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 k
