[Freedos-user] freedos 1.1
How much longer till this much anticipated release? I see the occasional compiler update or arachne update... where is the freedos 1.1 project as a whole though? - This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100url=/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Arachne filtering plugin...
Aside from arachne not support horde webmail imp sites completely, is there a filtering plugin for it? I like firefox because I can add Procon to it. With the amount of smut on the Net, running an unfiltered browser has a few downsides. -- ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Netware 4.11 in vmware...
What network card driver do I need on the server side and client side and where do I get it from? I am running vmware workstation 6. All my attempts to grab the netware driver for an AMD PCnet PCI II card have netted me Windows executables. Argh! I wish vmware could emulate a different type of network card. I find that installing MS DOS 5.0 and then Freedos 1.0 works well. I snag the cdrom drivers from freedos to allow me to run the netware install program off the cd. Has anyone here gotten Netware 4.11 to run in a vmware installed dos system? Why does the install program for Netware 4.11 crash in Freedos? Is there any way work to revive mars_nwe etcetera? Netware emulation under Linux seems terribly out of date. Free client side drivers would be a good idea to complement an emulated Netware server. -- ___ 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
I don't want a graphical web browser at all in freedos. The current option does not support out of the box filtering or plugins comparable to what Internet Explorer and Firefox have. Freedos is not a system that completely insulates the hardware nor is it a multiuser system, so it's appropriateness for network applications is questionable. Especially, considering that the general attitude seems to be use whatever exists for dos to network it, networking generally isn't attractive. Freedos currently doesn't support Netware 4.11 very well where a lot of the netware IPX drivers, if you can find any, are designed to be opened on a Windows system. As far as compressed filesystems are concerned or supporting NTFS, you are getting away from being 100% MS DOS compatible. Freedos isn't 100% compatible yet, more reverse engineering needs to be done to make it so. MS-DOS 6.22 supported disk compression, but that was a late addition to dos and it created a lot of problems for some dos programs. Porting MARS netware emulator to freedos would make it far more attractive for networking than it currently is. The advantage of supporting NTFS is that freedos could be used as a tool potentially to work on and repair a modern NT based Windows system. There are so many versions of NTFS though, a lot of work would be involved to create a decent implementation of NTFS for a dos based environment. It makes more sense to support NTFS under Linux as NTFS is meant for use on a multi user system. -- 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
Re: [Freedos-user] Loading old DOS programs under FreeDOS
On Fri, 2009-01-23 at 15:26 -0600, Steve Owens wrote: As Marco said, Word's Find and Replace does this easily - you need to click on the 'More' button in the Find and Replace dialog, then click on 'Special', then insert as many of the characters as you like in sequence - in this case, 'Paragraph Mark' and 'Tab Character'. Works like a charm! I haven't had much experience with WordPerfect, but know many writers who swear by it. Hard to get hold of a legitimate copy now, though. Word Perfect 6.0 Dos is great. I have a working backup copy of it, but my install disks are no good. I looked on EBay for it, ridiculously high priced. The Linux version of Word Perfect seemingly never took off. The reality is, Word seems to be the only you have to pay for it word processor that is still selling successfully. I suppose you may still be able to get Word Perfect, but not for dos. It is truly sad that Microsoft, since it doesn't support it's dos versions of Word anymore, won't allow free redistribution of it. The reality is, there are very few old computers left that can only run dos, compared to the number of computers that run Linux or Windows. If people hand out illegal copies of software, it hurts efforts to replace that software with something like open office or ReactOS plus Open Office for example. Why bother with free stuff if you can get commercial software without paying for it? If the open source alternatives catch on, the legal problems of pirating software go away. Read the EULA that comes with Word Perfect. Chances are, you aren't allowed to install it to multiple machines or distribute it over a network. Open office is too heavy for dos anyways. Any efforts to port abiword to dos? How about producing an OSS clone of Windows 3.11 or Windows 98SE? The advantage of doing the latter is that the clone can be made to work with freedos instead of the other way around. I have never felt that Windows NT was a good replacement for dos based Windows. Microsoft did a sloppy job, too many 9x programs want to be run as administrator on an 2000/XP system. There is experimental support of Windows 3.0 I guess, which I don't have, and I question the point of that. Most copies of Windows 3.x are probably disk based and no good anymore. -- 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] Freedos 1.1 status???
What is the status of Freedos 1.1? It has been a while since the you can help link has been updated. -- Apps built with the Adobe(R) Flex(R) framework and Flex Builder(TM) are powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging. Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] fdupdate won't work on my 486...
I have a DTK 486 with a very simple AMI bios and on it a Dlink DE220PT nic on IRQ 12 IO 0x240. Arachne works fine, but fdupdate crashes. It crashes regardless of whether or not I choose to update a package. I'm using the crynwr packet collection ne2000 driver. I get an error about 2 near fnodes sometimes if that helps at all. The beta driver from Intel for their e100 works with fdupdate on my Pentium 4 system where I am using the 0.54 version of fdupdate on both my 486 and my Pentium 4. I have tried loading freedos on my 486 without drivers, that didn't help. This 486 has four serial ports, 2 parallel ports, and a sound blaster value card. Short of pulling cards out, I'm not sure how to isolate this problem. I was wondering if anyone else has had problems using the crynwr ne2000 driver with fdupdate? It would help a lot if freedos update were smart enough to exit with a meaningful error message that tells me what is actually wrong. Obviously it crashes after the do you want to update question is answered, so what is it doing at that point? I wish there was a debugger for freedos update that would show me the actual instruction that fails. Maybe there is some caching scheme that requires a special exception, but how would I find out? -- Apps built with the Adobe(R) Flex(R) framework and Flex Builder(TM) are powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging. Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos needs hardware testing tools...
Something specific to my hardware on my 486 DX2 66 must be causing fdupdate to crash, but there seem to be no diagnosis tools to find out what that is. Please rectify this problem. I want something that detects resource conflicts, flaky memory, etcetera. -- Apps built with the Adobe(R) Flex(R) framework and Flex Builder(TM) are powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging. Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] I want to port drivewire to freedos...
I have the C source code for the 1.7 release that is meant for Linux. I want to port this code to freedos and build a gem compatible interface for it. Drivewire, for those who don't know, is a piece of software that allows a color computer 1/2/3 to access via serial port a modern computer and the modern computer emulates a disk drive. These old computers used 5 1/4 low density floppies which are no more now. The drives for low density 5 1/4 floppies aren't available anymore. Drivewire doesn't always work, but most of the time it does. Programs that follow the Tandy standard for disk access have no problem with drivewire. Now then, the Linux version depends on specific Linux only C libraries. I need to know what the equivalent libraries are under Freedos and as necessary I will need to recode if the dos equivalent library is different. The following link: http://drivewireserver.cvs.sourceforge.net/drivewireserver/ is where the source code for the drivewire server can be downloaded from. I am interested in doing a port because Windows 98SE is awfully heavy on a 486 DX2-66 with only 20 megs of ram, and it isn't free. I could use some help getting the information about what the C library equivalents are under freedos and how they vary from the ones in Linux. Another area where I need help is understanding gem so I can make my drivewire port a gem application. -- Apps built with the Adobe(R) Flex(R) framework and Flex Builder(TM) are powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging. Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos needs hardware testing tools...
On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 10:25 +0100, Eric Auer wrote: Hi! Something specific to my hardware on my 486 DX2 66 must be causing fdupdate to crash, but there seem to be no diagnosis tools to find out what that is. Please rectify this problem. I want something that detects resource conflicts, flaky memory, etcetera. First try to boot without loading (J)EMM386, a common cause of problems is a bad default EMM386 configuration which makes UMB space available for DOS in areas that should stay reserved for something else, such as BIOS or extension cards. You can use a tool like PCISLEEP to get a list of devices. The Quarterdeck MFT Manifest tool is also freeware by now, might be useful even if it is not hardware oriented. Similar to a very extended MEM :-) There is also a RAM/resource info tool from Japheth that can be used to debug the autoconfig abilities of JEMM386, if you can not find it on (www) japheth.de you can always ask him by mail. Eric PS: For flaky memory, run MEMTEST86 or MEMTEST86+. There is also a version that can be started from DOS called MEMTESTE. Note that it can only start if no EMM386 is loaded. It works best if you do not load any other drivers at all before starting MEMTESTE... Okay, I have tried loading no drivers and then with just the packet driver running fdupdate. It still crashes. Is there a way to scan for bios usage of memory so that I can put in the necessary exceptions? The PCISLEEP comment is interesting, but I'm on an old EISA only Intel 80486 DX2-66 that uses 32 pin simms. The bios is an AMI bios circa 1993. I'll see about grabbing a copy of memteste. -- Apps built with the Adobe(R) Flex(R) framework and Flex Builder(TM) are powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging. Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS on Virtual PC 2007
On Fri, 2009-03-20 at 02:12 -0400, Michael Horvath wrote: I am able to boot after selecting option #3 (Load FreeDOS with HIMEM XMS-memory driver), but installing the game still fails. Option #4 (Load FreeDOS without drivers) is unselectable. -Mike That's a bug, the 4th option not working. To fix it, add: 4?echo No drivers ;-) to fdconfig.sys Michael Reichenbach wrote: Booting without emm386 will work, to make emm386 to work you need the correct excludes X= or I= but don't ask me further. After you got it running tell us how well Virtual PC works for your DOS apps / DOS games, how good is the soundblaster / vga / vesa implementation? Perhaps I've tested it in past but I do not remember. -mr -- Apps built with the Adobe(R) Flex(R) framework and Flex Builder(TM) are powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging. Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Apps built with the Adobe(R) Flex(R) framework and Flex Builder(TM) are powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging. Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] I want to port drivewire to freedos...
O.K. It looks like it depends at least on pthreads, curses, termios, and linux-specific tty devices. Often (as is the case with curses), linux C libraries are available under FreeDOS with DJGPP; they are the same libraries, just re-compiled (DJGPP has a fairly POSIX-compatible c-library, it is somewhat comparable to cygwin on Windows.. Curses is easy, pdcurses is available for 16-bit or 32-bit DOS. Also ncurses is available for DJGPP. If you plan on implementing it with GEM, you would likely want to replace the parts that depend on curses with GEM-equivalent functions (curses does all of the screen-manipulation). If you plan on a 32-bit port (GEM has djgpp bindings IIRC), termios is available in the c-library to manipulate the screen and also there are pthreads libraries available for djgpp. But if termios is used to manipulate the serial ports as well, you would need to implement a file-system extention (see http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/doc/libc/libc_321.html for a description) to handle serial devices as well as screen devices (and maybe also create your own termios interface to serial ports). The file-system extention would probably suffice to access linux-specific tty devices. If you plan on a 16-bit port, pthreads (a multi-threading library), would be a challenge to implement (but likely possible), and termios would be possible to implement, but I don't think there exists a termios-compatible library for 16-bit DOS. termios probably wouldn't be too difficult to implement for 16-bit DOS. Accesses to linux-specific tty devies would have to be replaced with DOS-equivalent functionality. Overall, it's a decently-sized job. Plus if you don't know how to write GEM applications, you would have to learn that as well. -- Apps built with the Adobe(R) Flex(R) framework and Flex Builder(TM) are powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging. Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user Thanks for the pointers. The 4th step is to get it working with ncurses and djgpp. Where do I get the 32 bit dos compatible DJGPP compiler from??? A gem interface is clearly a stage 2 problem. Actually, the first thing I probably need to do is get some comments into the source so I can follow it easier ;-) Step 1: Find out how code works in Linux and add comments to it. Step 2: Reorganize code if necessary to separate out interface from other parts. Step 3: Port the makefile to freedos. Step 4: Start porting the code. A quick look at the makefile: vpath %.c ../source CFLAGS += -g -DLINUX LDFLAGS += -lcurses -lpthread -g drivewire: drivewire.o clean: rm drivewire drivewire.o install: drivewire cp drivewire ~/bin I don't understand the vpath line as I've never encountered that before. The install section will be replaced by something like: install: FDOS_BIN_PATH=C:\FDOS_01\BIN copy .\drivewire $FDOS_BIN_PATH Though I'm open to a more robust solution. The clean section will need to be changed to: clean: del drivewire del drivewire.o I would like to have gdb under freedos, is there a port of it??? -- Apps built with the Adobe(R) Flex(R) framework and Flex Builder(TM) are powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging. Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos needs hardware testing tools...
