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LVM-less USB MSDs?

Started by StefanZ, 2011.12.24, 23:02:03

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StefanZ

Hello everyone,

for the last couple of year I'm steadily getting upset about USB devices.

It is quite usual that majority - if not all - USB MSD devices are normally readable in all the other OSes. This includes devices such as new USB thumb drives, external USB disks, Amazon Kindle etc.
It seems that eCS has still MAJOR issues with working with these devices, where 99% of these are not readily usable with the system (without any high-tech changed via LVM or DFSee), and approx 50% of these seem never to be able to work with eCS, no matter what you try. One of the main issues here seems to be extremely picky eCS disk "subsystems", which work in a way that if any non-standard setup is detected on USB device (today this covers 100% of the devices available!) the eCS just refuses to work with the device...  :'(

Does anybody have similar years of painful experiences? What about the possibility of having LVM-less USB MSDs (at last)?!  :'(

cyber

One of main reasons I migrate.  Look at this from brighter side, noone can steal data from Your OS/2 computer on to flash stick like in movies always do, with those stupid other OSes.  :D

StefanZ

#2
Quote from: cyber on 2011.12.25, 01:50:06
One of main reasons I migrate.  Look at this from brighter side, noone can steal data from Your OS/2 computer on to flash stick like in movies always do, with those stupid other OSes.  :D

Weeeell, I have actually already migrated, just by a coincidence, the latest incarnation of Linux Mint (v12) is kind of getting "unusable" the same way the Ubuntu does :D and that slowed my migration down a bit (also when combined with not having enough time due to business trips and lots of work otherwise).
...and I was too lazy to figure out a way on how to access and migrate all the data from os2 jfs to something *tux like...
Nevertheless, I know what you are talking about, I'm already down that road too...

Still, not the answer what I hoped for :(
St.

cyber

There is solutions ! But I'm sure none You wouldn't like.
Downgrade your eCS/OS/2 to pre lvm version, like old good 4.52. Everything flash-y will work much better, (Danis drivers'N'filters 4ever!) except older sticks or devices wich use FAT16, FAT16B and such.
If You need to just pass data, burn CD/DVD, or use external HDD (they act much better, but not try with extra large ones), or resize partitions on existing drives to create FAT32 and pass data trough them.
If You need to save remains of dead system, I remember old versions of Knoppix can read hpfs. JFS in eCS version is also posible to read, but with lot of terminal typing with administrator privilegies. Wich is boring and to geek-y... O:)

Good luck and welcome to light side of the Force. ;))))

StefanZ

#4
Quote from: cyber on 2011.12.25, 02:18:47
Good luck and welcome to light side of the Force. ;))))

Well, if you saw how I'm sometimes hacking eCS, that is what I call geeky..
For the various support of various filesystems, the biggest issue is with devices where you cannot do whatever you want. I.e. now I bought new Amazon Kindle 4 for my mom, but guess what, eCS is not able to read FAT32 used by the device (and believe me, it is not by the lack of me trying...).

Nevertheless, despite being quite frustrated by lack of development of basic things on eCS (for the past 10 years or so), I still love the OS and consider it being a light side of the force :D.

By migrating to *tux I would consider myself becoming a kind of "grey" version of my previous self ;)
...I guess it is not necessary to state which side of the force is the dark one (actually, it is the The One Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken ;)).

St.

Joop

Ah, nag nag nag and so on. This is an OS/2 - eCS forum, so you don't see the problems with Windows or OS-X. I do have both and they have their own problems. Windows most due to illegal actions on the stick, or never asked yourself what that small file has to do on your stick? Also OS-X seems not free of trouble if it comes to USB media. As far as I know Linux has also a mount and demount thingy, so what's the point to nag OS/2 for its mount and demount procedure?

