Re: [fd-dev] [OT] Linux vs. BSD
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In general, I dont see the error recovery option vaible in Linux, Maybe its a lack of familiarity, because I am always _much_ more knowledgable about what's going on with a Linux system then with a DOS System. It does not just get stuck, you always can open other terms, or see some log's about what is happening by pressing Alt+F2, Alt+F3, etc. The kernel is very verbose about everything whats going on inside (dmesg), and about what hardware was recognised (cat /proc/pci, etc.). And often, so verbose, so full of arcane nomenclature, that it is less informative to those who have not seriously studied Linux. Mostly I see this a result of the fact that Linux evolved in the network environment, and includes a vast array of tools for dealing with that, whereas I work on *personal* desktops whose only network is the ISP. And when it comes to identifying problems within a given pc case, the quick dos boot makes life a lot easier, to fiddle with Jesus Jumpers DIP sw, or swap out components. I use dos cause I am trying to trace hardware problems, and have all kinds of controller cards, drives, cables to swap out. I dont do windoz. Usually I carry around a Linux Kernel floppy or CD, to diagnose which hardware is in a computer, and to realize maintainance and recovery tasks. (Wow! _how_ offtopic one can get!) I have done much the same with dos, but with dos, I am already familar with the diagnostic tools, hotkeys, nomenclature, file managers (which are much more elegant than MC). Diagnosis, maintenance, and repair will be popular uses for dos for quite a while yet. Have you been able to access a WIN NTFS with a linux floppy? DBAnd with setting up your own comunity ISP based on Linux ;-) No. Seriously, ppp is quite a standard protocoll and maybe what is breaking things are more likely changing login procedures. Yes, I see that the problem is past the ppp because I do get the 'connect' and then the %ascend% prompt. I just got an email from ozcom support saying that they were doing system maintenance on 0400 friday. I'll get on the stick and order some newer Linux distros before then. Thanx for the tip, I'll watch out for Debian. Between the server, and all the java/flash crap on the nets, I can see that dos browsing is going to get even less functional. And yes, I have considered trying to establish another local ISP with a non-win server. But I already have a life. I've read of an xwin port to dos, and if Mozilla can be made to run on dos, then dos surfing might become feasible again. With modern hardware so fast, I dont see the need to have apps running in the 'background' when they can be so rapidly transfered from a disk cache or vdisk. If dos dont do popups, I'd consider that a 'feature'. -- list options/archives/etc.: http://www.topica.com/lists/fd-dev unsubscribe: send blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==^ This email was sent to: archive@mail-archive.com EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Rv5.bbRv4l.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
[fd-dev] jpg editor
last time I looked NEOPAINT didnt do jpg. is there a dos tool? -- list options/archives/etc.: http://www.topica.com/lists/fd-dev unsubscribe: send blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==^ This email was sent to: archive@mail-archive.com EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Rv5.bbRv4l.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Re: [fd-dev] [OT] Linux vs. BSD
Andreas K. Foerster wrote: On Sat, Dec 07, 2002 at 05:35:29PM +0600, Day Brown wrote: Anyone care to suggest what the percentage of downloads need to be compled vs just extracted to the appropriate directory and run? Anyone care to offer how often this needs to be done in dos,... drdos, romdos, freedos, msdos? If Linux is too complicated for you, then just let it be. But there are people, who need more than just Dos! BTW. I think I had much more trouble with installing some Dos programs, than I had with installing Linux programs. No, I was quite sincere Andreas. I am a big frog in a small pond, and locals are beginning to look into windoz alternatives. The local small town, Leslie AR, ISP has had increasing problems with their win NT servers. Mac and Linux users moving into the area cant logon. I prolly was the only one who liked using dos/arachne/nettamer, and I couldnt make them work either. Being stubborn about not using Microsoft software, which I have not used since I got COMPAQ DOS 3.31, I started getting, installing, and trying Linux distros. BSD, COREL, CALDERA, DEBIAN, MANDRAKE, SLACKWARE, STORM, SUSE. SUSE 6.4 finally did get past the 'connect'. And, along the way, got a pretty