Elia1995 wrote:

In all these years, I've never tried OS/2 in a VM for the simple fact that I had no clue on how to install it.
Neither VMWare nor Parallels nor VirtualBox have the "OS/2" in the Operating Systems list and (I didn't know about the fact that I had to make 2 floppies from the batch file in the root of the CD yet) the CD didn't boot for installation.

You can install OS/2 in VMware, but you have to edit the config file (the .vmx that's in the folder where you place the virtual machine files) manually to enable it. It's made like that on purpose because OS/2 is not supported as a guest OS officially. That's because it can be unstable, and VMware didn't want to deal with support requests related to it . In fact they had at one time, around VMware 2.0 a special beta build that supported OS/2 but I guess they had too many bug reports and they didn't want to deal with it, so they removed official support.

To enable installation open the .vmx file in a text editor and add the line

1guestOS = "os2"

to it. And remove any other guestOS lines.

(yes it works; I have a virtual machine with OS/2 2.11 and another one with Warp 4.52)

VirtualPC works fine, VirtualBox is probably alright too.

OS/2's install does have issues, which is one reason why I suggested a VM. If the partitioning is accepted with other versions of OS/2, and there are less than four primary or extended partitions (boot manager is a primary partition as is DOS) it's probably due to an issue with disk controllers on modern systems. Patch the install disks with the DANI1s506 drivers.

As to obtaining and installing OS/2 software.. Hobbes.nmsu.edu is still the main free/shareware OS/2 FTP site and is an essential port of call. Try netlabs.org as well. Otherwise, without being facetious, you buy software and run install! Nowadays there's little software available, so either use your existing OS/2 software, the remaining OS/2 software providers, ebay, or 'obtain' it.

For modern OS/2 software a patched and up to date Warp 3/4 system is essential (or eComstation).

ynari wrote:

For modern OS/2 software a patched and up to date Warp 3/4 system is essential (or eComstation).

And since many of them were ported from *nix, they also rely on the TCP/IP 32 stack.
If it isn't installed, they won't work. I had to find this out the hard way, because the programs I tried to run didn't mention that.

I haven't experienced that - it should be entirely transparent to the vast majority of apps. What were you trying to run? Servers?

Nope, just some modern programs and games from ecsoft2.org, I think. That's mainly for eComstation, but also mentions OS/2.
Software from Hobbes was always fine, I think. I even collected a few of their old CDs, because they contained older version of
some programs which could still run on OS/2 1.3 and even 1.1 (286 compatible stuff).
After I learned what the culprit with that new software was, it was no problem and easy to fix.
I installed the TCP/IP stack which came with Warp 4 and created a "no network card" dummy setting.
I'm speaking under correction, but I think there was also a newer stack made available online, which was needed for something.
Sorry, can't remember the details right now. But as you said, it is really necessary to have the system up-to-date for the newest programs.

Not sure if you are aware
https://hg.icculus.org/icculus/2ine/file/50ea … 8040/README.txt

OK, that's not the 32 bit stack - the 32 bit stack only came with Warp Server and one of the post Warp 4 convenience packs, the IP stack in Warp 4 is still 16 bit. I'm not too surprised some programs fail without a networking stack - it's been years since I ran a version of OS/2 without LAN connectivity.

Archive.org contains a number of the old hobbes CDs, if you really need some of the 1.3 software that's since been deleted.

The only machines I have at home that aren't connected to a network are my consoles, and even most of those have a network option!

I'll definitely echo the point that creating a Warp 3/4 install to run up to date software from scratch, is A Pain In The Arse. You probably do want to use updcd (http://www.updcd.tk) to create an up to date bootable cd , but it works a lot better with an existing OS/2 install.

It's also worth reading OS/2 museum (http://www.os2museum.com/wp/os2-history/os2-warp-4/) not only for OS/2, but pretty much anything retro. There's a treasure trove of information in there.

I installed Warp 3 on an old ThinkPad several years ago (the 755CD that I reviewed here). I actually went through the trouble of generating the 30+ installation floppies from the files on the CD-ROM. The installation process was tedious but straightforward, and the system booted to the GUI without any issue, but somehow as I was trying to install a driver (sound, ethernet, video, not sure) the configuration got screwed up and it wouldn't boot anymore.