On Fri, 2009-03-27 at 11:04 +0100, Eric Auer wrote: Hi Michael, Something specific to my hardware on my 486 DX2 66 must be causing fdupdate to crash, but there seem to be no diagnosis tools to find ... First try to boot without loading (J)EMM386, a common cause of problems is a bad default EMM386 configuration which makes UMB space available for DOS in areas that should stay reserved... There is also a RAM/resource info tool from Japheth... Okay, I have tried loading no drivers and then with just the packet driver running fdupdate. It still crashes. Is there a way to scan for bios usage of memory so that I can put in the necessary exceptions? The PCISLEEP comment is interesting, but I'm on an old EISA only Intel 80486 DX2-66 that uses 32 pin simms. The bios is an AMI bios circa 1993. I'll see about grabbing a copy of memteste. Did you find out anything new already? Do the other computers apart from the 486 work now, and if yes, what was the trick? Thanks for the update :-) Eric No. I tried memteste and didn't get any sign of a memory problem. CheckIT under 98 isn't picking up any hardware problems either. My Pentium 4 system with believe it or not an Intel sourced beta packet driver has updated via fdupdate no problem. I'm at square zero on figuring out why the 486 crashes on fdupdate but does fine with say arachne. -- ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FDUPDATE crash
On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 17:12 +0200, Mateusz Viste wrote: On Friday 03 April 2009 16:08, Michael Robinson wrote: When I run fdupdate, it crashes with a 2 near fnodes error. Hi, Please define the crash. When exactly is it happening? When FDUPDATE is starting itself, or when it run wget to retrieve the repository list? That's a verry important information, as it will tell us wheter it's really a FDUPDATE crash, or wget... Does wget itself works fine (can you retrieve any file with it)? As for FDUPDATE, it's a very simple program written in FreeBASIC, there is no Network handlers at all, just the gui + the wget sublauncher. Another test would consist of using the CURL handler instead of the wget's one. Obviously you will have to install CURL, and modify the FDUPDATE configuration file to tell it to use CURL instead of wget... I wish I knew exactly what is causing the crash. Please give us the informations I asked for, it will be a good start :) Best regards, Mateusz Viste I'm not certain about what is crashing. Changing to curl makes no difference at all. This works on my Pentium 4, so I suspect there is something specific to my 486 that is causing the problem. I wish the crash message was more descriptive. A dump of the processor's registers and more than 2 near fnodes does not tell me what crashed. Did command.com crash? Was there an invalid memory reference because I need to exclude a certain region and don't know about it? If someone else has a real DTK 486 DX2-66 that uses 30 pin memory, I'd appreciate an attempt by them to reproduce this problem. I have tried running only fdapm, ne2000, mouse, DOSLFN, command, and system. I still get kernel panic, system halted. I have 20 megs of ram, memtest says that the memory is fine. Could the order I have the chips plugged in in be a problem? Which bank needs to be 1 meg chips? -- ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FDUPDATE crash
I'm not certain about what is crashing. Changing to curl makes no difference at all. This works on my Pentium 4, so I suspect there is something specific to my 486 that is causing the problem. I wish the crash message was more descriptive. A dump of the processor's registers and more than 2 near fnodes does not tell me what crashed. Did command.com crash? Was there an invalid memory reference because I need to exclude a certain region and don't know about it? If someone else has a real DTK 486 DX2-66 that uses 30 pin memory, I'd appreciate an attempt by them to reproduce this problem. I have tried running only fdapm, ne2000, mouse, DOSLFN, command, and system. I still get kernel panic, system halted. I have 20 megs of ram, memtest says that the memory is fine. Could the order I have the chips plugged in in be a problem? Which bank needs to be 1 meg chips? While fdupdate doesn't work, I am retrieving a file off of an ftp server using wget. I don't think wget is crashing. It is running awfully slow though, could be because I don't have himem loaded. One thing I'm wondering about, does freedos work when serial ports are overlapped? The standard thing to do for 4 serial ports is to do com1 and com3 on irq 4 with com2 and com4 on irq 3. More than 2 near fnodes, does that have something to do with overlapping serial ports? Please note that I've tried dos memtest and it isn't showing any memory errors. MS DOS 6.22 has a tool that graphically shows a representation of memory, I think it was called msd. Is there an equivalent for freedos? My isa nic is a DE220PT in non pnp mode, has anyone had problems using these under freedos? Please note that ssh2dos works. Every network application except for fdupdate seems to work okay. What is an fnode? What does a message that more than 2 near fnodes are opened mean? Please someone, try fdupdate v0.54 on a real 486 with 30 pin memory, maybe you'll run into the same problem that I am having. -- ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FDUPDATE crash
I was wrong about wget not crashing, it just took it a long time to crash running it on it's own. Is the kernel going to be reworked anytime soon to remove this fnode concept? -- ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] What is the trick to get Windows 3.1 to run on freedos???
I think I'm using the stable kernel instead of the unstable one. I get an error that says essentially unload the protected mode software and try again when windows tries to start. Are people taking out the smartdrive stuff or simply adding a menu entry and if someone wants windows loading it? BTW: I found out that curl can load a very large file without crashing on my system, but using it doesn't make fdupdate work. Are there special tricks I need to know about to get Windows 3.1 running on freedos? Do only older versions of Windows work? I picked up a copy of Windows 3.1 from a web site that specializes in abandonware. It passed clam antivirus scans no problem. I wish Microsoft would open source Windows 3.x and allow the open source community to fix it instead of trying to work around it's problems. What on a typical freedos system runs in protected mode? Maybe Windows 3.1 is stupid and it thinks the system is in protected mode? When I installed Windows 3.1, it seemed to start up okay. I just can't get it back up is all. There should be a law for abandonware that says you must open source it if you are not going to sell or support it anymore. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] New problems with Windows 3.1...
Not workgroup. If I don't load emm386.exe, freedos version, I get an error that I have an unsupported dos version. If I try loading windows 3.1 in standard mode, I get an error that there isn't enough extended memory. Uge! -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] New problems with Windows 3.1...
On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 14:34 -0700, Blair Campbell wrote: If I don't load emm386.exe, freedos version, I get an error that I have an unsupported dos version. Load the microsoft version that comes with windows, himem too. If I try loading windows 3.1 in standard mode, I get an error that there isn't enough extended memory. Uge! That didn't make any difference. It crashes to a C prompt that doesn't work with the message incorrect dos version. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] New problems with Windows 3.1...
On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 15:35 -0700, Blair Campbell wrote: If I don't load emm386.exe, freedos version, I get an error that I have an unsupported dos version. Load the microsoft version that comes with windows, himem too. If I try loading windows 3.1 in standard mode, I get an error that there isn't enough extended memory. Uge! That didn't make any difference. It crashes to a C prompt that doesn't work with the message incorrect dos version. Did you load FreeDOS Share? Yes. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Anyone know why 386 enhanced mode doesn't work Windows 3.1???
On Fri, 2009-04-10 at 10:34 +0200, Mateusz Viste wrote: On Friday 10 April 2009 10:24 (CEST), Michael Robinson wrote: I'm still getting the 2 near fnodes error with fdupdate. Do you tried the beta 0.55 version I sent you few days ago (the one using HTGET as a downloader)? Still crashing? Just to be clear, I need to wait for Freedos 1.1 before I use the 0.55 beta version? I've tested curl on a large file and it did okay. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Abandonware site...
If you own a computer that had MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 on it at one point, but your install media are fried, try this abandonware site. http://vetusware.com I worry about the legality of downloading from this site, but technically the software they are allowing people to download is unsupported and abandoned. I think the rule is 20 years old, but some of this stuff isn't that old. Use with care. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Is Windows 3.1 worth it and wordprocessing?
I notice that I can run Windows 98 SE on my old 486 DX2 66 with 32 megs of ram. Windows 98 SE supports more recent programs than Windows 3.1 does. Gem is nice, but it can't support windows apps and it isn't meant to. I'm not certain that I really want to try WordPerfect Suite 8 for Windows 95 on 98se. I don't think a 486 is fast enough to handle all the background processes that will be created. That abandonware site doesn't have Wordperfect 6.1 for Windows sadly. The disks for that sitting on the shelf seem to have corrupted. Same story for Wordperfect 6.0 dos which I'm trying to use from a backup. I'm getting weird results. It'll say it can't find a macro that is clearly on the hard disk or it will ask for the product activation code. The problem with software from the end of the dos era is that CDs had barely caught on at that point and a lot of software was distributed on disks. Well, the problem with that is that disks go bad. For old word processors, printer support among other things can be a problem. The printers that are available change over time and nowadays, network printing is common. I wish there was an open source word processor which will run on 386s and 486s running freedos. It would be nice if it was compatible with say CUPS. I would like to be able to launch this word processor from gem. It would be ideal if this word processor saved in open document format, but that might be too much for a 386/486 era computer. Openoffice is nice, but you need a lot of computer to run it and you have an option of running it under either Windows XP/Vista/etcetera or Linux. There is abiword, but again same thing. I tried to install abiword to 98se and found that I couldn't. The abandonware site I mentioned before offers Wordperfect 5.1, but I never owned a copy so I'm leery of downloading it. I'll admit that I downloaded Warcraft I, but I don't think Blizzard particularly cares at this point. If freedos had a gui with a nice networking interface that understands Windows networking, I practically wouldn't need Windows 98SE anymore. I'd love a copy of Wordperfect 6.1 for Windows if anyone has an image of the install media that is good. I'd also love a copy of the installation media for Wordperfect 6.0 dos. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Is Windows 3.1 worth it and wordprocessing?
On Sun, 2009-04-12 at 09:38 +0200, Mateusz Viste wrote: On Sunday 12 April 2009 07:54 (CEST), Michael Robinson wrote: I'm not certain that I really want to try WordPerfect Suite 8 for Windows 95 on 98se. If you ask me, I am using WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS, which does the job just fine. Speaking of that, some of my install disks are bad. I have a legal copy, but I am having a hard time finding a way to replace the bad disks. A wares site allows download of WP 5.1, but I really want 6.0. Why doesn't Corel or whoever owns WordPerfect 6.0 Dos release it to the public domain? I think my backup copy of WordPerfect 6.0 dos works, but it's acting weird. I wrote a lot of papers using Wordperfect 6.0 dos, it's a nice piece of software. Getting replacement install disks for it these days though is tough. I think 6.2 is the last dos version of WordPerfect. Surprisingly, I found a lot of sites talking about how to install Wordperfect 6.0 for dos on an XP system. These days, openoffice is my word processor of choice. On a freedos system, that isn't an option. I wish freedos had a free word processor that is comparable to WordPerfect 6.0 for dos. I don't expect freedos 1.1 to have a free word processor, but it would be nice if there was some action to include one eventually. It's illegal to let someone who doesn't own WordPerfect get a copy from you for free, but what if I could download an image of just the 2 or 3 disks that have gone bad? If I'm a liar and I don't have WordPerfect 6.0 dos, I won't get it by downloading 1 or 2 of the install disks. I have Wordperfect Suite 8 on CD, but freedos doesn't have a gui that is compatible with Windows 95. At least not yet. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Abandonware site...
On Sun, 2009-04-12 at 20:13 -0500, Jim Hall wrote: If you own a computer that had MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 on it at one point, but your install media are fried, try this abandonware site. http://vetusware.com I worry about the legality of downloading from this site, but technically the software they are allowing people to download is unsupported and abandoned. Please do not post links to warez sites or abandonware sites on the FreeDOS lists. I know you shared the link with the best of intentions, but I want to avoid confusing the goal of FreeDOS (creating a free, open source version of DOS that anyone can use) with that of warez (free [as in cost] illegal file sharing.) -jh Sorry. I did mention that it's a warez site. There is an interesting problem raised with old software. If someone lets me download a proprietary program that I have install disks for which don't work, that isn't illegal. That said, I'd choose a comparable free alternative over a warez copy any day. Sadly, there isn't an OSS alternative that is comparable to WP 6.0 dos yet that I know of. Technically, if the author of a proprietary program doesn't care about it anymore, sharing it isn't a legal problem. After all, someone has to come after you in which case you could offer to pay a reasonable price to continue using the program or give it up. I've downloaded Ms-Dos 6.22 and Windows 3.1 from that Warez site as well as Windows 95 pre registered. I have a 95 upgrade that doesn't work without 3.1 on the shelf, an old packard bell cd that I used to be able to get MS-DOS 6.22 off of and my dad had a fried disk set for upgrading to dos 6.22, and yes there's a copy of Woof woof, actually 2, around. The second copy has failed. I downloaded Warcraft I which I've never purchased a copy of, but I don't think Blizzard cares and if they do I'd be more than happy to either a) pay for it or b) delete it. All this said, I hope the freedos project eventually replaces all of the dos based versions of Microsoft Windows so that noone has to worry about being questioned about copy infringement. IMO, Microsoft should not have a copyright on software it has abandoned that it doesn't support anymore, but it just doesn't work that way. Sadly, the ReactOS project will only replace NT Windows and only for PIII and newer computers. Those of us who are using freedos because we are say on a 486 or older machine are simply out of luck. Ideally, freedos has an OSS alternative for everything. It doesn't yet. There isn't a gui for freedos that's free which can do Windows style networking similar to what you'd expect in Windows 95 for example. Wordperfect 6.0 dos as far as I know is more advanced than any free alternative. This problem goes further. One of the points of freedos after all is having a free and better dos to run old proprietary dos programs. I never owned foxpro for example and I'll bet that turbovision which has been suggested for a new installer for freedos is proprietary. If an old software program that the author doesn't care about is a dos program and there are no free alternatives that are comparable, downloading it is ethical. It is especially ethical if you have fried installation media sitting on the shelf for it. Warez sites get a bad rap, but what about Microsoft for abandoning popular software just to make money and not open sourcing it? I bet people will be handing out XP when it can't be bought anymore along with software to defeat the activation barrier. If there hadn't been a lot of illegal copying of dos programs, I bet dos wouldn't have been as popular as it was. Jim Hall, you are coming down awfully hard on me for mentioning Vetusware and I think you should step back and think long and hard about that. I appropriately mentioned that there might be a legal problem. Microsoft could shut the site down if it wanted to. I'm not a thief. The software they offer on that site isn't making anyone any money anymore. Do you really want to send the message to people that freedos is not to be used to run commercial software? -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] I lost the link to fdupdate 0.55 beta...
That's why I haven't been testing it on my 486 to see if it crashes or not. Since it's meant for freedos 1.1, how do I test it again? BTW: The archives for this list are really hard to search. -- This SF.net email is sponsored by: High Quality Requirements in a Collaborative Environment. Download a free trial of Rational Requirements Composer Now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-ibm-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Abandonware site...
But just to say the last word about this thread: please avoid warez, sources and links to any other illegal activities. Thanks. Aitor Downloading commercial software that you own a copy of for personal use is not illegal. Downloading old commercial software that isn't sold anymore which the author doesn't care about is not illegal. To be illegal, the owner of the intellectual property has to raise suit and why would they over someone using the product personally? The people breaking the law are those who try to profit off the software without paying the owners of it anything. I disagree strongly with the notion that using commercial abandonware is illegal or criminal in any way. If commercial software were never shared, it would never have the popularity that it enjoys. I'm not against paying for the use of commercial software, but if the author of the software doesn't care about it, why should I be prevented from using it? I can't pay for the use of a commercial program that isn't sold anymore and I am not interested in being fleeced by a third party seller which probably doesn't have a right to sell me the program. I have never talked about the source code of commercial software nor have I ever suggested that people go to a site that hands out source code. In fact, I don't know of any sites that hand out the source code to commercial software. I have never suggested that anyone else nor do I myself profit from my use of software downloaded from http://vetusware.com. I don't make money off of this abandonware. I don't even provide a source for other people to download it from. I allow people to download battletech I and II from me if they want to, but those programs are so old that I seriously doubt there's an issue. I don't appreciate this late, I have the moral high ground tone that you are taking Aitor. I am not a pirate. I do not go out and get whatever commercial software I can without paying for it only to turn around and try to sell it. -- Stay on top of everything new and different, both inside and around Java (TM) technology - register by April 22, and save $200 on the JavaOne (SM) conference, June 2-5, 2009, San Francisco. 300 plus technical and hands-on sessions. Register today. Use priority code J9JMT32. http://p.sf.net/sfu/p ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Abandonware site...
