so severely outdated before I became mature enough to comprehend the vast operating systems available to me.

You have said that OS/2 or eComStation is a personal preference to you. It's a feel thing, and I understand that. I'm sitting on Windows 7 at the moment and handle many linux servers, I became a web developer, PC technician and various of things over the years. So I know what benefits me, and what is more beneficial for server systems. What to you personally sets OS/2 above say any Windows/gui environment? Is it look, or is their something under the helm(inside the kernel) that makes it better for your everyday use?
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 16, 2013, 09:07:53 pm
One of the main reasons why I like, and use, eComStation, is that there are zero viruses that affect it. Other advantages are that I don't need to update all of my programs, just because there is a new version of eCS., and it will do most of the useful things that can be done in other operating systems. I realize that if you want to make a living at servicing, and supporting, operating systems, those are distinct disadvantages.

It is true that eCS is not as flashy as some other operating systems, but as they say "if you can't make it work, make it look good". Unfortunately, the "make it look good" crowd also wants to complicate life by changing a lot of the rules, for no good reason. That makes it difficult for those who use a rock solid OS to keep changing what needs to be changed because somebody else decided to do something in a different way. Even to find out what has changed, is difficult. Then, it takes a lot of work to make changes to the OS, to accommodate what somebody else decided was a good idea. The source for most of OS/2 is not available, but OS/2 will still run circles around windows on the same hardware. For instance, I still have, and use, an old IBM ThinkPad A22e, with 256 meg of memory (max). It will run eCS 2.1 pretty well, until I have to use a bloated program like Firefox, with complicated web pages. Then, it runs into trouble because the machine doesn't have enough memory, and it ends up swapping constantly. If that thing could handle a gig of memory, eCS would do fine. It has Win98 on it, and it would probably run Win2K okay, but I don't think it would work very well with WinXP, even if it did have a gig of memory.

The way that I prefer to think of it, is "If you want to play games, get windows. If you want to get some work done,  get eComStation."
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 16, 2013, 09:13:46 pm
Well, betwen the benefits/features I can tell you:


Sure, other users has their different points of views, lets see if someone else posts something :)
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: lmotaku on March 16, 2013, 09:50:55 pm
Hey Doug, thanks for that addition. Wouldn't you say that no-viruses is because it's such a foreign OS? Not language wise, but in terms of use? It's very sparingly used by anyone, and the market share is so low that no one writes viruses for it? Same goes for linux and Mac OS? Mac OS and iOS is becoming used more, but not at the extent Windows is, to my knowledge. When you said "If you wanna play games use Windows, if you want to do work use eComStation", I was heavily reminded of the Mac VS PC commercials. Any OS can be used for gaming, provided someone writes software for it, or so I thought? The OS isn't the limitation, it's the developers for the system that create limitations, correct? If someone made a Win32 directx library that ran virtually or parallel in OS/2, couldn't it play games too? Also, if eComStation or OS/2 has support for GCC, couldn't it also install linux software(games), with some sort of driver manipulation for OpenGL?

Back to Martin. Yeah, for a lot of people stability is very important. But how much tuning is actually required, what's the learning curve on doing such tweaks? Would someone have to go out of their way and read an OS/2 for dummies book? :P That "microkernel" part I agree seems like a nifty thing to have. I guess that means anyone can write software-based drivers and not have to hook into the kernel or different security rings? I'm not 100% knowledged on "rings" or anything like that, but it seems like that's what it would be optimized for.  But they should support enough out of the box to actually do work, and do they? I mean, I see that they finally have support for Athlon 64, which is a decently old CPU. I'm running a modest Phenom II x6 1045t, with 10GB ram. Would eComStation actually work out of the box for my system?
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: melf on March 16, 2013, 10:14:58 pm
I use eCS of the same reason as Doug I think, productivity reason. I don't play games but write a lot, do presentations and posters. eCS is fast and responsive - for me Windows is quite slow. I use the wonderful feature "work area", i.e you can assign a folder to be a work area, by just checking a square in Folder properties. Then when you open that folder everything you put there pop up and places itself just as when you closed the folder; e.g. a video, a pdf, a text document,  and so on. It is just to continue working (However, open office does not behave like that, which I have bug-reported, this is a feature to preserve!). Furthermore the excellent virtual desktop feature is so easy to use. Place several documents in different virtual desktops and easily shift between the with the keystrokes of your choice (e.g. Alt+arrow left/right). I have used Linux but don't find its virtual desktops half that easy to use.

