Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2 Questions?

[Jerome Shidel]

> On Sep 15, 2015, at 9:27 PM, Mercury Thirteen  wrote:
> 
> Could we just give the user the option?

I could. But, Jim wants super simple. So, I guess I will have to see if he 
wants it to ask or not.

But, I am really thinking purge the FDOS dir and install new config.sys and 
autoexec.bat is the best course.
> 
> Also, you could call the backup FDOS folder fdos.old a'la Windows and its 
> windows.old directory. At least that way some folks would know what it's for 
> when they see it again months down the road.
> 

At present, it wraps all that stuff up into a zip file. And puts it under a dir 
called FDBackup. Enumerating the zip as next avail FDBAK0.zip (or 1, 2, 3) 

Easy to change to FDOS.OLD though. 

>> On 9/15/2015 8:53 PM, Jerome Shidel wrote:
>> The installer is going well and is about 50% done. But, I have two questions.
>> 
>> Situation:
>> User is doing an upgrade install from FD1.1.
>> 
>> FDI already prompts to backup. Then will backup config files and the c:\FDOS 
>> directory.
>> 
>> 1) should FDI purge the c:\fdos directory before it installs the new files. 
>> Or, keep everything it doesn't overwrite?
>> 
>> 2) should the installer keep the users current config files or install new 
>> default ones. 
>> 
>> I see problems doing either of these, either way. 
>> 
>> The most reliable way would be to purge the c:\fdos directory and install 
>> fresh config.sys and autoexec.bat files. But, that will force the user to 
>> modify theirs post install. Not doing it, the system may be flakey or not 
>> even boot completely. 
>> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2 Questions?

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

Unlike MS-DOS proper, FreeDOS comes with custom configuration files to
optimize for different things, I have my personal opinion on this, but I
digress. Given that the user may have modified the configuration files and
there is no easy way to merge the changes of a vanilla FreeDOS config to a
custom end user config, I would suggest maintaining the users configuration
files. If there is an issue, of course they can boot, use F5 and use a
support utility to replace their configuration files with the system
default (creating backups of course)

On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 5:16 AM, Jerome Shidel  wrote:

>
> On Sep 15, 2015, at 9:27 PM, Mercury Thirteen 
> wrote:
>
> Could we just give the user the option?
>
>
> I could. But, Jim wants super simple. So, I guess I will have to see if he
> wants it to ask or not.
>
> But, I am really thinking purge the FDOS dir and install new config.sys
> and autoexec.bat is the best course.
>
>
> Also, you could call the backup FDOS folder *fdos.old* a'la Windows and
> its *windows.old* directory. At least that way some folks would know what
> it's for when they see it again months down the road.
>
>
> At present, it wraps all that stuff up into a zip file. And puts it under
> a dir called FDBackup. Enumerating the zip as next avail FDBAK0.zip (or 1,
> 2, 3)
>
> Easy to change to FDOS.OLD though.
>
> On 9/15/2015 8:53 PM, Jerome Shidel wrote:
>
> The installer is going well and is about 50% done. But, I have two questions.
>
> Situation:
> User is doing an upgrade install from FD1.1.
>
> FDI already prompts to backup. Then will backup config files and the c:\FDOS 
> directory.
>
> 1) should FDI purge the c:\fdos directory before it installs the new files. 
> Or, keep everything it doesn't overwrite?
>
> 2) should the installer keep the users current config files or install new 
> default ones.
>
> I see problems doing either of these, either way.
>
> The most reliable way would be to purge the c:\fdos directory and install 
> fresh config.sys and autoexec.bat files. But, that will force the user to 
> modify theirs post install. Not doing it, the system may be flakey or not 
> even boot completely.
>
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>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2 Questions?

[Joe Forster/STA]

Hi guys,

Unlike MS-DOS proper, FreeDOS comes with custom configuration files to 
optimize for different things, I have my personal opinion on this, but 
I digress. Given that the user may have modified the configuration 
files and there is no easy way to merge the changes of a vanilla 
FreeDOS config to a custom end user config, I would suggest maintaining 
the users configuration files.


I agree; I'd really hate such a situation. Replacing configuration files 
should be an installation option, like "reset to default/factory 
settings". I'm not sure whether this option should be enabled or disabled 
by default; rather disabled.


Joe
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2 Questions?

[JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU]

I prefer as many advanced options as possible.I keep a backup of my ENTIRE
network in FreeDOS (I'm funny like that,I guess.FreeDOS can't be affected
by windows viruses.).So if data were to be erased,I would have a mental
breakdown (In a sarcastic sense.).So,yeah.

