Re: [Freedos-user] Official kernels and distribution
Hi, I'm probably not the best person to answer these questions, but since nobody else responded On Fri, Nov 7, 2014 at 4:40 PM, Vidók Tibor tibor.vi...@gmail.com wrote: I've just installed FreeDOS to learn a DOS kernel architecture and the project activities. Actually what I cannot see clearly is the followings I have the SVN source tree, which is stopping at kernel 2041 and not changed any more. FreeDOS is an extremely small group of people, probably no more than ten people with SVN commit privileges. It's very low maintenance. At this point, people just have more important things to do (apparently), and it's considered good enough to not need major changes. But the mail below is about kernel 2042 which seems to be an unofficial build and fixes a very old CP/M incompatibility bug in its own unofficial git repository. Is there any plan to include such fixes in official FreeDOS as well? Or is this 2042 also an official release? No, AFAIK, Jeremy's unofficial Git repo is just for his local experiments. I don't know what it would take to make a formal kernel release for 2042. I don't know what testing or cleanups would be necessary. Unfortunately, as you've seen, most other kernel developers haven't had much time to work on it lately. Also SVN contains install for package handling from disksets, while the 1.1 installer contains fdupdate (which is obsolate) and fdpkg. The de facto official program is fdnpkg now, but, the official 1.1 distribution cannot be upgraded with it, since the .lst filenames of installed packages are in a pkgx.lst format and incompatible. As a result 1.1 install CD is not recommended to use, thus there is no valid official distribution exists. 1.1 is still available for download as official. Forks and separate distributions are always welcome. But most people aren't interested in doing all that work. As nice as it is to have a pre-made distro, it's a lot of work. Certainly FDNPKG is nice, but if plain vanilla FD 1.1 isn't good enough for you, you'll just have to make do with manual upgrades (or use Mateusz's unofficial .iso). That brings up another point: packages / .ZIPs. If you want to help make some additional or newer packages, then contact Mateusz and/or Jim Hall directly. But once again, motivation is low, and volunteers are few. FreeDOS doesn't have the luxury of thousands of people helping, sadly. It's actually quite hard to keep track of all the tiny pieces. So how a user can locate or identify what is the official (conforming to JHall) freedos distribution? http://www.freedos.org/download/ http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.1/ Is there any plan to release a FreeDOS-1.1.1 or FreeDOS-1.2 with the updated kernel and fixed package installer? Maybe with fdnpkg? Not unless somebody steps up to do the work. I'm not comfortable with creating an .iso and fully testing it, so it probably won't be me. Quite honestly, some things change too fast to constantly update. I know it's not ideal, but I still think manually updating is your best bet. (I also think emulators are useful, but that too requires lots of testing.) Believe it or not, most people who download DOS should already know what they're doing. Thank you for your clarification in advance, Tibi Sorry if that's not what you want to hear. -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=157005751iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Official kernels and distribution
Hi All, As a user for whom 2 kernels were modified, I just wanted to add to the current conversation. With regard to the official kernel, even as one who uses quite obscure DOS programs, the compatibility is remarkable. I now only have one program that I cannot run on FreeDOS. When I first learned of the recent FreeDOS update in September, I was at first disappointed with the blank slate do it yourself installation method. I had to install, re-install, then install 1.0 and the previous 1.1 to see the differences, etc. Finally (3 weeks later), I achieved a successful installation with various configurations and it was very rewarding. By the first week of October, I had managed to create a modified setup disk for myself which initiates the hd and sets the path structure for FDNPKG to function without a hitch. The only thing I would like to see is a wildcard method (especially for BASE). But even as it is, I can go from format to a full installation in about and hour and 15 minutes with breaks. After a while it gets to be fun! On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 4:52 PM, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I'm probably not the best person to answer these questions, but since nobody else responded On Fri, Nov 7, 2014 at 4:40 PM, Vidók Tibor tibor.vi...@gmail.com wrote: I've just installed FreeDOS to learn a DOS kernel architecture and the project activities. Actually what I cannot see clearly is the followings I have the SVN source tree, which is stopping at kernel 2041 and not changed any more. FreeDOS is an extremely small group of people, probably no more than ten people with SVN commit privileges. It's very low maintenance. At this point, people just have more important things to do (apparently), and it's considered good enough to not need major changes. But the mail below is about kernel 2042 which seems to be an unofficial build and fixes a very old CP/M incompatibility bug in its own unofficial git repository. Is there any plan to include such fixes in official FreeDOS as well? Or is this 2042 also an official release? No, AFAIK, Jeremy's unofficial Git repo is just for his local experiments. I don't know what it would take to make a formal kernel release for 2042. I don't know what testing or cleanups would be necessary. Unfortunately, as you've seen, most other kernel developers haven't had much time to work on it lately. Also SVN contains install for package handling from disksets, while the 1.1 installer contains fdupdate (which is obsolate) and fdpkg. The de facto official program is fdnpkg now, but, the official 1.1 distribution cannot be upgraded with it, since the .lst filenames of installed packages are in a pkgx.lst format and incompatible. As a result 1.1 install CD is not recommended to use, thus there is no valid official distribution exists. 