eComStation 2.0 RC4 available

December 27, 2007 by Joachim Benjamins

Serenity Systems International and Mensys BV are pleased to announce the immediate availability of eComStation 2.0 RC4, The Christmas 2007 release.

This release is available to customers with an active Software Subscriptions Services subcription. It adds a few new features and contains a lot of updated drivers and fixes.

More details can be found at http://www.ecomstation.com/subscription/

!!! WHEN TESTING BETA SOFTWARE, ALWAYS BE SURE TO HAVE A TRIED AND TESTED BACKUP OF YOUR SYSTEM !!!

** Netware installation from CD1 **

It is now possible to add Netware client support to eComStation, straight from the installation CD. This is especially important for those customers that have a Netware networking environment.

** Preboot harddisk integrity check **

There are several situations which may cause installation problems with LVM in the install process. In this release, it is possible to disable the integrity check at page 2 (miscellaneous) of the eComStation installer preboot menu.

** Harddisk volume resizing **

This version has a custom DFSee engine that enables reliable RESIZING of FAT32 and NTFS filesystems to allow shrinking an existing Windows installation to make room for eComStation on the same system. The DFSee engine included in RC3 is at level 9.04.

The GUI to this tool has been updated and is now using a graphical interface. To invoke it, please select 'Paritition Resizing Tool' from the Installation Volume Manager which can be called during installation (choose 'New Volume' to start MiniLVM).

** Bootable JFS **

This release of eComStation contains the option to install the operating system on a JFS volume. The advantage of doing this is that the amount of diskcache is only limited by system memory (typically 10% of available memory is assigned) This increased cache size gives a huge gain in overall system performance.

** Genmac 2.20 RC1 **

This package provides generic driver support for several network interface cards under OS/2 and eComStation. Moreover, Genmac is enabled to support WPA encryption with the Wireless LAN Monitor 3.x or better.

Genmac and the Wireless LAN monitor will be installed when the appropriate hardware is detected by the installer. If it is not detected, you can manually select the driver in the network installation dialog.

Version 2.20 RC1 of GenMac supports the NETBEUI protocol.

Version 2.20 RC1 of GenMac now offers suspend & resume on a limited set of network adapters (when used in conjunction with ACPI) - this is an *experimental* feature.

** ACPI 3.05 & APM 1.20 **

Support for ACPI is available in this release. The current version is 3.05. ACPI will be automatically enabled if appropriate hardware is detected. You can manually enable or disable ACPI support at page 4 (USB & ACPI) of the eComStation installer preboot menu.

** multicore CPU support **

This release supports the installation of eComStation on a MultiCore CPU computer. This includes Intel Core Duo , Core2 Duo and AMD 64 X2. To enable it, you can do so in the ACPI Wizard that is launched from the Post Installation tasks at the end of the installation. Alternatively you can start the ACPI Wizard at any time from the install/remove folder
in the Local System folder on the desktop.

** eComStation Virtual File System (Samba client support) **

Samba is a SMB/CIFS protocols file and print sharing server/client set originally made for UNIX world to cooperate with corresponding Windows and OS/2 servers or clients. eComStation has a native implementation of
SMB/CIFS server/client set - IBM LAN Manager and IBM Peer. These products have not been recently updated and may have some compatibility issues with modern Windows SMB/CIFS implementations.

Serenity Systems International has reached an agreement with Blueprint Software Works for the inclusion of the 'eComStation Virtual File System' driver which provides support for Samba Client.

A small GUI utility for the configuration of Samba shares is provided.

== REPORTING ==

To tell us your findings, please create a report at:

http://www.ecomstation.com/support/rc4report/

You are also welcome to join the TestTeam if you want to discuss this
beta and future developments. See http://ewiki.ecomstation.nl/TestTeam
for more details.

== SOFTWARE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES ==

Please note that although some subscriptions have expired by now, you are not required to purchase a renewal to obtain the GA version of eComStation 2.0. If you want to try this RC2 release however, you are encouraged to renew your Software Subscription Services contract.

More details can be found at http://www.ecomstation.com/subscription/

Enjoy this release and we wish you a victorious 2008!


Serenity Systems International