No, it’s not perfect. However, my current testing indicates you will find a lot less trouble getting it to install. I had one small work-around issue which seems common on Dell laptops. Upon booting, you will get an error code:
OS/2 !! SYS01720 OS/2 !! SYS02027
At that point, pop the CD tray and hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and give it a moment to get rolling again, indicated by either the eComStation logo at first, or the white block with “eCS” later in the process. Either way, as soon as you see that, push the CD back in and things proceed as they should. Here are my raw notes; make of them what you will.
Dell Inspiron 4100 Laptop
1Ghz P3, 512MB RAM, Radeon M6/32MB VRAM, 20GB harddrive, CDR/DVD
1. Got a common boot error with codes “OS/2 !! SYS01720 OS/2 !! SYS02027”. Solution was to eject CD, hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and get boot logo, then reinsert CD. Continues fine, but must be repeated each time.
2. Installer needed to change some error in the LVM reporting, and reboot. See #1
3. Next reboot ran media check, a little over 5 minutes.
4. Graphical boot screen; accepted defaults.
5. License screen, agreed.
6. Chose “Easy installation”
7. Could not import key file from USB disk, perhaps because it was not in the first directory. Carefully typed, and had to check a bit for errors before it allowed progress.
8. Chose to wipe disk. A little challenging to follow the instructions on the partition manager. This needs simplifying, but I managed it.
9. Chose to use the HPFS file system, since I have at least one DOS program I hope to run. Formatting took hours because of error checking; the installer would not let me de-select the checking option. Still, no harm done, just a delay (5 hours).
10. During installation options, I chose PCMCIA, but the list of notebooks was limited to IBM Thinkpads. Since I needed that function either way, I let accepted it.
11. Installer chose Panorama driver (VESA generic) which is probably good enough for now.
12. I left ACPI unchecked because I know there is a wizard to help get it right, if that’s possible.
13. Once files were installed (~10 min) we had reboot, same issue as with #1. Pulled CD and tried again, let it get going then reinserted CD. The marker is the white block with “eCS” when it catches correctly.
14. Watched some automated installation tasks, creating objects, etc. Phase 2, ~10 min again. Again, see #1.
15. Nice splash this time on boot. Got sound with the screen, but wrong resolution. Initial setup tasks did offer close to to the right size (1400×1050 vs 1440×1050) but none of the LCD options were close. Decided to opt for the SNAP drivers. Required reboot.
16. Got the SNAP splash, screen flickered once or twice, then came up full display as should be. The SNAP driver is still somewhat limited, but at least it knew how to get a proper display. I read it won’t work with suspend modes.
17. Did the online registration.
18. Took me awhile to find out how to change the background to plain color. Default graphic too dang bright.
The one major disappointment to me is font rendering. This is frankly a major issue with me, petty or not. I conclude that I would not be that interested in using for very long. First, it doesn’t offer anything I can’t get with Linux, except a smaller installed footprint. Some of it’s best software comes from the Linux/Unix community. That means you can keep up with your Unix friends, but only if you really want and need eComStation-OS/2.
I can see how, as a business manager, if I had a high investment in DOS or early Windows applications essential for operations, I could rest in knowing I could put this on the workstations at the office and the employees could learn to use it, but would have a hard time messing it up. Upon installation, just back up your desktop (that’s a feature) and restore it when some idiot removes or adds too many icons. The point is, the usual collection of random junk files won’t impair the system’s performance. You can keep using serviceable older hardware and not worry about the typical Windows 6-month reinstall routine. eComStation doesn’t eat it’s drivers.
This is good business software, but I have no real use for it.
DOS apps can run on JFS and don’t need HPFS necessarilly. Some programs will object to volumes with a large freespace but there is a tool to overcome that.
I had thought that might be true, but frankly I had trouble running down discussions of such things. Most of what I could find using search engines was over my head, in the sense the writer assumed his reader knew a lot more about OS/2 than I did. So when the official guide indicated some older DOS programs choked on JFS, I went with that.
I suppose my biggest disappointment was there is no recent big fat guidebook you can buy from the last few years. That would have made a lot of difference.