On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 9:39 AM, Joe Forster/STA  wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> Unlike MS-DOS proper, FreeDOS comes with custom configuration files to
>> optimize for different things, I have my personal opinion on this, but I
>> digress. Given that the user may have modified the configuration files and
>> there is no easy way to merge the changes of a vanilla FreeDOS config to a
>> custom end user config, I would suggest maintaining the users configuration
>> files.
>>
>
> I agree; I'd really hate such a situation. Replacing configuration files
> should be an installation option, like "reset to default/factory settings".
> I'm not sure whether this option should be enabled or disabled by default;
> rather disabled.
>
> Joe
> --
> KOVÁCS Balázs aka Joe Forster/STA; s...@c64.rulez.org; http://sta.c64.org
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>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2 Questions?

[Antony Gordon]

Hi,

I think the best solution would probably be two setup programs. A quick
setup like Jim wants and then a more advanced setup that provides all the
advanced tools, disk image creation that more technical users would want.

Simple version is the batch file, advanced version is C (or some other high
end language).

-T

On Sep 16, 2015 11:26 AM, "JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU" 
wrote:

> I prefer as many advanced options as possible.I keep a backup of my ENTIRE
> network in FreeDOS (I'm funny like that,I guess.FreeDOS can't be affected
> by windows viruses.).So if data were to be erased,I would have a mental
> breakdown (In a sarcastic sense.).So,yeah.
>
> On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 9:39 AM, Joe Forster/STA 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> Unlike MS-DOS proper, FreeDOS comes with custom configuration files to
>>> optimize for different things, I have my personal opinion on this, but I
>>> digress. Given that the user may have modified the configuration files and
>>> there is no easy way to merge the changes of a vanilla FreeDOS config to a
>>> custom end user config, I would suggest maintaining the users configuration
>>> files.
>>>
>>
>> I agree; I'd really hate such a situation. Replacing configuration files
>> should be an installation option, like "reset to default/factory settings".
>> I'm not sure whether this option should be enabled or disabled by default;
>> rather disabled.
>>
>> Joe
>> --
>> KOVÁCS Balázs aka Joe Forster/STA; s...@c64.rulez.org; http://sta.c64.org
>> Don't E-mail spam, HTML or uncompressed files! More contacts on homepage
>>
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>>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2 Questions?

[Jerome E. Shidel Jr.]

> On Sep 16, 2015, at 10:38 AM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi, plenty of interesting discussion points in this thread and in the
> metados thread (combining both topics as they are both about distros).
> 
> * I agree with Joe that DOS should not overwrite anything by default,
>   in particular not config files. I remember that old drivers would
>   for example prepend their lines to your existing config plus make
>   a backup. People may also have dual-boot. I personally think that
>   it is okay to make fdconfig.sys if config.sys already exists, but
>   put a comment line in the config.sys to let people know that their
>   config.sys is ignored by FreeDOS, which uses fdconfig.sys :-) And
>   if fdconfig.sys already exists as well, ask the user whether they
>   want to either KEEP their old config (copy template of new config
>   to same directory, so user can add some bits from there to theirs)
>   or REPLACE their config (rename their old config first), of course
>   with a default of keeping...
> 
> * However, I think there should be an option to throw the new files
>   over existing files in an existing FreeDOS dir. For extra complex
>   elegance, you could first UNinstall things with existing LSM data
>   instead of simple overwriting. The rationale in both cases is that
>   people tend to add their stuff to "our" DOS directory and it sucks
>   to have to dig up your 3 hand-installed tools from a "backup zip".
> 
> * for the same reason, there could be an option to just RENAME the
>   old DOS directory instead of moving the contents into a zip file,
>   as suggested by Mercury.

And if there is already an FDOS.OLD? :-)

Actually, I choose to wrap the old stuff up in a zip for a couple of reasons.

1st, nobody will roll back to the previous version.
2nd, the zip will use much less space until the user gets around to deleting it.
3rd, its much easier to remove 1 zip file than a bunch of directories and files.
4th, having a zip file looks nicer.
(I am just making these up. Basically, I just like the idea.) :-/

> 
> * Actually I think the whole idea of FDNPKG and similar is that you
>   can smoothly install tools, including automatic processing of the
>   case where you replace an old tool by a newer version of the same,
>   see the abovementioned "extra complex" suggestion.

