Hi, > On Jun 22, 2022, at 1:05 PM, Jim Hall <jh...@freedos.org> wrote: > > I like the idea of the interim development builds. This should be a > great way to test new changes that everyone can experiment with! > Thanks for doing this. > > I'm thinking about how people will (mis)interpret the "FreeDOS > Unstable" name. I wonder if "FreeDOS Test" might be a better name for > this.
I don’t think “Unstable" would cause much confusion. I think it is a well understood and established term for such releases. Many users are familiar with it from the Linux world. However, it is not a big deal to switch it from using the “Unstable” to “Test” or “Devel”. Maybe it’s a good question to put to your usability class. > The benefit of "Test" is that it is short enough to combine with > the "year+month" label and stay conveniently within an "8.3" filename, > so you have "TEST2207" and "TEST2208" and so on. (I know "8.3" names > aren't necessary for the web server, but it's a nice symmetry for > FreeDOS.) Actually, not quite… For example, each of the media get’s it’s own volume label to help differentiate them. For example, with 1.3 the CD boot floppy was “FD13-BOOT” but the image to boot directly from the LegacyCD is “FD13-LBFI”. So for all of those, they get labeled things like U2206-BOOT and U2206-LBFI. > > Also: I'd prefer to keep the repository for this separate from the > FreeDOS official 1.3, 1.2, and and 1.1 distributions. If we put the > interim development builds in the same "repositories" path as the > official distributions, I think people could easily be confused about > the status of the interim development builds. I think a better > location is under the ".../distributions/unofficial" parent location: > https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unofficial/ > > <https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unofficial/> I’m not sure about the “unofficial” label. It suggests it is not an official version of FreeDOS and is akin to a 3rd party fork of the OS. > > The path for the "FreeDOS Test" interim development builds would be: > https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unofficial/test/ > > <https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unofficial/test/> I was thinking go just https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unstable <https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unstable> and only keeping the latest one around. > And the path to the interim development builds package repo (index > page) would be: > https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unofficial/test/pkg-html/index.html > > <https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unofficial/test/pkg-html/index.html> Not a problem to move it. But when a user is not testing the interim build, it may make it more difficult for them to find and try the latest versions of packages. > > If we want to create an ISO "snapshot" of a specific test build, we > can use the "year+month" path to create a clearly labeled directory: > https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unofficial/test/test2207/ > > <https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unofficial/test/test2207/> We could. But at roughly 2gb per build, they use a lot of disk space. That will add up quickly doing monthly builds. > Jim I’ve uploaded the current interim test build version (U2206) to my server in a sub-directory of https://fd.lod.bz/releases/ <https://fd.lod.bz/releases/> I have not added a boot warning yet or implemented the black background in the installer. There are several aspects to look at and discuss before doing the official interim development releases. For example, the report includes in document links to change summaries. Just let me know what we need to change. :-) Jerome > > > On Wed, Jun 22, 2022 at 9:49 AM Jerome Shidel <jer...@shidel.net> wrote: >> >> Hi Jim and the Dev group, >> >> I’m in the process of wrapping up some minor improvements to the RBE >> (Release Build Environment) that I wanted to make for creating the >> interim development builds of FreeDOS. >> >> For example: >> >> * Automatic interim build versioning. That way we can easily verify >> that any reported issues are for the current or a previous build. I >> went with version numbers like U2207. The U (for Unstable) followed >> by Year and Month. If for some reason additional interim builds are >> created that month (major bug, etc), then a suffix of a-z is appended >> (like U2207, U2207a, U2207b, U2208, U2209, etc). >> >> * Automatic CHANGES.LOG. This will be included on the interim builds >> and actual release build media (LiveCD, LegacyCD and FullUSB) going >> forward. It is created by parsing the commit logs for changes since the >> last release (or interim build) in all of the various projects. There >> is some automatic filtering of things like updated timestamp and >> unimportant commits. Unfortunately, this means I’ll need to start >> writing better commit comments. :-( Anyway, it looks like this… >> >>> Changes since FreeDOS 1.3 release >>> >>> 2022-06-22 10:02:08 project_RBE (shidel): Adjust interim build file names >>> 2022-06-22 09:13:23 project_RBE (shidel): Automatic Unstable Build >>> Versioning >>> 2022-06-21 09:21:37 project_FD-NLS (shidel): added FreeDOS release README >>> to NLS project >>> 2022-06-19 20:43:04 project_FD-NLS (cardpuncher): Add files via upload >>> 2022-06-19 19:51:27 project_FD-NLS (shidel): from W.Spiegl >>> … >>> 2022-06-17 23:29:30 project_FD-NLS (Andrew Bird): Fixup incorrect UTF-8 >>> file extension suffix >>> 2022-06-13 14:46:45 sbpmixer (Shidel): Initial commit >>> 2022-06-13 10:50:00 sbpmixer (shidel): v2.0 >>> 2022-06-06 21:32:25 project_FD-NLS (cardpuncher): Add files via upload >>> 2022-06-03 06:53:06 project_FD-NLS (shidel): W.Spiegl >>> 2022-05-30 10:38:58 project_FD-NLS (shidel): Codepage corrections >>> 2022-05-26 10:42:04 xdel (shidel): v2.08 >>> 2022-05-24 02:31:32 xdel (shidel): v2.07 >>> 2022-05-17 07:40:47 fasm (shidel): v1.73.30 >>> … >> >> >> * Interim builds use slightly different file names so they are not >> confused with release builds. >> >> * Interim build package update >> links now point to the Unstable software repo ( >> https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/unstable/pkg-html/index.html >> ) instead of a version specific repository. The Unstable repo contains >> the latest package versions. >> >> What is left to (probably) do… >> >> * Maybe… Update installer theme when using interim build. I’m >> thinking black background to differentiate it a normal release (blue >> background). >> >> * Maybe… Add boot message noting/warning that it is not a release >> build. Maybe… >> >> “Warning: This is a FreeDOS development build and is for testing >> purposes. It may exhibit behavior vary different from a release >> build and may not be suitable for regular use. For general use, >> please consider using the latest release build available at >> http://freedos.org” >> >> Anyhow, we should be ready for the first interim build on July 1st. >> >> At some point, I will probably shove the RBE onto one of the machines >> I have laying around with a cron job to create an interim build each >> month. Then, automatically upload it if there are any changes. >> >> :-) >> >> Jerome > > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-devel mailing list > Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
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