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In article <75294@hydra.gatech.EDU> gt7692b@prism.gatech.EDU (Constantinos Malamas) writes:
>From: gt7692b@prism.gatech.EDU (Constantinos Malamas)
>Subject: Questions on OS2 2.0 from a _potential_ user. HELP !!!!
>Date: 18 Nov 92 18:03:06 GMT
>
>	I am the prud owner of a new 486DX33, and I am seriosly
>considering installing OS/2 2.0 as my OS... Before I spend $125 on the
>package though, I wanna some input by you, fellow netters:

Before you spend $125 you should call IBM and tell them you'd be happy to 
send in the title page of that windows manual I just _know_ you have if you 
just bought a machine. [windoze follows new computers like a plague.]

>	o  Due to a small (comparatively) HD (107MB), I will probably
>install Stacker 2.0, that I used on my old machine. Now I _heard_ that OS2
>requires ~30MB for its swap files. Is this true? How close is this figure
>to actual performance? most importantly-- will OS2 be able to access the
>Stacker drive to dump its swap files (unlike Windows)? are this files so
>compressed that this is not efficient anyway?

This whole argument depends on what kind of a setup you go for. If you go 
for multiple partitions, then you can use Stacker in the DOS partition (and 
forget about accessing it from OS/2). 

That 30M figure is really closer to 40M and that is for the whole package - 
OS/2, Emulated DOS, WIN OS/2 (emulated windoze), and a reasonably sized swap 
file.

If you really have your heart set on Stacker there should be an OS/2 version 
in commercial release real soon now. (I believe beta testing is wrapping up 
as we speak..)

>	o  How does OS2 run DOS and Windows apps? Does it emulate these
>two exceptional os's (NOT!!!! :))...) or does it require the actual DOS
>and Windows OS software to be installed on the HD?

As I said before, it depends on your setup. You have basically 3 options:

1) All OS/2. You reformat the whole drive and install OS/2 as your only 
operating system. You don't need DOS or Windows with this choice, they're 
built in to OS/2.

2) Dual Boot. This means you have to stay with the FAT system (as opposed to 
the really cool HPFS system where you can name files stuff like 
'A letter to my girlfriend' instead of 'LETTER01.DOC'). With a Dual Boot you 
have OS2, DOS, and Windows all installed on the same drive. You have to type 
in a command to switch operating systems.

3) Boot Manager. This gives you a menu at bootup that asks you which 
operating system to boot. You also have to partition your drive into 3 
pieces to do this. 

>	o  How much space will the OS2 files take up?

A full install runs about 33M plus around 5-8M for your swapfile [depending 
on how much physical RAM you have]. There are a lot of applets you could 
kill to save some space, but I personally use them a lot and would never 
dream of doing such a thing. Then again, I have a total of 235M of HD space 
between my two drives...

>	o  How power-intensive is OS2 anyway? Will it take up so much uf
>the CPU that really BIG programms (Mathematica 2.0 for DOS, for example) will
>not run fast enough? 

Well, under OS/2, Mathematica 2.0 for DOS won't run at all. (Options 2 and 3 
above will allow you to run it, but you won't be in OS/2 at the time.) 
Mathematica 2.1 is purported to work fine, but as the owner of a non-
coprocessed machine I have yet to test that theory.

Good luck, and I welcome you in advance to the 90's. 

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Steve Luzynski @ Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH
sal8@po.cwru.edu             | voice calls cheerlessly accepted at x2153.
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happy people are deluding themselves that there is nothing wrong.