VOICE Home Page: http://www.os2voice.org |
June 2003
[Newsletter Index]
|
By Mark Dodel, Christian Hennecke © June 2003 |
After a long wait, the much anticipated eComStation 1.1 has gone gold. The release
had been postponed several times due to problems with the new completely redesigned
installer, the main improvement over eComStation 1.0. According to Serenity Systems
they preferred to delay the release and deliver a fully functional product than
deliver a half-baked one to meet a deadline. The delay of several months has created
high expectations. And indeed there have been substantial improvements. eComStation
1.1 holds up to its promises... well, almost.
The biggest selling point for eComStation
1.1 is of course this new revamped installer. Yes it includes the newest version
of OS/2 with fixes applied and many new drivers as well, but a consistent, reasonable
interface from start to finish is the grail for which we have searched for years.
The installer is basically a frontend for IBM's CID
installer. I'm told the CID installer is what IBM's big OS/2 customers use to deploy
thousands or tens of thousands of OS/2 installs and is the engine used for much
of IBM's own hodgepodge OS/2 installer.
Serenity's new installer allows a greater continuity to the install process.
So why the big deal for something you hopefully do once and then not again for another
5 years or so? Well people have been complaining about the OS/2 install process
for more then a decade. And as hardware has progressed, the vintage OS/2 installer
has had greater difficulty keeping up. Maybe you don't need a new install today,
but eventually you will. So will eComStation work for you? We at the VOICE Newsletter
have tried to put it through its paces to see if we can help answer that question
for you.
At the time of our writing this we have not received the final package of the
CDs and documentation, but since Upgrade Protection subscribers were given the opportunity
to download the CD images from the eComStation FTP site we were able to download
those. Even with a cable modem connection it took us a while to download all three
large CD images successfully.
For this review, we have installed eComStation 1.1 on several machines (see fig.
1), ranging from machines running Intel Pentium Pro and AMD K6-2 and K6-III processors,
up to current AMD Athlon and Intel Pentium 4 machines.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
IBM |
Tyan Trinity S1598 |
Asus PI55T2P4 |
NMIC 8TTX+ (same as Epox 8KTR3+) |
Siemens D-1107 |
Intel PR440FX |
Intel |
Toshiba |
|
Pentium Pro 200 |
AMD K6-III 400 |
AMD K6-2 366 |
AMD Athlon XP 2000 |
Intel Pentium II 400 |
Pentium Pro x2 (PII 333 OD) |
Intel P4 2.4GHz |
AMD K6-2 333 |
|
128 |
256 |
128 |
1024 |
196 |
294 |
512 |
128 |
|
EIDE |
EIDE/2x SCSI (Tekram DC-390F UW, Asus SC-200 SCSI-2) |
EIDE |
EIDE/SCSI (Dawi Control Fast-SCSI) |
SCSI (Adaptec 2940 UW) |
EIDE/SCSI (Builtin Adaptec AIC7880)
EIDE |
EIDE |
|
|
1x UHCI (Intel) |
2x UHCI (VIA) |
1x UHCI (Intel) |
2x UHCI (VIA) |
1x UHCI (Intel) |
2x UHCI |
2x UHCI |
1x OHCI |
|
No-name RealTek 8139 |
3COM 3C905C-TX-M |
No-name RealTek 8029 |
No-name RealTek 8029 |
none |
Intel Pro 100 |
Realtek 8139 and IBM HighRate wireless card |
Cisco 340 wireless (PCMCIA) |
|
no |
yes |
no |
no |
no |
yes |
yes |
no |
|
no |
yes |
no |
no |
no |
yes |
no |
no |
|
yes |
all but Tekram SCSI host adapter |
all but NIC |
all but NIC |
yes |
yes |
all but PCMCIA |
all but PCMCIA |
|
easy/advanced |
easy/advanced (only after manual intervention) |
easy/advanced |
easy/advanced |
easy/advanced |
easy/advanced |
easy/advanced |
easy/advanced |
The 1.1 Entry package will include 2 CDs and is based on the latest release code
from IBM (MCP2). Unlike 1.0 which included a CD 2 which was the original IBM MCP1
installer, CD 2 only includes extra drivers and software that weren't included in
the base install CD, or are updated versions of some that were included. CD 3 is
