Hello Mike,
Thanks for writing and expressing your opinion.
In fact, I think you brought an interesting topic that is also of my
concern. When the freedos-user list was created, it was indeed created
as a list for those users that need not have knowledge about the
internals of FreeDOS itself in order to use it.
So far, the facts that I have experienced are:
(a) Much of the traffic has switched from freedos-devel to
freedos-user. In some cases it is a correct movement, as we could
seldomly see that inexperienced users asked simple FreeDOS ussage
question in a list that was supposed to be to discuss internalities of
FreeDOS development.
(b) At times, the replies are quite technical or advanced (or geek),
far more than the original question. At times I have tried in the past
to move those to the freedos-devel, but that proved to be helpless.
(c) In most times, a simple question produced a complex/geek answer,
but was appropriate to the geekness level that the person who asked
expected.
(d) At times, a simple question produced a complex/geek answer, that
the person who asked did not understand, but didn't dare/bother to ask
for more help.
In the understanding that there should be a chance for both types of
users, I propose the following two options: just let me know what you
think, and I'll run the administrative stuff:
(1) Create a new mailing list called freedos-advanced aimed to the
advanced users, and leave this one for the basic users.
(2) Create a new mailing list called freedos-basic aimed to the
basic users, and leave this one for the advanced users.
In both cases, I should advise that,
(a) in the basic users list, technicalities should be left appart as
much as possible, in the understanding that the user there must not
necessarily be an IT-PC-super-expert.
(b) if a user expects a more detailed answer on certain topic, (s)he
should turn to the advanced list and ask there.
The traffic should not change, as it's just more a question of knowing
the degree of detail that the user needs. And freedos-devel is not
changed/affected in any way.
Cheers,
Aitor
2009/6/21 Mike Webb weeble7...@gmail.com:
From: Pat Villani p...@monmouth.com
Subject: [Freedos-user] Some simple list rules
Date: Saturday, June 20, 2009, 8:46 AM
1. Please remember that this is a users mailing list.
Many of these folks are non technical and may not under-
stand the ramifications of what they are asking for.
Pat, as a person who's been following this list for some time, I'm not
sure that the purpose you've mentioned is being adhered to all that
well. I have been a power user since the days when DOS was cool, and a
lot of the posts still go over my head like a roof. Discussions of
compiling, listings of scripts (config.sys settings?) that are far
more complicated than I've ever used and many more things give me the
impression that this is much more of a Freedos-Geeks list than a
Freedos-User list.
I just went to the Freedos site, the Wiki and the How-To pages and am
still about as baffled as to how to make Freedos work for me as I have
been all along.
The impression I have (despite the statement that Freedos can pretty
much run any software designed for MS-DOS) is that the kind of system
I used as a 100% DOS user would not work, but requires a lot more
stuff in the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. Let me give as an example a
basic CONFIG/AUTOEXEC setup for MS-DOS (5.x and higher);
CONFIG.SYS:
device=HIMEM.SYS
device=EMM386.EXE
files=40
buffers=40
devicehigh=NANSI.SYS
AUTOEXEC.BAT:
@echo off
cls
prompt $p$g
path=C:\;C:\DOS;C:\BAT;C:\UTIL
lh SMARTDRV.EXE 2048
cls
c:
cd \
ver
(I've probably forgotten something; it's been quite awhile since I've
written these files from scratch; or tinkered with them at all, for
that matter.)
I found nothing in the HOWTOs on the order of Freedos for Dummies or
Freedos for experienced MS-DOS Users. I honestly don't know what I
could reasonably expect to do in a Freedos environment, using this
configuration that would work just fine in an MS-DOS environment. If
there are samples of basic CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files lurking
around, I can't readily find them. And if I can't find them, people
with even less knowledge aren't going to, either.
I wish I could offer to pitch in on the kinds of things that I see are
needed, but it's beyond my reach at this time. Plus, considering all
the gobbledygook I read here, I'm not even sure where I'd begin.
All I can say is that for Freedos' sake, whatever effort some of y'all
can make to set out a welcome mat that explains the differences
between MS-DOS and FreeDOS, particularly as far as configuration goes
and how to resolve issues involving common programs that don't quite
run as-is under Freedos would be very much appreciated, I believe.
Thanks for listening.
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