From the few hours that I spent tinkering it seemed like a promising operating system, but there wasn't much to do with it beyond installing and configuring. Obviously it would have helped if I had OS/2 applications to run, but there aren't many available. AFAIK there were no major graphics applications (Photoshop, Lightwave, etc), no major game releases, etc. Ended up wiping the drive and installing WfW 3.11 / DOS, which could at least run all the old apps and games I used in the 90s.

Felt kind of like running a mid-90s Linux distribution - an interesting exercise, but not a whole lot of practical purpose outside of niche implementations like ATM machines and such.

There were graphical apps, just not major names. Corel Draw 2.5 was released, with a native OS/2 Corel Draw and supporting applications still running under Windows 3.1.

There was Truespectra Photographics, and a decent vector app too which escapes my memory (installed at home somewhere, was used to draw the Help Desk comics in the beginning). There was also at least one 3D modelling app (I have the less powerful version non pro version)

Whilst Windows undeniably had a much larger set of available applications, a large part of the issue is that the OS/2 software that was available is no longer sold, and isn't on ebay.

My only experience with OS/2 was when I started to work at a financial institute in 1997 or so. All their computer stuff (account managing etc.) along side with Windows 3.1x running on it to use MS Office. Those were the days... I only stayed six months with them so I have no idea when they switched and what they used later.

Well I've got two systems running OS/2. A 486DX2/66 running v3 and a K6-2 350 running v4. The v4 is the oldest installation from early 2000 and the hdd has been fitted to a number of systems now. Both installations are networked. I use PMIRC to visit channels and ond v4 can easily surf to vogons and a couple of other vintage computer related sight.

I am currently at the beginning... I have that small Unisys CWD 486 DX2/66 and have equipped it with a 2GB CF and a 256MB CF Card.

I own the original disk-installationset of OS/2 1.3 2.0 2.11 and 3.0. I have chosen 3.0 to start with.

Partition is as follows:
Primary OS/2 BootManager
Primary MSDOS
Primary NT351
Primary OS/2 3.0

Installation of Warp 3.0 was pretty straight forward, but the first reboot lead into a clean desktop with one CMD session active.
and an error message that the pmshell does not start. I have chosen to run "install" from the command line and now stage2?
installation of OS/2 works. After that it boots fine into OS/2.

My ESS Soundcard is not recognized I think I'll have to look for drivers elsewhere. The CL 5424 is supported but the driver seems
very slow to me. I think I need to get a native driver from CL instead of using the "builtin" driver from Warp3.

Doc

Today I finally got to try and use OS/2 for my first time, it's OS/2 Warp 4.52, the backstory is as follows:

Due to formatting my Celeron's rig hardisk, I had to reinstall MS-DOS 6.22, but since I installed the mouse, CD-ROM and sound card drivers along with Windows 3.11, it had memory problems (for full story: MS-DOS 6.22 memory problem)

After less than 2 hours I got OS/2 Warp 4 up and running, at first I installed the wrong sound drivers from the setup (I chose SoundBlaster AWE instead of SoundBlaster AWE PnP, thus I didn't get any sound working at all) and it took me half hour to figure out how to fix it, I then switched it to the right one and after a reboot, it immediately worked.

The operative system looks very cool, I immediately loved its UI, I never seen anything quite so beautiful from the 90s, it has Windows 3.11 inside, there's a menu from which I can open a DOS prompt and a "WIN-OS (Windows 3.11) windowed or fullscreen session".

I tried copying some of my Apogee games, but none of them seemed to work, I got some error related to video mode and session, if I try to launch them from fullscreen DOS, I don't get any error, but nothing happens, it just goes like that:

1(example)  C:\DIRECTORY\GAME\GAME.EXE
2C:\DIRECTORY\GAME\ "blinking cursor"

So, so far I wasn't able to play anything else than the pre-built Mahjongg and solitaire games (not really my genre, neither of those).
I also tried to install a Windows 3.11 game (Grossology, really the first CD-ROM I found there on the table), it automatically started the Windows 3.11 subsystem, but then it didn't install, gave me some "memory or hardisk out of capacity" like error, as if I didn't have enough free space on the hardisk (8 GB SCSI hardisk).

So yeah... my first ever experience with OS/2 hasn't really been... lovely, except I really like the system and how all tabs and menus interact, I even got the mouse scrolling wheel working !!!

Does anyone know the system requirements for OS/2 1.3? How much RAM does it need?

http://www.winhistory.de/more/os2.htm#12 (scroll down)

Second day of OS/2 testing here, anyway, does anyone know why some DOS games start in DOS fullscreen session if I load them from the CD, but crash if I copy them in C:\ ?