Speaking of abandonware, all the Nintendo games for the original 8 bit system fit that description now. Should anyone distribute an emulator to run the old games on PC's? Should anyone distribute instructions on how to get a rom image of an old game so a person can play it on his/her PC? Would it be wrong for someone to set up an ftp site where you can download old 8 bit Nintendo games and play them on your PC? How about games made for the Tandy Color Computer 3 by Diecom Products? That company is now defunct and has been for a very long time. You can download disk images of Guantlet II. Is that really illegal? MS-DOS and Windows 3.x are clearly abandonware. If I want to use this abandonware, am I suddenly breaking the law? I think there is a huge difference between using abandonware verses trying to profit from it. Hopefully if you want to sell software, you are smart enough to clean room create you own code and secure your rights to it. Aitor, you think piracy is a black and white issue. It is not. Busting Grandma for downloading a commercial song she bought a CD of at the local store is a travesty. -- Stay on top of everything new and different, both inside and around Java (TM) technology - register by April 22, and save $200 on the JavaOne (SM) conference, June 2-5, 2009, San Francisco. 300 plus technical and hands-on sessions. Register today. Use priority code J9JMT32. http://p.sf.net/sfu/p ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Abandonware site...
On Sat, 2009-04-18 at 22:59 -0700, Blair Campbell wrote: Downloading commercial software that you own a copy of for personal use is not illegal. Downloading old commercial software that isn't sold anymore which the author doesn't care about is not illegal. To be illegal, the owner of the intellectual property has to raise suit and why would they over someone using the product personally? No, it is still illegal. That is like saying it's only stealing if I get caught or I stole a laptop from my friend but he doesn't use it so it's ok. No. Theft involves taking property from someone where abandoned software is NOT property. If the producers of the software or the owners of the intellectual property have no intention of prosecuting people who share it, it effectively becomes legal to share it. Who is going to prosecute you for letting your buddy download an image of an old 8 bit Nintendo game? I am not saying that it is right to download a commercial software program if you don't get caught. I have never said that. A laptop and a lamp are property, a software program is not. I can copy a software program, in most cases, without taking away the owner's copy. I may not have a right to use my copy, but I'm not stealing by copying the owner's installation media. I think it is more of a legal gray area if you are downloading a copy of something you already own, not necessarily illegal. The people breaking the law are those who try to profit off the software without paying the owners of it anything. But you are (in a sense) profiting by using software you otherwise wouldn't use. If you want a copy and you want it legal, use ebay. Using ebay involves purchasing a used copy of the software from someone who no right to sell their license to use it. This software is often over priced on ebay. Wordperfect 6.0 dos on ebay, if you can even find it, is extremely expensive. Are you going to pay a pirate $300-$500 to have a copy of WordPerfect 6.0 dos for your own personal use on 3.5 disks that are probably shot? I disagree strongly with the notion that using commercial abandonware is illegal or criminal in any way. If commercial software were never shared, it would never have the popularity that it enjoys. I'm not against paying for the use of commercial software, but if the author of the software doesn't care about it, why should I be prevented from using it? I can't pay for the use of a commercial program that isn't sold anymore and I am not interested in being fleeced by a third party seller which probably doesn't have a right to sell me the program. ebay. At least you can feel good inside. That's assuming that I am not buying from a software pirate. I have never talked about the source code of commercial software nor have I ever suggested that people go to a site that hands out source code. In fact, I don't know of any sites that hand out the source code to commercial software. Source or binary doesn't really matter. Au Contraire, it matters a lot. With the source code of a commercial program, you can adapt that program to work on systems it was never designed for even if the original authors of the program won't. With a little reworking of the source, you can claim that it's yours and try to get around the original author's copyright and/or patent. I have never suggested that anyone else nor do I myself profit from my use of software downloaded from http://vetusware.com. I don't make money off of this abandonware. I don't even provide a source for other people to download it from. I allow people to download battletech I and II from me if they want to, but those programs are so old that I seriously doubt there's an issue. it doesn't matter. Yes it does. Legally speaking, a software pirate profits off of commercial software by selling copies of it, say on ebay, to other unsuspecting victims. The way you are treating software as property no matter what is very distressing. I wonder if you have a problem with people sharing and modifying open source software? I don't appreciate this late, I have the moral high ground tone that you are taking Aitor. I am not a pirate. I do not go out and get whatever commercial software I can without paying for it only to turn around and try to sell it. It doesn't matter whether or not you are selling it. If you don't own something, it isn't legally yours. Simple. On a side note, I could care less whether or not people use illegal copies of software on FreeDOS; that's a personal choice. But don't try to force your opinion on other people. You mean the way you are trying to force your opinion on everyone? Are you suddenly a lawyer who magically understands that there's no gray area when in fact there is a lot of gray area? I think you have been listening to Microsoft. Property notions don't work well when you are talking about software, especially ancient
Re: [Freedos-user] Abandonware site...
Use without author's permission is not legal, selling without author's permission is not legal (unless your local law allows otherwise), and making a profit of something gets you in court quite fast indeed. Bernd The GPL is an exception, it gives you permission to use the software it covers as long as you follow the terms without the author's permission. As far as profit, I have NEVER made a profit downloading commercial software I didn't purchase a copy of. Freedos could be proprietary. Actually, it never will be proprietary because the GPL doesn't allow that thank goodness. The software you can use with Freedos shrinks considerably if we start saying that abandonware cannot be used. Anything designed for dos these days is either abandoneware or GPL'ed as there are no commercial dos systems that are supported. If that isn't true, someone name a commercial dos program that is still sold and supported and the dos platform that it is supported on. Noone should have a right to profit from a program that is designed for a system that isn't supported anymore. The chances of making Microsoft support dos or even Windows 9x again are zero. Should the author of an Atari program who hasn't supported it since the Atari died out be allowed to demand observance of it as his/her intellectual property? How about color computer software? Should commercial software for the color computer even though it isn't produced anymore be recognized as such? Should I be allowed to sell commercial software for the original 8 bit Nintendo, assuming I could profitably do so? Is turbovision OSS software? Are all the development packages that should be used for Freedos 1.1 open source? There are practical problems with recognizing abandonware as being equal to commercial software such as Vista or Windows 7 for example. Should Novell prosecute someone if they hand their friend a copy of Netware 1 with the license code for free? How about Netware 2? Netware 3? Netware 4? There is a ton of commercial software that is either abandoned or superseded by newer releases. I own a copy of Warcraft II that I paid for and I downloaded a copy of Warcraft I from vetusware.com which I can't buy at my local store anymore. In fact, everything on Vetusware appears to be software that you can't buy from anyone, other than a pirate that is. Downloading commercial software that has been abandoned is not going to get you into trouble in court, especially if you have defective media for it sitting on the shelf. Ideally, owners of commercial software (the intellectual property) declare it to be public domain software even if they hold onto the source code when they abandon or stop supporting it. There should be laws that limit ownership when it comes to software because the current laws are creating software monopolies where Microsoft is one of the most well known. -- Stay on top of everything new and different, both inside and around Java (TM) technology - register by April 22, and save $200 on the JavaOne (SM) conference, June 2-5, 2009, San Francisco. 300 plus technical and hands-on sessions. Register today. Use priority code J9JMT32. http://p.sf.net/sfu/p ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Abandonware...
There is a need to elect leaders who will change the law concerning abandonware. Abandonware is any software program that is proprietary where the owner of the intellectual property decides either a not to license any more copies of it or b not to support it anymore. Typically, abandonware is tied to an OS or hardware that isn't supported anymore by anyone. Anything written for MS-DOS, Win 3.x, Win 9x, Windows Millenium, Windows NT x.x, or Windows 2000 is abandonware. The stuff written for Windows 3.x and dos fits the definition most readily where one could argue that stuff for abandoned versions of NT may still be supported and sold. Sadly, most abandonware is not licensed in such a way that people can take it on separate from the original authors or share it without permission. This limits software interchange and increases the digital divide between the haves and have nots. The problem of abandonware is also creating software monopolies. The European notion of property is a problematic one in general. It is responsible for the displacement in America of native people. In this day and age being applied to software, the notion is protecting abusive software monopolies such as Microsoft and Novell. There is a need to recognize that there is the public good to protect by placing a statute of limitations on copyright and patent restrictions in regards to computer software. Software patents need to be fought and copyright needs to be brought down to a reasonable level. A program should not be protected for the lifetime of it's author or the company that produces it. I feel the same way about movies and music. -- Stay on top of everything new and different, both inside and around Java (TM) technology - register by April 22, and save $200 on the JavaOne (SM) conference, June 2-5, 2009, San Francisco. 300 plus technical and hands-on sessions. Register today. Use priority code J9JMT32. http://p.sf.net/sfu/p ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] FDUPDATE and the 486...
Has anyone gotten fdupdate to work with a 486? I lost the link to fdupdate v0.55 and the instructions on how to use it in fdupdate v0.54. If using a 486 is the problem because of a bug in the math coprocessor or something similar, that would be nice to know. I've noticed that I get a C prompt back after the crash if I say 387=no in autoexec.bat. I haven't confirmed this, I should test with and without it to confirm. It seems to be true though. -- Stay on top of everything new and different, both inside and around Java (TM) technology - register by April 22, and save $200 on the JavaOne (SM) conference, June 2-5, 2009, San Francisco. 300 plus technical and hands-on sessions. Register today. Use priority code J9JMT32. http://p.sf.net/sfu/p ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Vista thoughts...
I have never used Vista. I think the minimum hardware requirements are too high for me. Worse than that, I don't even like XP because it's a pain to deal with activation and an even greater pain to back it up. I've never figured out how to back up Windows XP. That said, I don't use XP very often. It's annoying when programs like TurboTax don't work, and it's annoying when sites like nbc.com don't work, but CentOS fills my needs for the most part. Freedos opens up even more software, but there's the problem that getting a hold of commercial dos software legally is difficult where I haven't seen very many OSS projects for freedos. People are saying I hope Windows 7 will be better. Have any of these people ever checked out http://badvista.fsf.org? If activation isn't annoying enough, try digital rights management that can be hacked so that you can't use your own media that you created yourself. I've heard that there are still driver issues in Vista. The word on what OEM software has become in Vista land disgusts me. You should always be allowed to back up your installation media as many times as you want in any operating environment you want to. Windows Vista raised the operating requirements for Windows, I suppose you need a dual core computer now. Am I the only one who doesn't think this is particularly appropriate? Is Windows 7 going to magically bring Vista to older computers? I doubt it. I doubt that Microsoft is going to give up on making it impossible to back up installation media and I doubt that Microsoft will give up on forcing people to activate their copy of Windows. Now is the time to send a message to Microsoft that the abuse must end and the only way to do that is to demand a refund when you get a computer with Windows Vista or Windows 7 installed. Microsoft has no business denying people the right to back up their installation media, it has no business forcing people to activate software that it will later cease to support, it has no business playing media cop severely impacting performance. Free operating systems are getting to the point where you can get along without the latest version of Windows. Thing is, people have to actively abandon Windows, a.k.a. demand a refund, before Microsoft will get the message that it's business practices are unethical and unacceptable. It is also necessary to boycott software that requires Windows because it is not written to be portable to other OS's. Microsoft Windows is a monopoly OS because people allow it to be. If the public in general would stop accepting programs that need Microsoft Windows, Microsoft could not maintain it's monopoly. -- Stay on top of everything new and different, both inside and around Java (TM) technology - register by April 22, and save $200 on the JavaOne (SM) conference, June 2-5, 2009, San Francisco. 300 plus technical and hands-on sessions. Register today. Use priority code J9JMT32. http://p.sf.net/sfu/p ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FDUPDATE and the 486...
On Sat, 2009-04-25 at 16:35 +0200, Eric Auer wrote: Hi, Has anyone gotten fdupdate to work with a 486? I lost the link to fdupdate v0.55 and the instructions on how to use it in fdupdate v0.54. If using a 486 is the problem because of a bug in the math coprocessor or something similar, that would be nice to know. I've noticed that I get a C prompt back after the crash if I say 387=no in autoexec.bat. I haven't confirmed this, I should test with and without it to confirm. It seems to be true though. Please check if this is the case. Another thing is that you can put em387.dxe or wemu387.dxe or emu387.dxe or so...? The file seems to be emu387.dxe in djdev203.zip ... Somebody in the freebasic forum said: Anyways, in pure DOS (not Windows) I think you can disable the FPU detection for DJGPP by doing set 387=n and set EMU387=c:\mydir\wmemu387.dxe. It should work. I guess other options are putting the dxe in your PATH or in the current directory or the directory where FDUPDATE is etc. Eric I fried all my 486 processors and it makes more sense to fix a Pentium III up then it does to try and cobble together another 486. I'm getting out of the 486 business, so I may never find out if fdupdate will work on one. -- Crystal Reports #45; New Free Runtime and 30 Day Trial Check out the new simplified licensign option that enables unlimited royalty#45;free distribution of the report engine for externally facing server and web deployment. http://p.sf.net/sfu/businessobjects ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Abandonware site...
MS-DOS and Windows 3.x are clearly abandonware. If I want to use this abandonware, am I suddenly breaking the law? Not suddenly. It is and was breaking the law. Of course you can hope that MS is too busy hunting people who steal Vista, but you cannot just say that stealing MS DOS is suddenly legal... Some MS-DOS games don't work in freedos, something that can be fixed hopefully, and one needs MS-DOS for them. That said, games like Ultima VII and any game based on the Wolfenstein 3D gaming engine will work on 98 on down and in some cases in XP if you use either dosbox or in the case of Ultima VII, Exult. It is illegal to download and use MS-DOS, but I have a wrecked copy of it sitting on the shelf. If Microsoft were to try and sue me for my copy, I can point to the one on the shelf as well as the fact that MS-DOS licenses were never tied to specific computers. I could also complain that Microsoft isn't supporting MS-DOS and claim that it doesn't have a right to sue people over it. There is also the fact that I don't profit from MS-DOS in any way which is outside of the realm of personal use. MS-DOS to my knowledge never asked for an installation code and it is not marked in any way as copy XYZ. Windows 95 is a different story where I threw away my cracked copy which is labeled as being the property of McDonald's. The fact that Microsoft can prosecute illegal use of ancient versions of Windows and all versions of MS-DOS is all the more reason for this project to pick up and release a better freedos. It is also high time that a Windows 3.1/9x replacement got under way. Most games that run in either 98/XP are really meant for 98. ReactOS is not 98 and the ReactOS team will never pursue a gui that runs on top of dos. Actually, one thing I don't like about ReactOS is that it asks for identifying information including a name and company just like Windows 9x and later does. -- Crystal Reports #45; New Free Runtime and 30 Day Trial Check out the new simplified licensign option that enables unlimited royalty#45;free distribution of the report engine for externally facing server and web deployment. http://p.sf.net/sfu/businessobjects ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Improve sound card support...
