subject:"\[Freedos\-devel\] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer"

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 8:54 PM, Mercury Thirteen
 wrote:
> I suggest three options:
>
> 1. Base install (Just the basic essential parts of FreeDOS)
>
> 2. Complete install (The base install of FreeDOS along with all bundled
> third-party software)
>
> 3. Advanced install (Specify individual packages, install sources, etc.)
>

No. I think it is easiest (aka least confusing) for users to be
prompted with two simple questions:

1. Do you want to install all the extra software, or just the programs
that replace MS-DOS

2. Do you want to install source code too?

That gives you four possible outcomes:
1. everything, no source code
2. everything, with source code
3. Base, no source code
4. Base, with source code

At the risk of giving a "640k should be enough for everyone"-style
quote, I think these four options are sufficient for a FreeDOS 1.2
distribution. The "Advanced" install that you describe is a neat
feature, but I wonder how many people will choose this? I think less
than 1%. We could poll this group as power users on freedos-devel, and
I still think it would be a small number who actually use the "pick
which packages to install or not install."

Jim

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

2015-09-10 Thread Mercury Thirteen

I suggest three options:

1. Base install (Just the basic essential parts of FreeDOS)

2. Complete install (The base install of FreeDOS along with all bundled 
third-party software)

3. Advanced install (Specify individual packages, install sources, etc.)

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 8:46 PM, Antony Gordon  wrote:
> If you just want to do the EULA thing, you can put a generic, this contains
> free software based on several licenses, including GNU GPL, MIT, and BSD. By
> continuing with this install, you accept all applicable licenses. To view
> them in detail, view C:\FREEDOS\DOC.
>

:-)

That's very similar to the text I proposed earlier, quoted as part of
your reply. Feel free to edit this further to be more clear:


>> >> Welcome to FreeDOS!
>> >>
>> >> FreeDOS is a free version of DOS, an operating system that you install
>> >> on your computer. FreeDOS is made up of many smaller programs, called
>> >> utilities.
>> >>
>> >> Most of FreeDOS is distributed to you under the GNU General Public
>> >> License, a free software license that guarantees you have access to
>> >> the source code. Other parts of FreeDOS are distributed under a
>> >> similar license that includes source code.
>> >>
>> >> For details on the specific licenses used in FreeDOS, refer to the
>> >> documentation. This is usually installed in C:\FDOS\DOC

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

Perhaps take a cue from Apple on this one.

The CD boots to an environment that can be used for recovery, diagnostics,
or an install.

For edge use cases where GPARTED would need to be used or some tweaking of
a GRUB boot loader could be performed prior to starting the install...
On Sep 10, 2015 9:46 PM, "Antony Gordon"  wrote:

> If you just want to do the EULA thing, you can put a generic, this
> contains free software based on several licenses, including GNU GPL, MIT,
> and BSD. By continuing with this install, you accept all applicable
> licenses. To view them in detail, view C:\FREEDOS\DOC.
> On Sep 10, 2015 9:34 PM, "Jerome Shidel"  wrote:
>
>>
>> > On Sep 10, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 8:05 PM, Jerome Shidel 
>> wrote:
>> >> [..]
>> >> I have the FDI 1.2 prototype installer about 30% done already.
>> >
>> > Excellent!
>> >
>> >
>> >> Next up:
>> >>
>> >> Locate packages to install. No sense going any farther if they can't
>> be found.
>> >>
>> >> To display Eula. Accept or quit? (Reminds me to finish vview utility
>> in V8PT)
>> >>
>> >> Give install options:
>> >> 1 basic
>> >> 2 full (default?)
>> >> 3 basic + sources
>> >> 4 full + sources
>> >> Quit
>> >>
>> >> Do sys c:
>> >> Do install packages.
>> >>
>> >> Do we are done thanks. Quit or reboot?
>> >
>> > I don't know about displaying the EULA. There are many free software /
>> > open source licenses used in the FreeDOS distribution. The kernel and
>> > many utilities in Base are under the GNU GPL, but many other programs
>> > are under the BSD license, or MIT license, etc. I don't think you want
>> > to display all of those for an EULA.
>> >
>> > I think a simple info screen will suffice. Something like:
>> >
>> >> Welcome to FreeDOS!
>> >>
>> >> FreeDOS is a free version of DOS, an operating system that you install
>> >> on your computer. FreeDOS is made up of many smaller programs, called
>> >> utilities.
>> >>
>> >> Most of FreeDOS is distributed to you under the GNU General Public
>> >> License, a free software license that guarantees you have access to
>> >> the source code. Other parts of FreeDOS are distributed under a
>> >> similar license that includes source code.
>> >>
>> >> For details on the specific licenses used in FreeDOS, refer to the
>> >> documentation. This is usually installed in C:\FDOS\DOC
>> >
>> >
>> > But I lack the time just now to make that shorter or clearer. :-)
>> >
>>
>> Yeah, your right. There is no "one Eula to rule them all"
>> No Eula page then.
>>
>> Hummm
>> How about on welcome page? Something like:
>>
>> 1 Continue to install
>> 2 More information
>> 3 Quit
>>
>> >
>> > Jim
>> >
>> >
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>> >
>>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

If you just want to do the EULA thing, you can put a generic, this contains
free software based on several licenses, including GNU GPL, MIT, and BSD.
By continuing with this install, you accept all applicable licenses. To
view them in detail, view C:\FREEDOS\DOC.
On Sep 10, 2015 9:34 PM, "Jerome Shidel"  wrote:

>
> > On Sep 10, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 8:05 PM, Jerome Shidel 
> wrote:
> >> [..]
> >> I have the FDI 1.2 prototype installer about 30% done already.
> >
> > Excellent!
> >
> >
> >> Next up:
> >>
> >> Locate packages to install. No sense going any farther if they can't be
> found.
> >>
> >> To display Eula. Accept or quit? (Reminds me to finish vview utility in
> V8PT)
> >>
> >> Give install options:
> >> 1 basic
> >> 2 full (default?)
> >> 3 basic + sources
> >> 4 full + sources
> >> Quit
> >>
> >> Do sys c:
> >> Do install packages.
> >>
> >> Do we are done thanks. Quit or reboot?
> >
> > I don't know about displaying the EULA. There are many free software /
> > open source licenses used in the FreeDOS distribution. The kernel and
> > many utilities in Base are under the GNU GPL, but many other programs
> > are under the BSD license, or MIT license, etc. I don't think you want
> > to display all of those for an EULA.
> >
> > I think a simple info screen will suffice. Something like:
> >
> >> Welcome to FreeDOS!
> >>
> >> FreeDOS is a free version of DOS, an operating system that you install
> >> on your computer. FreeDOS is made up of many smaller programs, called
> >> utilities.
> >>
> >> Most of FreeDOS is distributed to you under the GNU General Public
> >> License, a free software license that guarantees you have access to
> >> the source code. Other parts of FreeDOS are distributed under a
> >> similar license that includes source code.
> >>
> >> For details on the specific licenses used in FreeDOS, refer to the
> >> documentation. This is usually installed in C:\FDOS\DOC
> >
> >
> > But I lack the time just now to make that shorter or clearer. :-)
> >
>
> Yeah, your right. There is no "one Eula to rule them all"
> No Eula page then.
>
> Hummm
> How about on welcome page? Something like:
>
> 1 Continue to install
> 2 More information
> 3 Quit
>
> >
> > Jim
> >
> >
> --
> > ___
> > Freedos-devel mailing list
> > Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
> >
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

>> On Sep 10, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
>> I don't know about displaying the EULA. There are many free software /
>> open source licenses used in the FreeDOS distribution. The kernel and
>> many utilities in Base are under the GNU GPL, but many other programs
>> are under the BSD license, or MIT license, etc. I don't think you want
>> to display all of those for an EULA.
>>
>> I think a simple info screen will suffice. Something like:
>>
>>> Welcome to FreeDOS!
>>>
>>> FreeDOS is a free version of DOS, an operating system that you install
>>> on your computer. FreeDOS is made up of many smaller programs, called
>>> utilities.
>>>
>>> Most of FreeDOS is distributed to you under the GNU General Public
>>> License, a free software license that guarantees you have access to
>>> the source code. Other parts of FreeDOS are distributed under a
>>> similar license that includes source code.
>>>
>>> For details on the specific licenses used in FreeDOS, refer to the
>>> documentation. This is usually installed in C:\FDOS\DOC
>>


On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 8:33 PM, Jerome Shidel  wrote:
> Yeah, your right. There is no "one Eula to rule them all"
> No Eula page then.
>
> Hummm
> How about on welcome page? Something like:
>
> 1 Continue to install
> 2 More information
> 3 Quit
>

If you're proposing a menu at install-time so the user must select one
of the three options, I don't think that's a very user friendly way to
do it. I would rather have the info/welcome screen I proposed (see
above) show up immediately. After that welcome, the install process
continues: Do you want to install Base or everything? Do you want to
install source code?

That makes it simple. And friendly.

Jim

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

Hi,

On Sep 10, 2015 4:46 PM, "Eric Auer"  wrote:
>
>
> Hi!
>
> > How many of you remember the DOS 6.22 install process? If possible, it
> > should aim for that. It's simple and straight to the point. It worked
>
> As far as I remember, it was 3 floppies and only "base" software...
> Also, under which conditions would it format / partition your disk?

It would only start fdisk if it didnt detect a DOS partition, but you had
to make the space.

If a usable FAT partition existed, it would offer to format it or just use
it. In order to boot DOS, you had to modify the boot loader...that would be
the only intrusion.

Windows does that now. If it detects a usable NTFS or FAT32 partition, it
will offer to format or use it as is. If it detects a Windows folder, it
will rename it to Windows.old.

> > across all platforms and got DOS up and running with minimal fuss. Once
the
>
> All platforms back at that time was harddisks of at most 8 GB, with
> older BIOS even only 1/2 GB, only CHS, only FAT12 and FAT16, because
> nothing else was supported by MS DOS 6.22 :-p
>
> Also, there was minimal fuss because people did not have dual boot.
> You only had to care about "already has older DOS" versus "this is
> a new empty harddisk". If you format all disks which have "no DOS"
> today, you get MANY angry users who are surprised by the demolition
> of their existing Windows, Linux or other OS.
>
> > setup is done, after a reboot, the FreeDOS package manager can run to
add
> > additional software and system tweaks.
>
> I do not care at which point a reboot is needed. However, for those
> who install in a VM, it is best if the install process does not need
> too many virtual CD insertions or removals. The installer should be
> able to detect which steps have been completed: That way, you do not
> have to remove the CD before rebooting and still get a full install.
>
> > The package manager could be a 16-bit or 32-bit application. (I remember
> > PKZIP running perfectly fine on my Tandy 1000 EX before I had 640K
RAM), so
> > FDPKG would have to work from a floppy disk/image on lower end systems
(or
> > lower end in emulation)
>
> As mentioned earlier, computers older than 386 cannot normally boot
> from anything large and portable (CD, DVD, USB stick) so you would
> only install a basic DOS on them, maybe simply by hand: Take some
> floppy with pre-installed FreeDOS, FORMAT, XCOPY and SYS, done :-)
>
> You can always use UNZIP or FDPKG or similar later if you manage to
> connect a CD drive or network card to your 286 or 8086 for extra fun.
>
> On the other hand, if you have a computer which is less than 50 years
> old, simply use a generic boot CD or DVD with all the fun on it, with
> a small, probably bootable RAMDISK to make installation easy. And do
> not worry about what you whether you want 8086 ROM BASIC drivers ;-)
>
> At the risk of stating the obvious, please give the existing distros
> of FreeDOS 1.x and their installers a try and do NOT re-invent all
> wheels. Start by what is already is working and improve from there.
>
> This includes letting the FDPKG / FDNPKG installer do most work of
> nicely unpacking the per-package ZIPs and doing bookkeeping, batch
> install triggers and similar nice FreeDOS package management stuff.
>
> Cheers, Eric
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

2015-09-10 Thread Jerome Shidel


> On Sep 10, 2015, at 9:22 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 8:05 PM, Jerome Shidel  wrote:
>> [..]
>> I have the FDI 1.2 prototype installer about 30% done already.
> 
> Excellent!
> 
> 
>> Next up:
>> 
>> Locate packages to install. No sense going any farther if they can't be 
>> found.
>> 
>> To display Eula. Accept or quit? (Reminds me to finish vview utility in V8PT)
>> 
>> Give install options:
>> 1 basic
>> 2 full (default?)
>> 3 basic + sources
>> 4 full + sources
>> Quit
>> 
>> Do sys c:
>> Do install packages.
>> 
>> Do we are done thanks. Quit or reboot?
> 
> I don't know about displaying the EULA. There are many free software /
> open source licenses used in the FreeDOS distribution. The kernel and
> many utilities in Base are under the GNU GPL, but many other programs
> are under the BSD license, or MIT license, etc. I don't think you want
> to display all of those for an EULA.
> 
> I think a simple info screen will suffice. Something like:
> 
>> Welcome to FreeDOS!
>> 
>> FreeDOS is a free version of DOS, an operating system that you install
>> on your computer. FreeDOS is made up of many smaller programs, called
>> utilities.
>> 
>> Most of FreeDOS is distributed to you under the GNU General Public
>> License, a free software license that guarantees you have access to
>> the source code. Other parts of FreeDOS are distributed under a
>> similar license that includes source code.
>> 
>> For details on the specific licenses used in FreeDOS, refer to the
>> documentation. This is usually installed in C:\FDOS\DOC
> 
> 
> But I lack the time just now to make that shorter or clearer. :-)
> 

Yeah, your right. There is no "one Eula to rule them all" 
No Eula page then. 

