On Thu, Mar 31, 2022 at 9:10 PM Michael Brutman <mbbrut...@brutman.com> wrote: > > Please forgive me for getting lost on this thread, but what exactly > is the problem that we are trying to solve? > > Are we trying to make things simpler for novice users? Advanced users? > FreeDOS maintainers (Jerome in particular) ? > >
Summarizing from the original post that started this thread (March 3): After the FreeDOS 1.3 release, I wanted to start thinking about what comes next. I proposed three changes: 1. Move to an automatically updated test release, so it's easier to test the current version. I called this a "rolling release" in my original post, but I think that's incorrect usage. To be clear, I suggest having an (automated?) system that generates a new FreeDOS "test" release at some regular interval. Let's say monthly, for example. Developers release new packages all the time, but if it takes 5 or 6 years for a new official FreeDOS distribution to come out, it kind of sucks if you want to test the new updates in a full distribution. It puts a lot of work on us to test *everything* at once when we're pushing to make FreeDOS 1.2 or 1.3 or 1.4. If we had regular "test" releases, folks could test those and identify issues up front. 2. Simplify FreeDOS. There's a lot in the FreeDOS distribution. Do we need all the packages that we include in FreeDOS 1.3, when we release FreeDOS 1.4 (or 2.0, whatever we call it)? In my original post, I suggested we might remove the Unix packages. It was a good experiment, but I think folks find it confusing. Also might trim the editors, archivers, and utilities. Also suggested removing all of the graphical desktops, since these are limited in what they do (some are incomplete) and no one is working to fix the bugs. I also suggested splitting the distribution into "full" (containing everything, basically the LiveCD) and "mini" (containing just Base packages). This helps folks who just want to install a basic FreeDOS system, without the other packages. By trimming the packages, do we need a BonusCD? Deciding what packages to keep/remove is a larger discussion that we should have in a different thread. I'll start up new threads for each "package group" in hopes that this will keep discussion on-topic and manageable. 3. Make LiveCD the default. If most people use FreeDOS in a virtual machine, imagine defining a VM with the LiveCD, and just booting the CD. You're running FreeDOS, without having to install anything. There would still need to be a way to install on a hard drive (for folks who prefer to do that, or who are installing on bare hardware, etc) but the default could be "run everything from the LiveCD by default without having to install to a hard drive." This also requires looking closely at what packages we include. *I think this is a big change, so I suggested the next distro should be "2.0" Jim _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
