Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

(Sorry for belated reply.)

On Thu, Oct 18, 2018 at 2:07 PM Jan van Wijk  wrote:
>
> On Wed, 17 Oct 2018 11:48:34 -0500 Rugxulo wrote:
>
> >> >OW 1.9 runs natively in DOS. Or did you mean the makefiles need
> >> >adjustments? (Long cmdlines for OW tools need an asterisk/star '*' !!)
> >>
> >> Never tested that, but should not be that hard to get working
> >> when all the OpenWatcom stuff is available.
> >>
> >> It only uses WMAKE, the C-compiler and WLINK

I do want to try rebuilding in native DOS one of these days, but my
main rig's hard drive is failing. (This machine triple boots, but Win7
won't work at all anymore.) Not really surprising, it's old. Still, I
made (yet another) bootable USB with FreeDOS (RUFUS FTW!!!1),
basically a backup of the FAT32 partition I was using for years, just
in case that helps me in the future. (It wasn't crucial but certainly
convenient.)

> >I'll take another closer look later and email Jim Hall again to try to iron 
> >out some details.
>
> Sure, just get the latest ZIP to have the cleaned up, and more complete 
> distribution:
>
> https://www.dfsee.com/download/#txwin

I've gone ahead anyways and mirrored this to iBiblio for us. (Further
examination will have to wait.)

* http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/libs/txwin/


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Jan van Wijk]

Hi Robert,

On Sun, 21 Oct 2018 18:50:24 +0200 Robert Riebisch wrote:
>
>> The sources are in OpenOffice though, so I could have a look at
>> what th export alternatives are, to bundle into the distribution ZIP ...
>
>Maybe you want to have a look at several multi-format documentation
>generators:
>* https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/halibut/ (no color
>support so far, but author is open for patches)
>* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lout_(software)
>* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_documentation_generators

Interesting stuff, for documenting program source and creating manuals I guess,
however in this case it is EXISTING presentation material (in OpenOffice 
Impress)
that is neither of those.

These are high-level concepts and feature descriptions of the library, and also
contain several ready-made images and screenshots that at least some of those
generators can not handle as far as I could see.

Regards, JvW


Jan van Wijk, author of DFSee; http://www.dfsee.com/dfsee/



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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Robert Riebisch]

Hi Jan,

>>> No not at all, I have just uploaded the latest version, including an update
>>> to some documentation/presentations in PDF format, it is at:
>>
>>PDF is a bit bloated and DOS-unfriendly, but I understand your need to
>>use something modern and accessible (or whatever). 
> 
> Something that is rather usable on most of the supported platforms.
> DOS is a bit of the exception here. I used to maintain an HTML version 
> of the same presentations too, but dropped that for space/time reasons.
> 
> The sources are in OpenOffice though, so I could have a look at
> what th export alternatives are, to bundle into the distribution ZIP ...

Maybe you want to have a look at several multi-format documentation
generators:
* https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/halibut/ (no color
support so far, but author is open for patches)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lout_(software)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_documentation_generators

Cheers,
Robert
-- 
  +++ BTTR Software +++
 Home page:  http://www.bttr-software.de/
DOS ain't dead:  http://www.bttr-software.de/forum/


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Jan van Wijk]

On Wed, 17 Oct 2018 11:48:34 -0500 Rugxulo wrote:
>
>> No not at all, I have just uploaded the latest version, including an update
>> to some documentation/presentations in PDF format, it is at:
>
>PDF is a bit bloated and DOS-unfriendly, but I understand your need to
>use something modern and accessible (or whatever). 

Something that is rather usable on most of the supported platforms.
DOS is a bit of the exception here. I used to maintain an HTML version 
of the same presentations too, but dropped that for space/time reasons.

The sources are in OpenOffice though, so I could have a look at
what th export alternatives are, to bundle into the distribution ZIP ...

>already included inside TXWINLIB.ZIP, right?)

Right, and they are kept up-to-dte at the websit too of course ...

>First of all, typo, it says "110 Mb", which would have been quite
>startling! But in reality it only jumped from 7 to 10 Mb instead. (Big
>relief!) 

Oops, my bad.  Thanks for noticing, just fixed that ...

>I haven't looked closely at why the increase, but I assume
>precompiled libs. (No, I only see [Mach-O] .a files.)

Right, another 'oops', the intention wa to include all the libraries pre-built
so you could concentrate on building some application (not the library)
but I made a mistake with a 'build clean' at some point.

Fixed now, and re-uploaded a cleaned up/compledted version of the ZIP

Note:
>From the samples, only the 'TXT' test application has non-debug versions
of the executables for all the platforms, so you can see what it looks like
without having the build environment ready yet ...

>> >OW 1.9 runs natively in DOS. Or did you mean the makefiles need
>> >adjustments? (Long cmdlines for OW tools need an asterisk/star '*' !!)
>>
>> Never tested that, but should not be that hard to get working
>> when all the OpenWatcom stuff is available.
>>
>> It only uses WMAKE, the C-compiler and WLINK
>
>It should work fine, then. Moreso I was worried because I didn't see
>any precompiled libs. (Though your page says builds atop Windows, too,
>so that's fairly ubiquitous. Better than atop OS/2 only.)

Right, never tested on DOS (or Linux, which also has OpenWatcom binaries)
but should not be too hard to get working ...

>Actually, I think somewhere you include some binaries, which
>themselves are needed to rebuild some parts: TEE (OS/2 only), LXLITE
>(OS/2 only), and UPX (DOS, apparently old 1.25 with non-free NRV
>instead of libre UCL).

They are just for convenience, and not needed to build the library,
not very important for the sample either, so I just took them out
of the distrubution now (and references to them) without much
loss of function.

Anyone buillding an app can add EXE-compression later, when desired.
(which is less and less the case, with todays large hard-disks :)


>* 
>http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/upx/upx-ucl-3.09.zip

Right, I think I am using 3.94 myself at the moment (for my DFSee application).

>I'm overthinking it, of course, so maybe it's not crucial that it's
>all rebuildable atop DOS proper. But for mirroring to iBiblio we try
>to keep things totally free/libre these days. 

Yes, that is one reason to take them out of this distribution, they are not 
really needed here ...


>(I see you linked to some downloads of Win32 and OS/2 compiles of Wget. 

Yes, that is on that same 'Free Downloads' page but NOT part of the TxWin 
distribution.
They can be used with my DFSee application to do version-updates from within 
the program itself.


>I'll take another closer look later and email Jim Hall again to try to iron 
>out some details.

Sure, just get the latest ZIP to have the cleaned up, and more complete 
distribution:
(and remove the old unpacked stuff first, since some files were removed :)

https://www.dfsee.com/download/#txwin

>Thanks for your time in answering.

You're welcone

Regards, JvW



Jan van Wijk, author of DFSee; http://www.dfsee.com/dfsee/



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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Sat, Oct 13, 2018 at 12:00 PM Jan van Wijk  wrote:
>
> On Wed, 3 Oct 2018 21:15:30 -0500 Rugxulo wrote:
> >
> >> The user-interface library 'TxWin' I use for my disk-tool is open-source.
> >
> >I've never used it, but I pointed Jim Hall to it (although I don't
> >think even he used it) a few years ago. But that was old versions
> >(txwin1xx.zip and txwin2xx.zip). A quick glance shows LGPL, is that
> >still true? Do you mind if we mirror these (old and/or new) to iBiblio
> >for us?
>
> No not at all, I have just uploaded the latest version, including an update
> to some documentation/presentations in PDF format, it is at:

PDF is a bit bloated and DOS-unfriendly, but I understand your need to
use something modern and accessible (or whatever). I don't remember
every obscure PDF tool port to DOS (very few, but some indeed halfway
work), so I don't know if it would even be viable to try to convert
them to plain text or not. (Maybe, if assuming few errors.) Honestly,
probably too much work for too little gain.

So which PDFs exactly should be mirrored? All five (5) of them?? (Oh,
already included inside TXWINLIB.ZIP, right?)

> https://www.dfsee.com/download/#txwin

First of all, typo, it says "110 Mb", which would have been quite
startling! But in reality it only jumped from 7 to 10 Mb instead. (Big
relief!) I haven't looked closely at why the increase, but I assume
precompiled libs. (No, I only see [Mach-O] .a files.)

> You would need to mirror at least the ZIP file available there, and perhaps
> provide a link back to to this original page, for additional info ...

That would be easy (in theory). I would still like to maybe look closer first.

> >> For the DOS target, it needs the OpenWatcom compiler to build anything,
> >> so is probably not easy to use natively on FreeDOS.
> >
> >OW 1.9 runs natively in DOS. Or did you mean the makefiles need
> >adjustments? (Long cmdlines for OW tools need an asterisk/star '*' !!)
>
> Never tested that, but should not be that hard to get working
> when all the OpenWatcom stuff is available.
>
> It only uses WMAKE, the C-compiler and WLINK

It should work fine, then. Moreso I was worried because I didn't see
any precompiled libs. (Though your page says builds atop Windows, too,
so that's fairly ubiquitous. Better than atop OS/2 only.)

Actually, I think somewhere you include some binaries, which
themselves are needed to rebuild some parts: TEE (OS/2 only), LXLITE
(OS/2 only), and UPX (DOS, apparently old 1.25 with non-free NRV
instead of libre UCL).