Yeah, but FDNPKG requires 32-bit. I fairly sure Jim does not want
that restriction placed on his DOS distribution.

> 
> * I agree that LZMA UPX is going too far and has too high hardware
>   requirements. Use the open source version of UPX with --8086 mode.
> 
> * We should include a nice subset of EMS XMS UMB HMA managers, as it
>   depends on your hardware which are best. Our config can enable the
>   most popular driver and have commented out alternatives, to avoid
>   having unnecessary boot up menus. Disk space itself is no problem.
> 
> * I agree that metados should include all tool docs: I remember that
>   with my old Brezel distro, one additional floppy was enough to add
>   HTMLHELP and all the text files that come with all BASE components.
> 
> Cheers, Eric
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2 Questions?

[Jerome E. Shidel Jr.]

> On Sep 16, 2015, at 7:58 AM, Antony Gordon  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Unlike MS-DOS proper, FreeDOS comes with custom configuration files to 
> optimize for different things, I have my personal opinion on this, but I 
> digress. Given that the user may have modified the configuration files and 
> there is no easy way to merge the changes of a vanilla FreeDOS config to a 
> custom end user config, I would suggest maintaining the users configuration 
> files. If there is an issue, of course they can boot, use F5 and use a 
> support utility to replace their configuration files with the system default 
> (creating backups of course)

Agreed. No matter if the installer is a batch or executable, trying to 
understand a custom user’s config and modifying it to suite the new version is 
more or less a futile cause.

So, that leaves two options. Leave the old one alone and hope for the best. Or, 
backup and replace with fresh config.


> On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 5:16 AM, Jerome Shidel  > wrote:
> 
> On Sep 15, 2015, at 9:27 PM, Mercury Thirteen  > wrote:
> 
>> Could we just give the user the option?
> 
> I could. But, Jim wants super simple. So, I guess I will have to see if he 
> wants it to ask or not.
> 
> But, I am really thinking purge the FDOS dir and install new config.sys and 
> autoexec.bat is the best course.
>> 
>> Also, you could call the backup FDOS folder fdos.old a'la Windows and its 
>> windows.old directory. At least that way some folks would know what it's for 
>> when they see it again months down the road.
>> 
> 
> At present, it wraps all that stuff up into a zip file. And puts it under a 
> dir called FDBackup. Enumerating the zip as next avail FDBAK0.zip (or 1, 2, 
> 3) 
> 
> Easy to change to FDOS.OLD though. 
> 
>> On 9/15/2015 8:53 PM, Jerome Shidel wrote:
>>> The installer is going well and is about 50% done. But, I have two 
>>> questions.
>>> 
>>> Situation:
>>> User is doing an upgrade install from FD1.1.
>>> 
>>> FDI already prompts to backup. Then will backup config files and the 
>>> c:\FDOS directory.
>>> 
>>> 1) should FDI purge the c:\fdos directory before it installs the new files. 
>>> Or, keep everything it doesn't overwrite?
>>> 
>>> 2) should the installer keep the users current config files or install new 
>>> default ones. 
>>> 
>>> I see problems doing either of these, either way. 
>>> 
>>> The most reliable way would be to purge the c:\fdos directory and install 
>>> fresh config.sys and autoexec.bat files. But, that will force the user to 
>>> modify theirs post install. Not doing it, the system may be flakey or not 
>>> even boot completely. 
>>> 
>>> --
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>>> 
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>>> 
>> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2 Questions?

[Eric Auer]

Hi!

>> * for the same reason, there could be an option to just RENAME the
>>   old DOS directory instead of moving the contents into a zip file,
>>   as suggested by Mercury.
> 
> And if there is already an FDOS.OLD? :-)

As with your ZIP solution: In that case, rename to another name,
such as FDOS0042.OLD ;-)

> Actually, I choose to wrap the old stuff up in a zip for a couple of reasons.

Now we enter the realm of speculation and taste. In this case, mine...

> 1st, nobody will roll back to the previous version.

Apart from those who are upset by the install completely replacing
their old system directory. You cannot predict what users will like.

> 2nd, the zip will use much less space until the user gets around to deleting 
> it.

Not true IF you use the proper package management to UPGRADE the
old directory. Because then you do not need to backup that, as
only files belonging to known older FreeDOS tool versions would
be replaced by newer versions :-)

Also, it is important to know that FreeDOS binaries etc. often
are pre-compressed so they do not compress that much in a ZIP.

> 3rd, its much easier to remove 1 zip file than a bunch of directories and 
> files.

