Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 7:19 AM, Zbigniew wrote:
> At the time of cheap computers, do we really need "multiuser" OS? It
> was reasonable 20 years ago, when fast machine was really expensive -
> but is it still today, when every average user can have his own
> computer (and - in fact - has several without even realizing it, e.g.
> his handy, iPhone, watch etc)?
We need a *multitasking* OS, where more than one thing can be running
at one time. Multi-user kind of comes along as part of the package.
When you have a multitasking system, you need to distinguish between
different classes of processes. Some will be system processes,
executed by the OS kernel, and some will exist in user space.
Different processes will have different priority levels and different
things they are allowed to affect. The easiest way to make such
distinctions is by who owns the process, and what permissions the
owner has on the system, hence, multiple users. You also need a file
system where you can store such attributes, which lets FAT out of the
picture.
> No idea however, how much overhead/complexity could be disposed of, if
> Linux were single-user - but indeed after establishing my own user
> account ("root" is always present immediately after installation) I
> don't need to create the third one on the same machine.
The Puppy flavor of Linux *is* single user. You are always running as
root. There are a couple of other IDs defined by the system, but you
can't log in as them, and the infrastructure that allows you to create
and maintain other IDs has been removed.
Puppy gets away with it because it is intended for older, lower end
hardware, to replace things like older versions of Windows. I've been
a Unix admin, and the notion of always running as root gave me hives.
I realized that MS-DOS and Windows made the assumption that the user
at the machine was administrator with all powers up till WinNT and
more or less got away with it, and Puppy does for the same reasons.
The machine that I have Puppy on also runs Ubuntu, and I spend most of
my time in it. I *prefer* to run as a normal user, and become root
(or use sudo to gain temporary administrative privileges) when I need
to do something that will affect the underlying installation.
The amount of overhead and complexity "saved" by Puppy being single
user is minimal. A Puppy user laboriously put multi-user support back
*in* a custom Puppy version, and estimated it added about a megabyte
to the size of a Puppy ISO image. It saves very little in terms of
executing processes. There are all sorts of things running in the
background on a Linux system, mostly daemons started by the system as
part of the boot process, and they'll all be there regardless. Puppy
is a little faster on the old notebook I put it on than Ubuntu, but
not enough to make the compromises it makes worth it.
There are actually a boatload of single-user Linux systems out there:
half the wireless routers in existence use a Linux kernel. So do
things like the Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook ebook readers. You don't
see Linux unless you "root" them, b8ut it's there behind the scenes.
> I remember, that it has been advertised as serious advantage of Win
> 3.x, that the drivers from now on shall be created "for Windows", and
> not for every single program separately, like it was before - but
> never found information, why the drivers weren't made "for DOS"
> earlier. Not "for AutoCAD", "for WordPerfect" and so on - but "for
> DOS" in general (then available for every program/application).
> Anyway, if there really were pure technical reasons - it can be taken
> into consideration during development of such DOS/32 (or DOS/64).
> Anyway: having a choice between using a shipped driver, or accessing
> the hardware directly, would be an advantage to me.
Drivers *were* made for DOS, and you loaded them in CONFIG.SYS. (I
loaded things like a mouse driver, ramdisk, and disk cache that way.)
But a driver is a layer between the OS and the hardware. Video was
the big issue: it was possible to update the screen via BIOS calls
(and some "compatibles" running MS-DOS did), but it was slow. Many
programs, especially games) wrote directly to the video hardware to
get performance. (The rule-of-thumb test back when for whether your
machine was truly IBM-PC compatible was whether you could run Lotus
1,2,3 and Flight Simulator. If you *could*, it was.)
You could get away with this on a PC under DOS because it was a
single-tasking environment, and the executing program owned the
machine. You *cannot* get away with it on a multi-tasking system
where more than one thing might be going on at a time.