Just FYI, I don't have any OS/2 variant (although I'm barely aware
they exist, e.g. Arca Noae), so like most of us, I can't run or
rebuild such things like LXLITE. Although I do have Virtual Pascal
lying around, but I only seldomly use it for Win32. Also, I don't
recall LXLITE being portable (no surprise). There is a TEE clone for
FreeDOS (and I think one in DJGPP too), but it's rarely used in a
single-tasking OS (unless output is very terse). We do have UPX-UCL
built for older versions of UPX (e.g. 3.09 while latest non-free NRV
is 3.95 from two months ago), so it shouldn't be hard to rebuild that,
too.

* 
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.2/repos/pkg-html/tee.html
* http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/h-search.php?key=lxlite=Search
* 
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/upx/upx-ucl-3.09.zip

I'm overthinking it, of course, so maybe it's not crucial that it's
all rebuildable atop DOS proper. But for mirroring to iBiblio we try
to keep things totally free/libre these days. (I see you linked to
some downloads of Win32 and OS/2 compiles of Wget. There's also a
fairly recent [2015?] DJGPP DOS build that works, but of course you
need a working packet driver. No idea if that kind of thing is
supported by DOS under OS/2. I think SwsVpkt worked under older
Windows.)

* http://mik.dyndns.pro/dos-stuff/bin/wget119b.7z

(BTW, not having rebuilt Wget myself nor verifying its source
dependencies is the main reason I haven't mirrored that to iBiblio
either. Ugh, tedious and inconvenient.)

I'll take another closer look later and email Jim Hall again to try to
iron out some details.

Thanks for your time in answering.


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Jan van Wijk]

On Wed, 3 Oct 2018 21:15:30 -0500 Rugxulo wrote:
>
>> The user-interface library 'TxWin' I use for my disk-tool is open-source.
>
>I've never used it, but I pointed Jim Hall to it (although I don't
>think even he used it) a few years ago. But that was old versions
>(txwin1xx.zip and txwin2xx.zip). A quick glance shows LGPL, is that
>still true? Do you mind if we mirror these (old and/or new) to iBiblio
>for us?

No not at all, I have just uploaded the latest version, including an update
to some documentation/presentations in PDF format, it is at:
 
https://www.dfsee.com/download/#txwin

You would need to mirror at least the ZIP file available there, and perhaps 
provide a link back to to this original page, for additional info ...


>> For the DOS target, it needs the OpenWatcom compiler to build anything,
>> so is probably not easy to use natively on FreeDOS.
>
>OW 1.9 runs natively in DOS. Or did you mean the makefiles need
>adjustments? (Long cmdlines for OW tools need an asterisk/star '*' !!)

Never tested that, but should not be that hard to get working 
when all the OpenWatcom stuff is available.

It only uses WMAKE, the C-compiler and WLINK

>
>> It also needs/uses the DOS32A extender to create 32-bit dos-extended 
>> programs ...
>
>Which one? 9.1.2 (circa 2006?) is latest (but not included by default in old 
>OW 1.9)

The one from 1.9 at the moment, which is 7.20 (dated 2002)

Works for me :)


>> Apart from DOS as a target, you can build for OS/2, Windows, Linux and macOS.

>Cool (but I'm probably not a good enough programmer to properly use it!).

I'll be happy to provide some help to get going for anyone wanting to use it ...

Regards, JvW







Jan van Wijk, author of DFSee; http://www.dfsee.com/dfsee/



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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 5:16 AM Jan van Wijk  wrote:
>
> Yes, unfortunatily I have no network connectivity in my FreeDOS VM,
> but I handle that by mounting a virtual-disk shared with other VM's.
> But normally I only need it to test my bootable-CD, so I just boot
> the ISO in a VM ...

Getting a DOS packet driver working (under VBox or QEMU) is very easy.

> PS:
> The user-interface library 'TxWin' I use for my disk-tool is open-source.

I've never used it, but I pointed Jim Hall to it (although I don't
think even he used it) a few years ago. But that was old versions
(txwin1xx.zip and txwin2xx.zip). A quick glance shows LGPL, is that
still true? Do you mind if we mirror these (old and/or new) to iBiblio
for us?

> For the DOS target, it needs the OpenWatcom compiler to build anything,
> so is probably not easy to use natively on FreeDOS.

OW 1.9 runs natively in DOS. Or did you mean the makefiles need
adjustments? (Long cmdlines for OW tools need an asterisk/star '*' !!)

> It also needs/uses the DOS32A extender to create 32-bit dos-extended programs 
> ...

Which one? 9.1.2 (circa 2006?) is latest (but not included by default
in old OW 1.9). Well, we're already familiar with it, and it's
mirrored on iBiblio, IIRC.

> https://www.dfsee.com/txwin/txwin5xx.zip
>
> Apart from DOS as a target, you can build for OS/2, Windows, Linux and macOS.

Cool (but I'm probably not a good enough programmer to properly use it!).


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Jan van Wijk]

On Tue, 2 Oct 2018 11:55:25 -0400 dmccunney wrote:
>
>Wine is good enough for a lot of what folks do, but perfection isn't
>possible.  Is there a list anywhere of what Odin is known to support?

Hmm, on my ArcaOS 5.0, version 0.8.9 is installed, and its doc says: 
'there is a large database of working apoplications at the Netlabs repository'

That repository is at:

https://trac.netlabs.org/odin32

But I could not find an explicit list there.

BTW:
The latest version is 0.9.0, built in 2017 with some minor changes over 0.8.9
It is present in the builds, but the home-page does not seem to be updated.

With the abundance of virtualisation enviroments available these days,
there does not seem to be much incentive to work on stuff like this.


>How much fun was getting the VirtualBox environment set up?

Not too hard really, except for macOS, which is officially not supported
when running a Windows host, but it is doable ...

>Virtualization is not a magic bullet.  There is overhead in getting
>something virtualized, and you need reasonably powerful hardware to
>run it.  (I first encountered virtualization on IBM mainframes, which
>had VM/CMS, whose intent was to let you do stuff like run DOS/VSE in
>one partition while you ran a test instance of MVS in another so you
>could migrate from VSE to MVS in a controlled manner.  IIRC, VM
>overhead was about 10% of total system resources.)

I remember VM, we used that as data-interchange vehicle when I was on the 
development team for OS/2 version 1.0 extended edition in Uithoorn in the 
Netherlands, with most of the team being in Austin Texas, this was 1989 :)

I even distributed my first incarnation of my disk tool there, 
using  what we would call a 'package manager' these days.

>OTOH, the DOSBox product is a VM for DOS emulation on other
>architectures.  I have some DOS apps up under Android on a tablet
>using an Android port of DOSBox.

Indeed, and the DosBox as present in OS/2 is pretty good as well,
allthough I do not use it that much anymore ...

>The network connectivity is the glue.  If you have it, many things
>become possible.

Yes, unfortunatily I have no network connectivity in my FreeDOS VM,
but I handle that by mounting a virtual-disk shared with other VM's.
But normally I only need it to test my bootable-CD, so I just boot
the ISO in a VM ...

>Thanks for the look at what you do.  I was fascinated.

You're welcome!


Regards, JvW



PS:
The user-interface library 'TxWin' I use for my disk-tool is open-source.
It implements basic windowing functions in text-mode, much like OS/2 PM
or Windows, with a message-que etc, and supports buttons, entryfields,
list-controls, menus and dialogs (including a standard file-open etc)
It also has mouse support.

For the DOS target, it needs the OpenWatcom compiler to build anything, 
so is probably not easy to use natively on FreeDOS. It also needs/uses 
the DOS32A extender to create 32-bit dos-extended programs ...

The library can be downloaded from my 'Free Downloads' page:

https://www.dfsee.com/download/index.php

Or directly from:

https://www.dfsee.com/txwin/txwin5xx.zip

Apart from DOS as a target, you can build for OS/2, Windows, Linux and macOS.


Jan van Wijk, author of DFSee; http://www.dfsee.com/dfsee/



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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[dmccunney]

On Tue, Oct 2, 2018 at 6:32 AM Jan van Wijk  wrote:
> On Mon, 1 Oct 2018 11:22:47 -0400 dmccunney wrote:
> >
> >> There is a new commercial OS/2 variant now, ArcaOS from arcanoae.com .
> >> 32-bit, no 64-bit, no GPT, no refund it it doesn't work.
> >
> >64-bit can be lived without.  32 bit is nice.  The question is what 32 bit 
> >apps?
>
> Well, the existing OS/2 ones for starters, but of course the number of those
> is just a fraction of what you have on Windows.
>
> But there is a reasonably recent FireFox/Mozilla browser, OpenOffice etc.

No surprise on Mozilla code.  Mozilla tried really hard to be
portable, and there's an amusing Mozilla developer's document on the
topic, whose main point is "Just because it works in Microsoft Visual
C++, don't assume it will work elsewhere."  The slow child in
Mozilla's C++ compiler class was the one shipped with HP-UX, which
choked and died on constructs other compilers handled.

Current Mozilla efforts just worry about Windows, Linux, and OS/X, and
no longer try to support everything.  I don't blame them.  (I have no
idea how many folks ever tried to run the Mozilla Suite on HP-UX to
begin with, and I suspect people still running HP-UX now are very thin
on the ground.)

