| Subject | : | New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | Sir_T zelazny.w@gmail.com |
| Date | : | 15 Nov, 2006 on 18:02 |
| Greetings; For the beginning, I'm just beginning my contacts with OS/2, so please be patient with my questions if they are trivial. I took effort to find answers in FAQs and here on forum, but if it's already covered somewhere, please just point me there. I'm planning to try out OS/2 on my old laptop (Thinkpad 600e, Pentium2, 64M of RAM). I want to start with cheap second-hand copy of Warp 4 from eBay - if I 'll like it enough and want more, i'll move to much more expansive ECommStation later. At least, thats the plan. From this forum I learned that version I'm looking for is Warp 4,52. However, there is no 4.52 relase on eBay or similiar places, only lots of 4.0 boxes. So, muy questions are: 1. Can I buy a 4.0 relase and upgrade it to 4.52? How can I do it? How hard is it for first-time-in-life installation? 2. Is there a 4.52 independent relase at all? Is there point in looking for it, or should I try to get and upgrade 4.0? 3. Some of 4.0 packages I found were marked as "upgrade", like this one: Can I buy it and install new system, or does it need existing copy of OS/2 (3.0?) to upgrade it to 4 (so I can ignore it)? Other problem is, I'm going to install it on win98 mashine with single, FAT32 partition. What is the easiest way to install OS/2 without losing Windows partition? Converting partition to FAT? Shrinking FAT32 partition and installing OS/2 on new, FAT one? |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | Radek hajek@vuv.cz |
| Date | : | 15 Nov, 2006 on 18:43 |
| As far as the DOS98 is concerned, you will need a new partition for OS/2. OS/2 comes with a boot manager. Therefore, install the boot manager first then create a new partition for your OS/2. Add both DOS98 and your new OS/2 to the boot manager menu. You'll be able to run both systems on your machine. You will do all this during installation of OS/2: select "advanced installation" and you will do the above during FDISK. The upgrades. I have started with W3 then I bought W4, which was an "upgrade" from W3. Newertheless, the "upgrade" was a full W4, which was completely independent from my W3. It was only cheaper and its licence stated that it is an upgrade from W3, that's all. As far as 4.52 is concerned, I don't know. Anyway, the contemporary version of OS/2, the eCS, is based on 4.52. If you consider 4.52 then you should consider eCS. Well, eCS isn't cheap. |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | BigWarpGuy |
| Date | : | 15 Nov, 2006 on 22:27 |
| For Thinkpad hardware questions, you can go to http://forum.thinkpads.com (there is also an OS/2 section there but this forum is way more active and way more helpful when it comes to OS/2 questions).
--- BigWarpGuy - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - OS/2-eCS.org Director of Communications - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - supporting the past OS/2 user and the future eCS user http://www.os2ecs.org |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | Pete losepete@ntlworld.com |
| Date | : | 16 Nov, 2006 on 00:28 |
Regards Pete |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | obiwan |
| Date | : | 16 Nov, 2006 on 02:21 |
This will destroy all data on the Windows 98 partition. An alternative is to use a utility like fips or parted. IIRC they both work with FAT32 but you must be very careful and follow the directions, especially with fips. Most of us, having done this a number of times, prefer to backup all data and just start with new partitions and reinstall Windows, which I am sure is why Radek omitted the data loss warnings. |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | Radek hajek@vuv.cz |
| Date | : | 16 Nov, 2006 on 09:29 |
| Supposing Sir_T has free disk space (for example, after shrinking the FAT32 partition), it </i>will not</i>. I am always installing winblows and OS/2 on my machine the following way: 1. Install winblows first so that they cannot clobber other partitions. There is only one partition on the disk - the one prepared for winblows. The rest of disk is a free space. I've never seen any data loss. Never. TTBOMK, I haven't omitted any data loss warnings and I've suggested to Sir_T the best I could. |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | Sir_T zelazny.w@gmail.com |
| Date | : | 16 Nov, 2006 on 14:25 |
| Thank you very much for your replies, you clarified a lot. I think I'll backup Windows data, shirink my FAT32 partition and install OS/2 with boot menager, as Radek suggests - and if I lose Windows in process, i'll cleanse partitions and start afresh, as obiwas suggests. I've read OS/2 and DOS can be installed on the same FAT partition and double boot somehow. Is that correct, and does it work with DOS98? Would converting FAT32 partition to FAT and installing OS/2 there along with Windows work? Maybe it's the easiest way.