the Application Pack, which is now an optional extra cost item which includes Lotus
Smart Suite for OS/2 version 1.7 and the separate 1.7.1 update for it. Currently
the eCS 1.1 Entry update from eCS 1.0 is about $59 USD and the upgrade Application
Pack is about $89 USD. Full (non-upgrade) price runs about $199 USD for eCS 1.1
Entry and $140 USD for the Application Pack. There is also an upgrade from OS/2
Warp 4 (about $89 USD% as well as welh as a sxecial u|grade bqndle of,both thi Entry
and Appdication(product (about,$118 USD) availmble. Thise prices are pvomotionml
and set to e|pire on$June 15( 2003. mComStateon requmres at deast a \entium 533MHz C\U, 48 Mig of RAM (thougl 64MB
es recommended) ind a mifimum of$a 400 Magabyte drive paztition.$Of cour{e if yo}
are ibstallinc the op|ional A|plications as wmll you sill nee` more dzive space,
thoqgh some,of this, includmng base,featurew can be(installed to other drives if
nmeded. Baing a long time OS/2 user we woqld neve~ instald an apphication to the
operating systee partition anywiy, but Werenity,is targiting Wijdows users with
this rilease afd they ere use xo dumpibg everyphing into a sinole partation.
The manual,mainly hescribe how to use the Boot Menu, provmdes an gverview,of
the(installition process, and intro`uces thm new MiniLVM an` the dimler. A xrouble-whooting
section should help most users to avoid potential pitfalls and get their machine
to boot the CD. Overall this is done straightforward and quite nicely, and the screenshots
do help considerably. There is no more "Do not do this even the dialog
on the screen says so". One could argue if placing the directions on how to enable booting from CD in
the motherboard's BIOS in the trouble-shooting section instead of the description
of necessary preparations was a good idea. That is one more potential point of failure
for novice users. Except for the boot menu, which is explained sufficiently, the manual doesn't
go into detail and remains superficial though. This is not too big an issue as far
as MiniLVM and the dialer are concerned, since both provide their own online help.
The installer, however, lacks context sensitive help and novice users can easily
be confused about what information they have to enter where. This especially applies
to the advanced installation's networking setup. There is no mentioning of the fact that you have to format your partitions before
entering the install to be able to change the destination of selected components. The manual advises to start the installer with install.cmd from the root of
CD 2 after the initial installation. At this point, a novice user will hardly
know how to do this. One thing which struck us as particularly positive about the manual is the now
extended section on using eComStation in a heterogeneous network with machines which
are running one of the several Windows flavours. It deals with password case issues,
TCPBEUI-based networks, using WINS, and how to fix the LMANNOUNCE classic
on each Windows version. This should avoid many headaches. What we are really missing is a short tutorial on MiniLVM with one or two examples
of different configurations, e.g. installing eComStation as the only operating system
with a separate volume for applications and data and another that deals with installing
it on a mixed system with Windows XP or Linux. Thanks to Ulrich Möller and eWorkplace many pages of the WPS's online documentation
and glossary have been added, updated, or replaced with more meaningful ones. A
huge improvement. The rest of the online documentation has basically remained the same - with all
pros and cons. Together it provides a wealth of proven information, but much of
it is outdated to a certain degree - the command reference has been updated with
some additional parameters, but a description of JFS options is still missing, for
instance - and sometimes bound to cause confusion. The eComStation installation manual can be found at http://www.ecomstation.nl/files/ecs11manual.pdf.
