The first Release Candidate (RC1) for eComStation 1.2 is currently in closed testing. Plans call for the release of 1.2 later this month. This would include Entry, Application Pack 1.2, Subscription Services products, and the Open Beta of Serenity Virtual Station.
Release Candidate for eComStation 1.2
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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GREAT !!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have a copy of ecomstation (don’t remember the version). I would like to try it out more but it doesn’t run under vmware. I guess I should try it under GSX server. Anyone have any luck running it under vmware?
wmware hasn’t got OS/2 guest nor host support.
Guest support was i alpha/early beta once but was scrapped. AFAIR they has made certain that you’ll be unable to install any kind og OS/2 on wmware.
Is there any worse of a name than “eComStation?” Good lord, it sounds like one of those cheap buzzword-worthy names from the dot-com era. “The eComStation.”
What are the some of the benefits for running eComstation?
Yea I know, just wondering if anything had changed or if the GSX version might have a chance of running it.
For what it’s worth I have been a vmware customer since workstation 1.0. Now I run GSX 3.0.0.
Anyway to get back OT. Does anyone know where I could find some software (browser,IM,etc.) for OS/2? I might just install it on a system again to check it out.
What browser would you want other than Mozilla?
http://www.mozilla.org/ports/os2/
Places to look for software and news:
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/
http://www.os2world.com/
http://www.os2bbs.com/os2news/
Browsers and drivers can be had from eComstations website. For anything else try Mensys (os2.mensys.nl) for commercial applications or the venerable Hobbes (hobbes.nmsu.edu) repository for everything else.
eComStation is on my OS wishlist… Seems like a pretty cool system, and of course OS/2 is a legendary system, no matter the “OS/2-is-dead” crap.
Cool, I’ll give it a try again.
Others have mentioned a few key software sources, but a couple of others are:
http://www.bmtmicro.com/
http://www.mensys.nl/indexuk.html
http://www.os2bbs.com/
I’m using Links 0.99 under OS/2 here, but I also use Mozilla Firefox.
OS/2 hobbyist?? My god, some banks are still using it! That’s a troll for sure.
OS/2 was the OS that should have won the OS war if only IBM knew how to market it right in the first place. It was allways far more stable than Windows. IBM did a crap job but OS/2 was and is still for many clients very good.
I don’t use eCS actively, but I still have an eCS 1.1 license. So it might be nice to have a look at eCS 1.2 if the upgrade price is not too steep
.
if it still works, why not use it?
is there decent support for newer hardware in OS/2? i have a copy of warp2 but it wouldnt take on my celery 533 a few years back. or would warp3 work better?
@ hallgreng
There ain’t much that eCS won’t run on. I have a P4, GF5200 and works great!
The first version of Warp was 3 so you can’t have had Warp 2. There was MS OS/2 1, IBM OS/2 2, IBM OS/2 Warp 3 (Codename Warp), IBM OS/2 Warp 4 (Codenamed Merlin), and I don’t know what happened next
Felix you forgot a few like 1.3 and 1.33 (I’m sure I have missed a few, like 1.33EE), 2.1, 2.11 and 3.0 Connect .. the 1.x generation was found in both an MS and an IBM version.
Regarding what happend next:
4.5 (Warp Server for e-Business, featuring a brand new kernel, or actually two new kernels – Uni and SMP with support of 64 processor – IBM slipped the new uniprocessor kernel to existing Merlin client users through Fixpacks)
MCP1/ACP1 (4.51 – Client/Server)
MCP2/ACP2 (4.52 – Client/Server)
The eComStation of today is based on MCP2, at fixpack4 level.
Doesn’t that make it tricky to rely too??? IBM can do some really weird moves… anyway, is there some sort of trial download to try the system?
Yea! I really would love to see a trial download and check out the system. Just a curious question, does Serenety Systems have access to the original OS/2 Warp code? I know there is Microsoft code in and as long as it is closed source, it should be ok so I’d assume these guys have access to the code and improve it?
The first version of Warp was 3 so you can’t have had Warp 2. There was MS OS/2 1, IBM OS/2 2, IBM OS/2 Warp 3 (Codename Warp), IBM OS/2 Warp 4 (Codenamed Merlin), and I don’t know what happened next
IBM OS/2 Warp 4.5, which was the final version IBM has created.
Interesting that back when there was the punishing of Microsoft, there was a consumer advocate to pushed for IBM to free up OS/2, either opensource it or give it away for free as to give Windows a reasonable level of competiton.
Ecomstation 1.0/1.1 work under Virtual PC, 5.2 at least. Plus, you can get an S3 acceleration going, too.
hardwaresupport is quite good – better than you might expect:
graphic-card support is provided via scitechsoft.com SNAP (we had a message about SNAP for Linux here at osnews some time ago) these drivers are brilliant! (only 2d, but there were no 3d apps for OS/2 either
mass-driver support: also great support thanks to daniela engert, everything from “stupid IDE” up to Serial ATA.
SCSI also provided with the “old” IBMdrivers and some of manufactures for new adapters.