It seems that the sound blaster ISA and sound blaster 16 PCI cards are the only ones that will work with freedos. Well, I have a soundmaker cadenza on my D845PEBT2 Intel mobo with a P4. It would be nice if there was a dos driver for this sound card, but as far as I know there is only a Windows 98/XP driver. There is the crynwr packet driver collection for network cards so why not make an open source driver collection for sound cards? Under Linux this is what my audio card shows up as using /sbin/lspci: 00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02) -- Register Now Save for Velocity, the Web Performance Operations Conference from O'Reilly Media. Velocity features a full day of expert-led, hands-on workshops and two days of sessions from industry leaders in dedicated Performance Operations tracks. Use code vel09scf and Save an extra 15% before 5/3. http://p.sf.net/sfu/velocityconf ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Improve sound card support...
On Sun, 2009-05-03 at 22:29 +0200, Eric Auer wrote: Hi! It seems that the sound blaster ISA and sound blaster 16 PCI cards are the only ones that will work with freedos. Well, This is not freedos specific. It depends on your games or other software that you use for sound output, exclusively. I have a soundmaker cadenza on my D845PEBT2 Intel mobo with a P4. It would be nice if there was a dos driver for this Dos does not have sound drivers. Dos games have sound drivers. sound card, but as far as I know there is only a Windows 98/XP driver. There is the crynwr packet driver collection for network cards so why not make an open source driver collection for sound cards? Because there is no widely used standard for drivers. If you have a driver for one game, all other game might ignore it. Under Linux this is what my audio card shows up as using /sbin/lspci: 00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02) Actually AC97 and HDA are quite widespread at the moment, so you might be lucky in finding a DOS media player such as MPXPLAY which supports at least a number of AC97 chips. Please describe in more detail what exactly you want to do with sound in DOS - play games? Play music? Something else? Note that an energy-saving alternative for the latter would be using one of those USB flash drive sized players... :-). Eric I have Warcraft I where I'd like to be able to play the sound. The game itself does not support my sound card. Surely, dos games aren't limited to the sound cards they were written for. Couldn't someone write a driver for my sound card that emulates a sound blaster? I like running freedos natively because dosbox on top of X does not fill the screen and there is no way to expand the window. It is frustrating that my computer has a built in sound card that doesn't work under freedos. Adding another sound card would be really messy. At least I have a beta driver for the onboard nic. -- Register Now Save for Velocity, the Web Performance Operations Conference from O'Reilly Media. Velocity features a full day of expert-led, hands-on workshops and two days of sessions from industry leaders in dedicated Performance Operations tracks. Use code vel09scf and Save an extra 15% before 5/3. http://p.sf.net/sfu/velocityconf ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] FATS don't match...
Has anyone else run chkdsk on their Freedos C drive and gotten this error? I have a 500 meg partition which is probably FAT16. I have used Windows 98 to defrag another partition that I allow freedos to access. Is the implementation of FAT in 98 and Freedos compatible? Using chkdsk, I tried a flag that I assume attempts a repair but it didn't fix the problem. The only thought I have is backing up and reformatting my C drive. -- Register Now Save for Velocity, the Web Performance Operations Conference from O'Reilly Media. Velocity features a full day of expert-led, hands-on workshops and two days of sessions from industry leaders in dedicated Performance Operations tracks. Use code vel09scf and Save an extra 15% before 5/3. http://p.sf.net/sfu/velocityconf ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Strange procedure to get sound working...
I got a SB PCI 16 bit sound card I picked up working by installing first to windows 98. Unfortunately, there is no way to install in a dos only environment directly. Worse, I have to create a Windows directory tree with mywindows98/system/nameofpcidriver.??? For dos initialization of the sound card, the driver's location in the Windows directory is hard coded. Anyone know of an open dos driver for the sound blaster 16 PCI sound card? I probably shouldn't call it a driver. What it really is is a virtualization layer to make legacy apps that work with a sound blaster 16 recognize it. -- The NEW KODAK i700 Series Scanners deliver under ANY circumstances! Your production scanning environment may not be a perfect world - but thanks to Kodak, there's a perfect scanner to get the job done! With the NEW KODAK i700 Series Scanner you'll get full speed at 300 dpi even with all image processing features enabled. http://p.sf.net/sfu/kodak-com ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] A windows 9x replacement...
being worked on, all it does is make people angry. Because you are unable to describe your problem in a way understandable to other people ;-) It's not that simple. Asking questions about when XYZ will work or what is being worked on raises people's ire because they can't give good answers, or so I'm told. The ReactOS newsletters stink, they are short leaving you with more questions than answers. There seems to be a shortage of dedicated developers for the ReactOS project and the problems the project is running into appear to be extremely difficult to solve ( meaning they will be time intensive ). Warcraft II BNE version 2.01A runs in Windows 9x and Windows XP. It was designed for 9x, which shows when you install it to XP and you have to be Administrator to play it. I would prefer to be able to play it under Freedos. I also have a program called Drivewire that allows my COCO 3 via the serial port to use my PCs hard drive like it's a disk drive. There's a Linux version, but the old machine I use is too slow for that and Linux doesn't support W2BNE without emulation of some kind ( processor intensive ). There is another program I like, Red Alert Command and Conquer Windows 95 edition, that only runs in Windows 9x. I would love to have a clone of Windows 9x handy that runs on top of Freedos so that I don't have to dual boot and I don't have to worry about licensing. I am not interested in a Windows 9x clone being MS-DOS compatible as I won't be running it on top of MS-DOS. Freedos should be better than MS-DOS where adding an MS-DOS compatible GUI might create a problem. I realize that a Windows 9x replacement for Freedos is a down the road sort of thing. I also hear people who complain that this is just DOS and not Windows. ReactOS is not useful at this point and even if it were it is not a DOS compatible replacement for Windows. There is a lot of DOS based Windows software that is orphaned because Microsoft switched everyone over to NT. The ReactOS project, originally called something else, was going to clone Windows 95. Asking for a clone of Windows 9x or 3.x is another way to make the ReactOS community extremely angry with you these days. Where is dos based Windows relevant? The ReactOS community doesn't want to discuss it. I naturally assumed that the Freedos community feels differently. Was I wrong? -- Crystal Reports - New Free Runtime and 30 Day Trial Check out the new simplified licensing option that enables unlimited royalty-free distribution of the report engine for externally facing server and web deployment. http://p.sf.net/sfu/businessobjects ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] A windows 9x replacement...
On Tue, 2009-06-16 at 05:21 -0800, dos386 wrote: No it is not and it is rude Try ReactOS forum. How long you will survive there before getting banned, if you are not yet. Have you been banned from the ReactOS forums? Too many people treat it like it's a mere hobby and tempers do flare on those boards, but I've never been banned myself. ReactOS is NOT a project that intends to replace the dos compatible versions of Windows. ReactOS is not the answer if you need to run a Windows 3.x or 9x specific program. development has been to at least support the versions of Windows that ran on top of dos. This violates the GPL. Where specifically does the GPL state that GPL'ed software cannot interact with proprietary software? If that were true, than playing practically any old dos game on Freedos if the game isn't freeware violates the GPL. Indeed if we accept this lie of yours that supporting Windows on top of freedos violates the GPL, then the kernel developers who have been designing the Freedos kernel with Windows 3.x in mind are violating the GPL. -- Crystal Reports - New Free Runtime and 30 Day Trial Check out the new simplified licensing option that enables unlimited royalty-free distribution of the report engine for externally facing server and web deployment. http://p.sf.net/sfu/businessobjects ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] What do you need from Windows world...
I haven't gotten the positive response I had hoped for trying to drum up some interest in a Windows 9x replacement. Some have talked about possibly enhacing HX extender and cloning Windows 3.x first, which makes a lot of sense. Maybe it doesn't make sense to replace dos based Windows. Maybe dos based Windows is dead. So what to do those of us who like some program or need some program that requires a dos based version of Microsoft Windows? None of the versions available are supported by Microsoft and none of the versions are Y2K compliant. There is an open source service pack for Windows 98 SE, but it doesn't fix everything that's wrong. One answer to the what to do question is to have people start to list what they lose that they want if they don't have a dos compatible Windows environment. I am talking Windows 3.x and Windows9x/ME. One thing you lose if you have to use Windows XP is the ability to run smoothly on older computer hardware. I am talking 500mhz and below. Also, some programs just won't work in an NT based environment. Some will say, just get NT versions of whatever you want. Great, but that rules out a lot of computers and there is no free NT option right now. There is WINE, but that only gets you so far. Well, that list could be useful as the programs people want from Windows land may be replaceable with equivalent ones that run on top of say opengem. For instance, how hard would it be using opengem as a starting point to support abiword or openoffice? How about firefox? You can get the latter three programs for Linux, but maybe you can't run Linux because you have a lot of dos software or an older computer. Yes you can run freedos under dosemu or vmware, if your computer is fast enough and you really want to. Thing is, maybe your games or whatever you use won't work so well under emulation. I run freedos natively. I have given up on trying to run it under vmware. Sometimes, I use dosbox under Linux. Nothing allows me to run command and conquer red alert I under Linux. So, let me start the what do you lose list: Command and Conquer Red Alert Windows 95 edition by Westwood Associates Internet Exporer 5 and earlier, maybe 6. Microsoft Office for Windows 9x. Blake Stone Aliens of Gold requires the MS-DOS 6.22 or the Windows 9x version. It can run on top of Windows 9x. Wolfenstein 3D has the same problem because it's probably based on the same underlying engine. It starts under Freedos, but none of the keys work. Warcraft II Battle Net edition requires Windows 95 or higher. Under NT, it becomes clear that it isn't designed for it when you have to become Administrator to get it to run. Diablo II requires Windows 9x or higher, but it's not designed for NT either also having the Administrator issue. ...Insert other programs that need Windows 9x or Windows 3.x to work... -- Crystal Reports - New Free Runtime and 30 Day Trial Check out the new simplified licensing option that enables unlimited royalty-free distribution of the report engine for externally facing server and web deployment. http://p.sf.net/sfu/businessobjects ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] What do you need from Windows world...
On Fri, 2009-06-19 at 10:29 +0200, Bernd Blaauw wrote: Michael Robinson schreef: I haven't gotten the positive response I had hoped for trying to drum up some interest in a Windows 9x replacement. Some have talked about possibly enhacing HX extender and cloning Windows 3.x first, which makes a lot of sense. Some have only talked that it might be possible if HX was enhanced, not actually enhancing it. Well, is it possible to enhance it? There is no support for Windows below Vista anymore. Why are people content to use unsupported versions of Windows meaning no Y2k patches and no service packs? I have Windows NT 4.0 Alpha that I wanted to update, do you think I can? I had hoped to burn a DVD on it, but I can't find a software program that will install to do that with. Windows 2000 worked fine on lower-end systems like a P2-350. I'm sure Windows NT has even lower requirements. ReactOS should still be at P100/32MB I think, a typical Win9x machine (anything below, Win9x was even crap for) Concerning ReactOS, please, it is only a hobby project for a few developers who have no idea when it will come out of Alpha status. Saying it only needs 32 mb and 100 mhz is ridiculous as it is being developed still. Concerning Windows 2000, that is an NT based system. Why would I go to an NT based system if I'm interested in games that work on DOS based Windows and not NT? I run freedos natively. I have given up on trying to run it under vmware. Sometimes, I use dosbox under Linux. Nothing allows me to run command and conquer red alert I under Linux. Wasn't there a Command Conquer - The First Decade box released a couple of years ago? I assume the games were patched up to run under WinXP (either native or compatibility mode). I've tried all the remakes of the gaming engine for Linux, they were abandoned and don't work. I can't run XP, the box I'm running CC on is a Pentium III 450 which is too slow for it. I don't want to install XP on a faster computer, the license is too expensive for one program and I'd still have to fight to get CC working anyways. Command and Conquer Red Alert Windows 95 edition by Westwood Associates see above. Internet Exporer 5 and earlier, maybe 6. Obsolete. Mozilla Firefox 2.xx runs on 9x branch still. Other browsers possibly as well. Microsoft Office for Windows 9x. Obsolete? I'm unable to determine this as Office can be very specificly used but for normal usage OpenOffice, Abiword etc also will do. Go with Wordpefect 5.1 for all I know ;) Blake Stone Aliens of Gold requires the MS-DOS 6.22 or the Windows 9x version. It can run on top of Windows 9x. Wolfenstein 3D has the same problem because it's probably based on the same underlying engine. It starts under Freedos, but none of the keys work. FreeDOS can set compatibility version to any DOS number. Not sure if that would help you. Curious that keys don't work. Warcraft II Battle Net edition requires Windows 95 or higher. Under NT, it becomes clear that it isn't designed for it when you have to become Administrator to get it to run. Diablo II requires Windows 9x or higher, but it's not designed for NT either also having the Administrator issue. So? Run as admin then under NT, 2000, XP etc or ReactOS. Diablo II works there with the Glide wrapper to my knowledge. Again with ReactOS, please, only the demo of Diablo II works there and probably because it was hacked into the OS. ...Insert other programs that need Windows 9x or Windows 3.x to work... There's many, but those using them generally have a license for the operating system as well. You miss the point completely. Many have a license for MS-DOS, but they use Freedos instead because why? Because they don't have a license for MS-DOS. Also, Freedos is able to handle larger partitions than MS-DOS ever could and it is on route to work with modern hardware. Even a project to create a free set of replacement updates for say Windows 3.x or Windows 9x would be appropriate. Microsoft is denying access to the updates it put out for every version of Windows that came before Windows Vista ( although XP updates may still be available ). The list idea is still a good idea even if people want to argue with me that Blake Stone and W3D work in Freedos. It will create a picture of what dos based Windows software people want and maybe just maybe something can be cloned or ported to say opengem. I for one would love to have a freedos compatible gui that runs Firefox. I don't care if it is Windows compatible quite frankly. I like Firefox better than Arachne for a number of reasons. First off, firefox has a filter plugin where Arachne does not. Second off, firefox 2.x and above is more compatible with the web than Arachne is. I realize that Firefox runs in Linux and that it runs in Windows, but if it would run in Freedos on a machine that can't run
[Freedos-user] Please remove Arachne from Freedos 1.1...
