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OS/2 - Technical => Hardware => Topic started by: Shai on 2008.07.03, 11:46:10

Title: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.03, 11:46:10
Hi,
I just bought a Medion Akoya netbook which is available at Aldi (Germany) for 400€ since today. It is - as far as I know - a rebranded MSI Wind. However the MSI Wind won't be released in Germany in less than 2 months.
Hardware looks promising. It appears to have an intel 945 gm graphics chipset which is supported by SNAP!
Sound is Realtek but it doesn't seem to be AC97 - I'm confident it will work with Uniaud nevertheless.
WLAN is a Ralink device. There's a Ralink genmac package and I will try that.
I don't know whether the Webcam will work with some of the available webcam drivers/programs - but I don't need it anyway.
I am going to install eComStation tomorrow by copying the install CD to the HD using a bootable Linux-on-flash-drive distribution or something. I will not install eCS itself to a SD card or USB stick. I think I'm also going to install a small Ubuntu-Linux (need this for my job and I don't necessarily want to port the programs I'm developing to OS/2 although it would be interesting to see whether it would work out of the box in a Linux-like environment in OS/2 -- otherwise I wouldn't contaminate a pure eCS system of course ;) ).
I will keep you informed if you're interested.

greetings,
Robin
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.05, 03:46:24
ok,
I could just use two USB flash drives and here's what I've already tried:
1. Disable AHCI in BIOS. This is important as it would lead to nasty OS/2 traps while booting the installation floppies.
1. I copied a XUbuntu Live/Installer CD to a flash drive - I will need it to prepare the partitions and because I want to install XUbuntu later
2. I booted XUbuntu (live) and partitioned the 75.53gb HD: I just created one 1gb partition at the end of the HD. I formatted it as FAT16 and specified "ECS_CDRUN" as the volume label.
3. I zipped (no compression) the content of the eCS installer CD (btw I used eComStation RC4) and copied it to a flash drive. I included system files of course.
4. On the netbook, I simply unzipped the zip file to my "ECS_CDRUN" partition.
5. I used the DISKIMGS\IMAGE.EXE tool on the eCS installer CD to write the first boot floppy to a flash drive. IMAGE -H ECS0.DSK X:
6. I booted the netbook from that flash device and chose to boot with default values.
7. When I was prompted to insert disk 1, I copied the ECS1.DSK to the device in the same way as above. The file could be read successfully.
8. I did the same with ECS2.DSK - it was read successfully.
9. The eCS boot image appears and I am prompted to insert the installation CD. I guess that means LOCATECD.SYS does not recognize the partition even though I have no problems accessing it in plain DOS (tried a FreeDOS boot floppy copied to the flash drive)

I read that this worked for some people who installed eCS on the eeePC.

Could the reason be that the partition is too big? I had to make it this large because a 800mb partition wasn't sufficient although the CD is only about 700mb.

cheers,
Robin
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.05, 11:57:57
I just tried it with a 840mb FAT16 ECS_CDRUN partition - doesn't help...
Maybe it has something to do with the drive letters? Is it possible to specify in the config.sys where the CD drive letters start? And if yes (ie if any config.sys changes are necessary), why did nobody who already installed eCS that way point this out?
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.05, 12:22:58
ok, according to Sigurd Fastenrath (eee pc on internal ssd instructions), "Linux" isn't the ideal partitioning tool. Maybe I should try DFSee on Linux or DFSee on plain FreeDOS.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.07.05, 12:58:36
Hi,
just sold the EEE and bought this Netbook as well. Using the same installation method than my EEE one I brought eCS 2.0 RC 5 to run yesterday! It looked really great! Sound did work with 1.1.4 RC 6 (It is the Realtek ACL888), Video worked with 800X600 with SNAP (3.0 Vesa) but much better with Panorama.

Unfortunately there is no 1024 X 600 Resolution, add gamode with snap failed, the widescreen activator reports a "non supported chipset".

LAN (Realtek 8102E) and WLAN (Ralink) not working (yet)

BUT!!!

After I tried to use SMP Kernel and Switch the whole thing crashed with trap 0008. This trap happens now everytime I try to boot or reinstall eCS. So I think I have to do it again from the beginning.

I might try to disable AHCI in BIOS; your hint, may be this helps.

But - it is really worth trying it! I will post another Youtube video, once I get it to work.

Sigurd Fastenrath
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.05, 14:00:00
I converted the DFSee FreeDOS based boot floppy to my flash device, partitioned the HD and copied the installation CD using XUbuntu. Now LOCATECD.SYS finds the partition. However after loading SNAP (makes no difference with VGA), it crashes with trap 0008 - and I still have AHCI disabled. Maybe I should activate it again!? Would make no sense and it would (should, if this error is reproducable) crash *before* LOCATECD.SYS.

@Sigurd:
Did you install using a ECS_CDRUN partition or did you prepare a SD card on your workstation?
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.05, 14:13:44
I removed ACPI from the config.sys - as it is a common source of errors. Now it just halts after SNAP (there's simply nothing happening). Frustrating somehow...
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.05, 14:28:08
alright!
the whole driver-disabling-method was useless (I tried countless combinations). it was simply the USB device.
When I boot with custom values and I remove the flash device at the configuration screen (isn't necessary anyway at this point) - the installer boots properly - with ACPI, USB drivers, SNAP and everything!
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.07.05, 14:44:32
Hi,

never used a SD card, that is the way Ed Durant is doing it (with the EEE). I have to use Windows in case of work, so I use Partition Magic to create a partition. But this was / is a little tricky because I need sometimes to many primary Partitions. I will give it a try later this evening and will report any progress.

Thanks for your hints, seems to me that I should disconnect the USB DVD Drive I got once the installation uses the internal ECS_CDRUN Partition.

Sigurd
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.05, 16:08:53
@Sigurd:
Removing the USB device doesn't change much - it just seemed so because it booted for first time when I tried this. It crashed several times thereafter using the same sequence of actions and in fact currently the installer runs with an USB device connected (it was connected when it started up). So it's more a question of luck - it works in about 1/5 of the times I try it.

I now have another problem. LVM complains about corrupted partition tables on the main drive and on the reserved drives for the removable media devices. Cleaning up the partition tables using DFSee doesn't seem to make a difference. My last idea would be to completely wipe the disk and partition it again. But I'm restraining because the whole procedure will be time consuming...

cheers,
Robin
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.05, 17:17:57
The LVM issue was because there was no LVM information - after I initialized the LVM information to default using DFSee (at least I think that's what I was doing), it was able to work with the partitions (and I guessed it is possible to do this on its own). eCS is now already booting from the HD. :)
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.07.05, 20:24:30
Hi,
for me it works if I use DANI in "compatible mode" during install and later on. I could get closer to the error: If I disable ACPI after installation, no more crashes - unfortunately no more power management as well. I could reproduce the trap 0008 if I used the "extended -x-shutdown method" used by xworkplace. While enabling this the akoya shuts down perfect (to perfect indeed), but the next start will crash right after the bootlogo with trap 0008!

The safest way for me until now:
- disable acpi.psd
- disable extended shut down options

Meanwhile I am uploading the new Qucikshot video I just made about this. But Youtube still needs some time to process the data  ::)

Wish you luck!

Sigurd
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation - video
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.07.05, 20:43:23
Hi,

and here is the video, enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECsJIgP2qn0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECsJIgP2qn0)

Sigurd
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.05, 23:27:59
@Sigurd:
My eCS boots very infrequently. I get the same trap you descibed - but I don't know what triggered it as it worked for some time.
Sadly I cannot try to disable ACPI because I cannot get the installer to boot again (tried it 20 times or so...) and XUbuntu doesn't seem to include JFS drivers. Disabling ACPI for the installer doesn't help, neither does the DANI compatibility mode.
Maybe I have more luck tomorrow.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.07.06, 00:34:40
@shai

Sorry for this - but now I have got the trap again...... It seemed to be away, but the only thing to say is that it is happening "less often". Thats a pitty.....

It seems that it is not a problem (or not only) with ACPI, but I dont know how to solve this problem.

