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eComStation, the OS/2 distro. Time to migrate from your Amiga!

In 1999 Warp Server for eBusiness (WSeB)raised that to 2048MB - the following year the new Client version - the Merlin Convenience Package (MCP1) could set that limit for program loading to 3072MB. The third-party version of OS/2 with advanced installer [11 minutes from CD-boot to fully operational and on the www on one of my machines] and a host of additional applications/utilities; *eComStation* [eCS]from Serenity Systems International in Lewisville, TX debuted in 2000 and the latest release was Version 1.2 in Aug/Sept 2004, about three years more recent than the 32-bit windows XP
See http://www.ecomstation.com/ and http://www.serenityvirtual.com/ [SVISTA Virtual machine based on eCS]

OS/2-eCS boot drives can be pulled out of one box, stuck in another with entirely different brand/type of Video, different motherboard manufacturer, different CPU, different IRQ setup, different chipset for the drive controllers, different USB type, different type of monitor, hard drives up to 512GB and should come up looking exactly like it did on its previous host machine in 99% of all cases. It also will install and run on any Pentium[one] level machine that has 64MB of RAM, though it runs better with more and will use as much as is available - secret is not to enable any BIOS setting for RAM >64MB *for OS/2* as the BIOS writers never caught up with real-life, that hasn't been an option for *many* years!

With 4MB of Video RAM I can have 38-pages of Desktop real estate under OS/2-eCS - I usually only have on average about 3, stacked vertically 1024 * 768 = 1024 * 2304 - many OS/2 users are running at as high as 2048 * ~1400 on their desktops. IBM OEM licensed the Scitech Display Doctor for all GRADD [Graphics Adapter Device Drivers]. There is just nothing out there [yes I have installed and occasionally use BeOS/RedHat/W2000 Pro] that remotely compares with the power of the user-friendly WPS [WorkPlace Shell], with many features impossible to implement on the Gates model!

Mike O'Connor
[not anonymous really - just not signed-up yet]

Actually, OS/2 IS owned by IBM - they just licensed the code to Serenity Systems International, who is responsible for the development and distribution of eComStation.
http://www.ecomstation.com/

IBM's OS/2 web site is:
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/os/warp/

Hope that clears up any confusion.

Considering this product is still being sold as eComStation, I don't think we'll be seeing an open source version from IBM any time soon...

And here's why.

IBM sold OS/2 off and it became eComStation ("jointly developed" - whatever). I highly doubt big blue has exclusive rights to the code anymore.

Go ahead and sign the petition, we all know how much weight internet petitions carry.

I, for one, would love to see both of these pan out. Unfortunately they probably won't.

You should try eComStation: http://www.ecomstation.com/

It has a totally new installer and updated drivers and many other improvements over OS/2.

Probably wouldn't run on a LOT of modern hardware without some SERIOUS driver upgrades. Perhaps the people at eComStation, might be able to help.

If nothing else, somehow managing to get a whole new set of drivers out of the last FixPaks for OS/2 v3 may help, but that might be pretty difficult getting them onto the install disks.

I've got a full set of Warp 3.0 floppies.. but nothing that will read them.. and I think the Installation disk that boots is messed up.

Somewhere I've got the boot floppies for Warp 4.0, but I can't find the CD anywhere :( just my Merlin Beta Test CDs, that definitely don't work on modern hardware...

I'd really like to try OS/2 on some modern hardware, to see how it flies.. but.. sigh.

IBM cannot just open-source OS/2. There are technologies and copyrights in OS/2 that belong to third-parties (such as Microsoft).

OS/2 is still available and developed as eComStation http://www.ecomstation.com/. I have to say that I think that it is very expensive, on the other hand it is far from dead.

Exactly. We all are perfectly fine with the fact that Serenity Systems has recently released the latest verison of OS/2, which they call eComStation.

Oh, you've never heard of eComStation?

:P

How about failed OS ventures. Pink, Taligent, Be, NeXT, OS/2, etc.

OS/2 was hardly a failure in the way that the article means "failure," i.e. not just a product that was "simply bad" but one that is "truly awful."

OS/2 was actually very nice. Certainly, it never gained any significant mainstream success (compared to Windows 95 at the time) by many people used it and loved it. I stopped following OS/2's progress a while ago -- but I think it may even still be available from a third-party developer.

NeXTStep lives on in parts of OS X & its developer tools.

I have an actual WAV file of Bill gates stating:

We believe that OS/2 is the operating system of the nineties.

