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eComStation 2.0 Silver Release available

Started by djcaetano, 2009.09.29, 22:34:20

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Saijin_Naib

Hrm, something funky indeed. I can no longer test this on my desktop, but I previously had no issue installing/booting eCS from a secondary IDE hard-drive. It was the Primary Slave, boot manager/XP were on the Primary Master. Secondary Master/Slave were DVD Read and DVD Write drives.

You shouldn't have problems with multiple SATA drives, I don't get what is going on there. By chance, do you have multiple volumes with the same LVM Letter or name? That could cause a conflict/confusion for the boot manager.

Pete

Hi djcaetano

Looks like you had a bit of fun with this install  :-)

Some things you mention about ACPI may be worth a discussion.

"Well, I installed the system with ACPI,  which forced SMP (even if my computer is not SMP) with /APIC switch."

Using /APIC does not force SMP mode - using /SMP forces SMP mode.

Are you sure you need either /CD or /ALS? - the 2 do not get used together - and have you run tmrtest to see if the /TMR switch is required?

As ACPI - especially versions later than 3.14 - is far from ready for use on most systems you can expect problems.

I have seen mentioned that it should be possible to use the uni kernel with ACPI but have no idea how well that would work. As I understand it the SMP kernel should work for single or multiple CPUs (or cores).

As you are using a single CPU on an older system you probably do not need to use ACPI; may reduce your problem count a bit  if you sack it  :-)


A thought on DOS/Win16 support.

Do you really need it?

If, like me, all you do with that is run a few DOS games then it is well worth *Not* installing DOS/Win16 support and instead use DOSBox to run your games. If you have a pressing need to run ancient win16 apps then DOSBox is a bit slow loading Windows3.1/3.11 but may still be worth consideration.


Regards

Pete

RobertM

The APIC switch is supposed to be for any system that has an Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller, and is for support of it's extended IRQ functions as well as (though not required) some things that interrelate with SMP. Newer machines, or older ones that are single CPU but SMP capable and support Intel's MP1.4 spec or a similar newer spec probably all use these.

So, as Pete pointed out, quite standard and not necessarily having to do with SMP unless some portion of the board/chipset was actually designed for SMP regardless of the number of CPUs.

Rob


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


  Hi Pete!

Quote from: Pete on 2009.10.23, 00:29:29
Looks like you had a bit of fun with this install  :-)

  Yeah, you bet it. :P

Quote from: Pete on 2009.10.23, 00:29:29
Some things you mention about ACPI may be worth a discussion.
"Well, I installed the system with ACPI,  which forced SMP (even if my computer is not SMP) with /APIC switch."
Using /APIC does not force SMP mode - using /SMP forces SMP mode.

  I meant SMP kernel. I know /SMP switch is needed to enable SMP mode.
But the problem is SMP kernel seems to not like my motherboard. :P
  It gave me problems even on OS/2 Warp 4.52... but I had been using
UNI kernel without a glitch for many months.
   I don't know the difference between them (SMP x UNI), but UNI works
and SMP somewhat works. :P

Quote from: Pete on 2009.10.23, 00:29:29
Are you sure you need either /CD or /ALS? - the 2 do not get used together - and have you run tmrtest to see if the /TMR switch is required?

  Well, since I was having trouble, I decided to do some tests... :)
  I will run tmrtest and see what happens. Anyway, this utility comes with eCS?

Quote from: Pete on 2009.10.23, 00:29:29
As ACPI - especially versions later than 3.14 - is far from ready for use on most systems you can expect problems.
I have seen mentioned that it should be possible to use the uni kernel with ACPI but have no idea how well that would work. As I understand it the SMP kernel should work for single or multiple CPUs (or cores).
As you are using a single CPU on an older system you probably do not need to use ACPI; may reduce your problem count a bit  if you sack it  :-)

  Well, my motherboard supports ACPI and APIC, even though it is not SMP. I just
want to make it run with "all features". :)
  But maybe you are right and I should just revert to W4 kernel and strip ACPI / APIC.

  But hey, can ACPI cause troubles while basic device drivers are being loaded?
I thought it was loaded a little later.

Quote from: Pete on 2009.10.23, 00:29:29
A thought on DOS/Win16 support.
Do you really need it?
If, like me, all you do with that is run a few DOS games then it is well worth *Not* installing DOS/Win16 support and instead use DOSBox to run your games. If you have a pressing need to run ancient win16 apps then DOSBox is a bit slow loading Windows3.1/3.11 but may still be worth consideration.

