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I used to use OS/2 a few years ago, shortly before IBM killed it. At the time it was still kind of cool, especially for something that ran on a PentiumMMX at 166MHz, but I tried eCS RC5 a couple months ago and it really shows its age. Hardware compatibility is awful, things like changing the screen resolution require a reboot, and the UI is ancient and barely usable. I wish they would just release the OS/2 code; the open source folks could probably do something with it.
eComStation wouldn't even boot up now on my VM's [I wouldn't even DARE to install it onto the hard drive, because it's a closed-source, corporate model OS].
As far as I recall, I didn't like it a year ago, when I tested it. It was quite weird and the interface was completely out of this epoch.
Edited 2009-08-31 21:32 UTC
@ marcp
It's fairly known that eComStation and VM solutions don't play along very well, since the times of OS/2. According to Wikipedia:
"(...) OS/2 has historically been more difficult to run in a virtual machine than most other legacy x86 operating systems because of its extensive reliance on the full set of features of the x86 CPU. (...) During a pre-launch session (ESX3) with VMware in Oslo, Norway, December 2005, they specifically said that OS/2's use of the CPU's ring 2 was the reason that it would not run in VMware.(...)
Also interesting to note is that Parallels Inc., the virtualization technology company that we know today, was born in great part thanks to this particular problem between OS/2 / eComStation and existing VM solutions.
"(...) A large German bank needed a way to use OS/2 on newer hardware that OS/2 did not support. As virtualization software is an easy way around this, the company desired to run OS/2 under a hypervisor. Once it was determined that VMware was not a possibility, it hired a group of Russian software developers to write a host-based hypervisor that would officially support OS/2. Thus, the Parallels, Inc. company and their Parallels Workstation was born. (...)"
More info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Os2_warp#Virtualization
Edited 2009-08-31 22:25 UTC
while it's long term relivance is indeed an issue, i still really like the OS. For what it is capable of it si lighting fast and your average user (surfing the web, IM, email, etc) could use it without a lot of problem. eCom 2.0 is pretty neat, especially now that some of the ACPI issues have been ironed out. Keep up the good work.
also, how is the near 2.0 release of a major OS (since it is the only one of it's kind, OS/2 based) not front page news?
Edited 2009-08-31 21:58 UTC



