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Recommended software?

Started by Lumo, 2011.06.30, 09:19:40

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Lumo

I haven't used OS/2 for "real" for the better part of a decade.

I usually keep tabs on OS/2/eCS development though since operating systems is one of my interests and I stumbled across the BlueNexus website. I already had a license for eCS 1.2/2.0 but I found BlueNexus to be so infectiously curious about OS/2 I decided to get a license for eCS 2.1GA.

So now I have a eCS 2.1GA system and I find myself asking:
What applications are current and recommended today?

My usual host of programs on Mac OS X and/or Windows are:
Firefox (check!)
Java (check!)
Flash (?)
Adobe Reader / Preview on OS X (?)
AIR (for Tweetdeck) - I don't know the status of AIR for OS/2 but maybe there is another recommended Twitter client?
LibreOffice (?)
DropBox (?)
uTorrent / Transmission (?)
Evernote (?)
1Password (?)
Winscp / scp (?)
Putty / ZOC (?, maybe ZOC? I used to use ZOC for OS/2 and have a license for it)
Remote Desktop Connection (?)


I used to use these OS/2 programs:
GammaTech Utilities (horribly out of date?)
ZOC (there is an older version available for OS/2, I still use it on OS X)
Object Desktop Professional
Process Commander (not sure if I just remember getting it or actually using it)
SPM/2
Describe (?, word processor, maybe someone remembers if this was the real name)
MR/2 ICE
CDAD/2
PMMail/2
4OS2
Exceed


So, recommendations?

sXwamp


melf

#2
Some complementary info to Greggory's answer:

- About flash: There is a preview release of Flash 10 to download if you have the software subscription. However, it has its limitations, especially on SMP systems. I think a GA release is not to be expected for some longer time.

- Lucide is delivered with eCS as a supplement for Acrobat reader (An older Acrobat reader 5.1 is available).

- Twitter clients is to be found (I think) among the quite huge mass of qt4 ports, http://svn.netlabs.org/qtapps/

- for remote desktop connections, VNC can be used. VNC server is delivered with eCS.
/Mikael

ivan

And to add a few more.

There is QT4 runtime from http://svn.netlabs.org/ (look for QT4) which gives such programs as QBittorrent, CoolReader3 (epub reader and several other e-book formats) as well as a large number of other programs and games.

Describe Word processor still works but is limited by the age of formats it can read (it's still the main wordprocessor we use here).

Scribus for page layout and book production.

The list goes on but it depends on what you want to do.

ivan

abwillis

Quote from: melf on 2011.06.30, 10:17:40
- About flash: There is a preview release of Flash 10 to download if you have the software subscription. However, it has its limitations, especially on SMP systems. I think a GA release is not to be expected for some longer time.
I can't test it to make certain but if you use the latest Odin release that came out with the Java GA then it Flash shouldn't have any SMP issue either.

Pete

Hi

Well, reading "if you use the latest Odin release that came out with the Java GA then it Flash shouldn't have any SMP issue either" I was hopeful that Flash10 would now work without problems - especially as java6 is no longer supplied in SMP and non-SMP packages - so I reinstalled Flash10 to test.

Sadly I see no difference to the original Flash10 release as Flash10 still locks up SMP systems causing the system to need rebooting after very little Flash use - probably around 10 minutes, maybe slightly less.

I guess it is only to be expected as Flash10 is probably the worst bit of software to run in Windows - many of my friends who use Windows exclusively tell me that if they use it it is liable to fall over frequently causing Internet Explorer and other browsers (Mozilla, Chrome and Opera) to constantly reload the page containing the Flash object.

God knows why Mensys are trying to get such useless software running using Odin.

I think they should spend their money adding h264 support to Mozilla browsers instead.

Regards

Pete

Robert Deed

I honestly don't know what the flash hate is all about.  In windows I very seldomly if ever have flash crash, and generally if it does it is the content developers fault.   The issue here is that when developing runtime libraries you have to develop them from the ground up to be smp safe or you're going to run into this issue 99.9% of the time.   Wine in linux has gotten incredibly mature, seeing professional developers such as Trion releasing patches for their software to work under wine is amazing.  While ODIN offers some features I would love to see in wine, the maintainers while putting in some pretty incredible effort which I would never wish to devalue, don't always have the best understanding of the underlying systems which they are interacting with.


