> On Jan 22, 2026, at 7:04 PM, Eric Auer via Freedos-devel > <[email protected]> wrote: > [..] > 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 :-)
Not exactly. You can still access everything over HTTP. But, modern browsers don’t like to do that and nearly always promote your connection to that site HTTPS. I just verified IBIBLIO will still allow an HTTP connection by using LINKS under DOS and going to http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos <http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos> However, if you still have issues getting a simple HTTP connection. You can visit my server through it’s DOS friendly section at http://dos.lod.bz <http://dos.lod.bz/> That sub-domain is specifically configured not to use TLS. You can access my Download and Software update repository. Plus, it has the various FreeDOS releases. Including the current and previous Interim Test Builds. I update the ones here and on Ibiblio at the same time. > > 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 Yup, that would a great thing for someone to write and submit And keep up to date in the documentation project in the FreeDOS GitLab Archive. Then, we could use that elsewhere. Like maybe on the FreeDOS website and included with the release Downloads. > [..] > 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? While I would like to see more widespread testing of the Interim Test Builds, it only really gets mentioned here on the Devel Mailing list. > [..] > 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. Most utilities which turn CD images into bootable USB Sticks do not work with the FreeDOS CD ISO files. This is the main reason we have USB images. > > I tried the FullUSB release - see below. The FullUSB and LiteUSB are basically the same. The are really only 3 differences. The FullUSB has a larger disk image, contains more packages and has copy of the Floppy Edition Installer included in a sub-directory. But, the boot process and everything else the same. If the FullUSB boots, but the LiteUSB does not, then… I suspect it was either a bad download or hardware related issue. Even possibly, a BIOS issue booting such a small hard disk. > [..] > > 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 FullUSB is provided as an install media. Not a "Live Version' of FreeDOS. Yes… There have been requests to make it ‘Live’ but there are some technical issues with doing that. First and foremost, some machines boot from a USB stick with it In read-only mode. Any Attempt to write to the disk can cause the system to begin beeping and generate errors. This problem was reported to me by a very annoyed user and was an "interesting" issue to overcome in the installer. I have no idea if there is a existing way to permit or even test such a system under DOS to see if writing to the USB can be performed. Therefore, if the FullUSB were to provide a live environment, It would likely need to be similar to the one used on the LiveCD and no changes are preserved between boots. I think this would be counter to what a user expects. FYI, it is very easy to convert the FullUSB over to a portable version of FreeDOS. You can run that included version of the Floppy Edition (Probably in advanced mode) and install it to the USB image. I have made posts on doing that in the User mailing list. But, there are no instructions on converting it included on the Website, USB image or documentation. > [..] > 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. Nope. The RBE extracts all of that information and sticks it in a directory. However, FDIMPLES does pull information from a number of sources and correlates it into the listings. You were experiencing an I/O bottleneck combined with a reduced internal program caching along with large amounts of data processing from a variety of data points. At present, while FDIMPLES can run on just about anything, It gets painfully slow on anything under a 686. I could improve this a lot, but my focus is on other things for the foreseeable future. This is not likely to improve until I have both the time and motivation to create the next version of FDIMPLES. > Also, this could only process a list of packages you WANT, but > apparently cannot actually INSTALL them. So I gave up again. FDIMPLES is really 3 different programs rolled into one. 1) The original and reason it was created. The Installer (in advanced mode) can call upon FDIMPLES to modify the list of packages it wants to install. 2) Post install, a fairly user-friendly interface to add, remove or update packages. 3) A package installation list customization tool for the USB media. Which provides an easy way to permanently modify the package list used by the media. This is useful if you have a number of machines to install with a custom package set. Like possibly in a school environment. Plus, it has features to create and use mod lists and a bunch of things that nobody probably ever use. Many of which are likely to not be in a future version. A future version of FDIMPLES is likely to have things like mouse support, online connectivity and be able to use multiple repositories. > [..] > 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. See above. > [..] > I strongly recommend to make it at least FEASIBLY to FIND > and USE the interim test distro, so we get test feedback. You make a lot of good points. Nearly all of them come down to a lack of good documentation. This is one of the main reasons we created the documentation project in the FreeDOS Archive at https://gitlab.com/FreeDOS/docs <https://gitlab.com/FreeDOS/docs> But, that has been growing very slowly and could use a lot more contributors. (Hint, hint) :-) Jerome
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