good notion of what Linux installation has been like. (and let's not get into the BSD thing again. Unless you love BSD, you really dont giva rat's rectal orifice). My experience lacks some continuity cause my house burned down in 96, but in general the install scripts have dispensed with much more of the arcane trivia and PnP detected correctly much more of the hardware as time went on. But I was looking for wider input than my experience, and yours is certianly hopeful. Which distros have you used? I found COREL to be appealling to windoz users, but I could not get anything installed on it beyond what came on the CDs (the DELUX has WORDPERFECT, PHOTOPAINT, WINE) which was considerable, and adequate for most folks. But COREL's PPP driver wont get past the 'connect' any more at our ISP. Then, last month, SUSE wouldnt logon any more. But I'd already received a new REDHAT [PINK TIE], and that did the trick. And in my email, a note from the ISP that they'd 'upgraded'. This issue may get into a whole nother thread, been seeing snippets of it around. But I can see where the distro outfits might want you to havta go back to them for 'upgrades' (and more money) to keep up. And to do that, make it harder to install other things. The REDHAT RPM, for instance tells me that it 'will not install anything from an archive with a major number higher than 3'. I dunno if I can blame that on CHEAPBYTES.COM. I do know that the MANDRAKE 9 they sent dont install. And dont tell me to go to the original distro. I got REDHAT 5.2 soon after the fire, and spent a couple weeks fussing with CDs that had 'corrupted RPM' all over them. But of course, people who dont have trouble, dont post here. One of the things FREEDOS could be good for is a boot disk that could get a system online to download whatever patches are needed to get it up and running despite CD file read errors. I think I recall one of the Linux distros mentioning that faulty archives would be logged, and then the correct ones downloaded later. Which wouldda been nice for MANDRAKE, but it didnt get installed far enuf to get online. In general, I dont see the error recovery option vaible in Linux, whereas it is always duck soup to use a boot floppy in FREEDOS, and once you have an operating system on the screen, try to figure out what the problem is. In general, what I have seen in many Linux install scripts, is that the only user option is to abort, and discard the wasted hour(s). But in any case, I am being confronted with the choice of which distro to put on new and used computers in the area, and I'd rather not get calls for 'support' if I can help it. Having all the bells and whistles takes a back seat, cause most of these Arkie users dont have that much experience to know how to use them anyway. But if Microsoft is true to it's reputation, it is deliberately trying to sabotage the non-win system logon process. I know of two Mac users who now have win NT/XP machines. And if this be so, then all of us dos/linux users will be confronted with ppp drivers that dont work. How to download the patches without an isp? seems like back to the basic BBS system. Does FREEDOS still have a support BBS? -- list options/archives/etc.: http://www.topica.com/lists/fd-dev unsubscribe: send blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==^ This email was sent to: archive@mail-archive.com EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Rv5.bbRv4l.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Re: [fd-dev] [OT] Linux vs. BSD (was:Dosemu)
Eric Auer wrote: Okay, have to add my 2c here, too... Linux and BSD are both Unix operating systems and therefore similar. But they started out as replacement of two different mainframe Unix operating systems, therefore they differ. For example devices and configuration files and directory structure sometimes are in different styles. When I said that most Linux distros would adhere to common standards, I meant that they use very similar style for the directory structure and so on, which allows you to install software for one Linux on another Linux without recompiling the software in many cases. Anyone care to suggest what the percentage of downloads need to be compled vs just extracted to the appropriate directory and run? Anyone care to offer how often this needs to be done in dos,... drdos, romdos, freedos, msdos? -- list options/archives/etc.: http://www.topica.com/lists/fd-dev unsubscribe: send blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==^ This email was sent to: archive@mail-archive.com EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Rv5.bbRv4l.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Re: [fd-dev] ANNOUNCE: Free FDISK 1.1.2 (Beta) is now availablefor download!
