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IBM To Release OS/2 Warp 4 With 'Convenience Packs'

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the lazarus dept.

Bushwacker writes: "Recently, the OS/2 SuperSite has announced some big (somewhat unfortunate) news about the Warp Client v.4. There's both good and bad news here: First the bad news -- Contrary to hopeful rumours spreading around, A Warp version 5 will not come out this year, if ever. IBM will instead release 'Convenience Packs' which are like FixPacks, but cost you money. The good news -- Unlike the free FixPacks, Convenience Packs will provide more important upgrades which cover a larger field than their lesser cousins. Maybe one of them will include the fabled Project Odin? At least XFree86 is still free ..."

3 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. A soft spot in my hard disk for OS/2 by JeffL · · Score: 4
    I used OS/2 from version 1.1 up until Linux version 1.0 (OS/2 2.2 I think). I do feel a lot of nostalgia when I hear about OS/2 even though I haven't used it for 6 or 7 years so I am very sorry to see the bad news.

    I just can't get over the fact that I was doing things on a 12 mhz 286 with 3MB of RAM in 1990 that I still find difficult to do on Windows 98 today (like doing real work while formatting a floppy). I could download things at 2400 baud without any foreground slow down! Try that in Windows 3.0.

    A sad passing for a truly fine operating system. If only Bill Gates had used his powers for good not evil and had backed OS/2 1.3 as the premier desktop/server OS it was and let Windows be merely a footnote next to Microsoft Bob.

  2. What was good about OS/2 GUI by dpilot · · Score: 4

    Consistency.

    It took the object appearance of a GUI, and carried it to a far deeper level. The desktop objects also had inheritance, and it showed throughout the UI.

    For example, one time I was changing icons, waltzing through the silly dialogs, thinking that it was a pain in the neck. Then I thought, "WIBNI I could just drag that icon that I want and drop it over the current icon on the settings page?" I tried it, and it WORKED.

    Many other things turned out to be that way. If you thought an object ought to behave in a certain fashion, give it a try. Most of the time, the desktop objects behaved in the absolutely intuitive fashion expected.

    Discoverable

    You could get along in a very simplistic fashion, but you could always find a deeper layer, and new things that the OO underpinnings could do for you.

    More depth

    Being CORBA based (SOM was an early CORBA) meant that classes could be replaced. There were add-ons that extended the WPS in many ways, Stardock's Object Desktop being the most noteworthy.

    There's more, but not now.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  3. Still using OS/2 and still enjoying it by JD+Grinnell · · Score: 5
    First, I'd like to say that the lead in for this news item was very one sided. It makes it appear that this convenience release is a bad thing. Anyone who thinks that probably isn't an OS/2 user. Let me explain...

    The convenience pack release which will be rolled out this Fall will effectively be the improved base operating system, complete with any fixpacks that addressed bugs and added improvements. This is great because we get all the fixes and improvements to the base OS all on one CD. You won't have to install the base OS and then the various fixpacks for the base OS, TCP/IP, etc. This is great news.

    Also, I don't recall reading anything that says that IBM will stop producing and releasing free fixpacks for OS/2. They often release more than one fixpack a year in order to try and address issues in a timely fashion. So you have a choice. Continue using the free fixpack route or go for the convenience pack to streamline installation.

    You are eligible for the convenience packs if you are a subscriber to their related support system which runs about $200 for two years. This entitles you to other stuff beside the convenience pack by the way.

    OS/2 has its place and has been on my system since ver 2.11. I do have a win98 system which I only use for games or building Access databases (yuck!). I also have SuSE 6.3 installed and running and love using Gimp under it. Perhaps if OS/2's WPS were ported to linux (or if someone wrote something from scratch as nice) I might be inlined to switch over to linux for my main computing needs. I do have a number of OS/2 apps that I would miss though and I hate trashing software simply because it isn't "new".

    IBM continues to focus on the needs of their big clients who run OS/2. Individuals like me who use it aren't much of a concern for them. Still I get to benefit from the support that IBM is making available to companies who can spend more on computers in a single quarter than I'll likely make in a lifetime.

    Jeff