“Serenity Systems International is pleased to announce the availability of eComStation 2.0 RC4 for download. eComStation 2.0 will offer unparalleled performance with Bootable JFS and support for multi-core CPUs. This is the eighth public beta release of eComStation 2.0. This product is available for download to all registered eComStation customers with active Software Subscription Services. This version of eComStation 2.0 is the fourth Release Candidate, no big changes or additions will be added before the GA version, it mainly consists of updates to drivers and installation scripts.”
eComStation 2.0 will offer unparalleled performance with Bootable JFS and support for multi-core CPUs.
Is that why their demo live CD does not boot on my E6600?
Edited 2007-12-27 23:56
The demo CD is ooooooold…1.2 or something.
We will need to wait until the Live CD became updated to the eCS 2.0 level. Live CD is the older one.
Considering the time it took them to create the current live CD, I have a feeling they are very reluctant with their live CD editions. I don’t expect a 2.0 version any time soon and I seriously am looking for a descent alternative OS (excluding Linux and MacOS X)…ahh well, their loss.
Edited 2007-12-28 03:11
Hehehe Ecomstation is like the phamtom OS. The gh-OS-t who walks ….
Good to see alternative is alive n kicking
With Rdesktop and Win2003 server or ThinServer, Ecomstation can run the latest Windows Apps
http://www.os2.cz/news3749.html
http://www.aikotech.com/thinserver.htm
With Rdesktop and Win2003 server or ThinServer, Ecomstation can run the latest Windows Apps
..except it’s not though. Windows runs the latest windows apps with the output sent to Ecomstation.
I think “Different” is some sort of spokesperson for ThinServer because he speaks so highly of it in nearly every thread he replies to.
People who want a free solution for when Wine fails, needs only to see this link to my project:
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=367865
I am very pleased to see forward progress with this. It saddens me to agree with so many that OS/2 has very little relevance in the operating scene any more. I used OS/2 full time for almost 5 years and loved it. I came to OS/2 in 1998 which is a bit odd since that time was way past the peak for the OS. Back then it had the apps I needed and did everything perfectly. It was simply stable as hell. But in 2007 (pushing 08) there is just no reason to stick with it unless there is some proprietary app that requires it. I love OS/2 and have hopes for it to live on; but outside of a hobby there is no way to justify this as a full time operating system anymore. The certainly doesn’t mean I don’t have a fully loaded copy of eComstation 1.2 running in the VM under OSX I will always have my faithful friend around for the memories. One thing I certainly have to mention: In 1999 I bought a used IBM 486 PS/2. I boosted the memory to 64MB and added a 100BT Microchannel ethernet card. I installed Warp Server for eBusiness to run my FTP and web server. Today, it is still running without issue and I have not touched it. That is pretty incredible if you ask me. She still runs headless and I use VNC to access it. I can certainly attribute a lot to the rock solid hardware that IBM produced but wow, that is pretty good for an OS too don’t you think? For anyone out there still using OS/2 full time I salute you. It no longer works for me (on the desktop) but I fully understand why you still love it. I don’t think I will ever enjoy desktop computing as much as I did with OS/2. There was just something about it that is hard to explain…
Edited 2007-12-28 03:54
Read more about eComStation PC — http://en.ecomstation.ru/projects/ecspc/?action=notebook
To all of you who think eComStation will not succeed, I think you should re-evaluate your positions. eComStation can have a much greater chance on the desktop than any Linux out there if IBM supported it. Why? Because it is like Windows but it’s not!
IBM are you reading this??? Please stop running away from your destiny and start supporting your child. eComStation has a real chance to succeed. It needs your support. Why do you keep running away?
Hey e-co, thanks for that link.
To all of you who think eComStation will not succeed, I think you should re-evaluate your positions. eComStation can have a much greater chance on the desktop than any Linux out there if IBM supported it. Why? Because it is like Windows but it’s not!
No way it would succeed. IBM has barely put work into OS/2 after the late ’90ies (Single Input Queue anyone?). I have seen eComStation up to 1.2, and it compares roughly to Windows NT 4.0 in look & feel and feature set (though, arguably NT4 has better multi-user support, and a more stable kernel). Besides that, it has relatively little hardware support compared to Windows or Linux.
But more importantly, eComStation suffers from the traditional OS chicken and egg problem: software developers will not develop for eComStation unless there are more users, users will not come to eComStation unless there are more applications. This killed many finer desktop candidates, including BeOS.
