I am an avid OS/2 user, and have been for years now. I also have been a Creative Labs fan. But, when I went to there website I found some news that horrified me. They are no longer supporting the OS/2 platform for up comming technologies. I think this is a major blow to IBM and it OS/2 users when significant hardware vendors deem IBM as "un-enthusiastic" about the future of OS/2. In light of this, could you recomend (maybe even write an article about) alternative sound cards that continue to support a superior product. If not, at least I have vented some anger and someone else has seen my views.
In the January 17th issue of OS/2 e-Zine!, Jon Cochran briefly discusses the ESS sound card. You might want to look into them.
Did you notice that pkunzip2.exe v1.11-OS/2 (but not pkzip2) is apparently bundled with Warp 4. Otherwise I don't know how it got on my and my colleague's machine, and in a directory on my path, at that. Try "pkunzip2 /?" at a command line.
You are absolutely right. If you read the copyright statement displayed by running pkunzip2.exe, you'll see that IBM has licensed it from PKWare, just for us OS/2 users.
Is Warp 4 server advanced an applications server, meaning can one logon from elsewhere and run applications on the box running the server...using that boxes CPU?
Also, can a number of people do it simultaneously? That is, use the same app simultaneously from a number of stations?
Warp Server SMP is somewhat capable of being an applications server, but this is a function that is more of a hold-over from early versions of IBM LAN Server. It's a function that, to my knowledge, is rarely used with the leading PC based server products (at least I've never had the need for it). The main functions of Warp Server SMP is that of a normal file and print server.
That said, however, Warp Server SMP comes complete with the full TCP/IP base stack well known in OS/2. Since virtually every application that runs on OS/2 will benefit from the SMP capabilities, all of the TCP/IP services like recexc, rsh, telnet, ftp, etc., also benefit. I routinely telnet to our SMP server to do a number of tasks and can definitely tell the difference from our single processor systems.
Other than that, most services like this are going to come from add-on packages available for Warp Server. The DCE add-on, for example, brings you into a completely new and different world of networking where RPC services are much more common.
I don't understand that there is great trouble to install OS/2 Warp Server SMP on a Compaq Server. Compaq has a OS/2 Support Disk (actual Ver. 2.10B) with all drivers on it. Also the readmes are clear so I think the support of OS/2 is good.
We here in Germany have many OS/2 users, which are happy to have Compaq Servers or Desktops with OS/2.
Johannes Schroeder
CompaqCare Center Germany
In my experience, I have yet to see an OS/2 installation go flawlessly on a Compaq server. Some have been close to flawless. I've installed Warp and 2.11 on more of these systems than I can remember. The support disk was and is a vast improvement over what was originally there, but the latest version of the disk I had did not work properly.
For the purposes of the article, I used the OS/2 support disk that came in the box with the brand new server. This disk failed to properly copy over all of the drivers to the installation disk, and it also improperly updated the config.sys file for Warp Server and Warp Server SMP. In both cases, the IBM1S506.ADD entry was still present and the CPQARRAY.ADD entry was not placed at the beginning of the CONFIG.SYS file as recommended in the documentation.
Leaving the IBM1S506.ADD entry in causes Warp not to be able to recognize the entire array properly for partitioning it. I had to manually copy over the files needed and update the CONFIG.SYS file. Once this was done, the installation went fine until needing to install the NetFlex-3 ethernet drivers.
Here, the file NFX.MSG does not get copied to the \IBMCOM directory as it should. Instead it winds up in another directory completely. At the point where Warp Server Installation needs to reboot after installing the basics of MPTS, you need to do the Alt-F1 routine, go to a command prompt, manually copy over the file and then reboot the system. After that, installation will complete normally. I should note that this problem only happens on regular Warp Server and not on the SMP version.
I have to rebuild another test server on Monday, so I'll download and try it with the latest drivers on Compaq's Web site.
