From: Digest To: "OS/2GenAu Digest" Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:01:48 EST-10EDT,10,1,0,7200,4,1,0,7200,3600 Subject: [os2genau_digest] No. 1641 Reply-To: X-List-Unsubscribe: www.os2site.com/list/ ************************************************** Saturday 12 April 2008 Number 1641 ************************************************** Subjects for today 1 Virtualisation returns to OS/2 (eComstation) : Ed Durrant 2 Re: Virtualisation returns to OS/2 (eComstation) : madodel 3 Burning DVDs - problems : John Angelico" 4 Re: Burning DVDs - problems : The Barrows 5 Re: Burning DVDs - problems : Ian Manners" 6 Re: Burning DVDs - problems : Mike O'Connor 7 Re: Burning DVDs - problems : Ian Manners" 8 Using 4GB RAM with eCS-OS/2 was Re: Burning DVDs - problems : Mike O'Connor 9 Re: Using 4GB RAM with eCS-OS/2 was Re: Burning DVDs - problems : Ian Manners" 10 Re: Using 4GB RAM with eCS-OS/2 was Re: Burning DVDs - problems : Ian Manners" 11 Re: Using 4GB RAM with eCS-OS/2 : Mike O'Connor 12 Re: Using 4GB RAM with eCS-OS/2 : Ian Manners" 13 Re: Burning DVDs - problems : Ed Durrant 14 Re: Virtualisation returns to OS/2 (eComstation) : Paul Smedley 15 Re: Virtualisation returns to OS/2 (eComstation) : Mike O'Connor 16 Re: Virtualisation returns to OS/2 (eComstation) : Alan Duval 17 Re: Virtualisation returns to OS/2 (eComstation) : Ed Durrant **= Email 1 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:57:59 +1000 From: Ed Durrant Subject: Virtualisation returns to OS/2 (eComstation) Over the years we have had some virtualisation engines on OS/2, most noteworthy in my opinion were VirtualPC/2 and SVista unfortunately both of these stopped development when the companies producing them were bought by larger companies and OS/2 host (if not client) support stopped. Well after a pause we now have a new possibility in Virtualbox/2 (Paul Smedley having recently built the latest binaries from the open source code - thanks again Paul), while not fully bug free, this offering has moved on I believe from being only an Alpha version to a very usable Beta version - well worth trying out. Installation is very simple, as long as you have the latest LIBC libraries installed, which most of us have, it's just an addition of one driver into config.sys and unziping the rest of the package into a convenient directory, then you can start the executable (GUI or "header less" - read command line version). Documentation from the website (if in some places obviously a translation) is very good and guides you well through creating and configuring your virtual "guests". I have installed Windows XP SP2 into Virtualbox with no problems and am able to run all the programs I need, including those connecting to the internet and also onwards through a proprietary VPN into my companies network. There are still some bugs - sound doesn't work as yet, Virtualbox can tell Windows that it has an AC97 or sound blaster card but it doesn't connect to the host systems sound card as yet - this is a limitation in all versions I believe, not just the OS/2 version, I am unable to assign the physical DVD-Rom drive to the environment but ISO files are fine (that could just be my system however), I don't think the shared clipboard between the virtual WinXP and host eComstation is working yet but the other guest extensions (that you need to download from the virtualbox dot org website) such as video, keyboard and mouse integration do. What I find particularly good is that VB/2 has support for both Intel's and AMD's hardware virtualisation features and in fact I am running this on my dual-core AMD X2 based system and VB/2 appears to run on core 2 leaving core 1 alone for all host system operations. Apparently some versions of VBox have USB pass-thru to allow USB devices not supported by the host OS to be supported by the guest OS directly - I haven't been able to test this as yet. So all in all very promising. There is however one black cloud hanging over the product. Although released as open source, most of the work has come from Innotek who have just been bought out by Sun Microsystems - I hope this will not be another case of a product becoming available only to be stopped by the vendor being taken over. Sun however have a better record than Micro$oft in this area - OpenOffice being a good example. If Sun take the same open-source-supportive approach with Virtualbox, the product should be available to be updated for several years to come. Another interesting current announcement is that Micro$oft have "forty top engineers" working non-stop on creating a version of Windows XP (note XP not Vista) that requires less resources, for the booming mini-laptop market being led at present by the $499 ASUS EeePC. These systems have limited screen space, slower (600MHz) processors, often limited RAM and limited disk space often based on compact flash type memory. Micro$oft should perhaps check the EeePC Wiki as what they are trying to create - a version of XP that will run off an SD memory card on such systems has already been created using existing