Any one - any ideas?

Sigurd
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.07.06, 20:26:41
 ;) Hi,

I replaced Danis506.add with the new version 1.8.5 (in RC 5 there is 1.8.4) and as Daniela Engert mentioned in the "changes" of this version: Experimental support for "Atom"

I have not had a crash for a longer time now, rebooted ten times, seems to be more stable now :o

Sigurd
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.06, 21:18:30
thx, I will try this. Maybe it helps with the eCS installer, too.
I just completely trashed my eCS installation while trying to access the eCS JFS partition from Linux - I've got a XUbuntu now (in fact I'm currently posting this on my netbook running XUbuntu).

Another tip: According to Heise (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Aldi-Netbook-im-Linux-Test--/meldung/110422/from/rss09) the LAN device of the Medion Akoya "shuts down" when Windows shuts down, so you need to remove the batteries and reattach it after every Windows shutdown, to be able to use it from a non-Windows system. Maybe that helps with eComStation, too. But don't pay too much attention to the Heise article - it contains some mistakes. Especially regarding the chipsets. The LAN is Realtek RTL8102E and Wifi is Ralink RT2860 - it's not yet supported by the latest Genmac (Ralink package) - I managed to check that when it still worked. Maybe we should simply ask the author to add support of RT2860.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: DavidG on 2008.07.06, 22:10:35
During install, eCS 2 RC5 uses the Dani 1.84 version.  However, the 1.85 version is installed to the system.  Dani's 1.85 will be used totally in RC6.  I found this information in the eCS bugtracker.

People need to investigate the eCS bugtracker.  There is a wealth in information to be found in it.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.07.06, 22:38:24
Thanks for the information!

We are now some hours later - I left the akoya aside - and now - trying to boot after using windows:


trap 0008


............


Thats enough for me.....

I will try later, may be it is because of the network card, that is a good hint! It may be that I usually say "restart system" when shuting down windows and starting ecomstation - then it is working. But when I shut down the Computer with windows and try again later, then the trap 0008. With the network card seems to be logical... But, the weekend is over, I'll try later on.

Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.06, 23:05:13
I don't want to draw conclusions too quickly again but when I switched to the old IBM IDE controller driver I was able to boot the installer three times in a row which seems incredible unlikely if I recall that I tried it dozens of times yesterday without making any modifications. I'm using the IBM driver for my new installation - let's see what happens...
Regarding the LAN device: Genmac (the old one for LAN devices) doesn't seem to detect the chipset, even after the battery reattachment, so my tip was probably worthless :(
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.07, 12:15:19
furthermore after trying a lot of different configurations, HPFS and JFS with and without ACPI/APM, I'm nearly convinced that it's impossible to boot eCS reliably. Of course there's more we could try: Find out where *exactly* the trap 0008 occurs. Must be one of the last things before starting PMSHELL - I cannot get to the command line either. I used the IBM IDE controllers for my latest test, so I could repeat everything with DANIS 1.85. Also I didn't try the SMP kernel and/or the OS2LDR replacement. Finally, I could still try to install without Uniaud as it may be another source of errors.
I cannot exclude the possibility that there is a configuration that works but I need much more time...
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.08, 13:40:00
I've managed to find a configuration which seems to be stable. The trick (this is called a strategy I think) was to start with a minimal configuration, see how it works and then add drivers step by step. I started without any IFSs (except JFS), DANIS506 1.85, without floppy, cdrom (and I won't enable both of them even if they work), USB, audio, network, ACPI, APM.
I found that ACPI, APM and audio (at least Uniaud itself) don't make any problems. I rebooted very often and it worked every time. "Power off" works, too. But suspending doesn't - I cannot restart properly or Uniaud causes a crash if - not so important anyway. The battery widgets work fine. I don't know whether the CPU speed adjustment tool by Sungsoo Khim works. It runs but I never saw it actually throttling the CPU.

Ok, then I tried to enable USB again. USB controller drivers (UHCI/EHCI)
were no problem - I have them activated currently, but if I enable USBD.SYS, it suddenly stops to work. I deactivate it, it works again...
It seems to be similar with the eCS installer.
@Sigurd:
Maybe you can verify that. What happens if you disable all USB related stuff in your config.sys and does the other stuff work if it's disabled?

I tried several usbd.sys and all of them failed. Didn't someone recompile the USB stack? I'd like to try it. I heard it wasn't helping very much but if would work poorly, that's better than no USB support at all.
But why always depend on the work of others. I am a C developer myself and I'm familiar with x86 assembly, although I don't have any driver experience. So maybe I should have a look. The trap/lock must have a particular cause. Are the sources available? There are a lot of modified versions around. The problem is that USBD.SYS itself doesn't crash, it crashes later after all BASEDEV/DEVICE drivers have been loaded.

Another problem is sound and multimedia. Uniaud 1.14 RC6 appears to work but I couldn't get MMPM/2 installed, which is necessary- it seems - for most multimedia apps as it includes DART (seems like that at least). It somehow wasn't installed by eCS even though I know exactly that "Multimedia" was activated. If I try to execute MINSTALL in \CID\SERVER\MMECS\BASE, it prompts me to insert the eCS CD... I tried to install it manually (according to my workstation's config.sys) - I thought some drivers would be sufficient to get it to work at a basic level. Of course I know that it also includes WPS classes which need to be registered. Nevertheless, after that procedure it worked partly, at least MINSTALL thought the subsystem was installed and I could try to install MMPM/2 as a multimedia package (there was a control.scr), which didn't work. Does the installer work with audio drivers only? At least it looked like that. Using the "selective install" feature (Warp 4 installation procedure???) to install Multimedia support didn't do much, too regardless whether I have some of the drivers loaded via config.sys or not.
Any idea how to install it? Do I have to fake that there's a eCS CD via ramdisk (USB stick won't work, s.a.) or are there alternative installers? Sound is a must-have.

Regarding LAN support: Rumour has it that there are undocumented switches for the old Genmac driver and the readme says that too (without telling us the switches!!). Does anyone know them? Only the elders could still know them...
Also, I found a Realtek package on Chuck McKinnis' NICPACK page (http://www.os2warp.be/index2.php?name=nicpak): http://www.os2warp.be/nicpak/files/realtek.zip
It states to have support for "RTL820x" chipsets, I will try it soon.

Regarding WiFi, I will soon write to the Genmac mailing list and ask for support of that particular chipset.

In the meantime, we just have to stay optimistic. :)
After all, who spends days installing a poorly supported OS without any enthusiasm?

cheers,
Robin
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.07.08, 14:01:46
Hi Robin!

Well Done! Will try this in the evening. Really well done!

Regarding Minstall:

The same happended to me several times. The Multimedia folder was not created, only a few files have been copied. I could see a short message (appears only for seconds) during install phase 2, close to the end, when the installer says " error 0003 can not find directory " (I do not remeber exactly) - but:

this never happend to me, if I formatted the ECS_CDRUN drive with HPFS and installed from that again.

So I always did two installations: the first using FAT, then started eCS, formated the ECS_CDRUN with HPFS, startet installation again. I had to do so, because Partition Magic 8 I use with Windows does not support formatting HPFS.


Will inform you about any progress I make, stay tuned for more :-)

Sigurd
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: The Blue Warper on 2008.07.08, 20:20:25
Hi, Robert and Sigurd!

Sorry for not being able to contribute to your discussions more than this (as I haven't got such a netbook as yours), but there's a thread on the eComStation newsgroup which *might* be related with your Multimedia issue:
http://news.ecomstation.com/article.php?id=2443&group=ecomstation.beta#2443

Good luck!
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.08, 22:56:54
Quote from: Sigurd on 2008.07.08, 14:01:46
...

Regarding Minstall:

The same happended to me several times. The Multimedia folder was not created, only a few files have been copied. I could see a short message (appears only for seconds) during install phase 2, close to the end, when the installer says " error 0003 can not find directory " (I do not remeber exactly) - but:

this never happend to me, if I formatted the ECS_CDRUN drive with HPFS and installed from that again.