I should comment that, especially compared to others, Compaq's OS/2 Server support is pretty good. Installing Warp Server on an HP system was nighmarish by comparison. Also, I had to write my own .NIF files before to get an OS/2 device driver for a particular brand of CDDI card to install properly. Now THAT was REALLY ugly! But I did get it to work eventually.
Hey, here's a thought on how IBM should do it all:
Make a PC from their own hardware as much as possible(IBM 6x86, MMwave sound cards, etc.) so they get'em dirt cheap.
Calculate the cost (which should be very low), and set the base (HW only) price to zero o minimal profit.
Preload OS/2, OD 1.5 and SmartSuite 96 on it.
People wll buy it as it is so dirt cheap (maybe under $1500) and so powerful, and will wind up using OS/2.
Got that, Mr. Gerstner?
Got that, Mr. Laurie?
Got that, Mr. Thompson?
One of the first questions I always ask about antivirus products is, "How long is it good for?" For some reason most reviewers don't seem to ask that question.
Most AV programs come with a certain number of updates (critical, the way viruses themselves are so frequently "updated".) It's important to know how freqently these updates come and how many you can get before you have to "re-up".
What is Dr Solomon's policy?
Dr. Solomon's, unlike most products, actually comes with 1 year of upgrades included in the price. Updates are monthly or quaterly, depending on which option you choose. If you select monthly updates you pay a little more. As well, if you buy off the shelf, they will instantly send you an update if the version you purchased was not the latest.
I currently use Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for enterprise purposes and I found two serious limitations: The Guard (shield) is not present in OS/2, only in DOS sessions and gives a sharing violation every time I start a WinOS2 session. And the WinGuard (shield for Windows) didn't start, maybe claiming for a 386 Enhanced session, even if I set 386_Enhanced_Compatibility in the session's settings. Dr. Solomon's brazilian support said they were not interested in giving more OS/2 support and they were simply sorry... Now I'm looking for another anti-virus whose shield works in WinOS2 session (McAfee and TBAV don't work also).
I find your Reader's Choice categories too limited. There are many, many general purpose utilities and yet you have one entry for them in the very broad Development/System heading under Best System Utility Tool. Where would a Zip shell fit? A system monitor like PMPatrol? 4OS/2? A unique utility like SpellGuard?
You should have a category for System Utility, General purpose utility, command line utility and maybe a couple of others.
I hope you can make these changes next year.....
These are fair concerns. We agonized over the choices for categories but we realize that they may not be perfect. We will certainly be learning from this year's mistakes and successes.
Excellent hardware review of the MCA Pentium. It was much better than the reviews in a lot of print computer magazines, much more informative.
One thing though: while reading the review of the MCA machine, an ad for MCA hotlinked to mercede.com came up on the top of the http file. I think it's maybe not so great to have a review of an advertiser's product on the same web page as an advertisement from them.
But you guys are doing great work, and I hope you keep it up.
Just for the record, advertisements and reviews are completely independent of each other here at OS/2 e-Zine!. Whether any company chooses to advertise or not to advertise with us does not influence our reviews of their product.
Many companies feel as you do and choose not to advertise on or near their products' reviews just to avoid the appearance of favour. However we make no stipulation that this must be the case. It is completely up to the individual advertiser.
Good to know how the systems work and the other items mentioned in the reviews. I'm a relatively new OS/2 user and I would be very interested in the technical support supplied by the folks that supply the systems.
I wouldn't mind paying a premium price for a pre-loaded machine, but I sure would like to have the peace-of-mind of knowing help was available, if needed.
About the Adobe decision to not release an OS/2 version of the Exchange/Distiller/PDF writer:
I have installed ghostscript and gsview for OS/2 and this program allows one to print to the PDFwriter!
Simply print any file from any OS/2 program at all as raw postscript. Then open it in GSView (ghostscript version 4.03). Then print it to a file using the pdfwriter and ready! Works very well for any graphics and many (but not all) OS/2 fonts. The good thing is of course that GSView is free.
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