Also if you use really native programs; with this I mean those that are written for eCS from source , you'll notice that they are extremely fast and stable. Today we have to rely a lot on ported software, which is good in one sense, but which also do not take full advantage of eCS. Today I bought Maul Publisher, a small, fast and excellent desktop publishing program. I am quite fond of Scribus, which is a Linux port, but there are nearly always some point where it crashes.

I think that eCS would be a competitive force if we developed special WPS packages able to tailor the WPS for specific productivity needs. 
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: guzzi on March 17, 2013, 02:00:15 am
I've been using OS/2 since warp 3 in 1995, before windows 95 cam on the market. Before that I used DOS with Desqview because that was stable and win 3.1 was not. Warp did all win 95 did and a lot better, so I never looked back and kept using and upgrading it. I do almost all my PC work and entertainment with eCS, except Skype, because it's not available. That I use on my Win 7 notebook.
One of the reasons I like eCS is that I am used to it and familiar with it. And system maintenance is much easier and faster than with windows computers. The huge amount of temporary files and directories in several locations on the win7 notebook keeps amazing me. No 'cleaning' program ever removes it all. Has to be partly done by hand.
For someone new to eCS I can recommend the use of FC/2, a Norton Commander style file browser. Makes it really easy to browse and manipulate files, directories and archives and will give you a good insight of what is on the disk, i.e. what the OS consists of. The learning curve wouldn't be very steep if you have hardware that is completely supported. Chances are, it is not... On the bright side, that will give you an excellent opportunity to learn a bit about the workins of the OS:-)
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 17, 2013, 08:07:50 am
Hey Doug, thanks for that addition. Wouldn't you say that no-viruses is because it's such a foreign OS? Not language wise, but in terms of use? It's very sparingly used by anyone, and the market share is so low that no one writes viruses for it? Same goes for linux and Mac OS? Mac OS and iOS is becoming used more, but not at the extent Windows is, to my knowledge.
Not Doug but...
While OS/2 resistants to viruses is partially due to it not being very common it does have very high payback. Rooting a bank is much more profitably then rooting Joe User. The advantage is the IBM culture. While MS seems to have a culture of "it compiles, lets ship" IBM had a culture of "there is still some compiler warnings, we better fix them before shipping". This leads to less holes for virus writers to take advantage of.
 
When you said "If you wanna play games use Windows, if you want to do work use eComStation", I was heavily reminded of the Mac VS PC commercials. Any OS can be used for gaming, provided someone writes software for it, or so I thought? The OS isn't the limitation, it's the developers for the system that create limitations, correct? If someone made a Win32 directx library that ran virtually or parallel in OS/2, couldn't it play games too? Also, if eComStation or OS/2 has support for GCC, couldn't it also install linux software(games), with some sort of driver manipulation for OpenGL?

Of course OS/2 is just as capable of running games as Win32. At that Odin (think Wine) was originally written to run Quake III. And funny enough, directx was a direct ripoff of OS/2 DIVE. The problem now is hardware support for OpenGL, software emulation is just too slow for most games. Perhaps by leveraging LLVM but no-one has the interest in doing the work.
Note that most of Windows is a direct ripoff of OS/2. Even the naming. Internet Explorer is based on Web Explorer which shipped with WARP 3 in '94, mostly as a system DLL so any program could link against it to get HTML functionality.

Back to Martin. Yeah, for a lot of people stability is very important. But how much tuning is actually required, what's the learning curve on doing such tweaks? Would someone have to go out of their way and read an OS/2 for dummies book?

