Re: [Freedos-user] Games - and DOS installation

[Corbin Davenport]

Yeah, I don't think anyone in the FreeDOS project has ever aimed for it to
be a replacement to Windows/Mac/Linux. That's like comparing a wheelbarrow
to an SUV.

FreeDOS is a niche OS for a niche market, but it's a very good one at that.

Corbin 

On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 8:36 PM, Rugxulo  wrote:

> Dennis, we've already had this pointless conversation several times
> over. I'm not sure why you keep rehashing it.
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 3:06 PM, dmccunney 
> wrote:
> > On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 1:56 PM, Rugxulo  wrote:
> >
> > The number of people who still have actual need to run DOS is a
> vanishingly small fraction of the PC market.
>
> This is a FreeDOS mailing list. The fact that anybody here uses
> Windows is off-topic, irrelevant, and (mostly) accidental.
>
> We don't need constant reminders about how small our marketshare is.
> We frankly don't care because there is nothing you can add to DOS that
> will "fix" it. Some people will never be happy no matter what we do.
> Some people, like you, can't see the forest for the trees.
>
> > MS doesn't care about DOS, and *shouldn't*.
>
> MS doesn't participate in this mailing list, nor do they have anything
> to do with running it. They are not involved. We are not here asking
> them to do anything.
>
> You don't have to tell us (over and over) how insignificant we are.
> It's not productive. We are not a billion-dollar company and never
> will be. Get over it. If that makes you think so much less of us, I
> suggest you find a suitable Windows forum to coddle you.
>
> > The folks they consider their customers stopped running DOS and DOS apps
> decades back.
>
> MS has more than enough money to do whatever they want. Even if there
> were billions in potential DOS revenue, they still wouldn't care. They
> definitely don't need any more money. They're still a business, but
> they are beyond worry. Actually, they make tons more from the "cloud"
> and Office 365 than Windows these days. They have diversified a lot.
> (Heck, they squandered $26 billion on LinkedIn! How does that
> technically "improve" Windows NT at all or gain further customers for
> Windows??)
>
> But MS' potential business strategies are off-topic here.
>
> > There are a variety of reasons why Windows (*and* Linux) *are* better
> than DOS.
>
> Irrelevant to DOS users, especially on this mailing list. You should
> not be trying to convert anyone here to the Windows religion. There
> are plenty of other forums for that.
>
> > The folks who *do* care about DOS are mostly hobbyists who like playing
> with retro tech.
>
> And apparently contrarians who like beating a dead horse.
>
> > Most of what I do on computers these days can't be done under DOS.
>
> Like complaining about how much DOS "sux0rz!!!1". Get with it, FreeDOS
> devs, Dennis needs to whine, and he needs it NOW!
>
> > Ultimately, it comes down to money.  The sort of support you would
> > like is stuff the people who could *do* it expect to be *paid* for.
>
> I've never seen anyone pretend to be willing to work writing DOS
> drivers for money. Those people don't exist. I think you're
> overestimating the potential developers for such tasks.
>
> > It's what they do for a living.  They aren't going to do it free for
> > fun.  There's next to no money in DOS these days, so it won't happen.
>
> I agree that bounties do exist in other OSes, and a lot of development
> is sponsored by corporations. Still, that is a small fraction of all
> work done. That talent base is extremely small and not to be taken for
> granted. We expect miracles, but we're lucky when we can still do the
> basics.
>
> Again, these so-called DOS-savvy developers don't exist. They just
> don't. They aren't willing to work for money because they don't have
> the appropriate skills. I've never heard of anyone, appropriately
> inclined, whine about lack of money. Developers are very few and far
> in between. It's not nearly as common as you think.
>
> > The world changes, and we must change with it.  Sitting still isn't
> normally an option.
>
> Patches welcome. Otherwise, shut up and get out. Sorry (not sorry!) to
> be crass, but it's not conducive to further development to just
> constantly berate people, saying, "Change! You suck! You're old!
> Improve!"
>
> None of us are that naive. We're all well aware of Windows, Linux,
> macOS [sic], and various others. You didn't tell us anything we didn't
> already know. We don't need you to constantly remind us how crappy we
> are. It just doesn't solve anything. It's frankly annoying.
>
>
> --
> Attend Shape: An AT Tech Expo July 15-16. Meet us at AT Park in San
> Francisco, CA to explore cutting-edge tech and listen to tech luminaries
> present their vision of the future. This family event has something for
> everyone, including kids. Get more information and 

Re: [Freedos-user] Games - and DOS installation

[Rugxulo]

Dennis, we've already had this pointless conversation several times
over. I'm not sure why you keep rehashing it.