USB-basics: USB-mass-storage, HID, even some very few USB-Audio
Beside this obious solutions -> OSS is filling a gap in the eCS, OS/2-world: eg. SANE for OS/2 for scanning, gocr, bttv,…
Maybe have a look at:
http://www.os2warp.be/index2.php
I like to collect old operating systems. So I went looking for the os/2’s. I have os/2 2.1, 3 (three versions of 3 actually), and 4. I put 4 on a 486 once like 2 years ago and was surprised how good and stable it was. It is a shame it didnt become the popular mainstream os back then. It is obvious it was way ahead and was rock stable.
what makes os/2 a great os? i can see the appeal of beos
but os/2’s appeal mystifies me.
if ecom can make $ selling os/2, why can’t X make dollars selling beos/amd64 graphics workstations ala SGI?
what makes os/2 a great os? i can see the appeal of beos
but os/2’s appeal mystifies me.
if ecom can make $ selling os/2, why can’t X make dollars selling beos/amd64 graphics workstations ala SGI?
I’m not going to pay > 200 euro’s for a lag-behind OS, while I can get Linux for free
AFAIK, Windows NT and OS/2 share the same initial codebase. But the Windows NT 5.1 (XP) codebase has seen much more development. I would prefer Windows NT 5.x over OS/2, but this new OS/2 version could be great for companies and individuals who are a bit addicted to OS/2 and don’t want the pain to learn to use another OS.
“what makes os/2 a great os? i can see the appeal of beos
but os/2’s appeal mystifies me. if ecom can make $ selling os/2, why can’t X make dollars selling beos/amd64 graphics workstations ala SGI?”
I think the appeal is from people and businesses who have historically used OS/2 and just don’t find it prudent to change, or that is what they are comfortable with or like. Sort of like WordPerfect users.
Ecommerce Station has a neat sales strategy: they obtained the rights to OS/2, developed it onward, and sell it to the hardcore users for $199 or whatever. At that price they can keep a couple people developing it even with a tiny number of users. For example even with new sales of just 500 per year or thereabouts that is still average $1600 a week coming in, which is enough to pay a programmer and a part-timer and then to print CDs and manuals.
I always believed this would be an effective sales strategy for the producers of Amiga OS4. They could drop the licensing fees and restrictions on the hardware providers they partner with, abandon the goal of the tight bundling they have pursued unsuccessfully for years, and just focus on turning out a CD and charging $199 for that.
“Ecommerce Station has a neat sales strategy: they obtained the rights to OS/2, developed it onward, ”
this leads into the wrong direction: the right are still at the side of IBM!! Serenety also has NO access to the source-code.
BUT you also have to know that IBM’s commitmend and roadmap to OS2 includes updates up to 2006 and beyond if there is engough renvenue -> and IMO this is what eCS tries to do in some ways.
Acutally IBM still does kernel develompent, fixing JFS, building Mozilla for OS/2 and so on…
Serenity does have a contract with IBM to “rebundle” an OS/2-based system on the base of current MCP-level. Beside that Serenity does have somde developers in their community.
E.g. they bundle xworkplave.org which is a great tool! and it even fixes a lot of issues of PM/WPS – even if they have no access to the “real” source…
So also did a nice installation procedure and one of the easiest way to deal with logical volume management (eg map your drive “C:” to partition 1 on dish 1 and partition 4 on disk2…)
There’re still several nice gadgets on the OS/ – eCS side 🙂
And in some ways the OS/2community shows in a productive manner what Wine tries for Linux: ODIN is useable in a productive area to “wrap” arounf acroread for Win, java, even OO.org… Thanks to innotek.de
maybe have a look at:
http://innotek.de/products_e.html
in response to “Ecommerce Station has a neat sales strategy: they obtained the rights to OS/2, developed it onward, and sell it to the hardcore users for $199 or whatever….”
Great, but couldn’t someone license Be OS IP source code from Palm Inc, improve on it, recompile it for x86-64 (the extra 8 GP registers and 8 SSE registers should come in handy), and offer a dual-Opteron workstation that dual boots free-LINUX with BeOS.
by the way Daniel Miller, why do you suggest Amiga OS4 and not BeOS? Do you think Amiga OS4 is better than BeOS?
Well BeOS got support for 16 processors as it is …. should be sufficient for your 2P Opteron ….
PalmOne has made their stand no license for the sourcecode – thats why Zeta builds on – hmmm BeOS 5.x (Correct me if I’m wrong) …. don’t think Yellowtab havent tried – firdt with Be Inc, then with PalmOne.
Seems like you have to wait for OpenBeOS (Giving a hand might speed things up a bit)
yeah it’s sufficient.
since BEOS philosophy is “from scratch” they should write their OS exclusively in x86-64 LONG mode. also Opteron uses NUMA not shared bus for multiprocessing, while i am certain beos only uses shared bus assumptions, so that needs some reworking.
OpenBEOS will take forever. Time is important.
If Yellowtap can’t cut it, i hope a deep-pocketed company can, though i can’t think of any.
dan
Well BeOS got support for 16 processors as it is …. should be sufficient for your 2P Opteron ….
PalmOne has made their stand no license for the sourcecode – thats why Zeta builds on – hmmm BeOS 5.x (Correct me if I’m wrong) …. don’t think Yellowtab havent tried – firdt with Be Inc, then with PalmOne.
Seems like you have to wait for OpenBeOS (Giving a hand might speed things up a bit)
come to think of it,
i honestly don’t see the merits of OS/2, so maybe ECOM
should license BEOS from PalmSource. (SGI, SUN, IBM, Motorola, SONY, even AMD come to mind)
Oh Yeah its PalmSource not PalmOne, my mistake … STUPID-STUPID-STUPID!
License BeOS instead of OS/2, and then port WPS/PMShell to it ??
Serenity does not have access to core OS/2 code, like YellowTab does not have access to BeOS Code.
IBM is providing updates and fixes to OS/2 but they aren’t doing much. In fact, they say you should upgrade to Linux.
I hate you I.B.M.