There's a learning curve though much is simple drag'n'drop. The problem now is that people are used to the Windows way (or Linux or MAC) and OS/2 is different. Thing is once learned it is learned. I'm writing this on an install done in '97. Through multiple hardware upgrades this install has kept working. I used to migrate to Linux regularly but it just became so frustrating as every time I learned the system, it would change. It started as fun but with time it was like "how to fix the sound again"

:P That "microkernel" part I agree seems like a nifty thing to have. I guess that means anyone can write software-based drivers and not have to hook into the kernel or different security rings? I'm not 100% knowledged on "rings" or anything like that, but it seems like that's what it would be optimized for.  But they should support enough out of the box to actually do work, and do they? I mean, I see that they finally have support for Athlon 64, which is a decently old CPU. I'm running a modest Phenom II x6 1045t, with 10GB ram. Would eComStation actually work out of the box for my system?

Martin exaggerates a bit. The OS/2 kernel is closer to a microkernel then lets say Linux but is really more of a hybrid. For a true microkernel you'd have to go to the PPC port of OS/2. A true microkernel (Mach based) and the system that IBM should have open sourced, ideally as LGPL. OS/2 device drivers are somewhat a bitch as they still have to interface with the kernel on the 16 bit level.
As for support for an Athlon 64, that was old (non-smp). The odds are that OS/2 would boot up on  your Phenom II system and given the right network and video chips would work fine though only using 4 GB of your memory.

My take, OS/2 has one of the best graphical shells ever written (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_Shell), even more amazing as it was optimized for 4 MB of memory (really needed at least 8MB), had a very good scheduler especially for a desktop system. Giving the foreground app a priority boost as well as an IO boost which made it a nice to use (and it could be optimized as a server). It had very good DOS support, even running DOS drivers and also very good Win 3.1 support where you could run multiple win3.1 programs in separate sessions so that if one crashed the rest continued on. The advertised better DOS then DOS, better WINDOWS then WINDOWS was true, even if only because you could use a superior file system. The scheduler was much better then Windows, I remember magazine comparisons where basically they'd test an OS/2 version against NT. After failing to get SMP working on OS/2 they'd declare NT the winner even though OS/2 was faster on one core then NT on two. NT won because it ran slower with 2 cores but used both <GR>
At this point most OS/2 users are using it from momentum as most other systems have caught up over the last decade though the interfaces seem to be taking a step back (look at Win8)
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: lmotaku on March 17, 2013, 03:40:32 pm
Based on what I can see of the OS/2 UI they were ahead in the times of Windows 98se, (active desktop?). Remember when that bugger used to crash all the time? Haha. I'm not sure where XP was, but I think it was then they got full PNG support and a few other things. How customisable is the UI on OS/2 Warp? And, if it's programmable, how hard would it be to learn how to program for OS/2? Are icons interchangeable? I'm like Curious George, I've bounced around and used everything like a crazy monkey over the years, haha. I'm saddened I haven't used OS/2 yet. OpenBSD was fun. I wanna know the UI stuff a bit more, because if I were to use it, I wouldn't want 16bit icons, haha.
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 17, 2013, 05:17:30 pm
Hey Doug, thanks for that addition. Wouldn't you say that no-viruses is because it's such a foreign OS? Not language wise, but in terms of use? It's very sparingly used by anyone, and the market share is so low that no one writes viruses for it? Same goes for linux and Mac OS? Mac OS and iOS is becoming used more, but not at the extent Windows is, to my knowledge. When you said "If you wanna play games use Windows, if you want to do work use eComStation", I was heavily reminded of the Mac VS PC commercials. Any OS can be used for gaming, provided someone writes software for it, or so I thought? The OS isn't the limitation, it's the developers for the system that create limitations, correct? If someone made a Win32 directx library that ran virtually or parallel in OS/2, couldn't it play games too? Also, if eComStation or OS/2 has support for GCC, couldn't it also install linux software(games), with some sort of driver manipulation for OpenGL?

