Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 floppy ideas
Hi, On Sun, 5 Jul 2020 at 18:46, Eric Auer wrote: > > Probably just pull COUNTRY.SYS in favor of MKEYB. > > Make sure to check whether MKEYB works on 8086: It might > require AT level BIOS functionality. > If that ever becomes a problem, FD-KEYB implements the /9 switch to use in non-AT class machines. Aitor ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 floppy ideas
Hi Eric, > So... SLICER is something like TAR? If you feel the need to compare it to something, then it is most like tar than anything else. But, only in in one aspect. It is more like an installer in another. > A tool to put many > small files in one large file and back, uncompressed? No. It also spans disks and eventually will support compression. >> installer detects its running in VirtualBox, passes the i686 tag > > You should rather use something like CPULEVEL which detects > the CPU compatibility, not the brand of the simulator…\ Like I said, it detects the CPU AND VM PLATFORM and responds accordingly. It detects 8086, 186, 286, 386, 486, 586, 686, VirtualBox, DOSBox, VMWare and other Virtual machines. So it can install the correct CPU level software on 8086, 186, 286 386, 486, 586 and 686. Then additionally under known supported Virtual Machines (like VMware and VirtualBox) it installs support for networking and the like. > A general problem with your 720 kB floppy: It is hard for > users to create an actual floppy from it. So depending on > how widespread 360 kB, 720 kB, 1.2 MB and 1.44 MB drives > are on older-than-386 hardware, you should provide disk > images for all sizes, for easier DISKCOPY or DD writing. I took that into consideration during the design and the RBE supports building additional floppy versions. However, It does not do so at present. Depending on feedback from users, that may change. > >> Sure. But, why can’t the user add what they need? > > If you use that reasoning: Why on earth write an entire > 8086 answer to TAR, with an entirely different archive > file format, not compatible to anything else, just to > automate something which YOU recommend to do manually? Where do I recommend doing an installation manually??? I only recommend the user be the one to decide what extra utilities to add the Floppy Edition Installation Diskette. That is if they want them. After all it is not a utility or recovery disk, it is an OS installer boot diskette. > And you are not seriously implying that there are 8086 CD-ROM > or text to speech drivers which would be crucially important > for your 720 kB 8086 installer floppy, are you? I’m am only saying… Beyond what is needed to do the installation, I do not assume I know what extra software the user may want to put on that diskette. > >> That is why there is a Boot Floppy for the CD installer. > >> The Floppy Edition is not meant to be used to boot then run >> a different installer. > > Hmm okay. I was not aware that the two are so much different > that neither is meant to be used in any way with the other. You could in theory, add drivers to the Floppy Edition diskette to support CD-ROM. Boot it. The run the installer on the LiveCD. Or, boot the LiveCD then insert the diskette and run the Floppy Edition installer. But why? They aren’t designed or intended to work with each other. It is possible that someday, the CD-ROM boot diskette goes away and just the Floppy Edition remains. The installed FreeDOS is comparable and systems that meet the minimum CPU level have the drivers installed. So, users who could not boot directly from CD could install from the Floppy addition then add any extra stuff they want from the CD-ROM. Then again maybe eventually, user demand will cause the Floppy Edition to boot with CD support. Or, the lack of demand cause the Floppy Edition to fade away and be dropped. > Does the boot floppy for the CD installer contain all the > drivers needed for CD / DVD / ISO access, fast access to > harddisks, caching etc.? It has more drivers for the CD and such. It also contains a copy of the main install media installer. > At the moment, it seems to be very much specialized for 8086, > containing barely any support for newer hardware. The Floppy Edition is NOT specialized for 8086. The Floppy Edition is limited to only require an 8086 and installed software can vary based on the CPU and hardware platform. Provisions have also been made for the level of Video Card support. Eventually, it may vary what is installed based on support for SuperVGA, VGA, EGA, MCGA, CGA, Hercules and etc. Then again, maybe not. It is rather difficult to swap a 286 for a 586 on a motherboard. But, swapping video cards is easy. > It is hard for users to change disk sizes themselves, as this > requires them to have at least 2 drives of suitable sizes, or > diskimage related tools for other operating systems. But users > who can handle such tools probably do not need floppy distros. I don’t disagree. However like I said, it all comes down to user feedback and demand. But for the initial version of the Floppy Edition, I choose what I think is the most common diskette type -- the 3.5”. The boot disk as a 720K. Because like you say, it is hard to move from one size floppy to another. The other diskettes as 1.44s, they are just a bunch of slicer archive files cut into 59k chunks ( more or less optimal to
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 floppy ideas