Hummm
How about on welcome page? Something like:

1 Continue to install
2 More information
3 Quit

> 
> Jim
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

2015-09-10 Thread Jerome Shidel


> On Sep 10, 2015, at 9:01 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Jerome, Jayden, Rugxulo, Jim, Matheusz, others! Some more thoughts:
> 
>> I don’t see a way to install the KERNEL.SYS without updating the
>> boot sector. But, should always at least ask to back stuff up.
> 
> Read the output of SYS /? or the HTMLHELP page about SYS or the
> readme of SYS to find such ways... ;-) Actually HTMLHELP is so
> useful that I even had it as part of a floppy distro once :-)
> Plus it can process HTML help files inside ZIPs, saving space.
> 

I glanced at sys /? I didn't see a way for it to install kernel.sys without 
modifying the boot loader. I did see it do the other way round though. 

> 
> 
>> I think adding stuff to a boot menu for Windows, grub, lilo or
>> whatever is way beyond the scope of a batch based installer.
> 
> We had it for Win 9x / XP but things were simpler back then.
> New Windows lives on NTFS and Linux lives on yet other FS.
> Even back in the 9x / XP times, things were not actually
> simple enough to do this automatically in foolproof ways!
> 

( 
windows install trashed my grub loader.again! :(
)

> 
> 
>> With basically two choices:
>> 
>>Full install
>> 
>>or 
>>
>>Full install with sources.
> 
> Well he proposed "big" and "small" install. After a small
> (only all "base" packages) install, you can still use the
> package manager to install more packages. Note that real
> installing is more than just UNZIP, so if possible use
> the real FDNPKG, as UNZIP just approximates installing.
> The "big" install just installs all packages for you...
> 
> Note that small install means only the base category and
> that MS DOS never included more than that category. Users
> often got confused about this and thought BASE would be
> only kernel and command.com, so they thought that FULL
> would be a very good choice, ending up with a huge pile
> of software that they never used. The installer should
> be clear about this. As said, you can always do BASE and
> later add a few packages of your choice manually anyway.
> 
> Regarding the source code, I think "installing" them was
> better limited to copying source tarballs or zips, as it
> was done by some Linux distros. You can then unzip those
> few zips for which you ACTUALLY want to edit the sources
> without cluttering your harddisk with lots of tiny files
> that you would get by unzipping all source zips at once.
> 
> 
> 
> In any case, INSIDE the "386+" case, apart from deciding
> which packages to install (make that easy: base or all),
> you decide WHERE. The WHERE has at least 3 situations in
> my opinion: Existing C: drive, interactively pr
> Hi Jerome, Jayden, Rugxulo, Jim, Matheusz, others! Some more thoughts:
> 
>> I don’t see a way to install the KERNEL.SYS without updating the
>> boot sector. But, should always at least ask to back stuff up.
> 
> Read the output of SYS /? or the HTMLHELP page about SYS or the
> readme of SYS to find such ways... ;-) Actually HTMLHELP is so
> useful that I even had it as part of a floppy distro once :-)
> Plus it can process HTML help files inside ZIPs, saving space.
> 
> 
> 
>> I think adding stuff to a boot menu for Windows, grub, lilo or
>> whatever is way beyond the scope of a batch based installer.
> 
> We had it for Win 9x / XP but things were simpler back then.
> New Windows lives on NTFS and Linux lives on yet other FS.
> Even back in the 9x / XP times, things were not actually
> simple enough to do this automatically in foolproof ways!
> 
> 
> 
>> With basically two choices:
>> 
>>Full install
>> 
>>or 
>>
>>Full install with sources.
> 
> Well he proposed "big" and "small" install. After a small
> (only all "base" packages) install, you can still use the
> package manager to install more packages. Note that real
> installing is more than just UNZIP, so if possible use
> the real FDNPKG, as UNZIP just approximates installing.
> The "big" install just installs all packages for you...
> 
> Note that small install means only the base category and
> that MS DOS never included more than that category. Users
> often got confused about this and thought BASE would be
> only kernel and command.com, so they thought that FULL
> would be a very good choice, ending up with a huge pile
> of software that they never used. The installer should
> be clear about this. As said, you can always do BASE and
> later add a few packages of your choice manually anyway.
> 
> Regarding the source code, I think "installing" them was
> better limited to copying source tarballs or zips, as it
> was done by some Linux distros. You can then unzip those
> few zips for which you ACTUALLY want to edit the sources
> without cluttering your harddisk with lots of tiny files
> that you would get by unzipping all source zips at once.
> 
> 
> 
> In any case, INSIDE the "386+" case, apart from deciding
> which packages to install (make that easy: base or all),
> you decide WHERE. The WHERE has at least 3 situations

Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 8:05 PM, Jerome Shidel  wrote:
[..]
> I have the FDI 1.2 prototype installer about 30% done already.
>

Excellent!


> Next up:
>
> Locate packages to install. No sense going any farther if they can't be found.
>
> To display Eula. Accept or quit? (Reminds me to finish vview utility in V8PT)
>
> Give install options:
> 1 basic
> 2 full (default?)
> 3 basic + sources
> 4 full + sources
> Quit
>
> Do sys c:
> Do install packages.
>
> Do we are done thanks. Quit or reboot?

I don't know about displaying the EULA. There are many free software /
open source licenses used in the FreeDOS distribution. The kernel and
many utilities in Base are under the GNU GPL, but many other programs
are under the BSD license, or MIT license, etc. I don't think you want
to display all of those for an EULA.

I think a simple info screen will suffice. Something like:

>Welcome to FreeDOS!
>
>FreeDOS is a free version of DOS, an operating system that you install
>on your computer. FreeDOS is made up of many smaller programs, called
>utilities.
>
>Most of FreeDOS is distributed to you under the GNU General Public
>License, a free software license that guarantees you have access to
>the source code. Other parts of FreeDOS are distributed under a
>similar license that includes source code.
>
>For details on the specific licenses used in FreeDOS, refer to the
>documentation. This is usually installed in C:\FDOS\DOC
>


But I lack the time just now to make that shorter or clearer. :-)


Jim

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

2015-09-10 Thread Jerome Shidel

> On Sep 10, 2015, at 8:33 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
> 
> Just to get this one out of the way:
> 
> 
> On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
> Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?
> 
> I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
> implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
> building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.
> 
>>> On Sep 7, 2015, at 1:33 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:
>>> 
>>> I just checked Jim’s FreeDOS blog posts. They currently only go back a 
>>> little over 2 years. But, other than Jim’s desires for the batch based 
>>> installer and information about my V8PT utilities, I don’t see that anyone 
>>> was creating an installer.
> 
>> On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 12:36 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  
>> wrote:
>> Maybe, I should just write it.
> 
> 
> Short answer: Yes, please do!
> 
> Long answer: My intention *had* been to write a new install process.
> But as you probably also saw on my blog, I'm wy swamped right
> now. I'm back in FreeDOS for now .. but I don't have the spare time to
> write the install process. More than happy for someone else to write
> it. Expect me to be very visible and vocal on "getting it right." I
> have some strong beliefs that things need to be simple, simple,
> simple.
> 
> 
> 
> Jim
> 

I have the FDI 1.2 prototype installer about 30% done already. 

It boots up and calls setup.bat /CheckStatus

Some code needs to be inserted that switch, when it is used to just quit the 
when  freedos 1.2 has already been installed. This makes it a handy recovery 
boot disk.
If the user runs setup manually, the installer will not check first and go 
through its normal install process. 

Welcome to installer. Continue or quit?

(Automated test if drive is partitioned, if not ask if user wants to? Partition 
or quit. If partition was run, asks reboot or quit)

(Automated test if C is usable, format or quit. If formatted, test again)

Next up:

Locate packages to install. No sense going any farther if they can't be found.

To display Eula. Accept or quit? (Reminds me to finish vview utility in V8PT)

Give install options:
1 basic
2 full (default?)
3 basic + sources
4 full + sources
Quit

Do sys c:
Do install packages.

Do we are done thanks. Quit or reboot?

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project


Hi Jerome, Jayden, Rugxulo, Jim, Matheusz, others! Some more thoughts:

> I don’t see a way to install the KERNEL.SYS without updating the
> boot sector. But, should always at least ask to back stuff up.

Read the output of SYS /? or the HTMLHELP page about SYS or the
readme of SYS to find such ways... ;-) Actually HTMLHELP is so
useful that I even had it as part of a floppy distro once :-)
Plus it can process HTML help files inside ZIPs, saving space.



> I think adding stuff to a boot menu for Windows, grub, lilo or
> whatever is way beyond the scope of a batch based installer.

We had it for Win 9x / XP but things were simpler back then.
New Windows lives on NTFS and Linux lives on yet other FS.
Even back in the 9x / XP times, things were not actually
simple enough to do this automatically in foolproof ways!



> With basically two choices:
> 
>   Full install
> 
>   or 
>   
>   Full install with sources.

Well he proposed "big" and "small" install. After a small
(only all "base" packages) install, you can still use the
package manager to install more packages. Note that real
installing is more than just UNZIP, so if possible use
the real FDNPKG, as UNZIP just approximates installing.
The "big" install just installs all packages for you...

Note that small install means only the base category and
that MS DOS never included more than that category. Users
often got confused about this and thought BASE would be
only kernel and command.com, so they thought that FULL
would be a very good choice, ending up with a huge pile
of software that they never used. The installer should
be clear about this. As said, you can always do BASE and
later add a few packages of your choice manually anyway.

Regarding the source code, I think "installing" them was
better limited to copying source tarballs or zips, as it
was done by some Linux distros. You can then unzip those
few zips for which you ACTUALLY want to edit the sources
without cluttering your harddisk with lots of tiny files
that you would get by unzipping all source zips at once.



In any case, INSIDE the "386+" case, apart from deciding
which packages to install (make that easy: base or all),
you decide WHERE. The WHERE has at least 3 situations in
my opinion: Existing C: drive, interactively prepared C:
(let the user work with FDISK and FORMAT, at own risk)
and RAMDISK. The latter is not required but IMHO it is
a very convenient option to have and easy to have. For
a more complex wish, let the middle option detect if a
target harddisk has "totally nothing" on it yet and if
so, reduce warnings about FDISK / FORMAT usage or maybe
even run them non-interactively. The hard part is what
exactly totally nothing means:

There could be some MBR already, but would it be one
which can boot? In any case, if there already is some
non-empty partition table, the disk is not totally
empty. If the disk contains a GPT instead of MBR, it
is not empty either plus you may want to avoid FDISK
usage on it. For example only GPT supports harddisk
sizes above 2 TB at 512 byte sector size. Plus some
risk of having other sector sizes in the 1st place.

When the target is USB, SD, ZIP or similar, it may be
non-partitioned and still contain a single filesystem
already nevertheless, which could be non-FAT but still
be valuable. Think about SDXC with exFAT, do those use
partition tables or do they just contain one exFAT? In
such cases, you do not want to silently wipe contents.

Cheers, Eric



PS: I indeed agree that batch is not a very convenient
installer programming language. Jim also had one in C,
which OTOH was over-integrated and had built-in unzip.
Bernd's install combined batch, helpers and packagers.

PS Jim: For which free-non-open software would it be
good to have free-open alternatives at this moment?
I mean what is closed but too cool to simply forget?



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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

> On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 2:55 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
> wrote:
>>
[long description of install process]
>>

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 5:34 PM, JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU
 wrote:
> Why not make a single executable to handle all of this,instead of 50 million
> batch commands?I might be wrong,but wouldn't it be more..well..efficient?
>

More efficient for whom? Sure, you can create a compiled program to do
the install, but why? A compiled program would run slightly faster,
but most of the time to install FreeDOS is disk I/O as the install
process unpackages FreeDOS onto the hard drive. I doubt you'll notice
the install process is any "slower" by making it a smart BAT file.

Jim

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

Just to get this one out of the way:

>>> On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
 Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?

 I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
 implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
 building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.
>>>

>> On Sep 7, 2015, at 1:33 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:
>>
>> I just checked Jim’s FreeDOS blog posts. They currently only go back a 
>> little over 2 years. But, other than Jim’s desires for the batch based 
>> installer and information about my V8PT utilities, I don’t see that anyone 
>> was creating an installer.
>>

On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 12:36 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:
> Maybe, I should just write it.
>

Short answer: Yes, please do!

Long answer: My intention *had* been to write a new install process.
But as you probably also saw on my blog, I'm wy swamped right
now. I'm back in FreeDOS for now .. but I don't have the spare time to
write the install process. More than happy for someone else to write
it. Expect me to be very visible and vocal on "getting it right." I
have some strong beliefs that things need to be simple, simple,
simple.

Jim

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

>
> On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 3:35 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
> wrote:
>> (Please forgive me if I misquote or misunderstand the following Jim.)
>>
>> Jim says he wants a super simple, nearly option free installer.
>> With basically two choices:
>>
>> Full install
>>
>> or
>>
>> Full install with sources.
>>
>> This is for support purposes and wants all installs to start off with the
>> same set of software. That way it is much easier to troubleshoot problems.
>> The user can always install more software after the install is successful
>> and the system is working.
>>
>> There are a couple other reasons. But, I see this one as one of the
>> primary issues
>>
>> (It will also make my life easier while building the installer) ;^)
>>

Yes, this is basically the "Jim vision." :-)

Your email reminds me that a second prompt was needed:

1. Install just the Base software, or install everything?
2. Do you want to install source code too?

This makes it really easy for new users to install FreeDOS, because
the install process is very straightforward. Just two questions, and
you're done!