Linux got around that, because it had two advantages: 1. initially, a very large part of its user base were developers, 2. Linux is a UNIX-clone, and once Linux became an acceptable UNIX workalike, it could leverage existing UNIX applications. Still, it took many years to get at the point it is now.
The server market has been somewhat easier to get into, but not with fine candidates like Windows, Linux, *BSD, which all have superior server performance, virtualization, good multiuser support, etc.
Suppose that, in the very unlikely scenario that all the problems above were dealt with. Who is going to pay that amount of money for an operating systems in 2008 (eCS is expensive, because Serenity has to pay IBM license fees)? Now, suppose that that problem also vanished. Microsoft is still the licensor of a lot of code in OS/2. If OS/2 became a serious threat, they would pull some strings to shake out that competition.
Face it, OS/2 was a fine system for its time, but the show is almost over. Once Serenity Systems or Mensys decides to back off, the curtain falls.
IBM can no longer listen. This year, the thinkpad has a windows button. I know its Lenovo that has done this, but IBM held out on that button for so long, you knew they were making a statement. I’ve been waiting on a thinkpad with an OS/2 that can run the latest windows for too long. I am now using Vista on the notebook, with reluctance, but it works.
… OS/2 was just about the best thing available for PC. It had a really advanced GUI that wonderful multimedia support and actually used the right mouse button. Then Microsoft released Windows 95, which copied most of the superficial aspects of OS/2’s UI (intergrated Desktop/File Manager, lots of right-click context menus and a heavy emphasis on tabbed windows) while stripping it of most of it’s powerful OO features. This rip-off OS/2-Lite-on-DOS the became Windows 95, which is widely regarded as having the best UI of any MS product ever…
When you combine that with the fact that by the ’95-’96 timeframe, Linux was finally at a point where a (nerdy) mortal could actually use it, the market for non-MS commercial OSes just plain vanished on the PC. Windows 95 looked pretty and was pre-installed on your PC. If you wanted a “real” OS, you could now get one for $5 from Walnut Creek CD-ROM (or free if you were at college and had Internet access) rather than for $250 from IBM. The people who were using OS/2 for its multimedia and GUI features moved to Win95, while the people who were using it because it was better than DOS+Win 3.1 as a multitasker moved to Linux. OS/2 was dead.
Edited 2007-12-28 16:36
Why would anyone using OS/2 want to move to Win95? 95 tried an alternative to the Internet called the Microsoft Network and supported ill fated projects like Microsoft Bob. Remember? There was so much marketing hype.
Warp 4 came out in 1996 (if someone would clarify any mistakes) and even though Lotus made applications for
OS/2 it had 3.11 emulation to run better Office stuff like AmiPro 3.1, Lotus 123, Approach 2.0 probably with an inexpensive upgrade path for native versions. Okay Microsoft had dominated the Office market so Lotus began selling its stuff for scrap but people didn’t listen and it got bought by IBM around this time.
That’s probably why Smartsuite 97 sucked. I remember purchasing it for $50 Australian dollars (50 something US cents to its dollar).
The vast majority of the OS/2 users that I’ve known since I started using OS/2 back in 1992 have moved to the Linux world from OS/2, not to the Windows world.
Some took a detour through BeOS, and a few have ended up with Solaris, a BSD, or MacOS X, but Linux is where most of them seem to have ended up.
That makes sense, at least to me, since OS/2 was a very popular solution among PC hobbyists as much for its “alternative” nature as it was for its relative technical excellence, and Linux is the logical successor on both fronts when compared to Windows.
A few did move to Windows NT 4 and later NT releases from OS/2, but Win9x wasn’t really a common choice that I’m aware of (with the main exception being gaming).
Windows 95 didn’t kill the OS2.
NT4 did. (… And the lackluster Warp 4 release).
– Gilboa
q (though, arguably NT4 has better multi-user support, and a more stable kernel). /q
NT was sooooo stable that BSOD entered the IT vocabulary. (It was even worse on dual processor systems.)
Actually NT4 RTM was far less stable then NT4/RC.
Microsoft needed ~3 SPs to get it right.
… But once it did, my OS2 Warp (3) disappeared from my destkop(s) and server(s).
– Gilboa
I remember running OS/2 in the 90’s for about 5 or 6 years as my primary OS. It was stable, innovative and fun and had a great user community. Although it is outdated today, it was amazing when you consider the low hardware requirements. I started using it when my PC was a 486 with 6 MB of RAM and it ran fine. It seems like there should be a niche for this OS. For example, IBM could strip out the Windows compatibility and other non-essentials and turn it into a fine Mobile/Smartphone OS. Maybe Palm could buy it!