eComStation 1.1 Entry Edition Review

Gentu writes "OSNews reviews the latest incarnation of the legendary OS/2, eComStation 1.1 Entry Edition. The product was released less than a month ago, after a 1.5 years gap of the original 1.0 eCS version. The Serenity Systems guy seems to have overhaul the installation procedure, but not always with the best results."

Comments

You know youv'e made it

[nother_nix_hacker]

You know you've made an OS when Mozilla get ported!

Nostalgia

[Daimaou]

I loved OS/2 (although I never tried Warp 4) back in the day. I stopped using it only when it was apparent that it was dead; but I have always had it in my mind that it was a really great OS (and compared to what was available at the time, it really was).

I installed eCS recently to revel in the computing bliss that was OS/2, only to find out that what was cool 8 years ago, isn't all that cool anymore. Oh well.

Re:Nostalgia

[King_TJ]

I loved OS/2 also, and yes, I even used Warp 4.0 for a while. (In all honesty, Warp 4.0 was the first really "mature" OS/2 release in many ways. It finally added such things as alternate fonts that looked better on laptops with LCD panels, colored tabs for menus, and an all-around more "polished" look and feel.)

I don't think it's quite fair to change your opinion that it was "a really great OS" based on trying it 8 years later and finding it lacking.

Show me *any* OS that doesn't get updated or supported with new drivers for 8 years and still offers a user-friendly and pleasing experience when it's installed on modern hardware!

If anything, I think it's a testament to the quality put into OS/2 that people do still run it (on older hardware) in production environments, and at least a few people cared enough about it to try to keep it alive (as e/Comstation).

Ultimately though, this product was dead as soon as IBM declared it so. They only half-heartedly tried to get 3rd. parties to support the thing, even in its heyday. (IBM was trying to walk a thin line between pushing OS/2 and kissing Microsoft's butt. They still sold a lot of IBM servers with Windows NT workstation or server pre-loaded on them, don't forget!) Most vendors were probably somewhat happy to hear of OS/2's demise. One less thing to have to keep developing drivers for.....

Re:Nostalgia

[lostchicken]

The same thing happened to BeOS. I still really, really want to use it, but don't because there is no future for it.

Look at those Screen Shots!

[zulux]

Ring.... Ring....

Hello?

This is 1991.... we'd like our Icons back.

Anyways... it *is* good to see OS/2 suport. I imagin that there are a few compaines that are very happy to use OS/2 and have the ability to keep deploying it - they probably have a lot of software that woulden't work on anything else.

That's one of the best features of Free Software - you don't *have* to upgreade if you don't want to - you can keep deploying to your heart's content.

Can you even *pay* Mirocosoft to sell you a copy of Win 3.11 ? You can't - they *force* you stay on the upgrade treadmill.

Re:Look at those Screen Shots!

[Orgg]

Can you even *pay* Mirocosoft to sell you a copy of Win 3.11 ? You can't - they *force* you stay on the upgrade treadmill

Yes, you can. I can download Windows 3.11 and even Windows 3.12 (Asian language thing, I think) with my MSDN subscription. I still have clients with Windows 3.1 in use where it just isn't feasable to upgrade. Getting support for it on the other hand...

Re:Look at those Screen Shots!

[Jungle guy]

You can also buy a current version of Windows and request a downgrade to Microsoft.

tough install? No problem.

[twitter]

The author says, after 2 weeks of effort and 3 machines, "...the installation procedure is buggy and it might work or might not work for you."

A difficult/buggy install should not hold this software back if it's worth using. I had the same problem with win2k once. Damn thing's fdisk just would not work right. I only wasted two hours on known good hardware before I gave up and installed Red Hat on it. Vendors and OEMs can get the help they need, obviously.

OS/2 users should move down the upgrade train for this one. Those screens shots are beautiful. Nice and clean, ah. Ease of use. Did 1.0 even have Mozilla? That alone would justify the cost for your users. I imagine that this will run on the same old hardware too, whereas windblows whatever will only install on the latest and greatest and you might as well jump to free software at that rate.

Me, I'll just stick with free software that I can fix. Who'da thunk it? "Easy to use software" is not as easy to install as supposedly difficult software. I can get the same good clean looks from OLVWM, but I prefer the beauty of Window Maker. Debian's hardware compatibility is just as good or better, and what other OS can you get to run reasonably on a P90 with 24 MB of RAM these days? Then again, I don't have any OS/2 softare sitting around besides two ancient compilers I got from a dumpster.

DOS legacy can make OS/2 a good choice

[Sloppy]

Yes, legacy apps, and they are still out there. I still maintain DOS code that I wrote in the 1980s. We sent out a letter to the customers who are still paying monthly maintenance fees (so we know they're still running the apps, otherwise they wouldn't be paying) (BTW, what a great racket maintenance contracts are) to see if they wanted to um.. well, frankly, to see if they wanted to pay a shitload of money for us to rewrite old stuff for a newer platform. There was very little interest. Maintenance is a lot cheaper than rewriting, so as long as their new Dell with XP preloaded is able to run the code, they'll keep it. Thus the legacy won't die... ever(?).