Your assumption is "nobody would like to see any of their older
files back again after upgrading" ;-) As experience with Windows
Vista, 7 and 8 shows, people do like XP nevertheless. Plus with
DOS, it is possible to combine old and new things... So do not
try to deprive users of their old files just because you are so
sure that "newer is better".

Comparing to the Linux situation: I do not normally make a copy,
zipped or not, of the complete old operating system to upgrade.

Instead, I trust the installer of the upgrade to replace all my
old versions of X by newer versions of X *and* giving me a way
to keep my old versions of Y in case no new Y is in the distro.

> 4th, having a zip file looks nicer.
> (I am just making these up. Basically, I just like the idea.) :-/

Hehe :-) In cases where upgrade is not possible (most common is
probably "you cannot upgrade because the old version is too old
to have proper bookkeeping of which files belong to which version
of which old FreeDOS tool" here) then I think renaming the FDOS
directory is a bit better than making a ZIP, but you could simply
offer both methods :-) In the "rename" case, the user can try to
move all old versions of Y to the new FDOS directory and may then
delete the renamed old version, or zip the remainder for a later
rollback backup. In the "zip" case, the user first has to unzip
the file before doing such things and may possibly re-zip later.



>> * Actually I think the whole idea of FDNPKG and similar is that you
>>   can smoothly install tools, including automatic processing of the
>>   case where you replace an old tool by a newer version of the same,
>>   see the abovementioned "extra complex" suggestion.
> 
> Yeah, but FDNPKG requires 32-bit. I fairly sure Jim does not want
> that restriction placed on his DOS distribution.

I disagree here: Basically installing from CD / DVD / USB already
requires that anyway. For older computers, installing by XCOPY of
some pre-installed-on-floppy distro is far more appropriate :-)

Also, there are lots of things that you want to do differently on
really ancient computers and I suggest to not bother making your
CD / USB based distro overly complicated by pretending that users
would be able to manage from USB stick on their PC-XT ;-)

Cheers, Eric

PS: Having a medium number of choices while installing is great for
me, as long as 1. the defaults are sane and 2. the install does not
pause too often to ask me stuff again. Better ask in a bundled way.



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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2 Questions?

[Jerome E. Shidel Jr.]

> On Sep 16, 2015, at 11:53 AM, Antony Gordon  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I think the best solution would probably be two setup programs. A quick setup 
> like Jim wants and then a more advanced setup that provides all the advanced 
> tools, disk image creation that more technical users would want.
> 
> Simple version is the batch file, advanced version is C (or some other high 
> end language).

Jim wants a super simple user friendly installer. 
Jim gets a super simple user friendly installer. 

However, after reading several of his posts on things like this. I think, that 
he would have no issue with someone creating
their own release that had a custom installer with as many options as anyone 
wants.

I do see many of the individuals here on the dev channel, REALLY, REALLY, 
REALLY want a lot options for the installer. 

Unfortunately, this is not an Option. (Pun intended)

Maybe, all of you could convince him to do a "Developer” version of FreeDOS. 

> 
> -T
> 
> On Sep 16, 2015 11:26 AM, "JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU"  
> wrote:
> I prefer as many advanced options as possible.I keep a backup of my ENTIRE 
> network in FreeDOS (I'm funny like that,I guess.FreeDOS can't be affected by 
> windows viruses.).So if data were to be erased,I would have a mental 
> breakdown (In a sarcastic sense.).So,yeah.
> 
> On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 9:39 AM, Joe Forster/STA  wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> Unlike MS-DOS proper, FreeDOS comes with custom configuration files to 
> optimize for different things, I have my personal opinion on this, but I 
> digress. Given that the user may have modified the configuration files and 
> there is no easy way to merge the changes of a vanilla FreeDOS config to a 
> custom end user config, I would suggest maintaining the users configuration 
> files.
> 
> I agree; I'd really hate such a situation. Replacing configuration files 
> should be an installation option, like "reset to default/factory settings". 
> I'm not sure whether this option should be enabled or disabled by default; 
> rather disabled.
> 
> Joe
> -- 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2 Questions?

[Jerome E. Shidel Jr.]

> On Sep 16, 2015, at 6:44 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi!
> 
>>> * for the same reason, there could be an option to just RENAME the
>>>  old DOS directory instead of moving the contents into a zip file,
>>>  as suggested by Mercury.
>> 
>> And if there is already an FDOS.OLD? :-)
> 
> As with your ZIP solution: In that case, rename to another name,
> such as FDOS0042.OLD ;-)

That is way too easy. :-) 

Actually, the zip filename generator in the batch would not have in issue 
finding 
an unused FDOS.OLD directory. It already does this to insure that it 
doesn’t clobber a pre-existing zip file.