I also have no idea how many architectures have Rust compilers now,
and Mozilla has been rewriting a chunk of the C++ code in Rust.

Decent ports of Open Office/Libre Office are also not a surprise.

> Then there are loads of ported Linux applications as well, and they also 
> include
> a YUM/RPM packagemanager so they are not hard to install.

Ah, neat!

> That said, if you do not have any existing OS/2 apps, there is not that much 
> reason
> to pick ArcaOS over Linux, macOS or Windows, apart from the WorkPlace shell,
> which still is one of the best object-oriented desktops around.
> (Allthough I am mainly a command line guy myself :)

Back in the Win3.X days, Program Manager was the Windows shell, but
you could substitute something else by diddling the SYSTEM.INI file to
change the shell specification.  I looked at a variety of
replacements, and the one I mostly used was Workplace Shell for
Windows, an IBM employee written freeware offering that tried to
reproduce the Workplace Shell for OS/2 as much as possible under
Windows.  It had things like folders and icons on the desktop, and
made migrating to Win9X easier because it already had a lot of the
things Win9X brought to the table.

> >The problem that did in OS/2 was lack of support for 32 bit *Windows*
> >apps.  The native OS/2 apps ecosystem wasn't broad/deep enough, and it
> >needed to be able to run Win apps to compete with Windows.
>
> There is still no generic support for that, and it is unlikely there ever 
> will be.

That's no surprise at all.

> Many 32-bit Windows application can be run using the 'Odin' emulation layer,
> that is functionally similar to WINE on Linux, but like WINE, it is not 
> perfect …

Wine is good enough for a lot of what folks do, but perfection isn't
possible.  Is there a list anywhere of what Odin is known to support?

> FWIW:
> I develop my software mainly on OS/2, using the OpenWatcom compiler,
> and cross-compile for 32-bit Windows, Linux, 32-bit extended DOS and OS/2.
> Only my macOS versions are compile ON macOS (LLVM/CLANG).

I'm aware of various folks who considered OS/2 a superior development
environment.  I mentioned the Stardock folks.  Another was Rex Conn,
author of the popular 4DOS COMMAND.COM replacement, and currently
offering the Take Command GUI terminal.  (I run the Lite version of
Take command as  a good freeware replacement for CMD.EXE with the
features CMD lacks.  I don't need it to be a GUI.)

> (The DOS version is most often used with FreeDOS BTW)

Cool.

> I still find OS/2 a more comfortable and safe environment than Windows,
> and have a lot of tools working there, so that makes it an easy decision.

I suspect you aren't the only one, and if you can develop on it but
cross-compile to other targets, it makes sense.

> Most of the work is done in a VirtualBox running ArcaOS on top of macOS,
> but ArcaOS also runs OK on pretty recent real hardware. There is support
> for things like ACPI and navtive SATA (AHCI) for example.

How much fun was getting the VirtualBox environment set up?

> >> Website says they use network drivers from FreeBSD, bit in that case, 
> >> surely one is better off using FreeBSD rather than ArcaOS.  OS/2 
> >> successors/descendants have fallen far behind.
>
> That is just for the core of the network drivers (with some wrapper software)
> and mainly done to keep development costs down, and get new drivers
> for newer cards more easily (wired and wireless).

One thing I did under Linux previous was use a wrapper to use Windows
drivers under Linux.  My problem child was video drivers.  The machine
in question used onboard ATI graphics, but the generic Linux driver
didn't support the full feature set.

> >People get computers to do work.  Work is done by 

Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Jan van Wijk]

On Mon, 1 Oct 2018 11:22:47 -0400 dmccunney wrote:
>
>> There is a new commercial OS/2 variant now, ArcaOS from arcanoae.com .
>
>I missed that one.  Thanks!
>
>> 32-bit, no 64-bit, no GPT, no refund it it doesn't work.
>
>64-bit can be lived without.  32 bit is nice.  The question is what 32 bit 
>apps?

Well, the existing OS/2 ones for starters, but of course the number of those
is just a fraction of what you have on Windows.

But there is a reasonably recent FireFox/Mozilla browser, OpenOffice etc.

Then there are loads of ported Linux applications as well, and they also include
a YUM/RPM packagemanager so they are not hard to install.

That said, if you do not have any existing OS/2 apps, there is not that much 
reason
to pick ArcaOS over Linux, macOS or Windows, apart from the WorkPlace shell, 
which still is one of the best object-oriented desktops around.
(Allthough I am mainly a command line guy myself :)

>The problem that did in OS/2 was lack of support for 32 bit *Windows*
>apps.  The native OS/2 apps ecosystem wasn't broad/deep enough, and it
>needed to be able to run Win apps to compete with Windows.

There is still no generic support for that, and it is unlikely there ever will 
be.
Many 32-bit Windows application can be run using the 'Odin' emulation layer,
that is functionally similar to WINE on Linux, but like WINE, it is not perfect 
...


FWIW:
I develop my software mainly on OS/2, using the OpenWatcom compiler,
and cross-compile for 32-bit Windows, Linux, 32-bit extended DOS and OS/2.
Only my macOS versions are compile ON macOS (LLVM/CLANG).

(The DOS version is most often used with FreeDOS BTW)

I still find OS/2 a more comfortable and safe environment than Windows,
and have a lot of tools working there, so that makes it an easy decision.

Most of the work is done in a VirtualBox running ArcaOS on top of macOS,
but ArcaOS also runs OK on pretty recent real hardware. There is support
for things like ACPI and navtive SATA (AHCI) for example.



>
>> Website says they use network drivers from FreeBSD, bit in that case, surely 
>> one is better off using FreeBSD rather than ArcaOS.  OS/2 
>> successors/descendants have fallen far behind.

That is just for the core of the network drivers (with some wrapper software)
and mainly done to keep development costs down, and get new drivers
for newer cards more easily (wired and wireless).

>Whether you are better running FreeBSD depends on what you want to do.
>If you are running a server, it might be worth doing.  If you want to
>run it in a desktop installation, you face the question of what apps
>are available that run under it.
>
>People get computers to do work.  Work is done by applications, and
>your question is what applications can do it.  With increasing
>portability of apps, we are at a point where what the underlying OS is
>may not *matter*.

True, even more with the quite capable virtualisation products around
that allow running programs for other platforms as well.

I have two development laptops, one running macOS and another running 
Windows-10,
but I can use both for the same work, since I run OS/2, Windows-XP, FreeDOS
and even macOS in virtual machines, connected using regular networking ...

Regards, JvW



Jan van Wijk, author of DFSee; http://www.dfsee.com/dfsee/



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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Don Flowers]

Thanks Gents!
You ave shed additional light on a rather complicated subject.

On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 6:24 PM Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi Don, at the risk of making this thread even longer...
>
> Yes, ebook readers tend to use Linux. Nicer brands even
> publish development kits ;-) But Linux is a whole OS. So
> as long as Amazon publishes any changes to the kernel
> with sources, they can run any of their closed source,
> DRM protected document viewers they want on their box.
> Or you just buy another brand without DRM, of course.
>
> Another "fun case" was the modem chip in some smartphone,
> I think even one by Apple. It took some GPL enthousiasts
> some lengthy discussions to get ENOUGH sources for the
> firmware to be able to understand their embedded Linux.
>
> Seems it was some Qualcomm Quectel module, also used in
> iPhone 5, among others (EC20 MDM9615). There is a talk
> about it: "Dissecting Modern (3G/4G) Cellular Modems".
>
> Cheers, Eric
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Eric Auer]

Hi Don, at the risk of making this thread even longer...

Yes, ebook readers tend to use Linux. Nicer brands even
publish development kits ;-) But Linux is a whole OS. So
as long as Amazon publishes any changes to the kernel
with sources, they can run any of their closed source,
DRM protected document viewers they want on their box.
Or you just buy another brand without DRM, of course.

Another "fun case" was the modem chip in some smartphone,
I think even one by Apple. It took some GPL enthousiasts
some lengthy discussions to get ENOUGH sources for the
firmware to be able to understand their embedded Linux.

Seems it was some Qualcomm Quectel module, also used in
iPhone 5, among others (EC20 MDM9615). There is a talk
about it: "Dissecting Modern (3G/4G) Cellular Modems".

Cheers, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[dmccunney]

On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 4:41 PM Don Flowers  wrote:
>
> So this statement caught my attention:" Other things that have a Linux kernel 
> uder the hood are the Amazon Kindle and B Nook eBook reader devices (and 
> source
> for their Linux kernel and firmware is available."

> Amazon may have released some part of the code but not all, else DRM would 
> not be employed so vehemently.  Which begs the question how much (or little) 
> dissemination of code constitutes GPL compliance?

Simple enough, I think:  the Linux *kernel* is under the GPL, and the
nature of the GPL is that any code that links *against* GPL code also
becomes GPL. Code that runs alongside or under GPL code but does not
link against it is not counted. (It's why you can use the GCC
toolchain to develop code that will be proprietary.  GCC is open
source under the GPL,  Code developed using it is not unless it links
against GPL code or is explicitly licensed under the GPL by the
developer.)

DRM is separate from that equation.  For example, consider eBooks.
Those might be released encumbered by DRM, but whether they are is a
decision of the *publisher*.  *Amazon* does not require it.

