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OS/2 motherboards

Started by tcross, 2008.06.05, 21:19:27

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tcross

OK, you guys helped me with the video card problem - now it is working.

Now the next issue is I would like to have some motherboards that run OS/2 so I can build a couple of complete systems that can be used as replacement systems. I have done some asking around and the sales people for the new motherboards claim OS/2 won't run on their boards.

So I need a place to buy a couple of mother boards that will. I need 4 PCI slots. 1 for video, 2 for Arcnet boards, and one for an expansion I/O board.

Any recommendations?

Thanks

Tim

kim

What boards have you been looking at? Just so that we have some kind of hardware to talk around and figure out what works and not.

RobertM

Hi Tim,

One additional question: What version of OS/2 will you be using? If it is an older one (Warp 4 or earlier for instance), you may be stuck with either low power boards that are all IDE, or used/older boards. WSeB will get you a little further, but will not get you SATA support out of the box. eCS v1.2MR would be the best choice for new/newer motherboards.

Let us know.

Robert


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
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Pete

Hi Tim

Quote from: tcross on 2008.06.05, 21:19:27

Now the next issue is I would like to have some motherboards that run OS/2 so I can build a couple of complete systems that can be used as replacement systems. I have done some asking around and the sales people for the new motherboards claim OS/2 won't run on their boards.



Sounds like you are talking to people who may have some idea what you are asking but the simple answer is "No."

However to qualify their answers I would want to know which version of OS/2 you are talking about - was it V3 ? If "Yes" then I would go with what the sales people say simply due to my lack of experience with that OS and fairly modern hardware...

In general I would say that you can get Warp4 fixpack15 + a few other needed updated bits of software to run on mainboards of a couple of years ago eg an Asus A8N-E with an AMD64 CPU - I am talking about taking a drive with Warp4 installed from a 32bit system and sticking it in a 64bit system. It is even possible to install Warp4 to a 64bit system but you would need to Google for the various tricks involved.

The next step up from that is eCS1.2R - that will install to 64bit systems, based on the above example mainboard, usually without any real problems. Note that dualcore CPUs will only run on 1 CPU core.

Current mainboards seem to need ACPI drivers - especially if you want your multiple CPU cores working - so if considering something like an Asus M2N-E you would need to consider purchasing eCS1.2R + Software Subscription (SS). The SS would allow you to download the current eCS2.0 Release Candidate (currently 4) which has ACPI support. The SS also allows downloading of various other bits of software and updated drivers, such as ACPI which has been updated several times since eCS2.0RC4 was released, that are not available for general download. Note you would not have to install eCS1.2R before installing eCS2.0RC4

Regards

Pete

tcross

Thanks all for the input

The OS is OS/2 Warp 3. The AMD BIOS on the current board says it is running a Pentium-MMX at 200 MHz and there is only 1 CPU. I do know some of the other systems are running at 133 MHz. I can make back up drives from one of the working systems and it will be an IDE drive.

I didn't write down the part numbers for the boards I called about, but now wish I did.

Maybe I should get the part numbers off the motherboards I have now that work and see if there are any used ones available.

I will also look at some of the boards mentioned, and dig further into the eCS1.2R + Software Subscription possibility.

Thanks to all!!

Tim

Andi

A few boards are mentioned on ecomstation.ru (hardware). There was a disussion at commtalk.de (in german) the last days about this topic and I think on news.ecomstation.com too. Maybe you have a look there.

Basically nearly every board should work with eComStation. I think for Warp3 it would be not that easy. But with updated IDE drivers (DANIS...) maybe even your current installation, copied on a new harddisk or even on the old one, would work too. But drivers for onboard sound and nic could be a problem.

If you consider buying standard industrial boards, I think your chances are even better. But I fear you have to try it out by yourself. Best chances are with eCS1.2r or eCS2.0rcx.

ModZilla

try any early X Series, mATX mobo by ASUS, some posters here swear it will work with Server V4 for sure but since I am giving it away *you pay s^n^h* you cant lose.

MZ
PS I dont use ASUS P4s anymore I went back to using a Micron OEM with PIII and all is well without the cost of DIMMS, i have gobs of SIMMS and I love the old sound blaster gold cards [not pci or pci-X] plus I have gone back to vtg computing using the older non pci slots for scsi and VLB...anyway good luck on this OS2W adventure!
someday os2 will be ruled by the young and famous-at least in the open-source world!

ModZilla

to reiterate I wouldnt start out with a MOBO beyond a 478 chip as more modern boards will create a debacle as far as drivers for all the goodies found on nForce4 Socket 939 ATX Motherboard weather its an AMD or not, why not start simple and go el cheapo as entry level, once I love to look at Class A motorhomes, bout one year before retiring, now that I am retired, I find it absurd to even look at such a beast, all the maintenance and if you get stuck out in the boonies with one, hey who will ever hook you up for under $700 for roadside assistence in searchlight Nev.? Just some thoughts, start small and work your way up esp while using older technology...

