Hi, > On Jun 24, 2025, at 12:50 AM, Roger via Freedos-user > <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> >> On Mon, Jun 23, 2025 at 02:15:48AM -0400, Jerome Shidel via >> Freedos-user wrote: >> Hi, >> >> After reading your reply, I think I may need to clarify what is meant >> by the repository ISO. >> >> The ISO files to which I am referring are created anytime there is an >> update to any package. They are the latest versions of the packages. >> There is a 1.4 repo DVD ISO that has all of the “Stable” package >> updates since the FreeDOS 1.4 Release. Also, there is a Latest repo DVD >> ISO that contains the most recent “Stable” and “Unstable” versions of >> packages. >> >> This ISO images are not the FreeDOS Release ISO and disk images. These >> contain the same and updated packages to the OS. >> >> I’m not sure if most users are even aware that these other ISO images >> even exist. > > By far not an expert and rarely visit the FreeDOS download page, however > your description is quite confusing.
I am sorry about that. There are a lot of similarities between many of the resources we use online. While each has its own purpose and needs to fill, the terms used to describe them can almost be used interchangeably. This makes it very easy to confuse one with another. I try to be very consistent when referring to the different assets. But, that only helps a little once familiar with the terms used to describe them. There is the FreeDOS Release Media. These are the release versions of the operating system. For example, FreeDOS 1.4, 1.3, 1.2, 1.1, 1.0 and earlier pre-release versions. Depending on the OS version, a releases contains CD, USB and Diskette images. These are all available online and are stored on the IBIBLIO server under a “distributions” directory. There is the FreeDOS Interim Build. This is basically the same as a FreeDOS Release. It is usually created on the 1st of every month using the latest versions of the software packages we have. Being created from both “Stable” and “Unstable” packages, it is meant for testing the current development state of the operating system. It contains all of the same types of image files that would be in a Release. This is stored alongside those Releases in a “test” directory. The Interim Build and the various Releases of the OS are each configured for different “Download and Update” Repository. Those repositories contain all of the packages that were in the Release. They may contain updates to those packages. They may contain some packages that are not supplied on the Release media. If the computer has networking configured, programs like FDNPKG can reach out to a Repository and download updates or install new software packages. Two of the Repositories are also configured to generate an ISO whenever any their packages get updated. The ISO is not bootable and is not meant for installing the operating system. It is simply a collection of the newest version of all of the packages contained in that specific repository. Since each repository is fairly large, these are DVD images. While the Repositories are also stored on IBIBLIO, they are in a different directory and completely separate from any Release or Interim build. I don’t think we need to have the Repositories create those additional ISO images. Partly because, we have the Monthly Interim build that contains the latest packages. Partly because, you can either download updates in DOS with FDNPKG or visit the Repositories with a web browser to download stuff. I hope that helps clears up which ISO images. > > I think most people download the latest and greatest release ISOs, along > with any associated ISOs for that releases, such as extras. > > Those reverting to an older ISO version, will be doing so for avoiding > bugs within newer ISO releases or for other exquisite reasons. For the > older versions, they will also be looking for all associated ISO > versions along with ISO extras. > > Very rarely will people be looking for developement/experimental builds, > and are more frequently updated due to fast moving pace of the source > code or builds. > > Roger > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-user mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > <signature.asc> _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