And when someone emails the freedos-user list and says "I'm trying to
do X with FreeDOS, but I'm not sure what to do" we can make a pretty
good assumption to how that person's FreeDOS installation looks like.
:-)

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 5:39 PM, JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU
 wrote:
> But,what about the people who want the specifics?Why not add a little "Press
> " or something along those lines if you want to install SPECIFIC
> things.One time I ran the installation CD again to install the FreeDOS
> shell.Another point,I remember when I burned the installation ISO to my
> flash drive,and I booted the installation disk from it.The installer seemed
> hardwired to install from a CD/DVD.Why not add USB/Flashdrive support?

I think if you are an advanced user who wants that level of control
over "don't install package X but install everything else," then you
are probably less than 1% of the people who are going to install
FreeDOS. The fd11src.iso CD image is 39MB. That's not big.

Jim

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 5:10 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> So we already have at least five use cases :-)
>
> * install from floppy XCOPY style to pre-386 computers, allowing
>   the user to later add packages in a more manual way via FDPKG
>
> * install from CD / DVD / USB to completely empty (virtual) PC,
>   making sure that there really is no danger to damage other OS
>
> * install to ramdisk for a live CD session, possibly offering a
>   choice between small and large selections of DOS packages
>
> * install to existing formatted FAT C: partition, minimizing any
>   damage to already existing contents of C: - in particular, ask
>   the user whether SYS should overwrite the boot sector or if it
>   should only provide a boot sector FILE that the (expert) user
>   can add to their existing boot manager. Maybe also let users
>   decide if they want autoexec / config to be replaced (with a
>   non-destructive backup!) or if they want to use fdconfig.sys
>   and fdauto to keep FreeDOS and ... DOS / Win config separate.
>
> * install in a destructive way by partitioning and formatting if
>   the user REALLY knows that this is the right thing to do... Do
>   not try to decide about those things automatically! Not even
>   Ubuntu (which tries to have installation for dummies) does it.
>   As far as I remember, Ubuntu offers "install to free space" if
>   the user has provided free space (e.g. really empty harddisk,
>   or by shrinking Windows from within Windows manually before),
>   "custom install" (with a nice gparted style partition resizer
>   and editor) and "install instead of whatever was there before,
>   destroying existing data" (but clearly warning about risks).
>

To simplify this even further:

* If you are pre-'386, install from floppies. That will probably have
a different install process. Some kind of XCOPY is likely.

* If you are '386 or later, assume installing from a CD (or equivalent
.. such as USB fob drive, or CD image if on a virtual machine). Give
the option to install just the Base software, or install everything.
Then install it.

I feel it is important for the new install to be very simple. That
doesn't mean "dumb" but that does mean "not complex." Adding a bunch
of options at this point to try to cover 100% of the edge cases is
overkill and we'll never get there.

The install process should include a message RIGHT AWAY WHEN IT'S
BOOTED that this is FreeDOS, and FreeDOS is an operating system, and
installing FreeDOS on your computer may overwrite things that are
already on it (such as a previous Windows or Linux installation.) Give
the user the option to abort the install process at that moment. If
you continue, we can assume you want to install FreeDOS. (See my other
email for the simple 6-steps to install.)

In reality, I believe many modern users are installing FreeDOS on some
kind of virtual machine. Probably so they can play games or run some
legacy software. They are likely only installing on actual hardware if
they are hobbyists, or embedded developers.

That takes care of the "install to existing formatted FAT C:
partition, minimizing any damage to already existing contents of C:"
and the "install in a destructive way .. if the user REALLY knows that
this is the right thing to do."

Jim

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 1:08 PM, Antony Gordon  wrote:
> HI,
>
> How many of you remember the DOS 6.22 install process? If possible, it
> should aim for that. It's simple and straight to the point. It worked across
> all platforms and got DOS up and running with minimal fuss. Once the setup
> is done, after a reboot, the FreeDOS package manager can run to add
> additional software and system tweaks.
>

That's the vision I've been talking about since May (at least, on my
blog .. I've been mostly silent from the list until recently).
http://www.freedos.org/jhall/

The original MS-DOS install was very straightforward. Although it's
important to remember that MS-DOS was also very, very small. It fit on
like three floppies. The FreeDOS Project is much bigger, when you
include other software. But I think the install process can still be
straightforward.

What I want in the new installer is a simple question: do you want to
install just the Base software, or install everything?

The Base software is only those programs that replicate the
functionality and behavior of MS-DOS. Most users want to install
everything, but there's a sizable number of folks who just want to
install the Base software. So that option needs to be there.

But we don't need to ask if the user wants to install this-or-that
package. That's too detailed. No one really cares about selecting or
unselecting specific packages from the FreeDOS install. The FreeDOS
install isn't that big.

So give the option to install just Base, or everything, and let the
install run uninterrupted from there.

Jim

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

> On 10/09/2015 10:51, Eric Auer wrote:
>> My personal opinion is that on 8086, you should rather use a floppy
>> distro like RUFFIDEA or BREZEL which has the "base" category already
>> pre-installed on one or a few floppies and you just XCOPY that to a
>> disk of your choice manually. Imagine how many floppies and spanned
>> zip files across multiple floppies a full install on 8086 would be.


On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 4:27 AM, Mateusz Viste  wrote:
> I would tend to agree on that, but it's apparently not a common point of
> view. Not that long ago, I almost triggered an apocalypse on this very
> list by stating that 8086 machines probably do not need a package
> manager. I can only imagine that an installer will be perceived as even
> more fundamental.
>
> Without going into multi-floppies installations, it might be nice for
> the FreeDOS installer to be compatible with the lowest possible machine,
> if only to effectively present an intro screen, help to format the disk
> and copy the most basic stuff to C:\FREEDOS. Even on a full-blown
> Pentium PC there won't be more to do for the installer. Once the most
> basic system is up and running, then people can install any additional
> software via FDNPKG.



I would recommend we keep the updated install process very simple.
Make it straightforward. I think pre-'386 systems are in a very small
minority. We'll be able to address over 99% of all FreeDOS users by
making this a CD-based installation. If you have an 8088 or a '286,
then you'll need floppies to install. I agree that should be a
separate floppy-based distro.


Jim

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

> On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 11:02 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
> wrote:
>>
>> Ok, I’m going to need some feedback on this.
>>
>> Especially things like:
>>
>> What I should strip out of the FDCONFIG.SYS and
>> AUTOEXEC.BAT?
>>
>> What should be included in the FDI Boot Floppy?
>>
>> How does the Installer LOGIC.txt look?
>>
>> Just about everything.
>>
>> Project URL:
>> http://github.com/shidel/FDI
>>
>> Current Demo Video on Facebook:
>>
>> https://www.facebook.com/jshidel/videos/o.5985782886/10207791496094518/?type=2&theater
>>

On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 1:46 PM, JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU
 wrote:
> First things first,we should try remaking the installer.We are trying to
> better the installer,right?Why not create a new UI for the installer and
> make it more efficient?Perhaps better package handling routines?Just some
> ideas I am tossing around.
>

I wrote the original FreeDOS installer. It was a good program for what
it needed to do. We didn't have a nice installer at the time. In the
FreeDOS Alpha release (say, 1997) you basically just unzipped a big
zip file, then manually ran SYS to make the C: drive bootable. The
FreeDOS installer made installing FreeDOS a lot easier, and it is what
brought us to the FreeDOS Beta1 release in March 1998. Using an
installer also introduced the concept of "packages" where each FreeDOS
program could stand on its own. That made updating specific things
easier for whoever made the distribution (originally me).
http://freedos.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Installer
http://freedos.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/FreeDOS_Road_Map

Over time, we modified the FreeDOS installer to do different things.
We added some extra UI elements. But it was kind of a hack. Things got
a bit ugly.

When you take a step back and look at the FreeDOS install process,
it's actually quite simple:

1. make sure there's a hard drive to install to
2. is there a C: partition? if not, run FDISK
3. is the C: drive formatted? if not, run FORMAT
4. call UNZIP for every package in the distribution
5. run SYS to make the C: drive bootable
6. done!

That's it. In May this year, I decided to update the FreeDOS install
program. But when I took that step back, I realized a compiled C
program was overkill for what it needed to do. The install process
could easily be replicated by a smart BAT file. To make it look nice
for the user, we could use some "Visual" scripting tools. For example,
a "Visual CHOICE" to make a nice-looking prompt where you select
something. etc.
http://www.freedos.org/jhall/

But by then, I realized I didn't have time to write such a thing. I
started some tools, but it didn't get far before I got swamped on
other work.

That's where Jerome came in. He had the drive and energy to write
these tools. He created the V8 Power Tools, pretty much on spec from
what I wrote in my blog.

So to answer your question, "Why not create a new UI for the installer
and make it more efficient?" That's what we are *doing* with the V8
Power Tools.

The package handling routines at install-time can remain a simple
UNZIP. A package manager really only becomes important after you have
a running system. At install-time, every install should be the same
(in terms of packages installed).

My two cents.

Jim

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

2015-09-10 Thread JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU

But,what about the people who want the specifics?Why not add a little
"Press " or something along those lines if you want to install SPECIFIC
things.One time I ran the installation CD again to install the FreeDOS
shell.Another point,I remember when I burned the installation ISO to my
flash drive,and I booted the installation disk from it.The installer seemed
hardwired to install from a CD/DVD.Why not add USB/Flashdrive support?

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 3:35 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
wrote:

>
> > On Sep 10, 2015, at 6:10 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hi, nitpicking and ideas coming up :-)
> >
> >> This gives the user the ability to partition and format elsewhere.
> >> But, you cannot do an install without the drive C:.
> >
> > Actually a "live CD" mode would be nice. Give the user some menu
> > item to load a large ramdisk and install (with fdpkg / fdnpkg) a
> > bunch of DOS programs to the ramdisk, so the users can directly
> > enjoy a spontaneous DOS session without having to format away the
> > already existing OTHER operating systems on their computer.
>
> That would be great. I remember DOS days with a 20MB hard drive.
> Could do a lot with a couple hundred MB ram disk.
>
> > Note that DOS lacks sufficiently powerful tools to resize other
> > partitions to ADD DOS without destroying other partitions, but
> > modern computers are so powerful that people can easily install
> > DOS to a completely empty VIRTUAL harddisk in a virtual machine
>
> Yep, thats how I’m building and testing the bath based the installer.
> 1 VM with FreeDOS 1.1 that builds a Installer Floppy.
> 1 VM that is empty to test it on.
>
> VM’s are so cheap anymore. :)
>
> >
> > So we already have at least five use cases :-)
> >
> > * install from floppy XCOPY style to pre-386 computers, allowing
> >  the user to later add packages in a more manual way via FDPKG
> >
> > * install from CD / DVD / USB to completely empty (virtual) PC,
> >  making sure that there really is no danger to damage other OS
> >
> > * install to ramdisk for a live CD session, possibly offering a
> >  choice between small and large selections of DOS packages
> >
> > * install to existing formatted FAT C: partition, minimizing any
> >  damage to already existing contents of C: - in particular, ask
> >  the user whether SYS should overwrite the boot sector or if it
> >  should only provide a boot sector FILE that the (expert) user
> >  can add to their existing boot manager. Maybe also let users
> >  decide if they want autoexec / config to be replaced (with a
> >  non-destructive backup!) or if they want to use fdconfig.sys
> >  and fdauto to keep FreeDOS and ... DOS / Win config separate.
>
> I don’t see a way to install the KERNEL.SYS without updating the
> boot sector. But, should always at least ask to back stuff up.
>
> > * install in a destructive way by partitioning and formatting if
> >  the user REALLY knows that this is the right thing to do... Do
> >  not try to decide about those things automatically! Not even
> >  Ubuntu (which tries to have installation for dummies) does it.
> >  As far as I remember, Ubuntu offers "install to free space" if
> >  the user has provided free space (e.g. really empty harddisk,
> >  or by shrinking Windows from within Windows manually before),
> >  "custom install" (with a nice gparted style partition resizer
> >  and editor) and "install instead of whatever was there before,
> >  destroying existing data" (but clearly warning about risks).
>
> Nuke and pave option. Might be a good idea. I’ll probably stick it in
> there.
>
> > I am sure I have forgotten many cases and issues, but have a look
> > at the OLD FreeDOS installers to see what and how they did, plus
> > have a look at the old discussions about the topic :-) Our older
> > installers are from the time when Windows (e.g. XP) still could
> > be installed on FAT partitions, so they for example tried to see
> > if you had Windows on your C: drive. If yes, they tried to add
> > FreeDOS to the built-in boot menu of Windows and tried to use a
> > DOS specific set of config files without damaging Windows files.
>
> I think adding stuff to a boot menu for Windows, grub, lilo or whatever
> is way beyond the scope of a batch based installer. At least, without
> creating
> additional utilities. Unless some DOS based tools exist for this already?
> I don’t think that will make it into the installer.
>
>  As mentioned earlier, computers older than 386 cannot normally boot
>  from anything large and portable (CD, DVD, USB stick) so you would
>  only install a basic DOS on them, maybe simply by hand: Take some
>  floppy with pre-installed FreeDOS, FORMAT, XCOPY and SYS, done :-)
> >>>
> >>> Even a lot of 486s can't do El Torito.  My 486/133 couldn't.
> >
> > For even more nitpicking, there are some fancy tricks and floppy
> > based boot managers to boot from CD / DVD or USB on 386+ PC and
> > people even managed to connect CD / DVD drives to 8086... But is
>

Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project


> On Sep 10, 2015, at 6:10 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi, nitpicking and ideas coming up :-)
> 
>> This gives the user the ability to partition and format elsewhere.
>> But, you cannot do an install without the drive C:. 
> 
> Actually a "live CD" mode would be nice. Give the user some menu
> item to load a large ramdisk and install (with fdpkg / fdnpkg) a
> bunch of DOS programs to the ramdisk, so the users can directly
> enjoy a spontaneous DOS session without having to format away the
> already existing OTHER operating systems on their computer.