Windows forced you to access the hardware through drivers rather than
directly so that context could be maintained and programs wouldn't
step on each other's toes. And the hardware requirements needed to
run Windows were such that you didn't *need* to access the hardware
directly to get performance. If the box was capable of
Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
Bernd Blaauw wrote: >> Actually, I wish someone would release a Windows 3.1 driver that can >> get my ATI Rage 128, XPERT 2000, card to output 256 colors. For that >> matter, how hard would it be to make a Windows like graphical user >> interface that can run Windows 3.1 software? > > There should be some unofficial svga patch for windows 3.1 / 3.1.1 , but > it had several limitations. SVGAPatch is available from http://www.japheth.de/dwnload1.html Maybe it helps. Robert Riebisch -- +++ BTTR Software +++ Home page: http://www.bttr-software.de/ DOS ain't dead: http://www.bttr-software.de/forum/ -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
Op 8-4-2012 8:17, Michael Robinson schreef: > Actually, I wish someone would release a Windows 3.1 driver that can > get my ATI Rage 128, XPERT 2000, card to output 256 colors. For that > matter, how hard would it be to make a Windows like graphical user > interface that can run Windows 3.1 software? There should be some unofficial svga patch for windows 3.1 / 3.1.1 , but it had several limitations. > What might make sense is being able to dedicate one core in a multi core > 64 bit computer to running freedos via say a hypervisor. A hypervisor > is a simplified OS where it's sole purpose to exist is to create a > virtual hardware environment for other OS'es. Despite a lot of hardware being capable of it, it's still not simple to setup Citrix Xen or VMware ESXi. Linux-KVM (or QEMU-KVM, whatever) is also not simple, nor vga-passthrough. > Dosbox seems to run on any modern computer at this point. Syllable is > very interesting from the standpoint of being simple, but the project > needs more help. Any tiny operating system that QEMU can run on top of, would be interesting. I'd consider Dosbox a bit too limited. > I think the number one source of complexity today in operating systems > is that companies which produce computer hardware are Microsoft Windows > NT centric. In other words, they develop for a proprietary OS and keep > their mouths shut about how their product is actually laid out. Linux > gets a bad rap because many modern graphics cards don't work 100%, > especially AMD video cards. If there was enough competition like there > used to be and people were more aggressive about using open source OSes, > companies wouldn't be able to survive keeping their mouths shut and > focusing on NT only. AMD and NVIDIA do release Linux drivers, but they > are always deficient which I think is on purpose. Things are being kept vague on purpose it seems, nobody considers interesting aspects. For example, my current motherboard inits USB ports (1.1 and 2.0) at 1.1-speeds till an operating system driver is loaded. With recent hardware releases, I'm interested in a new board that can boot (DOS/Windows/Linux) from USB 3.0 (in BIOS-mode, not UEFI-only mode), at 3.0-speeds outside operating systems. I can check motherboard manuals all I want, but no info whatsoever. Same for FireWire booting (which nobody bothered with except Apple). As for graphics Linux drivers, there's manpower to be considered as well as how economical it is to set people to them, thus inherently flawed. At the opensource side there's patents and intellectual properties to consider before transferring features from binary drivers to opensource drivers. > If you want to be able to run Windows software, help the ReactOS people. > ReactOS has a long ways to go where I think significantly more help > would improve the outlook of people who have been working on the project > a long time and overall increase productivity. Testing ReactOS is > helping. Say you reverse engineer a piece of modern ATI/AMD hardware > that a lot of people have which doesn't even work well in Linux. As despicable as Windows 8 appears to be with its interface, I might still get it for the following features: * Native USB3.0 support (hence wanting usb3-booting system) * Windows-To-Go (Windows installed/usable on 32GB+ USB Flash Device) * Able to run Windows software properly. Linux has a bit more issues with that last point, the earlier 2 are already possible. Main desktop might stay Win7 or convert to Linux, who knows :) As for ReactOS I'd hope someone's willing to integrate a Ramdisk-driver with MEMDISK (or GRUB) detection so LiveCD and installCD can be booted from file instead of CDROM. It would create independence from UniATA and troublesome IDE/SATA/AHCI controllers as well. PartedMagic Linux-distro has done this already. FreeDOS also, in a few specific ways. > Something I've been mulling over is putting together a company that only > produces standards compliant