| Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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     posts: 124 since: 20 Nov, 2003
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81. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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last updated at 15 Dec, 2006 13:57 (1 times) ecsguy, you're actually making some points that counter your belief in VMs: ecsguy (14 Dec, 2006 14:29): It is important to remember that what a technology is capable of is different from what a business will decide to provide.In the article below Parallels mentions that there will be significant video performance improvements soon in the ms win guest. Corp/enterprise customers must be asking for those 3D gaming video features since everybody knows "Home" users hardly ever use virtual machines.
Yes, and do you know what that means? That you need specialized guest drivers (so called "additions" in VPC speak) to achieve good performance. Windows users can rest assured that the best additions will be developed for them... what about OS/2 users? You can conclude the exercise yourself. BTW, if just one (big enough) enterprise calls for a feature (and has a sufficiently large number of licenses) you can bet the sofware house will run to implement them. OpenGL can be useful to some kinds of enterprises (for example for graphical simulations). I said there are few enterprises interested, not nobody.
Also there are other people that noticed that even today VM performance can be competitive with "real" hardware. Parallels- Rudolph: Parallels Desktop for Mac works on Intel-Macs only and offers performance that rivals - and sometimes exceeds - that found on a "real PC".
That's the nicest quote I ever read. Virtualized HW that "exceeds" real HW? You must be kidding man. What it means is that Intel-Macs exceed the average PC in terms of performance, and so a VM running on them _can_ exceed performance of an average PC. But on the same HW, a VM will always be inferior to the bare metal, or at best on par. But even if on par, you are left with a virtualized box which does not match your physical box. I personanlly will not hold my breath waiting for these video enhancements to show up in the Parallels VM OS/2 guest.
Exactly. So?... Forget about running OS/2 as guest with decent performance. If business decisions are different than what the OS/2-eCS community wants, there is an alternative. We can start now or keep waiting while falling further behind the other OSes.
I'll wait, thanx. BTW, saying that your thoughts=business decisions is at least misleading. Bye |
| Date: 15 Dec, 2006 on 12:12 |
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     posts: 40 since: 24 Mar, 2004 |
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82. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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last updated at 15 Dec, 2006 19:56 (1 times)
Cris (15 Dec, 2006 13:57): ecsguy, you're actually making some points that counter your belief in VMs: ecsguy (14 Dec, 2006 14:29): It is important to remember that what a technology is capable of is different from what a business will decide to provide.In the article below Parallels mentions that there will be significant video performance improvements soon in the ms win guest. Corp/enterprise customers must be asking for those 3D gaming video features since everybody knows "Home" users hardly ever use virtual machines.
Yes, and do you know what that means? That you need specialized guest drivers (so called "additions" in VPC speak) to achieve good performance. Windows users can rest assured that the best additions will be developed for them... what about OS/2 users? You can conclude the exercise yourself.
I have not contradicted myself. I said that if the choice is no native driver or using a VM that using VM is probably better. With the VM THERE IS A BASIC driver for video, NIC, disk controller, sound. Those basic drivers has been around for years without needing changes to allow OS/2-eCS guest to access standard basic functionality. With the basic driver in the VM you can at least USE the OS/2-eCS guest with the new device (video, NIC, wireless, sound, disk controller) for the normal basic functions that most people have as minimum requirements. Also the performance of those basic functions is usually adequate for normal usage (probably not games or CAD, etc ). I agreed that the performance was probably going to be slower than a native driver. However IF there is no native driver the comparison is meaningless. With a VM you can get use out of most devices at a decent performance level vs NO USE (no native driver). I have used dual head before and also set it up for a client. It is very nice but it is not something most users do even on windows. Dual head is not a basic function. 3D was not a common feature in the past and nnow it is (at least for windows users) It is understandable that the OS/2-eCS guest vidoe driver does not support 3D when even after all these years most OS/2-eCS native video does not support 3D functions. Cris (15 Dec, 2006 13:57): BTW, if just one (big enough) enterprise calls for a feature (and has a sufficiently large number of licenses) you can bet the software house will run to implement them. OpenGL can be useful to some kinds of enterprises (for example for graphical simulations). I said there are few enterprises interested, not nobody.