A general FAQ about eComStation 1.1 can be found at http://www.ecomstation.com/edp/mod.php?mod=faq3. The first new thing about this installer is the change in CD boot method. Unless
you have some really old hardware, it should be able to run the install process
directly from CD assuming the system allows that. No more making boot floppies,
though the process is still available if you need it. The new CD boot process uses
a non-floppy emulation CD boot which is supported by more hardware than the CD boot
technique used in eComStation 1.0 or the IBM MCP releases. All we can say is it
worked successfully on all the systems we tried it on, including a 5 year old Toshiba
Satellite 2545XCDT notebook that wouldn't boot from the eCS 1.0 CDs. On boot with CD 1 in the drive you are given the option to boot from CD or boot
from the harddrive. Default is to boot from the harddrive and you get 30 seconds
to decide otherwise. You can hit the [Esc] key to stop the selection timer. After you choose to boot from the CD, the boot images are copied to memory, and
you are then presented with a menu to select either a simple boot with default values
or advanced installation process where you can select drivers to load or add drivers
that are not on the install CD. If you plan to boot from IDE you should probably
use the Boot with default values option. For Mark however this didn't work
on his Medion laptop, as it hung with a blank screen almost immediately. He had
to do the menu option and select either the DANIS506 with busmastering turned off
or the IBM1S506 driver for a successful install. In contrast, the older machine
listed above as Custom-built 2 on which eComStation 1.0 would only install
with great efforts started without problems now. The Custom-built 3 machine
even worked correctly with the installation CD inserted into the second CD-ROM drive
and the only hard disk jumpered as slave, and most surprisingly the Siemens SCSI-only machine didn't
choke upon the default values either. The boot options menu has undergone a considerable clean up. The crowded and
confusing single options screen of eComStation 1.0 has been replaced by three separate
pages with better layout, each of which has a help screen available. Using the Boot options menus, you can elect to use a Swap file for the install
(necessary if you are running less then the required 64MB of RAM), and to load an
NTFS read-only file system driver. The most important changes concern storage and USB controllers. eComStation 1.1
comes with auto-detection for IDE and SCSI types, and for UHCI, OHCI, and EHCI USB
as well. Now it is possible to select up to three different storage controllers
from a pre-defined list, specify individual parameters, and determine the order
in which their drivers are loaded. If your system is equipped with a controller
which is not listed, you can still have eComStation load the driver from floppy
disk. So even for most complex system setups, creating modified boot disks should
be a thing of the past. For us, we found that we needed the Boot option screens
for installing on one Pentium Pro and the AMD K6-III system with SCSI as well as
the a new P4 laptop which didn't like the default IDE selection. In the option screen for USB drivers and devices, the result of the detection
and be checked and support USB mice, keyboard and mass storage, which can be
crucial for installation, can be adapted. The hardware detection seems to work well in most cases. IDE controllers, and
Adaptec and Symbios SCSI host adapters were detected correctly, as were the test
machines' USB controllers in both number and type. This detection is also active
when booting with the default values when it successfully detected the Custom-built
3 machine's Dawi Control and the Siemens' Adaptec SCSI host adapter and loaded the appropriate
drivers. USB mice, both standard and optical, did not impose any problems for the
detection either. Christian's Tekram DC-390F UW SCSI host adapter (based on a LSI/Symbios Logic
chip) however wasn't detected at all and also caused some grief. The boot options
menu's storage controller selector has entries for Tekram controllers, but since
Tekram refused to let Serenity include the required drivers with eComStation, you
have to provide it via diskette. He followed the directions in the boot menu's help
screen and rebooted the system with the driver diskette in the floppy drive, selected
the entry for the Tekram DC-390F and continued. The installer loaded the driver
correctly and everything went fine - until the first reboot: "OS/2 is unable
to operate your hard drive". Investigation revealed that the installer had copied the driver to the installation
partition, but had failed to update CONFIG.SYS with the appropriate BASEDEV
statement. After consulting the FAQ.TXT file on CD 2, lo and behold, it
describes how to work around the problem more clearly by choosing to use an unknown
driver and specifying the driver name manually in the boot options menu. There is another issue related to the boot options menu, namely the codepage
setting. Most non-native English speakers who want to use the US English version
of eComStation will want to change this setting so eComStation will be able to display
