VOICE Home Page: http://www.os2voice.org
April 2001

[Newsletter Index]
[Previous Page] [Next Page]

editor@os2voice.org

March 10

The following was posted by Scott Garfinkle on comp.os.os2.bugs. Please direct all followups to that news group. Also the usual warnings apply when using anything from testcase. These are not supported officially by IBM. Please make a backup of existing files. Don't use them unless you know what you are doing.

ftp://testcase.boulder.ibm.com/ps/fromibm/os2/

These kernels, like anything later than W4 FP12, will NOT work on a 386 or 486sx unless (possibly) a math coprocessor is installed.

-scott

note: w4 kernels are for Warp 4/MCP uni/smp kernels are for WSeB/ACP uni and smp installations

readme follows:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This contains fixes since xr_e002/xr_m015/mcp/acp. Important note: If you use the OS/2 SES facility, you need a new sesdd32.sys dated 6 Feb 2001 or later to use this kernel. Also, a matching dump formatter (df_ret.exe), provided separately, is required, if you want to analyze a dump from this kernel.

New function:
1) Support for >64m memory using int15 func e820. Note, this support is enabled ONLY for Intel Pentium Pro or later, or non-Intel Pentium-class machines. This is done in an effort to prevent problems on older PCs.
2) The presence of \os2\boot\os2norev.$$$ suppresses the display of internal revision during boot.
3) Adding "EARLYMEMINIT=TRUE" to config.sys will allow device drivers, etc., access to the memory above 16mb early in boot. Previously, this was only available after DD and IFS init was completed. This has various implications when enabled:
a) AHA154X.ADD may do bad things to your system. Don't even askb
b) There may be some settings of HPFS386 cache that are incompatible.
4) Trap messages will now give the module name instead of the device name.
For example, "Exception in module: CLOCK01" instead of "Exception in Device Driver: CLOCK$".
***change from 0220/0223: Traps in 32 bit code now show the modname, too

Bug Fixes:
Fixes from earlier "dated" kernels:
Fixed a trap 000d in w_OpenCreate (140:4dfd or so in uni/w4 krnls, don't have regs for SMP). This was a post mcp/acp regression
Fixed strange loader i/o problems specific to the 0111 kernel.
Fixed a bootup sys31xx problem specific to the 0123 kernel.
Fixed a problem that was (I think) specific to Janauary uni ~W4 kernels
which resulted in odd ring 3 (maybe ring 0?) traps and hangs
Fixed some trap and other peculiar problems specific to the 0206 kernel.
Those were the result of a build problem.
Fixed some trap and other problems specific to the 0220/0223 kernels
Fixes to problems that exist in released code:
JR15494: Delayed response of Ctrl-C or Ctrl-S (pause) in os/2 windows
JR15405: (probably) DosQueryAsyncTimer fails on timecritical thread after mscount rolls over after 49.7 days of uptime
JR15030: TRAPDUMP QUERY doesn't show PD (needs a new trapdump.exe, too)
JR13335: Some VDMs won't run, complaining of too-long command lines
JR15194: XCOPY fails with SYS1186 or SYS1192 on (at least) MO drives
JR15038: Trap 8 in h_DeviceHelpDM running an app from a tcpbeui drive
JR15229: Files left open after ERROR_TOO_MANY_OPEN_FILES returned to app
PJ27700: SMP systems may get a trap 000e in _tkStopScan, particularly during a procdump operation.
PJ27676: Causes hangs on some systems running UNI or W4 kernels
PJ27554: Hang or (on allstrict) trap 3 on SMP (only) during beeps
PJ27678: SMP kernels could not be RIPL-booted. As part of this, there is a new config.sys parameter I13PAGES= available. Adding I13PAGES=1 to config.sys (note, no SET) reduces the memory usage of the mini VDM processes used by ibm1s506.add and the GRADD drivers. This becomes important in RIPL-boot situations. It may be helpful for UNI RIPL boot, as well.
PJ27677: SMP systems hang with multiple threads of same process entering a critical section (affects ADSM client)
PJ27757: Trap 000e running Theseus/4 (note, theseus4.exe may still end up with a sys3175, but at least the system doesn't crash).
PJ27777: Set BEGINLIBPATH= (in config.sys ONLY) may be ignored

Following are rough instructions for applying the os2krnl fix: In the directory from which you boot (C:\ or d:\ or whatever), type these commands. Note that os2krnl should have come with this file.

1. attrib -r -s -h os2krnl
2. attrib -r -s -h os2ldr
3. copy os2krnl os2krnl.sav
4. copy os2ldr os2ldr.sav
5. copy \os2\system\trace\*.tdf \save (or wherever)
5. unzip -o xxx.zip
If you want, you can turn the os2krnl and os2ldr attributes back on, but it's not necessary to do so.

Trace files (*.tdf) have been included.


March 10

ISDNPM 3.02 RC5 (3/7/2001) available

new: Improvements in the Masquerading

http://www.egroups.de/files/isdnpm/BETA302/


March 10

Although I'm not normally in this territory, I came across this letter at the following address:

http://www2.linuxjournal.com/articles/briefs/0079.html

Moderator's note: Yes I know this isn't directly related to OS/2, but the parallels to OS/2 are downright scary, and the fact that IBM chose the theme "Peace, Love and Linux" is such a weird corallary to Warpstock's theme.