Quote from: Pete on 2011.07.02, 02:16:43
Hi

Well, reading "if you use the latest Odin release that came out with the Java GA then it Flash shouldn't have any SMP issue either" I was hopeful that Flash10 would now work without problems - especially as java6 is no longer supplied in SMP and non-SMP packages - so I reinstalled Flash10 to test.

Sadly I see no difference to the original Flash10 release as Flash10 still locks up SMP systems causing the system to need rebooting after very little Flash use - probably around 10 minutes, maybe slightly less.

I guess it is only to be expected as Flash10 is probably the worst bit of software to run in Windows - many of my friends who use Windows exclusively tell me that if they use it it is liable to fall over frequently causing Internet Explorer and other browsers (Mozilla, Chrome and Opera) to constantly reload the page containing the Flash object.

God knows why Mensys are trying to get such useless software running using Odin.

I think they should spend their money adding h264 support to Mozilla browsers instead.

Regards

Pete


Pete

Hi Robert

No "flash hate" involved - maybe a bit of disappointment that flash10 is still a non-worker... At least there are several apps like ClipGrab which can download flash video from sites such as youtube which I can then play using vlc or mplayer.

As regards flash10 in windows I'm only repeating what I am told by windows users. However, I suspect that you could well be right in stating that flash10 problems are more likely "the content developers fault".

Regards

Pete



diver

as Java works not too bad in SMP mode, we know that Flash10 still has some SMP problems.
we will look at them later. Right now we are fixing some Java problems, then QT4 4.7.3 will be done.
and afater that we will look at Flash10 again. especially the Odin part of it.

but still we need some funding.
see svn.netlabs.org/java

regards
Silvan

Mike

Quote from: diver on 2011.07.04, 14:42:36
as Java works not too bad in SMP mode, we know that Flash10 still has some SMP problems.
we will look at them later. Right now we are fixing some Java problems, then QT4 4.7.3 will be done.
and afater that we will look at Flash10 again. especially the Odin part of it.

but still we need some funding.
see svn.netlabs.org/java

In all cases a very good work from you and the main developer of the Java6 port. I hope that the rest of the money will be there when people use the now available GA version. Any plans for a Mozilla compatible Java6 Plugin?

diver

if you look at the roapmap you see that there will be a plugin. but still all depends also on the sponsoring.

regards
Silvan

Blonde Guy

Expert Consulting for OS/2 and eComStation

Lumo

I see there is VNC Server with eCS and you can use VNC from eCS as well. What about connecting to Windows desktops, are there any RDP clients?

Regarding Flash, it doesn't matter as much as it used to. I have iPhone, iPad etc. and hardly miss Flash. It's not essential anymore but it is nice to have. Since I'm running eCS on an old Thinkpad T41 I don't use SMP either.

I'll be trying out your suggestions and compile a list of likes/dislikes.

And PMMail/2, it's nice to see it's still being developed but I rarely use mail clients nowadays, GMail is simply good enuff.

abwillis

There are a few ports of Rdesktop.  Each has its own quirk.  Version 1.1.0 (rdesktop2 on hobbes) was ported prior to copy/paste support being implemented in Rdesktop.  I ported Version 1.3.1 explicitly for the copy/paste support that had been added since the initial port but it has some issues repainting the screen (here at least).  These are both available on hobbes and both rely on XServer, they can be run in Hoblink but 1.3.1 at least still requires the Xfree86 DLLs.  There is also a port of 1.5.0 that uses SDL instead of an Xserver so does not require XFree86 DLLs or Hoblink to run but it does not have copy/paste support.  It is available here:
http://glebk.newmail.ru/rdesktop/Rdesktop-gcc-SDL-OS2.html
There is an alpha 1 and an alpha 2 release there.  Most of the page is in Russian.

Lumo

That sounds really good abwillis.

I'll probably go for the SDL variety.