MZ
X-seeing the lite of an OS/OS
someday os2 will be ruled by the young and famous-at least in the open-source world!

RobertM

Modzilla,

If using eCS 1.2MR, there should be limited or no problems with an nForce4 based setup. I've even successfully installed WSeB on them (no SATA support till I changed the IBM IDE driver to the DANI Driver).

Socket 939 boards in general will not cause an issue with any version of OS/2 from v4 up (due to socket or CPU). Most chipset features (such as SATA or sound) can then be installed afterwards using the appropriate drivers for LAN, audio and SATA.

The only thing that is not generally available when using W4 or eCS on such systems are dual CPU support. With WSeB, it can be done (assuming you can grab the appropriate test files from eCS v2 RC and install them). With eCS v1.x it can also be done, if you have the SMP upgrade - and then also install the appropriate files from eCS v2 RC. With the upcoming eCS v2, it'll all be built in and available from the default install.

The only problems I have had with an nForce based board are as follows:

  • SATA related issues - but those were specific to a particular ASUS board with a defective design... eCS and XP wouldnt boot after a reboot (and the BIOS would mis-recognize the drive size after a soft boot). After a BIOS patch (well, numerous BIOS patch attempts by ASUS actually), eCS would crash during boot, and XP would start to lose data. The board was discontinued and recalled.


    This, thus, is truly not an nForce issue, but is a design issue with this particular ASUS mobo in question.
  • Crappy video support... SNAP runs horrendously slow on this chipset (when the chipset includes an nVidia video subsystem). That is an issue with lack of native support in SNAP, and it reverting to VESA modes, which are poorly implemented in the nVidia chipset... that can be resolved with the newer alternative video drivers available for eCS (Panorama) or by simply disabling onboard and installing a cheap ATI card
  • Some of the nForce4 based boards I have seen come with a Marvell NIC - which some people have reported success with - while others have had problems. I opted to simply install an Intel PRO/1000 card and be done with it... at $14 each online, it wasnt worth the hassle (to me) of trying to get a driver to work... this also is supposedly improved in eCS v2 (which is supposed to be released "shortly after" August's last RC release).

Older versions of OS/2 Warp and OS/2 Warp Server should also run - but with difficulty during the install (which either require updating the install disks, or installing elsewhere, then updating drivers, kernel, etc).

Regardless, I've had less problems installing eCS on newer systems than I do XP. While eCS will operate most SATA setups "out of the box", XP will not operate any at all (when set in the BIOS as SATA drives). The only way to get XP to install on SATA is to tell the BIOS to report the SATA drives to XP as regular IDE drives.

The only issue eCS or WSeB have with SATA is they dont support SATA "RAID"... but then again, neither does the SATA interface. SATA implements most of the RAID features in software, utilizing the CPU extensively. I dont have any clue why they call it RAID... the overall results are RAID-like... but offloading the work to the CPU is not - and offsets the advantages of SCSI RAID, where most of the work is done on the RAID controller.

-Robert




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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
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ModZilla

YEAH ...that is a great surmise Robert but I tend to drift backward; I would trust ECs for most any newer install on almost any board but if you are just starting out why be disappointed if you cant do all the driver installs just to see if V3 will work? I thought he was just starting out anyway...tell me if I am wrong there to; -you made great points here but way over my level of expertise; why I use old stuff? Well because with the ASUS Xseries mobo, its not only cheap but I like socket 468 boards for my own Version 4 server as they are easy user and the P4 celeron is enough for the Xitami so it screams I am sure with more modern circuitry-so noted; I believe the gentleman said he has V3. I forget if its Connect or not. I had a big enough problem just getting any v3 box online with IBMs TCP/IP package app for OS/2 V3, Warp came along and solved all of that for me without alot of fuss; someone here on the list pretty much persuaded the poster to use ECs, which is a good idea, and is reflected in your response but right now I am not willing to move fwd myself; I like the old technologies as a rule; one time I pissed someone off way back when, once as a certified ACAD v10-v15 -[autocad but not alisp]- instructor I taught all over the US at the college level, I said to a well inspired CAD drafter at UMBC: hey why not use V3 with OS/2 and man was I ripped for that one, I was serious!

