You can also do it legally - right from the US, rather then going to some Russion waltz site - by getting a fully operational demo CD directly from Serenity. The only features not on the demo CD is printing and NetBios networking (TCP/IP is there).
The demo CD is being beta tested as we speak.
The ISO image will be avilable once we locate the proper venue to do so.
Question: I see a new feature in the next version of eComStation, network boot. In this, the entire OS is stored on the disk
of one machine, and the other machines boot entirely from it -- all config files, everything. All processing is done on the
clients, but the files are stored on the server. That's convenient!
Yes, you can do it in Linux too. The one big difference - as far as I can tell - is that there is no FIT support in the Linux remote boot facilities.
FIT tables is a little known feature in OS/2 since day 1 (late 80's). It allows the system administrator to set up a file translation table on the server for each of the workstations. From the workstation side, none of the applications know any difference. To an editor, c:\config.sys is still c:\config.sys. However, because of the FIT table, c:\config.sys becomes a UNC name - automatically, transparently. So, in effect, you can boot from one server, run your application from another server, with no change in application software.
More interestingly, the FIT entries accept wildcards. You get automatic READ and READ/WRITE separation by using this feature. So, for a 1000 station organization, you only need to store one copy of the READ ONLY files on the server and each would have their own READ/WRITE area. That's how we were able to demonstrate setting up a new machine in 30 seconds or less (see the Peter Coffee article mentioned in the OSNEWS article).
I am not aware that the Linux remote boot can all that.
BTW: The issue is "remote booting" - not "diskless operation". You can remote boot and continue to use local hard disk. For NT/2K/XP, you want to do that because the footprint for these guys are so big that a local copy (read only, MD5 signature) cuts down on the bandwidth requirement.
People that said "remote booting is discredited" doesn't have a clue what they are talking about. This year, several companies in Europe goes through OS/2 upgrades. They were able to update 6 digit numbers of machines without leaving their desk. All done within a week - 4 minutes per server, and minute and a half per station. They did all these without even touching any of the machines.
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That's the SRP price for the full package. Upgrade price for Warp 4 user is a lot less.
Plus there will be an eCS/Entry ver with 1.1 which will push the price down.
The price has a lot to do with volume. As volume goes up, the price can come down significantly.
Kim
You will meet a lot of OS/2 people at http://www.egroups.com/group/ecomstation. Getting close to 900 members at last count.
On my desktop, I am now running Red Hat Linux, Win2K, OS/2, and WinME - simultaneously: booted from eCS.
Get eCS/WorkPlace when it's released. May be I can then say: Welcome back!
You can also do it legally - right from the US, rather then going to some Russion waltz site - by getting a fully operational demo CD directly from Serenity. The only features not on the demo CD is printing and NetBios networking (TCP/IP is there).
The demo CD is being beta tested as we speak.
The ISO image will be avilable once we locate the proper venue to do so.
Question: I see a new feature in the next version of eComStation, network boot. In this, the entire OS is stored on the disk
of one machine, and the other machines boot entirely from it -- all config files, everything. All processing is done on the
clients, but the files are stored on the server. That's convenient!
Yes, you can do it in Linux too. The one big difference - as far as I can tell - is that there is no FIT support in the Linux remote boot facilities.
FIT tables is a little known feature in OS/2 since day 1 (late 80's). It allows the system administrator to set up a file translation table on the server for each of the workstations. From the workstation side, none of the applications know any difference. To an editor, c:\config.sys is still c:\config.sys. However, because of the FIT table, c:\config.sys becomes a UNC name - automatically, transparently. So, in effect, you can boot from one server, run your application from another server, with no change in application software.
More interestingly, the FIT entries accept wildcards. You get automatic READ and READ/WRITE separation by using this feature. So, for a 1000 station organization, you only need to store one copy of the READ ONLY files on the server and each would have their own READ/WRITE area. That's how we were able to demonstrate setting up a new machine in 30 seconds or less (see the Peter Coffee article mentioned in the OSNEWS article).
I am not aware that the Linux remote boot can all that.
BTW: The issue is "remote booting" - not "diskless operation". You can remote boot and continue to use local hard disk. For NT/2K/XP, you want to do that because the footprint for these guys are so big that a local copy (read only, MD5 signature) cuts down on the bandwidth requirement.
People that said "remote booting is discredited" doesn't have a clue what they are talking about. This year, several companies in Europe goes through OS/2 upgrades. They were able to update 6 digit numbers of machines without leaving their desk. All done within a week - 4 minutes per server, and minute and a half per station. They did all these without even touching any of the machines.