computer hardware where the standards are > open ones that are readily available to everyone. It would be a big > jump though to go from a B.S. in computer science to a company producing > computer hardware that is both cutting edge and OSS compatible. What > would the business model for such a company be? You'd be nicely off acting as a Coreboot consultant, implementing it on actual hardware. Asrock E350 motherboard is supported, have fun creating a fully opensource machine. QEMU might be a good way to practice first though. Selling self-made ZFS-boxes (as NAS) might also be something nice, or passive Linux-based HTPCs. Consultancy and support seem to be a few ways to make a living from opensource software. Selling opensource systems might become hard, the Raspberry Pi is around as a nice cheap experiment for people. -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first
Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
Hi! > Actually, I wish someone would release a Windows 3.1 driver that can > get my ATI Rage 128, XPERT 2000, card to output 256 colors. For that Somebody may have tweaked existing SVGA drivers into generic VESA. I am not aware of anything 3d accelerated in Windows 3 anyways... > Linux gets a bad rap because many modern graphics cards don't work 100%, > especially AMD video cards. If there was enough competition like there User 1: Hey my 3d game crashes in Linux! User 2: Yes but look at this new AMD Windows 3 driver! Now you can run all the cool 90s games again instead! I do not think Windows 3 can ever impress Linux users? > If you want to be able to run Windows software, help the ReactOS people. Good point. > Say you reverse engineer a piece of modern ATI/AMD hardware > that a lot of people have which doesn't even work well in Linux. Tiny chance. Look at DOS media players, they use source code of Linux drivers instead of reinventing the wheel or reverse engineering the drivers from the raw hardware. > Something I've been mulling over is putting together a company that only > produces standards compliant computer hardware where the standards are > open ones that are readily available to everyone. It would be a big Some open source people work towards open firmware and hardware because they worry about everything becoming like a smartphone, with app shops and pay per view and DRM etc. Join forces :-) As long as SOME users still realize that you better be able to run the software that YOU want to run, there will be a market there. Eric :-) -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
Windows 3.11 and Windows 9x seem to be the closest thing to a 32 bit DOS environment that I know of. I agree that creating a "32 bit dos" would be awkward. Heck, 20 bit memory addressing is awkward, isn't it? If you need to run dos games or want to run a Wordprocessor like Wordperfect on an old computer that can't run Linux, Freedos 1.1 debugged makes a lot of sense. As far as 32 bit Dos or a Windows 95/98/98SE/Me clone, I guess that is too much work and that it really doesn't make sense. Actually, I wish someone would release a Windows 3.1 driver that can get my ATI Rage 128, XPERT 2000, card to output 256 colors. For that matter, how hard would it be to make a Windows like graphical user interface that can run Windows 3.1 software? What might make sense is being able to dedicate one core in a multi core 64 bit computer to running freedos via say a hypervisor. A hypervisor is a simplified OS where it's sole purpose to exist is to create a virtual hardware environment for other OS'es. Dosbox seems to run on any modern computer at this point. Syllable is very interesting from the standpoint of being simple, but the project needs more help. I think the number one source of complexity today in operating systems is that companies which produce computer hardware are Microsoft Windows NT centric. In other words, they develop for a proprietary OS and keep their mouths shut about how their product is actually laid out. Linux gets a bad rap because many modern graphics cards don't work 100%, especially AMD video cards. If there was enough competition like there used to be and people were more aggressive about using open source OSes, companies wouldn't be able to survive keeping their mouths shut and focusing on NT only. AMD and NVIDIA do release Linux drivers, but they are always deficient which I think is on purpose. If you want to be able to run Windows software, help the ReactOS people. ReactOS has a long ways to go where I think significantly more help would improve the outlook of people who have been working on the project a long time and overall increase productivity. Testing ReactOS is helping. Say you reverse engineer a piece of modern ATI/AMD hardware that a lot of people have which doesn't even work well in Linux. Something I've been mulling over is putting together a company that only produces standards compliant computer hardware where the standards are open ones that are readily available to everyone. It would be a big jump though to go from a B.S. in computer science to a company producing computer hardware that is both cutting edge and OSS compatible. What would the business model for such a company be? -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