And they usually discuss these enterprise features in game magazines? Cris (15 Dec, 2006 13:57):
Also there are other people that noticed that even today VM performance can be competitive with "real" hardware. Parallels- Rudolph: Parallels Desktop for Mac works on Intel-Macs only and offers performance that rivals - and sometimes exceeds - that found on a "real PC".
That's the nicest quote I ever read. Virtualized HW that "exceeds" real HW? You must be kidding man.
Nope, I am not kidding and am I am sure Rudolph wasn't either. Especiailly in an interview with a gamer's magazine. Many gamers have hardware that make number/data crunching scientists drool. It is in fact true. Performance of VM guests on today's desktop machines can be competitive and SOMETIMES CAN BE FASTER than native. Here is another one that most people think is impossible but does in fact happen - "accessing data across a network can be faster than using a standard local disk drive. There are many factors that affect performance. The interactions of these factors do not always give the results we usually assume." Cris (15 Dec, 2006 13:57): Exactly. So?... Forget about running OS/2 as guest with decent performance.
Nope, not necessarily true. Depends on the users hardware, some users already can get decent performance TODAY running OS/2-eCS guest in a VM. Hardware technology is improving so fast that what seemed impossible yesterday is doable today and is a common everyday thing tomorrow. Yesterday I bought a bowl of soup ($40, shark fin) that cost more than the price of a new PC DVD+-RW burner ($37) today. 10 years ago it was impossible for a PC to run a VM because the hardware was too slow. 5 years ago the hardware was fast enough for servers. Now today everyday common machines that are sold to even home users are fast enough to run OS/2-eCS guest at DECENT speed. If the user has native OS/2-eCS drivers then that is optimal. If they DO NOT HAVE native drivers they could run OS/2-eCS as guest in VM. And the home machines sold in 2007 will run the VM even better. |
| Date: 15 Dec, 2006 on 19:51 |
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Normal member in spoc
       posts: 7 since: 02 Jan, 2001 |
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83. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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| Before just going out on a limb and proclaiming that running OS/2 in a virtualized environment is too slow and basically crap, have you actually tried it? I run eCS 1.2R under Parallels on my Mac mini (1.83GHz Dual Core, 2GB RAM) and I have to say that performace is very snappy. It would probably be even better if I splashed the VM with a lot of RAM but OS/2 does just fine without being RAM-greedy unlike Windows 2000 where I add a lot more RAM to get the same level of performance. And while I don't know what kind of speed OS/2 would have on the bare metal of my machine (and I never will, there are no drivers, period) I'm more than satisfied with the speed I get thru Parallels. It just works, and it's fast enough for what I do. Now, YMMV, but to dismiss it as crap without at least giving it a try sounds pretty dumb to me. |
| Date: 29 Dec, 2006 on 16:07 |
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     posts: 212 since: 11 Apr, 2003
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84. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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last updated at 29 Dec, 2006 20:37 (1 times) I really don't know where this discussion is taking us, sometimes it seems pointless. For my sake it is simple; I don't want and I can't see a point in running my favourite OS as a guest on whatsoever. I've run w2k as guest on eCS on SVISTA for the purpose of using dreamweaver and photoshop and its really acceptable, and probably eCS runs better as guest, but in the end...an OS as a guest is just a guest OS and not a working solution. And again, though I can't judge it: voyager seems to be the realistic longterm solution.
