eComStation 2.0 RC5 released

http://www.ecomstation.com/eComStation 2.0 RC5
Serenity Systems International is pleased to announce the availability of eComStation 2.0 RC5 for download.
INTRODUCTION
This is the ninth public beta release of eComStation 2.0. This product is available for download to all registered eComStation customers with active Software Subscription Services. (See this explanation).

This version of eComStation 2.0 is the fifth Release Candidate, no big changes or additions will be added before the GA version, it mainly consists of updates to drivers and installation scripts.

Panorama VESA video driver installation
This version of eComStation allows the installation of the Panorama VESA videodriver, to enable accelerated display on video chipsets currently unsupported by Scitech SNAP.

Netware installation
This version of eComStation allows the installation of the Netware client software and utilities straight from the regular installer. It is integrated in the network pages and makes it easier to setup eComStation as a workstation in a Netware environment.

Disk Resizer GUI
This beta has a custom DFSee engine that enables reliable RESIZING of FAT32 and NTFS filesystems to allow shrinking an existing Windows installation to make room for eComStation on the same system.

The GUI to this tool has been updated and is now using a graphical interface. To invoke it, please select 'Paritition Resizing Tool' from the Installation Volume Manager which can be called during installation.

GenMac support
This package provides generic driver support for several network interface cards under OS/2 and eComStation. Moreover, Genmac is enabled to support WPA encryption with the Wireless LAN Monitor 3.x or better.
Genmac and the Wireless LAN monitor will be installed when the appropriate hardware is detected by the installer. If it is not detected, you can manually select the driver in the network installation dialog.

Bootable JFS
This release of eComStation contains the option to install the operating system on a JFS volume. The advantage of doing this is that the amount of diskcache is only limited by system memory (typically 10% of available memory is assigned) This increased cache size gives a huge gain in overall system performance.
To install onto a Bootable JFS volume, you will have to select 'JFS' as filesystem type in the 'Format Volume' page of the installer.

ACPI 3.09
ACPI support has been updated to the latest available version (3.09) which results in varying successrate. For example, AMD Opteron multicore CPU is now reported to be supported.
Installation of ACPI has been improved by the use of the ACPI Wizard, which tries to determine system configuration and set parameters accordingly. You can manually change them of course. It will be run after regular installation has completed.

multicore CPU support
This beta supports the installation of eComStation on a MultiCore CPU computer. This includes Intel Core Duo, Core2 Duo and AMD 64 X2.
To enable it, you can do so in the ACPI Wizard that is launched from the Post Installation tasks at the end of the installation. Alternatively you can start the ACPI Wizard at any time from the install/remove folder in the Local System folder on the desktop.

eComStation Virtual File System (Samba client support)
Samba is a SMB/CIFS protocols file and print sharing server/client set originally made for UNIX world to cooperate with corresponding Windows and OS/2 servers or clients. eComStation has a native implementation of SMB/CIFS server/client set - IBM LAN Manager and IBM Peer. These products have not been recently updated and may have some compatibility issues with modern Windows SMB/CIFS implementations.
Serenity Systems International has reached an agreement with Blueprint Software Works for the inclusion of the 'eComStation Virtual File System' driver which provides support for Samba Client.

EVFS GUI
There now is a GUI that will make it easier to configure network access using the Samba protocol. There is one big limitation though, the tool cannot determine if a network connection was properly created - so it will not provide sensible feedback on that, instead it will always create a mountpoint which may be empty if the actual connection fails. The object for this tool is placed in the "Local Network" folder and is called "Virtual Filesystem for SMB" - the GUI has been updated quite heavily since eComStation 2.0 RC4, refer to WHATSNEW.TXT for details.
REPORTING
General Feedback
eComStation 2.0 RC5 introduces the Feedback Wizard, which will run if you have activated ACPI support. Please use this a as a first method to provide feedback to the eComStation development team. We will use this info to quantify the successrate of ACPI support in eComStation.

To tell us your findings, please create a report at:
http://www.ecomstation.com/support/rc5report/

UniAud
To report problems related to UniAud, please refer to http://svn.netlabs.org/uniaud
When you create a new ticket, please do always attach logs.
You can create all the logs we need, by downloading this package: ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/uniaud/UniInfo.zip
Please attach the Uniinfo.zip it creates to your ticket.

ACPI
To report problems related to ACPI, please refer to http://svn.netlabs.org/acpi
Before entering a ticket, please read http://ecomstation.ru/projects/acpitools/?action=logs
Collect all the data that applies to your issue and include it with the ticket.

TestTeam
You are also welcome to join the TestTeam if you want to discuss this beta and future developments.
See http://ewiki.ecomstation.nl/TestTeam for more details.
READ THE README
Please read the full README document and WHATSNEW.TXT for details on downloading and creating the RC5 CD.