So I always did two installations: the first using FAT, then started eCS, formated the ECS_CDRUN with HPFS, startet installation again. I had to do so, because Partition Magic 8 I use with Windows does not support formatting HPFS.
...

thanks, that helped. I've now got sound :)

However the Realtek 810x driver, it comes with eCS by the way, did not work. It says that no PCI card was detected or something.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.07.10, 11:27:18
Hi,

I have to give up - because I (as a suprise) can not (even with DFSEE) get eCS to see the ECS_CDRUN any more. I dont know why this happened, but even if I delete all LVM entries, update the MBR and so on and so on and so on, the CD always says: insert ecomstation cd-rom.

This is really getting on my nerves, I did have problems while doing this with the EEE, but there was always a way to get through, but this time it seems I have done something wrong with the HDD. But - not Partition Magic nor DFSEE shows any errors. I really did anything I now, totally installed everthing (Windows) new and so on.

So, I will leave some free space at the HDD and install eCS once it is able to install it from an USB Drive. If this will not be possible, than "thats it".

Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: BigWarpGuy on 2008.07.12, 02:01:52
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSI_Wind_PC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSI_Wind_PC)
(http://www.dvhardware.net/news/msi_wind_tweaktown.jpg)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECsJIgP2qn0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECsJIgP2qn0)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=msi+wind+ecomstation&btnG=Search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=msi+wind+ecomstation&btnG=Search)
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.07.13, 02:04:21
Comeback  ;)

Finally I did it. eCS and XP with the Bootmanager together... The only way was to totally clean the HDD with the DFSEE BootCD and to create everything from Scratch.

You can see a picture of it here:

http://www.commtalk.org/FileRepository/ForumAttachments/5-75921-Akoya.JPG

Tasks to be still open (and have to be done, in case not eCS will not fit the MSI Wind, it will not be really usable):

USB
WLAN
LAN
and possibly the resoltution 1024 X 600


Cheers
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.13, 10:56:47
Hi,
I've commented this: http://en.ecomstation.ru/hardware.php?action=item&id=1471

like I said: I couldn't get LAN or WLAN to work with Genmac 2.2 in "UNSUPPORTED" mode and I'm pretty sure I've done it the right way. When I've got more time, I'll write to the Genmac mailing list and ask for support in a future version - but it won't come in the very short term.
Currently, the machine works but is useless - you must boot into another OS to transfer any data to or from eCS. JFS access works fine in Linux, by the way but I looks like you need root user permissions to access an already mounted JFS partition. Wouldn't be that surprising, but the ECS_CDRUN partition (HPFS) can be accessed by any user - which is how I configured both partition mounts in fstab... Furthermore I haven't found a way to "clean up" the filesystem (unlock it when it is in a "dirty" state, like you would do with CHKDSK) via Linux yet.

I've spent a lot of money on this (by my means) and I won't give up so easily.

@Sigurd:
regarding USB, I've sent you a personal message (Forum->My Messages).

cheers,
Robin
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.13, 13:30:53
The problem with the RT2860 driver is that it requires a firmware. Discovered that after consulting the Genmac log and after googling the issue. I read that it should be included in the Windows SYS file which makes sense because the Windows driver doesn't contain any extra firmware files. Genmac however is unable to read it (I guess) and expects to find a RT2860.BIN and RATE.BIN which contains the firmware. I could find a RT2860.BIN in the Linux driver distribution but I'm still looking for the RATE.BIN or a way to extract it from the SYS file. I guess this should be a feature of Genmac and I should really write to the mailing list for that reason. Otherwise the WLAN driver appears to work, LANTRAN.LOG reports that the hardware was initiated successfully and I've got an interface (NETSTAT -N). However it's not recognized as a WiFi driver by XWLAN probably because of the firmware problem.
The Realtek driver doesn't report any problems in the Genmac log but LANTRAN.LOG says that the hardware couldn't be initialized. I used the driver from the driver CD and the device ID PCI.EXE reported matches device IDs in the driver's INF file so I'm pretty sure it's the right driver.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.07.14, 22:06:12
Big, big thank to Robert Lalla! He made the resolution 1024X600 availiable for this (and possible a lot of other) 10' Netbooks!

One should use the widescreen 0.74 driver, and will get this:

http://www.commtalk.org/FileRepository/ForumAttachments/54-75933-Akoyaw2.JPG

This is really fantastic! This is really a difference to the EEE 701.

So is there anybody who can help us finding a solution for the usbd.sys?

This would be great!!!

Cheers

Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.07.15, 20:02:11
SMP - thats Okay!

Just to inform: SMP (not tested together with APIC) works fine here.

Please look:

http://www.commtalk.org/FileRepository/ForumAttachments/54-75943-Akoyaw3.JPG

Cheers
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.07.15, 21:41:57
Hey Sigurd, do you know if the new Widescreen driver will activate 1024x800 on a VIA Chrome chipset? I am tempted to get a Sylvania G Netbook, but I NEED native display resolution through Panorama.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.07.15, 21:50:19
Hey,

I don't know exactly, as far as I can see the widescreen is only working with ATOM Bios (ATI Chipset) and INTEL Bios. You may ask Eugene Gorbunow or Robert Lalla for further information. Sorry.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.16, 19:20:17
Are there any benefits in using a SMP kernel on a single-core machine?

But maybe I'll try it, too - just to see whether it changes anything on the USB issue. As far as I know, drivers often tend to make problems with SMP kernels, maybe it's the other way around here.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: achain on 2008.07.23, 08:59:00
Hi guys,

Could you try following procedure for your MSI Wind notebooks, and let me know the result?
1. Go to www.os2warp.be and step into Gomi NDIS MAC drivers section, then aquire RTL8169 driver v1.12.
2. Prepare the following text file and put it in the same place of rtgnda.os2, with naming it e.g. patch.txt.
FILE rtgnda.os2
VER 1876 6781
CHA 1876 3681

3. From command prompt, call patch.exe (OS/2's one, not GNU's) with "/A" parameter. e.g. >patch.exe patch.txt /A
4. Install the patched RTL8169 driver as usual.
5. Check the LAN connectivity.

I got the RTL8102E of Intel D945GCLF Atom motherboard working by this procedure. But it fails on Gigabyte GA-GC230D...maybe because the "shutdown" problem.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.23, 13:59:39
Yes, it works - on my machine at least but I don't see any reason that it shouldn't work on other Medion Akoyas. In fact, I'm writing this post on my Medion Akoya in eCS.

So thanks a lot, achain! Where did you get that from or how did you get the idea this might work?
Maybe we could inform the author, so if he's still interested, he can add out-of-the-box support for this chipset in an upcoming version of his driver.
This is indeed good news.

btw. I'm currently running eCS with the SMP kernel and ACPI in APIC mode. So far USB seems to work without any problems but you know it seemed to work before... Two CPUs (hyper-threading?) are detected and displayed and the CPU throttling program finally works - though it doesn't seem to add much to the batteries' life span. VDMs don't work anymore - I'll continue to play around with ACPI to see what effect it has on the USB issue.
Previously - when it didn't work - the reason was that attaching USB devices immediately crashed the system with trap 008. So when you loaded all USB drivers but without the EHCI controller driver (there's an internal USB device attached to that controller - besides the Webcam which only appears in the resource manager if you switch it on via keyboard) it booted fine (dozens of times) and just crashed if you attached an USB device. If you enabled the EHCI controller driver it alreaded crashed before starting PMSHELL, probably because of the already attached device.
btw2. I had to set the "Accept IRQ level > 15" option to "YES" to get the RTL8169 driver to work properly because i'm running in APIC mode.

cheers,
Robin
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: achain on 2008.07.23, 18:48:06
Robin, I'm glad to hear the result :)

By referring Realtek LAN device driver source code for FreeBSD, all RTLxxxx device control procedure seemed almost common. So I thought that legacy Realtek driver for OS/2 should work if it can detect RTL8102E (PCI ID=10EC:8136). I patched rtsnd323 (RTL8139 driver for OS/2) first to let it detect RTL8102E. But it failed. Driver could be loaded but it said "Cable is disconnected". I almost gave up at that time...but my friend gave me a hint to use the RTL8169 driver instead.