/Mikael
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| Date: 29 Dec, 2006 on 20:28 |
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     posts: 40 since: 24 Mar, 2004 |
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85. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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| Date: 03 Jan, 2007 on 09:12 |
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     posts: 40 since: 24 Mar, 2004 |
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86. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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| Another eCS user says running eCS in a VM is sometimes better than running native with no driver. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/eComStation/message/73665 Subject [eCS] Re: APM On Sat, 02 Dec 2006, "jmurthy" <jmurthy@...> wrote: Thus it is equally irritating to constantly hear that one should just go to ebay and buy old hardware. I use my laptop for some rather CPU and RAM intensive work and need modern systems. It's all about choice but it appears to me that there are fewer and fewer options to keep eCS, particularly on laptops. Waiting for two years after buying a new laptop to use wireless is not worth it at this stage. Right now it may be that the best option is to get a Mac with Parallels. That way the hardware would work right out of the box and I would be able to maintain my applications the most important of which would be Wordpro and Mesa 2. Jayant |
| Date: 03 Jan, 2007 on 09:18 |
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87. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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| Must be a lot of servers running "64bits sound cards and multiple monitors" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.virtualization.info/2006/11/vmworld-2006-round-up.html VMware launches Workstation 6.0 public beta Wednesday, December 27, 2006 ... excerpt.. # New physical hardware support Support for USB 2.0 devices, 64bits sound cards and multiple monitors # Headless mode Virtual machines can now run in background, without the VMware interface running # VNC Remote Control Virtual machine can now be controlled through VNC instead of using guest OS remote management tools (no need to install VNC server inside the guest OS) ------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/beta_testing/ Parallels Desktop for Mac Update Beta3 (Build 3106) ... excerpt.. * NEW! USB 2.0 support - "Plug and play" popular USB devices like external hard drives, printers, and scanners, and use them at full native speed. * NEW! Full-feature virtual CD/DVD drive - Burn CDs and DVDs directly in virtual machines, and play any copy-protected CD or DVD just like you would on a real PC ------------------------------------------------------- QEMU is the only VM that gives the eCS community a chance to stay even with the major OSes. http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/ |
| Date: 03 Jan, 2007 on 09:39 |
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     posts: 124 since: 20 Nov, 2003
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88. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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Hi all, I have lost any interest in this discussion, as all the pro-virtualization folks seem to ignore the main points every time, focusing on the glitches.I completely agree with melf: I see no point in running anything as a guest on another OS, unless it is an occasional run just to use something that's not available natively. dlundh: I run eCS every day under M$ VirtualPC at work, since it's the only way I'm authorized to run another OS (I'm forced to use WinXP Pro at work). I run it to maintain some of my software projects when I have no time at home; I do it because I am FORCED to, and I know this is NOT the way I would like to use OS/2 (or any other OS btw... not as my main OS). OTOH, I wonder if ecsguy is running eCS virtualized. I'd say no. ecsguy: you're always taking Parallels as an example, and then you say "QEMU is the only VM that gives the eCS community a chance to stay even with the major OSes" But this is not the main point. The main point is: WHY OH WHY should I use a guest OS as my main OS when I have a NATIVE OS (HOST OS) that fully exploits all of my hardware, and does it better then any guest OS could possibly do? This is NOT the way to the future of OS/2: it could be a way of protecting your investment and to keep on using OS/2 while you prepare for a switch. It surely is NOT the way to attract new users or to keep the current users happy. Again I dare you: try to use OS/2 as a guest OS for a reasonable amount of time: you'll find that you'll be working in the HOST OS more and more until the point where you'll find it more convenient to simply dump the GUEST. That's my last word on this thread. Period. Goodbye |
| Date: 03 Jan, 2007 on 10:05 |
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       posts: 198 since: 10 Apr, 2001
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89. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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You could just install winXP on your mac and run it AT native speeds.. I agree, this discussion is pointless. If I had to own a mac (which cost way too much) to run OS/2 i would just use MacOS. If I had to have winxp on my machine to run OS/2 I would simply USE winXP. ecsguy (03 Jan, 2007 09:12): http://www.virtualizationdaily.com/archives/86_the-os-is-under-attack-continuing-the-conversation.htmlThe OS is under attack ... continuing the conversation Published December 6th, 2006 ... excerpt.. So it's really hard for me to see replacing Mac OS X with a hypervisor, unless that was an Apple designed hypervisor that's heavily optimized for the sharing of hardware. Today that doesn't exist, BUT just a year ago, neither did the possibility of running Windows at NEAR NATIVE SPEEDS on your Mac.
