Hi Jerome and everybody, thanks for the verbose answers!
*Download chances*
First, could freedos.org/download/ switch to HTTP links
to Ibiblio when viewed as HTTP://freedos.org/download/ ?
Second, probably even better: Could we list alternate
download servers on freedos.org? Then we could simply
ALWAYS list both HTTPS and HTTP for Ibiblio, plus your
server if it has enough bandwidth.
*Create boot media 1*
You write that SOMEONE should write a simple howto for
burning CD and creating bootable USB sticks. Maybe this
could be done by Fritz or another non-programmer?
*Package and kernel updates*
He also wrote that he feels with me and that our distro
could update the browsers for DOS. And antivirus, but I
know that ClamAV has become extremely large these days.
According to Fritz, our KERNEL (or FREECOM?) has a bug
breaking the polarity of IF EXIST in batches, fixed by
Bernd B more than a year ago. As Tom had a problem with
some of the patches, any update somehow got stuck then?
There also is some pending fix related to CDROM support
and one related to LABEL, probably from the same period.
*Download website*
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.
Jim: This must be changed. Even if you prefer to add a huge
disclaimer or something, it HAS to be possible to navigate
to the interim build SOMEHOW when visiting freedos.org :-)
*Create boot media 2*
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.
As mentioned, I was lucky and the generic "make bootable
USB thingy" tool in Linux did the trick, but people have
to KNOW that they have to use that kind of tool.
People: Do we know whether Balena Etcher and Rufus both
work? Balena seems to be quite popular and I have seen
Rufus mentionen on the list from time to time. Then we
should RECOMMEND those on https://freedos.org/download/
If the FullUSB boots, but the LiteUSB does not, then
Probably a spurious problem then. It still is notable
that LiveCD and LegacyCD do not work, so this BIOS is
not attempting to do ElTorito nor other CD style boot
on generic USB storage. Of course, it does not have to.
So we should probably recommend to use only the USB
images, not CD, when people plan to boot from USB?
I assume the same images could be used on SD cards?
If a BIOS only uses USB1 speed, SD might be faster.
*Bad to have no life without CD*
The FullUSB is provided as an install media.
Not a "Live Version' of FreeDOS.
Well, it does not have to be EASY, it just has to
be POSSIBLE to use it.
As said, the FAT filesystem on FullUSB is large
enough to let me "install to my own USB stick"
or at least UNZIP files.
This does not need much. Just a few apps. UNZIP,
CWSDPMI, maybe DOS32A, MKEYB, CTMOUSE...
I mean heck, I even managed to put ALL OF BASE on
one single floppy in a binary-only, stripped docs
distro. We can DEFINITELY spare a few megabytes
to make sure that FULLUSB has FULL BASE installed
for both people who want to test AND people who
just need tools for a manual install on any drive.
Otherwise, our message to people without CD/DVD drive
would be: "Destroy all of your existing data on this
computer or get lost. You are not worthy of DOS" :-(
Being forced to either use the interactive installer
and format the harddisk or not even having any proper
keyboard layout for ANY type of manual work hurts :-(
I know that writing to the USB stick you just booted
from might be slow or even disabled... But hey, at
least GIVE ME THE CHANCE to find out. Or just add a
command-line loadable RAMDISK and a little README :-)
This does not need to be automated in any way.
The installer already punished me enough by having
no chance to load MKEYB or use UNZIP other than
formatting the harddisk, so I am totally prepared
to do everything by hand, but I need the CHANCE.
And that chance should be easier than building my
own distro by installing your distro on a VM etc.!
*Easy? I do not think so*
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.
I cannot search the mailing list on a netbook which
does not even have UNZIP, Jerome. And as normal guy
who just wants to fiddle around with DOS, I might
not even KNOW that a mailing list ever existed ;-)
Give users a chance. Include a README on how to
use that advanced mode. Mention that readme in
the message you get when aborting the installer.
Usable FDIMPLES on DOS hardware:
... 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.
As said, I just started FDIMPLES and used cursor
keys to find packages which might help me. If it
did not parse the ZIP to show info about packages,
then several seconds to jump from one package or
category or another is surprisingly slow. Maybe
you could pre-load some basic data into RAM here?
At present, while FDIMPLES can run on just about anything,
It gets painfully slow on anything under a 686.
I would accept it to be slow on PC XT, but if it
is too slow to bother using it on a 386, 486 or
Pentium, then a floppy distro seems pointless?
And: That netbook had WinXP. It is not DOS era.
I could improve this a lot, but my focus is on other things...
Can you give others a hint on where bottlenecks are,
in case somebody wants to suggest FDIMPLES patches?
It is nice to use FDIMPLES to know which packages
exist and make a selection. It does not install,
though, which I initially had not realized, so
once more: Mentioning a README about where I have
ended up when aborting the "delete harddisk" part
of the installer would have been very helpful.
A future version of FDIMPLES is likely to have things like
mouse support, online connectivity and ... repositories.
You already have FDNPKG for online repositories, no? :-)
*Creating life without CD*
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.
Again, searching mailing lists for clues was no option,
there needs to be a readme on how to proceed if the
default "delete harddisk to get DOS" is not acceptable.
It is no problem if proceeding means manual work. Users
of DOS are used to having to do things by hand, I think.
*Documentation needed*
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
But, that has been growing very slowly and could use a lot more
contributors. (Hint, hint)
As with the interim / test distro itself, it might help
to advertise that more on freedos.org itself. Hint ;-)
Cheers, Eric
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