Brian E. Reifsnyder wrote: Who's confused? The name seems pretty straight forward to me. If you were searching online for a free fdisk replacement program you would probably go to a search engine and type free fdisk as the search criteria. Both google and yahoo list my web site as the first one. So I think the name sounds good. Lotsa folks already have a program on the drives named 'FDISK'. btw: will your version run on other versions of dos? Seems like I've launched 'FDISK' and been told it didnt find the right version. Of course, if they do, they can easily rename.. boy that was fast reply. -- list options/archives/etc.: http://www.topica.com/lists/fd-dev unsubscribe: send blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==^ This email was sent to: archive@mail-archive.com EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Rv5.bbRv4l.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Re: [fd-dev] ANNOUNCE: Edit 0.6
Joe Cosentino wrote: The new verison of Edit can be downloaded from http://www.geocities.com/xsaintx69/freedos [edit06.zip] Will it let you split the screen vertically, so that you can eyeball two sections of text or code side by side, and scroll either of them? -- list options/archives/etc.: http://www.topica.com/lists/fd-dev unsubscribe: send blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==^ This email was sent to: archive@mail-archive.com EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Rv5.bbRv4l.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Re: [fd-dev] Fonts
murphy wrote: One of the things that would be neat for FD, is a codepage for english, which replaces all the other foreign letters with diagonal and curved geometric shapes which would go a long ways twards smoothing out the appearance of ANSI color scrollbar menus. Back in the BBS days, I created a font that also included electronic circuit symbols so that we could lay out circits in ascii messages in the newsgroup. You should try FontSet a small tool i programmed long days ago.. :) Sure it is Freeware... Look at http://www.dev0.de/products_fontset.html Well, I did, but the hard part is a consensus on how much of the std font to change. spoze it'd work with dosemu? -- list options/archives/etc.: http://www.topica.com/lists/fd-dev unsubscribe: send blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==^ This email was sent to: archive@mail-archive.com EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Rv5.bbRv4l.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Re: [fd-dev] Dosemu
Windoz, and to a lesser, but significant extent, Linux, shows that it is easier to add features than it is to squash bugs. Multiuser would not hurt were this not so; but part of the reliability of dos is that you do only have one thing running, and if it crashes, you have a much better idea of where to look. Given DTR speeds of 10 to 100meg/sec and that few dos apps run even 1 meg, You can load/unload dos apps faster than a multitasking gui can open and close background 'running' apps. but of course, it mostly depends on what you want to do. If it is read and type like now in ascii doing email, dos is faster. But if you need to work with multimedia, by all means use Linux. However, I think that the global market in single user text apps is sufficient to support dos. If you are working with text, why would you not want the typicaly 98% of screen area instead of the small windows which gui offers? Were Freedos to offer a text mode ansi color scrollbar email tool and a fully functional graphic surf tool to display webpages like Mozilla, it would be much more than a small niche market. Especially given the ongoing threat of sabotage software from the online interface.I am hardput to think of anything out there that does not rely on the background of a multitasking os to wreak havoc. Altho, as it is, running Linux Mozilla online, and then having my personal text work on a dos drive is an even more robust kind of firewall that I cannot fathom how it could be breached. BUt, if we want to see the net more available to the vast masses of poor people, a simple dos based surf tool would run better on the kind of limited hardware and electric power peasants would be able to get. The statline ansi color pulldown scrollbar menu system of dos text editors like DEXTER, (DR.EXE) is much more developed than anything I've seen in Linux; the text mode editors still think I have a mono monitor, and the gui ones lack even more of the functionality. I've not been able to find any Linux tool which will split the screen vertically, and make changing panels like you can with MC (linux file mgr) or DR.EXE. But Dexter is not an office WYSIWYG tool for putting out memos or letters in a zillion fonts. But if you want to work with long texts or source code, it is gonzo faster on limited hardware. I've not seen any file manager with all the functionality of Directory Wizard (DW.EXE), but then again, most Linux users dont move files around nearly as much as I do, or bother copying critical data to a dos drive. MC gives you that one statline with F1 thru F10 options. DW gives you that series, but also two more menus opened up with the ctrl alt keys and an 'Fx'. And lets you install macros or hotkey for other uses. Given a much more complex file tree and much more hanging on it, it is no wonder that 'FIND filename' in Linux takes forever compared to FF.EXE in dos, which is prolly on a much smaller drive. I dont really know what most users do with, or want from, their computers; I only hear from the people who have trouble. But one thing I think we'd all agree with, is that they'd have less of it if they werent running windoz. I expect that most of them will figure this out in a few more years, and whenever new systems get installed or sold, it will be Linux with perhaps a dos partition in case of trouble. Hardware support people would have a much easier time if the