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eCS v1.1 - Hardware compatibility question

Started by .exe, 2008.02.14, 06:25:00

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.exe

Hey guys. ;D

I have to admit that I know nothing about this operating system. :'( But I can't wait to try it out!

So...I have eComStation 1.1 and I wanna install it on my old computer. ;D I wanna use it just for Internet browsing. Ok, so here's the hardware setup:

DFI NB78 - i845 chipset with AC97 audio chipset
Intel Celeron 2800 Mhz
768MB RAM DDR 333
GeForce4 MX440 64/64
Western Digital 80GB HDD - WD800JB (IDE)
TEAC W552E CD Writer (IDE)
Realtek 8139 Ethernet Adapter
WebStar Cable Modem
A4Tech PS2 Keyboard
A4Tech PS2 Optical Mouse

Will eCS 1.1 run on my configuration ? How about the Internet ?  ::)


Thanks in advance and excuse my english if I didn't grammaticize correctly. :P

El Vato

Quote from: .exe on 2008.02.14, 06:25:00
Hey guys. ;D

I have to admit that I know nothing about this operating system. :'( But I can't wait to try it out!

Welcome to the OS/2 World!  As long as you keep an open mind we will help you iron out any issues that you may experience during your eCS-OS/2 installation and use.  Your current hardware should be ok, if we trust that the current maintainers of the OS/2 have done an appropriate job as they claim.

Accordingly, if you do not have any data that you want to save, place your eCS in your CDROM and start-up and/or reboot your computer.  Follow the prompts and elaborate on your hardware specs and their correlation to the answers that you will provide.

Please post any concerns/issues that may (or will) arise during your eCS-OS/2 installation.

Being creative enough to select ".exe" as your forum name suggests that you will enjoy the OS/2 experience.

Once again, Welcome to the OS/2 world!

Saijin_Naib

Do you have access to eCS 1.2mr or the later 2.0GA? They may provide more features that you will enjoy. For me, the inclusion of Bootable JFS in the 2.0 line makes it much more attractive than the 1.x line because of the resultant performance boost JFS seems to provide in my usage. In any case, enjoy eCS, its an experience :)

Also, don't apologize for spelling/grammar when you are a cut above most native speakers I know :P

.exe

Quote from: El VatoWelcome to the OS/2 World!  As long as you keep an open mind we will help you iron out any issues that you may experience during your eCS-OS/2 installation and use.  Your current hardware should be ok, if we trust that the current maintainers of the OS/2 have done an appropriate job as they claim.

Thanks a lot. Glad to know that eCS will run/(or at least install properly on that machine). :P
And, from what I read on this forum I see that eCS does a good job of supporting old hardware.

Quote from: El VatoAccordingly, if you do not have any data that you want to save..(..)

As a matter of fact, I do need to save the data on DVD's. Work in progress.

Quote from: Saijin_NaibDo you have access to eCS 1.2mr or the later 2.0GA?

Honestly, I don't know what you're talking about. :( Are those better releases ?  And where exactly am I supposed to have access ?

Quote from: Saijin_NaibAlso, don't apologize for spelling/grammar when you are a cut above most native speakers I know

Just making sure. :P











warpcafe

#4
Quote from: .exe on 2008.02.14, 10:11:36
Quote from: Saijin_NaibDo you have access to eCS 1.2mr or the later 2.0GA?
Honestly, I don't know what you're talking about. :( Are those better releases ?  And where exactly am I supposed to have access ?

Hi,

please be patient with us... it's not too often that we can welcome "eCS beginners" here... which leads to the fact that we use acronyms we've got used to over the years/months... you are absoultely right on asking.

eCS 1.2 is the successor to 1.1 (don't ask about changes...) and the "MR" stands for MediaRefresh. AFAIK it has some updated drivers and 3rd party applications on it. Then, after the 1.2MR distro, the next bunch of releases were "RC"s (release candidates) for the 2.0 version of eCS. To put it like that:

  • eCS 1.0
  • eCS 1.1
  • eCS 1.2
  • eCS 1.2MR
  • eCS 2.0 RC1
  • ...
  • eCS 2.0 RC4

To my knowledge, there is no 2.0 "GA" ("General Availability" = the final retail version so to say) available so far... that is something everybody here is hoping/waiting for... (or, ehh.. folks, did I miss an announcement?)

In my mind, starting with 1.2MR release, the improvements are mainly focusing on newer hardware (mainly mainboard/chipset/ACPI-related). With your hardware and to get a first impression of eCS, the 1.1 release will just do. Notice that if you run into problems with USB devices and have come across some issues with software in general, chances are very good that a more current release will solve them.
Personally, I relied on 1.1 and 1.2MR for years and it worked like a charm.