I was quite taken a few years back when Macmillan Books announced they
were no longer selling DRM encumbered titles.  Macmillan is the US
umbrella imprint of German publisher Holtzbrink, and includes imprints
Celadon Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux,  First Second, Flatiron
Books, Henry Holt & Co., Metropolitan Books, Macmillan Audio, Picador,
Quick and Dirty Tips, St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books, Thomas Dunne
Books, Castle Point Books, Tor/Forge, and Distributed Publishers among
others, and the statement applied to *all* of the subsidiary imprints.
They determined that DRM was *not* protecting revenue, and *was*
increasing friction for the customer, and dispensed with it.
(Sensible. DRM does not prevent piracy, but does annoy the buyer.
Removing DRM is trivial, and it only takes one liberated copy uploaded
to a file sharing site for the horse to be out of the barn.  You
aren't losing anything by dropping DRM because the folks who get
pirated material wouldn't pay for it in the first place.  If they
can't get it free they do without.)

Amazon's original DRM was intended to lock buyers into the Amazon
ecosystem,  Buy whatever books you wanted, but make Amazon be the only
retailer you bought from.  they used broad selection and low pricing
as additional means to that end.  These days, I don't think DRM is
much of a factor from Amazon's viewpoint.  They have an enormous
customer base, and they got it by reducing friction. I know folks who
could find any book they wanted free of charge, but it's simply far
more convenient to get it from Amazon.  Find it in the catalog, place
the order and get immediate fulfillment on the form of a digital
download, or get the paper volume shipped to arrive in a day or so.
That convenience is worth money to the customers, and Amazon recently
became the next company after Apple to get a trillion dollar valuation
in consequence.
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Don Flowers]

So this statement caught my attention:" Other things that have a Linux
kernel uder the hood are the Amazon Kindle and B Nook eBook reader
devices (and source
for their Linux kernel and firmware is available."
Amazon may have released some part of the code but not all, else DRM would
not be employed so vehemently.  Which begs the question how much (or
little) dissemination of code constitutes GPL compliance?

On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 4:14 PM dmccunney  wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 2:32 PM Cuvtixo D  wrote:
> >
> > I'm glad this is being cleared up a bit here. Yes, I should have made
> the civil/criminal distinction. Yes, it's too expensive to be practical for
> commercial companies. But still, at least in my fantasies, Stallman would
> have done a big fundraiser to bring such a case to court, since he seems to
> be attached to principals rather than personal enrichment.
>
> He is indeed.  I don't know details, but I suspect his personal
> finances place him *well* below the poverty level.  I think I
> mentioned elsewhere that Stallman reminds me of a monk in the middle
> ages, living in a cave somewhere and supporting himself through alms
> donated by the pious so he can devote his full time and effort to his
> conception of who God is and and what his God wants us to do.
>
> I don't see Stallman as being *capable* of the sort of effort you
> mention.  Among other things, I'm pretty sure he has Asperger
> syndrome, and communication with other *people* is what Aspergers
> impacts.  Give him a terminal and let him talk to a computer, and
> things are fine.  Talking to other *people* may be another matter.
>
> > My ex worked for the remnants of Symbolics. Ironically, when someone was
> interested in buying and making the company an educational non-profit, one
> new employee took it upon himself to propose Macsyma, among their other
> software, be open sourced, to the "benefactor." This undermined the CEO's
> pitch, though I have no clear idea what else made the negotiation fail,
> except the Harvard math department got the money instead(!). But I got
> hooked on linux and, at least the theory of, Open Source.
>
> Ah, the Lisp Machines vs Symbolics  days.  That was another formative
> period for Stallman, as his notion that code should be shared had him
> reverse engineering Symbolics developments and contributing them to
> Lisp Machnes.
>
> The market for dedicated hardware running Lisp was transitory, and
> evaporated as higher capacity general purpose machines that could run
> Lisp  acceptably appeared.  (A beneficiary of the was Gnu Emacs, which
> is essentially a Lisp interpreter implementing a Lisp flavor based on
> Maclisp.  Most of Emacs is written in the dialect of Lisp it
> implements, and if you are fluent  in Lisp you can get it to do all
> manner of things.  I knew folks who used Emacs as their shell on Unix
> systems, because Emacs could communicate via pipes with the underlying
> system, and you could have a terminal session in an Emacs buffer will
> all Emacs editing features available.
>
> Emacs could also play games, and got extended to a full IDE with
> access to source repositories, compilers, and debuggers.  Developers
> never had to leave Emacs when developing code.  I know some folks who
> still use Emacs that way.
>
> I have no idea what went on with the effort to make Symbolics into an
> educational non-profit.  But note that "non profits" does not mean you
> can't make money.  You almost certainly have to to remain a going
> concerns.  What non-profit status does is place restrictions on what
> you can *do* with the money you make.  (In particular, it can't be
> returned to shareholders as dividends.)
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>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[dmccunney]

On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 2:32 PM Cuvtixo D  wrote:
>
> I'm glad this is being cleared up a bit here. Yes, I should have made the 
> civil/criminal distinction. Yes, it's too expensive to be practical for 
> commercial companies. But still, at least in my fantasies, Stallman would 
> have done a big fundraiser to bring such a case to court, since he seems to 
> be attached to principals rather than personal enrichment.

He is indeed.  I don't know details, but I suspect his personal
finances place him *well* below the poverty level.  I think I
mentioned elsewhere that Stallman reminds me of a monk in the middle
ages, living in a cave somewhere and supporting himself through alms
donated by the pious so he can devote his full time and effort to his
conception of who God is and and what his God wants us to do.

I don't see Stallman as being *capable* of the sort of effort you
mention.  Among other things, I'm pretty sure he has Asperger
syndrome, and communication with other *people* is what Aspergers
impacts.  Give him a terminal and let him talk to a computer, and
things are fine.  Talking to other *people* may be another matter.

> My ex worked for the remnants of Symbolics. Ironically, when someone was 
> interested in buying and making the company an educational non-profit, one 
> new employee took it upon himself to propose Macsyma, among their other 
> software, be open sourced, to the "benefactor." This undermined the CEO's 
> pitch, though I have no clear idea what else made the negotiation fail, 
> except the Harvard math department got the money instead(!). But I got hooked 
> on linux and, at least the theory of, Open Source.

Ah, the Lisp Machines vs Symbolics  days.  That was another formative
period for Stallman, as his notion that code should be shared had him
reverse engineering Symbolics developments and contributing them to
Lisp Machnes.

The market for dedicated hardware running Lisp was transitory, and
evaporated as higher capacity general purpose machines that could run
Lisp  acceptably appeared.  (A beneficiary of the was Gnu Emacs, which
is essentially a Lisp interpreter implementing a Lisp flavor based on
Maclisp.  Most of Emacs is written in the dialect of Lisp it
implements, and if you are fluent  in Lisp you can get it to do all
manner of things.  I knew folks who used Emacs as their shell on Unix
systems, because Emacs could communicate via pipes with the underlying
system, and you could have a terminal session in an Emacs buffer will
all Emacs editing features available.

Emacs could also play games, and got extended to a full IDE with
access to source repositories, compilers, and debuggers.  Developers
never had to leave Emacs when developing code.  I know some folks who
still use Emacs that way.

I have no idea what went on with the effort to make Symbolics into an
educational non-profit.  But note that "non profits" does not mean you
can't make money.  You almost certainly have to to remain a going
concerns.  What non-profit status does is place restrictions on what
you can *do* with the money you make.  (In particular, it can't be
returned to shareholders as dividends.)
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Ralf Quint]

On 10/1/2018 10:14 AM, Cuvtixo D wrote:
Brand new to this mailing list, but I wanted to respond to a 
conversation about Open source licences, and apologies to the authors, 
I lost track of who said what in the following:
>>> (Speaking personally, I'd love to see *FreeDOS* re-licensed under 
>>> something other than the GPL.) 
>> I don't honestly know if that's even legally possible now that Pat 
>> has died. (Gotta love legalese, ugh. No, I'm not a lawyer.) 
> I don't believe it is possible.
>> I also don't think GPL hinders many potential contributors (versus, 
>> what, BSD two-clause??). I'll admit that GPL can cause some practical 
>> problems, in rare cases, but it also avoids or solves some other 
>> practical problems (again, in some rare cases). 
Firstly, /GPL still presently has no American legal force behind it!/ 
dmccunney (I believe) mentioned Stallman's lack of touch with reality, 
and, I think this is reflected most importantly in the fact that he 
hasn't rallied behind any court case against any GPL violators. 
American law, based on the /common law/ system, builds upon legal 
court precedent. When no one sues (admittedly an expensive process, 
that someone like Stallman might have to get funding for), it remains 
in legal limbo. Maybe I'm just unaware, and some company like Red Hat 
has already embarked on legal proceedings. But until then, violating 
GPL will /only /bring anger from the "open source
That is not quite correct. The FSF (Free Software Foundation) has a 
legal "arm" that has engaged in several lawsuits to enforce the GPL. 
Just check https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20Enforcement%20Cases


But it is indeed correct (IMHO) that Stallman and a lot of his fanbois 
have a serious disconnect with reality. And that shows in the viral 
nature of the GPL(2). Some of the issues were leveled somewhat in GPL3 
but the basic damage was done. And it could blow up big time in 
Stallman's (and everybody else's) face if for example people would their 
boycott/revocation of license for parts of the Linux kernel really pull 
through after the over-the-top code of conduct changes that some people 
immediately tried to push through after Linus pulled himself out of the 
day to day business for a while...


