Submitted by Serenity Systems International (SSI) today announced a beta testing program for the upcoming 2.0 release of eComStation, an OEM distribution of IBM’s OS/2 operating system. This is the fourth release of eComStation, which was launched in 2000.
Serenity Systems Opens Beta Program for eComStation 2.0
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I never thought I’d complain about SSI moving too fast, and I’m not now, but still… Guess I’ll have to get more serious about updating my 1.1 installation.
Gads. 🙂
This is great. I can’t wait for v2.0 … would be great if they could get a 64bit version out the door. just to secure its life even longer.
Do you know, does eComStation 2.0 include firewire support or not?
I don’t think it does.
Some information about an OS/2 firewire driver in development can be found here:
http://firewire.netlabs.org
>Do you know, does eComStation 2.0 include firewire >support or not?
In short : no
Netl@bs launched a project who where to deliver a FW mass storage driver – it showed great promise (I recal a report claiming some sort of IPOD connectivity) – but lately (since the Ukraine “revolution”) there seems to be no progress in the development.
Is there a download link?
Edited 2006-01-11 00:06
When IBM announce end of marketing of OS/2 we saw on the press all kind of news. Lets see tomorrow if we say the same with this announcement.
For the moment I only found the eComStation 1.2 Live Cd for download.
http://www.ecomstation.com/democd
The Live CD is only at 1.2, since 2.0 has only just gone into beta – give them a chance to get 2.0 out of the door and I suspect that a 2.0 Live CD will follow a few months after.
Any news on the pricing for upgrades yet?
Since I’m one of the people who wrote the “all kinds of news” articles (the one for eWEEK), and I’m distinctly a fan of all things OS/2 even now… perhaps you’ll believe me if I tell you that the beta for eCS simply will not be considered as big a deal as were the lights going out for OS/2 at IBM.
First, SSI isn’t IBM. They don’t have the overall reach or the significance. Especially since OS/2 was once touted as the future of computing… and by consumer perception, at least, it sputtered and faltered.
Second, it’s a BETA. If it were a released product it would have additional significance. I think there’s a reasonable chance that the released version might merit a product review by a few of the Usual Suspects (not that many of them do reviews as much, these days).
Finally, it’s from a tiny company without the ability to get the news to everybody. So, quite simply, a lot of those “all kinds of news” outlets won’t know about this announcement.
FWIW, I agree with Esther. There is no way a PR from SSI will get the same attention and response as one made by a major multi-national. This PR will not be read by “all kinds of” journos and some that read it will not regard it as significant. That is a problem for SSI.
But going with PR Newswire is an attempt to reach a broad audience, especially within the trade press. The key message isn’t the beta. The key message is “yes, IBM withdrew OS/2 from active marketing …. but … OS/2 remains available. OS/2 is better than it ever was and support for the platform continues. And here is the group which supplies it.”
I want to alert some commercial users that there are enhancements which facilitate installing OS/2 on new hardware. That additional support is available and will continue to be available for years to come. http://www.ecomstation.com/corporate.phtml
Recently I have supplied product and/or licenses to several large organizations, including an aerospace company and a mass transit organization. In both cases, these people need to run OS/2 applications and need to be able to run on new hardware. They wanted to upgrade their OS/2 installations and get some additional licenses. SSI can do that. That’s the message.
SSI has OEM agreements with several companies to support specific products. This allows those organizations to work with commercial OS/2 users. And this is business I want to encourage.
So, the PR discusses the beta, but the message is .. this product is still around, available now and for years to come. It’s still as good as it ever was, in fact .. it is better. And we continue to invest in extending and expanding support for OS/2 as eComStation.
I think that’s an important message. At least, it is important to me. But Esther is undoubtedly correct. An OS/2 message from an unknown company may not be seen as compelling. And it probably shouldn’t be.
Even so, it’s a significant message and I hope the right folks hear it.
Regards,
Bob St.John
Serenity Systesm International
I tried the live CD but graphically it was very slow. When I tried to move a window, I could see it re-drawing it across the screen. I guess my GeForce 6600GT isn’t supported very well. Because of this I didn’t give it a fair shake of the stick, though I used to live OS/2 way back when.
Will eComStation run on the new Intel Macs?
I’m hoping the answer is yes so I can dual boot Mac OS X and eComStation. Hoping for LinSpire too.
Windows? I literally couldn’t care less about Microsoft and Windows. But then I’m not interested in buying a Yugo, Trabant, or other unreliable car either.
In short: no.
eComStation is OS/2 and OS/2 has not been built with EFI in mind. People have also found it hard to emulate x86 machines to run it as well.
Simon V
About two years ago I found a good summary in a newsgroup why this is so (sorry, don’t remember the source):
“OS/2 was an intensive user of the most obscure and less known features of the PC architecture. It isn’t portable, never meant to be, and most of the kernel (mixing 16 and 32 bit code, using both the flat and segmented memory models, etc.) is glue code that can’t be written in anything other than x86 assembly.”
Stephan