The patch provided in my previous post is just to replace supported device ID 10EC:8167 with 10EC:8136.
My OS/2 MCP2 based web server (www.os2.jp) is running with this driver over 10 days. (HW is Intel D945GCLF Atom motherboard.)
I can say the driver is stable enough.

I can contact the driver author. I will ask him to put the RTL8102E support code in. Or, I can release new driver by myself. I have just succeeded to make the driver from the source code.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.07.23, 20:27:18
Yes, I see it. "6781"/"3681" is nothing else as 8167h/8136h in little endian.

I also tried the same thing with the RTL8139 driver - however I was even too stupid to find the location of a supported device Id...

I'm still trying to find a way to get the Windows driver of RT8160 to work with Genmac. I think it can be patched, too because there's got to be something preventing it from using the included firmware (or using it at all). Should be possible to find the location ie. the MOV opcode referencing "rt2860.bin" in the disassembled code and look for the responsible code from there going backwards (and replace it e.g. with NOPs). I hope it's all in one function or otherwise I need a stack backtrace or references to that function to find the original one. However I have to find out how addresses are calculated in that kind of Win32 binary first (or find a tool which does that for me). I guess it's not as easy as in DOS .COM files (where I practised my assembly skills last time) - if I recall it correctly, there was just 100h=256 added to the actual position of the data in the COM file because the program's code/data was copied to the position 100h in it's 64kb segment or something like that... Didn't they introduce separate data and code segments in one binary later (EXE) ... crap
Sadly it's not possible to get it to work in "UNSUPPORTED" mode so it can take some time until it is officially supported by Genmac.

cheers,
Robin
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: rudi on 2008.07.23, 23:47:22
Quote from: achain on 2008.07.23, 18:48:06
I can contact the driver author. I will ask him to put the RTL8102E support code in. Or, I can release new driver by myself. I have just succeeded to make the driver from the source code.

Maybe you can ask why this "Accept IRQ level > 15" option does exist ? I really don't see any
good reason for this and I'm not aware of any other driver using such an option.

Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: achain on 2008.07.24, 08:59:57
Quote from: rudi on 2008.07.23, 23:47:22
Maybe you can ask why this "Accept IRQ level > 15" option does exist ? I really don't see any
good reason for this and I'm not aware of any other driver using such an option.
This is because, as Robin mentioned, APIC interrupt mode allows IRQ to be larger than 15. DaniS506 also supports such high IRQs to adapt to APIC.PSD that come with eCS ACPI support.
High IRQ support for RTL 8169 was added after initial release of the driver. IIRC, the author made it an option for backward compatibility, unlike DaniS506 that expanded IRQ levels without extra options.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: rudi on 2008.07.24, 16:01:39
Quote from: achain on 2008.07.24, 08:59:57
IIRC, the author made it an option for backward compatibility

What sense does that make (except adding the possibility for the user to do something
wrong) ?

BTW, for a disk driver it's much more tricky, because the device is active while the system
switches to "high" IRQ mode. IOW, the driver has to handle possible IRQ changes during the
boot process...
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: achain on 2008.07.24, 20:22:02
Quote from: rudi on 2008.07.24, 16:01:39
What sense does that make (except adding the possibility for the user to do something wrong) ?

No strong reason.

First, Japanese OS/2 users including the author (and me) are still far from high IRQ environment because we don't have eCS Japanese edition in the market yet. He couldn't test the high IRQ support code by himself. Under such situation, his priority could be "no regression" than "new feature".
- I need high IRQ support in your driver.
- Please test my implementation. You can enable it by option parameter.
- It works well.
- Okay I release it (as-is).

And, the default value of the option parameter can be easily changed by modifying rtgnda.nif file with text editor. As mentioned in the document file, author doesn't stop us to modify anything of the driver package and re-release it by ourselves.
So you can go ahead.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.08.03, 15:56:32
ok Wifi finally works :)

I'm writing this connected to my hotspot.

for some strange reason the driver didn't work in UNSUPPORTED mode. It wasn't recognized by XWLAN and it probably wouldn't have worked without it anyway (scan.exe didn't display anything!?). I suspect that the reason is that there's an initialization flag that's only enabled if the device is officially supported. At least that happened after patching genm32w.os2 to think our RT2860 is officially supported. According to the Genmac debug logs that didn't seem to change much (expect for the new flag I couldn't enable in UNSUPPORTED mode) but suddenly XWLAN recognized the driver.
Looking for public hotspots doesn't work - don't ask me why. However you can create a profile if you know the SSID and connect to that manually configured WLAN. Once connected it seems to work fine - it's stable so far.
btw. I didn't need the Wifi device firmware - so the impression I had after browsing (and trying to patch) the Windows driver was right: Providing the firmware is optional.

I attached a ZIP file to this post containing the Windows driver (used the one from my driver CD), the NIF file needed by Genmac as well as a genm32w.os2 patch ("patch genmac.patch /A").
The necessary steps are:
Install Genmac 2.2 without any drivers, copy the WRAPPER_1814_0781 directory to \ecs\system\genmac\driver, copy W1814x0781.NIF to \ecs\system\genmac\nif and \ibmcom\macs and copy genmac.patch to \ecs\system\genmac\driver, make a backup of genm32w.os2 and apply the patch with "patch genmac.patch /A" on the commandline. Finally copy the patched genm32w.os2 to \ibmcom\macs. You should be able to add a driver called "GenMac Wrapper Ralink RT2860 series Wireless LAN Card" using MPTS configuration or by editing your PROTOCOL.INI. On startup it will say it loads the driver for Asus WLAN RT2400 but display the proper device id. (You could hexedit that, too... easily... just be sure that the new nullterminated string is shorter or as long as the old one so you don't overwrite some other static variables or code)

Alright, I'd say it's time to remove the "Designed for Windows XP" sticker ;-)

cheers,
Robin
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.08.03, 17:22:32
yet another update: I wrote that after switching to SMP kernel and ACPI in SMP and APIC mode (my config.sys entry is "PSD=ACPI.PSD /SMP /APIC /CD"), USB suddenly worked fine. That's right I hadn't had any problems with it so far, even with the EHCI controller driver activated at startup. However - as I've already said - VDMs (DOS & Win 3.1) don't work anymore. The ACPI readme says that this could happen in APIC mode. So I tried to switch back to PIC (without /CD switch as this is APIC-specific) and I immediately got the trap 0008 at startup again. Switched back to "/APIC /CD" and it works again. So it seems we can't have working USB, APIC and VDMs at the same time. That wouldn't matter for most people - to have working sound in DOS games most people probably use DOSBox anyway - but I'm a bit of a DOS nostalgic and I even occasionally use Win3.1 sessions.
So does anyone know whether there is some kind of fix or workaround for that problem?

cheers,
Robin
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: achain on 2008.08.03, 17:24:21
For the onboard LAN:
The RTL8169 driver version 1.13 that supports RTL8102E has been formally released.
(Although the driver loading message still says that it is v.1.12.)

http://os2warp.be/index2.php?name=gomindis#4
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: warpcafe on 2008.08.05, 18:07:04
Hi guys,

sorry, but... I'm wondering what is the final(?) status here... I'm missing something like an official "Hooray, success!!" posting . :) So - is it correct to assume that eCS "runs" on the Akoya? More or less full-fledged? Or is there something that still needs to be investigated?
And if all OK: What is the correct approach for installing?
Someone volunteering to do an how-to? ;)

Cheers
-and thanks to everyone of you for the good job-
Thomas
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.08.07, 12:34:29
Hi,

I thought that removing the "Designed for Windows XP" sticker already was a kind of "Hooray, success!!". Btw. I reattached it to my old dot matrix printer.
Yes, most of the stuff works - it's already very useful.