EDIT: One more thing - is there limit on size of partition for OS/2 v4 - being almost 10 years old system, how big partitions can it work with? How much free space should I prepare for partition? |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | melf mikaelelf@os2ug.se |
| Date | : | 16 Nov, 2006 on 14:48 |
Nor I have experienced any dataloss. Sometimes I've installed the other way around, OS2 first and W98 afterwords and as far as I remember W98 will say something like "there is another patition on the hardrive. You cannot use it if you proceed insallation" or something like that, but the only thing that happened was that the active partition was set to w98 instead, no dataloss. But with win2k, on the other hand, I've had dataloss several times. AFAIK you have to make the partition you'll install w2k on as active partition in before, otherwise, in spite that you choose a free area, w2k will blow your os/2 or eCS boot partiton away, while it leaves other partitions in peace. In any case it is good to take precautions.
|
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | Cris |
| Date | : | 16 Nov, 2006 on 16:25 |
Hi Sir_T!
You CAN do it, but you will lose a lot on the OS/2 experience if you do that. FAT is slow, support for extended attributes is slow and flakey. Moreover OS/2 doesn't support booting out of FAT32, so you should install on plain FAT.
There's no boxed version of Warp 4.52. You may however find the "MCP" and "MCP2" (if I remember correctly) packages: basically they are Warp 4.0 repackaged with all the fixpacks already installed.
Yes, there are limitations. I don't remember however the details. You can overcome the limitations by using hacked boot floppies. Bye |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | Fahrvenugen |
| Date | : | 16 Nov, 2006 on 16:42 |
Hi, Regarding partition size, I think there is a limitation in warp 4 that if the partition is to be bootable, it must be within the first 1024 cylinders of the hard disk. As for size, that isn't as much of an issue. I've installed Warp 4 on as little as 200 Megs, however by doing this there isn't much room for applications (of course, you can always have a "boot" partition and a "data" partition.) As mentioned, you can't get 4.52 boxed, but you *can* get OS/2 up to the Version 4.50 level by installing IBM's Fixpak 15 and IBM's Device Driver 2 (DDK2) fixpaks, along with the varous MPTS, TCP/IP, other networking (Peer, etc) updates. This topic has been covered quite a few times in this forum, do a search for the information. To get Warp 4 to install, be warned that you'll also probably need to create updated boot disks. Search for how to do this on this forum - it is a topic which has also been covered quite a few times. And if your laptop does *not* have a floppy drive, you may have even more difficulty getting it installed, mainly because the original Warp 4 did *not* come on a bootable CD. Essentially the way the original Warp 4 install works is you have 3 floppies that you use to boot, they eventually fire up the installation program which then installs the rest of the OS from the CD. Once you get OS/2 up and running it is possible to create a bootable CD, however that's a topic beyond this discussion. (This is another issue which has been solved by eCS by coming on a bootable CD) Hope this helps. |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | obiwan |
| Date | : | 16 Nov, 2006 on 20:35 |
Radek. Sir_T said he had an existing Win98 installation that he did not want to lose. He did not say there was any free space on the drive. All forms of the standard Windows 98 installation, unless you specifically choose otherwise, use the entire drive, so it is a safe bet there is no free space. Your advice to use FDISK to create an OS/2 partition would necessarily have to destroy the Windows 98 partition, which DOES result in data loss. The only way to avoid data loss is to resize the partition first. When you say install Windows first, you mean after re-partitioning, which causes data loss. You assume (contrary to what he stated) that he starts with no partitions and creates a new one for Windows. As I said before, that is what we are all used to doing, so it does not immediately occur to us to warn people about data loss when they destroy their existing partition. That is why I presumed to excuse the omission. But now you must read what was said and recognize that running FDISK on his setup would destroy his data, and he requested advice that would not do so. As for data loss when resizing, it is possible to lose data, and adviseable to do backups first, but I, too, have had good luck with parted. |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | os2power |
| Date | : | 20 Nov, 2006 on 11:03 |
| Let me point you out to a nice source of info: |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | Sir_T zelazny.w@gmail.com |
| Date | : | 20 Nov, 2006 on 13:26 |
Thanks!