You may get me to use ECs at this rate, I admit now when I settle down [goin' on past the cresting phase here in life] I will have to use it[ECs] because of their driver support and you my man...but for now I gotta keep things simple and run with what works out of the box...thanks for settin me straight though...
about dual CPUs; my big rack server has an IBM server quad rig in it, 4=PIIIs with blowers and the like, runs really strong so I do like,  but, I have it running only IBM PCDos2000 right now; I am wondering now...  is there a workaround for getting webshere working good with it instead of Xitami? never mind, that will be work for another day...this is too complex, again many many thanks for the inspiration Robert!
MZ
someday os2 will be ruled by the young and famous-at least in the open-source world!

ModZilla

#10
there are good hardware compatability lists out there which are complete and comprehensive for V3/V4/V4 server, but I have yet to find a good one just for mobos...I like real cheap mobos because they're easy to come by AND INSTALL for me: from the local swap shop, my insurance agent, my state police patrol guy retired who has machines on his auction recovery cruiser, and from my Realtor who is techy to the maximun level for an adavanced aged guy in his field...maybe someday I will make a compatability list up on blog lines or something, starting with another board I used but retired recently because of an irritating glitch with the onboard video chip:

-the D33007, a micro ATX/P4 mainboard- this mobo has no AGP, but I pulled out of an Emachines donation thinking hey if its free its got 2BEZ; also, I thought it might solve an issue I was having with add on support for a 4 port USB pci card by SiiG, due to time constraints I did not use the SiiG board any longer as this mobo had 4 USB ports stacked on the I/O panel so why not give it a shot, right? OS/2 did not like the video so I pulled the chip and donated the mobo. I have other mATX ASUS boards I can use the old P4 chip on without any glitches I expect except for the USB thing; I can d.l. drivers but I do not like what happens when port 31 is opened on my edge network globetrotter thingAmAbob, some bad ass is doing screen shot key logs right after, whenever I down load/ie stuff, guess he/she is after me for something so it takes time to put up with that additional setback...woa

MZ
green good, blue much better
someday os2 will be ruled by the young and famous-at least in the open-source world!

RobertM

Quote from: ModZilla on 2008.07.25, 16:18:16
about dual CPUs; my big rack server has an IBM server quad rig in it, 4=PIIIs with blowers and the like, runs really strong so I do like,  but, I have it running only IBM PCDos2000 right now; I am wondering now...  is there a workaround for getting webshere working good with it instead of Xitami? never mind, that will be work for another day...this is too complex, again many many thanks for the inspiration Robert!
MZ

Which IBM Quad server are we discussing? I am pretty sure that most IBM Quad Xeons (PIIIs) should be capable of running OS/2 Warp Server 4 and OS/2 WSeB. OS/2 WSeB will enabled Quad CPU Support, and I think you need OS/2 Warp Server 4 Advanced for SMP if you go the WS4 route (though you can find the SMP pack and instructions online - Hobbes and elsewhere should contain what you need).

I am currently running an IBM Netfinity 7000, with Quad Xeon CPUs, all CPUs enabled, using WSeB... it should also be supported under WS4 Advanced, and only require updating SCSI support if it has a newer SCSI RAID controller (which they did not come with by default... RAID was an option). All drivers for such are still on IBM's site (at least as of 4 months ago) - as well as a compatibility guide (which includes OS/2 in it's list). This same list covers eCS installed on such a machine, as you will probably still need to download certain SCSI drivers from there.

As a side note, if you do decide to go RAID on the machine, pick a compatible one from the list on IBM's page, and find the latest driver set that supports OS/2 (some of the new driver versions dont - but that doesnt matter... dig through till you find the most recent OS/2 version). But, keep in mind, a variety (most) of the IBM RAID cards will only work properly in an IBM server... and some of them will only work properly in certain IBM servers. In addition, some of the install instructions are a little inaccurate... if the card does not work, you may need to change what slot it is in (for instance, my Netfinity required it to be in Slot 3 - which was the instructions for a different model than mine)... that has to do with the fact that the cards interact with the server's system controllers - which only look for and use the card properly if installed in a certain slot. The Hardware Maintenance Manuals for the SCSI RAID cards, and the server itself are a key help in this.




A final note, IBM does have compatibility guides and cross reference sheets for most of their servers, Netfinity and xSeries, which include OS/2. If it says it is compatible, it is... if it says it is not compatible, it still may be (the list has not been updated recently, and IBM has released newer drivers that allow a wider variety of their servers to run WSeB). Regardless, WSeB is your best bet in this respect.




As for WebSphere, WSeB comes with a version of it - but WS4 does not. Either will run the WSeB version if you can obtain a copy. But, what specifically do you need from the WebSphere package? Most of the functionality that is most commonly used can be duplicated using OAMP (Apache, MySQL, PHP package)... these can either be installed individually from Paul Smedley's archives, or as one package using the OAMP package, which seems to be regularly updated with Paul's new builds. In the event that the OAMP package is not updated to Paul's current builds, then install OAMP, and then update each component (ensuring you do not overwrite the existing config files that OAMP created) and you have an up and running solution.

