On Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 11:55 AM Eric Auer <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hi TK Chia, > > > Apparently the review was from Laaca --- the author of Blocek. > > Yes, I mean that post. However, I have only quoted part of > the post and not mentioned the name because my impression > was that just publicly shouting how horrible and disgusting > FreeDOS is cannot be the start of a productive discussion: > > https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/board_entry.php?id=17794 >
Yes, my impression of Laaca's post was that it was mainly venting. And I see a few replies on Laaca's BTTR post that suggest that. Yet, feedback is useful. But sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to understand what the feedback is actually trying to say. Reading through Laaca's post, it seems the major complaints about FreeDOS 1.3 RC3 are: 1. Ugly FDISK 2. LiveCD is unusable 3. After installation, the installer doesn't set up a GUI or even a file manager by default 4. Complaints about the programs and utilities, and how they are organized And there are some valid complaints there. But I think the "coming soon" FreeDOS 1.3 RC4 addresses some of these (I've been working with Jerome on RC4, especially in doing a package review). The RC4 LiveCD environment is much better. And the organization of the programs and utilities is also improved. Yes, FDISK is the plain black-and-white version of FDISK we've always had. It's also virtually identical to MS-DOS FDISK. It would be really nice to have an updated FDISK program, one that is a little friendlier than plain FDISK. I imagine a tool similar to Disk Druid <https://www.linux.co.cr/distributions/review/2000/red-hat-7.0/rhl-ig/s1-textmode-partition.html> would be easier for folks to use and would still feel like "DOS." Probably the best way to create this kind of tool is to fork FDISK, to take advantage of Tom's recent bug fixes in FDISK. But as Tom discovered when he updated FDISK to fix several partition bugs, the FDISK source code is really ugly and needs a *lot* of cleanup. This could be a really interesting project for a developer with some DOS experience. I'll update the "Contribute" page with this idea. I think we've been clear about #3, though. FreeDOS is DOS, and every time this discussion comes up, the email list community is clear: we prefer FreeDOS to be more like classic DOS. I captured those sentiments in the FreeDOS wiki when describing the goals and core assumptions for FreeDOS 1.3: - Compatibility is key. - FreeDOS 1.3 will remain 16-bit. - FreeDOS 1.3 will retain focus on a single-user command-line environment. - FreeDOS 1.3 will continue to run on old PCs (XT, '286, '386, etc) but will support new hardware with expanded driver support, where possible. - The "Base" package group will contain everything that replicates the functionality from MS-DOS. I don't see turning FreeDOS into a "mini-Windows" or a "mini-Linux." Yes, we include a number of Unix-like tools, but we also include a bunch of other tools and programs that are very DOS-like. > I had not been paying attention that Laaca advertised a system > information screen in his own BLOCEK app here, but given that he > has added that, he could also make a stand-alone sysinfo tool to > include in the distro, for those who do not know that they have > to look for that information inside a text editor. I did not realize there was a system information function inside Blocek, either.* I agree this would be interesting to pull out as a separate tool so users can see it. We used to have a Compinfo tool in FreeDOS (the one you mentioned below) but it has not been maintained in a very long time. Would be interesting to try it again, to see how well it works compared to Blocek's system information feature. > Alternatively, which system information tools with suitable open > source license could be included? [..] > https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/system/compinfo/ > > Would COMPINFO be sufficient? > -Jim * I don't use Blocek as my text editor, so I hadn't seen the system information feature. Blocek requires graphics mode and a mouse, which is too much when all I want to do is edit text. And Blocek's key bindings seem incomplete compared to other editors; I don't know how to select text with the mouse or via the keyboard. But my DOS text editing needs are simple (I use FED to write code, and FreeDOS EDIT for everything else) so maybe I am not the right user for Blocek. _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