For smart people it was. And contrary to continued rumours (and to paraphrase a famous quote): "The death of OS/2 is greatly exaggerated"

eComStation

WarpDavey

This eCS-OS/2 system uptime is 6 days 12 hrs 49 mins and 03 secs

It's really a shame that the potential of JINI never materialized for this same problem.

Think of how nice it would've been to plug a device in and have it automagically make its platform independent driver and configuration software available to the local network. Theoretically, it wouldn't matter if the device was a printer, scanner or toaster or whether the machines on the network were Windows, Linux or eComstation or even a mixture of all of them. No drivers to install, simply plug in the device and it would just work. Although that's, surely an overly rosey view, it sure has a lot of appeal and it's a shame that there wasn't much of a serious effort to even try to make it work.

I was very surprised that there wasn't a huge demand from the user community for the universal adoption of JINI for this sort of application. Even the year after JINI was introduced, there was only ONE demonstration product on the show floor at JavaOne -- a JINI enabled digital camera. Now, JINI seems to be relegated to a specialized web services niche.

Actually, it's a slightly more modern eComstation box. Also CDS also makes a Windows and a Linux version.

Besides, old computers cost nothing and can still be put to lots of uses such as killer voicemail/fax platforms or NoCatAuth routers and web servers (good enough for a DSL pipe).

Also, my old eComstation box has a REAL voice modem instead of one of those useless winmodems. If you want to do quality voicemail, you almost have to use an older computer.

I don't understand why everyone doesn't do this. It kicks ass over those Radio Shack answering machines. Having full control over the scripting means I can do stuff like have a different greeting message for different callers, do fax on demand and even kick off shell scripts by punching in various codes. Before DSL became available, I had it set up so that I could call my computer, punch in the password and initiate a script that would hang up the phone, dial up my ISP and send me an email with the dynamically assigned IP address so I could "home from work". The possibilities are endless.

I don't think there has been any security problems with OS/2 in the last year. Besides, it is so obscure, who would bother to figure out how to exploit it.

A new version of eComStation, a distrabution of OS/2, was released May 24, 2003.

I don't think there has been any security problems with OS/2 in the last year. Besides, it is so obscure, who would bother to figure out how to exploit it.

A new version of eComStation, a distrabution of OS/2, was released May 24, 2003.

AtheOS
BeOS
Amiga
atari's os
Ecomstation (fka OS2)

those are the *easy ones*... there are probably 500 more...

Perhaps BeOS is over and done with, but not like OS/2. OS/2 is still quite lively in the form of eComStation. Folks over at OSNews just get a little excitable whenever the BeCorpse BeTwitches . . .

(Mod parent to 5! )

It has been there for some time. ecomstation is OS/2 in a fresh jacket. X-server, fat32, USB support etc etc.

It just hasn't the IBM tag attached to it. If you need os/2 support you can find it here.

This.

As I gather it you will still be able to get it as EcomStation or something like that.

See here

A rose by any other name ...

OS/2 (and thus eCS) also allow via REXX, for window positions to be monitored, restored, moved, etc when apps are opened or closed... takes a little REXX knowledge (litterally a little) and some competent (but minimal... maybe a couple hundred lines if that much) programming and object positioning and state (which is what it really is under OS/2 & eCS) can be enhanced above it's current capabilities.

Looks like once again companies had to spend time writing around a MS deficiency.

Oh well...

-Rob

try ecomstationit is another avatar of OS2

Unfortunately, Rendezvous doesn't fix many of my pressing networking problems. Apple should definitely be bitch-slapped for their claims of networking interoperabiltiy when SMB works if you have a newtwork server, but not if you're using peer to peer networking! I think that far more home users have peer to peer networking rather than have some network server sitting in a closet. Consequently, I can't connect to any of the other machines on my network that use SMB.

My other machines also can't connect to my Mac because the 'Windows Sharing' insists that you add a user name for each Windows user who you want to allow connections from. However, most of my other systems run such things under the user name 'nobody', which you can't add to the 'Accounts' preferences. Even if I come up with other user names, each one has to be manually added one at a time, which is a real pain. Even then, my OS/2 and eComStation boxes refuse to connect with my mac.

The DNS-less stuff doesn't work either. It doesn't find any of my other machines. All I want is a nice simple host table . On Linux or OS/2 I could easily add all of my host table entries in under a minute. Unfortunately, Mac OS X doesn't support the host table except in console mode. Instead there's NetInfo and a 98 page document that that you need to read to understand the intricacies of NetInfo, but doesn't actually mention how to map hosts to IP addresses! I'm really tired of typing in IP addresses that start with 192.168.0! Please, someone, tell me I'm an idiot and have missed the obious solution, I'd love to see a solution to this. While you're at it, have a look at my MacOSXQuestions page and tell me that I'm all wrong and that there are simple solutions to my Mac OS X problems... please.