It isn't Firefox and so there isn't a filtering plugin for it that will block certain web sites. It is very low resolution by today's standards and php web pages aren't likely to work correctly with it. I've had problems downloading from ftp sites with Arachne with the download being corrupted. I don't like it when Arachne downloads to the cache folder instead of the download folder to a file with a random name. If Arachne had an option to password protect any attempt to access sites that aren't local to the machine it is running on, that would be somewhat of an improvement. I really want to be able to run Firefox from Freedos running natively. One option is to add a light distribution of Linux that runs on top of Freedos with a light version of X and Firefox. Another option is to add an X client for Freedos. A third option is to port Firefox so that it will work with a Freedos compatible gui such as opengem or something else. I guess a fourth option is to see about porting WINE to Freedos, but that would be a major undertaking. Arachne is not a great substitute for Firefox, but it's good enough without any filtering options that it could pose a problem on a networked system if filtering is needed. -- Are you an open source citizen? Join us for the Open Source Bridge conference! Portland, OR, June 17-19. Two days of sessions, one day of unconference: $250. Need another reason to go? 24-hour hacker lounge. Register today! http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;215844324;13503038;v?http://opensourcebridge.org ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Peace and Quiet!
I never intended to start a WAR over Arachne and coming up with a Windows replacement. I would like to see Arachne, because it's graphical and there are no filter plugins for it, moved from the Freedos ditribution to say an extras respository. I can't install procon:latte to Arachne, which is an over effective filter for Firefox 2.x and later. Lynx isn't a problem because it isn't graphical where there might be a desire to support reading simple text web pages that are local to the Freedos machine. MS DOS was never networked out of the box where Freedos to be like it should not be either. All of the network programs, except lynx, can be put into an extra repository that can be distributed on a separate CD. As far as a Windows replacement, a couple of comments: Dos based Windows is not necessary to support all of the programs I listed, W3D and Blake Stone work if you have a new enough version of them, but it is needed to support some. If Dos based Windows is used, Freedos is possibly being run on a computer that has 128+ megs of RAM. There are a LOT of old computers that have this much RAM. Even more if you include 486s with 64 megs of RAM. A Pentium III 450 can certainly run XP, but I don't recommend that. Making a list of what is lost if you don't have Dos based Windows is not a bad idea. People think of Dos, Windows has been popular since at least MS-DOS 3.3 where few programs were written when Windows was popular to run in straight Dos. A Windows replacement does not necessarily need to be Windows compatible. Opengem is technically a Windows replacement, it just isn't one that replaces say the web browsers that people typically ran in Windows 98. MS Dos existed all the way up to the Pentium which typically had 128 megs of RAM or more. That 128 meg Pentium is your typical Windows 98 machine. Freedos can ask, Are you on a Pentium, 486, 386, 286, or 8088, at install time. Based off of that info, it is possible to decide whether or not certain programs like Firefox for example make any sense. I seriously doubt that anyone wants to run Arachne on anything less than a 486 with at least 2 megs of RAM for example. If I am not mistaken, Freedos is being designed to work on everything from yesterday's computer to today's multi core 64 bit system. Why not? If Freedos is being run natively on a multi core computer, running a GUI that can support Firefox when there is more than a GIG of RAM to work with seems like no big deal. Certainly on a computer like that one can reboot to Linux or relegate Freedos to an emulated environment, but it would be nice if you didn't have to do that. A version of Linux that installs to a FAT directory and exits to Freedos when you are done would be fine. There is such a thing as the UMSDOS file system which Linux can be installed to, though I don't know of any modern Linux distributions that install this way. A Windows replacement that is Windows compatible is certainly a separate project. I have always been curious why the FreeWin95 project failed. A project to build a GUI that will run Firefox which can sit on top of Freedos might be simpler than a project to clone Windows 9x in entirety. In short, the state of Freedos's Arachne poses a security problem for anyone who needs to make sure that a graphical web browser has a local filter on it. Sure you might filter at the router to the Net, but that isn't always the case. On Sat, 2009-06-20 at 08:20 -0700, Jack wrote: To all involved in the recent Arachne and Windows threads: Look, you guys! We need peace and quiet on this and on all DOS forums, if DOS is to survive! Take it from a 63-year-old who has been in more than my own share of wars, like many of you know, and which I regret for the damage to DOS they did. DOS is dying. Some may say no, but I sense it is used much less than before, in part due to all the arguments on this and other forums among people who still do use DOS. My goal now, for UIDE and all my drivers, is to make them the best possible so DOS will SURVIVE! To this end, (A) they are again offered to all, (B) their sources are again available, and (C) I shall work with anybody and EVERYBODY to make them better! Japheth helped me speed-up UIDE in protected mode and I sent him a stripped UIDEJR he can use to upgrade XDMA32/XCDROM32. He is busy with JWASM, but if he ever updates his JLM drivers, [for which I am NOT expert-enough in protected mode], I will help him all I can! Bernd Blaauw wanted changes to UIDE that help his automatic scripts, and he got them! I am changing RDISK from a .SYS to a .COM file, which will then allow a user specified drive letter when loaded thru the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. [Not possible in CONFIG.SYS, a long story why!].Anything else I can think of, I will do! If I can do all that, so can all of you. Let's end the WARS, and do our best to keep ALL versions of DOS alive! Jack R. Ellis
[Freedos-user] DOS and network security...
It's starting to dawn on me that although Freedos is an excellent choice for being able to run most old dos programs, it's a nightmare from a network security point of view. I suppose there's the option of running it on top of Linux and using Linux to control where dos can go on your network, but I like to run Freedos natively. I guess I have gotten so used to Linux and Windows NT environments that I am taking for granted security gains that exist because there is a user context. DOS was developed before the Internet and before network security became a really big deal. To make dos secure would involve adding a user context to all the files and requiring that people log in I suppose, but that would be very confusing and I doubt it would be compatible. I'm starting to realize that Dos based Windows which is not an OS is also problematic because there's no user context. 98SE supposedly has user context, but everyone is an admin. Is there a way to enforce user context in 98SE to keep people from willy nilly adding accounts to get around the security? Short of locking up dos mode in 98SE, people can probably hack their way past anything I'd do. Eric says that there is no censorship with Freedos because everyone is an admin. Uge! How does one sandbox Freedos properly short of running it on top of Linux? -- Are you an open source citizen? Join us for the Open Source Bridge conference! Portland, OR, June 17-19. Two days of sessions, one day of unconference: $250. Need another reason to go? 24-hour hacker lounge. Register today! http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;215844324;13503038;v?http://opensourcebridge.org ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS, Windows and higher resolutions
On Fri, 2009-07-10 at 15:07 -0400, Santiago Almenara wrote: Hello! I've been using FreeDOS for a couple of months and it's working great. Right now, I am trying to install Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Is it possible to use it with higher resolutions? For instance 1024x768 16 millions colors. Is the process straightforward??? Thanks a lot, Unfortunately, my understanding is that Windows 3.11 won't work on top of Freedos. Windows 3.1 works in standard mode. Windows 3.11 is supposed to offer crude multitasking, but the freedos kernel is evidently not compatible with it. What do you have that specifically requires Windows 3.11 anyways? I have Windows 3.1 working on top of freedos, but I admittedly never use it. Windows 3.11 was distributed on CD, but a lot of the software from that era was on floppy disks that are shot by now. I don't think anyone really believes in Windows on top of Freedos. The ReactOS project that is trying to replace Windows XP directly with an OSS operating system started out trying to clone Windows 95. Part of why there is probably little to no interest in supporting Windows or a Windows clone on top of freedos is the fact that it will never be secure. Dos is inherently insecure, there is no user context and no hardware protection of any kind. What Windows software are you interested in that will run on Windows 3.11? I think you will find that most software requires either Windows 98SE or Windows XP, neither of which will run on top of freedos. Ask yourself, is Windows really an enhancement for a dos based system? Windows on top of dos is insecure and always will be. DOS is the quick and dirty operating system that was dominant on PCs in the early days up until the mid to late 90s. The advantage of dos is that it's simple and there are plenty of apps for it. The downside of dos is that implementing security is impossible. There is no way to protect software, impose user restrictions, filter via locally installed software, etcetera because everyone in a dos environment is a super user. DOS environments aren't like NT environments and Linux environments where there is an enforced user context and hardware protection. In Linux if you don't have the root password, you won't for example be able to bypass a local web browsing filter very easily. You can install a local copy of another web browser possibly, assuming you are allowed to have executables in your home directory. In a Windows XP environment, you can't install software at all if you aren't root. Supporting networking in a dos environment is problematic because there is no user context. Everyone is a super user, so viruses and worms can be a huge issue. There are some limitations to what you can access on the Web from a dos based system, but by no means are the limitations an effective filter. Reconsider running Windows for Workgroups etcetera. There is the Syllable desktop operating system and there are umpteen versions of Linux. ReactOS isn't stable yet, but it should be getting much better in the next 6-12 months. -- Enter the BlackBerry Developer Challenge This is your chance to win up to $100,000 in prizes! For a limited time, vendors submitting new applications to BlackBerry App World(TM) will have the opportunity to enter the BlackBerry Developer Challenge. See full prize details at: http://p.sf.net/sfu/Challenge ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos 1.1...
Anyone know where Freedos 1.1 stands at this point? I'd like to see it get released. I would also like to see a focus on supporting people who want to set up their own local update servers. Putting dos on the Internet has some major downsides. The fdupdate program seems to have an option to point it at a different URL, but I don't see instructions on how to set up your own update server. I'm concerned about how long it is taking for Freedos 1.1 to come out, the delay puts more pressure on people to go out and get updates instead of going to the next release of freedos. -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Whatever happened to freedos-32?
There was an effort to create a 32 bit version of freedos with memory protection and possibly some other features. What is happening with this project? I'm just curious is all. -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Concerns about topics on this mailing list...
DOS predates more than 4 gigabytes of memory on a single computer, yet there has been a LOT of discussion on having Freedos be able to handle that much memory. There has also been a lot of discussion on making sound cards which lack dos drivers work in Freedos. My concern is, these features won't exist in an MS-DOS compatible version of DOS. MS-DOS never did and never will support more than 4 gigs of ram. Sound cards that came out after Microsoft dropped support for MS-DOS will never work in MS-DOS either. There are still potentially some compatibility issues in Freedos. I am bugged that Freedos defrag still doesn't work all that well. I'd like to see Freedos defrag get fixed. MS-DOS and Freedos too are NOT multi user aware operating systems. If you are running a more powerful system than what DOS typically runs on, you probably need multi user awareness. A major weakness of DOS is that it doesn't protect hardware from software. Unlike Windows NT, you do not have separate kernel space and user space. Because everyone in a dos environment is a super user, all limitations that are of a network nature have to be implemented on the server side. This is a pain if you want to run Freedos and Windows on the same computer via multi boot. You probably want Windows to have more network priviledges than Freedos, but knowing what operating system the client is running is not part of the dhcp protocol. A more appropriate discussion for this list perhaps is how the Freedos 1.1 distribution is coming together. Another appropriate discussion is how does one set up their own local area network update server for Freedos? Freedos 1.1 after all shouldn't add any new functionality to Freedos, but it should improve on what is already there. Maybe when Freedos 2 comes out the open source Micropolis can be ported to it. This is the Linux version of the original Simcity which was a dos program. Another Freedos 2 idea is to implement an open protocol that is not TCP/IP for setting up one's own local area network complete with work to port it over to the Linux kernel so that your network can use Linux servers. The Netware IPX protocol should have been open sourced a long time ago when Novell decided to switch to TCP/IP, but it wasn't sadly. A lot of the addressing, firewalling, etcetera problems that TCP/IP networks have could be bypassed by using a different protocol. I just want to see the discussions on here relate to getting Freedos 1.1 out the door. As far as making Freedos the system of choice on modern systems with ridiculous amounts of memory and processing power, Linux and other OSes are a far better choice. -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Trouble with netbooting freedos...
I've been net booting freedos to play battle tech I no problem. Even with a ramdisk though, I can't get battle tech II to work. I picked up a packet driver for the D845PEBT2 built in nic, but whether it's wget or lynx, trying to execute the application simply causes the computer to reset. Uge! Network booting is nice if you can network where dos is nice with say Linux filesystem support because it's simple. Microsoft client is what I need, but there are no free ndis drivers for my built in Intel nic. There are no dos drivers for my AC97 sound card either. Would someone pretty please replace Microsoft client with something that works with crynwr style packet drivers? Microsoft hasn't updated Microsoft Client 3.0 in an inordinately long time. It would be nice if some of the more common network cards for which there are no NDIS drivers worked in Freedos with a Microsoft client like app. When I say network booted dos I mean that I'm actually loading it off of a tftp server. Microsoft Client 3.0 doesn't seem that complex. I'm surprised the makers of Samba haven't looked into producing an open source more up to date freedos compatible alternative. It would be nice if freedos could run in higher resolution and a Microsoft client clone could handle long file names. Maybe if ReactOS stabilizes it will be possible to network boot it and run it on a ram drive. -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Trouble with netbooting freedos...
I know about prodos.exe, it requires Windows to extract the drivers from it and the drivers you extract are probably Windows drivers. An update on the reset problem, updating to kernel 2039 and dropping emm386 updating himem as well seems to fix the problem. Another advantage of kernel 2039 is that one can fit more text on the screen. I use wget to load in programs to a a ramdrive that I created via fdauto.bat. The wget I use is the latest version and I had to add cwsdpmi to my 2.88 meg boot image. I've tried various shareware games successfully: commander keen1 and keen4, in search of dr. riptide, pea shooting pete, and the non shareware game battle tech I. In addition to games, I've tried Arachne with mixed results. It doesn't work if I install it to C:\fdos1 even if I add that to the path variable. It sort of works if I add it to c:\. For some reason, the mouse goes nuts after a while. Another problem is that I want to use IMAP instead of pop3. The next logical thing to try is adding ssh2dos to the things I wget and install from fdauto.bat. With that, I can in theory log in to the tftp server and change the netboot image. I'd like to get battletech II working, but to do that I need to fool it into thinking that it is installed to a hard disk somehow. Apparently, there is something called memdisk that I need to do that. I still want an alternative to Microsoft Client that works with the Intel non NDIS packet driver for my built in eexpress pro 10/100 fast ethernet card. The alternative should be samba compatible and unloadable/reloadable on demand. How hard would it be to create a tsr that allows one to use Linux network card drivers under freedos? The need to find a third party network card driver in this day and age is a pain considering that Microsoft doesn't support dos anymore and most commercial software outlets don't either. -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos 1.1 distribution...
The newest kernel 2039 seems to fix a lot of problems. Is there ongoing kernel development? What has to be updated still before Freedos 1.1 comes out? I occasionally see stuff get added to http://www.freedos.org, but the 1.1 release seems to be delayed. I see no reason why there couldn't be a 1.1 release followed by a 1.2 release up to a 1.9 release. -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos and weird hardware...