Lack of viruses is partly because OS/2 (eCS) is not used by a lot of people, and that is mostly because it is not pre-loaded on computers. Hackers usually just play around with what they have, and don't buy other things. Companies (which are, apparently, the main driver behind keeping eCS alive) don't tend to write viruses. So yes, it is partly lack of availability. However, it also takes more programming knowledge to be able to work a virus into something running on OS/2. Anybody with that kind of knowledge will be working as a software developer, not playing around as a hacker.

True, eCS can be used for games, IF somebody would write them, or port them, along with a LOT of supporting software (much of which is copyright by Microsoft). There are, in fact, a few very good games, but nothing that interests "kids".  OpenGL exists, and there was a project, discussed here some time ago, to update that stuff, but it has been "dead" for a while now.  The biggest problem that OS/2 (eCS) has right now, is that there are not enough programmers willing to work on it, and paying them is more or less out of the question, in most cases. The second biggest problem is that the source is not available, for most of it. Those who do know something about it, are very busy just trying to keep eCS working on new hardware. No time for anything more.

GCC is available, and it is used by a lot of ported software. It is also used for some of the very few original programs, but it seems that most programmers find it much easier to port a program, than to write a new one. That isn't all bad, because we actually end up with lots of useful programs that were developed for other platforms (mostly Linux). The biggest "problem" there, seems to be converting the required libraries to be able to compile, and run, those programs. Just because a program uses GCC in Linux, doesn't  mean it will just run in OS/2 (eCS).

OS/2 (eCS) can run VirtualBox (although the current port is now ancient), so a user can run windows in that, to play games, or do other things that can't be done in OS/2 (eCS), Of course, there is the performance hit from running in a virtual machine.

Quote
Based on what I can see of the OS/2 UI they were ahead in the times of Windows 98se,

Yes it was. Windows NT was based on OS/2. 95, 98 and ME were still DOS programs. Microsoft never really got NT to work, until they got to WinXP. Still OS/2 (eCS) will run circles around the 32 bit windows versions, simply because it has a lot less junk running in the background (including antivirus programs). Microsoft also stripped out a lot of the security stuff that OS/2 has, in a feeble attempt to speed up windows. Going to 64 bit software has finally accomplished the speedup, but they never put any of the security stuff back in (I suspect that they just never understood it, and didn't believe that it was necessary anyway). OS/2 (eCS) is still well ahead of windows, in some ways, but the gap is closing, simply because eCS is having a tough time trying to keep up to the new tricks that are being introduced by hardware manufacturers, and most of that seems to be coming from Microsoft. Linux is having an easier time keeping up, because they have a LOT more programers working on it. MAC, of course, has more control over the hardware, and they have lots of paid programers, so they can also keep up.

I can see the end of OS/2 (eCS), one of these days, simply because it is being overwhelmed by new stuff, and understaffed in the programmer area to keep up. However, it still runs well in the latest VirtualBox implementation for windows, and (I assume) in Linux and Macs. It will also continue to run in older hardware (which is generally available on the used market, at a big discount). It is just another case of a technically superior product being abandoned by it's creator, in favor of making a few extra bucks (IBM is probably the biggest beneficiary from windows viruses because their consulting arm gets to fix a lot of the damage that is done).
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: lmotaku on March 17, 2013, 07:41:23 pm
It's fun to talk with knowledgeable people such as yourself, Doug. Do you see eComStation working up to 64bit in the next 2 - 4 years? Or maybe even sooner? Also, don't worry, it's not all for naught telling me all of this stuff. I'm installing Virtualbox right now and going to try out OS/2 that way. I'm a PC Guru, and it would be shameful for someone to ask me "Hey, have you used OS/2?" and I would have to say No. Yes, I'm a technophile. lol
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: jnw on March 17, 2013, 08:06:31 pm
OS/2 / ECS is a 32-bit system and it will never be a 64-bit OS. Without the source code, there is no possibility to recompile it to 64-bit. As long as hardware manufacturers enable 32-bit systems to run, ECS can be maintained to support modern hardware via new drivers.