Is that limitation of OS/2 or Boot Menager? Is it possible to use other boot menager (grub?) to multiboot windows and os/2, and would it work around this problem? Has anybody tried it? |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | OriA; alanh77@comcast.net |
| Date | : | 20 Nov, 2006 on 22:21 |
| There's a boot manager called Airboot. You can find a copy to download via a web search, if it isn't on Hobbes (hobbes.nmsu.edu), where most OS/2 shareware and freeware can be found. Whether Airboot will fit your needs, I don't know, as I'm far from an expert on these matters (I still get help from a friend who, unfortunately, hasn't used OS/2 in years.) The OS/2 newsgroups (comp.os.os2.*) are a good source of information, too, as are the eComStation newsgroups at news.ecomstation.nl. OS/2 users are extremely helpful, I've found (and appreciated) over the years. Good luck,
Nerve Center BBS tncbbs.no-ip.com |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | Fahrvenugen |
| Date | : | 21 Nov, 2006 on 03:34 |
As I recall, that is a limitation of how Warp 4 handles boot partitions. I don't think it has anything to do with boot manager. But it is possible that an alternative multi-boot application would work around it, I have not tried it. I could be wrong, as I havn't gone through an eCS install in a while, but I believe the difficulty was fixed with the introduction of LVM (LVM comes with Warp Server for eBusiness, MCP1, MCP2, and all versions of eCS). Generally what I've done on my machines is to make a reasonably modest OS/2 partition (between 2 and 4 Gigs), and then make another partition for data (and / or installing applications). |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | Sir_T zelazny.w@gmail.com |
| Date | : | 13 Mar, 2007 on 18:53 |
| And now something entirely different... How much are non-English versions of Warp4 compatibile with English version when it comes to applying patches / updating system? After stalking online auctions for few months, looking for affordable legal copy of Warp4 i found one, but it's Polish version. Polish is my native langueage so It will be only slightly inconvinient to me, but I wonder if default english patches / updates will be compatibile with that version? If there were separate patches for not-english versions they may be harder to find... or might be discontinued earlier. |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | melf mikaelelf@os2ug.se |
| Date | : | 14 Mar, 2007 on 09:10 |
| When I bought my Warp 4 it was available in my native language, swedish. Latest fixpak in swedish was nr6 so I used the US-english version fp 15 and there was no problem with that. Of course you have to stand mixed languages in help files and so on. It was a while since I used W4 but I can't remember any problems in updating with US-english versions.
--- /Mikael |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | Sir_T zelazny.w@gmail.com |
| Date | : | 14 Mar, 2007 on 13:19 |
| Thank you, that's what I was hoping for. |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | OriAl alanh77@comcast.net |
| Date | : | 14 Mar, 2007 on 22:45 |
| I'd like to say welcome to the world of eCS-OS/2. I tend to be more of a question asker than answerer, as I'm not very good with computers, but the OS/2 community is extremely helpful, as you're seeing already. Without paying more, the farthest you can get starting with Warp 4.0 is to Warp 4.50, which installing Fixpack 15 for Warp 4 will do. The fixpack is free, as are some fixpacks for other parts of the OS, such as TCP/IP. To get to Warp 4.52 required subscribing to IBM's Passport Advantage, or getting eComstation, which is based on Warp 4.52. My suggestion, if you can afford it, is to buy Warp 4.0 via eBay, then buy eCS for the upgrade price (you'll get the latest version, eComStation 1.2R) and install that. My reason for this suggestion is that the eCS 1.2R you get will have almost all the fixpacks and fixes you'd need to add to Warp 4.0 built in, save for a few recent fixes, and you'll have support as well as the eCS Maintenance Tool to add those recent fixes, and any future ones. Take a look at the eCS site, www.ecomstation.com - perhaps some information is there that will help you decide what route to take. Good luck, however you proceed.
Nerve Center BBS tncbbs.no-ip.com FidoNet 1:261/1000 |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | icebear |
| Date | : | 15 Mar, 2007 on 00:51 |
| You are experimenting with OS/2 Warp 4.52, right !? This release is far above version 4.0 !! You really want to do so
|
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | Sir_T zelazny.w@gmail.com |
| Date | : | 16 Mar, 2007 on 03:53 |
That complicates the matters, I was hoping i can find free and easily accessible upgrade from my Warp 4 to 4.52... I'm still certain i saw download on some page dedicated to OS/2... probably it was fixpack 15. Does that mean 4.52 was not free upgrade and had to be paid for separately?
I never saw copy of Warp 4.52 for sale, only Warp 4, so I bought what I could. Until now, I though upgrade to 4,52 will be routine matter. Now I'm puzzled. As of eCS - asuming i'll have extra money for that, is there a point in me buying eCS 1.2 when version 2 is already in beta stage? |
| Subject | : | Re:New to OS/2 - some basic questions |
| Author | : | osw |
| Date | : | 21 Mar, 2007 on 19:29 |
| hi guys! as the man in need seems to speak my language I will write couple of words to him directly if you excuse..... czesc sir_t napisz czego do warpa potrzebujesz a byc moze bede mogl pomoc bye |