Meeting report: eComStation

by Ernie Fisch

On the evening of June 12, Kim Cheung presented his traveling road show at the Phoenix OS/2 Society (POSSI) meeting. Kim was in fine form as he previewed eComStation (eCS).

First, I should say that I'd personally installed Preview 1 and Preview 2 of eCS, and also ran the install portion of Preview 3. As a result, the presentation was not an "ooh, aah" session for me. Don't get me wrong: eCS is impressive and I learned quite a bit. The public release of eCS has been some time coming but I don’t think anyone will be disappointed. [Ed: the software was released at the end of July 2001.]

The demo focused on installing eCS, WiseMachine and some of the problems and considerations involved in getting to where they are.

After a few introductory remarks, Kim started the eCS installation. The hard drive was not prepared before the demo. As you may know, eCS is set up to do the complete install from CD ROM. Since the hard drive was not visible at the start, Kim set up a RAM disk to do the preliminary install. When that was finished, Kim invoked LVM (more about this later) and showed that the hard drive was not visible to the system. He then created a startable partition on the hard drive.

Using a default IDE installation (a SCSI installation is not quite as simple, but not that hard either) Kim did a first phase installation of eCS. On this particular machine (which belonged to the IKON training center, not a pre-prepared computer), the install took 7 minutes, 15 seconds: a basic installation without a printer or networking.

Three phases

Kim said that some customers insisted that the network install should look and act just like Warp's selective network install. There were conflicts between the new installer and selective network install, so to avoid problems eCS uses a second phase for the network install.

After the Phase 1 install, the system was rebooted, this time from the hard drive. Kim showed what the steps would be in Phase 2 to install networking, printers, sound cards etc., but did not go through them, since nothing was hooked up to the machine.

This would complete a normal installation, but there is a Phase 3. Phase 3 gives access to all of the goodies on the bonus disk.

The CD install of eCS will come as a revelation to those who have struggled to install OS/2. If it can be made so straightforward, why didn't IBM do it? If you have been following the saga of eCS you will know that this install didn’t come easily, but it will be worth the effort.

The same, only different

With a complete install, you notice that the desktop looks a bit different. The icons have been modified. In my opinion, they are nicer looking. If this bothers you, an uninstall option lets you remove eCS, go to the second CD, and install straight MCP. Someone actually asked for this, according to Kim.

At the end of this Phase (or maybe the start of the next phase, I wasn't clear), you are asked for your name and a key. The key comes from your distributor or the eCS Web site. Without the key, you cannot do the Phase 3 install.

In Phase 3 you get Wise Machine, and lots of goodies. Among them are Norman antivirus, Desktop On Call, Macromedia Flash Player, Injoy Dialer, PMFax, a Netscape refresh (basic Netscape 4.61 is installed earlier, since you need it to get your key), SIO Lite, SmartSuite 1.6 (which Kim claims will actually install), StarOffice 5.1a, Stellar Frontier, Real Player, XWorkplace and the IBM bonus pack.

Getting wise

This is where my payoff came. I finally began to understand Wise Machine. When you open Wise Machine, you get what looks like a directory tree. There are a whole bunch of applications in this tree. These are not the actual applications; they are the Wise Machine deployment packages. If you find an application listed in this tree, that means that Wise Machine can deploy the actual application on eCS.

Kim made a point of explaining the difference between installing and deploying an application. When you install an application, its files are transferred to the new machine, unpacked or unzipped if required, INI files are written, CONFIG.SYS is updated, and an icon or icons installed on the desktop.

In contrast, when an application is deployed, you need to already have a working OS/2 installation of that app. The install program may not work on eCS—but not to worry. Copy the working installation onto a hard drive that eCS can access, and as long as Wise Machine knows about the program, it takes care of all the work (such as modifying INI files, writing to CONFIG.SYS, and creating the icon). You now have the application working under eCS.

A real bonus comes from Wise Machine knowing how to deploy an app. In this case Wise Machine also knows how to remove it. You don’t have to worry about an uninstall program or in what order you remove stuff. Wise Machine can also put stuff back on your desktop if it gets blown away. I am looking forward to working with Wise Machine.

LVM details

Earlier, I mentioned LVM. LVM is a more advanced tool than FDISK for setting up drives and partitions. It gives a more informative view of what is going on, with a logical and a physical view. Logical drives can span more than one physical drive. There is a lot more to be said about LVM, but this is not the place and I am not the person.

LVM is new: get used to it. It replaces FDISK. No choice, no option, FDISK is gone. Serenity did not do this, IBM did.

Once you run LVM, do not run FDISK. It messes things up. Usually it is recoverable, but not always. LVM has trouble with things like ZIP drives or large floppies. That is being worked on. Also, do not run Partition Magic after LVM has run. Again, the situation is probably recoverable but there is no need to borrow trouble.

Having scared you I can say that there are a couple of good write-ups available, one of which I think will come with eCS. They’re at LVM and LVM Help.)

eCS must be installed on a compatibility volume. That is, one which can be seen by other operating systems. HPFS is a compatibility volume, JFS is not. Also, if you use boot manager, you need to install the one for LVM; you cannot keep your old one.

Kim was very confident in the product as it was demonstrated. He pointed out a few areas which he wished were better and which he still intends to improve, but he didn’t considered these serious enough to hold up the general release. Serenity is getting a bit touchy about how long they have delayed the GA release, although all the comments on the eCS newsgroups were to the effect get it right, not soon.

For those who have followed the saga of eCS on the newsgroups, it is amazing that so much work was required to make the install clean and relatively easy. I think we who got OS/2 installed deserve a pat on the back for a real accomplishment.

After seeing this demo, I am further convinced that eCS adds considerable value to the standard Merlin Convenience Pack, making it a worthwhile purchase. I am currently using Preview 2 on my secondary machine, and prefer it for Internet access. I look forward to exploring eCS further on my own system once I get my copy of the final release.