On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 3:06 PM, dmccunney  wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 1:56 PM, Rugxulo  wrote:
>
> The number of people who still have actual need to run DOS is a vanishingly 
> small fraction of the PC market.

This is a FreeDOS mailing list. The fact that anybody here uses
Windows is off-topic, irrelevant, and (mostly) accidental.

We don't need constant reminders about how small our marketshare is.
We frankly don't care because there is nothing you can add to DOS that
will "fix" it. Some people will never be happy no matter what we do.
Some people, like you, can't see the forest for the trees.

> MS doesn't care about DOS, and *shouldn't*.

MS doesn't participate in this mailing list, nor do they have anything
to do with running it. They are not involved. We are not here asking
them to do anything.

You don't have to tell us (over and over) how insignificant we are.
It's not productive. We are not a billion-dollar company and never
will be. Get over it. If that makes you think so much less of us, I
suggest you find a suitable Windows forum to coddle you.

> The folks they consider their customers stopped running DOS and DOS apps 
> decades back.

MS has more than enough money to do whatever they want. Even if there
were billions in potential DOS revenue, they still wouldn't care. They
definitely don't need any more money. They're still a business, but
they are beyond worry. Actually, they make tons more from the "cloud"
and Office 365 than Windows these days. They have diversified a lot.
(Heck, they squandered $26 billion on LinkedIn! How does that
technically "improve" Windows NT at all or gain further customers for
Windows??)

But MS' potential business strategies are off-topic here.

> There are a variety of reasons why Windows (*and* Linux) *are* better than 
> DOS.

Irrelevant to DOS users, especially on this mailing list. You should
not be trying to convert anyone here to the Windows religion. There
are plenty of other forums for that.

> The folks who *do* care about DOS are mostly hobbyists who like playing with 
> retro tech.

And apparently contrarians who like beating a dead horse.

> Most of what I do on computers these days can't be done under DOS.

Like complaining about how much DOS "sux0rz!!!1". Get with it, FreeDOS
devs, Dennis needs to whine, and he needs it NOW!

> Ultimately, it comes down to money.  The sort of support you would
> like is stuff the people who could *do* it expect to be *paid* for.

I've never seen anyone pretend to be willing to work writing DOS
drivers for money. Those people don't exist. I think you're
overestimating the potential developers for such tasks.

> It's what they do for a living.  They aren't going to do it free for
> fun.  There's next to no money in DOS these days, so it won't happen.

I agree that bounties do exist in other OSes, and a lot of development
is sponsored by corporations. Still, that is a small fraction of all
work done. That talent base is extremely small and not to be taken for
granted. We expect miracles, but we're lucky when we can still do the
basics.

Again, these so-called DOS-savvy developers don't exist. They just
don't. They aren't willing to work for money because they don't have
the appropriate skills. I've never heard of anyone, appropriately
inclined, whine about lack of money. Developers are very few and far
in between. It's not nearly as common as you think.

> The world changes, and we must change with it.  Sitting still isn't normally 
> an option.

Patches welcome. Otherwise, shut up and get out. Sorry (not sorry!) to
be crass, but it's not conducive to further development to just
constantly berate people, saying, "Change! You suck! You're old!
Improve!"

None of us are that naive. We're all well aware of Windows, Linux,
macOS [sic], and various others. You didn't tell us anything we didn't
already know. We don't need you to constantly remind us how crappy we
are. It just doesn't solve anything. It's frankly annoying.

--
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Re: [Freedos-user] Games - and DOS installation

[Don Flowers]

There are by its very nature limitations to FreeDOS. Even I (one who
imagines a parallel universe where DOS still matters) have been forced to
reexamine why I should "care"  about this system at all and why I continue
to store floppy disks all over our apartment ; ^0

It is (as Eric said "a complete operating system") Perhaps it is a
"hobbyists" operating system to be tinkered with - I don't know. For some
(depending on the machine on which it is installed) it is buggy,
frustrating and not worth the effort.

