The Undead OS
Written: Nov 23 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Stable, efficient, fast, ability to run a wide range of programs
Cons: Few new commercial software programs, dated interface, not for everyone
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| anecdoter's Full Review: IBM OS/2 Warp |
Abandoned, for the most part, by its creator and shunned by most computer users, OS/2 is the Frankenstein’s monster of the computing world. A victim of Microsoft’s hyper-aggressive marketing machine and IBM’s strategic blundering, this excellent piece of software is fading past mere obscurity to antiquity – much to the dismay of those who know of its potential. OS/2 sports a cutting edge, but rather ugly, desktop, easy customization, wide application support, and a stable and efficient kernel, or base.
The Frankenstein’s monster analogy is furthered by the appearance of the Graphical User Interface (GUI); while not very visually inspiring, it gets the job done and covers some very sophisticated mechanisms. The OS/2 desktop is truly object-orientated, meaning that each object (file, folder, printer, etc) belongs to a certain class of objects that have clear and concise rules on how to interact with each other. For example, if you drag a file to the printer icon, OS/2 automatically formats and prints the file without opening up a word processor or text editor – unlike Windows (95, 98, ME, etc), which first opens up Word Pad or Word and then prints the file. A good way to crash Windows is to try to print a folder filled with over fifty text files; Windows will keep loading a copy of your word processor for each separate file and this will soon cause the system to crash due to lack of resources. OS/2 does not suffer from this flaw and will print out folders filled with text files without a hiccup.
OS/2 traditionally did not come with an efficient way to close a program – there was only a minimize and a maximize button; however, that changed with the release of Warp 4 into 1996, which includes a close button (an x whose lines do not touch) next to the other two window buttons. OS/2 also comes with Warp Center, which in its current incarnation, is an improved version of the Windows start menu bar; Warp Center displays a performance graph (which analyzes when your CPU is busy), and features many icons to allow one click access to many often-used features, such as locking or shutting down the computer. Also, through Warp Center, the user can browse settings, programs and even all the files on the computer and/or network. Personally, I prefer the Warp Center that came with Warp v3, which was a scaled down, free-floating box that you could customize by dragging and dropping icons onto… such is the price of progress.
The only drawback to the GUI is the sheer ugliness of it. No matter the resolution or the number of colors used, the icons just look timid and outdated. While I care little for dancing icons and twinkling lights, it would nice to have some visual grace; OS/2 has the visual grace of blind, crippled elephant trying to ballet through Cats. However, one of OS/2’s strongest points, the ease of customization, allows this to helped somewhat.
OS/2 allows the user to change nearly everything on the system. Fonts, even those used in window boxes and menus can easily be changed with any TrueType font. Users can change the colors of title bars for all or one windows, and can use bitmaps for custom backgrounds for individual folders. OS/2 also comes with an icon editor, which allows creative users to replace the rather bland default icons with some with a little more glamour.
The eye candy is not the only thing that is easily changed. Each program has a variety of settings that can be tweaked to squeeze the most performance out of your system – incidentally, DOS programs have the most settings that can be changed, while I do not have the exact count, there are around forty different properties to play around with.
Instead of having to buy a separate book to learn how to hack a registry, OS/2 users can change nearly all their system settings by tweaking the not as cryptic config.sys file, which, unlike traditional DOS systems, is a couple hundred lines long in OS/2. Substantial help for both the program and config.sys settings can be found in OS/2 Warp 4’s progressive help system which attempts to match your learning curve by analyzing which topics you are looking at – a good idea, but one I have never fully tested.
All of this flexibility does not come at much of a price. Instead of keeping every program’s settings in a central file (which Window’s registry does), OS/2 keeps the settings with the program, where they are deleted with the program and do not cling to your system long after you remove the program. While putting bitmapped backgrounds in each folder will eat up quite a bit of memory, since OS/2 uses rather little (OS/2 v.3 uses 4mb and will run on a 386, Warp v.4 needs a 486 with 12-16mb) memory space so you have a lot of memory leftover to burn.