Hi Jerome, if you do not believe that anybody will fix bugs, why do you even update the FreeDOS distro? Please make at least some published list of all bugs you encounter and discuss it here, too. It CAN happen that people fix bugs, even of other maintainers. What are the new beta fdisk 131 features which default 121 is missing? So... SLICER is something like TAR? A tool to put many small files in one large file and back, uncompressed? In which sense is that better than e.g. XCOPY, combined with some list which packages will require which CPU? > installer detects its running in VirtualBox, passes the i686 tag You should rather use something like CPULEVEL which detects the CPU compatibility, not the brand of the simulator... A general problem with your 720 kB floppy: It is hard for users to create an actual floppy from it. So depending on how widespread 360 kB, 720 kB, 1.2 MB and 1.44 MB drives are on older-than-386 hardware, you should provide disk images for all sizes, for easier DISKCOPY or DD writing. > Sure. But, why can’t the user add what they need? If you use that reasoning: Why on earth write an entire 8086 answer to TAR, with an entirely different archive file format, not compatible to anything else, just to automate something which YOU recommend to do manually? > If I put MORE, CHKDSK, GREP or whatever on the diskette image and left > 2K free, how could a user that needed to put BOBASAPI.SYS know > what (if anything) they remove to fit there text to speech driver? With several very easy ways to save space (remove duplicate kernel, remove duplicate fdisk, less fdisk ini file comments) you will not have to worry about every kilobyte even when you use SOME of the saved space for a few selected additions :-) And you are not seriously implying that there are 8086 CD-ROM or text to speech drivers which would be crucially important for your 720 kB 8086 installer floppy, are you? > That is why there is a Boot Floppy for the CD installer. > The Floppy Edition is not meant to be used to boot then run > a different installer. Hmm okay. I was not aware that the two are so much different that neither is meant to be used in any way with the other. Does the boot floppy for the CD installer contain all the drivers needed for CD / DVD / ISO access, fast access to harddisks, caching etc.? > Probably just pull COUNTRY.SYS in favor of MKEYB. Make sure to check whether MKEYB works on 8086: It might require AT level BIOS functionality. If FDISK, FDAPM and several V8 tools all feature reboot, you clearly do not need FDAPM on 8086 hardware :-) > The Floppy Edition is “a work in progress” > It also has a far wider range of support for different installation scenarios. At the moment, it seems to be very much specialized for 8086, containing barely any support for newer hardware. I agree that it is important to be able to install from different sizes of floppy when you make a floppy distro, though :-) It is hard for users to change disk sizes themselves, as this requires them to have at least 2 drives of suitable sizes, or diskimage related tools for other operating systems. But users who can handle such tools probably do not need floppy distros. Eric ;-) ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 floppy ideas
Hi Eric, > On Jul 5, 2020, at 10:40 AM, Eric Auer wrote: > > > Hi Jerome, > > it worries me that you SILENTLY dropped a newer fdisk and > switched to an older version because they both have bugs, > but the older version has less bad bugs. Please explain all > bugs which you have encountered and what keeps us from using > a fixed even newer FDISK version. As for the 131, I honestly don’t recall the exact problem it was having. But, it isn’t the default version anyway. The FDISK package or FreeDOS has FDISK.EXE (v1.21) and FDISK131.EXE. I was quite busy and did not do a bug report. Even though the FDISK source is partway into the simple process of supporting multi-language. it hasn’t been updated in over 11 years. So, I don’t think my un-issued bug report is much of a loss. All I really remember, is when telling FDISK131 to activate a partition from the command line, it would sometimes return an errorlevel despite that 121 could then do it without issue. The main install media (CD,USB etc) has and does use the default version (121) instead of the “beta” 131 version. The Floppy Edition will just do the same. This brings up a side point… With a few exceptions, no one seems very interested in fixing any bugs in any of the packages that are included with FreeDOS. I’m not trying to accuse anyone or point any fingers. It is just a general observation. I wish I had the spare time to fix other peoples bugs. But, my plate is overflowing with FreeDOS related stuff already. Updating and maintaining multiple utilities required by the installers, improving multiple installers, maintaining all of the different release media, trying to improve the state of multi-language support, updating some software packages and more… Any one of those could be a full time job for someone. It really quit a bit of juggling. > About the space savings: 20-30 kB for fdisk ini files and > 44 kB for a duplicate file is quite a lot. I do not think > it should be that hard to work with just 1 copy of the file. It should’t be. I just haven’t got to that yet. > UPX (remember to use --8086 here) saves only a few kB, as > your tools are many small