That would be great. I remember DOS days with a 20MB hard drive.
Could do a lot with a couple hundred MB ram disk.

> Note that DOS lacks sufficiently powerful tools to resize other
> partitions to ADD DOS without destroying other partitions, but
> modern computers are so powerful that people can easily install
> DOS to a completely empty VIRTUAL harddisk in a virtual machine

Yep, thats how I’m building and testing the bath based the installer.
1 VM with FreeDOS 1.1 that builds a Installer Floppy. 
1 VM that is empty to test it on.

VM’s are so cheap anymore. :)

> 
> So we already have at least five use cases :-)
> 
> * install from floppy XCOPY style to pre-386 computers, allowing
>  the user to later add packages in a more manual way via FDPKG
> 
> * install from CD / DVD / USB to completely empty (virtual) PC,
>  making sure that there really is no danger to damage other OS
> 
> * install to ramdisk for a live CD session, possibly offering a
>  choice between small and large selections of DOS packages
> 
> * install to existing formatted FAT C: partition, minimizing any
>  damage to already existing contents of C: - in particular, ask
>  the user whether SYS should overwrite the boot sector or if it
>  should only provide a boot sector FILE that the (expert) user
>  can add to their existing boot manager. Maybe also let users
>  decide if they want autoexec / config to be replaced (with a
>  non-destructive backup!) or if they want to use fdconfig.sys
>  and fdauto to keep FreeDOS and ... DOS / Win config separate.

I don’t see a way to install the KERNEL.SYS without updating the
boot sector. But, should always at least ask to back stuff up.

> * install in a destructive way by partitioning and formatting if
>  the user REALLY knows that this is the right thing to do... Do
>  not try to decide about those things automatically! Not even
>  Ubuntu (which tries to have installation for dummies) does it.
>  As far as I remember, Ubuntu offers "install to free space" if
>  the user has provided free space (e.g. really empty harddisk,
>  or by shrinking Windows from within Windows manually before),
>  "custom install" (with a nice gparted style partition resizer
>  and editor) and "install instead of whatever was there before,
>  destroying existing data" (but clearly warning about risks).

Nuke and pave option. Might be a good idea. I’ll probably stick it in there.

> I am sure I have forgotten many cases and issues, but have a look
> at the OLD FreeDOS installers to see what and how they did, plus
> have a look at the old discussions about the topic :-) Our older
> installers are from the time when Windows (e.g. XP) still could
> be installed on FAT partitions, so they for example tried to see
> if you had Windows on your C: drive. If yes, they tried to add
> FreeDOS to the built-in boot menu of Windows and tried to use a
> DOS specific set of config files without damaging Windows files.

I think adding stuff to a boot menu for Windows, grub, lilo or whatever
is way beyond the scope of a batch based installer. At least, without creating 
additional utilities. Unless some DOS based tools exist for this already?
I don’t think that will make it into the installer.

 As mentioned earlier, computers older than 386 cannot normally boot
 from anything large and portable (CD, DVD, USB stick) so you would
 only install a basic DOS on them, maybe simply by hand: Take some
 floppy with pre-installed FreeDOS, FORMAT, XCOPY and SYS, done :-)
>>> 
>>> Even a lot of 486s can't do El Torito.  My 486/133 couldn't.
> 
> For even more nitpicking, there are some fancy tricks and floppy
> based boot managers to boot from CD / DVD or USB on 386+ PC and
> people even managed to connect CD / DVD drives to 8086... But is
> this worth big special efforts? Probably not: 386 owners can go
> the "floppy basic install, then use fdnpkg" route :-) They can
> use fdnpkg and the ZIP packages from any normal "if you could
> boot from CD drive" install CD, without booting from that CD,
> after finding & installing ancient CD drivers for their drive.

(Please forgive me if I misquote or misunderstand the following Jim.)

Jim says he wants a super simple, nearly option free installer.
With basically two choices:

Full install

or 

Full install with sources.

This is for support purposes and wants all installs to start off with the 
same set of s

Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

2015-09-10 Thread JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU

Why not make a single executable to handle all of this,instead of 50
million batch commands?I might be wrong,but wouldn't it be
more..well..efficient?

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 2:55 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
wrote:

>
> > On Sep 10, 2015, at 2:01 PM, Mercury Thirteen 
> wrote:
> >
> > Well, I see it doesn't work lol
> >
> > I'll look into it as time allows.
> >
> > On 9/8/2015 3:11 AM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
> >> Well, just try actually installing your packages on a FreeDOS system...
> >> That's the whole point. Then you will see what happens :)
> >>
> >> Every single package must be tested before being published - testing
> >> means installing on a real system, verifying that the software works,
> >> that files are organized as they should be, then uninstalling it and
> >> re-checking that nothing has been broken.
> >>
> >> Here is the 'official' description of what a package is:
> >> http://freedos.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Package
> >>
> >> Although an even better (or at least complementary) approach would be
> >> looking at how existing packages are structured.
> >>
> >> good luck,
> >>
> >> Mateusz
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 08/09/2015 08:39, Mercury Thirteen wrote:
> >>> It's 2:35 AM here, so I'm not handy to the exact location of where I
> >>> found it, but I followed information on FD.org to structure the
> >>> directories as they are, so I'm curious how what I did differs from
> what
> >>> was expected.
> >>>
> >>> On 9/8/2015 2:31 AM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
>  I took a quick pick at your big ZIP file. Sadly, there are no FreeDOS
>  packages in there - only plenty of LFN files in subdirectories that
> are
>  not compliant with FreeDOS package structures.
> 
>  Have you tried installing these on an actual FreeDOS system? This
> might
>  be the first thing to do.
> 
>  Mateusz
> 
> 
> 
>  On 07/09/2015 20:03, Mercury Thirteen wrote:
> > I compiled the packages and verified the .lsm files and structured
> them
> > into a zip. Jim himself said there is an installer he's working on,
> > which is what's I've been waiting on. Since Jim doesn't seem to have
> > much free time (like many of us) I would say go for it.
>
> So, are you the one who is going to assemble the 1.2 Distro Release?
>
> >
> > On 9/7/2015 12:56 PM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
> >> I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen"
> >> saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the
> FD
> >> website at some point about that).
> >>
> >> Mateusz
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
> >>> Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?
> >>>
> >>> I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools
> implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
> >>> building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.
> >>
> >>
> --
> >> ___
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> >> Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
> >
> >
> >
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project.

2015-09-10 Thread JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU

Microsoft probably knows.I honestly have no idea.Maybe they thought it
would make it more 'user friendly'.

On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 8:57 PM, Antony Gordon  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm curious as to why a batch file and DOS 6 setup automatically initiated
> the format once the drive was selected.
>
> On Wed, Sep 9, 2015, 9:28 PM Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
> wrote:
>
>>
>> > On Sep 9, 2015, at 8:03 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > Hi Jerome,
>> >
>> > if you want to store temp results in your batch, you could
>> > work with errorlevels, the FreeCOM magic errorlevel variable
>> > or indeed a ramdrive. In the past, we often used "memdisk",
>> > which is a BOOTABLE RAMDRIVE. That way, the installer used
>> > a virtual floppy to boot. As you cannot natively boot DOS
>> > from network, CD, DVD or BluRay, you have to use a virtual
>> > boot disk for those anyway. Memdisk gives you the advantage
>> > that the virtual boot disk is a writeable ramdrive floppy.
>>
>> Most of how the FDI prototype passes data around with errorlevel
>> processing.
>>
>> However, not having a functioning pipe will make some of the more advanced
>> features of V8PT unusable in the installer.
>>
>> example: "vcursor | set /p START_CURSOR=“ would save the incoming cursor
>> so when the batch exits, it can restore it to its previous state with
>> “vcursor %START_CURSOR%". However, just doing a “vcursor small” will
>> make the cursor visible again.
>>
>> (
>> FYI, the default cursor for FreeDOS inside vmWare is 0x0607. Assuming you
>> could actually get an errorlevel that high. Could you imagine having 1543
>> if
>> statements for that one?  :’-(
>> )
>>
>> I can probably work around most or all of the issues caused by no pipe
>> support.
>>
>> It’s just the installer won’t be quite as intelligent as it could be.
>>
>> At present, I’ve already added stuff to the installer batch that will
>> automatically
>> use the pipes if the TEMP var is set. If it is not set, it runs in dumb
>> mode.
>>
>> This will give whoever actually makes the FD1.2 Distro Release the ability
>> to either support it or not just by adding a ram disk or leaving it out.
>>
>> >
>> > Memdisk is a bit more esotheric compared to using a floppy
>> > image to directly make a CD or similar bootable, but both
>> > methods work on most BIOS variants. As more and more users
>> > have a BIOS which can boot from USB stick or SD cards, the
>> > whole problem can be sidestepped with a bootable USB / SD.
>>
>> It would be nice if FD 1.2, “ships” with floppy, CD, USB and SD
>> support.
>>
>> >
>> > Disadvantage of both methods is that the files inside the
>> > boot "floppy" are less visible and less editable to people
>> > who want to tune the boot CD / DVD image to their needs,
>> > they tend to overlook the floppy image and / or lack the
>> > tools needed to edit it, although free tools are available
>> > for all common operating systems :-)
>>
>> Yeah, they’re a pain. But, reliable.
>>
>> >
>> > Cheers, Eric
>>
>> Thanks, Jerome
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > PS: Why does FORMAT C: need pipes? You do not want to hide
>> > messages and if you worry about confirmation requests, I
>> > personally vote AGAINST automated saying yes to FORMAT C:
>>
>> Well, it was a suggestion/request that I mostly agree with.
>> The installer asks “Do you want to format and erase this drive?”
>> Just a little redundant for the formatter to ask again.
>>
>> > (also, our FORMAT has a command line option for that…).
>>
>> What is it? I don’t see one to have it format drive C without insisting on
>> typing “YES”
>>
>> >
>> >> If no writeable file system is present, DOS throws many errors
>> >> and cannot redirect the data from one program to another.
>> >
>> > Many? Only if you try to explicitly use pipes ;-)
>>
>> One error message is way way way too many. :)
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >
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>> >
>>
>>
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>
>
>

Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project


Hi, nitpicking and ideas coming up :-)

> This gives the user the ability to partition and format elsewhere.
> But, you cannot do an install without the drive C:. 

Actually a "live CD" mode would be nice. Give the user some menu
item to load a large ramdisk and install (with fdpkg / fdnpkg) a
bunch of DOS programs to the ramdisk, so the users can directly
enjoy a spontaneous DOS session without having to format away the
already existing OTHER operating systems on their computer.

Note that DOS lacks sufficiently powerful tools to resize other
partitions to ADD DOS without destroying other partitions, but
modern computers are so powerful that people can easily install
DOS to a completely empty VIRTUAL harddisk in a virtual machine



So we already have at least five use cases :-)

* install from floppy XCOPY style to pre-386 computers, allowing
  the user to later add packages in a more manual way via FDPKG

* install from CD / DVD / USB to completely empty (virtual) PC,
  making sure that there really is no danger to damage other OS

* install to ramdisk for a live CD session, possibly offering a
  choice between small and large selections of DOS packages

* install to existing formatted FAT C: partition, minimizing any
  damage to already existing contents of C: - in particular, ask
  the user whether SYS should overwrite the boot sector or if it
  should only provide a boot sector FILE that the (expert) user
  can add to their existing boot manager. Maybe also let users
  decide if they want autoexec / config to be replaced (with a
  non-destructive backup!) or if they want to use fdconfig.sys
  and fdauto to keep FreeDOS and ... DOS / Win config separate.

* install in a destructive way by partitioning and formatting if
  the user REALLY knows that this is the right thing to do... Do
  not try to decide about those things automatically! Not even
  Ubuntu (which tries to have installation for dummies) does it.
  As far as I remember, Ubuntu offers "install to free space" if
  the user has provided free space (e.g. really empty harddisk,
  or by shrinking Windows from within Windows manually before),
  "custom install" (with a nice gparted style partition resizer
  and editor) and "install instead of whatever was there before,
  destroying existing data" (but clearly warning about risks).

I am sure I have forgotten many cases and issues, but have a look
at the OLD FreeDOS installers to see what and how they did, plus
have a look at the old discussions about the topic :-) Our older
installers are from the time when Windows (e.g. XP) still could
be installed on FAT partitions, so they for example tried to see
if you had Windows on your C: drive. If yes, they tried to add
FreeDOS to the built-in boot menu of Windows and tried to use a
DOS specific set of config files without damaging Windows files.



>>> As mentioned earlier, computers older than 386 cannot normally boot
>>> from anything large and portable (CD, DVD, USB stick) so you would
>>> only install a basic DOS on them, maybe simply by hand: Take some
>>> floppy with pre-installed FreeDOS, FORMAT, XCOPY and SYS, done :-)
>>
>> Even a lot of 486s can't do El Torito.  My 486/133 couldn't.

For even more nitpicking, there are some fancy tricks and floppy
based boot managers to boot from CD / DVD or USB on 386+ PC and
people even managed to connect CD / DVD drives to 8086... But is
this worth big special efforts? Probably not: 386 owners can go
the "floppy basic install, then use fdnpkg" route :-) They can
use fdnpkg and the ZIP packages from any normal "if you could
boot from CD drive" install CD, without booting from that CD,
after finding & installing ancient CD drivers for their drive.