We've got:

eCS Installation - tricky but should work reliably if you know how to do it.
USB & Hyperthreading - SMP kernel, ACPI in APIC mode + /CD switch; seems that some things only work with the new recompiled USB stack - which introduces new problems (system frequently freezes for a short time!?) though. Also, battery widgets work fine.
Automatic speed throttling - thanks to Sungsoo Khim
Sound - thanks to Uniaud, worked out of the box!
Video - Panorama VESA and latest Widescreen Activator (thanks to ecomstation.ru and Robert Lalla)
LAN - now supported "officially" by the RTL8169 driver (thanks to Yanagihara Nobuyuki and achain)
WLAN - works partly with patched Genmac driver (thanks to Willibald Meyer and me for the patch). You cannot search for hotspots and I've got disconnection problems in some networks (I have to investigate that...), works flawless in other networks however!

What we haven't got / what's not so nice:

Suspending/Resuming - provokes crash in Uniaud; without Uniaud, resuming doesn't work.
Webcam - not supported by WarpVision(?). I can live without it :)
WinOS/2 & VDMs - side effect of ACPI in APIC mode. Don't know if there's any workaround. Haven't tried using a FreeDOS kernel or something yet. I read that this issue is resolved in newer ACPI releases (I've got 3.05, 3.09 is the latest).
SDL - all SDL (official package and Panorama SDL12.DLL) programs have a messed colour palette. Not so bad that most programs are unusable / games unplayable but still very annoying. Maybe I should write to the SDL and Panorama people. I haven't got the latest Panorama driver, so I'd like to hear what Sigurd says first.
Firefox - Browsing is damned slow. I know that Freetype slows it down but I've got a similar setup on my desktop machine with SeaMonkey and it's not that bad. The CPU is roughly the same speed and I've got the same problems when my Medion Akoya is connected via LAN (so it's probably no Wifi problem). I thought the new Gecko engine in Firefox 3 is faster? Also it simply crashes very often. Watching Youtube via "unofficial" Flash 7 is very slow, too. Haven't tried SeaMonkey yet.
Scrolling - mouse driver (AMouse) doesn't allow sliding on the right side of the trackpad to scroll - this is a very useful feature supported e.g. by most Linux distributions. I'm using an older tool called Hot Scroll to achieve a similar effect on OS/2. I configured it to scroll in a similar manner when I hold down the "Windows" key. Works nice with the WPS and some programs but has no effect on others (e.g. Firefox). Is there an alternative? The Nice WPS enhancer hasn't got the feature I need and the AMouse MB3-drag feature doesn't even work when I've got a 3-button mouse attached(?).

btw. Video performance is better than I thought. I guessed it's impossible to play a Divx video fullscreen because such things are very processor-intensive with the VESA driver but some days ago I tried to watch a movie on a Samba resource (server is my eCS desktop :) ) using WarpVision and it worked surprisingly good. Fullscreen and fluently - without any special options. The CPU load was only about 20% so I could even activate some filters.

Yes, I could write a Howto. But I'm not very reliable and it might take some years. So, let's wait for Sigurd - he's written such Howtos for the Asus EEE PC in the past and maybe he'd actually *like* to do it.
I think it would be good if this would be in some kind of OS/2-eComStation wiki or a MSI Wind wik besides uploading it to Hobbes, so other people can contribute easily. That would also allow Sigurd and me to write it together (assuming he want's to do it). Anyone got such a wiki we could use?

cheers,
Robin
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.08.07, 15:01:50
Hi,

just back - 3 weeks holiday in Denmark -  :D

I will test all the new enhancements in the evening.

Best wishes and many thanks,

Sigurd
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.08.16, 13:11:45
some updates:
There's a workaround for the SDL issue: The colours are correct if you somehow get your program to run in 1024x600 (ie. your current desktop resolution?). There's a DOSBox option for that purpose (fullscreenresolution) and you can configure the resolution in OpenTTD, too.
I also tried to attach a monitor which works fine if you know how to do it. You have to boot with the monitor attached and you can only activate the monitor (using the apropriate Fn-key) before PM starts up, otherwise it'll do nothing. So you have to switch to a desktop resolution supported by your monitor (and the netbook's display, otherwise you can't choose it) before rebooting and activate the monitor shortly thereafter. Once the WPS is ready you should be able to choose much higher resolutions which are supported by both the graphics chip and the monitor. Don't forget to switch back to a mode supported by the netbook's display before booting without the monitor. Sounds complicated but it's probably not much easier if you could active the monitor while PM's running as the monitor will only work with the correct resolution and you have to reboot for each change :(. Nevertheless that means you can use it for reports/presentations.

Regarding the Howto: I just noticed that OS/2 World has a wiki. Why not do it there? Maybe I should simply create a new page. Where should I create the link: "Hardware" or "How To"?

cheers,
Robin
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.08.16, 15:12:19
ok here it is: http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Medion_Akoya_Mini_%28HowTo%29
(the outlline of the article at least)
I created redirections for "Medion Akoya Mini E1210" and "MSI Wind U100" and added links to the Hardware and How-To sections.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.08.19, 00:42:24
Hi,

thanks to Shai I finally after lots of attempts made progress!

Things I had to do:

Downgrade the ACPI of RC5 from 3.09 to 3.05, otherwise the boot process freeze with the /APIC switch

Made a complete new Installation without legacy support (DOS-Win) will be substituted by DOSBOX

WLAN is working, stable, can not scan for hotspots either

(actually I am now using ecs RC 5, the medion akoya and WLAN to write this  ;D ;D)

LAN - the driver loads but says: IRQ detection fault - hm..... can not verify if it works even though

Picture can be seen here:

http://www.commtalk.org/FileRepository/ForumAttachments/54-76127-Akoyawwlan.JPG

As one can see a lot of USB stuff is loaded, but havent tried to activate EHCI support yet - the trap008 frightens me ::)

So, its funny to surf the net with eCS while listening to music....

Cheers and greetings to all



Title: Ready to go.....
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.08.19, 09:04:36
I just tried to activate the USB EHCI driver as well yesterday - and - it worked!!!

For some reason I do not have trap 0008 any more, I can not verify why. Even connecting:

- 4 GB USB Stick
- USB DVD Burner
- Terratec T2 USB TV

at the same time - everything works, even after about 15 reboots and booting via bootmanager XP and vise versa....

So it seems to be quite usefull  :-)

Thansk to Shai and the great job he has done!

Picture can be seen here:

http://www.commtalk.org/FileRepository/ForumAttachments/54-76128-Akoyawwlan2.JPG

Cheers

Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: warpcafe on 2008.08.19, 10:14:01
Sigurd,

the screenshot looks awesome. Coooool!! Way to go!
Thanks to you guys for working this out.

I'm looking forward to see that machine at the Duesseldorf WSE :)

BTW... that Terratec thingy... is that a DVB-T or...? Is that supported by Rudi's Emperoar?
(Sorry, am too lazy to seek for the information... ;) )

Cheers,
Thomas
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.08.19, 12:58:56
Hi Thomas (you lazy guy  ::) )

yep - Cinergy t2 USB DVB, ( look here: http://www.ciao.de/TerraTec_Cinergy_T2__1930321 ) supported by emperor TV.

Sigurd

Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: rudi on 2008.08.19, 19:21:45

Currently this is the only supported USB DVB-T device. I'm investigating
the T328 (http://www.geniatech.com/pa/t682.htm) and/or the Nova-T stick
(http://www.hauppauge.de/de/site/products/data_novatstick.html) but cannot
tell if or when I will be able to make these work...

Title: 10 Minutes video on Youtube about eComstation 2.0 with Medion Akoya
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.08.21, 11:38:02
Hi,

don't know how to bring this to the news section, so I post it here:

made a new video about eComstation 2.0 yesterday. Because of my
limited Hardware for this the Quality still low, but should be OK to
give a short impression about the system.

I tried to include some "coll" features like watching DVB television
or listening to Internetradio.

I guess the Qualtity of the original video might be better, there fore
I uploaded it to hobbes for free access.

Hope you enjoy, have fun

Links:

Youtube:

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ8QFZ_cYAk

hobbes for download (ca. 60 MB)

http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/h-browse?dir=/pub/incoming&sort=date

The hobbes link will be changed once the file will be moved from
"incoming" to another section.