Overall, there are much better suited Open Source licenses, like MIT or 
BSD, but the bonehead nature of the GPL has also resulted in far too 
many licenses that it is easy to keep an overview and really see any 
differences. And such nonsense like the spat that one entity has with 
the OpenWatcom license, while it is perfectly fine with another.


Ralf


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Cuvtixo D]

I'm glad this is being cleared up a bit here. Yes, I should have made the
civil/criminal distinction. Yes, it's too expensive to be practical for
commercial companies. But still, at least in my fantasies, Stallman would
have done a big fundraiser to bring such a case to court, since he seems to
be attached to principals rather than personal enrichment.
My ex worked for the remnants of Symbolics. Ironically, when someone was
interested in buying and making the company an educational non-profit, one
new employee took it upon himself to propose Macsyma, among their other
software, be open sourced, to the "benefactor." This undermined the CEO's
pitch, though I have no clear idea what else made the negotiation fail,
except the Harvard math department got the money instead(!). But I got
hooked on linux and, at least the theory of, Open Source.
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[dmccunney]

On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 1:16 PM Cuvtixo D  wrote:
>
> Brand new to this mailing list, but I wanted to respond to a conversation 
> about Open source licences, and apologies to the authors, I lost track of who 
> said what in the following:
> >>> (Speaking personally, I'd love to see *FreeDOS* re-licensed under
> >>> something other than the GPL.)

> Firstly, GPL still presently has no American legal force behind it! dmccunney 
> (I believe) mentioned Stallman's lack of touch with reality, and, I think 
> this is reflected most importantly in the fact that he hasn't rallied behind 
> any court case against any GPL violators. American law, based on the common 
> law system, builds upon legal court precedent. When no one sues (admittedly 
> an expensive process, that someone like Stallman might have to get funding 
> for), it remains in legal limbo. Maybe I'm just unaware, and some company 
> like Red Hat has already embarked on legal proceedings. But until then, 
> violating GPL will only bring anger from the "open source community".

The issue is that software licenses are *civil* law, not criminal, and
similar to copyrights and trademarks.  It is on the rights *holder* to
monitor the status of stuff they have the rights to, and take legal
action if the rights are violated.

Fundamentally, open source licenses are a gentleman's  agreement that
assume everyone else is a gentleman is will play by the rules.
Sometimes they aren't and don't.

Whether Stallman rallies behind GPL court cases is largely irrelevant.
The basic problem is that taking someone to court over civil law
violations is time consuming and *expensive*.   Who has the *money* to
take GPL violators to court, and why would they bother?

> The situation for an American violator parallels that of Chinese company 
> that's unafraid of violating American copyright: No legal enforcement; 
> minimal repercussions. Complaining about FreeDOS being GPL'd is a little 
> silly. If your commercial company doesn't want or need the goodwill of the 
> "FOSS movement", and can get a reasonable profit while violating any GPL, 
> they might as well do so. Some companies might be afraid of this changing in 
> the future, licencing is written so they might have a good case when it does, 
> thus compliance is higher than it might otherwise be.

See above about gentleman's agreement.  The problem is lack of
interoperability between different open source licenses and is mostly
an issue within the FOSS community among people who care about license
terms and try to abide by them..  I can't think offhand of any
significant amount of money to be made by ignoring the GPL and using
GPLed code in a proprietary product.  The stuff that gets issued as
open source has reached the level of being a commodity product where
it's hard to make money selling it.

A high tech CEO got asked on the EETimes site while back about doing
business business in mainland China where high tech firms were *very*
reluctant to use new proprietary tech because once in China it
wouldn't be proprietary any more.  His response was "Bring suit
against a Chinese company in a Chinese court, and tell be what you
come back with."  IE, you will get nowhere, so don't use tech in China
you have IP concerns about.

> PS I understand "legalese" because I earned an Associates degree in Paralegal 
> Studies, not because I'm a lawyer. In fact I steered away from that career 
> precisely because so many lawyers and law firms are jerks, and squeeze 
> paralegals for all they can.

I don't blame you a bit.

> Courts are also among the last to adopt new tech, which is why some 
> paralegals might be interested in adopting software like FreeDOS. 
> Compatibility with old apps and formats (WP 5.1 for DOS) is in demand with 
> paralegals (more importantly with their deep-pocketed bosses).

Software becomes embedded and held onto as long as possible, because
it's complex and expensive to switch..  A chap I knew years back was
an Applications Engineer for a law firm.  The firm made extensive use
of DOS XYWrite, which was highly programmable, as their word
processor. .  He was looking for ways to get across to a senior
partner that switching to WordPerfect (which the partner apparently
heard about from a younger relative) was a non-starter, because too
much of what the firm did with XYWrite simply couldn't be *done* with
WP.

The same reasons are why there are after market firms still supporting
all manner of things, like OS/2.  There is a large enough embedded
market that *really* doesn't want to move off what they have now to
support them.  (There are folks doing Wang and Data General emulation,
for example.)  That market will not *grow*, but enough of it still
exists to support some third party firms who service it.
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[Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Cuvtixo D]

Brand new to this mailing list, but I wanted to respond to a conversation
about Open source licences, and apologies to the authors, I lost track of
who said what in the following:
>>> (Speaking personally, I'd love to see *FreeDOS* re-licensed under

>>> something other than the GPL.)
>> I don't honestly know if that's even legally possible now that Pat
>> has died. (Gotta love legalese, ugh. No, I'm not a lawyer.)
> I don't believe it is possible.
>> I also don't think GPL hinders many potential contributors (versus,
>> what, BSD two-clause??). I'll admit that GPL can cause some practical
>> problems, in rare cases, but it also avoids or solves some other
>> practical problems (again, in some rare cases).

Firstly, *GPL still presently has no American legal force behind it!*
dmccunney (I believe) mentioned Stallman's lack of touch with reality,
and, I think this is reflected most importantly in the fact that he
hasn't rallied behind any court case against any GPL violators.
American law, based on the *common law* system, builds upon legal
court precedent. When no one sues (admittedly an expensive process,
that someone like Stallman might have to get funding for), it remains
in legal limbo. Maybe I'm just unaware, and some company like Red Hat
has already embarked on legal proceedings. But until then, violating
GPL will *only *bring anger from the "open source community".

The situation for an American violator parallels that of Chinese
company that's unafraid of violating American copyright: No legal
enforcement; minimal repercussions. Complaining about FreeDOS being
GPL'd is a little silly. If your commercial company doesn't want or
need the goodwill of the "FOSS movement", and can get a reasonable
profit while violating any GPL, they might as well do so. Some
companies might be afraid of this changing in the future, licencing is
written so they might have a good case when it does, thus compliance
is higher than it might otherwise be.

PS I understand "legalese" because I earned an Associates degree in
Paralegal Studies, not because I'm a lawyer. In fact I steered away
from that career precisely because so many lawyers and law firms are
jerks, and squeeze paralegals for all they can.

Courts are also among the last to adopt new tech, which is why some
paralegals might be interested in adopting software like FreeDOS.
Compatibility with old apps and formats (WP 5.1 for DOS) is in demand
with paralegals (more importantly with their deep-pocketed bosses).
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[dmccunney]

On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 3:29 AM Thomas Mueller  wrote:
> Excerptfrom dmccunney:
>
> > > MS isn't the only vendor of a DOS-compatible OS. DR-DOS and ROM-DOS
> > > are still sold online. (Do OS/2 variants also count? Maybe.)
>
> > Which OS/2 variants?  The one I'm aware of is eComStation,
> > https://www.ecomstation.com/.  The outfit that makes it got the rights
> > from IBM, and essentially services accounts that still have
> > substantial OS/2 deployments, and it's cheaper and easier to try to
> > continue to use OS/2 than migrate to a different architecture.
> > (Stardock, who does stuff like the Window Blinds and Object Desktop
> > enhancements for Windows, developed under OS/s, and tried to get the
> > rights from Microsoft but were unsuccessful.  Not sure what they might
> > have done if they were able to get the rights, but support for 32 bit
> > apps would have been a major improvement for the OS.  Not supporting
> > 32 bit Windows apps effectively killed it.)
>
> There is a new commercial OS/2 variant now, ArcaOS from arcanoae.com .

I missed that one.  Thanks!

> 32-bit, no 64-bit, no GPT, no refund it it doesn't work.

64-bit can be lived without.  32 bit is nice.  The question is what 32 bit apps?

The problem that did in OS/2 was lack of support for 32 bit *Windows*
apps.  The native OS/2 apps ecosystem wasn't broad/deep enough, and it
needed to be able to run Win apps to compete with Windows.

> Website says they use network drivers from FreeBSD, bit in that case, surely 
> one is better off using FreeBSD rather than ArcaOS.  OS/2 
> successors/descendants have fallen far behind.

Whether you are better running FreeBSD depends on what you want to do.
If you are running a server, it might be worth doing.  If you want to
run it in a desktop installation, you face the question of what apps
are available that run under it.

People get computers to do work.  Work is done by applications, and
your question is what applications can do it.  With increasing
portability of apps, we are at a point where what the underlying OS is
may not *matter*.