Hi, On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 4:14 PM, Ralf A. Quint wrote: > At 11:39 AM 4/7/2012, Marco Achury wrote: >>Check Kolibri OS, is very nice 32 bits, simple, >>ligth, GUI, boot from floppy... >> >>The sole thing is missing there is a DOS >>emulator so we can run our beloved DOS >>apps. > > So what CAN you run on that, beside playing Minesweeper? It's basically a fork of Menuet32, and it does have a working DOSBox port (probably mostly taken from Jarek P.'s old one for Menuet, roughly using SDL and a very hacked DJGPP libc), though I think latest stable build doesn't run well on Intel gfx cards (at least not for me). http://kolibrios.org/en/ -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
At 11:39 AM 4/7/2012, Marco Achury wrote: >Check Kolibri OS, is very nice 32 bits, simple, >ligth, GUI, boot from floppy... > >The sole thing is missing there is a DOS >emulator so we can run our beloved DOS >apps. So what CAN you run on that, beside playing Minesweeper? Ralf -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 8:39 PM, Marco Achury wrote: > Check Kolibri OS, is very nice 32 bits, simple, > ligth, GUI, boot from floppy... > > The sole thing is missing there is a DOS > emulator so we can run our beloved DOS > apps. Kolibri OS has a DOS emulator: Dosbox. -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
El 07/04/2012 01:02 p.m., Ralf A. Quint escribió: > At 03:15 AM 4/7/2012, Alex wrote: >> In the recent threads there have been many mentions to the fact that >> FreeDOS is "only" 16bit (of course, that is what it is meant to be) >> and that it is out of touch with the modern computing world. Check Kolibri OS, is very nice 32 bits, simple, ligth, GUI, boot from floppy... The sole thing is missing there is a DOS emulator so we can run our beloved DOS apps. -- -- +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Marco A. Achury Tel: +58-(212)-6158777 Cel: +58-(414)-3142282 Skype: marcoachury http://www.achury.com.ve -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
At 04:19 AM 4/7/2012, Zbigniew wrote:
> >> I was wondering what would it take to upgrade FreeDOS to 32bit,
> >> whether it would be worth and whether we would have the human
> >> resources.
> >
> > 32bit user programs tend to be available already in the form of
> > protected mode software, using one of the various DOS Extenders.
>
>I've got no idea - but many of you can answer precisely: it is really
>the same having 4 GB of "linear" address space, and, from the other
>side, just 640 KB, and "the rest" (if 3,5 GB can be called "the
>rest"...) available by using some kind of "extenders"?
Well, using the "extender" approach doesn't break compatibility with
an existing setup/applications...
>But is "high-end consumer platform" FreeDOS' "target audience"?
>Besides: 4GB compared to 64 GB is 16x less. But 640 KB compared to 4
>GB is more than 6000x times less...
I seriously don't think so. I just don't see the point of using such
a system with FreeDOS.
The target audience should rather be people that uses system with
more limited resources, either by need or by choice and those that
need to be able to easily access hardware resources in their
applications, like in embedded or "kiosk" style applications.
Or simply for "old times sake", like playing old games, possibly even
on old computers.
>Why not, actually? DOS - or something as simple, as DOS - on desktops
>has advantages over contemporary OS-es, even Linux/BSD's:
>- simplicity
>- "light weight"
But what are the trade-offs for these?
>At the time of cheap computers, do we really need "multiuser" OS? It
>was reasonable 20 years ago, when fast machine was really expensive -
>but is it still today, when every average user can have his own
>computer (and - in fact - has several without even realizing it, e.g.
>his handy, iPhone, watch etc)?
I think here you have a mixup in terms and usage...
A "multi-user" OS/computer from 20 years ago was indeed being used to
"service" multiple, independent user connected to the single
"processing unit" via "dumb" terminals.
>No idea however, how much overhead/complexity could be disposed of, if
>Linux were single-user - but indeed after establishing my own user
>account ("root" is always present immediately after installation) I
>don't need to create the third one on the same machine.
It's today not as much the need to create a different user (as in
concurrent user with his/her own keyboard/display/mouse) but the
ability to use multiple "sessions", to switch between workspaces...
The way that all those "contemporary OSes" achieve this is by using
the same system architecture that was used 20+ years ago on those
"multi-user" systems you describe them...