For myself, for whatever reason I use FreeDOS in some form or fashion every
day. Long Live FreeDOS

On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 11:56 PM, TJ Edmister 
wrote:

> On Sun, 19 Jun 2016 13:11:12 -0400, dmccunney 
> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 6:39 AM, TJ Edmister 
> > wrote:
> >> Since I boot Win2K/XP from FAT32, I also have the ability to put FD
> >> right
> >> on the C: partition and add it to my BOOT.INI as an option. This needs a
> >> little juggling of boot sectors to accomplish though.
> >
> > I have to ask: why FAT32?
> >
>
> I like FAT32. Anyway, we already had this discussion. Check your email
> archives :)
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] Games - and DOS installation

[TJ Edmister]

On Sun, 19 Jun 2016 13:11:12 -0400, dmccunney   
wrote:

> On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 6:39 AM, TJ Edmister   
> wrote:
>> Since I boot Win2K/XP from FAT32, I also have the ability to put FD  
>> right
>> on the C: partition and add it to my BOOT.INI as an option. This needs a
>> little juggling of boot sectors to accomplish though.
>
> I have to ask: why FAT32?
>

I like FAT32. Anyway, we already had this discussion. Check your email  
archives :)


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Re: [Freedos-user] Games - and DOS installation

[Rugxulo]

Hi, Dennis,  :-)

I know this may shock you, but this is a DOS mailing list. You know,
people here actively want to use "DOS" binaries on DOS-compatible
OSes.

I'm just saying, keep that in mind below.

On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 12:11 PM, dmccunney  wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 6:39 AM, TJ Edmister  wrote:
>>
>> Since I boot Win2K/XP from FAT32, I also have the ability to put FD right
>> on the C: partition and add it to my BOOT.INI as an option. This needs a
>> little juggling of boot sectors to accomplish though.
>
> I have to ask: why FAT32?

DOS doesn't read NTFS.

(Yes, I know there were some partial, buggy third-party tools for
that, but mostly "by design", for "security"??, MS never cared enough
to let other OSes "share" data with Windows. They put all their eggs
in one basket.)

Yes, I suppose you can have both FAT32 and NTFS, and just copy files,
if/when needed. In fact, you have to do that nowadays, Vista on up
won't boot from FAT anymore. (At least Vista can finally resize the
NTFS partition instead of more painful alternatives.)

> I stayed at Win98 SE longer than I wanted to, because I was still
> waiting for driver support for all of my peripherals.  When a driver
> for my SCSI scanner finally appeared for Win2K, I jumped

Sigh, isn't it great that drivers are incompatible between OSes?  :-P

> Win98 reached the point of having to be rebooted four or five times a day.
> Win2K just ran.

And was buggier (for DOS apps). Stability is always good, but when you
can't even run the apps you want to run, it's fairly useless. Might as
well use a Mac!

> It was up 24/7, and rebooted only if I was fiddling
> with hardware or installing new software or a Windows update that
> required it.  I was delighted.

2k and XP are dead as doorknobs, totally unsupported. Even most
third-party apps now brag about being incompatible to XP. It's a
shame.

> I was aware you *could* install 2K on FAT32, but couldn't understand
> why you might want to.

Just use both, best of both worlds. No, your boot partition doesn't
have to be the same as your data partition. IIRC, most SSD users put
the OS on ultra-fast SSD and put all their
frequently-read/write-accessed (big) media files elsewhere.

> NTFS supported things I sorely missed.  One
> was a far more robust file system that was far easier to repair if
> there was a problem.  If I had a file system problem, I ran CHKDSK.
> On a FAT file system, this would result in a directory created by it
> to hold orphaned file fragments, and files with names like
> FILE.CHK.  Once in a while, the file fragments it found were
> usable.  Mostly, they just needed to be deleted, and if they were
> pieces of programs, the programs needed to be reinstalled.  On an NTFS
> system, CHKDSK simply put everything back where it was supposed to be
> under its original name.  The only time that didn't happen was when a
> directory entry happened to be on a bad block and it had to create a
> new one.  It was no problem to mark the block bad, then rename the new
> directory to the old name.

Great, but NTFS doesn't work on DOS, which is an 8086-compatible
real-mode OS. FAT is designed by minimalism, out of necessity. Sure,
if you're willing to up the memory requirements a gig or two, you can
have all the features of other OSes.