  I indeed use Win16 sometimes, to run old software to read old documents.
A lot of PM5 and AutoCad 13 documents...
  Also, I like to use DOS session to run some emulators with fast debugger;
running an emulator inside DOS Box is somewhat clumsy, I had alread
tried.

  Anyway, thanks for your help!

  Regards,

   Caetano

djcaetano

Quote from: RobertM on 2009.10.23, 01:17:08
The APIC switch is supposed to be for any system that has an Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller, and is for support of it's extended IRQ functions as well as (though not required) some things that interrelate with SMP. Newer machines, or older ones that are single CPU but SMP capable and support Intel's MP1.4 spec or a similar newer spec probably all use these.

  Yes, the main reason I installed ACPI was the APIC support. My system has lots of devices, and
many potential IRQ conflicts.

Quote from: RobertM on 2009.10.23, 01:17:08
So, as Pete pointed out, quite standard and not necessarily having to do with SMP unless some portion of the board/chipset was actually designed for SMP regardless of the number of CPUs.

   I dunno... But it is strange that SMP kernel give strange problems... but UNI and W4 don't.

BigWarpGuy

It would be nice to be able to buy this without having a software subscription.  :'( When will I - a non software subscription holder - be able to get 2.0?  ???

Pete

Hi djcaetano

Starting towards the bottom of your post and working up

ACPI.PSD is the 1st driver loaded.

Your mainboard is an nForce2 chipset which may not have the best of ACPI implementations and should work fairly well - with minimal problems - using /PIC rather than /APIC if you insist on using ACPI; which is about the same as not using ACPI.

I have 1 mainboard with an nForce4 chipset and single core CPU here. It works much better without ACPI than with - no problems with USB devices, no missing features. Oh, Sorry: Herself has just reminded me that onboard sound does not work - either with or without ACPI. I suspect that is more a uniaud issue myself but as the SBLive soundcard I bunged in works fine...

tmrtest.exe is somewhere within either acpi\utils or ecs\bin - comes with the full acpi packages.

If I remember correctly the uni kernel works with the same doscall1.dll as the smp kernel - if you swap to the w4 kernel do remember to swap that dll file as well.

Regards

Pete

RobertM

Quote from: djcaetano on 2009.10.23, 16:23:57
Quote from: RobertM on 2009.10.23, 01:17:08
The APIC switch is supposed to be for any system that has an Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller, and is for support of it's extended IRQ functions as well as (though not required) some things that interrelate with SMP. Newer machines, or older ones that are single CPU but SMP capable and support Intel's MP1.4 spec or a similar newer spec probably all use these.

  Yes, the main reason I installed ACPI was the APIC support. My system has lots of devices, and
many potential IRQ conflicts.

Quote from: RobertM on 2009.10.23, 01:17:08
So, as Pete pointed out, quite standard and not necessarily having to do with SMP unless some portion of the board/chipset was actually designed for SMP regardless of the number of CPUs.

   I dunno... But it is strange that SMP kernel give strange problems... but UNI and W4 don't.

I am wondering if that is indicative of mis-implemented ACPI support on the board (ie: the board's chipsets/BIOS are not properly using it based off the combination of dual or single core CPUs). By using UNI or W4's UNI, it would probably be preventing/not using the SMP functions related to the /APIC mode. I suspect that if such is the case, then Microsoft and others may not be following the ACPI's /APIC utilization for certain boards with incorrect implementations - much like how Dani had to scan for certain chipsets in her driver and selectively not use certain functions that were incorrectly supported on various chipsets/motherboards.