Cheers, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer


> On Sep 10, 2015, at 2:01 PM, Mercury Thirteen  wrote:
> 
> Well, I see it doesn't work lol
> 
> I'll look into it as time allows.
> 
> On 9/8/2015 3:11 AM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
>> Well, just try actually installing your packages on a FreeDOS system...
>> That's the whole point. Then you will see what happens :)
>> 
>> Every single package must be tested before being published - testing
>> means installing on a real system, verifying that the software works,
>> that files are organized as they should be, then uninstalling it and
>> re-checking that nothing has been broken.
>> 
>> Here is the 'official' description of what a package is:
>> http://freedos.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Package
>> 
>> Although an even better (or at least complementary) approach would be
>> looking at how existing packages are structured.
>> 
>> good luck,
>> 
>> Mateusz
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 08/09/2015 08:39, Mercury Thirteen wrote:
>>> It's 2:35 AM here, so I'm not handy to the exact location of where I
>>> found it, but I followed information on FD.org to structure the
>>> directories as they are, so I'm curious how what I did differs from what
>>> was expected.
>>> 
>>> On 9/8/2015 2:31 AM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
 I took a quick pick at your big ZIP file. Sadly, there are no FreeDOS
 packages in there - only plenty of LFN files in subdirectories that are
 not compliant with FreeDOS package structures.
 
 Have you tried installing these on an actual FreeDOS system? This might
 be the first thing to do.
 
 Mateusz
 
 
 
 On 07/09/2015 20:03, Mercury Thirteen wrote:
> I compiled the packages and verified the .lsm files and structured them
> into a zip. Jim himself said there is an installer he's working on,
> which is what's I've been waiting on. Since Jim doesn't seem to have
> much free time (like many of us) I would say go for it.

So, are you the one who is going to assemble the 1.2 Distro Release?

> 
> On 9/7/2015 12:56 PM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
>> I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen"
>> saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the FD
>> website at some point about that).
>> 
>> Mateusz
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
>>> Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?
>>> 
>>> I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
>>> implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
>>> building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.
>> 
>> --
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> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project


> On Sep 10, 2015, at 2:51 PM, Rugxulo  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 11:39 PM, Mateusz Viste  wrote:
>> 
>>   - about RAMDisk: it might come handy indeed, but remember that
>> FreeDOS should still be able to install on old machines, ie. from a
>> floppy, on a 8086 CPU, with no XMS, and only 256K of conventional memory
>> or so. This highly limits the amount of fancy stuff one can do.
> 
> You can use TDSK (Turbo Disk) to use convention memory for RAM disk.

That would be fine. Even a 1 or 2 Kbyte RAM disk would be sufficient
to pipe the data around in the installer.

> 
> However, I do think it's better to get "something" out, even if it's
> 386+ and needs CD, rather than trying to do literally everything by
> yourself (with few testers) in the vain hope that it's still 8086 and
> floppy friendly. (I'm totally sympathetic to 8086, but it's very very
> hard to stay 100% compatible unless you write or compile everything
> yourself, which is impossible.)


At present, I’m making it work either on a completely read-only setup or a
system that can generate temp files for piping data. I will leave it up to 
who builds the distort release to which way it works.

> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project


> On Sep 10, 2015, at 5:29 PM, Steve Nickolas  wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 10 Sep 2015, Eric Auer wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Hi!
>> 
>>> How many of you remember the DOS 6.22 install process? If possible, it
>>> should aim for that. It's simple and straight to the point. It worked
>> 
>> As far as I remember, it was 3 floppies and only "base" software...
>> Also, under which conditions would it format / partition your disk?
> 
> If it needed to partition, it would offer to partition and reboot.  Then 
> if it needed to format, it would offer to.

This is exactly what my FDI 1.2 Prototype installer does. It is not yet 
complete.
But,  it does that  part of the process already. 

Basically, boots and sees no existing dos drive c:, offers to run fdisk or exit.

If it sees there is a drive C:, but it is unable to read it, that means it 
needs formatted.
So, it offers to that or quit.

This gives the user the ability to partition and format elsewhere. But, you 
cannot 
do an install without the drive C:. 

>> As mentioned earlier, computers older than 386 cannot normally boot
>> from anything large and portable (CD, DVD, USB stick) so you would
>> only install a basic DOS on them, maybe simply by hand: Take some
>> floppy with pre-installed FreeDOS, FORMAT, XCOPY and SYS, done :-)
> 
> Even a lot of 486s can't do El Torito.  My 486/133 couldn't.
> 
> -uso.
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

2015-09-10 Thread Steve Nickolas

On Thu, 10 Sep 2015, Eric Auer wrote:

>
> Hi!
>
>> How many of you remember the DOS 6.22 install process? If possible, it
>> should aim for that. It's simple and straight to the point. It worked
>
> As far as I remember, it was 3 floppies and only "base" software...
> Also, under which conditions would it format / partition your disk?

If it needed to partition, it would offer to partition and reboot.  Then 
if it needed to format, it would offer to.

> As mentioned earlier, computers older than 386 cannot normally boot
> from anything large and portable (CD, DVD, USB stick) so you would
> only install a basic DOS on them, maybe simply by hand: Take some
> floppy with pre-installed FreeDOS, FORMAT, XCOPY and SYS, done :-)

Even a lot of 486s can't do El Torito.  My 486/133 couldn't.

-uso.

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project


Hi!

> How many of you remember the DOS 6.22 install process? If possible, it
> should aim for that. It's simple and straight to the point. It worked

As far as I remember, it was 3 floppies and only "base" software...
Also, under which conditions would it format / partition your disk?

> across all platforms and got DOS up and running with minimal fuss. Once the

All platforms back at that time was harddisks of at most 8 GB, with
older BIOS even only 1/2 GB, only CHS, only FAT12 and FAT16, because
nothing else was supported by MS DOS 6.22 :-p

Also, there was minimal fuss because people did not have dual boot.
You only had to care about "already has older DOS" versus "this is
a new empty harddisk". If you format all disks which have "no DOS"
today, you get MANY angry users who are surprised by the demolition
of their existing Windows, Linux or other OS.

> setup is done, after a reboot, the FreeDOS package manager can run to add
> additional software and system tweaks.

I do not care at which point a reboot is needed. However, for those
who install in a VM, it is best if the install process does not need
too many virtual CD insertions or removals. The installer should be
able to detect which steps have been completed: That way, you do not
have to remove the CD before rebooting and still get a full install.

> The package manager could be a 16-bit or 32-bit application. (I remember
> PKZIP running perfectly fine on my Tandy 1000 EX before I had 640K RAM), so
> FDPKG would have to work from a floppy disk/image on lower end systems (or
> lower end in emulation)

As mentioned earlier, computers older than 386 cannot normally boot
from anything large and portable (CD, DVD, USB stick) so you would
only install a basic DOS on them, maybe simply by hand: Take some
floppy with pre-installed FreeDOS, FORMAT, XCOPY and SYS, done :-)

You can always use UNZIP or FDPKG or similar later if you manage to
connect a CD drive or network card to your 286 or 8086 for extra fun.

On the other hand, if you have a computer which is less than 50 years
old, simply use a generic boot CD or DVD with all the fun on it, with
a small, probably bootable RAMDISK to make installation easy. And do
not worry about what you whether you want 8086 ROM BASIC drivers ;-)

At the risk of stating the obvious, please give the existing distros
of FreeDOS 1.x and their installers a try and do NOT re-invent all
wheels. Start by what is already is working and improve from there.

This includes letting the FDPKG / FDNPKG installer do most work of
nicely unpacking the per-package ZIPs and doing bookkeeping, batch
install triggers and similar nice FreeDOS package management stuff.

Cheers, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

2015-09-10 Thread Rugxulo

Hi,

On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 11:39 PM, Mateusz Viste  wrote:
>
>- about RAMDisk: it might come handy indeed, but remember that
> FreeDOS should still be able to install on old machines, ie. from a
> floppy, on a 8086 CPU, with no XMS, and only 256K of conventional memory
> or so. This highly limits the amount of fancy stuff one can do.

You can use TDSK (Turbo Disk) to use convention memory for RAM disk.

However, I do think it's better to get "something" out, even if it's
386+ and needs CD, rather than trying to do literally everything by
yourself (with few testers) in the vain hope that it's still 8086 and
floppy friendly. (I'm totally sympathetic to 8086, but it's very very
hard to stay 100% compatible unless you write or compile everything
yourself, which is impossible.)

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

HI,

How many of you remember the DOS 6.22 install process? If possible, it
should aim for that. It's simple and straight to the point. It worked
across all platforms and got DOS up and running with minimal fuss. Once the
setup is done, after a reboot, the FreeDOS package manager can run to add
additional software and system tweaks.

The package manager could be a 16-bit or 32-bit application. (I remember
PKZIP running perfectly fine on my Tandy 1000 EX before I had 640K RAM), so
FDPKG would have to work from a floppy disk/image on lower end systems (or
lower end in emulation)


On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 5:28 AM Mateusz Viste  wrote:

> On 10/09/2015 10:51, Eric Auer wrote:
> > My personal opinion is that on 8086, you should rather use a floppy
> > distro like RUFFIDEA or BREZEL which has the "base" category already
> > pre-installed on one or a few floppies and you just XCOPY that to a
> > disk of your choice manually. Imagine how many floppies and spanned
> > zip files across multiple floppies a full install on 8086 would be.
>
> I would tend to agree on that, but it's apparently not a common point of
> view. Not that long ago, I almost triggered an apocalypse on this very
> list by stating that 8086 machines probably do not need a package
> manager. I can only imagine that an installer will be perceived as even
> more fundamental.
>
> Without going into multi-floppies installations, it might be nice for
> the FreeDOS installer to be compatible with the lowest possible machine,
> if only to effectively present an intro screen, help to format the disk
> and copy the most basic stuff to C:\FREEDOS. Even on a full-blown
> Pentium PC there won't be more to do for the installer. Once the most
> basic system is up and running, then people can install any additional
> software via FDNPKG.
>
> Mateusz
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

2015-09-10 Thread Mercury Thirteen

Well, I see it doesn't work lol

I'll look into it as time allows.

On 9/8/2015 3:11 AM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
> Well, just try actually installing your packages on a FreeDOS system...
> That's the whole point. Then you will see what happens :)
>
> Every single package must be tested before being published - testing
> means installing on a real system, verifying that the software works,
> that files are organized as they should be, then uninstalling it and
> re-checking that nothing has been broken.
>
> Here is the 'official' description of what a package is:
> http://freedos.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Package
>
> Although an even better (or at least complementary) approach would be
> looking at how existing packages are structured.
>
> good luck,
>
> Mateusz
>
>
>
> On 08/09/2015 08:39, Mercury Thirteen wrote:
>> It's 2:35 AM here, so I'm not handy to the exact location of where I
>> found it, but I followed information on FD.org to structure the
>> directories as they are, so I'm curious how what I did differs from what
>> was expected.
>>
>> On 9/8/2015 2:31 AM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
>>> I took a quick pick at your big ZIP file. Sadly, there are no FreeDOS
>>> packages in there - only plenty of LFN files in subdirectories that are
>>> not compliant with FreeDOS package structures.
>>>
>>> Have you tried installing these on an actual FreeDOS system? This might
>>> be the first thing to do.
>>>
>>> Mateusz
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 07/09/2015 20:03, Mercury Thirteen wrote:
 I compiled the packages and verified the .lsm files and structured them
 into a zip. Jim himself said there is an installer he's working on,
 which is what's I've been waiting on. Since Jim doesn't seem to have
 much free time (like many of us) I would say go for it.

 On 9/7/2015 12:56 PM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
> I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen"
> saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the FD
> website at some point about that).
>
> Mateusz
>
>
>
> On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
>> Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?
>>
>> I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
>> implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
>> building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

2015-09-10 Thread Mateusz Viste

On 10/09/2015 10:51, Eric Auer wrote:
> My personal opinion is that on 8086, you should rather use a floppy
> distro like RUFFIDEA or BREZEL which has the "base" category already
> pre-installed on one or a few floppies and you just XCOPY that to a
> disk of your choice manually. Imagine how many floppies and spanned
> zip files across multiple floppies a full install on 8086 would be.

I would tend to agree on that, but it's apparently not a common point of 
view. Not that long ago, I almost triggered an apocalypse on this very 
list by stating that 8086 machines probably do not need a package 
manager. I can only imagine that an installer will be perceived as even 
more fundamental.

Without going into multi-floppies installations, it might be nice for 
the FreeDOS installer to be compatible with the lowest possible machine, 
if only to effectively present an intro screen, help to format the disk 
and copy the most basic stuff to C:\FREEDOS. Even on a full-blown 
Pentium PC there won't be more to do for the installer. Once the most 
basic system is up and running, then people can install any additional 
software via FDNPKG.

Mateusz

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project


Hi Mateusz,

>- the tricky part might be to make it possible to install FreeDOS on 
> a system where there is already something (ie. multiboot), and make it 
> actually bootable, without breaking the other stuff. Personally I 
> wouldn't object if FreeDOS would just trash whatever there is already

Well that sounds dangerous. And to be honest, some GPARTED / Linux
boot disk can do repartitioning without data loss and with extra
user friendliness much better than any automated DOS batch script.

>- about RAMDisk: it might come handy indeed, but remember that 
> FreeDOS should still be able to install on old machines, ie. from a 
> floppy, on a 8086 CPU, with no XMS, and only 256K of conventional memory 
> or so. This highly limits the amount of fancy stuff one can do.