1.1 is still available for download as official. Forks and separate distributions are always welcome. But most people aren't interested in doing all that work. As nice as it is to have a pre-made distro, it's a lot of work. Certainly FDNPKG is nice, but if plain vanilla FD 1.1 isn't good enough for you, you'll just have to make do with manual upgrades (or use Mateusz's unofficial .iso). That brings up another point: packages / .ZIPs. If you want to help make some additional or newer packages, then contact Mateusz and/or Jim Hall directly. But once again, motivation is low, and volunteers are few. FreeDOS doesn't have the luxury of thousands of people helping, sadly. It's actually quite hard to keep track of all the tiny pieces. So how a user can locate or identify what is the official (conforming to JHall) freedos distribution? http://www.freedos.org/download/ http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.1/ Is there any plan to release a FreeDOS-1.1.1 or FreeDOS-1.2 with the updated kernel and fixed package installer? Maybe with fdnpkg? Not unless somebody steps up to do the work. I'm not comfortable with creating an .iso and fully testing it, so it probably won't be me. Quite honestly, some things change too fast to constantly update. I know it's not ideal, but I still think manually updating is your best bet. (I also think emulators are useful, but that too requires lots of testing.) Believe it or not, most people who download DOS should already know what they're doing. Thank you for your clarification in advance, Tibi Sorry if that's not what you want to hear. -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=157005751iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk
Re: [Freedos-user] Official kernels and distribution
On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 6:04 PM, Don Flowers donr...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, As a user for whom 2 kernels were modified, I just wanted to add to the current conversation. With regard to the official kernel, even as one who uses quite obscure DOS programs, the compatibility is remarkable. I now only have one program that I cannot run on FreeDOS. ... Which program is that? Any additional details about the program will help track down what the incompatibility is and see how difficult it will be to fix. Thank you, Jeremy -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=157005751iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Official kernels and distribution
The program is one to which I referred in a previous post; a Collins Dictionary TSR. I managed to find what I believe to be the barebones TSRINT, and by what I could tell through HIEW, it has a push bx? between an INT21 and INT20 call (I think that is the right order). The one included with the Collins has the calls consecutively with no midstep. I don't know enough about TSRs to know if if this is relevant or not. All I know it works on every other DOS platform I have tried from Compaq 3.31 to the not so legal MS-DOS 7.10. This is the link to the ASM for TSRINT http://code.filehungry.com/product/languages/assembler/x86_programming/sourcecode/various_sourcecode/t-bones/ On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 6:53 PM, perditi...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 6:04 PM, Don Flowers donr...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, As a user for whom 2 kernels were modified, I just wanted to add to the current conversation. With regard to the official kernel, even as one who uses quite obscure DOS programs, the compatibility is remarkable. I now only have one program that I cannot run on FreeDOS. ... Which program is that? Any additional details about the program will help track down what the incompatibility is and see how difficult it will be to fix. Thank you, Jeremy -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=157005751iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=157005751iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Official kernels and distribution
Hi, I've just installed FreeDOS to learn a DOS kernel architecture and the project activities. Actually what I cannot see clearly is the followings I have the SVN source tree, which is stopping at kernel 2041 and not changed any more. But the mail below is about kernel 2042 which seems to be an unofficial build and fixes a very old CP/M incompatibility bug in its own unofficial git repository. Is there any plan to include such fixes in official FreeDOS as well? Or is this 2042 also an official release? Also SVN contains install for package handling from disksets, while the 1.1 installer contains fdupdate (which is obsolate) and fdpkg. The de facto official program is fdnpkg now, but, the official 1.1 distribution cannot be upgraded with it, since the .lst filenames of installed packages are in a pkgx.lst format and incompatible. As a result 1.1 install CD is not recommended to use, thus there is no valid official distribution exists. So how a user can locate or identify what is the official (conforming to JHall) freedos distribution? Is there any plan to release a FreeDOS-1.1.1 or FreeDOS-1.2 with the updated kernel and fixed package installer? Maybe with fdnpkg? Thank you for your clarification in advance, Tibi 2014-11-05 23:54 keltezéssel, Don Flowers írta: Hi Kenneth, The 2042 Kernel works great, also I was wrong about the partition size, I have installed and reinstalled and forgot to update my GRUB! Thank you for providing another option...now if someone could help me with a TSR conflict for my Collins Dictionary. : ) On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 11:18 PM, perditi...@gmail.com mailto:perditi...@gmail.com wrote: Please try the kernel build (8086,FAT32) at http://www.fdos.org/kernel/testing/olb/ and let me know if this one also works for you. It is a variation of the mentioned patch. This patch in its simplest form updates the characters in the common separators and terminators. Thank you, Kenneth J. Davis -- ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