> There is also an osFree at osfree.org or github.com/osfree-project/osfree/ .  
> Progress is glacially slow, maybe they'll have something (relevant? probably 
> not) by year 4000.

  That sounds like what I'd expect.  Their most recent news
items are about moving their repository to git.  Actual *development*
seems scanty.

> Peripherally on-topic for this list since it relates to descendants of DOS, 
> but we don't want to clutter this list by pursuing this side-topic too deeply.

I'd agree, because OS/2 was supposed to be the successor to DOS.  Had
it been available when the Intel 80286 was released, we might all be
running it now.  It wasn't, and the AT class machines were simply
bigger faster DOS platforms that could not take advantage of the new
capabilities of the CPU..

> Tom
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website (rants)

[TJ Edmister]

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 21:08:03 -0400, Rugxulo  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 7:32 PM, Jose Antonio Senna
>  wrote:
>>
>>   This said, I also admit browsing from DOS
>>  is going to be less and less practical.
>>  Lynx 2.8.5 supports HTTPS (and is the only
>>  tried DOS browser which does),
>
> I'm pretty sure Links2 (non-lite version) can support HTTPS also.
>
> But if you try Links2 and it doesn't work well for you, I'm pretty
> sure the developer (mikulas) would still accept your feedback. He
> seems open to suggestions.
>
>>   It shall be possible to write a browser "for DOS"
>>  from scratch (possibly using only expanded
>>  memory, so it may run even in a 8088, albeit
>>  a fast one), but it will take so much skilled
>>  effort that nobody is going to do it.
>
> Honestly, I'd err more on the side of "nobody has those skills
> anymore" rather than pretending "if only we had more xyz" (money,
> developers, time, etc).

It's not a lack of skills. DOS is lacking third party drivers that exist  
for modern OSs. However, something could still be written that ran on a  
limited selection of hardware. DOS is lacking various libraries. However,  
these libraries are still maintained, people know how they work, they  
could be reimplemented. Anything that can be developed for Windows can be  
developed for DOS, even if you have to reimplement Windows itself to get  
there (although that would be the worse case scenario...)

The problem is what it means to be "a web browser." It's 25 years of  
haphazard evolutionary design-by-commitee squared. An unmitigated  
disaster. Nobody in their right mind would try to support all this crap  
that never should have been in the first place. This is why there are very  
few "fully-featured" browsers available for ANY OS that don't borrow a ton  
of code from something else.

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[Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Jim Hall]

Hi all

Just a heads up that I'm doing some planned maintenance on the FreeDOS www
website tomorrow, Saturday, July 16. Not sure when I'll start, but watch
Twitter @freedos_project for updates.

This isn't a website update, this is just moving the website to a new
Amazon instance. I mentioned that was coming in a separate email the other
day.

Jim
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website (rants)

[Corbin Davenport]

I mostly agree with the sentiments towards HTML5 here. One of my biggest
gripes is that websites are now attempting to emulate the appearance and
functionality of native apps with useless animations and twenty JavaScript
libraries that make my Core i5 machine slow.

But I think this is just the same problem websites have had for ages -
remember all those websites with an empty HTML page and one big Flash
object for everything? Same bad design philosophy, different era. And it
goes without saying that HTML-based sites degrade for text-based browers a
lot more gracefully than Flash-based sites (aka not at all).

But one of the plus sides of the mobile web browser revolution that started
with the iPhone was full-featured mobile site. I can still use the internet
semi-usably on my old iMac G4 just by forcing my browser to load mobile
sites instead :)

Corbin 

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 9:08 PM, Rugxulo  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 7:32 PM, Jose Antonio Senna
>  wrote:
> >
> >   This said, I also admit browsing from DOS
> >  is going to be less and less practical.
> >  Lynx 2.8.5 supports HTTPS (and is the only
> >  tried DOS browser which does),
>
> I'm pretty sure Links2 (non-lite version) can support HTTPS also.
>
> But if you try Links2 and it doesn't work well for you, I'm pretty
> sure the developer (mikulas) would still accept your feedback. He
> seems open to suggestions.
>
> >   It shall be possible to write a browser "for DOS"
> >  from scratch (possibly using only expanded
> >  memory, so it may run even in a 8088, albeit
> >  a fast one), but it will take so much skilled
> >  effort that nobody is going to do it.
>
> Honestly, I'd err more on the side of "nobody has those skills
> anymore" rather than pretending "if only we had more xyz" (money,
> developers, time, etc).
>
>
> --
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> traffic
> patterns at an interface-level. Reveals which users, apps, and protocols
> are
> consuming the most bandwidth. Provides multi-vendor support for NetFlow,
> J-Flow, sFlow and other flows. Make informed decisions using capacity
> planning
> reports.http://sdm.link/zohodev2dev
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website (rants)

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 7:32 PM, Jose Antonio Senna
 wrote:
>
>   This said, I also admit browsing from DOS
>  is going to be less and less practical.
>  Lynx 2.8.5 supports HTTPS (and is the only
>  tried DOS browser which does),

I'm pretty sure Links2 (non-lite version) can support HTTPS also.

But if you try Links2 and it doesn't work well for you, I'm pretty
sure the developer (mikulas) would still accept your feedback. He
seems open to suggestions.

>   It shall be possible to write a browser "for DOS"
>  from scratch (possibly using only expanded
>  memory, so it may run even in a 8088, albeit
>  a fast one), but it will take so much skilled
>  effort that nobody is going to do it.

Honestly, I'd err more on the side of "nobody has those skills
anymore" rather than pretending "if only we had more xyz" (money,
developers, time, etc).

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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website (rants)

[Dale E Sterner]

My bank was planning to swithch to html 5.
I told them that if I located a bank using html 4
that I would close my accounts and move to that
bank. They are still using html 4.
If everybody did that maybe this constant
upgrade crap would stop.

cheers
DS



On Sat, 16 Jul 16 00:32:09 + =?UTF-8?B?Sm9zZSBBbnRvbmlvIFNlbm5h?=
 writes:
>   On July 15 Rugxulo said:
> 
>  > Let's not pretend that it's really about DOS. 
>  > It's more about ultra-modern advancements 
>  > (which personally I think we can live without, 
>  > but nobody agrees with me).
> 
>   I,at least, agree.
>   Almost all the  "enhancements" in web pages
>  are just gimmicks to force use of the latest 
>  browsers, and offer no advantage to the user, 
>  whether on information, ease of use, or security, 
>  over plain HTML4.
> 
>   This said, I also admit browsing from DOS 
>  is going to be less and less practical. 
>  Lynx 2.8.5 supports HTTPS (and is the only 
>  tried DOS browser which does), but I cannot
>  access Wikipedia with it, because the
>  algorithms they use (or so they said).  
>  Not that they care.
>   Newer versions of Lynx may have wider
>  HTTPS capabilities, but they are really 
>  *nix programs, depending on so much extra 
>  code that they shall probably never run 
>  in a 386.
>   
>   It shall be possible to write a browser "for DOS" 
>  from scratch (possibly using only expanded 
>  memory, so it may run even in a 8088, albeit 
>  a fast one), but it will take so much skilled 
>  effort that nobody is going to do it.
> 
>  JAS
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
-
-
> What NetFlow Analyzer can do for you? Monitors network bandwidth and 
> traffic
> patterns at an interface-level. Reveals which users, apps, and 
> protocols are 
> consuming the most bandwidth. Provides multi-vendor support for 
> NetFlow, 
> J-Flow, sFlow and other flows. Make informed decisions using 
> capacity planning
> reports.http://sdm.link/zohodev2dev
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> 


**
>From Dale Sterner - MS organic chemistry
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jo00975a052
***



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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website (rants)

[Ralf Quint]

On 7/15/2016 5:32 PM, Jose Antonio Senna wrote:
>This said, I also admit browsing from DOS
>   is going to be less and less practical.
>   Lynx 2.8.5 supports HTTPS (and is the only
>   tried DOS browser which does), but I cannot
>   access Wikipedia with it, because the
>   algorithms they use (or so they said).
>   Not that they care.
>Newer versions of Lynx may have wider
>   HTTPS capabilities, but they are really
>   *nix programs, depending on so much extra
>   code that they shall probably never run
>   in a 386.
https is only one issue, the general use/switch to HTML5 with all the 
multi-media and forms features (negating the need to have flash for a 
lot of things) is probably a much bigger hurdle.
>
>It shall be possible to write a browser "for DOS"
>   from scratch (possibly using only expanded
>   memory, so it may run even in a 8088, albeit
>   a fast one), but it will take so much skilled
>   effort that nobody is going to do it.
Good luck with that. It seems these days nobody can actually program 
anything for DOS anymore.

As much as I like DOS and I think it can still be very useful for 
example in embedded use, like on the Intel Quark based IoT boards, 
(general) web browsing on DOS is just nonsense. Just use Linux for that 
if you do  not want to use Windows and don't want to encumber yourself 
with macOS (fka OS X) either...

Ralf

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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

Dennis, I wish we wouldn't have to constantly state how obsolete DOS
is and how it's horribly dead and useless. I doubt Jasenna is directly
profiting from your "obvious" advice to upgrade. (Sigh.)