My personal opinion is that on 8086, you should rather use a floppy
distro like RUFFIDEA or BREZEL which has the "base" category already
pre-installed on one or a few floppies and you just XCOPY that to a
disk of your choice manually. Imagine how many floppies and spanned
zip files across multiple floppies a full install on 8086 would be.

On computers which support booting from CD, DVD, USB, SD... You can
almost always assume that enough RAM for a RAMDISK is available :-)

>   - once installed, it would be *really* nice if the system could use 
> FDNPKG to install additional packages right away (if hardware allows it 
> of course, this wouldn't matter on pre-386 anyway since FDNPKG is 32bit 
> anyway). Meaning that whatever the installer installs, should be 
> installed in the 'standard' way so FDNPKG can see it later.

I strongly agree with that: On 386+ computers, it is much nicer to
use FreeDOS package style zip files and a standard installer. Even
on 286, I would at least install by unzipping from standard zips,
if the package manager is not for 286. Installing by XCOPY should
be limited to really old computers or special cases...

Cheers, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

2015-09-09 Thread Mateusz Viste

Hi,

No solutions here, only some ranting :)

   - the tricky part might be to make it possible to install FreeDOS on 
a system where there is already something (ie. multiboot), and make it 
actually bootable, without breaking the other stuff. Personally I 
wouldn't object if FreeDOS would just trash whatever there is already, 
and install itself giving a proper warning, but from what I hear most 
non-hardcore FreeDOS users install it in a multiboot environment with 
Windows on some other partition...

   - about RAMDisk: it might come handy indeed, but remember that 
FreeDOS should still be able to install on old machines, ie. from a 
floppy, on a 8086 CPU, with no XMS, and only 256K of conventional memory 
or so. This highly limits the amount of fancy stuff one can do.

  - once installed, it would be *really* nice if the system could use 
FDNPKG to install additional packages right away (if hardware allows it 
of course, this wouldn't matter on pre-386 anyway since FDNPKG is 32bit 
anyway). Meaning that whatever the installer installs, should be 
installed in the 'standard' way so FDNPKG can see it later (implies 
correctly formatted LSM files in %DOSDIR%\APPINFO and auto-generated 
%PACKAGE%.LST files in %DOSDIR%\PACKAGES\).

Mateusz



On 10/09/2015 00:33, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
> A minor snag in development is driving me nuts.
>
> First remember:
>   
>   Jim wants a Batch File Based Installer.
>
> What is required:
>
>   The batch needs to be able to pipe data from STDOUT to STDIN for things 
> like automated drive C formatting and
>   other things.
>
> This is the potential issue:
>
>   If no writeable file system is present, DOS throws many errors and 
> cannot redirect the data from
>   one program to another.
>
> Potential Solution:
>
>   Create a ram disk for the temporary files needed to redirect I/O.
>
> This is the problem:
>
>   Unless I’m using it wrong RDISK doesn’t work with any reliability.
>   I got it to work once in my FDI building Virtual Machine.
>   I never got the Floppy boot disk version to work.
>
>   I need a working ram disk, or to get command shell just to do it in 
> memory.



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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project.

2015-09-09 Thread Antony Gordon

Hi,

I'm curious as to why a batch file and DOS 6 setup automatically initiated
the format once the drive was selected.

On Wed, Sep 9, 2015, 9:28 PM Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:

>
> > On Sep 9, 2015, at 8:03 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hi Jerome,
> >
> > if you want to store temp results in your batch, you could
> > work with errorlevels, the FreeCOM magic errorlevel variable
> > or indeed a ramdrive. In the past, we often used "memdisk",
> > which is a BOOTABLE RAMDRIVE. That way, the installer used
> > a virtual floppy to boot. As you cannot natively boot DOS
> > from network, CD, DVD or BluRay, you have to use a virtual
> > boot disk for those anyway. Memdisk gives you the advantage
> > that the virtual boot disk is a writeable ramdrive floppy.
>
> Most of how the FDI prototype passes data around with errorlevel
> processing.
>
> However, not having a functioning pipe will make some of the more advanced
> features of V8PT unusable in the installer.
>
> example: "vcursor | set /p START_CURSOR=“ would save the incoming cursor
> so when the batch exits, it can restore it to its previous state with
> “vcursor %START_CURSOR%". However, just doing a “vcursor small” will
> make the cursor visible again.
>
> (
> FYI, the default cursor for FreeDOS inside vmWare is 0x0607. Assuming you
> could actually get an errorlevel that high. Could you imagine having 1543
> if
> statements for that one?  :’-(
> )
>
> I can probably work around most or all of the issues caused by no pipe
> support.
>
> It’s just the installer won’t be quite as intelligent as it could be.
>
> At present, I’ve already added stuff to the installer batch that will
> automatically
> use the pipes if the TEMP var is set. If it is not set, it runs in dumb
> mode.
>
> This will give whoever actually makes the FD1.2 Distro Release the ability
> to either support it or not just by adding a ram disk or leaving it out.
>
> >
> > Memdisk is a bit more esotheric compared to using a floppy
> > image to directly make a CD or similar bootable, but both
> > methods work on most BIOS variants. As more and more users
> > have a BIOS which can boot from USB stick or SD cards, the
> > whole problem can be sidestepped with a bootable USB / SD.
>
> It would be nice if FD 1.2, “ships” with floppy, CD, USB and SD
> support.
>
> >
> > Disadvantage of both methods is that the files inside the
> > boot "floppy" are less visible and less editable to people
> > who want to tune the boot CD / DVD image to their needs,
> > they tend to overlook the floppy image and / or lack the
> > tools needed to edit it, although free tools are available
> > for all common operating systems :-)
>
> Yeah, they’re a pain. But, reliable.
>
> >
> > Cheers, Eric
>
> Thanks, Jerome
>
> >
> >
> >
> > PS: Why does FORMAT C: need pipes? You do not want to hide
> > messages and if you worry about confirmation requests, I
> > personally vote AGAINST automated saying yes to FORMAT C:
>
> Well, it was a suggestion/request that I mostly agree with.
> The installer asks “Do you want to format and erase this drive?”
> Just a little redundant for the formatter to ask again.
>
> > (also, our FORMAT has a command line option for that…).
>
> What is it? I don’t see one to have it format drive C without insisting on
> typing “YES”
>
> >
> >> If no writeable file system is present, DOS throws many errors
> >> and cannot redirect the data from one program to another.
> >
> > Many? Only if you try to explicitly use pipes ;-)
>
> One error message is way way way too many. :)
>
> >
> >
> >
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project.

> On Sep 9, 2015, at 8:03 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Jerome,
> 
> if you want to store temp results in your batch, you could
> work with errorlevels, the FreeCOM magic errorlevel variable
> or indeed a ramdrive. In the past, we often used "memdisk",
> which is a BOOTABLE RAMDRIVE. That way, the installer used
> a virtual floppy to boot. As you cannot natively boot DOS
> from network, CD, DVD or BluRay, you have to use a virtual
> boot disk for those anyway. Memdisk gives you the advantage
> that the virtual boot disk is a writeable ramdrive floppy.

Most of how the FDI prototype passes data around with errorlevel processing.

However, not having a functioning pipe will make some of the more advanced
features of V8PT unusable in the installer.

example: "vcursor | set /p START_CURSOR=“ would save the incoming cursor 
so when the batch exits, it can restore it to its previous state with 
“vcursor %START_CURSOR%". However, just doing a “vcursor small” will 
make the cursor visible again. 

(
FYI, the default cursor for FreeDOS inside vmWare is 0x0607. Assuming you
could actually get an errorlevel that high. Could you imagine having 1543 if 
statements for that one?  :’-(
)

I can probably work around most or all of the issues caused by no pipe support.

It’s just the installer won’t be quite as intelligent as it could be.

At present, I’ve already added stuff to the installer batch that will 
automatically 
use the pipes if the TEMP var is set. If it is not set, it runs in dumb mode. 

This will give whoever actually makes the FD1.2 Distro Release the ability
to either support it or not just by adding a ram disk or leaving it out.  

> 
> Memdisk is a bit more esotheric compared to using a floppy
> image to directly make a CD or similar bootable, but both
> methods work on most BIOS variants. As more and more users
> have a BIOS which can boot from USB stick or SD cards, the
> whole problem can be sidestepped with a bootable USB / SD.

It would be nice if FD 1.2, “ships” with floppy, CD, USB and SD
support. 

> 
> Disadvantage of both methods is that the files inside the
> boot "floppy" are less visible and less editable to people
> who want to tune the boot CD / DVD image to their needs,
> they tend to overlook the floppy image and / or lack the
> tools needed to edit it, although free tools are available
> for all common operating systems :-)

Yeah, they’re a pain. But, reliable. 

> 
> Cheers, Eric

Thanks, Jerome

> 
> 
> 
> PS: Why does FORMAT C: need pipes? You do not want to hide
> messages and if you worry about confirmation requests, I
> personally vote AGAINST automated saying yes to FORMAT C:

Well, it was a suggestion/request that I mostly agree with.
The installer asks “Do you want to format and erase this drive?”
Just a little redundant for the formatter to ask again. 

> (also, our FORMAT has a command line option for that…).

What is it? I don’t see one to have it format drive C without insisting on
typing “YES” 

> 
>> If no writeable file system is present, DOS throws many errors
>> and cannot redirect the data from one program to another.
> 
> Many? Only if you try to explicitly use pipes ;-)

One error message is way way way too many. :)

> 
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project.

2015-09-09 Thread JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU

I honestly don't think it really matters,as long as it installs the OS in a
neat,efficient user friendly-ish way.

On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 6:03 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
wrote:

>
> > On Sep 9, 2015, at 7:08 PM, Mercury Thirteen 
> wrote:
> >
> > Could you stuff the keys? It should work provided your command line to
> > be piped to the next program is short enough (15 chars) to fit into the
> > keyboard buffer.
>
> It’s an interesting thought. I also thought about faking it by writing a
> wrapper app that shell execute
> the command could force feed through stdin interrupts.
>
> >
> > On 9/9/2015 6:33 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
> >> A minor snag in development is driving me nuts.
> >>
> >> First remember:
> >>
> >>  Jim wants a Batch File Based Installer.
> >>
> >> What is required:
> >>
> >>  The batch needs to be able to pipe data from STDOUT to STDIN for
> things like automated drive C formatting and
> >>  other things.
> >>
> >> This is the potential issue:
> >>
> >>  If no writeable file system is present, DOS throws many errors and
> cannot redirect the data from
> >>  one program to another.
> >>
> >> Potential Solution:
> >>
> >>  Create a ram disk for the temporary files needed to redirect I/O.
> >>
> >> This is the problem:
> >>
> >>  Unless I’m using it wrong RDISK doesn’t work with any reliability.
> >>  I got it to work once in my FDI building Virtual Machine.
> >>  I never got the Floppy boot disk version to work.
> >>
> >>  I need a working ram disk, or to get command shell just to do it
> in memory.
> >>
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> >
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project.


> On Sep 9, 2015, at 7:08 PM, Mercury Thirteen  wrote:
> 
> Could you stuff the keys? It should work provided your command line to 
> be piped to the next program is short enough (15 chars) to fit into the 
> keyboard buffer.

It’s an interesting thought. I also thought about faking it by writing a 
wrapper app that shell execute
the command could force feed through stdin interrupts. 

> 
> On 9/9/2015 6:33 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
>> A minor snag in development is driving me nuts.
>> 
>> First remember:
>>  
>>  Jim wants a Batch File Based Installer.
>> 
>> What is required:
>> 
>>  The batch needs to be able to pipe data from STDOUT to STDIN for things 
>> like automated drive C formatting and
>>  other things.
>> 
>> This is the potential issue:
>> 
>>  If no writeable file system is present, DOS throws many errors and 
>> cannot redirect the data from
>>  one program to another.
>> 
>> Potential Solution:
>> 
>>  Create a ram disk for the temporary files needed to redirect I/O.
>> 
>> This is the problem:
>> 
>>  Unless I’m using it wrong RDISK doesn’t work with any reliability.
>>  I got it to work once in my FDI building Virtual Machine.
>>  I never got the Floppy boot disk version to work.
>> 
>>  I need a working ram disk, or to get command shell just to do it in 
>> memory.
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project.


> On Sep 9, 2015, at 7:32 PM, Rugxulo  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 5:33 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  
> wrote:
>> 
>>Unless I’m using it wrong RDISK doesn’t work with any reliability.
>>I got it to work once in my FDI building Virtual Machine.
>>I never got the Floppy boot disk version to work.
>> 
>>I need a working ram disk, or to get command shell just to do it in 
>> memory.
> 
> There are other RAM disk drivers that you can try, if that's what you mean:
> 
> 1). http://freedos.sourceforge.net/software/?prog=shsufdrv
> 2). http://freedos.sourceforge.net/software/?prog=srdisk
> etc. etc.

Thanks for the info. 

> 
> FYI, "shsurdrv" works fine for me under both QEMU and VirtualBox
> (although I also reassembled it [old NASM 0.98.39 only] to remove the
> unnecessary GZIP stuff). It's (now) ZLIB licensed, so it should be
> okay.
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project.

2015-09-09 Thread Eric Auer


Hi Jerome,

if you want to store temp results in your batch, you could
work with errorlevels, the FreeCOM magic errorlevel variable
or indeed a ramdrive. In the past, we often used "memdisk",
which is a BOOTABLE RAMDRIVE. That way, the installer used
a virtual floppy to boot. As you cannot natively boot DOS
from network, CD, DVD or BluRay, you have to use a virtual
boot disk for those anyway. Memdisk gives you the advantage
that the virtual boot disk is a writeable ramdrive floppy.