It's not fair to expect them to do the same things. They target
entirely different systems. Is NTFS better? I hope so, it's all you
get nowadays! DOS is dead (to them), they don't care anymore, not even
about binary compatibility. Buy all new (Win10/Metro) apps! Upgrade
upgrade upgrade!

> If I needed to run old 16bit DOS apps, I could do so in NTVDM, and
> they didn't have to be on a FAT filesystem to use them.

NTVDM has regressed since XP. It's not as good anymore. Even XP wasn't
perfect. It's not a long-term solution. It's going away. MS doesn't
care (and hasn't) anymore.

It's not fair to pretend that "Windows is better than DOS!" because
they don't even barely half-support it anymore. We all know the
(previous) advantages. We'd all still be using Windows full-time if it
worked for us, but sadly it doesn't. They threw DOS away, and they're
already trying to do the same to anything written for Win7 or older.

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Re: [Freedos-user] Games - and DOS installation

[dmccunney]

On Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 6:23 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  wrote:
> There are rough directions on using the installer with DOSBox
> in the FDI Readme.
>
> https://github.com/shidel/FDI/blob/master/README.md

As it happens, I'm doing something similar.  I have an Android port of
DOSBox, and an assortment of old DOS apps (not games) up and running
on a 7" Android tablet. The version of DOSBox I'm using passes
Ctrl-char combinations through to the running app, which made it
possible to get things like Eric Meyer's VDE editor (a WordStar clone)
up and running.

DOSBox implements enough of the DOS kernel, but the shell is only
sufficient to let you run a DOS game from the command line.  Things
like pipes are unsupported. Fortunately, you aren't stuck with the
minimal COMMAND.COM version DOSBox provides.  Both FreeDOS COMMAND and
4DOS run fine and provide the missing shell functionality.  FreeDOS
MODE does things like enabling 43 line EGA and 50 line VGA mode.  I've
simply copied the appropriate FreeDOS commands over to the DOS
directories on the microSD card where that stuff lives on the tablet.

The main missing piece is no equivalent of CONFIG.SYS, so drivers
loaded from it aren't possible.  I've found TSRs that do most of what
I need, like DPMI support and an ANSI driver.  I *haven't* found a TSR
that implements the functionality of HIMEM.SYS, so no HMA, but EMS and
XMS memory are supported.
__
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Re: [Freedos-user] Games - and DOS installation

[dmccunney]

On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 6:39 AM, TJ Edmister  wrote:
> Since I boot Win2K/XP from FAT32, I also have the ability to put FD right
> on the C: partition and add it to my BOOT.INI as an option. This needs a
> little juggling of boot sectors to accomplish though.

I have to ask: why FAT32?

I stayed at Win98 SE longer than I wanted to, because I was still
waiting for driver support for all of my peripherals.  When a driver
for my SCSI scanner finally appeared for Win2K, I jumped  Win98
reached the point of having to be rebooted four or five times a day.
Win2K just ran.  It was up 24/7, and rebooted only if I was fiddling
with hardware or installing new software or a Windows update that
required it.  I was delighted.

I was aware you *could* install 2K on FAT32, but couldn't understand
why you might want to.  NTFS supported things I sorely missed.  One
was a far more robust file system that was far easier to repair if
there was a problem.  If I had a file system problem, I ran CHKDSK.
On a FAT file system, this would result in a directory created by it
to hold orphaned file fragments, and files with names like
FILE.CHK.  Once in a while, the file fragments it found were
usable.  Mostly, they just needed to be deleted, and if they were
pieces of programs, the programs needed to be reinstalled.  On an NTFS
system, CHKDSK simply put everything back where it was supposed to be
under its original name.  The only time that didn't happen was when a
directory entry happened to be on a bad block and it had to create a
new one.  It was no problem to mark the block bad, then rename the new
directory to the old name.

Another was the notion that there was more than one user on a system
that would have different rights and permissions about what it was
allowed to do.  FAT32 has no place to store that metadata.  I came to
DOS and Windows from Unix, which was explicitly a multi-user system
where more than one user might be on the system simultaneously, and
worked in corporate environments where PCs were often shared resources
and the notion that the user at the keyboard was administrator with
all power to do everything was untrue and dangerous.

