Re: [Freedos-user] Poll and ideas compressed filesystem
Eric Auer wrote: Ages ago there where some discussions about DOSzilla (Mozilla Firefox for DOS) but the project was never released and is dead. Firefox for DOS would be a killer application, pretty cool. I remember the suggestion coming in from time to time but I also remember the insane dependencies firefox needs... You may have overlooked one dependency, not of the functional type you listed but an add-on necessary for a browser to be usable today: Flash. My browser of choice is Mozilla's Seamonkey suite running under eComStation (OS/2). It shares a profile and all the data files with the Win version so when I need to boot Win I have all the same bookmarks, history, mail etc. I am not comfortable allowing Win to connect to the WEB, but I am increasingly having to boot Win because the OS/2 Flash is still version 5. Adobe has apparently recently allowed the current version to be ported but time and money to do that is scarce. So while I would like to see a real browser under DOS, if it doesn't include the current Flash it would be crippled, and maybe not worth the bother. Ray -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Poll and ideas compressed filesystem
On Jan 17, 2009, at 11:24 AM, Ray Davison wrote:
You may have overlooked one dependency, not of the functional type you
listed but an add-on necessary for a browser to be usable today:
Flash.
I disagree.
Flash may be everywhere, but I'd hardly call it an essential browser
component.
I don't have flash in my browser (by choice) and there's very little
that I can't access due to lack of flash support.
Admittedly, a lot of the meeting sites and some of the classroom
software requires flash to operate properly, but it's hardly a
requirement for 90 percent of browser users.
Generally, on web sites that have flash content, the conent itself is
simply some silly animation that adds nothing to the page, or it's
some scrolling version of the entir web page, which in my opinion is a
waste of both bandwidth and resources.
Needless to say, I avoid such sites, and as a result, the requirements
for flash capable browsing is nearly 0.
(note I say nearly)
And, for those sites where it is required for obtaining actual useful
information, I would have no problem moving to another machine/oos for
the job.
Until flash actually gets used for value added content, it's inclusion
in a web browser is by no means obligatory.
Now, java script might be useful to include, though as with flash, a
great deal of the javascript content is simply garbage that the page
would be better without, or someone uses javascript to generate the
html (another waste of resources imo) especially when the javascript
does nothing but a bunch of document.writeln('htmlbody/body/
html'); type things, with no dynamic content at all.
Admittedly, these kinds of pages are (thankfully) growing less as
folks actually realize javascript can be used for useful things, and
not just to make a page look fancy when it isn't, but a browser
probably should include at least some support for it.
But, since javascript has been thoroughly documented, adding support
shouldn't be that big of a problem, whereas flash is nearly impossible
to get specs on, and adding it to a dos--based browser would be no
trivial task, even if it were necessary for generic browsing (which,
it isn't)
Of course, anyone is entitled to tell me how wrong they believe me to
be, and I'll of course listen, but unless someone can prove to me the
web can't get along w/o flash, it's not likely anyone will change my
opinions on this particular topic.
Anyway, that's my take on it.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Poll and ideas compressed filesystem
Travis Siegel wrote: there's very little that I can't access due to lack of flash support. Keep looking. It is getting to be more all the time. And it is content, not just adds. And some sites that worked fine with version 5 apparently had nothing better to do and upgraded to later versions. Ray -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Purpose of dos...
I like dos when I have an old computer and some old games that work under dos. Running Windows on a 486 is a pain in general. Even a low end Pentium these days is slow. As far as web browsing and dos, isn't dos susceptible to almost every single virus on the planet? Another thing, some people want to run dos thinking that it can't browse the Internet. What I don't like about Arachne is that it doesn't have any kind of filtering apparatus built in. Internet Explorer does, but it's too paranoid. Not to mention, IE requires either Windows or Linux running Wine. I also don't like the fact the Arachne tries to integrate email access assuming a pop account. I use imap. There is a desire in some cases to network dos, but what for? Well, some dos games can be played over a network. Freedos can be upgraded over the Internet, though I'd rather build a local repository say on my Linux server and upgrade from that. The most valuable update to freedos that I can think of is one that makes it more compatible with MS-DOS. As far as breaking with MS-DOS, that needs to be carefully considered. In some cases where Freedos is not MS-DOS compatible, it may not be reasonable to make it so. Ideally, as Freedos is seen as a stable dos implementation with compilers and assemblers that are free to use, people will develop software for it specifically. I want to go the Netware route because Netware without special IPX to IP gateway software isn't Internet compatible (at least versions before the switch away from IPX). This seems to be very unpopular though. I'd like to see the MARS netware emulator brought over to freedos and revived. What is the purpose of Freedos? This is something that should be carefully considered as efforts to get a new release out kick into high gear. I see the main purpose of Freedos being to revive old computers that aren't powerful enough to run Windows or Linux and I see it's purpose as being to provide a simple OS for the embedded computing market. Yes Freedos can be run in an emulator, but that isn't my favorite application of it. Something that would be nice would be a modified dhcp client for freedos that through some reasonable trick can accept a different configuration for a particular machine than it would normally get. I'm thinking, an isolated network for freedos with an update repository on that network would be nice. The alternative, given compatible packet drivers for every dos machine, is to manually configure each freedos box that you want to isolate. Yuck! Ideally, dhcp would ask what kind of OS is seeking an IP address and if the answer is a DOS OS, it would put it on a different network than say a Linux or Windows box. Freedos needs to be as clean as possible and as stable as possible. Small is good, there should be a very small footprint base install. Cross dependencies where freedos has so called super packages that are meant to do everything should be broken purposely. Small utilities with very specific purposes are better than monstrous ones that try to do everything in a very constraining manner. One request for freedos is a nice Gem based backup program that can back the system up in part or in entirety to anything from a network share to a local DVD burner or hard disk. I'm thinking a modern and free program with a MyBackup like environment. Freedos is free and useful insofar as it is compatible with MS-DOS when it needs to be to run old software. Freedos is useful if there are applications written specifically for it for those of us who don't have functional MS-DOS software lying around. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