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| Date: 11 Jan, 2007 on 22:32 |
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     posts: 40 since: 24 Mar, 2004 |
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90. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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| Virtualization continues to get closer to native speed. Accelerated video available in the guest. That means that today, virtual video can be faster than running native for some video cards. ---------------------------------- http://www.innotek.de/media/VirtualBox_Brochure.pdf ... excerpt.. Virtualization - unlike ordinary applications - always operates at the lowest system level and therefore comes with risk of being able to compromise your system and data due to implementation errors and backdoors. Only a vendor that offers source codes and maintains an open development strategy can be considered to be fully trustworthy.This is where VirtualBox excels. .... Better video support. While the virtual graphics card the VirtualBox emulates for any guest operating system provides all the basic features, the custom video drivers that are installed with the Guest Additions provide you with extra high and non-standard video modes as well as accelerated video performance. |
| Date: 15 Jan, 2007 on 22:42 |
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     posts: 40 since: 24 Mar, 2004 |
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91. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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| VirtualBox, Win4Lin, KbVM are all based on QEMU source code XEN also uses QEMU code to run unmodified guests like Microsoft wwindows. --------------------------------------------------------- http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/News * Jan 15, 2007. InnoTek today released VirtualBox Open Source Edition (OSE), marking an important milestone in the development of PC virtualization software. VirtualBox OSE is the first professional PC virtualization solution released as open source under the GNU General Public License (GPL). With VirtualBox, customers get the most versatile virtualization product on the market, both for enterprise and individual use. VirtualBox' open source license allows everyone to contribute to the development of the product and customize it to suit individual needs. Backed by Europe's largest team of virtualization experts, VirtualBox continues to be developed and supported. |
| Date: 15 Jan, 2007 on 22:45 |
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     posts: 46 since: 09 Dec, 2004 |
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92. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Status%3A%20Guest%20OSes says this about VirtualBox guest status under OS/2 Warp:Works: Yes. Stability: Good. Performance: Very Good. Remarks: Requires VT-x hardware virtualization support. No Guest Additions available yet. QUESTION: What does "VT-x" mean? |
| Date: 16 Jan, 2007 on 00:00 |
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       posts: 37 since: 23 Jun, 2002 |
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93. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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Terry (16 Jan, 2007 00:00): Remarks: Requires VT-x hardware virtualization support. No Guest Additions available yet.QUESTION: What does "VT-x" mean?
The latest processors feature a 'virtualization' enhancement. Intel calls it Vanderpool. The following processors should support it: Pentium 4 (6x2), Pentium D (9x0), Xeon (3xxx/5xxx/7xxx), Core Duo and Core 2 Duo processors. AMD calls it Pacifica and it's available with the latest CPUs (all socket AM2, F and S1 processors). The old Athlon 64 CPUs for socket 939 and 754 or the old Athlon XP for socket A don't have this feature. It think VT-x is only a reference to Intels virtualization and may not include AMDs implementation.
You may also want to read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization
---
Regards, Juergen Ulbts (Germany)
*** Java Movie Database - http://www.jmdb.de/ *** *** New version available (2006-11-17) *** *** Website has been updated ***
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| Date: 16 Jan, 2007 on 02:02 |
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     posts: 40 since: 24 Mar, 2004 |
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94. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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magog (16 Jan, 2007 02:02):It think VT-x is only a reference to Intels virtualization and may not include AMDs implementation.