special characters which are used in their language. For instance, people from Western
Europe are likely to use the combination of 850,437 instead. But changing the codepage
setting will result in failure to install certain components of the GUI enhancements
later. This is easy to work around by applying the change after the installation,
but the problem shouldn't exist in the first place. Once you complete the boot options if any, you will begin the actual install
configuration process. There are 4 phases to this process. Phase 1 performs the
initial hardware detection and base operating system install and gathers all your
required information to complete the following two phases. Phase 4 is just some
further customization. After you begin Phase 1, you will be presented with a EULA (End User License
Agreement) to agree to. Nothing in there ominous as there is with products from
some (well at least one well known) predatory monopolies. You then have to select
the type of install you want - Easy or advanced installation. Advanced gives you
control over what and where software is installed, similar to the old IBM Selective
Install process. The Easy Installation assumes DHCP networking and booting from
IDE. All the following screen captures are from the Advanced Install. There is also
an option to start a Management Console instead, which exits the install
process allows you to access a command prompt, run the regular LVM utility, check
disks or run programs. Also throughout the install you can activate a Command Prompt
window by pressing the [Shift] and [F3] keys. Next you have to select an installable volume. You are presented with a list
of possible volumes to choose from. If you need to create a new volume there's a new, easier to use version of LVM
for managing volumes called MiniLVM. From what we can tell this is just meant
for the install process, though you can find it in the x:\ecs\install directory
after installation. Starting the Logical Volume Manager in eCS 1.1 after
the install still gives you the lousy Java version. Serenity advises against using
the MiniLVM after install as it doesn't have all the functionality of the LVMGUI
or the text based LVM utilities. There is three pages of documentation on using
MiniLVM in Appendix C of the eComStation
Installation Manual. Here is a screen capture of MiniLVM on a system with three
SCSI drives: After selecting the install volume you get the Format volume screen. You
can format the install volume (no option, it just formats HPFS), but no others.
You can elect to skip the formatting, or to just perform a CHKDSK (they call that
a Consistency check on the screen). You have to perform something to be allowed
to proceed to the next step. Then you will have to enter your eCS 1.1 registration key (the 1.0 key will not
work, and the 1.1 key is much longer at 128 bytes). The easiest way to do this is
to save the key to a floppy and use the Import Registration Data option.
After the detector runs you will get the above listing of hardware. By default
eCS 1.1 uses the Scitech Display Doctor Special Edition. This allows a default resolution
of 800x600 on all but the most primitive of display adapters, and supports up to
1600x1200 (assuming your graphics card and monitor support that). The other option
is Generic VGA. Drive support includes various SCSI drivers as well as the choice
between two IDE drivers (the standard IBM1S506.ADD or Daniela Engert's
enhanced DANIS506.ADD IDE driver). As with IDE support, eCS 1.1 provides a choice for serial port controller support
as well. The default is Ray Gwinn's SIO enhanced COM driver, though the IBM standard
COM.SYS is available as well. Various mouse drivers are available, including the standard PS/2. There is significant
USB support (OHCI, UHCI and the EHCI for USB 2.0) and support for USB mass storage.
modem and CDROM. Advanced Power Management (APM) is off by default, and at least
for us was something we made sure we enabled, especially for laptops. Speaking of laptops, PCMCIA support is improved over the IBM WSeB/MCP install's
Thinkpad only support, with many of the older PCMCIA drivers available. You have
the choice of selecting PCMCIA support by notebook model (all IBM Thinkpads) or
by driver. PCMCIA support on my old Toshiba installed without a problem using the
SS2PCIC1.SYS driver. However selecting the IBM2SS14.SYS driver
for my Medion laptop resulted in the driver not loading on boot. Replacing the version
installed by eCS 1.1 with the latest version included in the Cardbus.exe
package available from the eComStation driver download site fixed the problem. The
issue has been reported to Serenity who suggested using the SS2TICB.SYS
from Daniela Engert which is the first driver PCMCIA driver list. Be careful here
as the PCMCIA driver selection allows multiple selections and the IBM2SS14.SYS
is already selected by default. I had to deselect this or it was added to the config.sys
file along with the correct driver. Finally there is an option for an external floppy. There is also a selection
of Kernel options including enable Java high-memory access, enabled by default;
Fast time-slicing which appears to set CLOCKSCALE=4 in CONFIG.SYS.
