ACPI testing: slow/unsuccessful boot in SMP APIC

2008-12-29 22:01:16 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

The debugging of ACPI continues, it's necessary improve SMP APIC mode support (/SMP /APIC). This is the nominal mode of work for all modern computers (2 or more cores) The ACPI tracker contains few bug-reports related to slow/failed boot of eComStation in SMP APIC. It's difficult to find the causes by 1-2 "patients", it's necessary examine 20 patients.

Use title for your ticket: SMP APIC, %model of notebook%

• Install ACPI 3.14,
• boot without /SMP, grab ACPI log
• boot /PIC /SMP, grab the log
• boot /APIC /SMP, if system hangs then try debug version of ACPI.PSD make photo of screen with digital camera, what do you see on the screen?

How to post tickets to the bug-tracker

(use LOGS Collector package to collect all logs)

ACPI testing is safe. If you have bootable JFS and system doesn't boot anymore - check the volume from installation CD1

DOS/Win-OS/2 on multi-core processors

2008-12-22 15:33:52 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

Are you interested in support of DOS and Win-OS/2 on multi-processor computers? (SMP APIC), please join the testing (how to register in the tracker) Subj of ticket: VPIC.SYS, %short description of DOS-sessions problems in SMP APIC%

It's necessary find the testers which are ready to test:

• it's necessary test the start of dos machine
• Win-OS/2 sessions with networking
• sound in DOS sessions
• the debugging may require: join irc-channel, PC with com-port

eComStation PC: Week of network adapters

2008-12-22 15:26:11 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

Help us collect information about network adapters working in UNSUPPORTED mode with Genmac wrapper.

Here is the list of tested adapters: 146 models. Add new reports or comment reports posted by other users.

You can share the package of drivers with other users.

Solutions based on eComStation

2008-12-20 01:10:06 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

eComStation may attract new users if it's commercially successful.

OS/2 (eComStation) is alive while people are using and improving the system. The developers of solutions ensure long life for our operating system because computers with OS/2 make money for their customers year by year. The developers bring new industrial technologies to OS/2, feed support service, fill OS/2 with unique features to keep the solutions competitive.

What's new: (homepage of solutions!)

• Plant floor automation systems, Company: Automation ONSPEC Software
• All commercial paging in St.Petersburg (Russia) is based on eComStation solution
• All the ticketing kiosks and machines are using OS/2 Warp
• Actually, the New York City subway replaced Warp 4 with eComStation on their ticket selling kiosks some time ago.
• We added new section: "Airports", please help us find the facts of WSeB usage in the airports (USA)

Why should you write the story today?

• You should do this to protect your investments made into OS/2 platform.
• OS/2 users are located in different countries and cities. They will read the story because of OS/2 word :) And spread the information about your company and products among own colleagues.
• The developer of the operating system will get information about your requirements and improve OS to satisfy them.
• Your story gives stimulus to thousands of users, developers and companies.
• It's easy. Solution story is based on usual product flyer.

Your participation:

• The developers may join the development of Point-of-sale toolkit
• Businessmen - publish new story for Solutions page
• Tech.specialist -- write the story about eComStation in your company.

Where to collect solutions? www.ecomstation.ru site is hosting Solutions list since 2002. Yyou can publish german, dutch, english texts there.

How to write Solutions story? Take the flyer of your product, add Introduction, add one-two paragraphs about advantages of OS/2 usage, add 2 advertisement photos/screenshots, 2 screenshots of back-end demonstating usage of OS/2. Use the web-form to send your contact information

eCoLabs - 20 new tasks for developers

2008-12-19 21:02:25 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

eCo Software published 20 new tasks for thirdparty developers. The goal - enforce different eCo Software products, create small important system utilities, fix system bugs.

The standalone developers have implemented several dosenz of eCo Labs tasks already in the last 1-2 years.

Snow news about eComStation

2008-12-18 14:35:49 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

Some messages from the Internet:

Mensys continues testing of japanese eComStation

New interview about eComStation (for Canada market), community homepage

Samba server is under debugging - it's a good moment to join testing of the server in your network

Let's continue to collect photos of OS/2 and eComStation artefacts

Updated software: NetDrive 3.1.1, FireFox 3.0.5, Apache/2 2.2.11

Useful links for all eComStation users

Are you interested in support of DOS and Win-OS/2 on multi-processor computers? (SMP APIC), please join the testing (how to register in the tracker) Subj of ticket: VPIC.SYS, %short description of DOS-sessions problems in SMP APIC% It's not easy to find testers with Win-OS/2 sessions using network.

Two questions for eComStation users

2008-12-17 03:16:34 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

1. Please look at file x:\var\log\1_ACPI.L1 (on bootable disk) [Systemboard info] section, lines: manufacturer and type Send via web-form: this lines + name of notebook (written on the box) + what is it? motherboard, barebon, netbook or mediacenter? This information may be used to improve eComStation installer in the future.

