Excellent news, thanks for sharing! I'll post a news item about it for the
website this tomorrow, when I'm in front of my computer again
On Fri, Feb 16, 2024, 1:23 PM E. C. Masloch via Freedos-user <
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> Hello list!
>
> Today I prepared release 7 of lDebug (small L). lDebug is an advanced
> debugger for 86-DOS like systems. It is based on Paul Vojta's and
> Japheth's FreeDOS Debug/X, which in turn started out as a clone of
> MS-DOS Debug. Like all of these, it operates with a line-based terminal
> interface. lDebug expands a lot on the capabilities of its ancestors
> however.
>
> Release 7 adds one big feature that's new: The debugger now allocates
> space for and allows loading of Extensions for lDebug (ELDs). Several
> dozen ELDs have been written so far. They're included in the release in
> the bin/ subdirectory (lDebug original packages) or in BIN/ (FreeDOS
> package). The ELD architecture was created to allow optional extensions
> of the debugger without bogging down the build, particularly the code
> segment, with a lot of most likely unused code.
>
> Other than that, some bugfixes have arrived. To summarize from the
> manual's list of news [1]:
>
> * The DIL command works now, fixing an embarrassing bug in release 6
> for which I provided patches [2].
> * The INSTALL command correctly works with the AREAS keyword followed
> by another keyword.
> * Two bootloaded mode file system read errors were fixed, one when a
> file ends exactly on a cluster boundary and another when a FAT12 entry
> is read which straddles a sector boundary in the FAT.
> * The BOOT PROTOCOL= command with two kernel load files (MS-DOS v6 or
> IBM-DOS load protocol) now allows to freely select the second (DOS) file
> in any subdirectory of the partition to boot from.
>
> A few new features were added (aside from those implemented by
> Extensions for lDebug):
>
> * An INSTALL TOGGLE command to switch certain features on or off.
> * A fractional digit sometimes displayed for formatted sizes.
> * ::scripts:: and ::config:: keywords can be used in pathnames passed
> to Y, EXT, or BOOT DIR commands in bootloaded mode.
> * The debugger will allocate a 2 KiB environment block for itself (in
> any mode) which is intended for storing Variables for lDebug using the
> set.eld and variable.eld.
> * The application and device init will try to work with a smaller
> initial allocation instead of enforcing a maximum-size ("init max")
> layout early on.
>
> Several new switches are now recognised by the application and device
> mode init. /X resizes the ELD code instance segment from its default
> size, /Y does likewise for the ELD data block area, and /H is the switch
> to do the same to the debugger's history buffer. There is also the
> undocumented /T switch, described some on the blog [3].
>
> Some little-used features of the debugger were actually thrown out. The
> build options _EMS, _RM, and _RN are now disabled by default. They
> correspond to the X commands, as well as the RM and RN command. If
> desired, then apart from creating a build with the options enabled,
> users may instead choose to install the Extensions for lDebug that share
> the sources of the disabled commands. They are named x.eld, rm.eld, and
> rn.eld. They can be used either as transient ELDs (to run a single
> command; requires DOS or bootloaded FS access each time) or installed as
> resident ELDs (needs to access the file only for ELD install).
>
> The packages of this release are found on our server [4]. In the fdpkg
> subdirectory I placed a FreeDOS package, and in the svardpkg a SvarDOS
> binary and sources package each. As usual, all changes are recorded in
> the hg (Mercurial) repository, which can be browsed using our hgweb [5].
>
> As a news blurb for the FreeDOS website (and the sourceforge.net news
> tracker [6]) I would suggest the following:
>
> lDebug release 7
>
> lDebug (small L) is a DOS debugger based on FreeDOS Debug/X. Today's new
> release 7 adds the architecture for Extensions for lDebug, with 52
> different ELDs included in the release package. Further, a number of
> smaller improvements and fixes are included, several of which make
> lDebug better in its bootloaded mode. The application and device mode
> init is less memory-hungry than it would be with its prior "init max"
> approach. Find more details on [the mailing list], and everything lDebug
> at [the lDebug website][7].
>
> Regards,
> ecm
>
>
> [1]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/doc/ldebug.htm#news-r7
> [2]:
>
> https://pushbx.org/ecm/dokuwiki/blog/pushbx/2023/0911_live_patching_the_debugger_itself
> [3]:
>
> https://pushbx.org/ecm/dokuwiki/blog/pushbx/2023/0911_debugger_relocation_all_switches_explained
> [4]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/download/ldebug/
> [5]: https://hg.pushbx.org/ecm/ldebug/log/release7
> [6]: https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/
> [7]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/web/#projects-ldebug
>
>
>