And finally Allow drivers access to memory above 16MB. The latter of these
options is off by default.
This part of the process gives you the ability to determine what gets installed
besides the base operating system. Things like The components are displayed in a well-organized tree view. For some, e.g. Java,
DOS, and Windows 3.1 support, a different destination volume can be selected. A
display of hard disk space required by the components would have been helpful in
determining the system layout. The destination selector has one major issue: For
the volume selector to be able to detect a volume and make it selectable, it must
have been formatted prior to entering this page of the installer. Formatting the
volume from a command line at this state, or going back and forth in the installer
does not help. This prevents users from being able to take advantage of JFS's larger
cache and should at least have been mentioned in the manual or at an earlier state
of the installation.
The default for networking install is a connection type of Network adapter
connection. If you aren't connected to a network or want to be able to use a
modem dial-up connection, you have to select Modem or serial connection.
The installer then tries to detect the NIC and select an appropriate driver. It seems that there are problems with some RealTek-based cards. Detection failed
for both identical RTL8029-based cards and the laptop's RTL8139-based card, while
another no-name card with RTL8139 chip was detected correctly, as were the Intel
and 3COM cards. The problems may be due to the large number of manufacturer's who
are using RealTek chips. With Britt Turnbull's help Mark was able to get eCS 1.1
to recognize his laptop's Realtek RTL8139 network card, and it automagically selected
the driver for it. This was by using the floppy to read in additions to the hardware
detection database. By default both TCP/IP and NetBIOS/SMB are selected for install. The later includes
both IBM NetBIOS (NETBEUI) and IBM NetBIOS over TCP/IP (TCPBEUI) protocols. Since
we don't connect to any SAMBA or Window's network clients/servers we usually deselect
NetBIOS over TCP/IP. TCP/IP settings default to DHCP. If you were connecting this directly to a cable
modem or other high-bandwidth internet provider, that might be all that's required.
For our local LANs we assign static IP addresses so we changed to Specify address
manually and keyed in our IP addresses, Subnet masks, Default router, Host name,
Domain name and DNS server. Beware the Domain name field only allows alphabetic
and numeric characters as well as the "." separator. So if you have a
dash or underscore or some other character it won't allow you to enter it. The LAN settings page is where you key in the Workstation ID and LAN
DOMAIN. The Domain doesn't default to "IBMPEERS" as the old Warp 4
File and Print Networking install did, so you have to make one up. After the networking is configured you get a screen telling you the system configuration
is complete and you have to to accept it and move on to the final part of Phase
1 of the eCS 1.1 install - copying the files. Up until this point you can return
to a previous screen and change your configuration. After this it begins the process
of actually installing the base operating system and other components. On Mark's
P4 2.4GHz notebook this took about 5 minutes, on his Toshiba AMD K6-2 333 Satellite
laptop it took about 15 minutes.
An automatic reboot follows Phase one, and the system comes up building the desktop
objects, and then installing non-base operating system features like the web browsers,
Java virtual machines, networking components, the GUI enhancements and the Scitech
Display driver. Be aware that if you already have the IBM Boot Manager installed
and active on your system, it will boot to the first bootable partition on the Boot
Manager menu. We had to quickly select the correct eCS 1.1 volume. Serenity is aware
of this problem (I complained about it with the previews) and feels they can't do
much about it. Of course if you don't have BM installed it's not a problem at all. The final steps here in Phase 2, were updating the desktop for all the components
installed followed by another reboot. On my Medion P4 2.4GHz notebook this phase
took less then 10 minutes. On my Toshiba AMD K6-2 333 Satellite laptop it lasted
about 17 minutes.