StefanZ

Quote from: Joop on 2011.12.26, 14:27:35
Ah, nag nag nag and so on. This is an OS/2 - eCS forum, so you don't see the problems with Windows or OS-X. I do have both and they have their own problems. Windows most due to illegal actions on the stick, or never asked yourself what that small file has to do on your stick? Also OS-X seems not free of trouble if it comes to USB media. As far as I know Linux has also a mount and demount thingy, so what's the point to nag OS/2 for its mount and demount procedure?

Hello Joop,

no no, it is not just nag nag nag :D, and yes, you are correct, this is eCS forum, so my intention was to rant a little about eCS related issue.

For the USB mount stuff, unfortunately my experience (for the past 2 years) tells otherwise. In other OSes you are usually able to plug the thing into PC and in 99% it gets mounted - without crazy errors, without OS ranting about something not being possible. Does not matter if this is USB thumb drive, e-book reader or your smartphone. It just works (and yes, in Linux too). In eCS, you get lucky if the thing works at the first try. Usually it does not and then you have to put forth a reasonable technical effort to make it work (also quite often without a certainty of success).

All of this gets specifically visible if I want i.e. my mom to use eCS. It is very hard to keep explaining why something cannot be done :(

It is - of course - not only this one thing that gets my blood pressure high for the last months. There are more, much more things that I'm getting tired about.

And I decided to rant here a bit :) because I have a feeling that maybe we, as end users, do not get enough attention for the last years from the keepers and maintainers of eCS. I'm working as project manager in a global-business corporation and of course I understand that end users might not be a priority (definitely not on a long term run) for doing big business for SSI and Mensys. Also, eCS has lots of more important things to be done and improved upon, so available resources are spent elsewhere. I understand that. But for the last months I'm feeling like I need a break from constant fixing, beta testing and waiting for new drivers, fixes, functionalities etc.

I do not mean it in a bad way, just thought that the community might get interested in discussing the thought too.  ;)
St.

RobertM

Quote from: StefanZ on 2011.12.25, 01:58:15
...and I was too lazy to figure out a way on how to access and migrate all the data from os2 jfs to something *tux like...

Not the answer to the specific question - but FTP is your friend. In your scenario (if I am understanding it properly) one would use Peter Moylan's FTPd on the OS/2 machine (and yes, it supports JFS files greater than 2GB) and some FTP client on the Linux (or Windows, or OSX, etc) machine. Works for me all the time.


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

Quote from: cyber on 2011.12.25, 02:18:47
There is solutions ! But I'm sure none You wouldn't like.
Downgrade your eCS/OS/2 to pre lvm version, like old good 4.52.

Alas, v4.5x (4.50, 4.51, 4.52, 4.52 CP2, 4.52 CP2 PF) are ALL LVM based. As is Warp 4 with FixPacks and updates above a certain level applied. One would need Warp 4.0 or earlier, with no Fixpacks earlier than the one that installed LVM (I forget which number FP it was).

And thus, any Warp 4 system that has had MCP1 (or later) applied will also be LVM based.


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

Quote from: RobertM on 2011.12.29, 21:44:28
Not the answer to the specific question - but FTP is your friend. In your scenario (if I am understanding it properly) one would use Peter Moylan's FTPd on the OS/2 machine (and yes, it supports JFS files greater than 2GB) and some FTP client on the Linux (or Windows, or OSX, etc) machine. Works for me all the time.

Hello RobertM,

I have to admit, I never thought of this possibility. I was rather focused on getting access to the the local (&external, i.e. USB) hard drives and filesystems. Thanks a lot for a good pointer  :)

Blonde Guy

Rather than just rant and complain about USB MSD, I'd rather discuss what it would take to fix it. I'm not a device driver programmer, but if the problem can be well defined, then it may become irresistible to someone who can fix it.

There is a lot of poor information out there.

First, if you use DFSee, you can fix a lot of these devices to work with eCS. That's not optimal, because we'd like to use foreign devices that already have data on them. But it does show that we are not that far from a solution.

I also appreciate that USB has already peaked and interacting with the cloud is the future.

