This project was launched by Alexey Smirnov in 1997 after the long investigation of OS/2 system utilities market. For now this is a NETLABS.ORG project and its runs under BSD (programs) and LGPL (runtime) licenses.

So, if you start to compare the common set of Win32 system utilities with all that were made for OS/2, you may see the great precipice that divide these two markets. More over, a lot of OS/2 developers were switched to porting UNIX applications instead of creating native code lately. The author thinks that this process may lead to total superseding of OS/2 native apps with their porting analogs, including UNIX-ported apps and apps that will be ported with the help of [http://trac.netlabs.org/odin32 Odin] project.

So, SysInfo/2 developer try to perform a hard work - write a complete set of OS/2 PM system utilities that will be complete enough to compare with well-known Symantec Norton Utilities for Windows 95/NT. This set will include not only System Information tool, but also SpeedDisk, DiskDoctor, etc. But this is a future. 

= System Info as it is: =
Well, lets start from the beginning. After doing a SystemInfo utility, you may think that you can understand a use ~75% of OS/2 system API. Also you will got a lot of experience in using your compiler, so all next projects will be finished a little bit faster.

System Information Tool is written using SpeedSoft Sibyl compiler. Sibyl is an integrated visual environment (IDE) and is looks like a Delphi analog for OS/2. But for now Sibyl is a dead project, SpeedSoft Web site is down and no new version will be made. We have a compete set of development environment to keep on working with SysInfo/2 project, but in the nearest future we plan to switch to open-source Pascal IDE and compiler ([http://sibyl.netlabs.org/ OpenSibyl project]).

SysInfo/2 was created using well-known Norton SysInfo as an example. Some pictures that are used in SysInfo/2 were taken from it and also from other Win32 apps, but now it comes with new pictures thanks to Joachim Benjamins.

So, using SysInfo/2 you may get a complete set of hardware and software information. Also you can detect all your PCI cards, even if they are not detected and not in use by OS/2 system. 

= External API used by program: =

'''For SysInfo/2 ver. 0.7.6 and higher:'''
SysInfo/2 is using [ftp://ps.software.ibm.com/ps/products/os2/fixes/v4.5warp/theseus4/ IBM Theseus 4] software to get information about memory distribution, running processes and so on. For PRE Aurora OS/2 system, [ftp://ps.software.ibm.com/ps/products/os2/fixes/v4warp/theseus3/ IBM Theseus 3] modules are used. SysInfo/2 will try to load appropriate Theseus module depending on OS/2 core version, but if you are using OS/2 Warp 3 or Warp 4 - you should first install Theseus *.SYS driver into your CONFIG.SYS. You can find all appropriate instructions in the (English) READ.ME file coming with SysInfo/2 package. We plan to add a driver installation into SysInfo/2 package installer in the future.

'''Attention!''' If you have some old copies of Theseus DLLs somewhere in your LIBPATH - SysInfo/2 will not start! Be sure that Theseus0.dll is the latest version and that there is only one copy available.

'''Since SysInfo/2 0.8.9:'''
All benchmarks are placed into *.DLL modules. All useful and common functions were also placed into SIRNTIME.DLL. So, you you must place them into SysInfo/2 working directory. Do not copy them to X:\OS2\DLL or somewhere in your LIBPATH. You can collect some old copies there and SysInfo/2 may crash due to it. 

= Known limitations: =

Our CPU identification code doesn't work with older Cyrix CPU (prior 6x86MX) due to a strange CPU reaction to CPUID command. A pre-6x86MX CPU claims it can execute this command, but it is turned off by the BIOS.

As for SysInfo/2 main window size - it is designed using Sibyl base class "tabbed notebook" that is unable to resize at runtime, so for now I don't know how to resize this window to adopt it to current screen resolution. So, it is better to use SysInfo/2 with screen resolution of 800x600 and higher.

Some users report that SysInfo/2 may crash on systems with Media Vision PAS-16 (ISA) sound card installed. Also this crash will occur if you use Media Vision PAS-16 (ISA) with driver taken from OS/2 Warp 3.0 distribution. We thinks that this is not a SysInfo/2 problem, but a driver bug.

PCI BIOS scanning algorithm may not work with older PCI BIOSes (that can support only PCI 2.0 specification). Sorry for that. 


= Project status: =
Now my project is ready up to 98%. You can download SysInfo/2 here: [http://trac.netlabs.org/sysinfo Download].

For now we planned to add some text reporting features, help system and command-line switches.. A SysInfo/2 roadmap can be seen here: (RoadMap). You can add your wishes to this roadmap by mailing to [betatester@rambler.ru betatester@rambler.ru]. Also, we invite all the people who want to work with us to develop, localize and distribute SysInfo/2 over OS/2 community.