Another extension of OS/2’s flexibility is the Voice Type software, which comes with Warp v.4. Voice Type is a speech processor that takes your voice commands and translates into commands OS/2 and your programs can understand. Each program has its own Voice Type settings and you can specify a keyword for each program; for example speak “type” and your word processor would come up, if that’s how you set your system up. Voice Type works with both the operating system (commands like: delete file, print file, log off, etc) and Voice Type enabled programs. Supposedly, Voice Type requires little training, but I have never used it and cannot honestly say how well it works.
OS/2 Warp comes, right out of the box, with the ability to run OS/2, Windows (16-bit and early 32-bit), DOS, Open32, and Java program side by side. I have run many Dos and Windows programs in OS/2 and, for the most part, they run flawlessly. Old DOS games, such as The Legacy, and Wolfenstein run better in OS/2 than they do in Windows 95 and 98. Old Windows 3.1 programs run well in OS/2, except for the later ones, such as Civilization II, which require special video codecs, such as Video For Windows. Os/2 can even run some of the early 32-bit Windows programs – up to Win32s version 1.25a; this is because IBM’s licensing agreement ran out before Windows 95 was released (which some people say Microsoft delayed Windows 95 just for this reason). I have not run any Java programs on OS/2 because I have no need to, but I have heard IBM has one of the fastest Java run times in the industry. I have never heard of an Open32 program and I have only seen it mentioned once; apparently, it was a joint venture between IBM and Sun to try to reduce Microsoft’s dominance.
A group of OS/2 programmers, Netlabs, is currently working on a couple of projects that will allow OS/2 to run even more programs. Everblue is a project which will allow Xwindows programs to run natively on OS/2 without having to run the OS/2 version of the Xwindows server. More exciting is Project Odin, based on WINE for Linux, which will let 32-bit Windows programs to run on OS/2; apparently, Quake 2 has been successfully tested with one of the later releases of this software. Whether or not these projects are as successful as is hoped, OS/2 already has a significant amount of software written for it.
However, most of this is older software that was abandoned some time ago. Hardly anyone, including IBM, writes new native, commercial programs for OS/2. Stardock offers a lot of native OS/2 programs, mostly games, but is now concentrating on the ore lucrative Windows market. Hopkins FBI has an OS/2 version, but this game is an exception.
While not many commercial vendors sell OS/2 versions of programs there is a lot of shareware and freeware available. There are several web pages that are dedicated to just housing OS/2 software are there is quite a number of programs that one can download free of charge. There is also some good older programs, written natively for OS/2, that can be bought used, such as Simcity 2000. Several programmers have been quite busy porting programs for other operating systems to OS/2; especially a group of Russian programmers that port multi-language UNIX programs to OS/2 (part of the mostly defunct Team-OS/2 groups that were endorsed by IBM at one time). In addition, another prolific programmer continues to port updated versions of Mame (multi-arcade machine emulator), SNES, and others to OS/2 – since MAME alone plays over 1000 arcade games, this is a tremendous boost to OS/2s software library. Sun, which now owns the Star Office suite still provides the OS/2 version on the CD, even though it is not being updated due to a conflict with the available complier; since Sun is going to give the source code to Star Office away for free, it is hoped this will be worked around and new versions will be maintained, presumably by Netlabs.
Another potential boost to expanding OS/2’s software library is the work Scitech is doing on the OS/2 version of their famous Scitech Display Doctor software; this project, contracted by IBM, will provide updated video drivers to most, if not all, newer video cards. In addition to supporting newer video hardware, this software will also provide better support for OpenGL and hardware acceleration – two things required to make great looking games.
IBM continues to update both OS/2 and device drivers for it; currently OS/2 provides drivers for over 6000 devices and Warp v.4 comes with a separate CD filled with just device drivers – which are fairly old and newer ones should be downloaded, as needed, from IBM’s web page. Roughly four times a year, IBM releases Fix Packs, which are cumulative updates to the operating system. Since OS/2 is fairly old and very stable, the problems fixed in the later Fix packs are somewhat obscure – such as a display glitch that happens when more than 262 windows are opened at the same time – try doing that with any version of Windows! The current Fix Packs, in addition to fixing problems, are migrating the old Warp v.4 kernel to the newer v.4.5 version which is right on par with the server version; this is another plus for OS/2 users as the same software they use on their home computers is expected to run flawlessly, constantly, on corporate servers. In fact, OS/2 is run on more than 90% of all ATM machines – talk about reliability.