If I needed to run old 16bit DOS apps, I could do so in NTVDM, and
they didn't have to be on a FAT filesystem to use them.
__
Dennis
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Re: [Freedos-user] Games - and DOS installation

[TJ Edmister]

On Sat, 18 Jun 2016 07:20:32 -0400, Eric Auer  wrote:
>
> * Is it easy enough to make a bootable USB stick with FreeDOS with
>   plenty of software included which does NOT need to install to
>   harddisk but can be used as "live" operating system boot disk?

Isn't there a bootable disk image like this available? It's not that hard  
to make one although the process could certainly be simplified.

It would be nice if we had a utility to distribute along side the disk  
image, which would take care of a couple things. 1) writing the image to  
the disk/flash device and 2) resizing the FAT partition to fit the  
available space (so that only one disk image would need to be distributed  
rather than various differently sized ones)

I never ran the installer for FD myself. I just formatted a 2GB CF card,  
manually copied the FD files to it, and then ran some utility which  
created an FD boot sector (I'm not sure what environment I had to be in to  
run this utility... it may have been Win98) and of course edited the  
fdconfig.sys (or whatever it's called... this happened years ago.)

Since I boot Win2K/XP from FAT32, I also have the ability to put FD right  
on the C: partition and add it to my BOOT.INI as an option. This needs a  
little juggling of boot sectors to accomplish though.

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Re: [Freedos-user] Games - and DOS installation

[Jerome E. Shidel Jr.]

> On Jun 18, 2016, at 1:29 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi guys,
> 
> (sorry about the long mail...)
> 
>> During the discussion of version 1.2, this was my interpretation of 
>> how this should be handled and what was implemented when the 
>> user installed FreeDOS in normal mode. Having a failed install (by 
>> not booting into FreeDOS) was unacceptable behavior. Therefore, 
>> the installer would normally backup and then over-write the boot...
> 
> Well, as mentioned several times in the 1.2 discussion, losing all
> your data is even more unacceptable, so there should be a choice ;-)

No data is lost unless the user intentional destroys it themselves. 
The boot sector and boot code is backed up prior to being over-written.
This occurs in either normal or advanced mode.

> 
> On dedicated harddisks or virtual computer images, which optionally
> could be auto-detected by the installer, it is of course nice to do
> automatic "rude" installs which makes sure that DOS boots afterwards.
> 
> But the user should have the choice between "rude" install, "no"
> install at all (simply use "live" DOS as booted from USB stick)
> and as 3rd choice "manual" install, where the user has to do the
> partitioning and formatting by hand before running the installer
> which limits itself to install DOS to any user-chosen directory,
> even asking whether SYS should be run and whether config/autoexec
> should be overwritten or just prepared under another name :-)

If the user has already prepared a drive C: prior to using the installer,
the installer will see this and will not auto-partition the hard drive. It will
also not even prompt to partition the drive. If the user has also formatted
the drive, the installer will skip this as well. 

Other things, like not installing the SYS files, not installing boot code,
not installing new autoexec & config files are all optional in advanced 
mode. 

Personally, I think anyone who is running the installer on a system
that is to be multi-boot or some other situation, should run the installer
in advanced mode to fully control its behavior.

> 
>> code during installation. This action can be overridden if advanced 
>> mode is used during the install. There were many pros and cons 
>> to this being the default action.
>> 
>> The installer will not destroy partitions...
> 
> As long as the installer makes it clear that you have a CHOICE,
> as long as that choice is not what happens by default when you
> just press Y or enter, this is already quite reasonable :-) As
> you see, people ARE scared that the install can delete data.
> 
>> * The installer checks if there is a drive C: visible to FreeDOS. 
> 
>> If does not find one, and that drive is blank it will use fdisk to 
>> automatically partition the drive in "smart" mode. Otherwise, if
>> there are partitions existing on the drive, or it cannot figure 
>> out what should be partitioned, or if it is in “dumb" mode. It
>> will launch fdisk and let the user deal with it.
> 
> How does it decide about the "blank" aspect?

It uses multiple tools and parses results from queries to fdisk.

If there are any partitions present, the drive will not be 
auto-partitioned. If there is a drive that fdisk lists as hard drive C:,
it will be used. 

> 
>> * Installer checks if drive C: can be read by FreeDOS. If not, 
>> it will format it.
> 
> It should NOT do that by default if you ask me. It should rather
> say something like "There is a C: but it does not work for DOS.
> If you just made the partition for DOS, you can press F now to
> let me format C: Otherwise, please leave the installer and take
> care to make C: accessible for DOS, in any way that seems good.”