files which compress less than > fewer, larger files would. > > Of course I still do not really understand what SLICER can do > but it seems to be optimized for usage during 8086 installs. Comparing SLICER to other archivers is like comparing Ubuntu to macOS. Sure you can do almost everything in either one and there are many similarities. But once you get beneath the surface, they are nearly completely different. And each has their own benefits and shortcomings. Just SOME examples of the interactions between the installer and SLICER… The installer detects support for i686 (or better cpu) tells SLICER extract all files tagged with i686. The installer detects its running in VirtualBox, passes the i686 tag and a VirtualBox tag to SLICER. This results in all the i686 stuff and the Networking package to be installed. The installer only sees support for a 286, then SLICER only installs stuff that works on a 286 or less machine. Combining and removing tags could result in near endless possible combinations. SOURCES, BINARIES, TEXT DOCS and on and on and on. PLEASE NOTE: the installer can be told to override detection and install a specific set of packages. But by default, it only installs software the system can run. SLICER can embed multi-language text and EULA agreements that can be displayed during archive extraction. (language specific and tag based as well) And many more differences. > > About UNZIP (sure there is no 8086 variant?), FIND, GREP, > DEBUG, WHICHFAT, MORE etc., EDIT / TED3, MODE, CHKDSK… There may be forks, versions or variants of UNZIP that are 8086/8088 compatible. But, it would require a lot more overhead in the installer to achieve the same functionality as with the system used for SLICER. On top of that, UNZIP is nearly 200K. Grep is 386+. As for most the others, I would need to check my previous results to see what those versions require. > Even when the disk is just a tool itself for installation, > it can be very useful to have some self-help applications at > hand, as the TED3 text editor or DEBUG. I think FIND and MODE > would not hurt either, unless you prefer GREP instead of FIND. Sure. But, why can’t the user add what they need? If I put MORE, CHKDSK, GREP or whatever on the diskette image and left 2K free, how could a user that needed to put BOBASAPI.SYS know what (if anything) they remove to fit there text to speech driver? Overall, I think it is just easier for everyone to let the end-user decide what extras they may want on the diskette. > You say people with CD drives should prefer the CD version: > > I say people with CD drives can not necessarily boot from it > and people with modern hardware do not necessarily still have > a CD drive. In both cases, CD/DVD drivers, caches and drivers > to mount ISO files
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 floppy ideas
Hi Jerome, it worries me that you SILENTLY dropped a newer fdisk and switched to an older version because they both have bugs, but the older version has less bad bugs. Please explain all bugs which you have encountered and what keeps us from using a fixed even newer FDISK version. About the space savings: 20-30 kB for fdisk ini files and 44 kB for a duplicate file is quite a lot. I do not think it should be that hard to work with just 1 copy of the file. UPX (remember to use --8086 here) saves only a few kB, as your tools are many small files which compress less than fewer, larger files would. Of course I still do not really understand what SLICER can do but it seems to be optimized for usage during 8086 installs. About UNZIP (sure there is no 8086 variant?), FIND, GREP, DEBUG, WHICHFAT, MORE etc., EDIT / TED3, MODE, CHKDSK... Even when the disk is just a tool itself for installation, it can be very useful to have some self-help applications at hand, as the TED3 text editor or DEBUG. I think FIND and MODE would not hurt either, unless you prefer GREP instead of FIND. You say people with CD drives should prefer the CD version: I say people with CD drives can not necessarily boot from it and people with modern hardware do not necessarily still have a CD drive. In both cases, CD/DVD drivers, caches and drivers to mount ISO files without needing physical CD help a lot :-) Also, if you have user interaction, it helps to have MKEYB and (if mouse interaction is relevant) CTMOUSE around. Both are a lot smaller than COUNTRY SYS which I doubt that you would need. You probably do not need FDAPM on 8086 at all. If you think you need it to reboot, I think FDISK also has that feature for you. Regards, Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 floppy ideas
