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Hello Everyone:

My trusted thinkpad A31p died after five years of daily service. I had 
to  replace it. I noticed a special promotion for a T61p I could not 
resist for several reasons and received it yesterday. It came with a 200 
MB harddisk, twin processor chip, and was preloaded with Vista Business 
64. While I have to use Windows every now and then, I now need to get 
eCS 2.0 installed somehow. The question is: should I go the multi-boot 
route, or is a "virtual PC" with eCS as guest a less dramatic, but 
workable solution? I would very much appreciate your thoughts and 
advice! Moreover, should one use the MS VPC 2007 in the latter case, or 
rather the Innotek Windows version of 2003 or so that really did run eCS 
and OS/2 as guests quite well?

I am a command line junkie and need the EPM editor and Latex type 
setting daily - that means using eCS. I also run frequently lengthy 
calculations (using fortran programs and the EPM editor to write and 
modify them). I also need e-mail and browsing, which could be done on 
either platform, I think - there may actually be an advantage in using 
Vista for the latter.  Then I have to deal with the various MS 
proprietary formats, such as .doc and .xls. Like it or not, my friends 
and colleagues keep sending me tons of them and, alas, they refuse to 
switch to the .pdf format. These MS documents are often not handled very 
well by OO and I see no way around using Windows once in a while. This 
is all I need my 'puter for. In any case, I am not a gamer, never 
download "music" or movies, do not watch TV, and do not need many of
the 
fancy features that some may find attractive. Any thoughts and/or advice 
you may have for me would be appreciated!

Hi Lothar

Lothar Frommhold wrote:
> Hello Everyone:
>
> My trusted thinkpad A31p died after five years of daily service. I had
> to replace it. I noticed a special promotion for a T61p I could not
> resist for several reasons and received it yesterday. It came with a 200
> MB harddisk,



I reckon you mean 200Gb harddisk  :-)


  twin processor chip, and was preloaded with Vista Business
> 64. While I have to use Windows every now and then, I now need to get
> eCS 2.0 installed somehow. The question is: should I go the multi-boot
> route,


I'm sure I've seen a few posts about installing eCS2.0 on T60 and/or T61 
somewhere, maybe the ecomstation.beta or ecomstation.support.install ngs 
will be worth a look.


  or is a "virtual PC" with eCS as guest a less dramatic, but
> workable solution? I would very much appreciate your thoughts and
> advice! Moreover, should one use the MS VPC 2007 in the latter case, or
> rather the Innotek Windows version of 2003 or so that really did run eCS
> and OS/2 as guests quite well?
>
> I am a command line junkie and need the EPM editor and Latex type
> setting daily - that means using eCS. I also run frequently lengthy
> calculations (using fortran programs and the EPM editor to write and
> modify them). I also need e-mail and browsing, which could be done on
> either platform, I think - there may actually be an advantage in using
> Vista for the latter.


The downside being the amount of viruses/malware/scamware that Windows 
attracts.


  Then I have to deal with the various MS
> proprietary formats, such as .doc and .xls. Like it or not, my friends
> and colleagues keep sending me tons of them and, alas, they refuse to
> switch to the .pdf format.


Send them responses in document formats they cannot use.

You may find you can then come to some sort of agreement over document 
formats to use  :-)


  These MS documents are often not handled very
> well by OO and I see no way around using Windows once in a while. This
> is all I need my 'puter for. In any case, I am not a gamer, never
> download "music" or movies, do not watch TV, and do not need many
of the
> fancy features that some may find attractive. Any thoughts and/or advice
> you may have for me would be appreciated!
>
> Lothar


Regards

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:43:30 UTC, Lothar Frommhold 
<frommhold@physics.utexas.edu> wrote:

-> Hello Everyone:
-> 
-> My trusted thinkpad A31p died after five years of daily service. I had 
-> to  replace it. I noticed a special promotion for a T61p I could not 
-> resist for several reasons and received it yesterday. It came with a 200 
-> MB harddisk, twin processor chip, and was preloaded with Vista Business 
-> 64. While I have to use Windows every now and then, I now need to get 
-> eCS 2.0 installed somehow. The question is: should I go the multi-boot 
-> route, or is a "virtual PC" with eCS as guest a less dramatic,
but 
-> workable solution? I would very much appreciate your thoughts and 
-> advice! Moreover, should one use the MS VPC 2007 in the latter case, or 
-> rather the Innotek Windows version of 2003 or so that really did run eCS 
-> and OS/2 as guests quite well?
-> 
-> I am a command line junkie and need the EPM editor and Latex type 
-> setting daily - that means using eCS. I also run frequently lengthy 
-> calculations (using fortran programs and the EPM editor to write and 
-> modify them). I also need e-mail and browsing, which could be done on 
-> either platform, I think - there may actually be an advantage in using 
-> Vista for the latter.  Then I have to deal with the various MS 
-> proprietary formats, such as .doc and .xls. Like it or not, my friends 
-> and colleagues keep sending me tons of them and, alas, they refuse to 
-> switch to the .pdf format. These MS documents are often not handled very 
-> well by OO and I see no way around using Windows once in a while. This 
-> is all I need my 'puter for. In any case, I am not a gamer, never 
-> download "music" or movies, do not watch TV, and do not need
many of the 
-> fancy features that some may find attractive. Any thoughts and/or advice 
-> you may have for me would be appreciated!
-> 
-> Lothar

Lothar,

I am writing this on  a T61 (6465-CTO) using eCS 2.0 RC4.  Only two 
things that are not working are Battery optimization (Power off, 
Suspend/Resume and Dual CPU support work) and sound is very iffy with 
the latest UniAud driver with HDA support from Paul Smedley.  Both 
SNAP and the new Panorama driver support the wide screen (SXGA+ 
1680x1050) Intel 965 graphics card but only in VESA VBE mode.  This 
model came with SUSE SLED 10 preloaded (no windoze).  The wireless 
Intel 3945abg works with Genmac 2.20 and XWLAN 3.10, though its not as
robust as the Intel 2200bg with GenMac in my T42p.

I don't think eCS 2.0 runs in any VM's at the moment.  There is 
VirtualBox which is an opensource VM that was developed by Innotek and
now owned by Sun Microsystems.  I've used the eCS host to run XP as a 
guest.  My son has eCS 1.2 guest running fine on Parallels on his 
Macbook Pro.

Finally what version of OpenOffice.org are you using?  Open Office 
2.41 seems to handle most microsoft junk other than the newest 
formats, which m$office older releases can't even handle.  The latest 
OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta supposedly has the ability to edit PDFs and 
open m$ 2007/2008 formats (docx, .xlsx, .pptx).   

Mark

-- 
From the eComStation of Mark Dodel

 Warpstock 2008 - Santa Cruz, California: http://www.warpstock.org

Mark Dodel wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:43:30 UTC, Lothar Frommhold 
> <frommhold@physics.utexas.edu> wrote:
> 
> -> Hello Everyone:
> -> 
> -> My trusted thinkpad A31p died after five years of daily service. I
had 
> -> to  replace it. I noticed a special promotion for a T61p I could not

> -> resist for several reasons and received it yesterday. It came with a
200 
> -> MB harddisk, twin processor chip, and was preloaded with Vista
Business 
> -> 64. While I have to use Windows every now and then, I now need to get

> -> eCS 2.0 installed somehow. The question is: should I go the
multi-boot 
> -> route, or is a "virtual PC" with eCS as guest a less
dramatic, but 
> -> workable solution? I would very much appreciate your thoughts and 
> -> advice! Moreover, should one use the MS VPC 2007 in the latter case,
or 
> -> rather the Innotek Windows version of 2003 or so that really did run
eCS 
> -> and OS/2 as guests quite well?
> -> 
<snip>
> Finally what version of OpenOffice.org are you using?  Open Office 
> 2.41 seems to handle most microsoft junk other than the newest 
> formats, which m$office older releases can't even handle.  The latest 

Microsoft has a fix for its own older MS-Office versions (it worked even 
on my Office '97:) <sorry, a long URL>
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43
-c6bb74cd1466&DisplayLang=en

and for OpenOffice.org below 3.0 beta there is a fix too, at:
http://katana.oooninja.com/w/odf-converter-integrator

If that doesn't help there are some free on-line document conversion 
sites, e.g. zamzar.com

Philip