OS/2 in it's current form pretty much does all that, or is very close. The big advantage OS/2 has, is it was made for 486's, so it screams on current hardware, if you have supported hardware. For example, you have to grab a newer IDE driver, and create a new install disk just to install Warp 4 on a >4GB HD. See Odin for Win32 support, and see EcomStation for the latest version of OS/2

We still use (exclusively - except on our MACs) OS/2 Warp 3 Connect, Warp 4, Warp Server Advanced 4, Warp Server for e-Business (WSeB), WSeB Nov 2000 release and WSeB Dec 2001 release - as well as eComStation Pro.

If it works (and works and works...) why change to something else or get rid of it?

Robert

I dunno these guys seem to think it's viable. Heck I've seen more activity in the last year for OS/2 then the 2 before that.

eComStation is the new OS/2 and can be purchased at a number of places. Just go to http://www.ecomstation.com/where_to_buy.phtml.

Ah but you can still get it! The latest release EcomStation was release in 2001. It has been updated (nicer installers, updated drivers, etc).

Cringley's remarks are about restoring competition to the market place, he uses Apple OS/X as a candidate.

But there already exists suitable candidates that have a large amount of software available, that could easily be pre-installed on computers.

The simple process is to dual-boot all new computers, and provide internet and networking connectivity through the non-Microsoft OS.

In short, there are plenty of OS/2 users today, although most of them are in Europe. In fact, if Slashdot weren't so US-centric, then the editors would have realized how stupid this "Ask Slashdot" is. Why? Because the biggest OS/2 conference of the year is being held right now in Belgium! The 2nd-biggest was held last month in Toronto.

There are actually two versions of OS/2 available today: the Convenience Pack (CP) from IBM and eComStation from Serenity Systems. eCS is a VAR version of the CP, meaning that it's basically the CP code base, with an enhanced installer, lots of third-party apps built-in, and a bunch of other enhancements. I'm running it right now on a dual Athlon system - the Tyan Tiger MP works great for OS/2, and yes, OS/2 does support SMP systems.

There have been lots of advances in OS/2 over the past year. Project Odin is serious competition for Wine, and can run many Windows apps that Wine doesn't. Plus, Virtual PC for OS/2 was just announced and will be available in a couple months.

Device support has also improved significantly. The only major category of devices that isn't supported is Firewire, but everything else is very thoroughly supported. In fact, video support is phenomenal, thanks to the SciTech Display Doctor video drivers. With these drivers, OS/2 can do what Windows and Linux can't: you can change your video card without reinstalling or reconfiguring any drivers!

I could go on for hours, but I'm going to let other OS/2 users fill in the rest.

You can still buy OS/2 but the package now says "eComStation" - eComStation.com. Just do a google search for "eComStation" and you'll get lots more info.

You also might want to consider upgrading to eComStation. It's an updated version of OS/2 Warp 4, with lots of big and little improvements.

• A consistent, easy-to-use and powerful GUI
• Strong multimedia support
• Runs fast on low-end hardware, and blazingly fast on high-end hardware
• A friendly, close community that welcomes new users

• Great application support, namely DOS, Windows (including 32-bit Windows apps), OS/2, and even many Linux apps.
• Great hardware support (this was BeOS biggest problem).
• It's still being sold, marketed, and supported.

Yes, it's been supported and updated all this time. If you're interested in the latest version, check out eComStation. It has excellent hardware support, and thanks to Odin and the soon-to-be-releasedVirtual PC for OS/2, it can also run almost every Windows application (in some cases, apps that Wine can't run).

From vers 2.1 onwards, including eComStation, the version is based on Windows 3.1. Whatever the version is, the main Windows operating system lives in a few files (the dos extender, mainly). Kernel is a Windows program, GDI and User are apps that run under Kernel. But Windows is up and running before Kernel loads.

Win-OS/2 does not support the WinOldAp stuff (ie DOS boxes).

Note that Win-OS/2 actually is two different emulators. In one mode, it is a DOS program that runs like any other DOS program under OS/2. That is, it starts and runs like Windows under DOS, loading the shell and task manager specified in SYSTEM.INI.

In the seamless mode, it runs using the native OS/2 shell, task manager and clipboard. At this time there is no binary interface.

Of course it is more advanced than WINE &c, since IBM got hold of the original source code, and recompiled it.