Kinda like a bunch of "If this crappy implementation, then dont use these APIC functions even though chipset reports supporting them"



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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
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djcaetano

Quote from: RobertM on 2009.10.23, 23:51:59
I am wondering if that is indicative of mis-implemented ACPI support on the board (ie: the board's chipsets/BIOS are not properly using it based off the combination of dual or single core CPUs). By using UNI or W4's UNI, it would probably be preventing/not using the SMP functions related to the /APIC mode. I suspect that if such is the case, then Microsoft and others may not be following the ACPI's /APIC utilization for certain boards with incorrect implementations - much like how Dani had to scan for certain chipsets in her driver and selectively not use certain functions that were incorrectly supported on various chipsets/motherboards.
Kinda like a bunch of "If this crappy implementation, then dont use these APIC functions even though chipset reports supporting them"

  Probably, Robert. Maybe even a bad programmed ACPI support... Without ACPI I had to
*disable* ACPI on BIOS, otherwise the system would hang during PCIBUS.SNP.
  Anyway, I tried the following combination (never with /SMP on ACPI, for obvious
reasons):


ACPIKernelResult
YESSMPRandom hangs at boot time
YESUNIRandom hangs at boot time
NOSMPRandom hangs at boot time
NOUNIBoot always ok (sometimes it takes some more time, but always boot)

  Two remarks:
   1) UNI doesn't work with DOSCALL1.DLL from SMP. It requires the
same DOSCALL1.DLL as W4 (I tested UNI kernel with SMP DOSCALL and
received a lot of errors during boot and a BSOD on the end)
   2) GenMac is not very trustworthy. Sometimes it detected my
gigabit ethernet (marvell yukon 88E0001 or something like it), but
more usually it doesn't. I replaced GenMac by the native driver which
*seems* to be detecting the ethernet every boot.

   Results: nForce2 chipset doesn't like ACPI, doesn't like APIC and
doesn't like SMP kernel.

RobertM

Quote from: djcaetano on 2009.10.27, 01:15:02
   Results: nForce2 chipset doesn't like ACPI, doesn't like APIC and
doesn't like SMP kernel.

Which is probably why it has it's own custom chipset drivers for Windows.


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

Blame Nvidia for that one :\

There is a reason why I, even as a gamer, will never use an Nvidia chipset-based board. They've gotten much more responsible now but I'll stick with VIA or Intel.

djcaetano

Quote from: djcaetano on 2009.10.27, 01:15:02
   2) GenMac is not very trustworthy. Sometimes it detected my
gigabit ethernet (marvell yukon 88E0001 or something like it), but
more usually it doesn't. I replaced GenMac by the native driver which
*seems* to be detecting the ethernet every boot.

  I have to apologize with GenMac developers. :)
  Even the native driver is not working ok at all times. In fact,
I installed GenMac for nForce2 Ethernet and the result was also
bizarre: sometimes BOTH Ethernet are detected (Marvell and
nForce2) and sometimes NONE of them are detected... it
doesn't matter what drivers are used (both GenMac or one
with GenMac and another native).
   And most bizarre: even when the driver cannot detect the
devices, they ARE detected by PCI.EXE.

   This is the most annoying problem with this eCS 2.0RC7
and I am not being able to solve it. I am using UNI kernel
and no ACPI. This problem bugged me even with ACPI
and with SMP kernel... but I NEVER suffered from this
with the previous install (OS/2 4.52).

PS: WinOS2 *is* working. The bug is on eCS installer, which
doesn't add VMOUSE.SYS device line on Config.SYS. It
was just a matter of adding this line and WinOS2 is now
working, be it on Seamless of fullscreen mode.

djcaetano

Quote from: djcaetano on 2009.10.22, 19:52:08
   This week I bought a new SATA 250GB harddrive and was able to install eCS2.0 RC7
after removing the IDE harddrive. But the install process was not without some sort of pain.
   The reason for the pain was the fact eCS is set up to boot at 800x600 and since SNAP
seems to not recognize my monitor on the first time it runs, 800x600 with some sort of
unsupported refresh rate is selected... causing an annoying "No Signal" message ("No
Sync").

  Oddly enough, this problem *still* happens when installing eCS 2.1.

Pete

Hi djcaetano

Yes, I saw that "unsupported mode" message on a monitor here when installing eCs2.1 using SNAP - the monitor wants 800 * 600 @ 75Hz for whatever reason and cannot use 800 * 600 @ 60Hz; maybe because it was designed primarily as a tv monitor, maybe because the computer to monitor connection is Analogue.

I worked around this by using Panorama during the installation but selected to install SNAP for use knowing that I could add the necessary resolution and refresh mode later using the SNAP gamode.exe utility - which worked out fine.

It would be nice if eCS updated the installer to check what the monitor is capable of rather than simply expecting all monitors to be 800 * 600 @ 60Hz capable.


Regards

Pete