March 09

New beta of RSJ CD Writer at ftp://ftp.rsj.de:/pub/cdwos2/beta

Mar 9 5:59 1,084,747 cdwos2d.exe
Mar 9 5:59 1,254,742 cdwos2fr.exe
Mar 9 6:00 982,193 cdwos2us.exe

Moderator note: At least the English version (cdwos2us.exe) identifies as version 3.51

Following is a small part of the readme file:

New to version 3.51BETA
-----------------------

* DAO *

Since so many recorders do not support the write mode we've been using for DAO in previous versions, we added a second method of writing DAO that seems to be widely supported. This new nethod is now the default, the previous write mode is only used if the new write mode fails. If DAO does not work (General Failure during copy, CD Writer Error Log reports Aborted Command or similar), please try to upgrade the recorder's firmware. During our tests, we had to do so for the Plextor PXW8220 (version 1.05 required) and PX-W4220 (1.04 required).

As always, success reports are most welcome!

So far, we have successfully tested the following recorders:

Plextor PX-W8220 (firmware 1.05 req'd)
Plextor PX-W4220 (firmware 1.04 req'd)
Yamaha CRW2100S
Yamaha CRW8824S
Yamaha CRW4416S

* Installation program *

* The installer now performs a version comparison before overwriting an already existing DaniS506.ADD driver

* If the DANIATAPI.FLT driver is installed, the user can choose if he wants to install our RSJIDECD.FLT driver, since DANIATAPI provides a similar functionality for enabling write access to IDE recorders.

However, *please* read the DANIATAPI documentation *before* skipping installation of RSJIDECD.FLT. It contains information about how it has to be called to provide the functionality that RSJ CD Writer needs.

* During an upgrade, the installer checks if the call to LOCKCDR.FLT has been removed from config.sys. If so, and if the DANIATAPI.FLT driver is installed, no new call to LOCKCDR.FLT will be added.

Background:

DANIATAPI.FLT also has the ability to emulate SCSI devices. Since our LOCKCDR.FLT driver does - among other things - the same, it is possible to not use LOCKCDR.FLT if DANIATAPI is properly installed. Again, please read the information in the DANIATAPI.DOC file to find out how.

NOTE:

LOCKCDR.FLT performs dynamic recorder detection during boot time. If you do not use it, you have to manually edit the cddrv.inf file.

* CopyWizard *

* To avoid problems with various display drivers, CopyWizard now supports a "Simple GPI" option in its system menu (main window). If set, the percent numbers in the progress bars are drawn with a gray background.

* If a recorder is specified in the form CDR:HA.ID (HA=host adapter index, ID=drive SCSI id), this device string is now stored and presented in the drive combo box for later use.


March 09

Apache has been updated to version 1.3.19 - http://silk.apana.org.au/apache/

WGet has been updated to version 1.6 - http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/h-search?key=wget


March 09

SciTech Display Doctor 7.0 for OS/2 Professional Edition PREVIEW RELEASE 39 is now available.

For a list of supported chipsets, Supported TV Out Graphics Chips, and Supported Flat Panel Graphics Chips, you can view the readme online at http://www.scitechsoft.com/ftp/sdd/beta/os2/readme.txt

The latest SDD Pro beta can be downloaded at: http://www.scitechsoft.com/ftp/sdd/beta/os2/sdd-os2-latest.exe or via FTP at ftp://ftp.scitechsoft.com/sdd/beta/os2/


March 09

Rayman/DOS fixed by RAYFIX.com will crash, when starting a actual game on Scitech Display Driver Rel #38. It works perfectly on SDD Special Edition. Will contact SDD.

www.os2world.com/games/download/patches/mdos/Rayman_FIX.zip


March 08

Normalize 0.5.2 for OS/2 released

Normalize is an overly complicated tool for adjusting the volume of wave files to a standard volume level. This is useful for things like creating mp3 mixes, where different recording levels on different albums can cause the volume to vary greatly from song to song.

download:

at the moment:

ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/incoming/normalize-0.5.2.zip

later:

ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/apps/mmedia/cd/cd-r


March 08

GP/PARI for OS/2 relased

Ilya Zakhareich has ported GP/PARI (a mathematical - as opposed to engineering - calculations program/programming-language/C-library) to OS/2

ftp://ftp.math.ohio-state.edu/pub/users/ilya/os2/

BTW. developers will find there also e.g. ncurses 5.1plus, openssl 0.9.6, zlib 1.1.3 and other things compiled for OS/2


March 08

New Driver for the Intel PRO Ethernet card in Thinkpad TP2*

IBM has updated the drivers for the Intel PRO/100 ethernet cards in the IBM Thinkpad T20/21

http://www.pc.ibm.com/qtechinfo/MIGR-4LXTHV.html?lang=en_US&page=brand&brand=root&doctype=&subtype=Cat


March 07

There are two new OS/2 device drivers now available on the OS/2 DDPak (http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/) that may be of interest to some of you. They're currently beta, but will become "IBM Supported" when FVT completes.

