Os/2 and eCs
In this area I would like to inform you on how I did install eCS. What is eCS? eCS or eComStation is the successor of OS/2. As we all know, well maybe not,
OS/2 was created by IBM and Microsoft early nineties to replace DOS. DOS ( Disk Operating System ) was a non graphical operating system used on the
first personal computers. Apple at that time had an graphical interface with a pointing device ( mouse ) and both IBM and Microsoft wanted to have
something like that for the pc. Also OS/2 should be a fully 32bit OS where DOS was 16bit. At a given time IBM and Microsoft did not agree on how to
develop OS/2 and Microsoft and IBM went there own way. Microsoft game with Windows and IBM with OS/2.
Microsoft won the battle, not because they had a better product but only because there marketing was better. IBM was and still is a big company, and in big companies the wheels turn slow, for OS/2 the wheels turned to slow. But it is still there and used in the world. Mainly by banking companies because it's reliable. Even now IBM has stopped support for OS/2 there are still companies and people who use OS/2 by it's successor eCS.
Serenity Systems was allowed by IBM to create an OEM version of OS/2 while IBM still holds the patent to the kernel. Many volunteers started to write drivers and programs for eCS and without those people OS/2 / eCS would not be alive any more. Many thanks goes to those people who spent many free hours of there own time in keeping OS/2 / eCS alive as it is today. In conjunction with Mensys we expect the release of version 2.0 somewhere in 2009. What can you do with eCS? Is there any software? The answers to these questions are easy. You can do with eCS almost everything what you can do with Windows or Linux. There is more than enough software to do daily tasks. To give you an idea: There is Firefox and Thunderbird for internet and email. Upcoming is flash10 support where Adobe has allowed Serenity Systems/Mensys to port flash to the eCS platform. There is Open Office for daily office duties. People work on CUPS which goal is to get printer drivers to the eCS platform. Web, Mail and Ftp server programs are available if you want to set up your own web environment. You have some photo editing tools like PMView and Gimp and when you install Odin you have the ability to bring some Windows programs to the eCS platform. I for myself was successful in installing Photoshop 5.5 ( Yes I know it's an old version ) native in eCS after installing Odin. At a later point I will try to install an older version of Premiere, just for the fun of it.
So is eCS something for you? When you are tired by the way Microsoft forces it's users to do the things they see fit, after all they own the software so they own your computer as well. At least MS thinks it does, and if you think you are ready to step out of the horde and do something different then eCS might be the OS for you. It is not easy at the beginning, that's true but if you hang into it it's worth it. You can make use of Microsoft Virtual PC which you can download for free from the MS website. It has no support for USB but that is MS to blame and not eCS which has fully USB support. With Virtual PC you can try eCS without loosing any MS related stuff. There is another way but that one is more complicated and I can't be hold responsible if you mess up.
So there are two things you must do: (1) Download Virtual PC and install this and (2) go to www.ecomstation.com and buy Ecomstation 1.2 with software subscription so you can also download the 2.0 beta 7a, the version I use at this time to install eCS in Virtual PC.
Microsoft won the battle, not because they had a better product but only because there marketing was better. IBM was and still is a big company, and in big companies the wheels turn slow, for OS/2 the wheels turned to slow. But it is still there and used in the world. Mainly by banking companies because it's reliable. Even now IBM has stopped support for OS/2 there are still companies and people who use OS/2 by it's successor eCS.
Serenity Systems was allowed by IBM to create an OEM version of OS/2 while IBM still holds the patent to the kernel. Many volunteers started to write drivers and programs for eCS and without those people OS/2 / eCS would not be alive any more. Many thanks goes to those people who spent many free hours of there own time in keeping OS/2 / eCS alive as it is today. In conjunction with Mensys we expect the release of version 2.0 somewhere in 2009. What can you do with eCS? Is there any software? The answers to these questions are easy. You can do with eCS almost everything what you can do with Windows or Linux. There is more than enough software to do daily tasks. To give you an idea: There is Firefox and Thunderbird for internet and email. Upcoming is flash10 support where Adobe has allowed Serenity Systems/Mensys to port flash to the eCS platform. There is Open Office for daily office duties. People work on CUPS which goal is to get printer drivers to the eCS platform. Web, Mail and Ftp server programs are available if you want to set up your own web environment. You have some photo editing tools like PMView and Gimp and when you install Odin you have the ability to bring some Windows programs to the eCS platform. I for myself was successful in installing Photoshop 5.5 ( Yes I know it's an old version ) native in eCS after installing Odin. At a later point I will try to install an older version of Premiere, just for the fun of it.
So is eCS something for you? When you are tired by the way Microsoft forces it's users to do the things they see fit, after all they own the software so they own your computer as well. At least MS thinks it does, and if you think you are ready to step out of the horde and do something different then eCS might be the OS for you. It is not easy at the beginning, that's true but if you hang into it it's worth it. You can make use of Microsoft Virtual PC which you can download for free from the MS website. It has no support for USB but that is MS to blame and not eCS which has fully USB support. With Virtual PC you can try eCS without loosing any MS related stuff. There is another way but that one is more complicated and I can't be hold responsible if you mess up.
So there are two things you must do: (1) Download Virtual PC and install this and (2) go to www.ecomstation.com and buy Ecomstation 1.2 with software subscription so you can also download the 2.0 beta 7a, the version I use at this time to install eCS in Virtual PC.