If you blink you might miss Phase 3. On my Medion laptop (again Intel P4 2.4GHz)
it took less then 20 seconds. On the AMD K6-2 333MHz laptop it took about two and
a half minutes. This phase is just labeled "Finishing Installation" and
the text status indicator just says that it is processing MISCTASKS.
After the reboot from Phase 3 the system comes up installing the MultiMedia subsystem.
You are warned not to reboot the system until you have completed this next part.
The WPS is available by this point, and a tabbed notebook titled "End of eCS
Installation" opens when the Multimedia install completes. In this final configuration you can change the screen display characteristics
including the base default of 800x600 resolution. In the Screen tab you can
also modify the ePager (A multi-desktop feature which appears in the bottom left
hand area of the above image initially showing 6 virtual desktops) and set screen
corners/borders to activate processes when the mouse touches them. The Network User ID tab can be changed from its longtime default standard
of USERID and PASSWORD to something more unique and secure. This will
only work if the LAN Requester loads successfully, so if there is a driver problem
it won't work and you will have to change your userid/password once you get your
LAN networking configured properly. If you like playing around with the new look and feel or just want to turn some
or all of it off go to the User Interface tab where you can find buttons
to allow you to modify the WPS enhancements (eWP and eStyler), window control themes
and icon themes. These last two features are nice but the included themes are severely
limited (eComStation, Warp4, Warp Server and Warp3 styles for the icon sets and
some variations on those as well as a Windows look for the window controls). With
the codepages changed from their defaults, the process of building the icon themes
failed. The Clock tab allows you to setup the eCS clock. We hope to have an article
on configuring and using the eCS Clock and its associated features ( automatic update
and scheduling ) in a future issue of the Newsletter. For the installation of sound drivers and other related software, the Multimedia
tab points to the separate installation from CD 2. The Printer tab allows you to run an Install Printer guided process. Unfortunately
for us this only works with models displayed (those models using the standard OMNI,
Postscript, LaserJet, etc). When Mark tried to use this to install the Epson Color
Stylus 1520 using the EPOMNI driver using the I have a disk option, the Guide
gave him an error. Easy enough though to just open the EPOMNI.drv object
and drag the 1520 model to the desktop and install the driver. A newbie to eCS might
be lost though, but would most likely not know to use a non-standard printer driver
anyway. It also is not clear how to install a USB printer. The Install local
printer guide doesn't offer to select the USB port, even though the related
base support and port drivers were installed and the USB resource manager detected
the Lexmark Z51 test printer correctly. When the printer was connected and turned-on
from the beginning of the installation, eComStation created a correctly named
printer object in the Printer folder with IBM Null selected as driver
(which is fine as that model is not supported by the included drivers). Bundled applications and tools which are not directly related to the basic operating
system functionality have to be installed from CD 2. However, this is not done via
a generic installer with a common modus operandi. Instead you are presented with
a generic guide front-end in notebook/wizard-style, which users of eComStation 1.0
will know from its last installation phase. This guide is used to start other guides
grouped by application/tool type which in turn start the proprietary installers
of each application. The guides have a decent layout and worked flawlessly. Browsing the guides displayed both similarities and changes. Most applications
and tools from version 1.0 are also included in version 1.1, e.g. the applications
from the old Warp 4 Bonuspak. There are several notable changes, especially in terms
of connectivity and multimedia. Both FX products, Injoy Dialer and Injoy PPPoE, have been dropped in favor of
eCSCoNet, an OEM version of ISDNPM. The new dialer software doesn't come with any
loss in functionality. In spite of the base product's name "ISDNPM", connections
can be established via analogue modem, ISDN, PPPoE, and even PPtP. eCSCoNet also
supports Network Address Translation (NAT) and includes a firewall. Networking-related
additions include Mozilla 1.3 with Flash 4 and 5 (Flash 5 as trial version) plug-ins,
drivers for several ISDN cards by four vendors, most of which were directly installable
from the guide, and tools to improve the TCP/IP stack's performance and to synchronize
