The OS/2-eZine site features a mini-review of eComStation‘s 1.1 golden master copy. OSNews has in its hands an… even newer build, and we will be featuring a review soon too.
eComStation 1.1 Mini-Review at OS/2-eZine
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
the installation process. And how it has improved(or not!) Please post necessary screenshots too!
I will… lots to tell about the installation… looong story… 😮
But the eCS guys are really cool and helpful.
At $200, I could buy WinXP, Gobe 3.0 and still get some change. Heck, for $39 I’ll soon be buying the new Zeta/Home Edition. I would definitely be happy to pay a similar price for eCS (just to satisfy my curisity and to play with it), but $200 is way too much, regardless of the included Lotus Office (which I don’t need).
Sadly, I loved OS/2 since 2.1, but it’s now way out of date and has basically no 3D support, small developer teams and hobby programmers have left for WIN32 or *nix systems, and many OS/2 software web sites have now been vapoured in to the neverworld. I somewhat feel sorry for the eCS guys, IBM really left a bad taste in alot of our mouths over OS/2, and eCS is too late for alot of us. If eCS had come around 6+ years ago, then yes, I think OS/2 had a larger chance at still having a large userbase.
I also fail to see why anyone already owning Warp 4 would upgrade to eCS?, I have never tried eCS, but all I see is some widget changes and some software bundles, eCS does nothing that Warp 4 can do with fixpacks.
But, when it comes down to it, Sadly, I agree with OBOS4ALL, I think Zeta is the far better deal =) (Man, I hope they have 3D support for nVidia/ATi cards:))
Who cares about OS/2 anymore? OS/2 is the OS of the 2nd millenium and afaik we live in the 3rd.
eComStation leaves ANY Linux distro in the dust!! And I will gladly buy eComStation but a bit later on, not now because it’s too expensive and yes, I AM willing to pay for something that works so don’t give me that “but linux is free” excuse. What a wonderful review! Well done and I can see that eCS is a very user friendly OS. I am glad we have such an alternative OS and I wish them a very good luck to the eCS developers and I hope they make it to the top where Windows is! And all these “why OS/2” trolling comments should be moderated down or better, deleted.
Well, WinXP, WinME, Win98, even Win95 does work!!! And WinXP are about the same price here. Now who are in dust? Win*** or eCS? I think Linux proved that eCS are in dust in term of userbase anyway.
Well, WinXP, WinME, Win98, even Win95 does work!!!
Yep that is true and that’s why I use Windows XP at this very moment and I have been using Windows since Windows 95 and not pirated copies but I have actually paid for them all. I am willing to pay for something that works! So, why I have a strong support for eCS? Because it’s easy to use. I started to hate Linux, I have spent so much time and money for it and it’s still light years away in usability on the desktop. It’s 2003 and it can’t even display descent fonts! Lucky if one out of 10 programs installs successfully without throwing some sort of error and if no errors then god help us finding out where the program gets installed and finding out the executable’s name to launch it. And in terms of GUI consistency, a real disaster.
Unless some sort of Install framework is created and fix the rest of the issues, Linux will never reach the desktop. I am glad to have a choice for the desktop on the x86 platform, a REAL choice, eComStation.
I am glad to have a choice for the desktop on the x86 platform, a REAL choice, eComStation.
I have a copy of eCS, it really can’t be classified as a modern alternative. hardware support isn’t as good as it should be, and even when the hardware is supported, it’s no speed demon. software support isn’t that great either… sure, I can break out all my old win 3.1 software, but lets do be serious. sure, it has an XF86 port and other ports, but again why bother?
the interface is dated, and I find myself trying to remember how to do things instead of having things feel relatively natural, as with most modern OSes. as far as consistancy, all I see is a consistantly ancient interface.
don’t get me wrong, in the old days this was a great OS, but it’s just hasn’t had any really radical development done to it since Warp 3. sorry, but I really see no reason not to just buy a copy of Warp 4 from eBay and a copy of Display Doctor, if you really must have OS/2. it’ll be cheaper in the long run.
Linux(or *BSD) is as good on the desktop as the time you want to put into it, so I can’t really argue with your comments. but, I’d say that BeOS or MacOS(OSX or classic) are easily better alternatives… at least for me.
What version do you have? Did you read the article? eCS 1.1 is a big improvement over 1.1
1.0, and yes I read the article..
the changes, some driver updates, ecenter, read only ntfs support, browser update.
see, to someone who’s stuck on OS/2 this is a great update.. because OS/2 has been pretty static since Warp 4. but, again as I look over the changes there’s no major development happening. since Warp 4 there has been nothing except maintenance updates, even eCS has just given us maintenance updates.
every other major OS in the last 10 years has come miles and miles as far as usability and architecture. OS/2 lost favour in IBM, and that was the end. unless there’s some major surprise ahead, there will never be a revolutionary change. fine, but evolution isn’t getting OS/2 anywhere either.
again, not trying to troll. if you love OS/2, you’ll love it that eCS is making a valiant effort at keeping OS/2 current. my problem is that for the non-OS/2 world, firing eCS up is like going through a time warp.
in the win 3.1 days this OS was the %@#&, these days is showing it’s age. I would imagine 9 out of 10 windows users looking for an alternative would find it harder to use eCS as a desktop OS than Linux + KDE or gnome… maybe if they lived through DOS/Windows or OS/2 the first time they might be able to get by, but as I earlier it was a pain trying to remember how to do things. do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve had to deal with a config.sys on anything more than a boot disk?
OK, so the Linux command-line zealots will disagree, but the screen is the first impression an OS makes.
ECS looks ancient. Blocky fonts reminiscent of old-fashioned Mac OS or Win3.1 are a BAD way to attract new users.. even the linux community is acknowledging this now.
Yeah I know what your saying and you are most likely right but to me looks like eCS is doing a great progress. I think they should really drop the Win3.1 support and stick with Xfree support. And yeah
I don’t mind editing config.sys files 
I’ve done that hips back in Win95 days hehe I remember editing autoexec.bat and config.sys adding lines for MSCDEX to have my CD drive started in DOS 
At least config.sys and autoexec.bat is easier then a normal script file in Linux. A few things I love about eCS is that it shows your running application in the taskbar just like in Windows, then you have wizards that actually work, good looking fonts and point + click install. What more could you want in a desktop OS? Now they will even be support for Java 1.4x, Flash etc…Yes lack of programs but they will catch up hopefully. I really think Michael from Lindows.com should have put his hands on eCS/OS/2 instead of Linux. It would have been great.
For Eugenia’s comments on her playing with this beast… Maybe they should seriously look at employing Eugenia as a desktop designer.
Although, IF I have heard correctly the eCS guys do not have any actual OS/2 source code, so I’m not sure to what degree they can customize things, or what they will do when IBM finally do throw in the towel for OS/2 updating (can somone clarify if they do or do not have the source?)
Has OSNews really resorted to this? It’s it just a forum for everyone to find a way to support their OS and bash all others? Has OSNews turned into Slashdot? If so, goodbye.
My apologizes to the operators of OSNews. It’s not you. It appears to be your readers. I realize they’re likely the minority, but they’ve truly destroyed it for the rest of us.