Bear with me, I suppose in a dos environment that it is hard to support hardware device XYZ because in dos most hardware is controlled by application programs. Sound cards for example are activated often times by games. I have the PCI version of the soundblaster 16 and it works under freedos, but not without a strange TSR. I think this program is breaking openssh which just hangs when I try to use it. Can a 32 bit or 64 bit version of freedos solve the driver conflict issue? In NT land, in theory, there are well defined APIs/ABIs and no direct hardware control by application programs. I've tried the 2039 kernel to no avail, the problem still persists. Has anyone else had trouble with ssh2dos locking up? I suppose I can go through my fdconfig.sys and fdauto.bat and try to figure out what is causing the lock up, but I just wonder if someone has solved this problem already and what was causing it? -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Must be hardware problem...
My Intel D845PEBT2 P4 System networks no problem and ssh works on it. On my Tyan S1854 Pentium III board, ssh doesn't work no matter how I load freedos even when I load it without drivers. I suspected that maybe the sbinit.com program was installing a TSR to emulate a standard soundblaster that was somehow crashing, so I made sure that fdauto.bat is programmed not to start it. Clearly, that's not it. The only thing I'm loading that I wonder about is doslfn, but it would be odd if that is causing the crash. The ssh program doesn't crash per se, it just freezes and nothing happens. I'm using the latest kernel, 2039. I'm really scratching my head on this one. BTW: What does ! do in fdauto.bat? I've noticed it being used at the beginning of lines that don't seem to need it. For example: !BUFFERS=40 Is there any way in freedos to dump the boot time messages to a log file? That would be a really nice feature for troubleshooting purposes. -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Strange apollo pro 133 chipset bios settings...
I have a VIA Apollo Pro 133 chipset motherboard with a PIII 450 on it. There are some memory timing parameters in the bios as well as some other parameters that include usb support, usb keyboard, usb mouse, assign irq for usb, assign irq for vga. Should I be assigning an IRQ for usb or vga? I'm trying to figure out why the nic locks up under freedos, yet it works just fine in Windows 98SE and MSDOS 6.22. I tweaked the bios settings somehow and got the NIC to stop locking up on ssh, but I didn't get it to work. Sadly, I don't remember what I changed from the standard setup settings. I have my de220pt in static non PNP mode configured for irq 9 and io 0x240. Now that works when assign irq for vga and assign irq for usb are disabled. I will also note that ACPI uses IRQ 9 where I wonder if that is why I am having a problem under freedos? I've noticed that Windows 98SE likes to lock up if it sits for a while. I'm wondering if freedos understands modern and not so modern but newer than the 386 bios settings? Clearly, some settings in the bios seem to trip freedos up. I wish freedos had a more powerful version of Microsoft diagnostics that understands bios settings which can help one diagnose the bios having improper settings. After dos became passee in the Win9x era and especially the WinXP era, irq sharing and other bios level tweaks became prevalent. One of the problems on PCs has been poor resource management and poor bus design. This is one of the reasons why I wish that the Alpha had caught on, but that is another subject altogether. -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos 1.1 delayed???
What are the goals at this point for Freedos 1.1? When might it actually be released? Freedos 1.0 definitely has some bugs still that could be fixed. Updating Freedos 1.0 is haphazard at best, especially with limited networking support and movement towards a newer updating standard. What are the long term goals for Freedos? I would like to see an effort to move from a free dos system to a free Windows 9x/Windows Millenium replacement. I would also like to see the abandonware issue get revisited as sadly most people who still use dos are going to want to use a software package that is commercially licensed but not legally obtainable. One area that I feel freedos at this point is weak in is networking. Windows 9x style networking essentially isn't available. I'm talking long file names, broad network card support, broad printer support, the works. I'm talking printer sharing. Another area that Freedos is weak in is word processing. You can download and obtain an illegal copy of Microsoft Word for dos or Windows and that will possibly work, but that is illegal. I would like to see an effort started to find out if Openoffice can be supported on a dos based platform. Can a dos based system running some kind of graphical user interface support the current crop of Java programs? Even a free word processor that is comparable to Wordperfect 6.0 dos ported to Freedos would be a great thing. So in short here are areas I want to see some emphasis placed on: 1) Create a Freedos compatible clone of Windows 9x/Windows Millenium. No, the ReactOS project isn't trying to do this and never will. 2) Make a best of Wordperfect/best of Word word processor that is GPLed available to Freedos users. 3) Abandonware. This issue isn't going away unless popular commercial programs are replaced with truly adequate free alternatives. 4) Fix the bugs as much as possible, this is critical for a 1.1 release. 5) Start a wiki on how to update Freedos and move towards people being able to set up a local Linux server to update their Freedos machines from. Perhaps a protocol is needed to keep these local update servers up to date. I'm thinking: ftp, rsync, http, or possibly something else. I for one would like to get updates on compact disc or DVD, the snail mail protocol. 6) Make a new installer that offers more advanced customization, but use open source tools to create it. 7) A lot of people don't use pop to access their email where Arachne doesn't support IMAP. Please someone address this. If Freedos had come out with a 1.0 release at the same time that MS-DOS 6.22 hit the scene, abandonware would be less of an issue. Unfortunately, most commercial dos programs that people want to use these days are very old, hard to obtain legally, or both. This is where pirateware sites come in and things get dicey unless there are free alternatives. People talk about Foxpro a lot, how about cloning it? It seems that there is a lot of emphasis on programming languages and some emphasis on hardware, but what about application software? Programming languages and hardware drivers constitute tools to build application software with. Is it time to make some decisions about how far Freedos should go concerning: word processing, web browsing, email, games, accounting software, etcetera? In 10 years time, the abandonware problem will probably get worse. I think the best way to address the abandonware issue is to steer people towards Linux for word processing, web browsing, general office productivity apps, and email. Beyond that, start cloning popular proprietary dos software. A project to go from HX Dos extender to a full blown dos compatible Windows compatible gui that improves over time, this could be a major catalyst pushing Freedos development going forward. -- SOLARIS 10 is the OS for Data Centers - provides features such as DTrace, Predictive Self Healing and Award Winning ZFS. Get Solaris 10 NOW http://p.sf.net/sfu/solaris-dev2dev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Who needs WIndows?
I have been interested in ReactOS, but as of today I gt my forum posting priviledges revoked for merely recommending that open source compilers and build tools be used instead of MSVC and the Windows SDK. The ReactOS community seems to be extremely abusive, so I no longer link to the ReactOS home page from my web site. I hope the freedos community never gets to be like the ReactOS community. Freedos has almost duplicated the functionality of MS-DOS and now there is the possibility of doing creative things. I hope freedos 1.1 comes together soon. -- Download Intel#174; Parallel Studio Eval Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance. See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Who needs WIndows?
I used to go by the name nute on the ReactOS forums. My site concerning Reactos is: http://web.robinson-west.com/reactos.php or: http://xerxes.robinson-west.com/reactos.php On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 20:33 -0800, dos386 wrote: Who needs WIndaube? I don't :-D I have been interested in ReactOS, but as of today I gt my forum posting priviledges revoked http://www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2t=8005start=45 nute ??? See above. We've had to deal with plenty of bugs in GCC over the years that we wouldn't have had to deal with if we had used MSVC from the start. This project has even filed several bug reports with GCC over the years, and some of them have been marked as 'won't fix' The magic POWER of developers to WON'T FIX all the BUG's :-D because the GCC devs either didn't think Windows was important enough to deal with such subtle issues or they didn't understand the mechanics behind the Windows specific issue. Yeah ... for merely recommending that open source compilers and build tools be used instead of MSVC and the Windows SDK. Good, but how is this related to FreeDOS ? Well, I don't see anyone in the Freedos community insisting that closed source compilers be used and I certainly don't see anyone getting banned for suggesting the use of open source compiler tools, thank goodness. The ReactOS community seems to be extremely abusive, so I no longer link to the ReactOS home page from my web site. Good, but where can I find your site at all ??? Look at the top of this reply ;-) I hope the freedos community never gets to be like the ReactOS community. I hope FreeDOS will stay DOS. there is the possibility of doing creative things. I hope freedos 1.1 comes together soon. Agree. Useful creative things, not cloning/supporting Windaube-Whatever-WtF again ;-) PS: Seeing MinGW inferior to VCC is sad but pointless to discuss here. Did you mean MSVC? I don't trust Microsoft and if the GCC folks don't feel like producing a Windows compatible compiler there must be a reason. I haven't used mingw enough to know what the problems are. In the dos world there is DJGPP. -- Download Intel#174; Parallel Studio Eval Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance. See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] AST driver problem...
There has been quite a bit of talk about AST hardware needing special drivers even under DOS. Well, if the company won't put the drivers in the public domain and there aren't very many AST computers in the world, the logical thing to do is recycle the ones that are left and replace them. Am I missing something? Are AST computers superior to normal PC compatibles? In general, can free dos drivers be developed for hardware that is otherwise unusable? For example, the sound blaster 16 pci card doesn't work apparently without expanded memory in dos and the driver has to be in a Windows 98 tree. Rather weird if you ask me. More to the point, you can't play Ultima 7 even under MS-DOS 6.20 because the game is not compatible with protected mode environments. Oops! There is Exult, but I find that it is somewhat unstable on top of 98SE. I haven't used it in a current Fedora system. Free operating systems whether we are discussing Freedos, Minix, or Linux have problems with certain hardware. In the Linux world unfortunately, drivers for modern graphics cards that work are hard to come by. In a Freedos environment, modern graphics card came after DOS lost most of it's popularity. On modern systems, one can use an emulated dos environment to create the appearance of a legacy PC, but what if you don't want to emulate? What if you are after real time computing and need to use the full capability of a modern graphics card? I can't think of a good example, but I'm sure one exists. Maybe Freedos isn't the best get the maximum out of a modern computer in real time OS. Dos was originally developed before the modern computers of today existed. Minix may be a better choice. I'm sure there are other real time OS'es available beyond Minix and Freedos. A few questions and points to take away: 1) Why should the open source community support rare hardware? 2) Can the open source community support rare or even cutting edge hardware? 3) What is it about DOS environments that draws people to them instead of Linux, Minix, etcetera environments? There is talk of not letting copyrighted software that the producers don't care about get lost. I think supporting software that is unpopular or not well documented inside and out in the public domain is a mistake. Freedos exists because DOS is well defined in the public domain and there are talented people who took that information implementing what we have today. Think about where the open source community focuses resources and why. One of the weaknesses of a real time OS is that it probably won't protect against bad programming in the interest of speed. Another issue, spaghetti code is more likely which is harder to maintain than object oriented code. Whether a true real time environment is necessary for a particular task has to be weighed against the disadvantages. Computers are so fast now that an OS which allows one to write maintainable code at the expense of some speed loss probably makes more sense than an OS which will run a program as fast as possible at the expense of the code being harder to maintain. Harder to maintain code is more likely to have serious bugs which is counterproductive when time performance is critical. There is probably a sweet spot between real time and general purpose that is appropriate for most applications. As a thought experiment, how do you design a real time kernel so that you can say this operation has to complete in x time and it will? -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos 1.1...
How soon will the official release be? :-) -- Ridiculously easy VDI. With Citrix VDI-in-a-Box, you don't need a complex infrastructure or vast IT resources to deliver seamless, secure access to virtual desktops. With this all-in-one solution, easily deploy virtual desktops for less than the cost of PCs and save 60% on VDI infrastructure costs. Try it free! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Citrix-VDIinabox ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos and graphical user interfaces...
The problems encountered strapping a GUI onto a DOS system are similar to the problems that were encountered when object orientation and classes were added to C to create C++. C++ is really a hybrid language, neither a strictly procedural nor a strictly object oriented language. Any GUI strapped onto a DOS environment will seemingly make it a hybrid. All dos environments share the following problem: Multiple users requires permissions on individual files and resources to keep users from walking all over each other, if such a thing is wanted. DOS environments only have a superuser. So, DOS environments are single user environments. Change DOS so that there are permissions on files, FAT filesystems present a real problem since they predate permissions on files. Many programs that expect uninhibited access to everything and anything won't work. The best you can do is run Linux or something even more secure underneath DOS via DOSBox. Each user has his/her own DOS system. Nowadays with companies greedily protecting their intellectual property, can you access hardware directly if you don't know what's there? Can you use a software library to access that hardware via a well known interface from your favorite OS? Does it ever make sense these days to have direct hardware access without the user abstraction? If DOS itself is in ROM and you are building a kiosk... maybe then if you can directly access the hardware DOS does make sense. Even a GUI on a DOS kiosk might make sense. What doesn't make sense is a DOS system that is supposed to be usable by multiple strangers where the system is not in a ROM but on a writable hard disk. Insofar as a graphical user interface can limit what can be done and make it easier to do what is intended, such an interface will make sense. So a version of DOS with no command line per se outfitted with a GUI could make a nice kiosk system. But if direct hardware access is improbable or software library access of hardware is impossible outside of say Windows 7, you are in trouble even if the target system is a Linux system. -- Ridiculously easy VDI. With Citrix VDI-in-a-Box, you don't need a complex infrastructure or vast IT resources to deliver seamless, secure access to virtual desktops. With this all-in-one solution, easily deploy virtual desktops for less than the cost of PCs and save 60% on VDI infrastructure costs. Try it free! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Citrix-VDIinabox ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos and graphical user interfaces...
A kiosk is a multiple user system, but not necessarily a simultaneously multiple user system. So DOS will work most likely. Chances are though, the DOS system files and tools themselves need to be on read only memory if there is any possibility of a person being at a command line and making a mistake or doing something malicious. DOS used in a kiosk breaks down if there is any persistent data tied to a particular person that needs to be saved on the kiosk, but often that isn't what you actually want. A large ROM and a lot of ram placing data on a ram drive is an option. Hit the reset button, the data is gone. Freedos in particular boots up quickly, so users can hit the reset button and the next person will be able to use the system shortly. Dos is simple compared to Linux, less to go wrong and troubleshoot. Dos supports some software that no other environment supports. Dos with local only area networking on a kiosk may be connected to a true multiuser multitasking OS so that individual user data can be saved securely. A kiosk in essence should be just a terminal to a more advanced server. The advantage of a true single user fast booting OS is that you can hit the reset button and you won't damage it. Don't hit the reset button on a Linux system, it may not boot again. Why are you assuming said DOS system will be accessed by multiple strangers? For things like FreeDOS, there will be a single user who installs it in the first place and runs it after it is. While it's theoretically possible to set up DOS in a VM so that different users have different DOS systems, t's far more bother than it's worth. If I am setting up a kiosk, DOS is *not* what I'll use. -- Ridiculously easy VDI. With Citrix VDI-in-a-Box, you don't need a complex infrastructure or vast IT resources to deliver seamless, secure access to virtual desktops. With this all-in-one solution, easily deploy virtual desktops for less than the cost of PCs and save 60% on VDI infrastructure costs. Try it free! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Citrix-VDIinabox ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.1 released
First off, I don't appreciate anyone calling anyone an idiot on this email list. Second, I haven't experimented with Freedos 1.1 myself, but I hope any difficulty others have working with it is dealt with both patiently and professionally. Myself, I'm waiting for the 1.2 release. Problems: - What's the purpose of the menu item Pasquale (see top shot) ? Are you such an idiot or are you just trying to play the troll here? It should be obvious to almost everyone that this is not an active menu item but as it clearly says, it indicates that this release is dedicated to Pat (Pasquale) Villani, who wrote the initial FreeDOS kernel and who passed away last year. Why the f*** don't you complain about the FreeDOS is a trademark by Jim Hall menu item as well? ... - CWSDPMI, VSM, DOSNTLFN, ... are in - INFOPAD, 7-ZIP, UNTGZ, HX/HDPMI32, MPXPLAY, FASM, CC386, FREEBASIC, ARACHNE, ... are NOT in ... what can you do with it when installed ? How about installing whatever software you like to run?... Ralf -- RSA(R) Conference 2012 Mar 27 - Feb 2 Save $400 by Jan. 27 Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/rsa-sfdev2dev2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- RSA(R) Conference 2012 Mar 27 - Feb 2 Save $400 by Jan. 27 Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/rsa-sfdev2dev2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] SB16 PCI not working...