No corporation would ever think about relying on OS/2 to run their computers if it was not stable (there is actually quite a large list of corporations who insist on using OS/2, such as Discover and Target). OS/2 features excellent crash protection; each program is run its own protected space and a faulty program can crash, but if it does, it will not take down the system or any other programs. For example, if you were running a Java applet over the Internet while writing an article on an OS/2 word processor, while Doom for Dos was paused while a windows program was filtering a large picture, the Java program could freeze and everything else would go on, not ever knowing the Java program ever existed.
You might think I am exaggerating about running all these programs at the same time; but it is very possible to do on even, relatively, slow computer. OS/2 is both multi-tasking and multi-threading. Pretty much everyone knows about multi-tasking, the ability to do more than one thing at one time; multi-threading further elaborates on this by breaking down each task into a thread. A thread could be save a file or display a window or print a paragraph, etc. Even though your computer can only handle one instruction at a time, multi-threading makes multi-tasking much more efficient. Instead of waiting to switch between tasks or programs, OS/2 simply has to queue about all the threads from every program and process them as the CPU becomes available. Using out example above, OS/2 might: Filter a section of the picture while you’re deciding on the proper phrasing of your next sentence in between the Java applets requests for CPU time. There have been testimonials and demonstrations of people using OS/2 to print a paper, download a file, and play a game all at the same time. Again, try doing that on Windows – and keep in mind OS/2 was doing this with a 486 with 32 megabytes of RAM.
OS/2 comes with the HPFS (High Performance File System) which is a quick, centralized file system that never becomes fragmented and supports long file names; your old Dos and Windows programs will install and run on HPFS (with the exception of system utilities, of course), however, if you dual boot with the included Boot Manager, your DOS FAT16 and FAT32 partitions will not recognize, nor even see the HPFS partition(s).
Despite being of excellent technology, OS/2’s days are numbered and therefore, I cannot recommend that everyone use it. IBM will pull the plug in several years (word has it that IBM is tired of trying to maintain the operating system in seventeen languages), and OS/2 has too few software programs available to pacify most Windows users who have it easy with most likely, hundreds of thousands of programs; it becomes tough not being able to play the latest game or the using the latest application.
I do recommend OS/2 to anyone who does not use many programs and just wants something that will work, no questions asked – OS/2 v.3 and 4 come with a bonus pack with a spreadsheet, word processor and database. Also, OS/2 comes with a variety of networking options – including TCP/IP support (which is still being updated), and support for Netware, Lantastic, and Windows NT, plus OS/2’s peer to peer support – thus, it may be a very reliable, and quick, file and print server. People who are curious about operating systems, such as myself (I have Solaris, NeXTstep, OS/2, even Rhapsody), may want to use the Boot Manager, included with OS/2 to allow the ability to dual boot between Windows (or whatever) and OS/2 – this is what I do, Windows for the games and OS/2 for everything else.
If you do purchase a copy of OS/2 be sure to download the free, updated device drivers for large hard drives, as the OS/2 disks have not been refreshed, even when bought brand new, and do not support hard drives over four gigabytes without the updated drivers. You will need to create new installation floppies (which boot the CD-ROM drive for installation)in order for OS/2 to recognize the space on your hard drive. You may want to consider buying a WarpUp CD from Indelible Blue which has the latest fix pack, plus other updates, on a single CD, saving hours worth of download time for a nominal price.
You may also consider Ecomstation, which should be released in January of 2001. This is based on tried and true OS/2 technology but will include lots of extra software to make it more useful in network settings. Also, it seems, although this is still quite in the air, that a lot for third party software will be included, making it more of a Linux-like distribution. Ecomstation will be available in several different flavors: all will have IBM’s Journaling File System (for reliability) and the more pricey versions will have support for Symmetric Multi-Processing, which lets divides the computing chores between two or more processors – which, given OS/2’s efficiency, I could only imagine would be almost too fast.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
anecdoter
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Member: Steve
Location: Toledo, OH
Reviews written: 40
Trusted by: 3 members
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