What do we need?

1. Some devices are large floppies, and have no partition table. We should recognize them as partitions anyway so we can use our FAT32 IFS.

2. LVM should recognize non-LVM volumes and give them a drive letter or mount them in some way.

3. The system should be more flexible with devices with incorrect geometries. If it works OK with Windows, Linux and Mac, it should work for us, too.

Anything else?
Expert Consulting for OS/2 and eComStation

DougB

A few comments:

Quotebut if the problem can be well defined, then it may become irresistible to someone who can fix it

So far, most problems have been fixed by those who can, when the problem becomes a personal one. If the problem isn't a problem for those who can, it won't get fixed unless somebody pays them to fix it. Even then, those who can are so busy with other things, that they don't want to take on more projects.

QuoteI also appreciate that USB has already peaked and interacting with the cloud is the future.

For many years, IBM pushed for "diskless" computers. They failed to accomplish that, simply because most people realized that storing data on somebody else's computer was a security problem, at best. The "cloud" is simply a new version of the same thing, with a few new twists. I don't see it being as useful as many seem to think it will be. One high profile security breach, and it will go away. It is only a matter of time.

USB may have a new life, now that USB 3 is here (and we desperately need a driver for that), but I expect that USB 3 will also run out of steam in a few years. It is just too slow. ESATA is the best alternative, followed by NAS storage (with at least a 1Gb/s interface). Of course, something else may come along to replace all of them, and then we will need support for that.

Quote1. Some devices are large floppies, and have no partition table. We should recognize them as partitions anyway so we can use our FAT32 IFS.

This is true, but it is just plain lazy (on the part of the manufacturers) to not have proper partitions on something larger than 2 GB (that probably won't change). It would also be better to be able to use NTFS, rather than FAT32, but nobody seems to want to improve the NTFS driver. FAT32 is also not very good, but it is the only real alternative for sharing data between OS/2 and Windows.

Quote2. LVM should recognize non-LVM volumes and give them a drive letter or mount them in some way.

One possible solution is to put a driver (filter?) between the USB driver, and the LVM stuff, that will add LVM information on the fly, when it doesn't exist. How that can be done, I leave to those who know.

In fact, LVM already does that, with small volumes. The problem lies with recognizing large volumes. When IBM did the LVM support, they made it far to ridged, and it simply doesn't allow for volumes that don't follow the "rules". Of course, nobody else thought that following the "rules" was necessary (they probably don't even know that "rules" exist), so we end up with the problems that we see today.  It may be possible to patch the current software to handle the problems, but then we run into the copyright/patent problems.

Quote3. The system should be more flexible with devices with incorrect geometries. If it works OK with Windows, Linux and Mac, it should work for us, too.

This too is caused by IBM trying to stay within a ridged framework, while nobody else bothered to do that. The other cause of our problems, is that IBM didn't plan for larger media, so the drivers etc. are not capable of handling it. Since we really don't have proper access to the driver source, and we have very few people who understand such things, it is very much hit and miss to fix the problems. Hopefully, the AHCI project will fix the internal hard disk support, and the USB driver project will result in USB 3 support, but it is slow going because those who work on such things are far too busy with other things (some more important, and others not so important), plus they need to learn how to do it as they go along. Again, an additional driver (filter?) to adjust the data so that OS/2 can use it, may be the answer.

One of the most depressing parts of all of his, is that there is, at least, one guy who is probably capable of fixing such basic things, but he is off on a mission to make games work better. Personally, I don't think that games are going to be very important if the base system won't work.

Now, for
QuoteWhat do we need?

What we need, is for IBM to release the source for OS/2 (probably won't happen). Then, we need hardware manufacturers to be more open about what their devices need to make them work, so we can create new drivers (probably won't happen). Then, we need more people who are capable of programming device drivers, and other parts of the system, and some coordination to get the important parts done (probably won't happen, although it seems that Mensys is trying). We also need a few thousand competent programmers, who are willing to donate their time (probably won't happen).

