=== eComStation 2.0 RC4 README ===

-=# The Christmas 2007 release #=-

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

Thank you for your interest in testing the latest version of eComStation 2.0.
A great deal of effort has been made to improve the usefulness to the
product. Please see the 'WHATSNEW.TXT' document for an overview of all
changes.

This product is available for download to all registered users of Software
Subscription Services for eComStation.  For more information, please
visit:  http://www.ecomstation.com/subscription/

This release offers a number of improvements that we would like to have
tested on a larger number of configurations.  These are:


** 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.

- PBR problems:  Set when either the 'hidden sectors' or the geometry fields
in a bootsector do not match the position of the partition or the used
disk-geometry.

- CHS problems:  Set when the CHS-values in a partition-table for a
  partition do NOT match the current disk-geometry used by the operating
  system.  This may lead to error from (mini)LVM about the disk being
  'corrupt'.  Another possible cause for this error is that if there are
  any partitions present on a disk that have NO LVM information at all,
  and are of a type that gets a default driveletter assigned in that case
  (by OS2LVM.DMD/OS2DASD.CMD)

- Boot problems:  Set when extended-containers are marked ACTIVE, when
  multiple primaries are marked ACTIVE, or if any non-standard flagbyte
  values are used in the partitiontable.  These errors MAY lead to the
  system failing to boot properly!

These will now be detected before the installer starts and an option to fix
them is being presented.  If you choose not to fix them, you are not able
to proceed the installation.

This technology uses a custom DFSee 'engine' and should be safe, however,
neither Serenity Systems International nor Fsys can be held liable for any
damages that may occur to the data on your harddrive.


** 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.  While this functionality has
been available in DFSee (and the OEM Engine) for quite a while, it was NOT
considered reliable enough to offer to end users during eComStation install.
Starting with DFSee release 7.12, and the OEM Engine based on that, the
reliability of resizing has improved to the point where it can be used
without hesitation for this purpose.  A Windows NTFS filesystem resized by
DFSee will pass a subsequent Windows CHKDSK with NO ERRORS now. The engine
included in RC4 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). It will take a while to complete loading, when done,
please select Next to show the list of resizable volumes. If the list is
empty, this means there is no suitable volume detected that has enough free
space for it to be resized.

The GUI has been updated to be more intuitive to the user and will only show
resize panes when there is an actual volume available for resizing. If you
know you have freespace available on your Windows volume, but they do not 
show up, you can consider running (multiple times) "defrag" under Windows, 
this will rearrange the file layout on disk and may yield in more space
that can be actually freed up. The diskresizer now will show a progress 
bar during resizing.

If the entire disk is occupied by a Windows Vista preload installation,
installation of eComStation will not be possible and the installer will 
abort (the preboot integrity check will prevent further booting).
You can create freespace on the drive by using the tools supplied by Windows 
Vista to manage your disk. In 'FAQ.TXT' a small howto is included.


** 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.
To install onto a Bootable JFS volume, you will have to select 'JFS' as
filesystem type in the 'Format Volume' page of the installer.

A number of analysis tools are available on the install CD:

in ECSBOOTJFS

cachejfs.exe   - query and set parameters of cache
cstats.exe     - query usage of cache

in ECSBOOTJFSDEBUG

chklgjfs.exe - show results of last chkdsk
dumpfs.exe   - dump internal structure of JFS
logdump.exe  - dump current state of log to JFSLOG.DMP
validfs.exe  - show current state of JFS
xchkdmp.exe  - show results from chkdsk.new
xchklog.exe  - dump results of last chkdsk to chkdsk.new
xpeek.exe    - utility for interactive work with structure of JFS


** 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.

Note:  only the selected driver will be copied onto your system, in order to
prevent problems with the MPTS installer later on.  This may seem confusing,
when you run MPTS in a later stage, it will not show all Genmac supported
NICs.

Version 2.20 rc1 of GenMac now 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. More details can be found in ecsdocgenmac

Please note that UniAud has known problems with suspend & resume, so if you
want to use this feature, you should not activate the UniAud driver currently.

A full list of supported NIC chipsets can be found in 'WHATSNEW.TXT'.
Support has been added to autodetect over 300 NICs that are using one of
these chipsets.


** ACPI & APM **

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.  Even if not installed, the
corresponding documents are installed on your harddrive. You can find
detailed information and testdocuments in ECSDOCACPI and ECSDOCAPM

Several tests can be performed, please refer to ECSDOCACPITESTER.DOC
and ECSDOCAPMTESTER.DOC

When ACPI is installed, there is a number of utilities from the ACPI
Toolkit you can use, see the list below:

AcpiTree.exe            - Show ACPI tree
ButtonJin.exe           - Wait press Power Button (as demon), GUI
WaitButton.exe          - Wait press Power/Sleep button, VIO
PowerOff.exe            - Power Off (immediate!!)
SetGetThrtl.exe         - Get/Set throtlling CPU
UpTime.exe              - Show uptime via PM Timer
GetValue.exe            - Get current value from PM Timer
AcpiIRQ.exe             - Show current IRQ routing
IrqStat.exe             - Show IRQ calling statistics (SMP only)
SetGetState.exe         - Get/Set frequency/power state
EmbeddedEvent.exe       - Show events from Embedded controllers
GetNotify.exe           - Show notify
Thermal.exe             - Show temperature of thermal zone
ScanPCI.exe             - Show PCI devices
TmrTest.exe             - Test working of timer (testing IRQ0 timer 0)


** 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.

The ACPI Wizard will try to determine your system configuration and set
parameters accordingly. You can manually change them of course.

Please note: many drivers are not SMP capable, which may cause
instability or unexpected behaviour on your system.

For more information please refer to ECSDOCACPIACPI_SMP.DOC


** SMP support **

It is also possible to install eComStation 2.0 RC4 on a regular SMP
machine. You will have to activate it with the ACPI Wizard from the
Post Installation Tasks wizard that is started at the end of the
installation. This should enable you to properly finish installation,
before activating the SMP feature.


** Uninstall SMP support **

It is possible to undo a SMP installation, for example because your system
seems unstable or does not properly function with SMP activated. 
For instructions on how to perform uninstallation, please refer to 'FAQ.TXT'
in the root of the CD.


** 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.  Currently a GUI to
configure it is lacking, but an example of how to mount a Samba resource
can be found in ECSDOCEVFSREXX

** EVFS GUI **

There now is a GUI that will make it easier to configure network access 
using the Samba protocol. There is one big limitation though, the tool 
cannot determine if a network connection was properly created - so it 
will not provide sensible feedback on that, instead it will always 
create a mountpoint which may be empty if the actual connection fails.
The object for this tool is placed in the "Local Network" folder and is 
called "Virtual Filesystem for SMB"


== 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.


== DISTRIBUTION / CREATING CDS ==

This product is provided as a downloadable ISO file, this is a raw CD image
that you can burn on CD-R media.  For instructions on burning the CD image
to CD please consult the PDF document howtoburncds.pdf in the same
directory.

The file to download is:  ecs20rc4_cd1_en.zip


== REGISTRATION KEY REQUIRED FOR INSTALLING ==

For the time being you can use the eComStation 1.2 (or 1.2R) key to install
this release candidate of eComStation 2.0.


(c) 2001-2007 Serenity Systems International

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