From: francis@ese.ogi.edu (Francis Moraes)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: OS/2 2.1 Beta: Bugs and Comments
Date: 2 Jan 93 17:02:37 GMT
Article-I.D.: ogicse.47886
Distribution: world
Organization: Oregon Graduate Institute - Department of Env. Science and Eng.

===============================================================================
First the Major Bug:

At first I thought the problem was ELVIS (GNU vi), but I should have known that
the King would never let me down. Later _it_ happened when I was quietly reading
news. I remember it vividly, I had just hit the `k' key (KILL in rn), something
I do quite often in the OS/2 groups (no offense, I'm just not that interested
in stock prices and the FTC...), when it happened again!

What is _it_?  A complete system crash, which happens pretty much any time,
doing pretty much anything. Here are the details:

	Location: ##0160:fff60967 - oood:9967.60000, 9084

	038600d1
	Internal revision 6.479, 92/12/09

That's all I really have to say about it. The system comes up just fine after
the crash but it stops me from doing any real work on this machine. What is
_this_ machine? Here come more details:

	DELL 325D, 12 MB ram, 80 MB Hard Disk with 14 MB free
	Western Digital Paradise SVGA Card with DELL UltraScan Monitor
	Western Digital Ethernet Card
	Running the complete TCP/IP package (well, no X.25, but
	everything else)

This crashing business continues, even without the network software loaded.

===============================================================================
Second Bug:

At boot, I get the following message:

	SYS1201: The device driver "C:/OS2/MDOS/VSVGA.SYS" specified in
	the IFS command on line 101 of the CONFIG.SYS file was not
	installed. Line 101 is ignored.

So now you ask, ``What is this pesky line 101?'' Well, I have an
answer for everything:

	IFS=C:/TCPIP/BIN/NFS200.IFS

I should point out that NFS is working just fine. Well, it _was_
working just fine until I exited from an OS/2 command shell and got
_it_ again (see, for example, First Bug, above).

If I remove the dreaded line 101 from my CONFIG.SYS file, then the
system hangs on line 90 instead. Line 90 is:

	DEVICE=C:/IBMCOM/MACS/MACWD.OS2

If I remove this line, then line 89 causes a problem. I'm sure if I
took all of the networking stuff out of my CONFIG.SYS file I would
have no problem.

===============================================================================
Bug Three:

PMX cannot be killed (or _is_ not anyway) after a SHUTDOWN command. So
I have to kill it manually. After I kill it, the SHUTDOWN command
continues (!) and shuts the computer down the rest of the way. This is
very strange, since it _appears_ that the SHUTDOWN command had
stopped.

===============================================================================
Bug Four:

X windows running under PMX no longer get focus when the title bar is
clicked on; they come to the front of the other windows however. The
focus is gained only through clicking _in_ the window. I rather like
_this_ bug though.

NOTE: I decided to re-install my network software when I originally had
problems. This then required that I re-install the CSDs for the network
software. Unfortunately, the PMX CSD will _not_ install; it crashes the
system at the same place every time. Still, I believe that these things
(Bugs three and four) are with OS/2 2.1 since the problems I had before
(using PMX with OS/2 2.0) were quite different.

===============================================================================
Bug Five:

When installing OS/2 2.1 Beta I was asked if I wanted to migrate my
DOS and Windows programs. I said, ``sure.'' But after I did that I
chose CANCEL (I don't know why; I didn't like what I saw). Anyway,
this caused the ``migration'' window to stay on the screen for the
remainder of the installation process. It didn't really bother me;
it's just a detail.

===============================================================================
Other Things:

What happened to the /INV switch for the START command? The
documentation for START does _not_ include a description of all of the
switchs; I still can't believe it, I mean, even UNIX gives you that
much... :-P

The WPS _does_ seem to be faster, for the two or three minutes it
works before crashing (I'm not complaining here; I _love_ the CD; I
have it proudly displayed on my monitor; it makes me feel like a
_real_ programmer...).

The installation could be smarter than it is; putting REM in front of
every line in the CONFIG.SYS file that it doesn't recognize is a pain.

Francis Moraes