Driver for the internal 56K modem on the ThinkPad T20 family. It's listed under MODEMS/IBM. Yes, I know this is a WinModem, but it does work under OS/2 with this driver.

Driver for Parallel Port-attached ZIP drives, ZIP 100, ZIP Plus, and ZIP 250. It's listed under REMOVABLE DISKS/IOMEGA.
Barry Bryan Program Manager, Spinning Device Support

Moderator's note: The modem driver appears to be an updated version of the Lucent winmodem driver. The following is in the ltmodem self-extracting archive's README.TXT:

This driver provides modem support for ThinkPads with the

o 56K V.90 Mini PCI modem card / Lucent chip set

o IBM 10/100 EtherJet Mini PCI Adapter with 56K Modem / Intel ethernet chipset / Lucent modem chip set

Also in the README.TXT file:

This version of the driver functions only as a 33.6KB modem; V.90 will be supported in a later release.


March 07

Rayman/Rayman Forever/Rayman Gold fix to work under OS/2. Source included. Download from hobbes or os2world.com

http://www.os2world.com/games/download/patches/rayfix.zip


March 07

I see this morning that a new driver was posted on the DDPAK to support the IOMEGA Parallel port drives, old Zip, Zip Plus, and Zip 250!!! This driver is an ADD style driver and completely replaces the IOMEGA supplied OAD.SYS!! (and it works!!!, altho listed as BETA in the readme)

http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/html/

in the Removable Disks section


March 07

Gnuplot 3.8 f for OS/2 released

Petr Mikulik has released Gnuplot 3.8f. It is a nice and powerful graph and surfaces plotting program freely available.

http://www.sci.muni.cz/~mikulik/gnuplot/


March 07

WinWpi - listing and extracting files from WPI archives for Win32

This "quick and dirty" Windows(!) tool allows to list and extract the files contained in a WPI (WarpIN) archive (without the installation procedure, of course). This is handy if you are sitting in front of a Win32 system and want to have a look into a WarpIN archive. OS/2 users don't need such a tool, because WIC does the same and much more. It's a simple command line utility (or "console" in WinXX speak) and published as Open Source (GPL) and probably could be simply recompiled for any other OS (Linux,...). (Ok, one possible reason to even compile it under OS/2: AFAIK, WIC cannot extract single files yet, while WinWpi can, or several with a simple file mask...)

http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/h-search?key=winwpi (will be pub/windows)


March 07

Just to inform everyone, the progress bar object has been updated on the site, we are now at vs 1.0.2, the modification are major to the code and better on the appearance. i made the code simpler to manipulate and improve,and corrected some contorted bugs fro the previous release. Armin Schwartz provided me invaluable input and debug info. for those who do not know him he is the creator of UPS Monitor.

http://www.zeryx.com

From: Eric Lavoie elavoie@zeryx.com


March 06

Henry Sobotka has released version 0.8 of the XWarpzilla browser, a Warpzilla version for XFree86/OS2 that uses the GIMP Toolkit (GTK). According to reports by users it is currently faster and more stable than the PM version. XWarpzilla now also works in 16-bit color depth and can be downloaded from Hobbes.

http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/h-search?key=Xwarpzilla-0.8.zip


March 06

File Browser Beta 16 is now available at: http://www.bratschi.net

File Browser is a file manager, web browser, graphic viewer, thumbnail creator, task manager

Changes:
- Fixed DosFindFirst directory attribute bug
- Added FBThumb
- Added formlet support
- Extended FBCenter (fixed hook dll outside libpath PM trap, added start menu, added XML dialogs)
- Visited list speed improvements, faster startup and exit with > 100'000 entries ( <1s)
- Redesigned dialogs
- Many bugs fixed

http://www.bratschi.net


March 06

March 3, 2001 -- Blueprint Software Works, Inc. netdrive@blueprintsoftwareworks.com has released NetDrive for OS/2 version 1.0.7, a virtual file system. The new version includes updated NetDrive Control Panel that allows one to edit the resources of an existing mount. NetDrive for OS/2 creates a virtual volume and mounts local directories, network resources and FTP servers to the volume.

NetDrive for OS/2 is a shareware program that provides 1 month evaluation period. The registration costs $20.

Additional information and full functional demo of NetDrive for OS/2 version 1.0.7 is available from Blueprint Software Works, Inc. at http://www.blueprintsoftware.com/netdrive

From: NetDrive Development netdrive@blueprintsoftwareworks.com


March 06

Henry Sobotka has released version 0.8 of the XWarpzilla browser, a Warpzilla version for XFree86/OS2 that uses the GIMP Toolkit (GTK). According to reports by users it is currently faster and more stable than the PM version. XWarpzilla now also works in 16-bit color depth and can be downloaded from Hobbes.

http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/h-search?key=Xwarpzilla-0.8.zip



News Index

email - submit@os2voice.org
[Previous Page ] [ Index] [Next Page ]

VOICE Home Page: http://www.os2voice.org