user could logon in dos and provide the readouts on the status of the system independant of any problems the operating system might have. I see that increasingly, systems are left on all the time; I also see that there are memory management problems which arise out of the multi-tasking in which apps, even when closed, dont give back all the dram they've been using. You can avoid that problem with dos. Even when the app is not coded properly, you can use pc-mag's MARK.COM RELEASE.COM to tag memory, and dump anything, no matter what it is, or why it it is there. hmmm.. does the Linux terminal have anything like WAITASEC.COM? and why didnt they set it up so you could hit the 'print screen' button during boot to get a hardcopy of error messages? One last thing dos will be around for is the same reason you can still buy black and white camera film. I recently saw the 'BB.EXE' text mode demo, a fine example of ASCII art, a tradition going all the way back to line printers. People routinely see the Linux penguin during boot in ANSI color, and there are many other expressions of this tradition which will be around forever. Few people who saw the movie, 'The Matrix' knew that the falling green letters on a computer screen was what many of us, who first started working with text on screen saw... when it crashed. Dos is, like Film Noir, oil paint, or clay, an artistic medium. It is the main reason I sub here, to get tipped off to tools that I might use in my own artistic endeavors in the medium. -- list
Re: [fd-dev] Dosemu
Eric Auer wrote: Hi, well, you really ARE a pessimist. Au Contraire, I think some distro programmers will figure it out, and realize that: Linux comes from Unix, which is a multi-user networked operating system. As such it sux for the single user desktop. I dont think it would be that big a deal to design a distro for the single user, and some have made some modifications to that end, but.. they've got a long ways to go before reaching the convenience of dos, which was always built for the single user, and tweaked over the years for that purpose. Some Linux lovers have told me how to change the boot so it comes right up to my personal xwin kde, or do, as you have suggest ways to install software or whatever, but I dont do windoz, and I sure as shit dont build them. Start talking about building kernels and makefiles and compiling binaries to most people who just want to sit and do email, and their eyes glaze over looking out the window and thinking they awta go outside. If Nettamer would do my email anymore, I'd be using it; writing ascii in a gui screen is fundamentaly oxymoronic. But my new local ISP will not log me in with any of the dos ppp drivers, and I have other things to do besides debug that problem. There must be someone who knows more about it. But in both cases, dos and linux, I look at the computer skill of most users, and dont see reasonable solutions. For example, you dont turn off net servers. But I dont like the idea of my computer in my quiet rural home running all the damn time. As people realize that they can telecommute from the boondocks, this will become a more obvious problem, you can hear the damn blowers in the kitchen while you get another cuppa java. So, with dos, I close the app, and hit the power button. [that's a period] I find it a p*** in the a** to havta go thru so many clicks to close the browser, kde, and wait for the shutdown to close all the open files [which are there for a network which does not exist]. I'm not ragging on Linux, cause it is a great operating system for sysads, networks, and servers. But the newbie so commonly sees the message to 'consult with your system administrator', that he knows he will be scrod if he tries to fix the problem himself. The only 'system administrator' I have is behind my navel. FWI: SCROD- pluperfect subjunctive case. -- list options/archives/etc.: http://www.topica.com/lists/fd-dev unsubscribe: send blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==^ This email was sent to: archive@mail-archive.com EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Rv5.bbRv4l.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Re: [fd-dev] ANNOUNCE: DISPLAY 0.06
DISPLAY is nice cause it's sticky, there after you use a GUI tool. But it comes back to the 25 line mode. If you could set it to default to 50 instead, then you wouldnt havta add the MODE CON:.. line to the end of the batch program that launches a graphic app. AITOR.SM wrote: (Day could you post this reply on my behalf? I have no good qccess to Inet) The screen current mode is not entirely a DISPLAY bussiness. You should use MODE CON (different paprameters for differet modes, I have no refs. here). Provided that they are IMPLEMENTED ;-)) Aitor Given the larger size and better resolution of modern monitors, can you tweak DISPLAY so that the 80x50 screen is the default? I tried it with a drdos 7 drive, with the cyrillic font, and it kept it even after a graphic app. mem says it takes an extra 10k, but I dunno if that is still a problem in a graphic mode. Arachne always wanted as much as I could give it. -- list options/archives/etc.: http://www.topica.com/lists/fd-dev unsubscribe: send blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==^ This email was sent to: archive@mail-archive.com EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Rv5.bbRv4l.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Re: Re]: [fd-dev] ncurses
what does it produce in dos, .bat, .com, .exe? and if you create ncurses source code in dos, can you export it and have the same code compile in Linux? -- list options/archives/etc.: http://www.topica.com/lists/fd-dev unsubscribe: send blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==^ This email was sent to: archive@mail-archive.com EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Rv5.bbRv4l.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