I think the only big lack in not running WebSphere is the Java Servlet stuff that comes with it... but I think similar things can be enabled using OAMP.

As of now, I have tried OAMP with Typo/2, Joomla and a few other PHP packages - all with great success (fully operational). Virtually any PHP based front/back-end tool should work fine. Only certain ones (that use custom Linux or Win32 DLLs) will not work - such as cPanel - which seems to be a mix of Linux or Win32 DLLs and PHP.

-Robert


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RobertM

Quote from: ModZilla on 2008.07.25, 16:41:17
there are good hardware compatability lists out there which are complete and comprehensive for V3/V4/V4 server, but I have yet to find a good one just for mobos...
MZ
green good, blue much better

Then you might want to check out this list... 195 entries... old and new mobos...

http://en.ecomstation.ru/hardware.php?action=category&section=mb

:)

Robert


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
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ModZilla

Thanks so much RobertM, this ispires me to believe it still possible to get the server out of DOS mode out of the rack and dust it off a bit, it is IBM netfinity 5500 M20 8662-4RY series, Xeon ECC pc100  dimms 4-128mb modules on board, but one of the scsi drives is missing out of the backplane and duh me I misplaced same in a box of scsi drives i think, as it is set up now with the main OS not in the array, I dont know how to make it post to a different drive, besides dos any way, but there probubly is raid management tool or boot loader type thing that may allow be to boot from any of the four drives left...so I dont get stuck in DOS on this beast, right Robert?

With 8U- Its tough to handle as is weighs in at about 50_+ lbs and to service it I have to pull the whole
thing out of the rack, pain but glad all scsi drives are pulled off of the array in front...easy enough and this box  has a CD rom drive installed so I will give r a go with a legal copy of server, i think its 4.51. I think it would be nice to be able to make it boot from each drive but this is way out beyond my level o'expertise

MZ
someday os2 will be ruled by the young and famous-at least in the open-source world!

RobertM

IIRC, the 5500 series is OS/2 certified (WSeB - and OS/2 Warp Server Advanced V4 with SMP Feature). The install should be relatively painless.

You select which drive the machine boots on (assuming it's not set up RAID'd) in the SCSI BIOS... you will get an option to go into the SCSI BIOS after cold boot. If it is RAID, and it does use an IBM ServeRAID card, you need the *correct* ServeRAID disk (all versions can be found on IBM's site... some are floppy, some are bootable CD images... depends on the version). Now... by correct ServeRAID disk, I mean check your BIOS version for the ServeRAID (it tells you after cold boot), and then find that version of the ServeRAID software on IBM's site. Chances are it's a v3.5 or 4.x and the ServeRAID card is a v3 or earlier card. Do not mistake the card's version number for it's BIOS/code version. They are two different numbers.

The last ServeRAID software suite that I am aware of that work with OS/2 is v6.50 - so dont even bother looking at newer ones... and if your card BIOS/code has been upgraded, you can always downgrade it - or simply try the >v6.50 software to configure the RAID array and see what happens.

As for selecting which OS boots, you dont want to use the SCSI or RAID BIOS to do that - you just use that to choose which is your physical boot disk. Using the BIOS to do that is the equivalent of jumpering an IDE drive to Master on channel 0 (zero). After that, you would use BootManager (or similar boot manager) to select which OS you wish to boot. From there, you could even have a second or third OS on a different drive. Keep in mind, that in general, DOS "likes" to be booted from a Primary partition (but OS/2 doesnt care if it is primary or not), and keep in mind that on most SCSI setups, the OS/2 boot partition must be in under the first 8GB of the bootable disk (must FIT in that space... ie: up to 8GB partition, in under the first 8GB of the drive), and in quite a few setups, BootManager should reside at the start of freespace on the boot drive (on SCSI as far as I have seen, this is a must).




As a side note, the M20 supports up to 4GB of RAM - and OS/2 WS4 Advanced SMP and WSeB can see and use it all. It can also use all 4 CPUs. The machine is either limited to 550MHz CPUs, or the fastest 100MHz FSB Xeons of the same socket type (dont know which - depends on if the BIOS was updated... I had Intellistations that the BIOS got updated on which could support the difficult to find 1.1GHz P3 Xeon's, while my Netfinity 7000 M10 BIOS was only upgraded to support 550MHz P3 Xeon's - which is the place where the CPU core changed).

You also may wish to install the Netfinity Manager software on the machine... it's a pretty nice little machine, and a machine IBM Certified for OS/2.


Good luck.
Robert


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
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