I can't give a satisfactory response however to your second question - "where can I get them".
AFAIK, I did download the eCS 1.2MR media from the Mensys Website... however this requires one to have

  • a valid license for the 1.2 release
  • registered with the customer pages at Mensys
to be able to access the download pages that list these releases.
As Mensys people gave RC CDs away for free at Warpstock 2007, I wonder why the download of the RCs is reserved to registered users with update subscription only... perhaps someone here knows a download site.
Hope this helps.

Oops. I forgot:
"Mensys" is a dutch software distributor and the driving financial, marketing and progress force behind eComStation - their website is http://www.mensys.nl but they are also keepers of http://www.ecomstation.com (and ~.biz, whatever).
"Warpstock Europe" and the original "Warpstock" are user conferences for OS/2 and eComStation that take place every year - see http://www.warpstock.org for the US/Canada show and http://www.warpstock.eu for the European counterpart accordingly.

Feel free to ask for more URLs... people will gladly spam you with their lists of newsletters, tips & tricks- sites, etc... but better in a different thread.  :)

Greetings
(and welcome, BTW)
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

Pete

Quote from: .exe on 2008.02.14, 06:25:00
Hey guys. ;D

I have to admit that I know nothing about this operating system. :'( But I can't wait to try it out!

So...I have eComStation 1.1 and I wanna install it on my old computer. ;D I wanna use it just for Internet browsing. Ok, so here's the hardware setup:

DFI NB78 - i845 chipset with AC97 audio chipset
Intel Celeron 2800 Mhz
768MB RAM DDR 333
GeForce4 MX440 64/64
Western Digital 80GB HDD - WD800JB (IDE)
TEAC W552E CD Writer (IDE)
Realtek 8139 Ethernet Adapter
WebStar Cable Modem
A4Tech PS2 Keyboard
A4Tech PS2 Optical Mouse

Will eCS 1.1 run on my configuration ? How about the Internet ?  ::)


Thanks in advance and excuse my english if I didn't grammaticize correctly. :P



Hi

Yes, eCS1.1 should install and run on the above hardware.

You should not have any problems configuring tcpip for internet access - probably the easiest option is to setup the cable modem as a dhcp server and set the pc to use dhcp.


Things you should know:-

eCS1.1 has drivers that are now a little dated. Some drivers, such as the danis506.add and daniatap(i).flt can be downloaded from websites such as http://hobbes.nmsu.edu  *BUT* an awful lot of useful driver updates for eCS1.1 require you to Register the copy on the eCS website  www.ecomstation.com in order to obtain those updates.

There is also an update tool called eCSMT that you may find very helpful in applying those updates if you are not too familiar with eCS or OS/2 Warp4.

If this is a 2nd user copy I'm not sure how you go about Registering it though... Maybe an email to either
eCS, http://www.ecomstation.com/contact_us.phtml , or Mensys, info@mensys.nl ,will clarify that.


Hope the above helps

Pete


.exe

#6
Quote from: warpcafeplease be patient with us... it's not too often that we can welcome "eCS beginners" here... which leads to the fact that we use acronyms we've got used to over the years/months

Yes, you're absolutely right. :(

Quote from: warpcafeWith your hardware and to get a first impression of eCS, the 1.1 release will just do. Notice that if you run into problems with USB devices and have come across some issues with software in general, chances are very good that a more current release will solve them.

I'm not planning on using the USB port. :P

Quote from: warpcafeI can't give a satisfactory response however to your second question - "where can I get them".

I didn't asked that. I asked where am I supposed to have access to them. Honest to say, I don't trust MR's or RC's therefore, I'm not interested in them. :P

Quote from: PeteHi eCS1.1 has drivers that are now a little dated. Some drivers, such as the danis506.add and daniatap(i).flt can be downloaded from websites such as http://hobbes.nmsu.edu  *BUT* an awful lot of useful driver updates for eCS1.1 require you to Register the copy on the eCS website  www.ecomstation.com in order to obtain those updates.

There is also an update tool called eCSMT that you may find very helpful in applying those updates if you are not too familiar with eCS or OS/2 Warp4.

That really helped. I really appreciate the information you provided to me because I also needed a driver link. :)  In fact, I really want to thank all of you for your time and effort and especially for the attention you gave me, and I appreciate the long replies. :P

Unfortunately, I really really need to study more eCS and it takes some time getting used to it after using Windows for several years by now. For this is the very reason why this forum is so important to me. But I will post back on the results and hopefully the success. ::)

Edit:  I'd like to learn also on how to dual boot eCS and Windows Xp. Can someone point me to a tutorial ? :P









Saijin_Naib

Its really not terribly difficult if you have NOT let gparted and GRUB get a hold of your drives. They have a nasty habit of leaving partitions overlapping or other stupidity.

What is your drive set up like right now?

