OS/2 eZine

16 October 2000

Richard R. Klemmer has been using OS/2 since 1995. He currently works as a programmer for the Department of Agriculture. In his spare time he works for WebTrek L.L.C., an Internet Consulting company.

If you have a comment about the content of this article, please feel free to vent in the OS/2 eZine discussion forums.

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eComStation Updates

Serenity Systems has been working hard on getting the preview of eComStation, the new OS based on OS/2, out the door. I've been trying to keep up with what's been happening, and what eCS is shaping in to. Listed below are some of the updates that have happened to eCS in recent weeks.

BootOS/2 has been added.

From Kim Cheung: "I added BootOS2 to CD #1 - the correct version. To set up a maintenance partition, all you need to do is a single drag-n-drop of the application BooteCS onto, say, your C: drive. It pops up and say: Are you sure (because it will format that drive) and sets up the maintenance partition."

JFS added to base eCS. JFS is a newer file system that until now has only been available on Warp Server for eBusiness. Creating a partition as JFS is optional.

Benefits of Upgrade protection

From Kim Cheung: "One of the main thing we want to do with Upgrade Protection is to provide a steady stream of "control files" for you to add to WiseMachine. There are hundreds and thousands of programs out there that can run under eCS (aka OS/2) and there is no possibility to have them all tested and configured to run under WiseMachine. We will be setting up a file server for subscribers so they can do a simple logon and new control files can be downloaded."

This way you can be sure to enjoy the full benefit of WiseMachine.

There is a new eGroups mailing list dedicated to the User Interface of eCS. http://www.egroups.com/group/eCS_GUI

The Preview started shipping. Those who ordered through a reseller such as Indelible Blue or Mensys should be receiving their copies already. Those that ordered the Warptech or eGroups Promotional special through Serenity will be receiving their copy of eCS in the next few weeks.

The Dutch OS/2 User group posted a message on Warpcast about their experiences installing eCS. Serenity posted a followup. Unfortunately, the Warpcast archives are still offline at this moment.

From Kim Cheung: "I added a link on the www.ecomstation.com page to point to eCS Preview. In that page, you will see a link to known_issues.html with a time stamp on it. As more people try the preview, I am sure there will be things that they uncover. Before you report it, please check this document so we don't end up with reporting the same issue repeatedly."

Smartsuite 1.5 is included with eCS. Mensys has upgraded the media to include 1.51, but Indelible-Blue has not. 1.51 is a free upgrade available for download from Lotus.

There has been a great deal of discussion about LVM on the eCS eGroups mailing list. The key point is that you should understand LVM before installing eCS, and you should read all documentation. There are a couple of articles about LVM on the Warpdoctor Web Site at http://www.warpdoctor.org/ref_lib.html.

Mensys has set up a News Server for eCS support. They have had some problems configuring it, but it should bu up and running at this time. news.ecomstation.nl. Eventually, there will be a number of different news groups dedicated to different aspects of eCS.

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