In <200101131511.f0DFBMY07232_at_bg-tc-ppp1007.monmouth.com>, on 01/13/01
at 12:11 PM, Bill Pechter <pechter_at_pechter.dyndns.org> said:
It is true that the applications market for Warp isn't the largest or most
complete, but it is good enough for me. I've never actually used a
machine for a Purpose if you know what I mean. I network them, play with
them, get X running on warp, make a Nat router, make it a web server, make
it sense when the door opens and closes, turn on and off lights, interface
it with my Atari ST.
Basicly not much in the way of purpose. At least not in the sense of
mission criticality others use thiers for. I'd be upset if my machine
died but wouldn't lose anything important I couldn't redo.
I use Star Office 5.1 for correspondence, PMView 2000 for image viewing
and processing, BNR for getting binaries off the newsgroups, Injoy as an
internet router. For windows there are a hundred different incarnations
of programs for the same purpose. Most of them suck, but some are awesome
like MS Office. OS/2 apps are exactly the opposite; for the most part
they are awesome, but there are only five or ten to chose from at most.
You can run almost any Win32/32s application in OS/2 via Win/OS2. You can
now run SOME winnt/9x applications via an API converter project called
ODIN (used to be called win32/OS2).
One really neat thing is that OS/2 (Warp) is based on the MACH kernel
which came from NEXT and provides the foundation for Apple's new OS/X.
With a few tools, lots of Unix ports have been made available including
Xwindows and lots of X applications. Of course I have X and Gimp and tons
of other apps installed. They run perfectly and of course I have no
purpose for them in any practical sense..... ;-)
Probably my greatest wish for OS/2 would be better multimedia. Sure you
can play Mpegs, and MP3 files, but I'd like .AVI, and Real Audio, and
Shockwave. Toys yes, but I'd really like to see live video over the
internet and may never be able.
I can guage Windows against OS/2 and it compares very favorably, but like
Xwindows, the GUI in OS/2 is the weak link. Since OS/2 is not multiuser,
if the GUI barfs, you don't have the option of switching consoles and
killing the darn thing. I can't count the times in the past several years
that I've manages to lock the GUI and was forced to wait to reboot until a
critical task (like a big download) was comlete, or to reboot and lose the
task. The point is, a locked GUI doesn't stop any tasks but it'self, but
it can make for an unpleasant experience nonetheless. I doubt we will see
virtual consoles for OS/2 any time soon or ever.
There is a diagnostic kernel that you can use that gives you ONE physical
terminal which would help, but my desktop doesn't crash often enough to
bother with an ANOTHER terminal on my desktop. I've allready got six
machines on my desktop. I need another screen like a hole in my head
(unless it is something KEUL) Wink.
Regards,
Jeff
>I love OS/2... It's the closest thing to VAX/VMS reliability in a
>Non-Unix OS that can run some PC apps.
>If IBM had only kept the funding and kept it compatible with Win32 --
>but when I was there the customers demanded RedmondNT and Redmond95 and
>the boys at the top said the money was in Windows.
>They were running OS/2 2.11 internally when W95 came out.
>They rolled out Warp to the desktops with the Lotus Win3 Smart Suite.
>The OS/2 version of Smart Suite was so late and buggy at first I gave up
>on it.
>I'm wondering about Plex86 on OS/2. A VMWare-like setup to run the buggy
>crashing MS stuff.
>Bochs already works.
>(I'm running Solaris or FreeBSD or Linux on the desktop and only booting
>into W98 when I have to run MS software.)
>I found out the master license price to my dept to order W2000 is $20 per
>machine -- very scary.
>OS/2 is great if you only had good apps available.
>--Bill
--
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Jeffrey S. Worley
President
Complete Computer Services, Inc.
30 Greenwood Rd.
Asheville, NC 28803
828-277-5959
Visit our website at HTTP://www.Real-Techs.com
THETechnoid_at_home.com
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Received on Sat Jan 13 2001 - 11:11:55 GMT