Memdisk is a bit more esotheric compared to using a floppy
image to directly make a CD or similar bootable, but both
methods work on most BIOS variants. As more and more users
have a BIOS which can boot from USB stick or SD cards, the
whole problem can be sidestepped with a bootable USB / SD.

Disadvantage of both methods is that the files inside the
boot "floppy" are less visible and less editable to people
who want to tune the boot CD / DVD image to their needs,
they tend to overlook the floppy image and / or lack the
tools needed to edit it, although free tools are available
for all common operating systems :-)

Cheers, Eric



PS: Why does FORMAT C: need pipes? You do not want to hide
messages and if you worry about confirmation requests, I
personally vote AGAINST automated saying yes to FORMAT C:
(also, our FORMAT has a command line option for that...).

> If no writeable file system is present, DOS throws many errors
> and cannot redirect the data from one program to another.

Many? Only if you try to explicitly use pipes ;-)


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project.

2015-09-09 Thread Rugxulo

Hi,

On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 5:33 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:
>
> Unless I’m using it wrong RDISK doesn’t work with any reliability.
> I got it to work once in my FDI building Virtual Machine.
> I never got the Floppy boot disk version to work.
>
> I need a working ram disk, or to get command shell just to do it in 
> memory.

There are other RAM disk drivers that you can try, if that's what you mean:

1). http://freedos.sourceforge.net/software/?prog=shsufdrv
2). http://freedos.sourceforge.net/software/?prog=srdisk
etc. etc.

FYI, "shsurdrv" works fine for me under both QEMU and VirtualBox
(although I also reassembled it [old NASM 0.98.39 only] to remove the
unnecessary GZIP stuff). It's (now) ZLIB licensed, so it should be
okay.

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project.

2015-09-09 Thread Mercury Thirteen

Could you stuff the keys? It should work provided your command line to 
be piped to the next program is short enough (15 chars) to fit into the 
keyboard buffer.

On 9/9/2015 6:33 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
> A minor snag in development is driving me nuts.
>
> First remember:
>   
>   Jim wants a Batch File Based Installer.
>
> What is required:
>
>   The batch needs to be able to pipe data from STDOUT to STDIN for things 
> like automated drive C formatting and
>   other things.
>
> This is the potential issue:
>
>   If no writeable file system is present, DOS throws many errors and 
> cannot redirect the data from
>   one program to another.
>
> Potential Solution:
>
>   Create a ram disk for the temporary files needed to redirect I/O.
>
> This is the problem:
>
>   Unless I’m using it wrong RDISK doesn’t work with any reliability.
>   I got it to work once in my FDI building Virtual Machine.
>   I never got the Floppy boot disk version to work.
>
>   I need a working ram disk, or to get command shell just to do it in 
> memory.
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[Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project.

A minor snag in development is driving me nuts. 

First remember: 

Jim wants a Batch File Based Installer.

What is required: 

The batch needs to be able to pipe data from STDOUT to STDIN for things 
like automated drive C formatting and
other things. 

This is the potential issue: 

If no writeable file system is present, DOS throws many errors and 
cannot redirect the data from
one program to another.

Potential Solution:

Create a ram disk for the temporary files needed to redirect I/O.

This is the problem:

Unless I’m using it wrong RDISK doesn’t work with any reliability. 
I got it to work once in my FDI building Virtual Machine.
I never got the Floppy boot disk version to work. 

I need a working ram disk, or to get command shell just to do it in 
memory.
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

2015-09-08 Thread JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU

First things first,we should try remaking the installer.We are trying to
better the installer,right?Why not create a new UI for the installer and
make it more efficient?Perhaps better package handling routines?Just some
ideas I am tossing around.

On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 11:02 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
wrote:

> Ok, I’m going to need some feedback on this.
>
> Especially things like:
>
> What I should strip out of the FDCONFIG.SYS and
> AUTOEXEC.BAT?
>
> What should be included in the FDI Boot Floppy?
>
> How does the Installer LOGIC.txt look?
>
> Just about everything.
>
> Project URL:
> http://github.com/shidel/FDI
>
> Current Demo Video on Facebook:
>
> https://www.facebook.com/jshidel/videos/o.5985782886/10207791496094518/?type=2&theater
>
>
> > On Sep 8, 2015, at 8:16 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Ok, I’ve decided that I will probably build the installer, or at least a
> working
> > prototype that could be used for installer.
> >
> > Sorry, to anyone who may have been considering doing it.
> >
> > But, as Mercury Thirteen said:
> >
> >"That would probably be the most efficient solution, yes. :)”
> >
> > So, I started the GitHub project for it.
> >
> >   http://github.com/shidel/FDI
> >
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project

Ok, I’m going to need some feedback on this.

Especially things like:

What I should strip out of the FDCONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT?

What should be included in the FDI Boot Floppy?

How does the Installer LOGIC.txt look?

Just about everything.

Project URL: 
http://github.com/shidel/FDI

Current Demo Video on Facebook: 
https://www.facebook.com/jshidel/videos/o.5985782886/10207791496094518/?type=2&theater


> On Sep 8, 2015, at 8:16 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:
> 
> 
> Ok, I’ve decided that I will probably build the installer, or at least a 
> working
> prototype that could be used for installer.
> 
> Sorry, to anyone who may have been considering doing it. 
> 
> But, as Mercury Thirteen said:
>   
>"That would probably be the most efficient solution, yes. :)”
> 
> So, I started the GitHub project for it.
> 
>   http://github.com/shidel/FDI
> --
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[Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Project


Ok, I’ve decided that I will probably build the installer, or at least a working
prototype that could be used for installer.

Sorry, to anyone who may have been considering doing it. 

But, as Mercury Thirteen said:

 "That would probably be the most efficient solution, yes. :)”

So, I started the GitHub project for it.

http://github.com/shidel/FDI
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer


> On Sep 8, 2015, at 6:13 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:
> 
> 
> Ok, this is my thought process on the logic of the Installer batch. 
> (That demo installer I shared does stages 2, 3 and 4)

Oops, I meant the demo installer batch does Stages 2 and 3. 

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer


Ok, this is my thought process on the logic of the Installer batch. 
(That demo installer I shared does stages 2, 3 and 4)

--

STAGE 1:  This will enable auto setup if FD1.2 not installed, or usage as 
recovery a disk.

System boots from FreeDOS Floppy A:. (or CD-ROM as pseudo floppy A:)

At boot, floppy checks if FD1.2 is already installed by executing 
SETUP.BAT /CheckState

If not already installed, proceed with installer.

If installed, just exit to prompt with message.

STAGE 2: Welcome to the installer.

Ask user if the want to proceed with FreeDOS installer.

If not, exit to prompt.

STAGE 3: Verify drive C is ready for FreeDOS.

Test Drive is C is found and is readable by FreeDOS.

If not found, it is probably not partitioned. So, offer to run 
partitioner. (FDISK)

If run partitioner, then reboot and back to 
STAGE 1

if not run, exit with message.

If drive was found, but cannot be read, it needs formatted. So, 
offer to format. (FORMAT C: /V:FreeDOS /Q /U)

If was formatted, go back to STAGE 3 or maybe 
STAGE 2 and test again.

If not format, exit with message.

STAGE 4: Inform user drive C is ready for install, ask if they want to

No, exit to prompt.

STAGE 5: Locate and verify CD-ROM install packages. 

if missing, invalid, etc. Recommend, stopping install.

MAYBE STAGE 6: Test for existing, OS files. back them up somewhere.

STAGE 7: Install FreeDOS 1.2.

Transfer system files. (sys c:)

Install packages.

Install fresh AUTOEXEC.BAT and FDCONFIG.SYS

STAGE 8: Installed success. Offer to reboot.



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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

2015-09-08 Thread Mateusz Viste

Well, just try actually installing your packages on a FreeDOS system... 
That's the whole point. Then you will see what happens :)

Every single package must be tested before being published - testing 
means installing on a real system, verifying that the software works, 
that files are organized as they should be, then uninstalling it and 
re-checking that nothing has been broken.

Here is the 'official' description of what a package is:
http://freedos.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Package

Although an even better (or at least complementary) approach would be 
looking at how existing packages are structured.

good luck,

Mateusz



On 08/09/2015 08:39, Mercury Thirteen wrote:
> It's 2:35 AM here, so I'm not handy to the exact location of where I
> found it, but I followed information on FD.org to structure the
> directories as they are, so I'm curious how what I did differs from what
> was expected.
>
> On 9/8/2015 2:31 AM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
>> I took a quick pick at your big ZIP file. Sadly, there are no FreeDOS
>> packages in there - only plenty of LFN files in subdirectories that are
>> not compliant with FreeDOS package structures.
>>
>> Have you tried installing these on an actual FreeDOS system? This might
>> be the first thing to do.
>>
>> Mateusz
>>
>>
>>
>> On 07/09/2015 20:03, Mercury Thirteen wrote:
>>> I compiled the packages and verified the .lsm files and structured them
>>> into a zip. Jim himself said there is an installer he's working on,
>>> which is what's I've been waiting on. Since Jim doesn't seem to have
>>> much free time (like many of us) I would say go for it.
>>>
>>> On 9/7/2015 12:56 PM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
 I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen"
 saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the FD
 website at some point about that).

 Mateusz



 On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
> Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?
>
> I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
> implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
> building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.

>>


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

It's 2:35 AM here, so I'm not handy to the exact location of where I 
found it, but I followed information on FD.org to structure the 
directories as they are, so I'm curious how what I did differs from what 
was expected.

On 9/8/2015 2:31 AM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
> I took a quick pick at your big ZIP file. Sadly, there are no FreeDOS
> packages in there - only plenty of LFN files in subdirectories that are
> not compliant with FreeDOS package structures.
>
> Have you tried installing these on an actual FreeDOS system? This might
> be the first thing to do.
>
> Mateusz
>
>
>
> On 07/09/2015 20:03, Mercury Thirteen wrote:
>> I compiled the packages and verified the .lsm files and structured them
>> into a zip. Jim himself said there is an installer he's working on,
>> which is what's I've been waiting on. Since Jim doesn't seem to have
>> much free time (like many of us) I would say go for it.
>>
>> On 9/7/2015 12:56 PM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
>>> I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen"
>>> saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the FD
>>> website at some point about that).
>>>
>>> Mateusz
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
 Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?

 I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
 implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
 building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.
>>>
>
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

By that I didn't mean that I'm now "done" with the project. Jim had
mentioned before that he was working on a new installer, so that's the
point up to which I worked. After I have an installer, I can proceed to
script it if need be and finish integrating everything into an ISO.

So far as the package ZIP, the attached list shows everything I
gathered. There may be some things updated since this list was made back
when I posted the ZIP.

On 9/8/2015 2:21 AM, Mateusz Viste wrote:

Sorry then, I must have misunderstood some bits along the way, I thought
you were doing an actual release of v1.2, not only gathering a few
packages :) Well then, gathering packages is nice anyway.

That's something that migh have been discussed already on the list when
I wasn't paying attention, but what is the actual content of your big
zip (packages/versions) ?

And, more importantly, how would it compare to this?

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.1/repos/listing.txt

If you have found any new libre DOS software, or newer versions of
stuff, I'd be happy to integrate them into FDNPKG repos.

Mateusz

On 07/09/2015 20:03, Mercury Thirteen wrote:

I compiled the packages and verified the .lsm files and structured them
into a zip. Jim himself said there is an installer he's working on,
which is what's I've been waiting on. Since Jim doesn't seem to have
much free time (like many of us) I would say go for it.

On 9/7/2015 12:56 PM, Mateusz Viste wrote:

I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen"
saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the FD
website at some point about that).

Mateusz

On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:

Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?

I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools
implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.

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Package NameVersion

[Base]
Append 5.0-0.6
Apropos (Part of FastHelp suite)1.1
Assign 1.4
Attrib 2.1
Chkdsk 0.9.2
Choice 4.4
Command 0.84
pre 2
Comp1.04
Cpidos 3.0
Cutemouse 2.1
beta4
Debug 1.25
Defrag 1.3.2
Deltree
1.02g.mrlg
Devload 3.25
Diskcomp
06jun2003
Diskcopybeta
0.95
Display 0.13
Dosfsck 2.11c
Edit0.9a
Edlin 2.15
Exe2bin 1.5
Fasthelp (Part of FastHelp suite) 3.5
Fasthelp Suite 2004
Fc
3.03
Fdapm
2009sep11
Fdisk 1.3.1
Fdxms286
0.03.Temperaments
Find3.0 (22
Sep 2007)
Format 0.91v
(14 Jan 2006)
Graphics
2008jul14
Help1.0.7a
Himemx 3.32
Jemm386 5.75
KC
2.0
Kernel

Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

By that I didn't mean that I'm now "done" with the project. Jim had
mentioned to me before that he was working on a new installer, so that's
the point to which I got. After I have an installer, I can proceed to
script it if need be and finish integrating everything into an ISO.

So far as the package ZIP, the attached list shows everything I
gathered. There may be some things updated since this list was made back
when I posted the ZIP.

On 9/8/2015 2:21 AM, Mateusz Viste wrote:

Sorry then, I must have misunderstood some bits along the way, I thought
you were doing an actual release of v1.2, not only gathering a few
packages :) Well then, gathering packages is nice anyway.

That's something that migh have been discussed already on the list when
I wasn't paying attention, but what is the actual content of your big
zip (packages/versions) ?

And, more importantly, how would it compare to this?

