Hi, For me the last option (use Linux as VMM) would be the most sensible, needing the least support effort for hardware and drivers: the Linux guys will do it :) Hardware-based DOS distributions will never get outdated because Linux never will.
I think we talked about this option some time in one of the sunday meetings: in my opinion, the nicest option would be if there was a sufficiently small Linux distro that could be stripped down up to just running DOSEMU (or xDOSEMU), maybe just one console, or maybe several (if that old Ctrl+Alt+Fx is an option). Just a thought and opinion, I wish I had some spare time myself to get into such endeavour. Aitor On Sat, 15 Jan 2022 at 13:33, Jerome Shidel <jer...@shidel.net> wrote: > Hello all, > > I’ve got a couple thoughts regarding the OS release media I wanted to > throw out to you all. These are just things I was pondering and by no means > I’m I saying any of these are going to happen. They are just some ideas I’d > like to share with you and get feedback on… > > As you know, the LiveCD uses multiple boot images. A floppy one that > starts the Live Environment. A second floppy one that launches directly > into the installer. Finally, a third small hard disk image to run the > FloppyEdition installer without need for OS level CD support. > > Do you think the FloppyEdition installer should be given it’s own entry in > the CD boot menu? Or, leave it as an “EasterEgg” boot by selecting the > copyright notice on the menu? > > Personally, I don’t see either as a perfect solution. If it is left as an > EasterEgg, many people will never know it is there. Don’t forget, that > installer does not need any OS level CD support. If a machine can boot it, > it can pretty much install FreeDOS on anything. On the other hand, I think > moving it to it’s own menu item will just confuse users by having 2 > different “Install FreeDOS options”. > > Another possibility is drop the current “Install” option. Replacing it > with the Floppy Edition. Maybe call it something like “Install FreeDOS BASE > only.” After all, there is no problem running the primary installer from > the Live Environment. But again, I think users will pick the wrong thing. > > This now brings me to the Legacy CD. > > It boots using a different process than the LiveCD (See numerous previous > posts on those differences). This provides CD booting on a narrow range of > hardware that can boot from CD but not use the method employed by the > LiveCD. There is a CD Boot Floppy included in the LiveCD download zip > archive. So, do we really need to keep the LegacyCD around? > > The emulated Floppy the LegacyCD boots is the same as the current LiveCD’s > boot to install menu option. If the LegacyCD sticks around, the image it > boot’s could be switched to the one used by the LiveCD’s boot to Live > Environment. This would provide a Live Environment on that legacy hardware. > But, then what would we call things. They’d both be LiveCDs. > > Finally (at least for now), along with the LiveCD and LegacyCD a CD boot > floppy image is included. We could include a second floppy image to boot > the Live Environment when direct booting from a CD is not possible. But, it > could also cause confusion on what to use or burn to CD or Floppy. So, IDK. > > I changed my mind. Thats not all just yet. > > A lot of users want to run FreeDOS from USB. As I see it, there are > several issues with that. > > First, you cannot guarantee that when booted from USB that drive will be > writable. Personally, I’ve never seen when it was write protected. But, > during the early days of developing the installer for 1.2, I learned that > it was sometimes the case and attempts to use it for temp storage resulted > in the users machine screaming very loud beeps and throwing write errors. > So, the installer was modified and always assumes it’s boot media is > write-protected. > > Next, I don’t think users want a temporary Live Environment for USB usage. > They probably want the programs they install and the changes they make to > remain for next time. They also probably want the full capacity of the USB > drive. > > That is problematic. Without spending the time to write our own custom > “Write to USB” program, most will be stuck writing the standard USB images > directly too the USB media. I don’t see us making our own custom image > burner to stretch the filesystem for all the major OS platforms. So, that’s > out for the foreseeable future. > > Probably most systems will only do USB HD emulation when booted from that > USB drive (although I have some machines here that do it even when booted > from the HD as long as the USB stick is inserted), the best solution I’ve > come up with has been around for a while. More or less I refer to it as an > OEM style install. I demonstrated it in a YouTube video with FreeDOS 1.2. > Basically, you just write the USB install image to the drive. Then boot it > and exit the installer. Use FDISK to create a separate partition on the USB > drive and reboot. Because who knows what all drives are in the machine and > how they will be ordered, use FDISK to verify the drive letter. If its > drive D:, just run the installer again. If it is not drive D:, run the > installer in advanced mode and tell it the appropriate drive. Once install > completes, just reboot. It will boot into the installed partition. This > leaves the original installer boot partition as a “OEM” style recovery > partition. It also lets FDIMPLES use that recovery partition as a package > source to add and remove addition programs. Not a perfect solution. But one > I’ve used many times on internal hard drives and even USB sticks. > > Ok, finally for now (this time I mean it). > > We come to UEFI and modern hardware. With modern hardware vendors dropping > support for Legacy BIOS and users wanting to run FreeDOS on modern > machines, I only see three solutions. > > First… Oh well, they can run it in a virtual machine and we should no > longer worry about native hardware support. > > Second… I really haven’t looked into this one at all. But, I think it > would be possible to use Core Boot, SeaBios or something else to provide > Legacy BIOS support ourselves on UEFI only systems. This would be a good > deal of work. It also still leaves the problem of sound drivers and other > hardware support. This might also require some thin hardware emulation > layer. But, it should be doable. > > Third… Create a custom extremely slim Linux distro to boot the system and > provide basic hardware support. That OS would boot directly into a VM > platform like QEMU or DOSBox and run FreeDOS. Overall, I think this might > be the best option for UEFI only systems and modern hardware. > > It would provide support for sound and networking through Linux drivers. > It could be easily slowed down for older games. It could even be used to > run FreeDOS on non-x86 based hardware. Some of the disadvantages of doing > this would be the need to technically maintain two operating systems. Since > even the lite weight Linux distros are more bloat than we would want or > need, we would have to do our own. It would also require creating some > Linux programs to easily manage things on the host OS. > > Perhaps this should be done as a completely separate project from FreeDOS. > Something like a RetroPC project. However, their may already be such a > project in existence we could use. We could then either release a version > or just point people at it for modern hardware. > > :-) > > Jerome > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-devel mailing list > Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel >
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