It has to be installed using Windows 98SE, but once that's done one can grab the dos files for freedos. At least that used to be the way it was until I upgraded to Freedos 1.1. Something about not able to allocate below the 4 megabyte barrier when sbinit.com runs. I'm using Jemm386. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] DOS and timing...
Since DOS environments typically don't multitask, there's no need to time applications as they consume CPU resources and preempt them to let other applications run. Modern multi core processors can do real multitasking and don't have to simulate process concurrency. In DOS environments, there is no multi tasking, so it doesn't make sense to time programs beyond looking at whether the program's time complexity is roughly exponential or not. Is the solution to the problem a polynomial time solution or worse? If you need an idea real time of how your program is using the system's resources, you need UNIX, MACOSX, Windows, or some other modern OS. I guess there is nothing stopping you from writing multitasking into your DOS based application, think Windows 3.11. If you go to the trouble though of recognizing multiple processes and task switching, chances are good that you'll want to protect user A's processes from meddling by user B. DOS is a lightweight OS because unlike UNIX and Windows NT it doesn't attempt to block direct hardware access let alone provide abstractions for hardware. DOS is lightweight, but DOS applications are hard to maintain. Actually, hard drives and video devices are abstracted in DOS. As hard drives and video devices change, DOS has to change too. VESA is a standard, but is it updated? How about the BIOS which is changing now? There is talk of having to have a special bios and a boot sector signature to run Windows NT, how will that affect Freedos and Linux going forward? Printers and mice for example have changed over time where interfaces have changed beyond just the hard drive interface. Think universal serial bus, a replacement for serial ports, parallel ports, and PS/2 ports. For commercial DOS programs you are very unlikely to be able to use a USB printer with them. USB gamepads and joysticks? Not likely with games themselves having to support the hardware directly. USB video cameras? Again, not likely. DOS environments as far as I know don't even protect against processes accessing memory that doesn't belong to them. DOS originally was QDOS which stood for quick and dirty operating system. No protection means you can write fast programs and not worry about the overhead of protection, but you can't preempt processes to multitask without protection. Aside from simple applications which have to run fast, does Freedos make any sense? Emulated hardware running Freedos or DOSBox make a lot of sense so long as the DOS application of choice doesn't tax a modern computer. Knowing how long a program will take to execute is often important, but Freedos isn't the best environment for real time or otherwise time critical apps. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] A tool for CPU-load measurement
On Wed, 2012-03-28 at 23:27 +, Zbigniew wrote: You know: graphics is one thing - this is just actual fun project - but being able to detect instantly the weak place in program, which is causing unnecessarily high CPU load (say: looping for a key without any pause 10 ms), is the other useful thing. Then actually I'm looking for something of more general nature, that can be then used also in program, that has quite nothing to do with graphics. WARNING, you can't write a program that takes another arbitrary program as input and tells you whether or not it halts. This is called the halting problem. As far as loop troubleshooting, you may want to use another OS and a debugger to write your program. If the language is truly portable, you should be able to take your debugged program and compile or interpret it in Freedos. Since Freedos probably doesn't protect memory, programming in an environment that does is most likely a good idea. -- This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Freedos 1.1 install errors...
There is a syntax error message that flashes before the where to install freedos to and from menu comes up. Another problem, install freezes at installing command.com. Uge! -- Better than sec? Nothing is better than sec when it comes to monitoring Big Data applications. Try Boundary one-second resolution app monitoring today. Free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-dev2dev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
Windows 3.11 and Windows 9x seem to be the closest thing to a 32 bit DOS environment that I know of. I agree that creating a 32 bit dos would be awkward. Heck, 20 bit memory addressing is awkward, isn't it? If you need to run dos games or want to run a Wordprocessor like Wordperfect on an old computer that can't run Linux, Freedos 1.1 debugged makes a lot of sense. As far as 32 bit Dos or a Windows 95/98/98SE/Me clone, I guess that is too much work and that it really doesn't make sense. Actually, I wish someone would release a Windows 3.1 driver that can get my ATI Rage 128, XPERT 2000, card to output 256 colors. For that matter, how hard would it be to make a Windows like graphical user interface that can run Windows 3.1 software? What might make sense is being able to dedicate one core in a multi core 64 bit computer to running freedos via say a hypervisor. A hypervisor is a simplified OS where it's sole purpose to exist is to create a virtual hardware environment for other OS'es. Dosbox seems to run on any modern computer at this point. Syllable is very interesting from the standpoint of being simple, but the project needs more help. I think the number one source of complexity today in operating systems is that companies which produce computer hardware are Microsoft Windows NT centric. In other words, they develop for a proprietary OS and keep their mouths shut about how their product is actually laid out. Linux gets a bad rap because many modern graphics cards don't work 100%, especially AMD video cards. If there was enough competition like there used to be and people were more aggressive about using open source OSes, companies wouldn't be able to survive keeping their mouths shut and focusing on NT only. AMD and NVIDIA do release Linux drivers, but they are always deficient which I think is on purpose. If you want to be able to run Windows software, help the ReactOS people. ReactOS has a long ways to go where I think significantly more help would improve the outlook of people who have been working on the project a long time and overall increase productivity. Testing ReactOS is helping. Say you reverse engineer a piece of modern ATI/AMD hardware that a lot of people have which doesn't even work well in Linux. Something I've been mulling over is putting together a company that only produces standards compliant computer hardware where the standards are open ones that are readily available to everyone. It would be a big jump though to go from a B.S. in computer science to a company producing computer hardware that is both cutting edge and OSS compatible. What would the business model for such a company be? -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Sound card drivers...
I have a dos driver for the Sound Blaster 16 PCI card, but not a Windows 3.1 driver. The patch for the SVGA256 driver to make it VESA compliant worked beautifully, thanks for the tip. I've been trying to play LodeRunner where it crashes on the bomb scene. Why does Jemmex give an error when I exit Windows 3.1? Is it reasonable to remove the lines that fire up smartdrive? -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Why DOS shouldn't be emulated...
There has been a fair amount of just run it under emulation being said. One of the advantages of DOS is that it isn't a modern operating system. An easy way to install Freedos safely to a desktop computer involves the following: 0) Back up all existing systems. 1) Disconnect all existing hard drives. 2) Buy a hard disk to put Freedos on, if you have room for another one and a place to plug in. 3) Install Freedos to the whole entire hard drive or however you want to install it, maybe you want to put Linux on there too ;-) 4) Hook all the drives back up. 5) Adjust your bios appropriately. 6) Use BootIT bare metal or grub or something similar to set up booting for all of your OSes. Now on a 64 bit computer, Freedos may have to be run under emulation. A variant of these instructions is to get a PIII or P4 32 bit computer and dedicate that to Freedos. The problem with emulation is that you are throwing the simplicity of DOS away and introducing compatibility issues. Emulation is getting better and if you are constantly rebooting between Freedos and Linux or Freedos and Windows, emulation may be a necessity. Still, a good KVM switch and a dedicated DOS computer also solves the reboot issue. Freedos will work fine on anything from an 8086 up to a Pentium 4. Don't underestimate the utility of dedicating a computer to DOS. A thought that comes to mind is that you don't want to worry about your kids who are interested in playing video games screwing up your computer. A dedicated DOS machine makes a lot of sense for that. -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] DOS based backup delivered via PXE...
I blew it, my Linux From Scratch system that I've been trying to tailor to run over NFS so I can use it for backup and restoration purposes no longer has /usr/bin or /usr/sbin. Are there any free dos based backup solutions that work over network? The obvious problem is network card and file system support. If I want to back up say a Syllable 0.6.7 system, I need Andrew File System support. I found on a web site the idea of using a diskless Linux system NFS root with dosemu and ghost installed. However, ghost isn't free and I don't think it can handle the Andrew file system for example. It is a lot of work to build Linux from scratch. Linux is a capable enough system to back up anything, especially if it is booted NFS root. This seems like overkill big time though. The annoying thing about mondo backup is that there are no instructions for installing the tools to a Linux From Scratch system. Oops! Seems like there should be a solution where freedos is PXE booted with a backup/restore program installed. If freedos supports network cards as well as Linux for free in the future, that will help considerably. The minimal Linux with dos running on top idea isn't a bad idea. In theory, the underlying Linux system can take care of the networking. File system support can still be a problem, but in theory, supporting Andrew file system in a dos environment should be easier than supporting the latest gigabit network card. -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS bootable CD image sought
On Sat, 2012-11-24 at 20:47 -0800, Ralf A. Quint wrote: At 07:28 PM 11/24/2012, bruce.bowman tds.net wrote: This may be a FAQ. I have an old DOS program that I wrote and still want to run, but it uses VESA 3.0 SVGA graphics, which are not [fully] supported by later versions of Windoze.* To make matters worse, the program writes to disk during operation, and no modern computer has FAT16 partitions anymore. So I'm looking to package the program on a CD with FreeDOS, DOS 7.1 or something that can provide DOS functionality and write to a FAT32 partition. And preferably, the program should autorun upon bootup. Well, your main problem here is that in case of an machine running Windows XP, you are likely using a hard drive formatted with NTFS and not FAT32, which means you would be at the mercy of a working NTFS file system driver as well, and that is at least in terms of write access a bit of a gamble IMPE... Ralf Can you perhaps create a freedos boot disk? Should be an option if you have an install CD. What is the size of this program that needs a fat16 file system specifically? I think you can have up to a 504 meg partition and still use FAT16. Any chance you can shrink that NTFS partition by 500 megs and install Freedos to a second primary partition using ntfsresize or partition magic? Another approach is to use Linux via a live CD to back up Windows XP to an external hard drive. Set that back up aside, make the NTFS partition the first primary partition making freedos install on a second primary partition. Any decent live Linux CD can resize NTFS partitions to open up 500 megs of space. An easier approach is to add another hard drive and install freedos onto that. How old is your computer? Good luck. -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Try gparted on a live CD.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php Based on Debian I believe, there is a download link you'll need to click to get the iso image. Deepburner is a free CD/DVD burning tool that works in Windows XP/2000. There is a way to create a virtual floppy disk under Linux and burn that to CD. I think mtools is what you want. -- Monitor your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure from a single web console. Get in-depth insight into apps, servers, databases, vmware, SAP, cloud infrastructure, etc. Download 30-day Free Trial. Pricing starts from $795 for 25 servers or applications! http://p.sf.net/sfu/zoho_dev2dev_nov ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] FLTK...
It is impressive, quite fast actually. Unfortunately, I tried to use it in VirtualBox only to have it choke when I attempted to enable networking. The Crynwr packet drivers are not very complete either. This gui seems well on track to replace the aging and proprietary Windows 3.1, especially if it supports the win32 api. It would be nice to be able to install fltk to a standard Freedos 1.1 system. Maybe there can be a freedos 1.1 update to being in fltk and some of the other 1.0 software that has been left out. -- LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] What about scsi???
I guess my Compaq 4.3 gig scsi hard drive is the part that doesn't work. I swapped in a Seagate Cheetah drive, works just fine without any kind of driver. -- LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Windows 98SE screwing up Freedos 1.1...
First I installed Freedos 1.1 and used the 4x4 NEC cdrom, only the first slot seemed to work, to copy over the Windows 98SE cabinet files. I then proceeded to boot from the 98se cdrom and run setup from the directory with the cab files. Long story short, this screwed up the freedos installation. Is there a simple way to repair the freedos installation so that Windows and Freedos can happily coexist? Looks like freedos command.com got renamed to command.dos and I've already renamed autoexec.bat to fdauto.bat, but fdconfig.sys seems to be missing. One option is to use a program called fips, delete the freedos stuff, and install freedos to a second primary partition. This is somewhat of an extreme approach though. For the most part, I only want to run old games like Warcraft II where freedos + hxrt might do the trick, except that I'll need networking too. A working ReactOS would support these old games, but there hasn't been another release for months and I can't even get the latest trunk to build. Running an unlicensed copy of 98 is not the best idea where there's the issue of 98 having a lot of bugs and being out of support. -- LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] freedos-98
On Thu, 2012-12-20 at 03:32 +, dos386 wrote: I'm not even sure there's a reason to have FreeDOS in the mix. Sure there is, especially if your 98 copy isn't legal. My copy is sort of legal, but I don't have as many licenses for it as I have computers running it. The computer I'm running Windows 98 on is under spec for emulation. It only has a K6-2 500 processor. So yes, if I can run hxrt on top of freedos and come up with some sort of packet driver for the PCI Realtek network card... that will be legal and I won't have to worry about how many computers I'm setting up to play Warcraft II. I am curious if you can run Warcraft II under Wine on more powerful computers and apply ipxwrapper to get around the no IPX problem? I've run Warcraft II via Wine, but I've never tried to play a network game with that kind of setup. A 98 clone or ReactOS stabilized is definitely needed for these old games. DOS is a good choice on aging computers where anything that operates at speeds below a gigaherz is an antique already, except for embedded processors. Actually, ReactOS used to an effort to clone Windows 95 until that was abandoned in favor of the NT architecture. Sadly, there probably isn't the interest to support cloning 98. I use Freedos for a lot of my old games, but 95/98 era games are not always compatible with plain old dos. I wonder if Freedos32 some day will have extensions to support old games designed for Windows 98? There was an effort to produce a free clone of Warcraft II called Freecraft, but that effort was squashed by Blizzard. -- LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Windows 98SE and ipxwrapper...
