Hi all, Over the years that I have been directly involved with FreeDOS, I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos covering our operating system. I do not know how much time the rest of you have spent watching those types of videos. For me, I find viewing them useful in determining what we can improve upon. Their content has left me with a few impressions.
On the plus side, FreeDOS has improved a lot. Easier to install, grate features, better hardware support and improved compatibility with MS-DOS games. And in many ways, far superior to MS-DOS. But unfortunately, I am also left with a few negative impressions as well. I try to discard those things related to old bugs were fixed by the now aging FreeDOS 1.3 or later Interim Test Builds. But, those do motivate me to help push the next release of the OS. As for the few games or programs which will not run on FreeDOS, oh well. It is already very compatible and continues to get more so over time. Even back in the DOS days, I recall having programs that would run on MS-DOS and not PC-DOS or other variants. That was a long time ago and I do not recall any specific program. I only vaguely remember it happening on rare occasions. That was so long ago, it could have been really been hardware and not OS related. The biggest negative I see when watching those videos really comes down to one simple topic. Documentation. As an example, in a recent video on FreeDOS, I numbly watched the reviewer try several times to mount the FullUSB image in VirtualBox using the Floppy Diskette controller. With me sitting at my desk shaking my head and mumbling at my monitor, “that’s not going to work, that’s not going to work”. After a few attempts, the reviewer gave up and commented something like “I don’t know why that image is broken. That is why you will need to use the CD-ROM.” To us here on the mailing list, the problem would be obvious. Or take the videos I’ve seen, where I wonder why they are doing something a certain way. When there are far quicker and easier methods, I can only let out a disheartened sigh and think “Ouch. Well that was the really hard way go getting that done." This is not to make fun or belittle any of those content creators. By operating system standards, DOS is ancient and unfamiliar too many people. Even when DOS ruled the world, many people were unfamiliar with how to use it. They simple lacked the knowledge needed. This is not something we should expect them to possess. But, such things are a problem. As I see it, a problem that is 100% out fault. I am glad to see Jim’s efforts regarding the FreeDOS Documentation project on GetLab[1]. Creating that resource will not be a quick task. But hopefully, someday, it could greatly reduce the number of issues I see that are caused by lack of information. Of course, there will always be those who never bother to "read the manual”. But, nothing can be done about that. :-) Jerome [1] https://gitlab.com/FreeDOS/docs <https://gitlab.com/FreeDOS/docs>
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