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.1/repos/listing.txt

If you have found any new libre DOS software, or newer versions of
stuff, I'd be happy to integrate them into FDNPKG repos.

Mateusz

On 07/09/2015 20:03, Mercury Thirteen wrote:

On 9/7/2015 12:56 PM, Mateusz Viste wrote:

I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen"
saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the FD
website at some point about that).

Mateusz

On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:

Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?

I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools
implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.

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Package NameVersion

Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

I took a quick pick at your big ZIP file. Sadly, there are no FreeDOS 
packages in there - only plenty of LFN files in subdirectories that are 
not compliant with FreeDOS package structures.

Have you tried installing these on an actual FreeDOS system? This might 
be the first thing to do.

Mateusz



On 07/09/2015 20:03, Mercury Thirteen wrote:
> I compiled the packages and verified the .lsm files and structured them
> into a zip. Jim himself said there is an installer he's working on,
> which is what's I've been waiting on. Since Jim doesn't seem to have
> much free time (like many of us) I would say go for it.
>
> On 9/7/2015 12:56 PM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
>> I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen"
>> saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the FD
>> website at some point about that).
>>
>> Mateusz
>>
>>
>>
>> On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
>>> Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?
>>>
>>> I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
>>> implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
>>> building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.
>>
>>


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

Sorry then, I must have misunderstood some bits along the way, I thought 
you were doing an actual release of v1.2, not only gathering a few 
packages :) Well then, gathering packages is nice anyway.

That's something that migh have been discussed already on the list when 
I wasn't paying attention, but what is the actual content of your big 
zip (packages/versions) ?

And, more importantly, how would it compare to this?

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.1/repos/listing.txt

If you have found any new libre DOS software, or newer versions of 
stuff, I'd be happy to integrate them into FDNPKG repos.

Mateusz

On 07/09/2015 20:03, Mercury Thirteen wrote:
> I compiled the packages and verified the .lsm files and structured them
> into a zip. Jim himself said there is an installer he's working on,
> which is what's I've been waiting on. Since Jim doesn't seem to have
> much free time (like many of us) I would say go for it.
>
> On 9/7/2015 12:56 PM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
>> I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen"
>> saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the FD
>> website at some point about that).
>>
>> Mateusz
>>
>>
>>
>> On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
>>> Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?
>>>
>>> I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
>>> implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
>>> building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.
>>
>>

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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

After playing around with a making prototype installer this is a more or less 
first part. It is extremely slow running from a floppy (even in vmware). It 
might be a good idea for whoever makes the installer to first copy stuff to a 
ram drive or enable disk caching or something to boost performance of all of 
the stuff. This demo WILL check for partitioning, format and transfer system 
files. But, that is all.

@echo off

set TITLE=BBQ Dlx
set VERSION=9.9b

REM Test for Presence of V8Power Tools
if errorlevel 255 goto ClearError

:CheckPresence
verrlvl 255
if errorlevel 255 goto V8Present

:V8Missing
echo V8Power Tools were not found.
goto DontDoAnything

:ClearError
verrlvl 0
if errorlevel 1 goto V8Missing

:V8Present
verrlvl 0

REM Test if running under DOSBox
set SETP_TEST=failed
echo. | set /p SETP_TEST=
if "%SETP_TEST%" == "failed" goto NoSetPSupport
echo YES| set /p SETP_TEST=
if not "%SETP_TEST%" == "YES" goto NoSetPSupport
vcursor | set /p EXIT_CURSOR=
goto StartBatch

:NoSetPSupport
set EXIT_CURSOR=small

:StartBatch
vcursor hide

REM Clear entire screen and fill with character 0xb0.
REM ASCII values can easily be found using the "vinfo ascii" to display
REM the ascii/hex table.
vcls /fGray /bBlue

REM Draw the Title Bar
vgotoxy /x1 /y1
vcls /bGray /fBlack EOL
vgotoxy /x30 /y1
vecho /fBlack "%TITLE% " /fRed "%VERSION%" /fBlack " Installer"

REM Move cursor to end of the page, then column 1. You should use this
REM method to prevent issues if the screen is not using 25 rows of text.
rem vgotoxy eop /x1

REM Clear from cursor to end of line using a NULL Character in preparation
REM for buttons and hot-key sequences.
rem vcls /bGray /fBlack /c0 EOL

vframe /bGray /fBlack /w60 /h10 /c /y7 hidden shadow
vframe /bGray /fBlack /w58 /h10 /c /y7 single
vframe /bGray /fBlack /w56 /h8 /c /y8 hidden
vecho "Welcome to the installation program for " /fRed "%TITLE% %VERSION%" 
/fBlack "."
vecho
vecho "Do you wish to proceed?"
vframe /w40 /h4 /c /y12 hidden
vecho /fGreen '  Yes ' /fBlack '- Continue with Installation'
vecho /fRed '  No  ' /fBlack '- Return to DOS' /n
vchoice /fYellow /bBlue

if errorlevel 2 goto DoNotInstall

vinfo /dC

REM verrlvl 5

if errorlevel 100 goto AbortBatch
if errorlevel 15 goto NoSuchDrive
if errorlevel 5 goto NotFormatted
if errorlevel 2 goto WrongTypeDrive

REM We are OK.

goto BeginInstall

:NoSuchDrive
:WrongTypeDrive
vframe /bGray /fBlack /w56 /h8 /c /y8 hidden
vecho "Drive " /fRed C /fBlack " does not appear to be partitioned."
vecho
vecho "Do you wish to partition your drive?"
vframe /w40 /h4 /c /y12 hidden
vecho /fGreen '  Yes ' /fBlack '- Launch Partitioner.'
vecho /fRed '  No  ' /fBlack '- Return to DOS' /n
vchoice /fYellow /bBlue /d 2

if errorlevel 2 goto AbortBatch

vcls /a0x07
vcursor %EXIT_CURSOR%

REM  Launch Partitioning Program
fdisk 1
REM  Returned from Partitioning

vcursor hide
vcls /fGray /bBlue
vcls /bGray /fBlack EOL
vgotoxy /x30
vecho /fBlack "%TITLE% " /fRed "%VERSION%" /fBlack " Installer"
vframe /bGray /fBlack /w60 /h11 /c /y7 hidden shadow
vframe /bGray /fBlack /w58 /h11 /c /y7 single
vframe /bGray /fBlack /w56 /h9 /c /y8 hidden
vecho /n "You must reboot your computer for the new partitioning"
vecho "scheme to take effect."
vecho
vecho "Do you wish to reboot now?"
vframe /w40 /h4 /c /y13 hidden
vecho /fGreen '  Yes ' /fBlack '- Please reboot now.'
vecho /fRed '  No  ' /fBlack '- Return to DOS' /n
vchoice /fYellow /bBlue

if errorlevel 2 goto AbortBatch
vcls /a0x07
vecho "The computer will now reboot."
vecho
reboot
goto AbortBatch

:NotFormatted
vframe /bGray /fBlack /w56 /h8 /c /y8 hidden
vecho "Drive " /fRed C /fBlack " does not appear to be formatted."
vecho
vecho "Do you wish to format your drive?"
vframe /w44 /h4 /c /y12 hidden
vecho /fGreen '  Yes ' /fBlack '- Please erase and format drive C.'
vecho /fRed '  No  ' /fBlack '- Return to DOS' /n
vchoice /fYellow /bBlue /d 2

if errorlevel 2 goto AbortBatch

vcls /a0x07
vcursor %EXIT_CURSOR%

REM  Launch Formatting Program
format C: /V:%TIITLE% /Q /U
REM  Returned from Formatting

vcursor hide
goto StartBatch

:BeginInstall
vcls /fWhite /bBlue /y2 /h24
vgotoxy down down down
vecho /fYellow "Transferring system boot files..."
vecho
sys C:
vgotoxy eop sor
vecho /n /fLightGreen "Press a key... "
vpause /fLightCyan /t 10

vcls /fGray /bBlue /y2 /h24

goto DoneBatch

:DoNotInstall

:AbortBatch
vcls /fGray /bBlack
vecho /fWhite /bRed " Installation of %TITLE% %VERSION% was aborted." /e /fGray
goto CleanUpBatch

:DoneBatch
vecho /n "Press a key... "
vpause /t 10
vcls /fGray /bBlack
REM Batch file has completed.

:CleanUpBatch
REM Restore the original cursor size and shape.
vcursor %EXIT_CURSOR%
set EXIT_CURSOR=

:DontDoAnything
set SETP_TEST=
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

If the one I've had here  
isn't needed, let me know.


On 9/7/2015 1:50 PM, Mateusz Viste wrote:

That's what I saw at some point on the freedos website:
http://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/2014/12/working-towards-freedos-12/

  > Maybe, I should just write it.

That would probably be the most efficient solution, yes. :)

Note, that I already put together a whole bootable CD (all_cd.iso) with
up to date packages of pretty much everything around. If only someone
would slap an installer on that, we'd have a 1.2 in no time.

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.1/repos/

Mateusz




On 07/09/2015 19:36, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:

Maybe, I should just write it.


On Sep 7, 2015, at 1:33 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:

I just checked Jim’s FreeDOS blog posts. They currently only go back a little 
over 2 years. But, other than Jim’s desires for the batch based installer and 
information about my V8PT utilities, I don’t see that anyone was creating an 
installer.



On Sep 7, 2015, at 12:56 PM, Mateusz Viste  wrote:

I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen"
saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the FD
website at some point about that).

Mateusz



On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:

Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?

I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

I compiled the packages and verified the .lsm files and structured them 
into a zip. Jim himself said there is an installer he's working on, 
which is what's I've been waiting on. Since Jim doesn't seem to have 
much free time (like many of us) I would say go for it.

On 9/7/2015 12:56 PM, Mateusz Viste wrote:
> I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen"
> saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the FD
> website at some point about that).
>
> Mateusz
>
>
>
> On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
>> Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?
>>
>> I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
>> implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
>> building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.
>
>
> --
> ___
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> Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

That's what I saw at some point on the freedos website:
http://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/2014/12/working-towards-freedos-12/

 > Maybe, I should just write it.

That would probably be the most efficient solution, yes. :)

Note, that I already put together a whole bootable CD (all_cd.iso) with 
up to date packages of pretty much everything around. If only someone 
would slap an installer on that, we'd have a 1.2 in no time.

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.1/repos/

Mateusz




On 07/09/2015 19:36, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
> Maybe, I should just write it.
>
>> On Sep 7, 2015, at 1:33 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:
>>
>> I just checked Jim’s FreeDOS blog posts. They currently only go back a 
>> little over 2 years. But, other than Jim’s desires for the batch based 
>> installer and information about my V8PT utilities, I don’t see that anyone 
>> was creating an installer.
>>
>>
>>> On Sep 7, 2015, at 12:56 PM, Mateusz Viste  wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen"
>>> saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the FD
>>> website at some point about that).
>>>
>>> Mateusz
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
 Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?

 I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
 implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
 building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

Maybe, I should just write it.

> On Sep 7, 2015, at 1:33 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:
> 
> I just checked Jim’s FreeDOS blog posts. They currently only go back a little 
> over 2 years. But, other than Jim’s desires for the batch based installer and 
> information about my V8PT utilities, I don’t see that anyone was creating an 
> installer. 
> 
> 
>> On Sep 7, 2015, at 12:56 PM, Mateusz Viste  wrote:
>> 
>> I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen" 
>> saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the FD 
>> website at some point about that).
>> 
>> Mateusz
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
>>> Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?
>>> 
>>> I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
>>> implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
>>> building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
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>> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

I just checked Jim’s FreeDOS blog posts. They currently only go back a little 
over 2 years. But, other than Jim’s desires for the batch based installer and 
information about my V8PT utilities, I don’t see that anyone was creating an 
installer. 


> On Sep 7, 2015, at 12:56 PM, Mateusz Viste  wrote:
> 
> I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen" 
> saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the FD 
> website at some point about that).
> 
> Mateusz
> 
> 
> 
> On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
>> Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?
>> 
>> I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
>> implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
>> building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.
> 
> 
> 
> --
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> Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
> 


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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

I'm not 100% sure anymore, but I vaguely recall "Mercury Thirteen" 
saying he's working on v1.2 (there was also an announcement on the FD 
website at some point about that).

Mateusz



On 07/09/2015 13:51, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote:
> Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?
>
> I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
> implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
> building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.



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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

I don’t know if Jim had anyone specific in mind to write it. But, I don’t think 
he does. So, I say “give it a shot”

Make sure you check out the EXAMPLES Batch files for V8Power Tools. They cover 
may advanced V8PT 
usages, vchoice selections and polling, drive scanning and etc.

The latest pre-compiled version of V8PT is always over at 
http://up.lod.bz/V8Power

Also, make sure you check out Jim’s notes on what he wants the installer to do 
over at http://www.freedos.org/jhall/


> On Sep 7, 2015, at 11:30 AM, JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU  
> wrote:
> 
> If it is alright,I will make the installer.I haven't made any PHYSICAL 
> programs yet (besides making suggestions).So I will do it.
> 
> On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 4:51 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  
> wrote:
> Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?
> 
> I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools 
> implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
> building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.
> --
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Re: [Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer

2015-09-07 Thread JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU

If it is alright,I will make the installer.I haven't made any PHYSICAL
programs yet (besides making suggestions).So I will do it.

On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 4:51 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
wrote:

> Who is making the Batch file based installer for FreeDOS 1.2?
>
> I will be more than happy to answer any questions on V8Power Tools
> implementation, theory and advanced techniques for
> building the FreeDOS Installers User Interface.
>
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>
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[Freedos-devel] FreeDOS 1.2 Installer