.exe

C:\ = 10.8 GB = Windows Xp Professional SP2
D:\ = 19.5 GB
E:\ = 21.4 GB
F:\ = 22.7 GB

Saijin_Naib

#9
Alright, you are going to need about 7mb (one cylinder?) to allocated to put the IBM bootmanager. I typically like to put this as the first cylinder of my main physical drive. I use Partition Magic to shuffle the drive so I have 7mb of empty space at the beginning.

My drives:
WD40gb
|->IBM Boot Manager (7mb)
|->WinXP Pro SP2 (40gb) [on boot manger menu]
WD8gb
|->eCS 2.0RC4 (8gb) [on boot manager menu]

You will most likely not have any problems installing eCS on any one of those partitions, but if you run into errors in the LVM (Logical Volume Manger) part of the eCS install, you might need to get a copy of DFSEE ( www.dfsee.com ) and use that to fix up some values so that the install can go through. I typically sorta muck with the menus till I get things working, I dont know the precise steps that may need to be done. But yeah, it looks like you are golden. Have you tried to install and see if it gives you any errors? Especially during the pre-boot (black console/white text), if your drive has LVM issues or CHS value mismatches or what have you, it will warn you, and auto-correct MOST of the errors, not all. You may still need DFSEE if you get any error messages.

Some things I do to get the disks working (may not apply for you)
Use Fix CHS values to disk geometry
Write new MBR (keep paritions)
Write new LVM info (keep partitions)
and some other ones, I forget at the moment  ???

Good luck :)

Pete

Quote from: .exe on 2008.02.15, 07:24:17

Various bits snipped...

Edit:  I'd like to learn also on how to dual boot eCS and Windows Xp. Can someone point me to a tutorial ? :P




I bet you do not mean the above which would require WindowsXP being installed on a FAT16 drive - Dual boot allows OS/2 to boot DOS without shutting down OS/2; as long as OS/2 is installed on a FAT16 drive. Long time since I used that (Warp3, 1993/4?) but I seem to recall if you Dual Booted DOS the OS/2 system hibernated to disk until DOS was closed.

I think you mean that you want to have a choice of systems to use at bootup. Fairly simple, just requires the use of Boot Manager.

You probably already have WinXP installed in the 1st primary partition on the existing drive. If that is the case I suggest using some Windows software (Partition Magic is mentioned in another post) to create a 7Mb partition before the WinXP partition in which to install Boot Manager. If you do not already have Partition Magic or similar you could check what is being given away free on cd/dvds attached to pc magazines or checkout DFSee www.dfsee.com

Boot Manager + WinXP uses up your 2 Primary partitions for the drive so any other partition to use must be Logical; eCS installs to logical drives usually without any problems.

Just to digress slightly: Having had a look at the drives you list

C:\ = 10.8 GB = Windows Xp Professional SP2
D:\ = 19.5 GB
E:\ = 21.4 GB
F:\ = 22.7 GB


I am going to suggest some changes as none of those disk sizes is really good for an eCS boot drive - in my view.

eCS installs into around 700Mb of disk space with most options selected.

Data and Programs should be installed to different drives - this makes backing up/restoring/upgrading the eCS system much easier with minimal time spent reinstalling apps after such an event.

My suggestion would be for the following disk sizes(leaving D: to be setup as either Windows use only or possibly formatted FAT32 and used as a drive accessible by both operating systems):-

E:  2Gb  eCS Boot volume
F:  10Gb Programs - probably fit all useful and nearly-useful eCS (OS/2) apps and utils into that size disk with space left over  :-)
G: 12Gb User Data - things like application user profiles and configuration, documents, images, movies, audio files


Having Programs and Data separate from the boot drive makes backing up/restoring/upgrading the eCS system much easier with minimal time spent reinstalling apps after such an event. Yes, you could have Programs and Data on the same drive eg F: 22Gb but do keep the boot drive separate.

With such a small boot drive it is fairly easy to backup; the easiest option here is to boot to the command line and utilise a useful system supplied program called XCOPY.

Here is an how I would make a quick copy of my boot drive:-

Start/Reboot pc
At Boot Manager select eCS, press Enter and *Immediately* press key combination Alt-F1 - keep pressing until pc beeps
At the next menu select Boot to command line
When the system has booted to a command prompt it is possible to use xcopy to copy the complete drive elsewhere using this line where h: is the drive to copy and k:\hdrive\15022008 is where to copy to.

[H:]xcopy h:\* k:\hdrive\15022008\* /s /e /v /h /t /r

To copy all those files back to a reformatted H: drive in the event of some sort of disk/system failure:-

[H:]xcopy k:\hdrive\15022008\* h:\* /s /e /v /h /t /r

Only takes a couple of minutes on a reasonably fast system

I'll let you investigate what all the xcopy /switches are for :-)


Regards

Pete