Greetings - Jan Waliszewski
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: lmotaku on March 17, 2013, 08:12:13 pm
But I thought eComStation was the rebirth of OS/2? Doesn't that mean they have the source code? How are they supporting newer hardware if that isn't the case? That's a tad confusing. So you're basically telling me when we start doing 128bit computing and only have backwards compatibility for 64bit, no 32 bit software will work? I thought eCS already made it translate 32bit to 16bit(kernel) stuff?
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 17, 2013, 08:45:20 pm
Based on what I can see of the OS/2 UI they were ahead in the times of Windows 98se, (active desktop?). Remember when that bugger used to crash all the time? Haha. I'm not sure where XP was, but I think it was then they got full PNG support and a few other things. How customisable is the UI on OS/2 Warp? And, if it's programmable, how hard would it be to learn how to program for OS/2? Are icons interchangeable? I'm like Curious George, I've bounced around and used everything like a crazy monkey over the years, haha. I'm saddened I haven't used OS/2 yet. OpenBSD was fun. I wanna know the UI stuff a bit more, because if I were to use it, I wouldn't want 16bit icons, haha.

The Work Place Shell (WPS) is object orientated so you can just subclass various classes and extend the shell. One example is here,  http://svn.netlabs.org/wps-wizard where the programmer added Cairo to the UI to enable things like transparent PNG support.
OS/2 is layered, text mode which is much like text mode on Windows. The Presentation Manager which is the graphic layer, similar to Windows with very similar functions for drawing windows etc, and the WPS on top which I understand is harder to program for.  Need to write IPL interfaces and I believe you need special compiler but I'm far from expert so perhaps someone more knowledgeable can chime in.
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 18, 2013, 03:10:44 am
It's fun to talk with knowledgeable people such as yourself, Doug. Do you see eComStation working up to 64bit in the next 2 - 4 years? Or maybe even sooner? Also, don't worry, it's not all for naught telling me all of this stuff. I'm installing Virtualbox right now and going to try out OS/2 that way. I'm a PC Guru, and it would be shameful for someone to ask me "Hey, have you used OS/2?" and I would have to say No. Yes, I'm a technophile. lol

Some would argue with you about the "knowledgeable" part.

No, I don't see OS/2 (eCS) going to 64 bit, unless somebody can build a 64 bit kernel with the capabilities of the OS/2 kernel. Nothing is quite like it, so it is not as easy as taking a Linux kernel, and fitting the rest of OS/2 to it. In fact it may come to that someday, when other options run out. Whether it can be made to work, or not, will depend on a lot of things. The biggest obstacle will be finding competent programmers to attempt to do the job. Apparently, a few have tried, but it seems that they gave up (or they have hidden their work).

Quote
But I thought eComStation was the rebirth of OS/2? Doesn't that mean they have the source code? How are they supporting newer hardware if that isn't the case? That's a tad confusing. So you're basically telling me when we start doing 128bit computing and only have backwards compatibility for 64bit, no 32 bit software will work? I thought eCS already made it translate 32bit to 16bit(kernel) stuff?

No, eComStation is not the "rebirth", it is more like the "extension" of OS/2. Some would say "life support". No they do NOT have the source code, except for a few drivers, and a couple of other things. They do have the source code for a lot of the newer stuff, that has been added since IBM abandoned it (which isn't entirely correct either, IBM still owns OS/2, and Mensys does pay royalties to use OS/2). In fact, there was a rumor going around, that IBM has managed to lose the source code, but I doubt if that is actually true. They have neither confirmed, or denied, that rumor. 128 bit processors are currently an unknown entity. When they start to show up, decisions will need to be made, but I suspect that 32 bit capable processors will be around for a while. I don't know the details of converting stuff from 32 bit to 16 bit. I think most of that is in the device driver interface. Support for newer hardware mostly involves device drivers. ACPI support was, apparently, developed with the help of Intel. The biggest thing that keeps it going, however, is that there are a number of very knowledgeable programmers (I won't attempt to name them, because I will miss some of them), who do wonderful work, with very little to work with, and Mensys tries to keep it all together, with a "shoestring" budget, and a lot of diplomacy. After they pay for staff (two of them, I think), royalties, some important development projects, and expenses, there wouldn't be much left.