AMD code name was Pacifica. Now it is called SVM The VirtualBox change log shows that Innotek added AMD SVM support in the latest release. ---------- Chapter 10. ChangeLog 10.1. Version 1.3.2 (2007-01-15) VMM: experimental support for AMD SVM hardware virtualization extensions |
| Date: 16 Jan, 2007 on 13:54 |
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95. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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| Looks like Parallels has fallen behind Innotek. Parallels does not expect to have video acceleration for a couple more months. ----------------------------------------------------------------- http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/1/11/6582 Ars at Macworld: Interview with Parallels Ben Rudolph January 11, 2007 @ 2:26PM - posted by Jacqui Cheng ... excerpt .. when might we expect the next major beta (key word here being "major") and he said that it should be within the next couple of months. There will be a few incremental releases in between (here was even one released today! Build 3120), but the next major beta should bring us a lot of cool stuff that many users have been asking for. Such as? Much to many of your delight, hardware graphics acceleration is expected to come in the next major beta, which as I said in the paragraph above, will be available within the "next couple of months. |
| Date: 16 Jan, 2007 on 14:02 |
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       posts: 2298 since: 12 Jan, 2001
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96. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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Ben Dragon (17 Nov, 2006 01:27): Well, I guess everyone has heard the latest news by now. In case you haven't Scitech has ceased development of their SNAP video drivers and is selling the code... all of it... and moving onto other things.What does this mean for eCS/OS2 users?Well, I foresee several possibilities:
1. Someone buys the code and a) drops eCS/OS2 support b) or continues eCS/OS2 support and either enhances it or not... 2. No one buys the code and we're left out in the cold or... the least likely... 3. No one buys the code and they release it as open source.
I'm hoping for the 1b option myself, or, as a distant 2nd, the last option.But what will we, as a community, do for upcoming video hardware support if we get left out in the cold WRT video drivers? I don't think anyone would like to go back to the situation that we had in the past prior to Scitech and SNAP, (or SDD).There is a major new MB setup coming that, supposedly, won't require drivers as we now know it, but that hasn't happened yet and no one knows what's actually going to be in the final production version. But if it does happen as billed it will be OK for us... if and when that happens, but what will be do in the meantime? WRT to the short term SNAP will work with what's out there, but for the long haul...  Well... I guess we could pass the hat... :\
Perhaps a 'bounty' to help raise funds? Then one could start a non-profit group to develope it? (just thinking out loud). It would be nice if Serenity Systems could buy the code; at least the OS/2 part. Since Mensys has something for all os's, perhaps they could buy it and develope it for all os's?
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BigWarpGuy - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - OS/2-eCS.org Director of Communications - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - supporting the past OS/2 user and the future eCS user http://www.os2ecs.org
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| Date: 17 Jan, 2007 on 18:07 |
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     posts: 7 since: 03 May, 2005 |
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97. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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| Projects like SNAP may be difficult to sustain as open source should manufacturers comply with Microsoft's requirements to enforce copy prevention on Vista. There's an interesting article on this at http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html Vista will apparently prevent copying of multimedia files by downgrading picture and sound quality if the hardware is not "authorized" by Microsoft. "Authorization" is determined via a database of "fingerprints" generated through a hardware functionality scan. Vista will adulterate the signal stream before it is fed to any "unauthorized" hardware. This scheme could be circumvented by emulating the hardware in software and recording the unadulterated signal to file instead of just playing it back. To prevent creation of such emulation software the hardware specifications must be kept secret. I doubt whether this policy will be embraced by all manufacturers in the long run, but it may make it more difficult for open source programmers to get the hardware specifications needed to write new drivers at least in the near future. Reverse engineering is possible, but programming is much easier if the specifications are known... |
| Date: 31 Jan, 2007 on 04:25 |
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       posts: 2298 since: 12 Jan, 2001
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98. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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I hope they see this as a monopolistic move on MS part and do something about it. It seems they are using their dominance of the OS market to push every one out.
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BigWarpGuy - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - OS/2-eCS.org Director of Communications - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - supporting the past OS/2 user and the future eCS user http://www.os2ecs.org
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| Date: 31 Jan, 2007 on 19:26 |
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     posts: 164 since: 30 Aug, 2006
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99. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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| The more Microsoft tries to tighten its grip, the more users and will slip through its fingers.... |
| Date: 01 Feb, 2007 on 01:30 |
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     posts: 135 since: 21 Mar, 2003 |
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100. Re:Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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| There is one way I can think of to make VM workable as a primary platform (even if not desirable). Take something like freebsd and set it up to only bring up VM. Then you could launch OS/2, maybe windows, and even freebsd or linux within that structure. It would be done in such a way that there is no base OS that would be usable as such... just the guests, similar to VM on the mainframes. |
| Date: 01 Feb, 2007 on 04:21 |
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| Scitech, SNAP and OS/2... |
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