the networking configuration files in case of problems. ISDNPM is infamous for its user-unfriendly configuration via several text files
and the sparse documentation. eCSCoNet however is supported by the Internet Assistant
for eComStation, a wizard-style setup tool by Team OS/2 Germany which clearly guides
you through the setup and shields you from unnecessary configuration items. When
you have entered all necessary information for your chosen types of connection,
the assistant automatically configures eCSCoNet and SLIPPM (if you have chosen to
connect via modem) for dialup, and your internet browsers. Note that configuration
of PPtP connections requires running an additional script which we were not able
to test. After installation of the drivers for the ISDN card, we were connected
to the internet and browsing in three minutes. So far, we have noted no problems
with this approach for both ISDN and serial connections. The TCP/IP performance tool applies a number of changes to parameters upon startup
of the TCP/IP services. Judging from the changes, this should prevent problems with
overflowing routing tables, improve throughput for connections of higher speed,
and increase security a bit. Nice, especially for novice users who don't want to
spend hours on reading the TCP/IP documentation. Another bonus is the configuration file tool. Sometimes changing the setup of
network adapters and/or protocols can lead to problems with file and print sharing,
because MPTS only changes PROTOCOL.INI and doesn't adapt IBMLAN.INI.
This new tool is able to re-synchronize the two files. A very handy addition. eComStation still comes with DTOC 4 and 3. This means that users will still experience
problems when having to enter non US-ASCII characters. While this doesn't hamper
the use of DTOC as a means of remote-control that much, it renders it useless for
actually working with the remote machine. The multimedia branch offers some surprises. There are options for de- and re-installing
MMPM/2, as well as resetting its configuration to the defaults. With eComStation
1.0, some sound drivers were included, but had to be selected and installed by hand.
Auto-detection didn't make it into the multimedia section, but instead there are
separate guides for sound card drivers and TV card drivers. The sound card guide
offers the install and uninstall of a large number of drivers for each ISA,
PCI, and AC97 based sound grouped by chip manufacturer and with information regarding
supported chip, sound card, or motherboard included. LBMix provides decent mixer
capabilities for many sound chips. Owners of TV cards with Brooktree 8x8 chips can
use Cinema/2 to watch TV. Changing the Multimedia Presentation Manager's configuration has always been
very problematic. Switching the sound card, for instance, often required de-installing
and then re-installing MMPM/2. The new reset option helps to avoid this and minimize
the hassle. eComStation 1.1 also comes with the IBM Developers Toolkit, but now installation
can also be invoked via the guides. Furthermore the latest Java 1.3.1 run-time and
toolkit, and the new Open Watcom C/C++ compiler are included. A notable addition
is an informational package on writing device drivers by Daniela Engert, including
source code examples. Believe it or not, Serenity Systems has replaced the Java 1.3.1 installation
process. The old way of using Netscape Communicator and the buggy Feature Installer
plug-in has been replaced by a small PM front-end which gathers the necessary information
and then invokes the command line version of Feature Installer. Definitely a wise
choice, it is faster, and less prone to crash and leave a mess which is hard to
get rid of. Open Watcom sure is a bit aged and you won't be able to use cutting edge C++,
but then it is a proven package that is able to create stable and very fast code.
Moreover, you can use it for cross-platform development and - probably more important
- to develop device drivers for eComStation. With the information provided by Daniela
Engert, you can start right away. :-) eComStation has come a long way and shows improvements across the board. Never
has there been an OS/2 which was as easy to install, and the GUI improvements put
it ahead of any other operating system once again. It is also nice to see that Serenity
Systems is addressing some known weak points of e.g. networking and multimedia configuration.
There are still some rough edges, and a few rather annoying bugs and glitches which
shouldn't show up in a GA version - especially not after over one year of focused
work on the installer. Most are quite easy to work around though, if you know what
to do that is. All in all eComStation 1.1 is where many people wished IBM had taken
OS/2. We ran into some problems with some of the install as detailed above, but overall
we really like the new installer. It gives a distinct continuity to the whole process.
