> > From: Pat Villani <p...@monmouth.com> > > Subject: [Freedos-user] Some simple list rules > > Date: Saturday, June 20, 2009, 8:46 AM > > > > 1. Please remember that this is a users mailing list. > > Many of these folks are non technical and may not under- > > stand the ramifications of what they are asking for.
Pat, as a person who's been following this list for some time, I'm not sure that the purpose you've mentioned is being adhered to all that well. I have been a power user since the days when DOS was cool, and a lot of the posts still go over my head like a roof. Discussions of compiling, listings of scripts (config.sys settings?) that are far more complicated than I've ever used and many more things give me the impression that this is much more of a Freedos-Geeks list than a Freedos-User list. I just went to the Freedos site, the Wiki and the How-To pages and am still about as baffled as to how to make Freedos work for me as I have been all along. The impression I have (despite the statement that Freedos can pretty much run any software designed for MS-DOS) is that the kind of system I used as a 100% DOS user would not work, but requires a lot more stuff in the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. Let me give as an example a basic CONFIG/AUTOEXEC setup for MS-DOS (5.x and higher); CONFIG.SYS: device=HIMEM.SYS device=EMM386.EXE files=40 buffers=40 devicehigh=NANSI.SYS AUTOEXEC.BAT: @echo off cls prompt $p$g path=C:\;C:\DOS;C:\BAT;C:\UTIL lh SMARTDRV.EXE 2048 cls c: cd \ ver (I've probably forgotten something; it's been quite awhile since I've written these files from scratch; or tinkered with them at all, for that matter.) I found nothing in the HOWTOs on the order of "Freedos for Dummies" or "Freedos for experienced MS-DOS Users." I honestly don't know what I could reasonably expect to do in a Freedos environment, using this configuration that would work just fine in an MS-DOS environment. If there are samples of basic CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files lurking around, I can't readily find them. And if I can't find them, people with even less knowledge aren't going to, either. I wish I could offer to pitch in on the kinds of things that I see are needed, but it's beyond my reach at this time. Plus, considering all the gobbledygook I read here, I'm not even sure where I'd begin. All I can say is that for Freedos' sake, whatever effort some of y'all can make to set out a "welcome mat" that explains the differences between MS-DOS and FreeDOS, particularly as far as configuration goes and how to resolve issues involving common programs that don't quite run "as-is" under Freedos would be very much appreciated, I believe. Thanks for "listening". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Are you an open source citizen? Join us for the Open Source Bridge conference! Portland, OR, June 17-19. Two days of sessions, one day of unconference: $250. Need another reason to go? 24-hour hacker lounge. Register today! http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;215844324;13503038;v?http://opensourcebridge.org _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
