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Article: ECS 2.0 ready for prime time.]

Started by kim, 2010.06.04, 11:34:20

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kim

http://www.os2world.com/content/view/19959/2/
QuotePosted by Martin Iturbide - Wednesday, 02 June 2010


The Capta. .. .

Well, guess that we should make a review on several different system to see how well the GA works out. Going to check with Martin if we've been offered copy to review.

miturbide

Yes, I got version 2.0. And I also have the worst laptop on earth to test it. A HP pavillion dv6 with no VT-X, no BIOS option for SATA Compatible mode. I'm going to try it this weekend to see if I can get positive results with this machine.

This is the bug I had with eCS 2.0 RC7
http://bugs.ecomstation.nl/view.php?id=2712
Martín Itúrbide
OS2World.com NewsMaster
Open Source Advocate

Skype - martiniturbide
Google Talk - martiniturbide@gmail.com

rwklein

This bug is nasty I know it prevents you from installing eCS 2.0 on your system. Making boot disks will not make this problem go away. This is also not a problem of OS2.
When you boot from eCS 2.0 CD #1 and you see that  message unpacking disc images, the read error your report in your bug is NOT an OS/2/AHCI bug.

eCS 1.1 and higher use a tool that creates a software hard disc in memory, thats ramdrive you see as drive letter Z:. The disc images are unpacked to memory and somewhere in this section it goes wrong.

OS/2 itself is not even booting yet.

We are working on this.  Thats one of the bugs we could not fix for eCS 2.0 GA.

Roderick Klein
Mensys

Blonde Guy

It takes time to check out an installation properly. My Thinkpad T60 went' well, but the T60 and higher needs the hacked kernel on the Beta zone and ExtraHlt = Yes.

Then USB 2.0 doesn't work. (This is following a good installation of Silver, so it was a surprise). It turns out that the USB 2.0 driver would not load until I changed /SMP /APIC to /SMP.

Even with this, the USB MSD support is unreliable. An attempt to back up to a USB drive simply hangs after some time. I  know there was some question about which version of ACPI to include, and I don't fault the choice that was made, but I'll probably be back to trying every release until I find one that works with USB. I look forward to an ACPI release that will keep the IRQ in order, and a USB release that works with the ACPI release.

The new UniAud has worked well -- and on many of my other systems, too. The T60 does not experience the looping problems that some other systems have had. I look forward to a release of UniAud with the looping fixed, too.

I'm not even trying suspend and resume yet, although on this machine, Panorama and a wide screen adapter is a possibility.

Thanks to everyone for the eCS 2.0 GA -- it's a major step forward, even though it's not perfect.
Expert Consulting for OS/2 and eComStation

Pete

Hi All

I installed eCS2.0GA to a desktop system based on an Asus M2N mainboard (nForce430/MCP61 chipset) with ATI X800 graphics, SATA2 drives and IDE DVD, DVDRW drives.

No problems encountered using Advanced Installation.

I selected the SNAP driver in preference to Panorama as SNAP offers better performance with the ATI X800.

I did not select acpi for install preferring to try the "acpi wizard" later.

I deselected most software options offered as I already have most of the apps I need already installed - and Seamonkey was not even offered.

I deselected the ft2lib as that is the earlier, flakier 2.40 build.

I also deselected eWP to make it easier to install xWP later.

At the end of Installation I found the new uniaud less than acceptable as it delivers looping/repeating system sounds so backlevelled that to a working version, uniaud16.sys from uniaud114rc6 and uniaud32.sys from uniaud32_1.9.2.zip  - despite warnings from Roderick that earlier uniaud builds can cause problems. Seems to me that the latest build does that far more obviously.

I ran the acpi wizard which recommended acpi switches /SMP /APIC with v3.18. Having accepted those switches I was fully prepared - having tested lots of acpi builds in the past - for the non-booting system this caused. Changing /APIC to /PIC works but seems to cause the occassional system "pause" of around 30 seconds. No, ACPI is still not a really working bit of software on this system and I may backlevel that to v3.14 which does not cause the "pauses" - or use OS2APIC.PSD with the OS2LDR supplied with the OS4 kernel package. The reason for changing OS2LDR is that the standard version does not allow OS2APIC.PSD to work with (some/all?) nForce chipsets.