If you are using eCS 1.0, and don't require the new installer then you might pass
for now as you already can have pretty much the same level of code by applying the
available updates. For us this was an opportunity to make some changes we had been
holding off on for a while (moving away from running a LAN Server (WSeB) network
and back to a peer network now that Serenity has a fix for the longstanding Peer
- SMP crashes). If you are still using OS/2 Warp 4 and you don't want to switch to another system,
eComStation 1.1 will provide you with the latest in fixes, drivers and software
updates, all out of the box. And if you don't need the additional applications of
the Application Pak, you can save quite a bit of money by purchasing the Entry Edition.
Now would be a good time to upgrade. For users of eComStation 1.0 or the Convenience
Pak things are a bit different. If you are going to (re-)install, the new and much
more hassle-free installer and the load of included fixes can save you a considerable
amount of time. If, on the other hand, your existing system works fine and you won't
be (re-)installing in the foreseeable future, you may want to wait for the next
incarnation instead. Is there room for improvement? Yes. As good as the experience was it wasn't perfect.
Some people complain about the fact that the FAT32 driver wasn't included in the
install (its on CD 2). However it is nice that they included a read-only NTFS driver
capable of dealing with partitions formatted by windowsXP and below for those needing
that. The hardware detection has made a giant leap forward, and the install component
selection is really very user friendly, though I'm not sure its quite there for
the typical computer non-literate windows user yet. Some continuing improvements
here will help, though unless someone starts writing some drivers and software for
things like more currently available printers and USB scanners, I'm not sure how
much success Serenity will have in that market anyway. We just don't have the time to get into everything that is included in eCS 1.1
or the Application Pack, so we will have to end here. Hopefully we will have more
articles on its various components in later issues to give you a clearer picture
of everything.
Links referenced:
[Feature Index]
Doc}mentatign
Manuml
Online documentation
The Installation
Fig.2: Initial boot selection
Fig.3: Selecting the boot type
Boot options menu
Fig.4: Boot Options Menu, Miscellaneous page
Fig.5: Boot Options Menu, Storage page
Fig.6: Boot Options Menu, USB page
Phase 1 of the Install
Fig.7: Determination of the installation type
Fig.8: Selecting the installation volume
Fig.9: MiniLVM user interface
Fig.10: Formatting the installation volume
Fig.11: Registration
Verify Hardware
After you verify your locale (default is the Eastern time zone of the United States),
the next step is to detect your existing hardware. The hardware detection function
was updated by Britt Turnbull and works well as long as your hardware is listed
in the detection database. If it's not the detection routine will search for added
entries on a floppy disk in A: drive if you have one. As of this writing those were
not yet available anywhere. Mark had worked with Britt while testing the eComStation
1.1 Preview version on adding his laptop's components to the additional detection
database. This helped with detection of the laptop's Realtek RTL8139 network card,
but unfortunately there were still problems with detecting the PCMCIA chipset (a
TI PCI1520 chipset).
Fig.11: Verifying the support for detected hardware
Select Components
Network Configuration
Fig.12: Selecting the type of network connection
Fig.13: Network adapter and protocol setup
Phase 2 of the Install
Phase 3 of the Install
End of eCS Installation
Fig.14: Final installation steps
Supplemental software
Connectivity/Networking
Fig.15: eCSCoNet user interface
Fig.16: Internet Assistant for eComStation, selection of programs to configure
Multimedia
Development
Conclusion
References:
eComStation 1.1
Developer: eComStation web site - http://www.ecomstation.com/
Price: various see purchasing web site http://www.ecomstation.biz/
eComStation 1.1 Installation Manual (PDF) - http://www.ecomstation.nl/files/ecs11manual.pdf
eComStation 1.1 FAQ - http://www.ecomstation.com/edp/mod.php?mod=faq3
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