Hi, > On Dec 2, 2022, at 4:38 PM, Bernd Boeckmann via Freedos-devel > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi all, > > last time I installed FreeDOS from floppy disk set I was in need for an > editor to edit some system filed but did not find one on the boot disk. Is > that an oversight of mine or is this by intention? I found that very > inconvenient. Perhaps there is a way to include at least minimal editing > capabilities for updating system config files etc. > > Greetings, > Bernd
Edit was only included on the boot diskette of earlier versions of the Floppy Edition during the initial development of that version of the release. It was there for me to make minor changes and bug fixes to the diskette and installer without the need to rebuild the release. All three diskette (720kb, 1.2mb & 1.44mb formats) sets contain the same set of files on the boot diskette. With very few exceptions (Like MEM and MORE), only the absolute minimum number of programs needed to boot and install the OS are provided on the diskette. As such, there is only about 63kb of free space on the 720kb diskette image. If a user is installing from a 720kb diskette, they are probably using a very old system. In such a case, they may need to include a special driver to perform the install. Excluding everything that is not absolutely required prevents any confusion on what can be removed from the diskette without causing installation problems. For the most part, I feel that is better to leave that space free and let the user decide what utilities or drivers they need or want to add. This is also the reason that no archive files are included on the boot diskette. It is possible that the some the sets (720, 1.2, 1.44) could be reduced by a diskette if some of the archive files were included on that diskette image. But I completely agree it would be nice to include some sort of text editor. Like MEM and MORE, it can be difficult to get along without having them on a boot diskette. But, at 65.9kb for EDIT.EXE + 29.4kb for EDIT.HLP, there is not enough room on the 720kb diskette set to include edit. Perhaps the 16-bit version of E3 at only 4kb could be included. Or possible, a different very light-weight editor. On a side note… Looking at the latest Interim build, I see that 2 new files have crept onto the diskette. Those are FASTHELP.BAT and SETVER.SYS. They are using about 1kb of diskette space and should be excluded. Jerome _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