Cheers

Sigurd
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.10.12, 14:31:24
Hi,

just tested ACPI Version 3.11 from software subscription. No problems occurred until now. So there seems to be no need to downgrade to ACPI 3.05 since eCS RC 6 or GA will be availiable.

This Netbook works that well, I am really satisfied with it.  :D ;) :D ;D

Sigurd
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.10.13, 22:50:39
Wifi is still what annoys me most. WPA2 encrypted connections are very unstable - but I need more tests. Recently I discovered that GENMAC provokes a trap (Black Screen Of Death) when I attempt to connect to one of my university's hotspots - it's unencrypted and I don't have problems with unencrypted connections otherwise. You connect to a hotspot (and are part of a public unsecure network which is not directly connected to the internet) and then establish an IPSec tunnel to a special gateway which makes you part of the real network (Cisco VPN, should be supported by Injoy Firewall and partly by the eCS internal firewall). As I said it already crashes when I attempt to connect to the hotspot. Seems that I need some very boring lectures to try different versions of the Windows driver and different Genmac options...
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Shai on 2008.10.13, 23:05:30
Quote from: Sigurd on 2008.10.12, 14:31:24
Hi,

just tested ACPI Version 3.11 from software subscription. No problems occurred until now. So there seems to be no need to downgrade to ACPI 3.05 since eCS RC 6 or GA will be availiable.

This Netbook works that well, I am really satisfied with it.  :D ;) :D ;D

Sigurd
that's cool. You're running in APIC mode I suppose? Do Win-OS/2 and VDMs work now?
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.10.16, 22:27:45
Hi Shai,

I installed DOS/WIN to answer your question, but it is not working. The DOS and Win-OS2 Sessions shut themselves down a few seconds after the sessions have been started. Not even a command prompt can be seen, ist just a black window (in case of the DOS session).

Still using this switch:

PSD=ACPI.PSD /SMP /APIC /CD

Popuplog.os2 tells me:

10-16-2008  20:02:43  SYS3170  PID 006e  TID 0001  Slot 008e
O:\OS2\PMSHELL.EXE
d2c27c78
00000000
P1=0000004c  P2=01c23714  P3=0000002d  P4=b1b37d08 
EAX=00006f20  EBX=00000000  ECX=00000000  EDX=00000000
ESI=0000f690  EDI=00000000 
DS=c000  DSACC=****  DSLIM=******** 
ES=c000  ESACC=****  ESLIM=******** 
FS=0000  FSACC=****  FSLIM=********
GS=0000  GSACC=****  GSLIM=********
CS:EIP=f000:00007175  CSACC=****  CSLIM=********
SS:ESP=9e8c:00000002  SSACC=0003  SSLIM=00000003
EBP=00000002  FLG=00032246

:-\

Sigurd

Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: BigWarpGuy on 2008.11.01, 18:06:18
"MSI Wind + ASUS EEE 1000H Vergleich mit eComstation (OS/2)"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUSr9QMbacM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUSr9QMbacM)


Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.12.09, 00:11:38
Installation Update RC 6.0a:

Hi, made a fresh install with RC 6.0a. Install went fine using installation direct from USB DVD Drive. In case of this make sure that you:

- Enter the preboot menue with "own values"
- enable support for at least 1 USB CDROM, mark "Install from USB Device"
- select ACPI
- set the ACPI value (switch)    /CD
  (missing this causes the beloved trap 0008  :o )
- select panorama vesa. audio is detected as uniaud hda
- select "no network adapter" - install the network support manually as described in this thread before
- do not set a static IP - it is a bug in 6.0a - set dynamic

Go ahead.

Result i.e.:

http://www.commtalk.org/FileRepository/ForumAttachments/5-76754-neowps2.JPG

New: Suspend / Resume is working now!!!! (since ACPI 3.13) 8)  ::) :D :)

Just discovered but was possible before: you can use FN+F3 to activate/deactivate the touch pad, that is really a nice feature while writing something  :D

This netbook is now really a good choice in case of using eComStation on modern netbooks!

Cheers

Sigurd
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: EugeneGorbunoff on 2008.12.09, 01:05:30
e-co: The license of NeoWPS talks: you can't make JPG screenshots! PNG only! :)
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: melf on 2008.12.09, 11:14:07
Seriously, you can't decide what kind of screenshots people take! It's a screenshot of his desktop and I guess he legally owns that picture. Allthough I understand you want to show the good quality of the icons - this is just bad business I think.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.12.09, 12:31:07
Hi,

Eugene - I did not know about this (strange) limitation. I just thought it might have been a kind of good idea to show people your work and have a kind of advertisement as side-effect.

Even though - I am in complete agreement with melf, this rule seems to me futile.

Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: warpcafe on 2008.12.09, 17:08:31
Hi,

perhaps Eugene is concerned about possible JPG copyright infringements? Is that still a threat?
Although I prefer PNG over JPG (mainly for the same reasons of legal safety... anyway, that license notice is a little strange I must admit. OTOH, Eugene might have his reasons and we should respect that.

...sometimes I would like him to explain his reasons though. ;)

Cheers
Thomas
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: EugeneGorbunoff on 2008.12.09, 18:07:58
hey, we spend dozens of hours to design -> draw -> improve every icon! PNG format keeps the quality of SunnyIcons, JPG breaks all efforts of the designers. Look at the screenshots of OS/2 in the Internet (first, try to find the screenshots) - ugly.. black JPG picture 8[   ]

Let's show PNG nice designed pictures of eComStation desktop

Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: melf on 2008.12.09, 23:01:10
Eugene, it wasn't my meaning to be impolite, but I got a bit upset. My point is that I doubt if that statement in a license have a legal ground. If not, it shouldn't be there - instead you could recommend the use of *.png in sceenshots.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.12.10, 23:01:43
To avoid license conflicts I simply deinstalled the whole NEOWPS.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: EugeneGorbunoff on 2008.12.13, 01:23:12
it's fun..

let's compare PNG and JPG screenshots of the desktop:

http://ecomstation.ru/projects/eschemes/screenshots/eComStation-desktop-1024.png

http://ecomstation.ru/projects/eschemes/screenshots/eComStation-desktop-1024.jpg

how long do you look (watch) at the screenshot? 5 seconds? 7 seconds? then you see the difference, you see the artefacts. The JPG screenshot seems ugly.

I am dissapointed that Sigurd reacts this way. It's clear that JPG is useful for photos only. Promo screenshots should be in GIF/PNG format. I am happy that Sigurd made the screenshots, my goal was: help to achieve ideal quality of the picture.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: ivan on 2008.12.14, 01:04:44
Having compared the screen shots I find the *.jpg has 51750 colours while the *.png has 31381.  I have also shown them to several friends, two of them are artists with a reputation on Europe.  All selected the *.jpg as the better picture.  This was on screen.  On printing them on photo paper using a photo printer most thought they were the same picture.

Eugene.  There are many factors that apply to picture reproduction be it on screen or paper.  For most people a computer monitor is just plugged in and used at the default colour temperature.  There are some of us that have monitors set up to print standard because of our work in preparing pictures for print reproduction.  Yes, there can be some degrading of JPEG images if they are repeatedly opened and saved but just comparing two images, jpg & png, on a default monitor 99.99% of people will see no difference.

Your insistence that published screen shots be in png format is up to you and I will defend your right to dictate as you will with your work. That said I think you are wrong with your restriction, it will only do harm and cut down possible advertising of your work.  I would have thought it would be in your best interests to have examples of your work spread as widely as possible, but again your decision.

Also promotional pictures should be in TIFF format if you want the reproduced in any print shop - this is the standard for publishing.

Sigurd's reaction is typical of most people when they are told they can't do what they want with what they have, even Apple is finding it difficult to dictate what people can and can't do with their purchases.