Windows 98 sort of running on top of a DOS system doesn't work with ipxwrapper-0.4.0. There is an error that iplphapi.dll can't be found or something similar. Turns out, this DLL probably doesn't show up till Windows 2000. So the thought of using Windows 98 boxes and Windows 7 boxes together goes out the Window. A game that was originally run from the DOS command line if I'm not mistaken can't be run from Windows 98SE when Windows 7 is the master server. Yikes! Hmm, I guess I could run 2000 instead even though the computer is only a K6-2 500 and I'd probably have to search for SIS 530 W2K video drivers. Don't have a legal 2nd copy of 2000, but there doesn't seem to be a legal way to solve this. There are a lot of games that aren't DOS games and aren't NT games. Windows 98 in my opinion is a sort of aberration, Microsoft should have skipped Windows 9x in favor of bringing everyone into an NT environment sooner. I'm sure there is a dos driver for my Realtek 8139 10/100 network card. But ipxwrapper is intended for NT and HX probably won't run Warcraft II. I'd love something legal that isn't the full blown Windows 98SE to run games like Warcraft II and Diablo II that are in that transitional period. I just hope that the ReactOS developers get something stable put together soon. I have a Windows XP Home upgrade kit, it is in use though. I'm worried that XP won't even run on this old machine, but I guess stripped down I can get away with it. Sadly, XP phones home so Microsoft will know that I'm running it illegally. What is needed is a protected mode DOS like Windows 98SE, but much lighter, that can run directx 6 or so and do the ipxwrapper trick. -- LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Made XP work okay...
I got my K6-2 500 with 504 megs of ram running XP SP3 well enough by turning off the swap file. Don't let XP swap, Warcraft II works fine. The scsi hard drive, despite being a Seagate Cheetah, really slows the system down. I don't let my Linux firewall allow this old machine to access the Net, so there are a LOT of protection programs I don't need to run. I don't need spywareblaster, clamwin, spybot search and destroy, crap cleaner, or Windows defender for starters. I'm not 100% confident in the method I used to bypass activation. Would Microsoft please distribute an activation crack and let people freely use 32 bit Windows XP at will? I've been studying Windows 7 verses Windows XP and honestly, it's a toss up. Both systems are bloated and complex. A ROM based dos system is more secure than even the typical Linux system and it's going to be light weight. That's not saying much though, I can't compare Apples to Oranges and be fair about it. The ipxwrapper hack seems to force one to use Windows NT 4.0 or newer. If only someone would port ipxwrapper to freedos and write a program to create a DOS executable out of a Win32 app like Warcraft II BNE. Add network card support for many of the current network cards and on mobo nics to that, there is suddenly no reason why Warcraft II can't be played on old computers using a: free, lean, and nice operating system. Warcraft II and Freedos's memory footprint is small enough, even if the necessary WIN32 support is added most likely, that one should be able to run the game using freedos in way under 100 megs. Note that most network cards built into motherboards and many PCI network cards are currently not supported in DOS and one has to take care of that somehow. I think that running Warcraft II Battle.Net edition on a freedos system is possible, but there are a lot of pieces to pull together and Blizzard probably won't offer to help. Come on Blizzard, these games are not earning you revenue anymore and they are very popular. It annoys people when a company crushes efforts to create open source clones of it's popular software and this can incite boycotts. I am a legal owner of Warcraft II BNE, two copies actually. I should be able to play Warcraft II on systems that are current and supported as well as open. I'm sure ReactOS will work just fine on old hardware if it is stabilized, but it isn't stable right now and the developers have not released since October or longer. The only way to get free Windows NT it seems is to support the ReactOS project. Sadly, I can't. Even if they make their fundraising goals and can hire competent programmers to help move the project along faster, there is no telling when stability will be achieved. -- LogMeIn Rescue: Anywhere, Anytime Remote support for IT. Free Trial Remotely access PCs and mobile devices and provide instant support Improve your efficiency, and focus on delivering more value-add services Discover what IT Professionals Know. Rescue delivers http://p.sf.net/sfu/logmein_12329d2d ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Long-term survival of FreeDOS
Dos makes sense for 8/16 bit computers that can't handle multitasking very well. There are plenty of 8/16 bit computers around still, think e-readers probably and other embedded devices that don't need the higher functionality a 32/64 bit machine/multi core machine offers. Dos was a quick and dirty operating system that was needed when personal computers were far less powerful and something cheap was needed now. Nowadays, except for special purpose/embedded devices, DOS doesn't make much sense. As we move away from the original BIOS model, I hope dosbox gets updated sufficiently. There is real time Linux, I don't know much about it though. About the time that Windows 95 came out, DOS lost official support. Microsoft should have gone straight to NT, but Microsoft didn't. Windows 9x is a nasty quasi dos/partial implementation of Win32. It isn't DOS and it isn't NT. Unless your computer is a 16 bit 286 or older machine, Linux will run on it. A 386 won't run a modern Linux distribution most likely and it definitely won't run Firefox, but chances are good that it will run Freedos directly or a pared down Linux system with dosbox. The 90's were a sad period for diversity of general purpose computers and DOS as well. The Tandy Color Computer III for example disappeared in the early 90's and the Commodore seems to have gone away as well. The DEC Alpha basically failed on the market about 1998 or so. Sun Microsystems is no more and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Sun stations are no more. General purpose computer diversity has diminished, but cell phones and tablets vary widely at least as far as hardware and software. Hopefully, Microsoft's attempt to dominate tablets won't lead to another period of Monopolization. I blame the consumer for the Microsoft domination and the decline of all of the competitors except Apple. Apple being 50% owned by Microsoft isn't much of an alternative though. As long as there are old computers, special purpose computers doing real time work, and modern computers that can emulate older ones Freedos should have a future. Freedos without Win32 though leaves out a lot of software that has kinda fallen through the cracks as some of this stuff doesn't even work in NT. I think ReactOS which is based on NT is the better way to address that than adding a Windows 9x compatible gui to Freedos. I question the wisdom of maintaining Freedos long term. Sooner or later, people will have to emulate for Freedos anyways which means that they will have to deal with a modern operating system and modern hardware. What will be needed going forward is capable software that works on other systems. If you like Lotus 123 for example, you might like LibreOffice or GNU cash. Syllable may take off and will likely support software programs that are unique to it. Trying to address the need for a system compatible to one that was popular in the past is a difficult proposition, and there may be little interest if the public as a whole is enamored with newer computers that can do more. The wisest thing to do perhaps is to help projects like Syllable and ReactOS and pressure legislators to crack down on Microsoft's strangle hold on the software market. Freedos is in pretty good shape where the developers can probably do more good by working on other systems that are positioned to take better advantage of modern hardware. On Wed, 2013-01-02 at 20:57 -0500, dmccunney wrote: On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 7:57 PM, Jim Lemon j...@bitwrit.com.au wrote: If there was a Linux kernel in which the user could turn off everything that isn't in DOS, that would be a way out. If you could turn off everything that *isn't* in DOS, you might have fun running the Linux kernel. You run DOS in an emulator on top of Linux because you can't *get* DOS to run native on that hardware. Drivers are needed that don't exist. What you probably want is a flavor of Linux modified for use in an RTOS, where a user process can preempt the kernel itself. But on modern hardware, other time-critical programs that will carve out slices of CPU time are likely a Who cares? issue. Commonly used hardware is orders of magnitude faster than the machines DOS was made to run on, and there are cases like games where you might specifically *want* to steal CPU slices, because otherwise your game runs *too* fast and is unplayable. . __ Dennis https://plus.google.com/u/0/105128793974319004519 -- Master Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL, ASP.NET, C# 2012, HTML5, CSS, MVC, Windows 8 Apps, JavaScript and much more. Keep your skills current with LearnDevNow - 3,200 step-by-step video tutorials by Microsoft MVPs and experts. ON SALE this month only -- learn more at: http://p.sf.net/sfu/learnmore_122712 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos V2.0 - when will it be available?
On Tue, 2013-01-08 at 18:46 +0100, Bernd Blaauw wrote: Op 8-1-2013 15:38, KOS schreef: Hello there, do you know when V2.0 of freedos will be available? I'm not sure there's going to be a V2.0 sometime soon, be there FreeDOS roadmaps or not. I'm still quitely working on version 1.2 of the FreeDOS distribution whenever I find spare time. Is there anything that you need but find lacking sofar in the 1.0 and 1.1 releases? Or for that matter in the core components like the kernel and shell? Bernd There are some programs that require Windows 3.1 or 3.11 which can run on top of Freedos, but more work on compatibility would not hurt. ReactOS may fill the niche of Windows replacement eventually, but not for a while most likely. Worse, for Windows programs that expect there to be dos underneath, enough said. A protected mode dos like the one under Windows 9x and Windows ME could be interesting and would justifiably deserve a different name like Freedos-32. The problem with a dos environment is that there isn't an operating system taking care of all the hardware and providing standard calls to use it. Most sound card support involved adding to your program in most likely a spaghetti fashion calls to a third party driver, closed source of course. Windows 98 may have had multitasking, but if that is true, it was more than just a single thread dos system. Gates made some very bad assumptions that crippled dos back in the day. Assumption one, nobody will ever need more than 640k of memory for executable programs and drivers... I imagine that other bad assumptions were made as well. Actually, there is OS/2 which was supposed to be the competitor to Windows 9x and I'll bet that IBM is willing to release source code to it. Maybe the freedos community should get it's hands on OS/2 and develop it further. Aside from taking bugs out of Freedos 1.1, I don't see any major changes that should be made. Implementation of a Windows 9x clone is going to be too much work where there is the ReactOS project that gave up on trying to do that years ago. I'm confident that ReactOS will work better on old computers than XP does. Granted, ReactOS is at a very early alpha stage where it is somewhat futile to predict what the resource requirements will be when it stabilizes. I like FLTK, I like opengem, I like some of the graphical user interfaces I have seen that are free. Problem though, graphical user interfaces on top of dos are an afterthought even today. There was no planning when dos was initially invented that I know of for guis. There are plenty of MS Dos programs that aren't Windows compatible, because a Windows compatible programming method wasn't employed. What I'd like to see at this point is a focus on debugging and a focus on deploying Freedos via a rom chip. It should be possible to get write once 1 meg+ memory chips now. Why not install the freedos kernel, command.com, etcetera on such a chip? If you can't overwrite the operating system executable, security is enormously improved. For low power embedded processors that are say only 8 bit, freedos may be very useful. A hypervisor that can run dosbox and make modern hardware work with old dos programs anyone? How about dosbox running on a Pentium 133 or a Pentium 166 machine with 16 megs of ram? -- Master Java SE, Java EE, Eclipse, Spring, Hibernate, JavaScript, jQuery and much more. Keep your Java skills current with LearnJavaNow - 200+ hours of step-by-step video tutorials by Java experts. SALE $49.99 this month only -- learn more at: http://p.sf.net/sfu/learnmore_122612 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos V2.0 - when will it be available?
Most embedded processors (that are still actively produced) are 32-bit. Anyways, I don't think FreeDOS qualifies, at least not for 8-bit (AVR??) ones. PIC16F505, PIC16F1938... these are microchip baseline 8 bit microprocessors intended for embedded use. Yes microchip offers 32 bit processors, but one often doesn't need them unless USB or ethernet is required for the application at hand. It would be interesting to port Freedos to something other than the ia32 architecture. -- Master Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL, ASP.NET, C# 2012, HTML5, CSS, MVC, Windows 8 Apps, JavaScript and much more. Keep your skills current with LearnDevNow - 3,200 step-by-step video tutorials by Microsoft MVPs and experts. ON SALE this month only -- learn more at: http://p.sf.net/sfu/learnmore_122712 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Active GUI development?
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. -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Think I have a hardware mess...
I have a Pentium III 750, 768 megs of ram, and a soundblaster 16 PCI card. Turns out, that sound card was causing a crash, a 0D exception. I got around that by adding the SB option to the jemm386.exe line. Well, trying to add msclient as it seems to be the only way to go for a national semiconductor DP83815 network card. Goal has been to run fdnpkg to update my freedos 1.1 system. Apparently, the only choice is to have crynwr working, but that requires that I use a different nic. The msclient 3.0 dos software is a horrible memory hog. As soon as I do a ping www.yahoo.com, I get a different crash and it is a hard crash involving again jemm386. Are there special flags that are needed on jemm or himemx? Has anyone gotten Microsoft Client to work with a Netgear FA311 card and a soundblaster 16 PCI card? Though I'm not trying to support it in Freedos, I should mention that there is a Hauppage PCI PVR 150 card that I use in Windows 2000 so I can run my Playstation II on the same monitor that the computer uses. -- October Webinars: Code for Performance Free Intel webinars can help you accelerate application performance. Explore tips for MPI, OpenMP, advanced profiling, and more. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60135991iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] running windows 3.1
On Fri, 2013-12-27 at 10:40 -0500, James Crawford wrote: Hey Guys, I have a Pentium 3 running Freedos alone. I tried to load Win 3.1 and got the error : Win 3.1 will not run in protected mode. I understand that the command.com runs in protected mode. Do I have to change this permanently to run Windows. How do I get Windows to work? Thanks! Jim Crawford I have Windows 3.1 working on a Pentium 3 running freedos 1.1. I think I'm using Jemmex for the memory manager and I believe I'm running it in 386 enhanced mode. That said, I get a memory manager crash when I exit Windows 3.1 and I notice that Loderunner for whatever reason crashes before I reach the first level with bombs. Too bad I can't get sound in Windows 3.1. I have a Soundblaster 16, but it's the PCI version that only comes with an expanded memory dos driver, a Windows 9x driver, and XP drivers. I wish there was a 100% compatible replacement for Windows 3.1 that is free. There is a lot of software that requires Windows 3.1. ReactOS is an attempt to clone Windows NT and support Windows software designed for at least Windows XP. Developers are trying to crank out a 0.4 release, the last release was 0.3.15 back in September. See http://www.reactos.org. I wonder if someone could debug what is causing Windows 3.1 running on freedos to crash and develop workarounds? In other news, ReactOS is gaining an emulated dos environment of it's own. Very recent development, so don't expect the environment to be stable. -- Rapidly troubleshoot problems before they affect your business. Most IT organizations don't have a clear picture of how application performance affects their revenue. With AppDynamics, you get 100% visibility into your Java,.NET, PHP application. Start your 15-day FREE TRIAL of AppDynamics Pro! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=84349831iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
