Hi everybody,
earlier this month, I tried to test the FreeDOS interim build
a.k.a. the rolling monthly test release of our FreeDOS distro
on an old netbook which barely runs WinXP. It was horrible.
Seriously.
First, I tried to find the download at all! No chance :-(
https://freedos.org/download/
offers FreeDOS 1.4 in many different styles, but there is
VERY little explanation.
People have to guess that the RELEASE NOTES are the only
readme they will find. There is no separate readme for
each download, or if there is one, which you only get to
see AFTER you downloaded a HUGE and possibly WRONG file :-(
The readme and the "what is included" report are hosted
on ibiblio - convenient, but makes them hard to access.
In particular, all Ibiblio links are HTTPS. Only our
freedos.org website itself can be visited in old HTTP,
for example by those strange people using DOS :-)
One such question was: How on earth do I create a bootable
stick from this diskimage? Most Linux distros have some sort
of graphical boot media creation wizard, but people do not
necessarily KNOW that. Neither do they know Rufus, Balena
Etcher and similar tools. Burning ISO images on CD/DVD at
least was slightly more intuitive as usual CD burner tools
have the right button hidden SOMEWHERE and people can guess
that they need to use their CD burner app. Apart from those
who just copy the image on an empty CD or USB and fail :-p
Anyway. First I had to FIND the boot image at all. After
failing to find ANY mention of the interim build on the
download area...
RANT mode: How on earth are we going to get people to TEST
our updates if only a hidden cult may KNOW that they EXIST?
Back from rant to normal disappointment: Of course I myself
do know that the interim builds exist. So I went to the
"files archive". From there, I had to navigate to
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/test/
which has SOME readme, but it fails to explain how to even
do the FIRST step: Create a bootable medium, at least on
the 3 most widespread operating systems.
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/test/readme.txt
For comparison, here is how Linux Mint explains those things:
https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/burn.html
"Launch Menu -> Accessories -> USB Image Writer" in Linux,
or install and use https://etcher.balena.io/ on any big OS.
Note that Mint still scares away users 1 step earlier, because
https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/verify.html
only explains to verify your download in Linux! Otherwise,
there is a subtle "Hint" pointing to a FORUM thread with
TWO HUNDRED posts, and counting:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=291093
People who do not know that verification can be skipped will
run away screaming and buy a PC for Windows 11 at that point.
Okay. So I used the USB image writer and had hope. But:
I tried the LiveCD on USB stick, but somehow failed to boot it.
I tried the FullUSB release - see below.
I tried the LegacyCD on USB stick, but somehow failed to boot it.
I tried the LiteUSB on USB stick, but somehow failed to boot it.
So far so bad. The BIOS probably only supports USB1, so both
DOS and Linux USB boot media easily take a minute to show any
sign of life. You just have to keep hope that they will boot
eventually. Failure is faster - boot will fall through to HDD.
So the only thing I got to boot was FullUSB. It booted into
a menu which let me select a language, then asked whether I
REALLY wanted to format the harddisk. Of course NOT! I want
to TEST FreeDOS. After all, this is a monthly test release :-)
The disappointment goes on.
After refusing to destroy all data on that netbook, I was
back at the command prompt and there was NO GERMAN KEYBOARD.
No problem, I thought. This stick is full of packages, I just
have to install some of them TO THE STICK, because there is
enough free space in the FAT filesystem I just booted from :-)
Right? Nope. Alas.
I checked FDIMPLES, which was surprisingly slow in even LOOKING
at the list of packages. Like several seconds to move from one
package to the next, probably because the DEFAULT is to fetch
metadata by parsing the whole ZIP file? It should be on demand.
Also, this could only process a list of packages you WANT, but
apparently cannot actually INSTALL them. So I gave up again.
It must be possible to just find and unzip MKEYB, I thought.
Well. There is no UNZIP in the minimal DOS install which is
used by the installer. How ironic!
I remembered that others had the problem, so I thought that
FDINST might be able to unzip things. It was not, it just
said "Error: Custom dir 'links' is not a valid absolute path!"
Probably some environment variable or config file which would
have been set by one of the many convoluted batch files run
during install to harddisk was missing.
I also tried to find some sort of expert mode to be able to
INSTALL TO USB FLASH STORAGE, which would be a really obvious
way to manually make your own live system.
Bonus points would have been given for getting something like
"You did not want to format your harddisk, so the install is
aborted, but please type PG LIVEDOS.TXT now if you want to
know what you can do next" when leaving the installer and the
ability to load a command-line RAMDISK for even more fun :-)
Well, fun was not one of the things to be had that day, alas.
I switched off the netbook and went back to my Linux PC.
There, I started to UNZIP stuff on the USB DOS boot stick.
First, UNZIP and MKEYB. Well. Nice try. UNZIP will only run
if you also install CWSDPMI. And I added 7ZIP and ZIP and
CTMOUSE :-) Next, I tried to do something fun, so I added
OPENGEM, OPENCP and MPLAYER. Those turned out to require
SWSUBST and DOS32A (or DOS4G/W, of course).
It was nostalgic to see a GEM desktop, but a bit silly to
not find any included GEM apps for it. Am I missing any?
There also was something odd with CTMOUSE: It would only
SOMETIMES find the touchpad. It seems that running DOS32A
before CTMOUSE somehow increased my luck, but not sure.
Next, I tried OPENCP (open cubic player) and MPLAYER, but
found out that zero example media had been included in the
interim build. Even Rugxulo's single floppy distro had some.
Of course I had some OGG and MP3 on Linux, and there is
https://modarchive.org/ but you have to take care to not
get too modern file formats there, I would imagine?
Elysium.mod (127 kB, a classic) might be an idea:
https://modarchive.org/module.php?40475
Rugxulo also had an EIGHT kilobyte mp3 file of Jim Hall
pronouncing FreeDOS. We should include that again :-)
PS: Open Cubic Player is just "ocp" from a Linux terminal,
but the DOS version is confusingly called just "cp". Note
that the DOS version wants DOS4GW, but you can "DOS32A CP".
So... In DOS... It started. It showed the expected fancy,
yet simple animation. Not a sound was heard.
Of course I had failed to install VSBHDA or SBEMU, but
I had deliberately selected OPENCP in the hope that it
had native support for modern sound chips. Does it?
Based on the same, apparently wrong, assumption I also
tried to play some MP3 in MPLAYER. It showed the usual
messages and an increasing "clock". But no sound to hear?
Are we lacking some type of command line HDA mixer here?
Of course I would have loved to try MPXPLAY, but as you
may know, it was "not open source enough" for FreeDOS :-(
https://mpxplay.sourceforge.net/#download
In short, it is DEPRESSINGLY HARD to play around with LIVE
DOS on ACTUAL HARDWARE still containing data one does not
want to format away, but DOS could make a fun media player
on modern and less modern hardware when you eventually get
it to work with sound and, who knows, maybe even video :-)
I strongly recommend to make it at least FEASIBLY to FIND
and USE the interim test distro, so we get test feedback.
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/test/report.html
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/test/
Cheers, Eric
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