One thing that can be done, is for more people to step up and help those who can do something about these problems. Much testing of new software needs to be done, and all it takes is a bit of education about how to do that, and how to make proper problem reports, and many more people can help out. Complaining in the forums is not helpful, although venting some frustration probably doesn't hurt the individual who does it.

sXwamp

#12
Quote from: Blonde Guy on 2011.12.30, 17:44:04
Rather than just rant and complain about USB MSD, I'd rather discuss what it would take to fix it. I'm not a device driver programmer, but if the problem can be well defined, then it may become irresistible to someone who can fix it.

There is a lot of poor information out there.


I just got a PNY 8GB Sleek Attache USB Flash Drive that works well after a touch from Dfsee.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/PNY-8GB-Sleek-Attache-USB-Flash-Drive-Blue/17011997?findingMethod=rr


It's only about 1"x 0.5" in size and works great after Dfsee formatted with FAT32.



1) I cloned my M:(Maintenance-JFS) partition to the flash drive.  It boots up fine, but switches over to the the hard-drive and continues the boot to the M: partition.  So, that's only useful for situations when Air-Boot is overwritten by Grub or something of the sort and the M: drive is intact - (filter ???) as a couple people already stated.

2) I heard from a couple different sources that a non-LVM system will boot (Warp4-no fixpaks).  Has anyone confirmed this, because even if it's Warp 4 it's still suitable for a emergency boot solution. For example run my Back Again/2 recovery setup or unzip an image file.

3) The current requirements are unacceptable for me now:


  •    Not all memory-sticks or (notebook) computers support this
  •    You need an OS/2 version 4.50 license (and 'OS2KRNL') to use this
  •    The system should NOT have a C: driveletter in use under OS/2
  •    Large Floppy FAT16 filesystem

By Jan van Wijk on 26-jan-2004


I'm willing to investigate the Warp 4 solution, does anyone have any suggestions ???


Greggory

 


DougB

QuoteI'm willing to investigate the Warp 4 solution, does anyone have any suggestions

Hehe. IMO, that is just asking for trouble...

Quote1) I cloned my M:(Maintenance-JFS) partition to the flash drive.

This might work, IF you get ALL of the references in CONFIG.SYS, and the INI files changed to match whatever the address of the flash drive is (that will change if you try it without LVM, and then it won't work, at all). You also need a BIOS that will support booting from your flash drive. My experience is that booting from flash drives is not exactly reliable. It also requires the Legacy USB support to be enabled, and that can cause other problems.

Quote2) I heard from a couple different sources that a non-LVM system will boot (Warp4-no fixpaks).

That again is just asking for trouble.  Trying to mix LVM, and non LVM systems is really NOT a good idea, and you probably don't want to go completely back to non LVM operation.

My suggestion is to use bootAble to create a boot CD or maintenance partition (it might even work with a flash drive, but I haven't been able to make it work because my systems don't want to boot them - BIOS problem).

http://hrbaan.home.xs4all.nl/bootAble/

I suggest getting the WPI version, which includes my ConfigMaker program to help you get to a working configuration quickly. Note that Hayo Baan no longer runs OS/2 as his primary OS, but he is willing to add things, once somebody figures out the requirements. Feel free to ask me, if you need help.

Joop

#14
Quote from: Blonde Guy on 2011.12.30, 17:44:04
2. LVM should recognize non-LVM volumes and give them a drive letter or mount them in some way.
No, security breach.

Quote from: Blonde Guy on 2011.12.30, 17:44:04
3. The system should be more flexible with devices with incorrect geometries. If it works OK with Windows, Linux and Mac, it should work for us, too.
Windows accepts everything and does go down months later and you don't know why. Linux, don't have it and it does have its own problems with filesystems. Mac, excuse me, but Mac is very picky if it isn't right, it just refuses to mount.

Regards,
Joop