2. Help us to collect a package of small utilities and applications, which are not included to eComStation but should be installed on every PC. Send the names via web-form.

eCo Labs - more and more tasks

2008-12-08 03:24:47 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

eCo Labs is a fund to attract new developers to eComStation. We are trying to share the income with standalone developers; stimulate the development of new PM-controls and libraries. Moreover, we are going update the portal for developers and enrich it with links and libraries.

To improve quality of eCo Software products, to accumulate templates for new software we published more than 40 tasks.

eComStation 2.0 RC6a is available

2008-12-07 04:06:18 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

Serenity Systems International and Mensys BV are pleased to announce the immediate availability of eComStation 2.0 Release Candidate 6a. Official announcement

• eComStation 2.0 RC6a, README
• eComStation 2.0 RC6a, whatsnew
• Temporary bugs in eCS 2.0 RC6a, follow this recommendations, economize your time
• Send us the bug-reports

You can use eComStation 2.0 parts today, you need eComStation Software Subscription.

Short list:

• eComStation 2.0 RC6a - you can download via mensys.nl
• Drivers for ACPI (PSCOM.SYS, ..) - BETAZONE
• Utilities for eCS (USB Dock, Firewall ports setup, FrImage, InstPDR, ..) - BETAZONE
• Bootable JFS - BETAZONE

Moreover, eCo Software is going to publish eComStation 2.0 Essentials - package of small utilities and applications, which are not included to eComStation but should be installed on every PC.

P.S. Why eComStation release is delayed?

• The final version can be released after full debugging, else support service will be overflowed.
• eCo Software let Mensys down, the company delivered poor quality components several times so the cycles of beta-testing were broken.

Week of Touchscreen

2008-12-04 18:35:08 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

The next is dedicated to collection of info about compatible/non-compatible touchscreens. Our database contains 6 records about touchscreens only, Post new reports using the web-form

This information is important for developers of solutions based on eComStation. (a) Solutions page, b) Developers of POS solutions in DevCon)

Homepage of eComStation PC

eComStation, ready for Christmas

2008-12-04 14:30:16 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

eCo Software recommends to prolong eComStation Software Subscription. Imagine that eComStation is released in 2-3 monthes, then your loss: 3/12 of the subscription price. The subscription gives you the access to eComStation 2.0 drivers and applications, eCS 2.0 release candidates. Don't delay the purchase of the subscription.

Moreover, please support eComStation FAQ project. Your memory can't keep all details in memory. You can use the book as "handbook" and read it during the week-end :-)

eComStation - Het Multimedia Event

2008-12-04 00:14:28 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

Mensys presented eComStation at Het Multimedia Event, It is a dutch 'enduser' fair, 3 days (end of november).

We had some space for demoing eComStation (on a Asus Eee-PC and an Asus Eee-desktop PC) and the first day there was quite a lot of interest. Gerrit Schoenmaker did some lectures/workshops in a seperate room. This fair used to attract more than 100.000 visitors in 3 days"

No comments..

We can use Windows Flash player in eComStation

2008-11-26 03:20:54 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [mensys.nl]

Roderick Klein (Mensys) posted a message:

"After 5 attemtempts in total with first Macromedia and now Adobe I suceeded! Mensys has received permission from Adobe to distribute the Windows Flash with eCS. Without going into legal details and patents. Using the Windows binary makes the best legal and financial sense.

But before people ask, where is a release ?

1. There is no timeline yet for any release, so for now. Its going to at least take something like I expect half a year before we can say more.

2. There are some technical problems. There is a "leaked" version of the Flash 7 plugin with the Innotek runtime. Innotek has not been able to release this source code to the public in a timely fashion before they where taken over by SUN. So there will be code that needs to be rewritten. The ODIN project is a start for this. This will be a complex effort!!

Just to clearly state this again! This is a first step but the legal block is gone now! The writing the code to run the Flash DLL is next big step!!!!

But a step taken to another project to keep eCS on track!"

Roderick Klein at Warpstock Europe 2002, he have demonstrated the сorrespondence with thirdparty companies

Snow heap of eComStation news

2008-11-21 23:33:15 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

Misc news from the Internet:

• New movies about eComStation from Sigurd (movie 1, movie 2)
• The users received eComStation 2.0 RC6 during Warpstock Europe 2008 conference.
• OpenOffice.org 3.x is working and ready for testing, it should be available for testing in several weeks. A blog will be opened so users can monitor the development of the office suite.
• We have published the links to the interview about eComStation several weeks ago (page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4), here is a photo of the computable.nl newspaper:
  

Useful links for eComStation users

IBM starts to sell OS/2 Warp

2008-11-14 17:02:20 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

IBM Corporation started the sellings of IBM OS/2 Warp operatung system again, you can read the conditions on www.ibm.com site

eCo Software newsletter, 200811

2008-11-14 12:59:35 -- Eugene Gorbunoff [ecomstation.ru]

eCo Software is a company which is developing system components for the operating system.