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Thomas Mueller  wrote:
>
> I browsed www.rahul.net/dkaufman/  just for curiosity.  Last released version 
> of DOS
> port of lynx was 2.8.5rel.1, date 18 April 2004.

There's a newer DJGPP "port" 2.8.9 since two weeks ago. Not from Doug,
though, and I'd hardly call it well-supported. Heck, I haven't even
tried it. I don't know what it supports or how well it works:

http://na.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/djgpp/current/v2tk/lynx289b.zip
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.msdos.djgpp/5HbYKiotvcA

(irony: you probably can't see that announcement without Javascript)

(For my DOS uses, Links2 is plenty good enough.)

> Last line of this web page read:
> This page last updated 2 November 2006.

Links 2.13 (DJGPP build, mirrored to iBiblio for us) was just released
two weeks ago as well.

> I also tried www.nettamer.net/tamer.html : looked like the same old stuff 
> from 1999.
>
> I checked www.glennmcc.org : latest Arachne is v1.97, dating to Mar 04, 2013.
>
> I think it might be possible to produce a DOS web browser with support for 
> current web standards,

It's possible (in theory) to support some Javascript, but adding
things like HTML5 are probably out of the question.

> but would not be worthwhile on an OS that distinguishes between conventional, 
> extended and
> expanded memory.

DJGPP v2 built stuff usually only sees DPMI, which behind the scenes
is based upon whatever other kind is available (EMS/VCPI, XMS, raw).
You don't have to do anything special to access it, so that is a red
herring.

> Writing a web browser is more efficient in Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD and Haiku

FreeBSD isn't a supported target for Opera anymore (last I checked).
So how "easy" can it be if even they aren't supported? Does any
"major" web browser support Haiku? Or even eCS (OS/2)? AFAIK, no.

Face it, only the big three (billion-dollar) OSes are worth anybody's
effort anymore. Which is horribly lazy and inept, but that's the way
it is. Honestly, a web browser shouldn't be almost bigger than the OS
itself! It's a mess, but there's not much normal people can do about
it.

But it's also not fair to pretend that development just magically
happens (while whining about money, as if that solves everything).
First of all, money and developers don't grow on trees. We're lucky
when anything is supported, and it's not always guaranteed that even
Windows, Linux, and Mac are all equal in features.

> not to mention Windows and Mac, and not many people would be interested
> in web-browsing from DOS.

IE is practically dead (or so I thought) in lieu of Edge. And legacy
things (like "old" Win7) are going away. Let's not pretend that it's
really about DOS. It's more about ultra-modern advancements (which
personally I think we can live without, but nobody agrees with me).

Probably cost-efficient Android tablets or Chromebooks are the future
(though iOS is still extremely popular).

> At this stage, my interest in browsing from DOS would be mainly to see if it 
> works on simpler sites,
> naturally not including any kind of online commerce.

Considering that most companies (and even individuals) are not immune
to hacks, and that this problem seems to be increasing, I think any
overzealous claims of security (on any OS) would be somewhat naive.
Not to be a pessimist, but the Internet itself may not survive if
certain groups can't keep their hands off of other peoples' goods.

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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Thomas Mueller]

from dmccunney:

> And sometimes it's correct advice.  The computer world changes with
> enormous rapidity, and one area where change is fastest is web
> browsing.  These days, the push is to support HTML5, and CSS3, with
> current JavaScript.  HTML5 is a big push because the  keyword
> makes it possible to embed video without using Flash.  You still need
> a codec to decode and display the video, but the codec is part of the
> browser, and not a third party plugin.  CSS3 offers major additional
> capabilities in determining how sites look in a manner separated from
> their content.  And *everybody* uses JavaScript now.
 
> It's why I don't even try to browse from DOS.  No current DOS browser
> comes anywhere close to the support for current web standards that is
> really needed, and none *will*.  It's likely not possible under DOS,
> and  no one will expend the considerable effort to implement what can
> be done under DOS because there's no money in it.  People who can do
> that sort of thing expect to be paid for it, and who will do so?

I browsed www.rahul.net/dkaufman/  just for curiosity.  Last released version 
of DOS port of lynx was 2.8.5rel.1, date 18 April 2004.

Last line of this web page read:
This page last updated 2 November 2006. 

I also tried www.nettamer.net/tamer.html : looked like the same old stuff from 
1999.

I checked www.glennmcc.org : latest Arachne is v1.97, dating to Mar 04, 2013.

I think it might be possible to produce a DOS web browser with support for 
current web standards, but would not be worthwhile on an OS that distinguishes 
between conventional, extended and expanded memory.

Writing a web browser is more efficient in Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD and Haiku not 
to mention Windows and Mac, and not many people would be interested in 
web-browsing from DOS.

At this stage, my interest in browsing from DOS would be mainly to see if it 
works on simpler sites, naturally not including any kind of online commerce.

Tom


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[dmccunney]

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 4:11 PM, Jose Antonio Senna
 wrote:
>  On July 13 dmccunney said:

>   > One alternative is to install a new browser.
>
>Seems the knee-jerk reaction from support people.
>And a new OS, and a new computer...

And sometimes it's correct advice.  The computer world changes with
enormous rapidity, and one area where change is fastest is web
browsing.  These days, the push is to support HTML5, and CSS3, with
current JavaScript.  HTML5 is a big push because the  keyword
makes it possible to embed video without using Flash.  You still need
a codec to decode and display the video, but the codec is part of the
browser, and not a third party plugin.  CSS3 offers major additional
capabilities in determining how sites look in a manner separated from
their content.  And *everybody* uses JavaScript now.

It's why I don't even try to browse from DOS.  No current DOS browser
comes anywhere close to the support for current web standards that is
really needed, and none *will*.  It's likely not possible under DOS,
and  no one will expend the considerable effort to implement what can
be done under DOS because there's no money in it.  People who can do
that sort of thing expect to be paid for it, and who will do so?

>   >  Another is code that diddles the User Agent string the
>   > browser sends in response to a "What browser are you?"
>   > query...
>
>   In FF this can be done in the about:config page, without
>  extra code, but I doubt they use this method to identify
>  the browser.

What *do* you think they use?  Most sites I encounter use precisely
the User Agent string, because it's what the browser sends when it's
asked to identify itself.

I've diddled that configuration on the past to lie about what I was
using, to cope with brain dead sites designed to work with IE, or with
sites that didn't recognize the browser I was using (not FF) as one
that supported the standards they required...No problem.  Lie and
claim it's Chrome...

>   I think it is more likely they use jquery to make the
>  client return a response dependent on the javascript
>  version it supports.

Possible, but that's another reason for running a relatively current browser.

>   JAS
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Jim Hall]

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 3:11 PM, Jose Antonio Senna
 wrote:
>  On July 13 dmccunney said:
>
>  > The issue here may be the ancient FF version.
>  > Sites tend to use browser identification code
>  > that will complain if it thinks you
>  > are running an unsupported browser that can't
>  > render the site.
>  > FF 2.X has been unsupported for years.
>
>This may explain why the Sourceforge server failed to
>   detect javascript capability in my browser, but it is no
>   reason for the "disaster recovery mode" message.
> Anyway, Sourceforge is now working again, and their
>   "Site Status" page acknowledges they had a problem.
>
[...]
>   I think it is more likely they use jquery to make the
>  client return a response dependent on the javascript
>  version it supports.


Yes, I think you are correct that they probably use js in their error
page, and they are detecting the version of js supported.

But as you say, SourceForge has fixed their server problem, so I think
this issue is moot.


Jim

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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[dmccunney]

On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 2:07 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
> Interesting. When I replied to the email, I did check the website links. The
> links to SF were broken with a message from SourceForge. But I just checked
> again, and things seem back to normal. So that's good! :-)

I'll be curious to see what happens if Jose tries again.

There have been *many* changes in the JavaScript language since FF 2.X
was released, aside from changes in FF itself.  There are a variety of
sites that won't work correctly because the JavaScript the site uses
contains constructs that weren't in the language when FF 2 was
current, and the site will complain because even though JavaScript is
enabled in the browser, the JavaScript interpreter is too old to run
the code.

(I was grimly amused a while back when Google redid their code so
Gmail would actually work in IE 6.  I don't want to think about what
sort of kludges and work-arounds that took.  IE 6 was the *least*
standards-compliant browser in use, and Google only bit that bullet
because so many machines still used it.  Subsequent changes to Gmail
broke it again for IE 6 users, but by that point there were far less
people still trying to use IE 6.)

It's a subset of the issue that bites FreeDOS.  I don't even *try* to
browse from DOS.  Too many things just won't work.  The good part is I
don't *have* to browse from DOS, and have current browsers under
Windows and Linux that *do* work.
__
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Jim Hall]

Interesting. When I replied to the email, I did check the website links.
The links to SF were broken with a message from SourceForge. But I just
checked again, and things seem back to normal. So that's good! :-)
On Jul 13, 2016 12:58 PM, "dmccunney"  wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 1:45 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
> > That's not a good sign. SourceForge did some planned maintenance
> yesterday
> > about noon, and things didn't go as planned. So the FreeDOS Wiki, bug
> > tracker, and Subversion repo are currently offline because they are
> hosted
> > at SourceForge.
>
> The issue here may be the ancient FF version.  Sites tend to use
> browser identification code that will complain if it thinks you are
> running an unsupported browser that can't render the site.  FF 2.X has
> been unsupported for years.
>
> One alternative is to install a new browser.  Another is code that
> diddles the User Agent string the browser sends in response to a "What
> browser are you?" query from a site to claim you have a supported
> browser.  There were several different extensions for FF back when
> that did that, but it's been a long time since I had to use one.
> __
> Dennis
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[dmccunney]

On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 1:45 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
> That's not a good sign. SourceForge did some planned maintenance yesterday
> about noon, and things didn't go as planned. So the FreeDOS Wiki, bug
> tracker, and Subversion repo are currently offline because they are hosted
> at SourceForge.