As I said, I left out all question prompts the installer asks in the 
logic summary I posted. The installer does not just format a drive.
It asks first. 

It doesn’t even partition without asking. The partitioning behavior is
slightly different in advanced and normal modes.

When drive needs to be partitioned:

Normal mode:

Does all that detection stuff.

Asks if user wants to partition or quit?

If so, and can auto-partition, it does so. If it cannot auto-partition
it launches fdisk.

After partition. Asks to reboot or exit.

Advanced mode.

Does some detection stuff to determine bios drive.

Asks if user wants to partition or quit?

Launches fdisk set for the bios drive.

After partition. Asks to reboot or exit.

> 
> (the above example deliberately uses "F" instead of "Y" to make
> sure that people have to think before they just press "agree”)

Advanced mode.

> 
>> * The installer transfers the system files and overwrites the
>> boot code. 
> 
> That, too, might want to ask the user first…

Advanced mode.

> 
>> Advanced mode, provides these capabilities:
>> * never auto-partition 
>> * option of long-slow formatting.
>> * installing to drives other than C: (configured 

Re: [Freedos-user] Games - and DOS installation

[Eric Auer]

Hi guys,

(sorry about the long mail...)

> During the discussion of version 1.2, this was my interpretation of 
> how this should be handled and what was implemented when the 
> user installed FreeDOS in normal mode. Having a failed install (by 
> not booting into FreeDOS) was unacceptable behavior. Therefore, 
> the installer would normally backup and then over-write the boot...

Well, as mentioned several times in the 1.2 discussion, losing all
your data is even more unacceptable, so there should be a choice ;-)

On dedicated harddisks or virtual computer images, which optionally
could be auto-detected by the installer, it is of course nice to do
automatic "rude" installs which makes sure that DOS boots afterwards.

But the user should have the choice between "rude" install, "no"
install at all (simply use "live" DOS as booted from USB stick)
and as 3rd choice "manual" install, where the user has to do the
partitioning and formatting by hand before running the installer
which limits itself to install DOS to any user-chosen directory,
even asking whether SYS should be run and whether config/autoexec
should be overwritten or just prepared under another name :-)

> code during installation. This action can be overridden if advanced 
> mode is used during the install. There were many pros and cons 
> to this being the default action.
> 
> The installer will not destroy partitions...

As long as the installer makes it clear that you have a CHOICE,
as long as that choice is not what happens by default when you
just press Y or enter, this is already quite reasonable :-) As
you see, people ARE scared that the install can delete data.

> * The installer checks if there is a drive C: visible to FreeDOS. 

> If does not find one, and that drive is blank it will use fdisk to 
> automatically partition the drive in "smart" mode. Otherwise, if
> there are partitions existing on the drive, or it cannot figure 
> out what should be partitioned, or if it is in “dumb" mode. It
> will launch fdisk and let the user deal with it.

How does it decide about the "blank" aspect?

> * Installer checks if drive C: can be read by FreeDOS. If not, 
> it will format it.

It should NOT do that by default if you ask me. It should rather
say something like "There is a C: but it does not work for DOS.
If you just made the partition for DOS, you can press F now to
let me format C: Otherwise, please leave the installer and take
care to make C: accessible for DOS, in any way that seems good."

(the above example deliberately uses "F" instead of "Y" to make
sure that people have to think before they just press "agree")

> * The installer transfers the system files and overwrites the
> boot code. 

That, too, might want to ask the user first...

> Advanced mode, provides these capabilities:
> * never auto-partition 
> * option of long-slow formatting.
> * installing to drives other than C: (configured as C: for booting)
> * not transferring the system boot files
> * not over-writting the boot code.
> * lots of other stuff.

That is nice but I wonder if it is necessary in that style:
Advanced mode could also let the user do the partition and
format step and offer the easier-to-implement second half
of the install only: Install to user-selectable directory,
then invite user to optionally add SYS files / boot sector.

I am aware that this is a rather controversial topic :-)

For easy improvement, maybe the installer could initially
say something like "if this is a dedicated DOS PC, maybe
virtual, select easy install now. If you have other data
on the PC, please select advanced manual installation..."

The rest of the installer can probably stay as it is :-)

> The FreeDOS 1.2 Preview releases contain several boot images.