tools such as Nlite. Perhaps someone should tell them so that they can use their normal "modus operandi" and "recycle" someone else's ideas as their own - but hey they have plenty of (our) money so why bother telling them ? Why is this relevant ? Well a cut-down version of Win XP would also be ideal to use in any virtualisation engine including VBox due to it's reduced resource requirements. We all know Virtualisation can be used to run a different Operating System - Windoze, Linsux etc. on top of eComStation, also to run multiple systems concurrently on one system, but consider what can be done with an isolated, header less, background winXP installation on eCS. It can run as a router to VPN clients that only work on Windoze. It can run as a print data converter feeding print out to Win Printers (i.e generic postscript in printer specific format out). It can run as a scanning server for scanners without OS/2 support. It can run as a bittorrent engine. I'm sure there are many other applications for this approach. Create the configuration with the GUI turned on and then run the same virtual hard disk in the background command line mode and forget about it - it simply becomes another module of your system that loads when you start the system. Most important - it is run in a secure container so if it gets virus infected, you can close it down (no updates written) and restart it from a previous snapshot. Food for thought ...... Cheers/2 Ed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 2 ==========================** Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:55:06 -0400 From: madodel Subject: Re: Virtualisation returns to OS/2 (eComstation) Ed Durrant wrote: > > There is however one black cloud hanging over the product. Although > released as open source, most of the work has come from Innotek who have > just been bought out by Sun Microsystems - I hope this will not be > another case of a product becoming available only to be stopped by the > vendor being taken over. Sun however have a better record than Micro$oft > in this area - OpenOffice being a good example. If Sun take the same > open-source-supportive approach with Virtualbox, the product should be > available to be updated for several years to come. Ed, Since the OS/2 host is not an official project, Sun really doesn't have much say in whether it continues or not. It is being worked on by Paul as well as a couple of former Innotek employees. I guess they could close down the OS/2 host forum http://forums.virtualbox dot org/viewforum.php?f=10 . The biggest problem is that some of the code is not included in the open source version. I think that currently includes USB support. So whether we will ever see those features is not known. But I was able to do my taxes this year in VBox/2, so it is very usable. Still can only use CD and floppy images (ISO, not real drives). For a list of the differences between the open source version and the closed source version see http://www.virtualbox dot org/wiki/Editions Kudos to Paul and anyone else that is working on VBox/2. Mark -- From the eComStation Desktop of: Mark Dodel Warpstock 2007 - Toronto, Ontario, Canada: http://www.warpstock dot org Warpstock Europe - Valkenswaard close to Eindhoven, the Netherlands: http://www.warpstock.eu For a choice in the future of personal computing, Join VOICE - http://www.os2voice dot org "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That in it's essence, is Fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power." Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Message proposing the Monopoly Investigation, 1938 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 3 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:02:01 +1000 (AEST) From: "John Angelico" Subject: Burning DVDs - problems Hi everybody! For some time we have been successfully doing backups in a two-stage process: a) making an ISO image with mkisofs2 b) burning said image to media with dvddao 2.02 When our data store got too large, we moved from CDs to DVDs, for nearly the same cost of media, and about $A70 for the DVD burner - a cheap upgrade. This has been working well, until late Jan when we exceeded our 4.4Gb limit, and around the same time we bought a new stack of 100 I-mation DVD-R discs. Since then we have not been able to successfully burn an ISO to disc. We have archived old data (there's more to do yet) and got our image size down to 4.1Gb, but we can't get a good burn. We have tried on different computers, but we keep getting failures at different stages - sometimes NIL burned, sometimes up to 94% (best try but no cigar). Most often it's in the range 40-60%. With Netdrive, I can read the ISO images no worries, and we can retrieve individual files, so we don't suspect mkisofs2. Do we have a dud set of media, or could we have a drive that's gone bad? Best regards John Angelico OS/2 SIG os2 at melbpc dot org dot au or talldad at kepl dot com dot au ___________________ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 4 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:17:39 +1000 From: The Barrows Subject: Re: Burning DVDs - problems John, To quote Bob, Your mileage May Vary. I have had over the last 3 years had 4 different types of DVD-R that don't work. Yes alright I stopped buying the really cheap no-namers. I have a Pioneer 109 and am happily using TDK DVD-R at the moment. (Bought at the swap meet.) Good Luck, Michael John Angelico wrote: > Hi everybody! > > For some time we have been successfully doing backups in a two-stage > process: > a) making an ISO image with mkisofs2 > b) burning said image to media with dvddao 2.02 > > When our data store got too large, we moved from CDs to DVDs, for nearly > the same cost of media, and about $A70 for the DVD burner - a cheap > upgrade. > > This has been working well, until late Jan when we exceeded our 4.4Gb > limit, and around the same time we bought a new stack of 100 I-mation DVD-R > discs. > > Since then we have not been able to successfully burn an ISO to disc. > > We have archived old data (there's more to do yet) and got our image size > down to 4.1Gb, but we can't get a good burn. > > We have tried on different computers, but we keep getting failures at > different stages - sometimes NIL burned, sometimes up to 94% (best try but > no cigar). Most often it's in the range 40-60%. > > With Netdrive, I can read the ISO images no worries, and we can retrieve > individual files, so we don't suspect mkisofs2. > > Do we have a dud set of media, or could we have a drive that's gone bad? > > > > Best regards > John Angelico > OS/2 SIG > os2 at melbpc dot org dot au or > talldad at kepl dot com dot au > ___________________ > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 5 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:33:17 +1000 (EST) From: "Ian Manners" Subject: Re: Burning DVDs - problems Hi John, >Do we have a dud set of media, or could we have a drive that's gone bad? Could be either, I had a bad run with imation media, about a 40% failure rate out of a 50 disk bundle yet with Verbatim DVD's I've had 1 failure out of about 50 BUT I've also gone through 3 DVD drives, they just dont seem to make hardware the way they use to. My second Sony DVD writer only lasted for 1 CD burn, which I thought was stuffed as I couldnt read it, then found out the drive could nolonger read or burn anything. I also still use my old Yamaha SCSI CD burner that I bought in the early 90's for CD's and small stuff and its still going strong ! Cheers Ian Manners http://www.os2site dot com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 6 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:33:32 +1000 From: Mike O'Connor Subject: Re: Burning DVDs - problems John Angelico wrote: > Hi everybody! > > For some time we have been successfully doing backups in a two-stage > process: > a) making an ISO image with mkisofs2 > b) burning said image to media with dvddao 2.02 > > When our data store got too large, we moved from CDs to DVDs, for nearly > the same cost of media, and about $A70 for the DVD burner - a cheap > upgrade. > > This has been working well, until late Jan when we exceeded our 4.4Gb > limit, and around the same time we bought a new stack of 100 I-mation DVD-R > discs. > > Since then we have not been able to successfully burn an ISO to disc. > > We have archived old data (there's more to do yet) and got our image size > down to 4.1Gb, but we can't get a good burn. > > We have tried on different computers, but we keep getting failures at > different stages - sometimes NIL burned, sometimes up to 94% (best try but > no cigar). Most often it's in the range 40-60%. > > With Netdrive, I can read the ISO images no worries, and we can retrieve > individual files, so we don't suspect mkisofs2. > > Do we have a dud set of media, or could we have a drive that's gone bad? > > > > Best regards > John Angelico > OS/2 SIG > os2 at melbpc dot org dot au or > talldad at kepl dot com dot au > Hi John, It's a funny thing BUT - here using RSJ for my burning, I not infrequently have coasters on CD-R, but virtually never with the slower-burning CD-RW/DVD-RW (using Verbatim/TDK media for DVD). I know they're slower, but you can reuse them 1,000 times or more. I always burn my eCS/Ubuntu/Linspire/Xandros etc. ISOs to CD-RW not CD-R, and haven't had a failure yet! Regards, Mike ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 7 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:39:15 +1000 (EST) From: "Ian Manners" Subject: Re: Burning DVDs - problems PS, Reading Mike's email reminded me to say that I write DVD's at x2 using CDRecord which seems to be more stable (the speed that is). The DVD writers in an AMD x2 4Ghz CPU box with 4G ram and 2 x 500G SATA drives. DVD drive is the only thing on the IDE connector. My old Yamaha drives in my old Netfinity server, 650Mhz PIII with 256M ram and all SCSI drives. Cheers Ian Manners http://www.os2site dot com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 8 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:51:35 +1000 From: Mike O'Connor Subject: Using 4GB RAM with eCS-OS/2 was Re: Burning DVDs - problems Ian Manners wrote: > PS, > > Reading Mike's email reminded me to say that I write DVD's at > x2 using CDRecord which seems to be more stable (the speed > that is). The DVD writers in an AMD x2 4Ghz CPU box with 4G > ram and 2 x 500G SATA drives. DVD drive is the only thing on > the IDE connector. > > My old Yamaha drives in my old Netfinity server, 650Mhz PIII > with 256M ram and all SCSI drives. > > Cheers > Ian Manners > http://www.os2site dot com/ Hi Ian, That's an interesting point about the 4GB RAM - I don't have a copy on the "throwaway" mail on this system - but there has been a recent thread on one of the Yahoo Tech Groups (eCS?