As you may recall in my December editorial, IBM had inadvertently delivered a flawed FixPak 9 which they quickly corrected and re-issued after users began complaining about the release. As I indicated in December, FixPak 9 may have been symptomatic of internal problems within IBM and tarnished IBM's image as a reputable software provider, at least in the OS/2 arena.
Now along comes FixPak 10 last month. Thinking IBM must be cognizant of the problems with FP9, I confidently downloaded FP10 and went about installing it on three different machines: an old IBM clone (486) that has tirelessly run OS/2 since version 2.1, my ThinkPad, and my new Aptiva. I first installed the update on the 486 (16mb RAM/66mhz) and ThinkPad (32mb RAM/133mhz), both of which have less computer resources than my Aptiva (96mb RAM/400mhz). The first thing I immediately noticed on the older machines was how the FixPak knocked out the audio support. I tried to recover audio support in accordance with the README documentation but without any luck. However, I was soon to discover that audio was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of my problems.
The bigger problem came in the form of the operating system becoming CPU bound. Any time I tried to execute the EPM Enhanced Editor, my favorite text editor, OS/2 would lock up. The same phenomenon occurred any time I tried to execute a Win-OS/2 session. The CPU would seize up and I would be forced to re-boot. Rather embarrassing for an operating system that use to tout "crash-protection" as one of its biggest features. No, I quickly realized something was dreadfully wrong and uninstalled FP10 and reloaded FP9.
The installation of FP10 on the Aptiva went off without a hitch. As you may remember from last month's column, I was having problems with audio on the Aptiva and FP10 sure didn't help matters. As an aside, I would like to thank readers Daniel Jones and Lorne Tyndale for their valuable advice on this matter and Rich Jerant, the Senior Software Engineer for ESS Technology, Inc. in Austin for his support. Unfortunately, my Aptiva remains silent.
The only other anomaly I've noticed on the Aptiva with FP10 is that a WIn-OS/2 session will occasionally not execute and result in a zombie-thread thereby locking up the machine. Otherwise it works fine.
I have heard from other users who experienced no problems with FixPak 10. As for me, however, FP10 has caused me take and "wait and see" attitude towards future FixPaks. This is a major change for someone who has been religiously implementing OS/2 updates since version 1.2. I don't know about you, but I have better things to do then to chase down obscure problems and find current device divers. I expect my operating system to install and run without special technical assistance. Anything less is unacceptable to consumers. In other words, I believe it is high time IBM gets off its duff and release Warp 5, complete with updated drivers and support for version 2.0 of Java. I realize IBM is embroiled with Y2K related activities and OS/2 is not a priority for them, but releasing flawed updates isn't the way to go either.
Keep the Faith!
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Copyright © M&JB 1999