To advance OS/2 / eCS we need good publicity.  Sigurd's work is a big step in the right direction and should be encouraged at all costs not slapped down just because of some perceived  degrading of a picture, remember it could be your monitor that is at fault, incorrect colour temperature, badly set up RGB etc. or even video drivers that are a little off and do not drive the video card / monitor combination correctly.  It is also possible your feed back is from a much too small sample of video / monitor pairs because you restrict your work to eCS users only and not the wider OS/2 community.

regards

ivan
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.12.14, 02:01:56
I'm sorry, the JPG looks worse. You can see the divergence in color reproduction between the two images quite easily in the text printed on the desktop as well as a moire like compression effect in the transparency on the trashcan in the JPG. There's really no comparison for quality, the JPG simply loses.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: rudi on 2008.12.14, 10:03:20
Quote from: warpcafe
perhaps Eugene is concerned about possible JPG copyright infringements? Is that still a threat?

AFAIK, JPEG was never hit by this issue. It used to be a problem with GIF, but the patents for
the LZW compression have expired now.


Quote from: Saijin_Naib
I'm sorry, the JPG looks worse

For me, the visual differences are marginal. However, the PNG is nearly 4 times as big as the
JPG. IMHO, the minimal advantage in picture quality does not justify the difference in size.
I'm quite positive, that one could even improve the JPG by reducing the compression factor
while still resulting in a smaller file than PNG.


Quote from: EugeneGorbunoff
I am dissapointed that Sigurd reacts this way

Sorry, but you provoked it by bringing legal/license stuff on the table. I fully understand
Sigurd's reaction...


Quote from: EugeneGorbunoff
my goal was: help to achieve ideal quality of the picture.

Then you definitively found the wrong way to communicate this to Sigurd. Se Melf's
reply.


Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2008.12.14, 22:33:46
Hi,

I switched to WPSWIZARD and the wunderfull themes from David Graser. I made some GIF pictures, you can see them here:

http://www.commtalk.org/FileRepository/ForumAttachments/6-76768-Besser3.gif

http://www.commtalk.org/FileRepository/ForumAttachments/6-76766-Besser1.gif

http://www.commtalk.org/FileRepository/ForumAttachments/6-76767-Besser2.gif

Hope you like them, thanks to Chris Wohlgemuth and David Graser!

Sigurd
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Pete on 2008.12.15, 03:22:05
Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.12.14, 02:01:56
I'm sorry, the JPG looks worse. You can see the divergence in color reproduction between the two images quite easily in the text printed on the desktop as well as a moire like compression effect in the transparency on the trashcan in the JPG. There's really no comparison for quality, the JPG simply loses.


Hi Saijin_Naib

Sorry, got to totally disagree with you.

That Desktop looks like the background used in eCS2.0RC6a.

If that is the case the jpg is far more accurate - the text is meant to be white not pale yellow.

The jpg also looks a little brighter than the png.

Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.12.15, 04:14:22
Check again which image you are looking at. The PNG is the one with the white text and no blur on the icon transparency. The JPG has off-white to yellow text and blur artifacts.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Pete on 2008.12.15, 14:38:04
Hi Saijin_Naib

Yes, on Double checking I see that you are correct.

This is obviously something I should not have looked at last thing at night - well, about 2 am - as I have obviously got the images muddled and the PNG is the more accurate image.

Regards

Pete

Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: ivan on 2008.12.15, 17:30:29
Has anyone noticed a slight anomaly with the two pictures?  No.  Then look at the Warp Center (or what ever it's called in eCS) and the time.

I defy anyone to take two screen shots in different formats at the same time! 

Now do a little experiment.  Open the *.png and save it as *.jpg.  Now open both jpgs in something like the GIMP and run a colour analysis on them.

regards

ivan
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Stef on 2009.02.18, 20:20:25
Hi all,

first post here !

I have an Advent 4211 (which is also a clone to the MSI wind). I have just tried and followed Sigurd's direction to install the RC6a version but I always get TRAP 008. I exactly did what Sigurd specified. Even if I uncheck the ACPI I get the trap.

Any idea? Because actually I 've just bought the Advent for the OS/2 !!...
Bios is the last 1.10

Thanks in advance.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: weckart on 2009.02.20, 18:34:15
Same problem as Stef. Trap 008 happens. I enabled debug mode on the ACPI and noticed PIC shutdown on the last attempt with an inert screen.

I am trying to install onto an SD disk to see whether I can live with the current limitations otherwise, it goes onto an older laptop. Grateful for any help.
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Sigurd on 2009.02.21, 09:30:24
Hi stef and weckart,

as far as I was able to figure out TRAP0008 has multiple reasons. One told me TRAP0008 means that more than one TRAP happens at the same time.

I guess ACPI and something with the USB (EHCI) Driver went wrong. And in addition I had a lot of problems with the HDD as well. Even if I was able to start the installation the ecs installer told me something like "your partition table is corupt".

Please try this:

- BEFORE you start to install anything (Windows or eCs) use the DFSEE Boot CD to wipe out the whole HDD and partition it in the way that fit your needs.

- DURING ECS INSTALL: in addition to all the other things already mentioned: in the pre boot menue change the IDE driver to "IBM compatible mode"

- change the USB Driver with the USB stack that once has been published at betazone as soon as you are able to do it

Anyway:

I d'nt know where both of you come from, but I plan to offer my Medion Akoya anyway. So if one is interested in, please write a mail to: sigurd.fastenrath (at) t-online.de.  It is offered with the full Dualboot installation with XP SP3 and eCS 2.0 RC6a and all the necessary drivers that are availiable. BUT: you have to have Software subscription and tell me your registration code so I can do a fresh install (please note: Keyboard layout is german QWERTZ, no Bluetooth); because I want to keep my eCS license. Currently one can by this Medion about 250 Euro (with 1 GB RAM and 160 GB HDD) at ebay , I think it is fair that I plan to sell it for 300 Euro excluding shipment (with 2 GB RAM and 80 GB HDD) ready to use with eCS and Windows.

So if one is interested in, please let me know.

Sigurd
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Stef on 2009.02.23, 14:51:33
Thanks Sigurd,

I will keep mine and try to install Ecs.


Every time ACPI is enabled, TRAP 8 occurs asa the USB drive is being accessed. Disabling ACPI makes system freezes.

Weckart, SIgurd,

what post or doc shall I follow to try and install ECS on a SD card ?
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: djcaetano on 2009.03.04, 19:43:38
Hello there,

I bought a "Positivo MOBO 1050", which is the brazilian version of MSI Wind and had already installed WinXP Pro, Ubuntu, eCS2.0RC6a and MacOS X Leopard. All in all, it is a great netbook and I am very happy with it. I made almost everything work on all OSs, but WiFi is not working on eCS. I had not installed GenMac during eCS installation process, and now I am wondering how can I add it. Also, the secondary video output is not working at all on eCS (it works ok on other OSs). It is a real concern to me, since I planned to use this netbook as a tool when teaching about Operating Systems.

The Status of Not Working Things (on eCS) are:
- External Video Output (I am using Panorama VESA)
- WiFi
- WebCam
- Synaptics Scroll (the touchpad works ok, but there is no scroll feature enabled)
- APM is not working very nice (when on bateries, it's not possible to change state to increase batery life)
- Card Reader doesn't seem to work.

Anyone was able to get solutions for those problems?

  My kindest regards,
  Daniel Caetano
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Stef on 2009.05.06, 15:33:33
Hi all,

after resuming my tries on my Advent I have no TRAP 008 at all using the /SMP /APIC /CD ACPI parameters.

But now I ran into the "Insert ECS CD.." issue described in http://www.os2world.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,63/topic,553.15/

Since this topic had no updates for about 1 year now, does someone know if this has been solved or workarounded ? In other words is it still impossible to install using a CD/DVD USB drive ?

Thanks in advance
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: EugeneGorbunoff on 2009.05.06, 15:45:11
To Stef:

Let's test ACPI 3.14

The only way to resolve the problem - post the bug-report to ACPI bug-tracker:
http://ecomstation.ru/projects/acpitools/?action=logs

Create a ticket with subject: MSI Wind, SMP APIC troubles

write to the ticket what you see:

Try boot without USB drivers

do you get errors if run:
http://ecomstation.ru/projects/acpitools/download/acpi-test.cmd


btw, what is the model of motherboard in MSI Wind?
You can find motherboard model in this file: x:\var\log\1_ACPI.L1 -> [Systemboard info]
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Pete on 2009.05.06, 16:33:40
Hi Daniel

Looking at your list of things not working I have a couple of suggestions:-

Try SNAP in VBE fallback mode (VESA) and see if that resolves the External Video output problem

Install Genmac Base plus required driver from [RC6a_CD]:\CID\SERVER\ECSPKG\GENMAC2.WPI - it is a Warpin archive and should install with the minimum of fuss. Hopefully that will help with WiFi.