-eCS-Technical), where a user couldn't get over 2GB visible. How much of that 4GB is usable/visible on your setup with eCS-OS/2? Regards, Mike ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 9 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:20:52 +1000 (EST) From: "Ian Manners" Subject: Re: Using 4GB RAM with eCS-OS/2 was Re: Burning DVDs - problems Hi Mike, >That's an interesting point about the 4GB RAM - I don't have a copy on >the "throwaway" mail on this system - but there has been a recent thread >on one of the Yahoo Tech Groups (eCS?-eCS-Technical), where a user >couldn't get over 2GB visible. How much of that 4GB is usable/visible on >your setup with eCS-OS/2? 3583.546M from what I can figure out, which isnt easy. Sysinfo and the 'mem' command are useless, Sysinfo tells me I have -5xxxK of ram from memory (personal physical brain type memory), mem tells me I have 523M of RAM but I know that OS/2 is accessing a lot more than that, as I'm currently editing 30 to 120Mb TIF files with the limiting factor being HD reads and writes, with Seamonkey, TAME, PMMail, and the Java based ImageEditor all loaded. I think there is also something to do with which Kernel is being used as well as the hardware, I've heard reports from windows users that some motherboards will only allow 2G of ram available for Windows even with 4G installed of matched pairs of DDR2 sticks. Re the Kernel, I'd have to look through my old notes from Scotts testcase and other kernel builds. Cheers Ian Manners http://www.os2site dot com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 10 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:23:05 +1000 (EST) From: "Ian Manners" Subject: Re: Using 4GB RAM with eCS-OS/2 was Re: Burning DVDs - problems >3583.546M from what I can figure out, which isnt easy. Should mention I used PMView's system information to tell me. Cheers Ian Manners http://www.os2site dot com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 11 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:29:42 +1000 From: Mike O'Connor Subject: Re: Using 4GB RAM with eCS-OS/2 Ian Manners wrote: >> 3583.546M from what I can figure out, which isnt easy. >> > > Should mention I used PMView's system information to tell me. > > Cheers > Ian Manners > http://www.os2site dot com/ > > Hi Ian, That's roughly what I thought it would be - I'll pass that info on to the person inquiring - was on eCS-Technical - now if you were using ColorWorks V2 - that has support for 64 CPU SMP! Regards, Mike ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 12 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:54:57 +1000 (EST) From: "Ian Manners" Subject: Re: Using 4GB RAM with eCS-OS/2 Hi Mike, >ColorWorks V2 - that has support for 64 CPU SMP! I have it but ImageEditor does what I need beyond PMView for my current projects editing needs. A shame ColorWorks is so old re some of its features. Cheers Ian Manners http://www.os2site dot com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 13 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:20:45 +1000 From: Ed Durrant Subject: Re: Burning DVDs - problems John Angelico wrote: > Hi everybody! > > For some time we have been successfully doing backups in a two-stage > process: > a) making an ISO image with mkisofs2 > b) burning said image to media with dvddao 2.02 > > When our data store got too large, we moved from CDs to DVDs, for nearly > the same cost of media, and about $A70 for the DVD burner - a cheap > upgrade. > > This has been working well, until late Jan when we exceeded our 4.4Gb > limit, and around the same time we bought a new stack of 100 I-mation DVD-R > discs. > > Since then we have not been able to successfully burn an ISO to disc. > > We have archived old data (there's more to do yet) and got our image size > down to 4.1Gb, but we can't get a good burn. > > We have tried on different computers, but we keep getting failures at > different stages - sometimes NIL burned, sometimes up to 94% (best try but > no cigar). Most often it's in the range 40-60%. > > With Netdrive, I can read the ISO images no worries, and we can retrieve > individual files, so we don't suspect mkisofs2. > > Do we have a dud set of media, or could we have a drive that's gone bad? > > > > Best regards > John Angelico > OS/2 SIG > os2 at melbpc dot org dot au or > talldad at kepl dot com dot au > ___________________ > > I have had bad experiences with iMation media - I would suggest you simply go down your local computer4 or office supplies store and buy a 5 or 10 pack of non-name disks and try those. My experience is that from no-name discs, I get about one "dud" in twenty. Since you have hit the 4.x GB limit of the normal DVD-Rs, you may want to try the 8.5 GB versions if your writer can support them - again only buy one or two to try them as I don't know if DVDDAO will handle the 8.5GB discs. Cheers/2 Ed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 14 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:56:54 +0930 From: Paul Smedley Subject: Re: Virtualisation returns to OS/2 (eComstation) Hi Mark, madodel wrote: > Ed Durrant wrote: >> >> There is however one black cloud hanging over the product. Although >> released as open source, most of the work has come from Innotek who >> have just been bought out by Sun Microsystems - I hope this will not >> be another case of a product becoming available only to be stopped by >> the vendor being taken over. Sun however have a better record than >> Micro$oft in this area - OpenOffice being a good example. If Sun take >> the same open-source-supportive approach with Virtualbox, the product >> should be available to be updated for several years to come. > > Ed, > > Since the OS/2 host is not an official project, Sun really doesn't have > much say in whether it continues or not. It is being worked on by Paul > as well as a couple of former Innotek employees. I guess they could > close down the OS/2 host forum > http://forums.virtualbox dot org/viewforum.php?f=10 . The biggest problem is > that some of the code is not included in the open source version. I > think that currently includes USB support. So whether we will ever see > those features is not known. But I was able to do my taxes this year in > VBox/2, so it is very usable. Still can only use CD and floppy images > (ISO, not real drives). For a list of the differences between the open > source version and the closed source version see > http://www.virtualbox dot org/wiki/Editions > > Kudos to Paul and anyone else that is working on VBox/2. Thanks :) One day when/if I ever get any free time, I'll try take a look at some of the issues remaining with the OS/2 host...... Cheers, Paul. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 15 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:47:12 +1000 From: Mike O'Connor Subject: Re: Virtualisation returns to OS/2 (eComstation) Paul Smedley wrote: >> Kudos to Paul and anyone else that is working on VBox/2. > > Thanks :) One day when/if I ever get any free time, I'll try take a > look at some of the issues remaining with the OS/2 host...... > > Cheers, > > Paul. Hi Paul, And that will certainly be most appreciated, like the rest of your great works! Regards, Mike ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 16 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 11:20:07 +1000 From: Alan Duval Subject: Re: Virtualisation returns to OS/2 (eComstation) Ed Durrant wrote: > > Over the years we have had some virtualisation engines on OS/2, most > noteworthy in my opinion were VirtualPC/2 and SVista unfortunately > both of these stopped development when the companies producing them > were bought by larger companies and OS/2 host (if not client) support > stopped. > > > Well after a pause we now have a new possibility in Virtualbox/2 > (Paul Smedley having recently built the latest binaries from the open > source code - thanks again Paul), while not fully bug free, this > offering has moved on I believe from being only an Alpha version to a > very usable Beta version - well worth trying out. Hi Ed, Is Virtualbox/2 as good as VirtualPC/2 at it's present state of development? Regards, Alan Duval ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **= Email 17 ==========================** Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:53:04 +1000 From: Ed Durrant Subject: Re: Virtualisation returns to OS/2 (eComstation) Alan Duval wrote: > Ed Durrant wrote: >> >> Over the years we have had some virtualisation engines on OS/2, most >> noteworthy in my opinion were VirtualPC/2 and SVista unfortunately >> both of these stopped development when the companies producing them >> were bought by larger companies and OS/2 host (if not client) support >> stopped. >> >> >> Well after a pause we now have a new possibility in Virtualbox/2 >> (Paul Smedley having recently built the latest binaries from the >> open source code - thanks again Paul), while not fully bug free, this >> offering has moved on I believe from being only an Alpha version to >> a very usable Beta version - well worth trying out. > Hi Ed, > > Is Virtualbox/2 as good as VirtualPC/2 at it's present state of > development? > > Regards, > > Alan Duval > > It's getting close - I'd say about the same as VPC/2 v4 - so not quite as good as VPC/2 v5. There's a few bugs and features to be ironed out but it is certainly usable. Cheers/2 Ed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------