On Mon, 2013-04-15 at 19:57 -0700, turtleman wrote:
Hello, I am new to freeDOS, but I find the project very interesting. However,
upon doing research of DOS applications I found that there are almost no
desktop GUIs being developed. It appears that freeDOS supports openGEM, but
even that hasn't been updated in a couple years, and even the most recent
update looks more limited than some of the other GUI's I found during my
research, for example Seal 2. Should I not get my hopes up regarding GUI
development for DOS?
How about FLTK? When you talk about GUI development for DOS, what are
you hoping for? Graphical user interfaces tend to require more
processor resources then text based interfaces where dos is liked for
being close to the hardware, lightweight, and fast. A consideration,
abstractions that make graphical user interfaces appealing to
programmers tend to have high overhead. Graphical user interfaces in
general are not particularly a dos thing. Chances are good if you want
a gui that you want to run software that can take advantage of one as
well. A modern web browser perhaps? Trouble is, any version of Firefox
past version 2 roughly isn't going to work in a dos environment with a
gui running on top. I installed Firefox 2.0.0.20 in Windows 98 SE which
is Microsoft's last major GUI on top of dos.
If you are not the only person who uses your computer, dos is not going
to be a good choice for a primary operating system. If software that
requires utilization of multiple processing cores is needed, dos is
definitely not an option. Id steer you towards ReactOS, but ReactOS
isn't anywhere near feature complete let alone stable. So for now if
a gui is an absolute must have, give Fedora 18 Linux Gnome 3 or Fluxbox
spin a try. Ubuntu may seem more popular than Fedora, but IMHO you will
be less frustrated by and more impressed with Fedora.
If your computer is at least comparable to an Intel Pentium 4, Linux is
probably the best place to be right now. X is nice, but there is also
Syllable and Visopsys. Syllable and Visopsys like ReactOS unfortunately
really aren't ready for prime time.
As computers with features that dos isn't positioned to take advantage
of become more common, dos development is going to become less popular.
I'll be surprised if GUIs that are comparable to Windows 3.11 let alone
Windows 98SE get developed for freedos.
Should freedos development focus on attracting developers of new
software applications? Maybe not, maybe Syllable, Linux, and Visopsys
are better platforms for new software applications.
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