> sudo dd if=FILENAME.IMG of=/dev/USBDEVICE

That is okay for Linux users, but those probably would use
GPARTED for the partition and format step anyway ;-) Many
Windows users might prefer something simpler, like DOSBOX.
Also because of the nice "old sound card" simulations :-)

Or of course some tool or howto for making it REALLY easy
to make a bootable USB stick which can be used without the
need to install DOS to any harddisk?

Cheers, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] Games - and DOS installation

[Jerome E. Shidel Jr.]

> On Jun 18, 2016, at 7:20 AM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> […]
> I think this was part of the FreeDOS 1.2 discussion before, but
> how about detection whether a harddisk is "totally" empty before
> showing the question how to install? I agree that for people who
> made a totally empty virtual PC image a minute before installing
> FreeDOS, it would be easiest to just let the installer throw one
> standard DOS partition on that "disk" without asking the user to
> make many decisions on partitioning and formatting. But for the
> users who do NOT have a dedicated harddisk for DOS, it is scary.
> 
> Cheers, Eric

During the discussion of version 1.2, this was my interpretation of 
how this should be handled and what was implemented when the 
user installed FreeDOS in normal mode. Having a failed install (by 
not booting into FreeDOS) was unacceptable behavior. Therefore, 
the installer would normally backup and then over-write the boot
code during installation. This action can be overridden if advanced 
mode is used during the install. There were many pros and cons 
to this being the default action.

The installer will not destroy partitions. Basically, this is what 
happens in basic normal mode (excluding question prompts
and lots of other stuff):

* Installer Boots.
* Installer tries to create a RAM drive for temporary data storage.
If that fails, the installer falls back to “dumb” mode.
* The installer checks if there is a drive C: visible to FreeDOS. 
If does not find one, and that drive is blank it will use fdisk to 
automatically partition the drive in "smart" mode. Otherwise, if
there are partitions existing on the drive, or it cannot figure 
out what should be partitioned, or if it is in “dumb" mode. It
will launch fdisk and let the user deal with it.
* If fdisk was run, reboot.
* Installer reloads.
* Installer performs all of the above checks again, this time
it finds a drive C:.
* Installer checks if drive C: can be read by FreeDOS. If not, 
it will format it.
* …….. Much later.
* The installer transfers the system files and overwrites the
boot code. 

Advanced mode, provides these capabilities:
* never auto-partition 
* option of long-slow formatting.
* installing to drives other than C: (configured as C: for booting)
* not transferring the system boot files
* not over-writting the boot code.
* lots of other stuff.

The FreeDOS 1.2 Preview releases contain several boot images.
ISO, Small USB and Big USB. There is lots of software for 
burning the ISO to a disc. Using a Mac or Linux machine, it
is also very easy to put either USB image on a flash drive.
This can be done by just using:

sudo dd if=FILENAME.IMG of=/dev/MEDIA

There are additional dd options. Some, that can be used to 
greatly speed up the process. But, that is all that is really needed.

Jerome
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Re: [Freedos-user] Games - and DOS installation

[Eric Auer]

Hi guys,

> “FreeDOS is a complete operating system. If you choose to install
> this on your computer, you may overwrite the operating system you
> have now (for example, Windows.) If this is not what you intend,
> please stop now.”

That leads to the IMPORTANT questions:

* Is it easy enough to make a bootable USB stick with FreeDOS with
  plenty of software included which does NOT need to install to
  harddisk but can be used as "live" operating system boot disk?

* In particular, is there some sort of how-to for doing that? The
  installer may want to install DOS to RAMDISK for performance :-)

* Is it easy enough to make the decision whether or NOT you want
  to install to harddisk and whether or not you want to DESTROY
  your existing Windows / Linux install in the install process?

As much as it is "classic and straightforward" for installers to
just replace everything on a computer by DOS, as dangerous and
frightening it is for those who want no dedicated DOS-only PC.

I think this was part of the FreeDOS 1.2 discussion before, but
how about detection whether a harddisk is "totally" empty before
showing the question how to install? I agree that for people who
made a totally empty virtual PC image a minute before installing
FreeDOS, it would be easiest to just let the installer throw one
standard DOS partition on that "disk" without asking the user to
make many decisions on partitioning and formatting. But for the
users who do NOT have a dedicated harddisk for DOS, it is scary.

Cheers, Eric


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