How many products created by eCo Software do you have on your PC?

1. Financial state of eCo Software. The sellings of eComStation software are growing. The investments made into the development of eComStation drivers and applications in 2007 and 2008 exceed the income. We are going return the investments during 2009 and 2010.

2. eCo Software runtime eCo Software runtime is needed for our PM and WPS applications. Updated runtime, More libraries added, more updates.

Current plan: include new libraries, update the documentation.

3. ACPI (http://ecomstation.ru/acpitools)

ACPI is aimed to initialize your PC, activate power management, enable the 2-nd core. ACPI 3.11 is released (BETAZONE). Current stable version: ACPI 3.9.

• Thinkpad users should confirm is ACPI 3.11 works fine.
• Let's test: HP, Dell and Toshiba notebooks. If you didn't posted a report then don't expect that your notebook will be supported by eComStation 2.0.
• Acer notebooks work better.

Current plan: improve suspend/resume for SMP APIC notebooks. Resolve Thinkpad troubles. Create additional utilities to simplify the setup of the system.

4. Panorama VESA (http://ecomstation.ru/panorama)

• Do you have troubles with the latest Panorama VESA (2007/11/20)? (Troubles when switching desktop - fullscreen sessions) Please post the bug-report, are there new lines in popuplog.os2 or not? Which programs cause the problems?
• Does Panorama VESA + widescreen activator support ATI Radeon HD3650? ATI Radeon HD 4850, 4830 and 4870? Intel GMA 4500HD? HD 4550?
• Does Panorama VESA support output to HDMI? (If you attach a monitor to HDMI and boot the system, what happens?)
• Post bug-reports to the tracker

Current plan: collect additional 30 reports.

Widescreen activator:

• 075 -- recognition of the latest Intel (G4x/P4x) mainboard chipsets
• 074 -- additional support for updated version of Intel 965 memory controllers. (support of the latest Intel 945 chipset revision. This is needed for "Medion Akoya" mini laptop.)

Current plan: support ATI ATOM adapters manufactured in 2008.

5. NeoWPS (http://ecomstation.ru/neowps)

screenshots

NeoWPS is aimed to update the User Interface of the operating system. Some applications should be integrated to the desktop to stimulate its development.

• NeoWPS widgets are refreshed (Firewall, POP3 checker, USB Widget are updated)
• eSchemes (apply different color scheme) is updated (installation is improved, editor is damaged)
• Sunny icons (large transparent icons) are updated.
• Central Remote Control is updated (router of commands from multimedia devices, notebooks to system, multimedia applications). New plugin: Monitor of battery low level. Now updating the plugins to support new hardware of the customers.
• Imagination - separated on two parts again (classes + I/O Procs), it's necessary test it again.
• Netlabs.org Lucide is under construction, current plans: improve user interface, improve printing, update the internal engine

Current plan: release PCM and MySafe in November 2008. Release new version of eSchemes in november. Update CRC plugins to support Thinkpad T6x and ASUS EeePC so you can increase the lifetime of the battery and reduce noise.

6. Networking

General network utilities were updated several times, Changes Firewall ports setup is updated (tickets: #1, #7)

Current plan: improve user interface of the utilities, start the development of new utilities.

Why do users like PMDownloader?

• useful for users with modems
• if you are downloading dosenz of files per day
• reconnect feature
• set timeouts and max retries

7. Files/Disk utilities

• Collecting requests to update JUne (JFS unerase/undelete)
• CD\DVD Toys are under construction (high quality front-end for cdrecord), The program is implemented as set of utilities.

8. Multimedia

• Monkey's audio IO Proc is published, now you can listen .ape files without thirdparty tools.
• FrImage picture viewer is released in BETAZONE, (NeoWPS -> FrImage)
• Peter Nielsen updated PMView/Rus Pro in the summer.

Current plan: release eCo Tunes (internet radio) with support of remote control.

9. USB stack

USB Dock is updated in september (utility, list of IDs, pictures)

Mensys started to update USB stack (includes drivers from eCo Software)

10. Support service

eCo Software support service is working for russian and european users.

• You can buy eComStation FAQ brochure from eComStation resellers (233 pages) or via Mensys The book is useful for eCS 2.0, eCS 1.2.5 users. Btw, your memory is lossing the knowledge, the book will help you to remember the tricks and tips.
• We published unofficial FAQ about Genmac Wrapper: http://ecomstation.ru/projects/genmac/genmac.faq
• We have some questions to you: (How to protect system files? How to install Windows to external USB harddisk? To prevent eComStation PC from damage)

11. Additional information:

• Welcome to eCo Software homepage
• eCo Software runtimes
• Full pricelist of eCo Software products
• BETAZONE -- How to download ACPI, Panorama, eSchemes?
• Previous eCo Software newsletter