Installing Warp Server for e-Business

Warp Server for e-business is IBM's latest version of OS/2. Released in May 1999, the software runs on Intel personal computers and servers, and includes WebSphere, IBM's web application platform. I have used OS/2 for some time, so I decided to build my web application using the new release.

Warp Server for e-Business CD-Roms

Preparing the hard drive

The installation CD can be used for any SCSI hard drive, and EIDE hard drives up to 30 GB. To install OS/2 Warp Server for e-business on a larger EIDE hard drive, you must make bootable diskettes and update them with newer EIDE support files. The fix is on the IBM website and is named IDEDASD. Instructions for updating the diskettes are included in the IDEDASD package.

I started the computer with the Installation CD (A11) in the CD-Rom drive. This bootable OS/2 CD is equivalent to the three floppies that start the installation of earlier versions of OS/2. After the computer started, the instructions on the screen requested the Base Server CD.

Once I had inserted the Bootable OS/2 CD, the system started the Logical Volume Manager to set up an installable partition. Initially, only the CD-Rom was shown, because the new hard drive had no partitions. I pressed F5 to switch to the physical view. The physical view showed a 17288 HD. I won't explain how to create partitions in LVM, it isn't hard. I created a 2 GB boot partition and exited. A reboot was required -- I placed the Installation CD back in the drive.

With the boot process repeated, and I placed the Base Server CD back in the drive. Why couldn't IBM make the Base Server CD bootable? Now the installation offered to install on the C drive, which I accepted. I then selected HPFS as my file system, and elected to do a long format. About 10 minutes later, the format was complete and the installation program started to copy its files. After 2 minutes, the machine rebooted, this time from the hard drive. When the reboot completed, The Presentation Manger program Selective Install was running.

Configuring the OS

On the first Install Screen, System Configuration, I changed nothing. The Install program has not recognized my Audio Card. This is a good thing, because I have a newer driver for my sound card. The next screen allowed the choices of addtional software. I made all the usual choices; every OS/2 user has his own preferences.

For the Primary Display, I always use VGA, and install proper display support later. For Multimedia Device Support, I choose NONE and install proper audio support later. When the country information screen comes up, I leave the choice at US (437,850). I switch these values later when I need support for the Euro character. I do not install a default printer, but install printer support later. The reason for deferring the installation of these drivers is that newer, better drivers are available.

When choosing additional components, I install all available System Utilities, and the Optional bitmaps from Tools and Games. I leave all other settings at their default values.

The following screen offered to install these additional products.

• File and Print Sharing Services
• TCP/IP Services
• Remote Access Services
• Netscape Communicator
• Tivoli Management Agent
• PSnS Backup and Recovery
• LDAP Toolkit
• Advanced Print Services

I selected File and Print Sharing Services, TCP/IP Services and Netscape Communicator. For File and Print Sharing Services, I added UPS support. For TCP/IP Services, I added NFS support.

The Network configuration screen followed. A list of configurable options was presented, with green check marks, blue dashes or red greater than symbols by each one. I examined each option, and set needed options. When I was done, there were green check marks by each section. This is a list of the things I changed.

I picked a name for the server, and for the domain. In the Network and Protocol option, I supplied the driver for my network card. My network adapter came with a floppy disk and it had an OS/2 driver on it. In the User ID and Password option, I selected a USERID and PASSWORD. In the TCP/IP Services option, I entered a TCP/IP address for my local 192.168.xxx.yyy network. I did not enable DHCP. I entered DNS for the network service I would hook up later.

After Network configuration, I reached the last screen and pressed OK. Twenty one minutes later, I was looking at the OS/2 registration screen.

I closed the registration screen. I opened the TCP/IP Configuration (Local) from System Setup, and I enabled interface 1 for DHCP, to work with my DSL modem.

Results

The resulting installation consumes 232.311 KB according to chkdsk.