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Review of eComStation OS/2 1.0
JigSaw writes: "OSNews features a long and in-depth article about the latest version of eComStation OS/2 1.0. eCS 1.0 is developed by Serenity Systems after they licensed the technology from IBM when the latter had abandoned any hope for the success of OS/2. The article also has information about the future version of eCS, 1.10, which it will be branded as Entry level, Upgrade and WorkPlace. The Workplace version will include all the software one needs to run Java2, Win16 & DOS applications 'natively', and it also includes an X11 server plus a full copy of Connectix's Virtual PC that can run any flavour of Windows and Linux. In fact, eCS OS/2 Workplace will include a full Linux distribution as part of its VirtualPC package."
You can find a lot of information on ecomstation here. They have information on product contents, options, and availability, as well as support, previews, and links to reviews, distributors and resellers.
Until earlier this year, I worked at IBM Austin on the OS/2 base team, mostly analyzing core dumps and the like. I remember hearing about this there, and was surprised that no one - including anyone in development management - had ever heard of it. While I applaud Security Systems efforts to attempt to market this OS to the public (lets face it - IBM gave up years ago), I'd be very interested to see where this goes from a support perspective. None of the IBM coders who still provide defect support for OS/2 have any involvement in this. If a nasty bug appears in any of the code, IBM isn't likely to fix it, and I'd assume that OS/2 fixpaks won't work with this (last I heard, they were going to charge subscriptions to receive them, anyway). I would assume that SS doesn't have a full code license, as I can't believe M$ would allow anyone a full code license - and FYI, yes they still have a say - even if they completely yanked out the Win-OS/2 code, it's so tightly integrated within PMShell, you'd never be completely free of it as it would most likely require a complete re-write. That's a few million lines of code, large portions of which are entirely in x86 assembly. Hardly a weekend job. ;-)
A few corrections: Unless the guys at SS made some substantial modifications to the boot loader (not very likely), the bit about having to boot off of a HPFS partition is blatently false. Os/2 supports boot off of fat, fat32 (with the danidasd freeware fat32 IFS driver - I forget who made it, but VERY nice), or HPFS386 (the filesystem the eBusiness and earlier server versions could utiliza, albeit you had to purchase it as a seperate license). IIRC, JFS partitions were non-bootable, but there were so many problems with the IFS driver, you'd be insane to try it, anyway.
I can also appreciate what the reviewer was mentioning about LVM - while it is extremely powerful and flexible, it is an absolute bitch. In fact, you can't completely get rid of it once installed on a drive without doing a low-level format (at least for the versions that shipped with MCP/ACP - this might have changed since). It was an in-joke with the support staff that a virus (LVM) had made it into the release build.
Anyway, best of luck to these guys. I might consider purchasing it if it weren't so damn much. It'll be interesting to see where this goes, and if there are still enough OS/2 nuts out there to provide a niche market for it.
"Oh my God! The dead have risen! And they're voting Republican!" - Bart Simpson
Check this out.
Like WINE, Odin in a Win32 API, so OS2 can be natively Win32 compatible.
Odin has the potential to work much better than WINE, because OS2 & Windows share a bit of the same gene pool.
The OS2 version of Opera is a semi-ported Windows app that utilises Odin libraries, as a shortcut to save on the work involved in a full port.
That's my take.
I assume its similar to the way some Windows games that have been ported to Linux utilise WINE libraries.
Everything you need to develop for OS/2 is in the OS/2 developers toolkit. Like everything else in the OS/2 world, it isn't free. eComStation comes with a copy of the latest version of the toolkit, which has about 100 Mb of libraries, sample code and documentation. If you are porting a Unix-like app, then you can use the emx package, which you may download at no charge from the OS/2 file repository at http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/.
Gee ... why would you make so many incorrect statements? eCS includes support from IBM, including the ability to submit defect reports.
.. fixes for OS/2 and eCS specific fixes. At no charge .. no need for a subscription, as with IBM.
.. which are parts of the IBM installer. And the IBM installer is still available. Users can install from CD2 and that will engage the IBM installer and create the "OS/2 classic" desktop. Using the CD1 install creates the updated desktop, or use CD2 and the convert.exe program.
... which means a user would have to get Warp 4 and SWC. Warp 4 (upgrade) on IBM's site is around $180 .. new user is around $250 ... then add $200 or so for Software Choice. You are going to be up around $400 .. and all you get is OS/2 4.51.
.. things get dramatically better for eCS pricing as the eCS Entry will provide OS/2 4.52 for SRP $79 .. and even eCS Upgrade Protection, adding $89, only brings the cost to $168 ... well below the SWC price of $200 ... and new users would pay $199 and $89 for eCS compared to $250 and $200.
... eCS users get more software, including HOBLink X/11 Server which sells for about $200 .. IBM's Desktop on Call ...
.. but get it right. Valid criticism helps us improve the product.
You don't apply IBM Fixpacks directly because eCS builds the desktop differently. Therefore, Serenity Systems supplies its own fixpack which includes the IBM fixpack
eCS installer has been well received. Problem reports generally occur with the network install and selective install
Finally, it costs less than IBM. eCS uses OS/2 4.51
Next year
And
Feel free to criticize eCS
Shoddy remarks like this are just FUD.
Regards,
Bob St.John
Serenity Systems
It won't - you'll get a black'n'white trap screen instead :o)
If you keep away from alpha and beta drivers, then it is quite stable. Also use the WarpZilla browser (Mozilla port) instead of the Netscape 4.61 (has an issue with the WPS)....
Like Linux it is quite frustrating when it freezes, because you know that the base system is working... the message queue is just stopped....
If it is an internal WPS problem then the WPS restarts automatically.
WPS = WorkPlace Shell = primary Shell (Like the XFree86 XServer)
PMShell = Presentation Manager Shell = Secondary GUI shell (Like the Window Manager of UNIX systems)
Live long and prosper...