OS/2

In <200101131511.f0DFBMY07232(a)bg-tc-ppp1007.monmouth.com>om>, on 01/13/01 at 12:11 PM, Bill Pechter <pechter(a)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 -- ----------------------------------------------------------- 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(a)home.com -----------------------------------------------------------