Check USB configuration using USBcfg, itmay help resolve Cardreader problem. If not post your PSD=ACPI.PSD line and also check what settings are enabled for USB in the BIOS. Usbcfg comes in Warpin  http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/system/USBcfgb071-eCS-only.wpi and Zip http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/system/usbcfgb701.zip flavours.

Hopefully someone else will have some suggestions for the other problems  :-)

Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Stef on 2009.05.06, 19:59:03
Thanks Eugene for your quick reply.

The ACPI is v3.14 (2.0 Rc6a).

Without USB drivers I got the error:
SYS1201: The device driver /JJSCDROM.DMD specified in the DEVICE statement on line 94 of the CONFIG.SYS file was not installed. Line 94 is ignored.
Insert eComStation Installation CD-ROM and press any key.


I am no expert at ECS/OS2 but since it is not installed yet I cannot run the .CMD file you've mentionned nor look at the Motherboard model in the specified directory. Or maybe there a way to do that. Or maybe someone with ECS installed can give us the answers.

Under XP, CPU-Z motherboard tab returns:
Manufacturer : DIXONSXP
Model : Advent 4211 Ver .001
Chipset : Intel i945GSE Rev. 03
Southbridge : Intel 82801GHM (ICH7-M/U)
LPCIO: ITE

Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Pete on 2009.05.07, 03:16:53
Hi Stef

Why are you trying to use ye ancient jjscdrom.dmd  - use os2cdrom.dmd

I don't know anything about the Advent notebook but I do know it is possible to install RC6a using a USB DVD drive. I recently installed RC6a to a Dell X300 which has a USB DVD drive. You need to ensure that option is selected in the Pre Boot Menu - "Boot with own values" - otherwise the installer presumes IDE attached DVD drive.

Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: warpcafe on 2009.05.07, 11:30:53
Hi all,

I'm not worried about the fact that stef is using JJSCDROM. Personally, I also prefer this one - not for any rational reason but rather out of habit since it gave me better results than os2cdrom back in the days when I had SCSI-based systems. Anyway.
What I'm a little worried about is:

QuoteSYS1201: The device driver /JJSCDROM.DMD specified in the DEVICE statement on line 94 of the CONFIG.SYS file was not installed. Line 94 is ignored.

It's the leading SLASH sign (" / ") in the name of the driver.
Is it really mentioned like this in line 94 of your config.sys? That seems quite an interesting path to load a driver. Not sure, but shouldn't that be a fully-qualified filename? Like "C:\blabla\drivername.dmd" instead?
And, ehh... shouldn't it be a backslash instead anyway?

Just puzzled where the slash sign comes from...

Cheers,
Thomas
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Stef on 2009.05.07, 20:32:27
Thanks Pete and Thomas,

Using os2cdrom unfortunately does not change the deal with or without USB drivers declared.

Yes, if USB is set I also set the USB Cd install flag through own values choice.

In the resulting config.sys file, line 94 is :
DEVICE=\OS2CDROM.DMD /V

Note that LOCATECD.SYS is called using the same syntax:
DEVICE=\LOCATECD.SYS "Insert eComStation Installation CD-ROM and press any key." "ECS_CDRUN" "\ECS\ECS_INST.FLG"

So the error message is from LOCATECD.SYS which seems unable to know where the USB CD drive is.

Moreover at the beginning of the config.sys file, one read :
RUN=\OS2\ACPIDAEMON.EXE
but here I got no problem, the daemon is launched.

BTW where is LOCATECD.SYS on the CD ? I cannot find it.

Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Robert Deed on 2009.05.07, 21:07:48
LocateCD.Sys is in the boot image and shouldn't be accessible other then when you boot form the CDRom.

Quote from: Stef on 2009.05.07, 20:32:27
Thanks Pete and Thomas,

Using os2cdrom unfortunately does not change the deal with or without USB drivers declared.

Yes, if USB is set I also set the USB Cd install flag through own values choice.

In the resulting config.sys file, line 94 is :
DEVICE=\OS2CDROM.DMD /V

Note that LOCATECD.SYS is called using the same syntax:
DEVICE=\LOCATECD.SYS "Insert eComStation Installation CD-ROM and press any key." "ECS_CDRUN" "\ECS\ECS_INST.FLG"

So the error message is from LOCATECD.SYS which seems unable to know where the USB CD drive is.

Moreover at the beginning of the config.sys file, one read :
RUN=\OS2\ACPIDAEMON.EXE
but here I got no problem, the daemon is launched.

BTW where is LOCATECD.SYS on the CD ? I cannot find it.


Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: djcaetano on 2009.05.08, 18:27:40

  Pete,

Quote from: Pete on 2009.05.06, 16:33:40
Try SNAP in VBE fallback mode (VESA) and see if that resolves the External Video output problem

  I'll try this soon. :)

Quote from: Pete on 2009.05.06, 16:33:40
Install Genmac Base plus required driver from [RC6a_CD]:\CID\SERVER\ECSPKG\GENMAC2.WPI - it is a Warpin archive and should install with the minimum of fuss. Hopefully that will help with WiFi.

  Thanks! I installed it, but then I noticed Positivo modified the WiFi configuration: the board used on this version of Wind is Realtek RTL8187... which is not supported yet by GenMac2. I'll do some tests trying with Windows driver in "unsupported mode" later.
BTW, after installing GenMac2, I am not able to use the network anymore, even connecting the cable (ethernet nic uses the propper driver and was working ok before installing GenMac2).

Quote from: Pete on 2009.05.06, 16:33:40
Check USB configuration using USBcfg, itmay help resolve Cardreader problem. If not post your PSD=ACPI.PSD line and also check what settings are enabled for USB in the BIOS. Usbcfg comes in Warpin  http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/system/USBcfgb071-eCS-only.wpi and Zip http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/system/usbcfgb701.zip flavours.

  Well, the cardreader seems to be just ignored. My ACPI line is simple: /APIC /SMP /CD. I'll use USB Config later and verify the configuration... but it seems it should work. AFAIK, the SD cardreader is just an adapter to a internal USB port.

  Thanks for the help!
Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Pete on 2009.05.08, 22:09:11
Hi djcaetano

I think the WiFi nic gets set as lan0 - which is what your cabled nic was probably using - so you need to run the Adapters and Protocols app to check.

Have you checked whether the PSD= line needs the /TMR switch? - run \ecs\bin\tmrtest.exe to check.

Do the USB Controllers show in Hardware Manager? Are the number and type correct?

Do you have USBMSD option /REMOVABLES set to at least the number of slots in the cardreader plus 1 ie 4 slot cardreader should have 5 (or higher) for this setting.

Regards

Pete


Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: EugeneGorbunoff on 2009.05.08, 23:23:13
2 Stef

ok.. so you have problems during installation of eCS.

at which stage? during boot to installer or after the 1-st reboot?


the only way to resolve the problem - post bug-report to ecomstation.com -> login -> bug-tracker


1) try select Panorama VESA in preboot menu, not SNAP

2) disable uniaud (don't know how)

Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Stef on 2009.05.09, 12:58:42
Yes Eugene the problem occurs before getting the installer.

I chose first to post here to get any help from the community (we are at os2world.com). It is always nice and pleasant. I will post a bug ticket if I can't find the cause with all mates here !

I read in one thread that the USB drive was first accessed using bios w/o issue but when USB drivers are then used the drive is no more found. Does it sound familiar to someone ?

Title: Re: Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2009.05.09, 19:20:26
Yes, I believe that is the int13 issue. I've not gotten around that on my netbook which is part of the reason I ended up selling it.