os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com ?????????????? ????? #801

???: "Ed Durrant" <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com> ?? ????
?????????
??: Re: [OS2Wireless]OT: comparing drivers (was:Re: Intel 3945 support in GenMAC)
??: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:05:46 +1100
??: OS/2 Wireless Users Mailing List <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com>

Carl Gehr wrote:
On Thu, 22 Feb 2007 06:49:13 +0100, Kris Steenhaut wrote:

  
As I told already before, why on Earth do we want to accost to Lenovo Thinkpads while there are better options? IBM holds 19 % of Lenovo shares? So what? It's about your (our) money, isn't it?      

WADR, Kris, I will also repeat myself:  If you were paying attention to
several of my posts, BEFORE I PURCHASED the T60, I asked HERE and OTHER
places if anyone was successfully using T60s.  I also asked about
specific devices, including the PRO/1000 WHICH IS ON THE GENMAC
SUPPORTED LIST and the WiFi which was originally listed ONLY as 3945
[w/o any vendor:device qualifications] and showed as supported.

As to why ThinkPads, my rationale was almost identical to the
explanation given by Lewis.  I will not repeat it again.

Finally, the developers of the GenMac drivers clearly implied that, if
someone submitted the files and documentation they needed, they would
at least attempt to add the support.  Thus far, I have not been able to
get ANY REPONSES, much less support for these two devices; even for the
one that is SUPPOSED TO WORK.

Finally, since you imply you are so convinced of 'better options' where
were you back in OCTOBER when I was asking about the T60?  Why did you
not say at that time, that you KNEW the T60 would not work, has
unsupportable devices, was a bad choice?

Honestly, I am looking for SOLUTIONS not 20-20 hindsight that does not
move things forward.




  
Hi Carl,

I can hear in the tone of your note that you are unhappy with the way things are - I think the two key areas are both Genmac. It seems that both the on-board ethernet (Pro/1000) and the Wifi are not yet supported - but I believe that once the Genmac wrapper developers have time, they will get around to adding this support. It is unfortunate that the manufacturer has changed the chips without changing the adapters name  apparently.

Have you posted your request and required data files on the Genmac user list ( genmac-user@netlabs.org ) or only here ? I would recomend you make your enquiry and post the requested  data on that list if you have not already done so.

It's unfortunate that driver support in general lags behind the Windows world, however in the most part, the OS/2 support is being produced by volenteers at no cost to you. If there were commercial programmers willing to produce drivers, the cost to an individual would be too high. The eComStation / OS2 market is too small for the hardware suppliers to produce drivers for us and the multi-functional auto-sensing drivers that we have are I think quite impressive.

Let me say, this obviously doesn't apply to all hardware types, but while I had to install Windows XP yesterday - I had the feeling "This can't be this bad can it ?". This operating system has to be given specific drivers for everything, otherwise it either doesn't work, or blue screens !

OS/2 & eComStation have multi-purpose auto-sensing drivers for:

Audio - UniAud

Network - Genmac and Genmac wrapper

Video - Scitech

Harddisks - Dani's Drivers

Motherboard Chipset.

This makes it possible to create and develop a system on one piece of hardware and simply compy it to a different piece of hardware !!  There is no way Windows will EVER be able to do that.

My most recent experience was trying to install Windows XP Professional on a current AMD X2 motherboard - BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) during the install phase, pointing to pci.sys being the failing component. In fact after some long investigation it turned out to be the fact that the OS could not work on the new chipset on the motherboard. The new drivers are supplied on the CD with the motherboard, but theres no way to install them as the system can't even build in a "safe" mode using generic drivers !! The only drivers you can change during the install are the harddisk drivers - which I also had to add as the OS doesn't support SATA out of the box.

The solution turned out to be to manufacture my own Windows XP install CD out of the base CD and "slipstream" the Windows SP2 CD into the image. Not something the average user would want to have to do !

So in conclusion, although support for hardware comes with the hardware for Windows, the drivers and structure of the OS itself in Windows XP is so restricted that it causes its own problems. OS/2 drivers and srchitecture are simply BETTER - but not available immediately.

Cheers/2

Ed.





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