Give eComStation a try (older versions of OS/2 can be made to work in VBox, but you need to know a lot about it to get it to work properly). You may learn to love it, or, you may hate it. There is rarely a middle ground.
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: lmotaku on March 18, 2013, 03:55:34 am
Who, and why would people argue about you being knowledgeable? You seem to know a lot about the operating system, more than an average or business consumer. I think the average and business consumer alike just want things to work, the only difference between the two is work and play. I mean, some people do work from home (Writing, image editing, browsing the internet for research), but managing clientele and book keeping is probably more of a business need.

There are a few things important to me, and I'd say it's Flash, Java, and multimedia support. My main PC has a Super-Multi bluray player. I have a feeling eCS won't support it(yet anyway). I know there is a VLC port, so I could run DVD media, and possibly some video formats. But X264 / avc? Not sure. I know VLC has everything, but if it doesn't support my graphics card's capabilities it probably won't be so easy. But, like I said, going to try it anyways. I don't like Mac OS, but I don't hate it either. Everyone has their own likes, preferences, and needs.

eCS might just replace my "test/play" installs of linux(usually Ubuntu), I really hate the Unity UI. It won't grow on me either. Same goes for Windows 8. I like my start, at the bottom or top of the screen, I also like to manage my tasks this way. Forcing me to have a Media Center UI from the start(Windows 8 ), or a unique UI that is meant for mobile devices, is not moving forward.

What kinda shell style to use that best fits my 1080p display, could, and should, forever be the /users/ choice. Not the developer, and certainly not a bunch of groupies that hang on to every word a company says and eats it up like "That's how it is".

I'd like to again, thank everyone for their responses.
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 18, 2013, 06:22:03 am
Quote
Who, and why would people argue about you being knowledgeable?

I will let that one rest. There are a couple of people who seem to think I should just shut up, and go away. Oh well, I can ignore them.

Quote
There are a few things important to me, and I'd say it's Flash, Java, and multimedia support. My main PC has a Super-Multi bluray player. I have a feeling eCS won't support it(yet anyway). I know there is a VLC port, so I could run DVD media, and possibly some video formats. But X264 / avc? Not sure. I know VLC has everything, but if it doesn't support my graphics card's capabilities it probably won't be so easy. But, like I said, going to try it anyways. I don't like Mac OS, but I don't hate it either. Everyone has their own likes, preferences, and needs.

We have an almost "latest" FLASH, and JAVA. They use a lot of support that was created for the ODIN project (which is based on WINE, if you know about that). Both seem to have a few quirks, but that seems to be true in windows too.

To be honest, I don't know if BlueRay will work, or not. I think my CD/DVD drive is also BlueRay capable, but I don't think I have ever seen a BlueRay disk, never mind try to use one. DVDDAO is supposed to have support for BlueRay, but I don't know if it works. VLC is available, and it seems to work pretty well. I am also not too sure about X264. I think there is a program to do that, but I have never tried it. I also don't know about avc. We do have FFMPEG which seems to do a credible job of format conversion, but doesn't support everything. The biggest "problem" seems to be with Microsoft proprietary codecs. They just aren't available for non MS operating  systems.

Graphics card... Well, it depends on exactly what it is, but my bet would be that it is too new to be supported by an accelerated driver (read SNAP). That doesn't mean that it won't do a reasonable job, in a lot of cases.  There are two main video drivers. One is called SNAP (was SDD - Scietech Display Doctor -  at one time), but development on that stopped a few years ago. It will support many newer cards, but only in VESA 2 mode, which is pretty slow. There is also PANORAMA, which also works in VESA 2 mode, but it has an added buffer that improves performance. Now, I hear that Mensys has acquired the OS/2 code for SNAP. Apparently, nothing has been done with it, yet, so it is difficult to know what, if anything, will come from that.