> 
>> Actually, I choose to wrap the old stuff up in a zip for a couple of reasons.
> 
> Now we enter the realm of speculation and taste. In this case, mine…

:-)

> 
>> 1st, nobody will roll back to the previous version.
> 
> Apart from those who are upset by the install completely replacing
> their old system directory. You cannot predict what users will like.

If you have to pick 1 of 3 choices, you’ll make 75% of people upset.
(1/4 are never happy)  :-)

> 
>> 2nd, the zip will use much less space until the user gets around to deleting 
>> it.
> 
> Not true IF you use the proper package management to UPGRADE the
> old directory. Because then you do not need to backup that, as
> only files belonging to known older FreeDOS tool versions would
> be replaced by newer versions :-)
> 
> Also, it is important to know that FreeDOS binaries etc. often
> are pre-compressed so they do not compress that much in a ZIP.
> 
>> 3rd, its much easier to remove 1 zip file than a bunch of directories and 
>> files.
> 
> Your assumption is "nobody would like to see any of their older
> files back again after upgrading" ;-) As experience with Windows
> Vista, 7 and 8 shows, people do like XP nevertheless. Plus with
> DOS, it is possible to combine old and new things... So do not
> try to deprive users of their old files just because you are so
> sure that "newer is better”.

(Joking:) Could just say “You better have made your own backup, because
we are going to NUKE and PAVE!” (Super user friendly) :-)

> 
> Comparing to the Linux situation: I do not normally make a copy,
> zipped or not, of the complete old operating system to upgrade.

For me, it’s basically start a new VM. 

> Instead, I trust the installer of the upgrade to replace all my
> old versions of X by newer versions of X *and* giving me a way
> to keep my old versions of Y in case no new Y is in the distro.

This is one of the reasons why I even brought this subject up. 
If the user really needs “Y” that is in their FDOS dir and it is not
part of the new version of FDOS, it will still be there.

This is actually one of the main reasons I went with the ZIP backup.
Make a backup, then over-write the old FDOS files. 

> 
>> 4th, having a zip file looks nicer.
>> (I am just making these up. Basically, I just like the idea.) :-/
> 
> Hehe :-) In cases where upgrade is not possible (most common is
> probably "you cannot upgrade because the old version is too old
> to have proper bookkeeping of which files belong to which version
> of which old FreeDOS tool" here) then I think renaming the FDOS
> directory is a bit better than making a ZIP, but you could simply
> offer both methods :-) In the "rename" case, the user can try to
> move all old versions of Y to the new FDOS directory and may then
> delete the renamed old version, or zip the remainder for a later
> rollback backup. In the "zip" case, the user first has to unzip
> the file before doing such things and may possibly re-zip later.
>>> * Actually I think the whole idea of FDNPKG and similar is that you
>>>  can smoothly install tools, including automatic processing of the
>>>  case where you replace an old tool by a newer version of the same,
>>>  see the abovementioned "extra complex" suggestion.
>> 
>> Yeah, but FDNPKG requires 32-bit. I fairly sure Jim does not want
>> that restriction placed on his DOS distribution.
> 
> I disagree here: Basically installing from CD / DVD / USB already
> requires that anyway. For older computers, installing by XCOPY of
> some pre-installed-on-floppy distro is far more appropriate :-)

Actually, with the way I am doing the installer, the source media will not
be an issue. It should be easily usable to install from Floppy, CD, DVD, 
FlashDrive ….. Multi-disc, or even boot floppy and install from CD. 
I might throw in support to install from a hard disk directory.

> Also, there are lots of things that you want to do differently on
> really ancient computers and I suggest to not bother making your
> CD / USB based distro overly complicated by pretending that users
> would be able to manage from USB stick on their PC-XT ;-)
> 
> Cheers, Eric
> 
> PS: Having a medium number of choices while installing is great for
> me, as long as 1. the defaults are sane and 2. the install does not
> pause too often to ask me stuff again. Better ask in a bundled way.

Re: [Freedos-devel] FDI 1.2 Questions?

[Jerome E. Shidel Jr.]

BTW, thank you all for your comments on this topic. 

I do appreciate EACH and EVERY one of them.

Also, I hope I do not upset any of you with my slightly odd sense of humor. 

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