Having installed the ft2lib build 2.60 beta and improved the look of the Desktop text I decided to install OpenOffice from cd3. The installation went well but on starting OpenOffice hung with the splash screen showing. Investigation of OO docs reveals the software requires ft2lib build 2.40 - the naff version of ft2lib. That was a bit of a disappointment. I uninstalled ft2lib 2.60 beta and installed 2.40 and am pleased that OO now works - although I have not really tested its capabilities yet, only printed off a couple of text documents.

I would still prefer OO to be able to use ft2lib 2.60 beta as it is a more stable build and more pleasing to the eye.

Overall, a fairly easy install - but I knew what I wanted to install.

Uniaud and ACPI still need a lot of work based on my experience. ACPI does not seem to have progressed at all since I last tested a build about 8 months ago. I gather we have someone concentrating on developing Uniaud and am hopeful that package will improve in the near future.

The "Register Online" icon on my Desktop does not take me anywhere to Register this GA. I created a Bug Report about this and the reply indicates that Registration is not yet setup and working. Hopefully it will be soon as I would like to test the Flash10 update due fairly soon.

Not a comprehensive review but I did install about a week ago.

Possibly of interest: I am *still* awaiting an email from Mensys to let me know that eCS2.0GA is now ready for me to download. I discovered my entitlement by the simple expedient of logging in at Mensys and discovering access to the GA in the "My Downloads" section with the Reg Key in the "Serial Numbers" section.

I sent an email to Mensys asking about this 5 days ago and have not yet had a reply. Maybe they are busy getting the GA Registration process working...


Regards

Pete

ivan

Hi Pete,

Just a WAG but have you tried manually replacing the freetype.dll from 2.40 with the one from 2.60, or does OO look for some version string in the dll?

ivan

chennecke

Pete,

From my own experience I can tell you that your motherboard is one of the most problematic in regard to Uniaud. I have an M2N-E myself and the latest build by David actually fixed most things for me. So I'm optimistic.

Pete

Hi Ivan

Sorry, no idea what OO looks for... Guess I can always give your suggestion a try sometime and report back.

Regards

Pete


Pete

Hi chennecke

Having been using this mainboard for around 18 months with frequent tests of new uniaud32 builds I think I already know this "motherboard is one of the most problematic in regard to Uniaud"  ;-)

At least all the uniaud32 testing led to finding something that works.

I have had a brief discussion with David (uniaud developer) on the ecSTestTeam mailing list and I am also optimistic about future builds of uniaud - hopefully a future build will work (near) perfectly before the mainboard gets replaced  :-)

Regards

Pete

Pete

Hi Ivan

Yes, it is possible to replace the 2.40 ft2lib.dll  with the version from 2.60, reboot and OO 3.1.1 will start without problems.

Using it is a different matter; text can simply disappear onscreen although it still exists in the file created - I opened a test file using OO115 on another system here to check whether the text had been deleted but it existed still, just was not visible in OO 3.1.1 during editing.

Back to 2.40 ...

Regards

Pete


ivan

Hi Pete,

At least it shows that OO isn't looking for any version info in the dll but is checking the registry for installed version.

I use the latest freetype.dll (1.3.0) by Alex Taylor from hobbes on all the OS/2 systems here.  I don't know if it would swap with the Innotek version you have although I started out that way and just changed the dll. 

The problem you found with vanishing text could be down to the way OO asks freetype to render a particular font and the request does not wotk for the newer version.  This does no bode well for those using OO and wanting the better font rendition of 2.60 - someone slipped up methinks.

ivan

Pete

Hi All

Having created an eCS Bug Report about 2.0GA Registration not working I can now report that I received an email today stating this problem is now fixed.

Having logged on at ecomstation and selected  eComStation Registration Keys I was able to Register 2.0GA

Just thought you may like to know that Registration now works.

Regards

Pete