The issue here may be the ancient FF version.  Sites tend to use
browser identification code that will complain if it thinks you are
running an unsupported browser that can't render the site.  FF 2.X has
been unsupported for years.

One alternative is to install a new browser.  Another is code that
diddles the User Agent string the browser sends in response to a "What
browser are you?" query from a site to claim you have a supported
browser.  There were several different extensions for FF back when
that did that, but it's been a long time since I had to use one.
__
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[dmccunney]

On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 5:57 PM, Jose Antonio Senna
 wrote:
>
>   I just accessed the freedos.org page, and it seems OK.
>
>  However, the links that point to Sourceforge
>  return the message:
>   "We're sorry -- the Sourceforge site is currently in
>Disaster Recovery mode, and currently requires
>the use of javascript to function.
>Please check back later."
>
> I got this using Firefox 2.0 / Win 98,
>   with javascript enabled.

Works fine here in a current Firefox.

FF 2.0 is ancient, and I'm unsurprised at problems.  There have been
major architectural changes, particularly between FF 2.X and FF 3,
including changes in the JavaScript engine implemented in the Gecko
rendering engine.

If you are still running Win98, you might want to play with KernelEx.
It's an open source package that adds enough of the Win32 API to allow
various older 32 bit Windows apps to run.  It hasn't been maintained
in a while, but what's there works.   The last maintenance release
from 2011 advertised the ability to run FF 8.0.  (A contact on another
list uses it, and runs Opera 11 on Win98 when he wants to browse the
web.)

KernelEx is at http://kernelex.sourceforge.net/.  You might try
installing it, and a later Firefox, and seeing if you still encounter
the problems.

>JAS
__
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website

[Jim Hall]

That's not a good sign. SourceForge did some planned maintenance yesterday
about noon, and things didn't go as planned. So the FreeDOS Wiki, bug
tracker, and Subversion repo are currently offline because they are hosted
at SourceForge.

The www website is hosted elsewhere so is unaffected.
On Jul 13, 2016 11:54 AM, "Jose Antonio Senna" <
jasse...@vivointernetdiscada.com.br> wrote:


  I just accessed the freedos.org page, and it seems OK.

 However, the links that point to Sourceforge
 return the message:
  "We're sorry -- the Sourceforge site is currently in
   Disaster Recovery mode, and currently requires
   the use of javascript to function.
   Please check back later."

I got this using Firefox 2.0 / Win 98,
  with javascript enabled.

   JAS

--
What NetFlow Analyzer can do for you? Monitors network bandwidth and traffic
patterns at an interface-level. Reveals which users, apps, and protocols are
consuming the most bandwidth. Provides multi-vendor support for NetFlow,
J-Flow, sFlow and other flows. Make informed decisions using capacity
planning
reports.http://sdm.link/zohodev2dev
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consuming the most bandwidth. Provides multi-vendor support for NetFlow, 
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website changes

[Corbin Davenport]

It looks much better, but the layout seems to be a bit odd on mobile (see http://imgur.com/oi2voVx).
I have some free time later today, I could make a snippet of CSS to make it a bit more responsive/fluid for smaller screens.
Sent using CloudMagic
On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 11:04 PM, Jim Hall jh...@freedos.org wrote:Hi all!Just a quick note to let everyone know about some changes to the FreeDOS website.I've been working on improving the FreeDOS website, and tonight I started making the first user-visible changes. Up until now, the changes have been pretty minor, and probably invisible to most folks (some link cleanup, behind-the-scenes cleanup, fixing typos, ... that sort of thing).You may notice that the "Welcome to FreeDOS" section at the top is no longer "collapsed." Before, you had to click on each question to see the answer - and the website would only show one "answer" at a time. Not everyone likes this behavior (including me, at least recently) so I am changing it. In time, I'll make this cleaner. It's too long right now. Maybe I'll re-write it, or restructure the page to do without it. I'll work on that over the holiday break.Other than that, I haven't made any dramatic changes to the website. I only want to clean things up, not change everything. No structural changes. No big changes to the design or anything.What do you think of the website improvements so far?


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website changes

[Jim Hall]

Oops. I may have dropped the css section that uses a smaller logo on
small/mobile screens. That prevents the artifacts you see here. I'll put
that back over the break. Thanks for pointing that out.

Also over the break, I'll make the Welcome section easier to read,
especially on mobile.
On Dec 19, 2014 6:12 AM, Corbin Davenport davenportcor...@gmail.com
wrote:

 It looks much better, but the layout seems to be a bit odd on mobile (see
 http://imgur.com/oi2voVx).

 I have some free time later today, I could make a snippet of CSS to make
 it a bit more responsive/fluid for smaller screens.

 Sent using CloudMagic
 https://cloudmagic.com/k/d/mailapp?ct=pacv=5.1.11.3pv=5.0

 On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 11:04 PM, Jim Hall jh...@freedos.org wrote:

 Hi all!

 Just a quick note to let everyone know about some changes to the FreeDOS
 website.

 I've been working on improving the FreeDOS website, and tonight I started
 making the first user-visible changes. Up until now, the changes have been
 pretty minor, and probably invisible to most folks (some link cleanup,
 behind-the-scenes cleanup, fixing typos, ... that sort of thing).

 You may notice that the Welcome to FreeDOS section at the top is no
 longer collapsed. Before, you had to click on each question to see the
 answer - and the website would only show one answer at a time. Not
 everyone likes this behavior (including me, at least recently) so I am
 changing it. In time, I'll make this cleaner. It's too long right now.
 Maybe I'll re-write it, or restructure the page to do without it. I'll work
 on that over the holiday break.

 Other than that, I haven't made any dramatic changes to the website. I
 only want to clean things up, not change everything. No structural changes.
 No big changes to the design or anything.

 What do you think of the website improvements so far?



 --
 Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server
 from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards
 with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration  more
 Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE

 http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS website changes

[Jim Hall]

FYI, if you want to send me files, send them to me off list.
On Dec 19, 2014 7:31 AM, Jim Hall jh...@freedos.org wrote:

 Oops. I may have dropped the css section that uses a smaller logo on
 small/mobile screens. That prevents the artifacts you see here. I'll put
 that back over the break. Thanks for pointing that out.

 Also over the break, I'll make the Welcome section easier to read,
 especially on mobile.
 On Dec 19, 2014 6:12 AM, Corbin Davenport davenportcor...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 It looks much better, but the layout seems to be a bit odd on mobile (see
 http://imgur.com/oi2voVx).

 I have some free time later today, I could make a snippet of CSS to make
 it a bit more responsive/fluid for smaller screens.

 Sent using CloudMagic
 https://cloudmagic.com/k/d/mailapp?ct=pacv=5.1.11.3pv=5.0

 On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 11:04 PM, Jim Hall jh...@freedos.org wrote:

 Hi all!

 Just a quick note to let everyone know about some changes to the FreeDOS
 website.

 I've been working on improving the FreeDOS website, and tonight I started
 making the first user-visible changes. Up until now, the changes have been
 pretty minor, and probably invisible to most folks (some link cleanup,
 behind-the-scenes cleanup, fixing typos, ... that sort of thing).

 You may notice that the Welcome to FreeDOS section at the top is no
 longer collapsed. Before, you had to click on each question to see the
 answer - and the website would only show one answer at a time. Not
 everyone likes this behavior (including me, at least recently) so I am
 changing it. In time, I'll make this cleaner. It's too long right now.
 Maybe I'll re-write it, or restructure the page to do without it. I'll work
 on that over the holiday break.

 Other than that, I haven't made any dramatic changes to the website. I
 only want to clean things up, not change everything. No structural changes.
 No big changes to the design or anything.

 What do you think of the website improvements so far?



 --
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 from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards
 with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration  more
 Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE

 http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk
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 Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
 https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user


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[Freedos-user] FreeDOS website changes

[Jim Hall]

Hi all!

Just a quick note to let everyone know about some changes to the FreeDOS
website.

I've been working on improving the FreeDOS website, and tonight I started
making the first user-visible changes. Up until now, the changes have been
pretty minor, and probably invisible to most folks (some link cleanup,
behind-the-scenes cleanup, fixing typos, ... that sort of thing).

You may notice that the Welcome to FreeDOS section at the top is no
longer collapsed. Before, you had to click on each question to see the
answer - and the website would only show one answer at a time. Not
everyone likes this behavior (including me, at least recently) so I am
changing it. In time, I'll make this cleaner. It's too long right now.
Maybe I'll re-write it, or restructure the page to do without it. I'll work
on that over the holiday break.

Other than that, I haven't made any dramatic changes to the website. I only
want to clean things up, not change everything. No structural changes. No
big changes to the design or anything.

What do you think of the website improvements so far?
--
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