And nothing (not even DOS) runs DOS stuff as well as OS/2. I ran OS/2 from 1994 to 2002 for running that stuff (editing with Edix, compiling with Clipper and linking with Blinker, testing the resulting app), and OS/2 couldn't be beat. Windows is slower (you can easliy "feel" the difference between Windows and OS/2 on the same machine) and a lot flakier. And don't even get me started on Linux+DosEmu, which is what I use for that part of my job now (DosEmu is "good enough" but it sucks).

If maintaining those DOS apps were enough work to keep me busy fulltime, then I would still be running OS/2 today, because it's the best tool for that niche.

The problem is that it's a pretty small niche. Other OSes are capable of doing the job (just not as well) so if you also need to do "mainstream" stuff as part of your job, then it probably becomes worthwhile to run Windows or Linux and just put up with the inferior performance. (That's what I did.)

Re:Who buys this?

[Amiga Trombone]

Only ancient servers use os/2 to run legacy apps.

Not entirely true - I know of several large banks and financial institutions that are still running it on the desktop for custom applications.

They love the stuff. Can't talk 'em into migrating for anything.

OS/2 Taught me what a true OS was to be.

[cybrthng]

I loved OS/2 like no other os. OS/2 truely let me choose what i want out of my os.

I could rip the gui off and install a 3rd party shell manager, i could install a command line shell/task switcher, i could extend the desktop, i could replace system objects and i could use modular file systems and much much more. It was just a "theme" or hack, it was extending the framework.. something unique even to this day!

Sure back in the 2.0 and 2.11 days running Windows Apps was an extra bonus, but i didn't bother with it other then saying "cool".

I was too busy bugging Mustang software to port wildcat! pro over, after they failed i jumped ship to PcBoard 15 and then eventually adopted synchronet all of which ran beautifully under OS/2 and still let me play my Sierra Games, surf the web and listen to my S3M's, MOD's and watch my future crew demos and chat online..

OS/2 Replaced DESQview 386 & Qemm as a stable and very nice MULTITASKING os. I was sure as hell glad when i finally got a CDROM as pushing floppies during install sucked ass. I had to upgrade to 16 megs of memory, but back then that was alot cheaper then pilling up multiple computers and running netware!!

But the golden era started when OS/2 Connect Came out. OS/2 connect taught me what networking was about. OS/2 connect gave me my first run into the world of TCP/IP, Netbios, and netware (had to install the OS/2 netware client to join up with my other machines for playing Doom!) I was able to run my BBS and have a 19.2 modem connection to the internet and it all worked through the magic SIO comm driver replacements. Runnning DOS doors, IRC chats, Usenet gateways and UUCP feeds, i was the baddest 15 year old running an BBS/ISP.

Not to mention i was a part of TeamOS/2, getting free shirts, visiting conferences and getting published in books! Remember those OS/2 unleashed books? I'm there :)

Everything started to peak at OS/2 warp 3.0.. for a while there was even 3rd party software at the store. Object desktop was showing the power of object oriented desktop and the gui/workplace shell and days were looking good.

Then came... OS/2 Warp 4.0 with its 179.00+ upgrade and 299.00 base fee.. NT 4.0 was now out and pushing for...uhm.. FREE on any PC you bought that day.. basically putting the nail in the coffin.

I ran OS/2 warp 4.0 for a while longer and then switched to Linux and NT myself.. Linux was finally coming of age and after being the first BBS in houston to offer linux for download i (12 floppies mang) i chose to convert myself.

BBS Scene died, had to spend more time in school, got a job and ended up working my way up through the internet world and now work as an oracle guru..

funny how OS/2 started it all for me. Nice to see some of that still alive. Visit OS2.org and say high! There is even a port of Wine to run windows apps emulated/native on OS/2 and much much more..

amazingly, driver support is still doing well. IBM *STILL* sells OS/2.. its just called "WorkPlace OS" now.

Re:Who buys this?

[Archfeld]

ROCK SOLID memory management is the KEY. I work for a very LARGE bank and we've got rights to the source code and LONG term contracts with IBM for support. It hooks in with Z/OS Linux on IBM mainframe hardware as if it was made for it :)
Native SNA connecticity doesn't hurt either.

THIS

[SCHecklerX]

is the desktop environment that KDE/Gnome should be trying to emulate. Real objects which interact with each other. Consistent. Intuitive. Simple. Elegant.

WTF is it so damned hard for the Open Source community to come up with something like the WPS, which is arguably the most efficient interface in existence...and it ran FINE on a 486 with 8MB of ram???

Nautilus? Give me a fscking break!

Re:Who buys this?

[Guppy06]

"Only ancient servers use os/2 to run legacy apps."

If they're ancient, that means they have no apparent need to upgrade.

"I would be very supprised if any drivers for modern hardware are included."

Um... what kind of "modern hardware" would you need to put on a reliable server? IEEE 1394 controller? AGP graphics? If it works and does what it's supposed to, why "fix" it?

"It seems weird to use the old os2api's and the only software for os/2 is java enabled or maybe some ports of OSS."

If the software continues to work and do what it is supposed to, why do you need it to run "new" apps? Hell, unlike all of its competitors, OS/2 Warp 4 hasn't even reached its EOL yet.

"I would pick FreeBSD or Linux over this thank you."

Because why let your employer rely on IBM and their ilk to maintain the software when you can lock yourself into the position instead? Nothing like job security, hm? After all, I don't see you suggesting a commercial flavor of *nix there...