You should be aware, that eCS 2.2 beta is due to be released "soon". "Soon", in the past has meant anything up to two years. I think they (Mensys) are trying to do better, but most eCS users want it done right, rather than quickly. It is a difficult job, with one or two guys doing most of the coordination, and not many more doing the work. If you jump in with eCS 2.1, a lot of the newer stuff will be missing. You should also be aware, that eCS is cheaper, if you already own a copy of OS/2 warp4, or later. Sometimes they become available on places like e-Bay. I haven't checked prices for a long time, so a little research may be in order. You can also go to http://www.ecomstation.com/ (http://www.ecomstation.com/) where you can order a free demo CD (electronic delivery). It is currently also a beta version, and it does have a few problems, but they may actually be fixed by now (or "soon"). It will NOT allow access to your real disk, and it has a few other restrictions that make it useless for anything but getting a bit of a feel for eCS. Depending on your system, it may work well, or it may be impossible to make it work. It should work in the latest VBox though.

BTW, I should mention that I have no connection to Mensys, other than as a satisfied customer. I did work for IBM, as a Customer Service Specialist, large systems, but retired (at a young age) in 1992. I have used OS/2 since version 2.0.
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: lmotaku on March 18, 2013, 02:21:41 pm
Thanks again Doug. I know about GPL software such as WINE. There was another one too, but it became a pay-for software after a few beta releases. Anything you have to "pay for" on Linux I tend to ignore pretty quickly. IBM? 1992? Doesn't retiring at a young age mean you quit or they laid you off? Or did you win the lottery? Haha.

In 1992.. I was 4.. so I wasn't doing much. In 1994 however I was working with old Commodore 64 systems. I self-taught myself how to write tape drive bootup codes and what not for games. (My parents had no idea how to turn the thing on.) I would play around with that until I got annoyed with the please turn over the cassette message every 5 minutes, returning to our Turbo Grafix 16, or Sega Genesis.

Having some issues running eCS right now in VirtualBox, but going to try a few things before I try a more updated beta/demo version.
(I've determined SNAP works, Panorama hates it.)

If you're curious as the what issues I'm having. First it froze up VB after Phase 1, I tweaked a few settings, got to almost the end of Phase 2. But when I woke up this morning after seeing it boot up, and having a desktop before I went to sleep, it boots past the graphical logo to get an error: "The system detected an internal processing error at location ##0168:fff1da1f - 000e:ca1f". So I'm going to try HPFS instead of JFS. If it fails this time, I'm going to see if I can effectively "skip" phase 2.

Update: as of 10am(EST), I now have a working install. I don't know why VB/eCS worked better with HPFS as opposed to JFS, but it did. Didn't tweak too many of the settings in the installer, besides making sure it was just using IDE. It had "Floppy" set on USB, which I don't have a floppy usb drive, so I set that to 0.
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 18, 2013, 06:59:02 pm

There are a few things important to me, and I'd say it's Flash, Java, and multimedia support. My main PC has a Super-Multi bluray player. I have a feeling eCS won't support it(yet anyway). I know there is a VLC port, so I could run DVD media, and possibly some video formats. But X264 / avc? Not sure. I know VLC has everything, but if it doesn't support my graphics card's capabilities it probably won't be so easy. But, like I said, going to try it anyways. I don't like Mac OS, but I don't hate it either. Everyone has their own likes, preferences, and needs.


As Doug said, we have Flash, Java is coming along. For Multimedia support, FFmpeg, libav, MPlayer and I believe VLC all support OS/2. X264 refused to support OS/2, mostly due to our not having YASM and them not liking NASM but it isn't that hard to build X264.
No bluray as our UDF file support is too old and most newer graphic cards run unaccelerated.
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 18, 2013, 09:29:09 pm
Thanks again Doug. I know about GPL software such as WINE. There was another one too, but it became a pay-for software after a few beta releases. Anything you have to "pay for" on Linux I tend to ignore pretty quickly. IBM? 1992? Doesn't retiring at a young age mean you quit or they laid you off? Or did you win the lottery? Haha.