Hi Eric, > On Jul 5, 2020, at 7:23 AM, Eric Auer wrote: > > > Hi! Looking at the 720k boot disk for the installer, > I noticed that FDISKPT.INI and FDISK.INI are quite > large as the former contains many "definitions" of > unknown partition types and the latter contains only > comments and the end of file marker, so I suggest to > reduce the comments (mention that the full version is > in a zip package) and omit all unknown lines in the > partition type list (test how fdisk deals with it). > > The partition type list can also do without the last > and longest column, if that is okay for fdisk: You > could truncate it or keep only a important comments, > of course testing whether fdisk is happy. > > In total, you could save 20 to 30 kB. I’ll have to look into possibly have the RBE (Release Build Environment) strip out the un-needed comments. > I notice that your 720k floppy contains THREE kernel > files and only TWO of them differ from each other, > which makes it very easy to save 44 kB :-) Mostly, that was to just simplify some stuff in the Floppy Edition Installer. Plans are to eventually remove the duplicate 8086 version of the Kernel. > You also have TWO versions of FDISK, although only > one of them is used unless some manual intervention > takes place, I believe. Again 36 or 39 kB to save. There was originally a reason for having both. Having to do with different bugs between the versions. But eventually, I ended up just using 121 in the installer. So, I will probably remove 131 from the boot floppy. If I recall correctly, under some circumstances 121 puts error messages on the screen that cannot be silenced. As for 131, it reports failure sometimes when trying to activate a partition. So, the installer was using 131 and falling back to 121 when 131 failed. However after some more updates to V8Power Tools, I was able to work around the issues with 121 (mostly) and just ended up put using it. So like you suggest, there really is no need for 131 to be present on the diskette anymore. > Several of the V... tools can be UPXed, saving space. Maybe. The full set of V8Power Tools is not present. Only those needed by the Floppy Edition installer. However, I don’t know how much space it would/could save. I’ve never tried to UPX them. > You may want to use a more lightweight COUNTRY file > (actually your 001,858 country line barely needs it) > and some smaller alternative for FC. > > What is the purpose of the large slicer tool? That is the utility I wrote to make the 8086 Floppy Edition practical. At under 28k (UPX’d) I wouldn’t say it is that is that big. Especially considering what it does. It is a tag & group based multi-language, file archival, disk spanning, program and package installer hybrid thingy that is designed to run on an 8086/8088 with almost no RAM. It is not a file compression program. Although, future versions may support compression. It has very different goals from programs like zip/unzip (which is enormous and won’t run on an 8086 anyway). Also, being tag & group based it reduces a lot of overhead the installer would require for a different 8086 compatible archiver. > The saved space could be used to add drivers and tools: > > Tools could include for example UNZIP and FIND and GREP, > DEBUG, WHICHFAT, MORE / MORESYS / PG, EDIT / TED3, MODE, > CHKDSK and (if 386+ target audience) DOSFSCK with CWSDPMI. > > Drivers could include HIMEM and UIDE, but only when you > have a boot choice between 8086 compatible and 386+ mode. > Drivers can also include UDVD2, SHSUCDX and SHSUCDHD, > MKEYB, CTMOUSE etc. It is not a recovery disk. Other than FDAPM, there are no tools provided that are not used to either BOOT or INSTALL present. Nor do I think any extra utilities that require more than a 8086 should be present on the diskette image. It is not difficult for an end-user to add additional drivers and such. For individuals who may have a CD/DVD drive, they should probably be using the LiveCD or LegacyCD to install. The Floppy Edition installs a very bare-bones FreeDOS. > I would not LOAD EMM386 while installing: It is too little > "one size fits all" for that and users can still work on > their EMM386 configuration AFTER installing. For the greatest compatibility, no drivers are loaded. > Regards, Eric :-) Thanks, Jerome ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.3-RC3 floppy ideas
Hi! Looking at the 720k boot disk for the installer, I noticed that FDISKPT.INI and FDISK.INI are quite large as the former contains many "definitions" of unknown partition types and the latter contains only comments and the end of file marker, so I suggest to reduce the comments (mention that the full version is in a zip package) and omit all unknown lines in the partition type list (test how fdisk deals with it). The partition type list can also do without the last and longest column, if that is okay for fdisk: You could truncate it or keep only a important comments, of course testing whether fdisk is happy. In total, you could save 20 to 30 kB. I notice that your 720k floppy contains THREE kernel files and only TWO of them differ from each other, which makes it very easy to save 44 kB :-) You also have TWO versions of FDISK, although only one of them is used unless some manual intervention takes place, I believe. Again 36 or 39 kB to save. Several of the V... tools can be UPXed, saving space. You may want to use a more lightweight COUNTRY file (actually your 001,858 country line barely needs it) and some smaller alternative for FC. What is the purpose of the large slicer tool? The saved space could be used to add drivers and tools: Tools could include for example UNZIP and FIND and GREP, DEBUG, WHICHFAT, MORE / MORESYS / PG, EDIT / TED3, MODE, CHKDSK and (if 386+ target audience) DOSFSCK with CWSDPMI. Drivers could include HIMEM and UIDE, but only when you have a boot choice between 8086 compatible and 386+ mode. Drivers can also include UDVD2, SHSUCDX and SHSUCDHD, MKEYB, CTMOUSE etc. I would not LOAD EMM386 while installing: It is too little "one size fits all" for that and users can still work on their EMM386 configuration AFTER installing. Regards, Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
