Just now getting to this as well as Tom’s email.
I completely agree with this, from Antony:
<quote>
I think the original goal of FreeDOS has been met, based upon what I remember
from back in 2000 or so when I came across the project. I have seen many posts
back and forth about adding support for this and that because Windows sucks and
so forth and so on.
</quote>
Over the years my view of FreeDOS is that “it does what it set out to do AND
MORE”. I have 1 dedicated FreeDOS system, 1 FreeDOS system + my own utilities
(dedicated to my Father as we both are command-line advocates) that I am
writing, and a few USB-bootable FreeDOS installs… ready to go.
Basically, I am of the two mindests:
[1] Keep FreeDOS for what it is
[2] Improve FreeDOS as I want the support of legacy games, etc, but the
ability to tie it into production (if you will)
Maybe I joined the Development list in the wrong time or with the wrong intent?
Every open source project I have contributed to, or attempted to, I end up
hitting a brick wall because:
[1] I don’t want to rock the boat
[2] The ideas which I contribute or the code I update is looked down upon, etc
This is not to say I feel this way about this Devel list, but that I agree:
actions speak louder than words. I will be putting code that I have, as soon
as possible, on GitHub. From some basic (compiled) to C++/Turbo Pascal, etc –
and let the masses decide.
My focus has been on absorbing resources and things that can benefit the core
of FreeDOS *while* preserving its intentions.
--jkbs | @xenfomation
From: Antony Gordon [mailto:cuzint...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2015 10:37 PM
To: Technical discussion and questions for FreeDOS developers.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-devel] Hello!
I think the original goal of FreeDOS has been met, based upon what I remember
from back in 2000 or so when I came across the project. I have seen many posts
back and forth about adding support for this and that because Windows sucks and
so forth and so on.
With that being said, here's what I see. Now I know opinions are like ... and
everyone has one...
The core FreeDOS aims to maintain compatibility with MS/PC DOS as it pertains
to in-memory data structures, like SysVars, Job File Tables, memory control
blocks, etc, documented (and undocumented API) based on DOS 6.22 such as the
DOS routines (INT 21h), the multiplexer (INT 2FH), Ctrl-Break (INT 23H),
Critical Error handler (INT 24H), and although superceded, absolute disk read
and write (INT 25H, INT26H respectively).
DOS was designed in an extensible manner, so I believe rather than changing the
core of the OS, we need to EXTEND the OS. Obviously features such as IPv4/IPv6,
GPT, are not relevant to the class of users that are wishing to still relive
the glory days of the early x86 processors, i.e., 8086, 8086, 80186, 80286,
etc.
There is a different class of user, mostly those commenting on this thread,
which would like to use DOS with newer machines. One alternative would be to
design and build a protected mode kernel that would map all of the real mode
calls and virtualize all hardware access. That would put us right where OSes
like Linux and Windows are. The other alternative is to develop a platform that
sits on top of DOS that runs and switches to protected mode and virtualize all
the hardware. That puts us where Windows 95/98 was.
To bring DOS into "the future" requires some parting with older technologies,
which isn't particularly a goal of this project. In comparison, the issues that
Microsoft has (and had) with Windows was in part due to their attempts to bring
along the past into the future. This is why Microsoft let go of DOS in the
Windows 9x code base and shifted to the Windows NT code base. Even then, with
32-bit code, it was still possible to run DOS applications (to an extent) but
they were isolated to their own VM.
Basically, short of forking this project, I don't see a way to incorporate the
advanced features and still remain compatible with an OS that is over 20 years
old.
On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 6:07 PM JK Benedict <xenfomat...@outlook.com
<mailto:xenfomat...@outlook.com> > wrote:
Excellent.
"Daily" builds was just an example and I agree, daily builds would be
overkill.
The angle I was coming from is when "core changes" start to be made. How
will this affect the 100 packages when core, resource, and drivers are
re-tooled? DOS is heavily classic, solid... but some of the changes will
affect the core. I should have been more specific in unit testing and
planning as various drivers, kernel, and kernel-deps change.
Ah, Zip files -- the beauty of DOS. I love Linux, but sometimes I just
don't feel like writing code or compiling things :)
Thanks for the reply and will research/download the wifi drivers as soon as
possible.
--jesse/jkbs
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Auer [mailto:e.a...@jpberlin.de <mailto:e.a...@jpberlin.de> ]
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2015 7:17 AM
To: freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
<mailto:freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Freedos-devel] Hello!
Hi Jesse,
Centralized documentation makes sense, but why would you put 100 packages in
a centralized source code repository if 95 of them have not a single source
code change in a whole year?
And why do nightly builds of all 100 then? DOS heavily relies on classic
software that simply is okay as it is and that no longer changes :-)
As mentioned in the thread, there already is a considerable number of text
and graphical web browsers. It probably is better to improve one of those
instead of writing yet another browser.
I agree that it is good to have a wishlist for shareware software that we
would like to become free open source. Maybe the list could be done in wiki
style?
In general, if the hardware common for virtual machines is among the
hardware for which there are drivers, there is no need to have separate
development for virtualization and installation.
We do already have a few VM-specific tools which are available :-) And there
could be a download of a pre-installed VM, in case installation from ISO
takes too much effort ;-)
IPv6 is widely available already but is rarely required so I agree that DOS
is not in a hurry.
Regarding GPT, that is something that only needs some reasonably small
amount of kernel code to support in passive scenarios. Having FDISK with GPT
would be way more code, I guess. Most other tools never look at a partition
table, so for them, this is not relevant.
FileMaven basically does the LapLink thing, but it is closed source. It
would be nice to have something open. On computers with network (LAN), it is
better to use existing FTP, SCP, SMB or HTTP tools to copy files around. And
there is a tool to copy files between VM and hypervisor.
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, there already are quite a few network
drivers for DOS, but almost none for wireless network. Note that even if you
do support the card, security protocols would still need a (often very
complex) driver as well. Actually I agree with Mateusz:
Better use a cheap portable and versatile access point with LAN between AP
and DOS, so all the wireless complexity can be done by a small AP.
There already is a FreeDOS repository of pre- packaged pre-compiled software
that can be installed, both from file and over the network.
Mateusz would be happy if you can help him to update and extend the
contents.
That repository also contains pre-packaged ZIPs with package sources.
Remember that 95 out of
100 DOS tools do NOT get updated, so the sources are static and it works
just fine to offer a ZIP with them for download.
Cheers, Eric
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