It was a bit of every one of them.  :D   At the time, IBM was downsizing, and they made all employees an offer I couldn't refuse. I don't think they realized that I had enough time in to qualify for early retirement, and expected me to stay. Fooled them.   :)

Having some issues running eCS right now in VirtualBox, but going to try a few things before I try a more updated beta/demo version.
(I've determined SNAP works, Panorama hates it.)

It is usually better to install using GRADD for video, because the extensions (to integrate the eCS desktop to the host desktop) simply replaces the GRADD driver.

If you're curious as the what issues I'm having. First it froze up VB after Phase 1, I tweaked a few settings, got to almost the end of Phase 2. But when I woke up this morning after seeing it boot up, and having a desktop before I went to sleep, it boots past the graphical logo to get an error: "The system detected an internal processing error at location ##0168:fff1da1f - 000e:ca1f". So I'm going to try HPFS instead of JFS. If it fails this time, I'm going to see if I can effectively "skip" phase 2.

Phase 2 installs most of the stuff that you need.

Update: as of 10am(EST), I now have a working install. I don't know why VB/eCS worked better with HPFS as opposed to JFS, but it did. Didn't tweak too many of the settings in the installer, besides making sure it was just using IDE. It had "Floppy" set on USB, which I don't have a floppy usb drive, so I set that to 0.

The floppy setting is not important. It puts a zombie floppy drive into the Drives object, that does nothing, until you plug in a USB floppy drive, if it is set to 1. 

I remember that I used HPFS for the boot volume, and it works fine. If you create a second drive, in the virtual disk, it works properly with JFS.  I think that VBox has some sort of incompatible setup that the OS2 loader doesn't comprehend when used with JFS, but I never followed up on that. It seems to be a fault in VBox, because booting from JFS on real drives works well.
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: walking_x on March 21, 2013, 12:23:32 pm
DVDDAO is supposed to have support for BlueRay, but I don't know if it works.
It works, really... I'm wrote some disks on 8x speed (36Mb/s) - on PC with danis... Nice result for 14 years old system and 16bit SATA driver ;)
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 21, 2013, 03:47:59 pm
DVDDAO is supposed to have support for BlueRay, but I don't know if it works.
It works, really... I'm wrote some disks on 8x speed (36Mb/s) - on PC with danis... Nice result for 14 years old system and 16bit SATA driver ;)

Thanks for that. Can you read the BlueRay disks with OS/2 (eCS)?
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: walking_x on March 21, 2013, 05:37:13 pm
I use it only for backup, so never tried to insert a movie ... but my own written disks can be read - both in cfds and udf format.
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: lmotaku on March 22, 2013, 02:26:35 pm
As long as the hardware drivers detect that the bluray drive is readable, I suppose it's then up to the software on eCS to determine that. I suppose VLC could do this job.
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 22, 2013, 08:19:53 pm
Hi.

I don't have a Bluray on the PC. Does it use a different file system for the discs?

Let remember that for a DVD to read on eCS we require the UDF driver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Disk_Format) installed. Will the bluray will require something similar?
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: lmotaku on March 22, 2013, 10:26:46 pm
All bluray media seems to be using UDF 2.5
BD-RE v2, BD-R and Rom is 1.0?
(http://av.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/20040803/blu_07.jpg)
Title: Re: Benefits, purpose for OS/2/eComStation, and Serenity's vision
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 23, 2013, 12:54:59 am
Quote
Let remember that for a DVD to read on eCS we require the UDF driver installed. Will the bluray will require something similar?

This is not entirely correct. CD, and DVD (and possibly BlueRay) can use one of UDF or CDFS as a file system. There is also a hybrid that combines both. I think there is a way to get DVDDAO to write UDF format (possibly a hybrid), but I never tried it. Normally, it write CDFS format.  BlueRay should use UDF format for most things (like movies).

You can read about the UDF capabilities in eCS 2.1. The doc is in C:\OS2\BOOK\UDF.TXT.