From: jwty@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Summary: OS/2 on a Laptop
Date: 23 Jan 93 14:00:22 EST
Distribution: comp
Organization: Cornell University

Thanks to all of you who replied to my question about running OS/2
on a laptop!  Here's a brief summary of their comments:

It turns out that this isn't a crazy thing to do after all.  True, it does
take a while to boot on most of these machines since they tend to be
386sx-based and have relatively slow hard disks.  On the other hand,
two users reported that their notebooks were actually *faster* than
their desktop machines.  Several people suggested that the bootup time could
be reduced by running a shell other than the standard WPS, such as IBM's
freeware MrFile PM.  There was a general consensus that running the WPS
without some kind of pointing device was a pain.

Encouraged by these comments and driven by curiosity and a desire to have
the same software setup on the road as at my 'home base' lab machine, I
downloaded the 2.1 beta and put it on my GRiD 1755.  This machine is a
386sx-20 with 8MB RAM and 80MB, 21mS HD.  I've got 40MB of the disk set up
as a C:  partition for OS/2 and its DOS+Windows support, plus the Enhanced
Editor (which I'm using to write this note) plus the swapfile and one or two
other things.  There's a second C:  partition for DOS 5; that's 3MB in size.
Then there's a 37MB D:  partition which holds apps, utilities, and data.

I like it!  Everything feels solid, and while it's not exactly zippy, it
does get the job done in a reasonable amount of time.  As for a pointing
device, I've taken to carrying my mouse and pad around in the little case
that holds the AC adaptor and documentation.  The screen's a bit small for
the number of windows I tend to keep open, but perfectly acceptable.
Interestingly, although the machine lacks the APM BIOS, the native
power-saving features are still working under OS/2.  At least, if I boot
off the battery the disk will shut down after a minute or so if it's not
being used.  So all in all, I think running OS/2 on a typical modern laptop
is a very sensible thing for a desktop OS/2 user to do.

The 2.1 beta is a real improvement over GA+SP.  Speed and, strangely enough,
stability are significantly better than in 2.0.  A lot of little annoying
details have been cleaned up too.  I don't care much about the Windows 3.1
support, but at least the new File Manager remembers its place and doesn't
always hog the whole screen when you start it up.  Installation took a
while, and it took about three tries to get it right, 'cause the
documentation is not too well written and I didn't read it as carefully as
I should have.

After seeing the beta on the laptop, I decided to install it on my desktop
machine as well.  I figured this would take maybe two hours to get going.
Wrong!  The install (over 2.0 GA+SP) seemed to go all right, but when it
finished, DeScribe wouldn't run (gave an error and got killed by the OS.)
Attempting to start a Windows program, or the Win/OS2 desktop, caused the
icon to be hatched, the drive to run, the icon to return to normal, and the
drive to stop.  Nothing more.  Tried rebuilding the INIs with MAKEINI, but
it reported that they were corrupt and aborted.  Tried making new
INIs with SHOWINI /B and running MAKEINI on those.  That cured the
corrupt INI errors but didn't get Windows running.  Neither did removing and
re-installing the DOS+Windows support.  So I eventually reformatted the
partition and started all over again, which took a lot of time but did work.

But there's still at least one puzzle.  The documention claims that 2.1 Beta
is compatible with MSCDEX, but that program still returns an 'Incorrect DOS
version' error when I try to run it.  Ideas, anyone?

Again, thanks to all of you who sent replies to my question.  It's good to
hear so many people have had success with OS/2 on their laptops!

        Chris Koresko
        koresko@astrosun.tn.cornell.edu