>I remember, that it has been advertised as serious advantage of Win
>3.x, that the drivers from now on shall be created "for Windows", and
>not for every single program separately, like it was before - but
>never found information, why the drivers weren't made "for DOS"
>earlier. Not "for AutoCAD", "for WordPerfect" and so on - but "for
>DOS" in general (then available for every program/application).
Simply by the way the whole PC/computer world developed. In those
early days (remember that DOS is now 30 years old!), the basic
hardware available was fairly simplistic. No graphic screens (as the
RAM to created memory mapped devices was extreme expensive
back then), even printers were pretty dumb and featureless. There was
simply no need for any driver concept.
But was things developed, graphic screens/cards started to appear.
DOS by itself didn't have any use for those features, it was still
text based only. Applications that wanted to take advantage of those
additional features first simply were able to use the interface
provided by the add-on ROMs on those video cards, via INT 10h. Please
note that this is part of the BIOS system, not of DOS!
In the early days of graphics on the PC, things were still pretty
simply, most manufacturers just followed "the lead" of IBM and access
to the graphics adapters was limited to the memory layout of the
CGA/EGA/VGA cards and the initial INT10h functions that were defined.
Still not much of a need for special "drivers", as there was a fairly
limited set of common features and functions. And no need for DOS to
make use of any of those, still good old 80x25 text mode and a
command line. And things were good... ;-)
Then the first "extended/enhanced" VGA cards showed up (ok, there
were a handful adapters that expanded beyond the original CGA/EGA
definitions), hitting both the limitation of the direct hardware
access (video RAM) and the INT10h interface (take a look at the
INT10h mode options in the RBIL to get a rough idea). And graphics
functionality was still limited to a few application that made use of
it, like spreadsheets displaying charts graphics, the first CAD
programs, computer games.
So in order to take advantage of those newly available features,
programmers had to think "outside of the
Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
At 03:15 AM 4/7/2012, Alex wrote: >In the recent threads there have been many mentions to the fact that >FreeDOS is "only" 16bit (of course, that is what it is meant to be) >and that it is out of touch with the modern computing world. You do realize that it is kind of 'out of touch with the modern computing world' for more than a decade? That its defined goal is to recreate a proprietary legacy 16bit OS that was announced "End of Life" by Microsoft, which started Jim to initiate this project? >I was wondering what would it take to upgrade FreeDOS to 32bit, >whether it would be worth and whether we would have the human >resources. It's not worth it IMHO, as it would not (MS-/PC-/DR-)DOS anymore... >What would be the pros, cons, in actual terms *for FreeDOS users*? I am not sure what you actually mean by "upgrade to 32bit"? What are the technical changes/benefit in doing though? DOS ties in deeply into the segmented 1MB memory model of the original 8086 processor and any change in that will simply break compatibility with existing DOS drivers/applications and you simply do not have DOS anymore... >The underlying assumption is that FreeDOS is, as stated by others, a >"niche OS", and we have no problem with that. Nor do we need to run >after all the modern computer standards just for the sake of being >abreast with the times. >Having said this, could we have tangible benefits from a 32bit >version? What are the prospects of a 32bit FreeDOS in the future? And, >again, would it be worth? No benefits at all, as there are simply no applications to use with it. Therefor I don't think there are any prospects, making it simply not worth. You would create a complete new OS, with all the downsides of widespread support for that. Just see how many "wanna-be" OSes are out there that never see any use beside by their "inventors" (if even that)... >I expect flames in this thread, but that is not the objective. No flames, just an honest opinion. This "32bit DOS" is just a buzzword that's around for a while without anyone actually stating what the benefits "should" be, without creating a complete new OS... >By the way, there once was a FreeDOS-32 project being developed. Does >anyone know if it is ever likely to see the light of the day? What are >the prospects? As I mentioned in a previous reply, it is IMHO a "still born" project, hence I doubt that you will ever see "the light of day". Those folks that started it simply underestimated/misjudged their objectives, specially in light of the available resources and skills... just me 2c, from someone who is using DOS for 30 years now, Ralf -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
Hi! > FreeDOS is "only" 16bit Of course that only refers to address space (max 1.1 MB) and not to computation width. Your software can do any calculations with 32, 64, 80 or 128 bits that it likes, using 386+ registers or the FPU but not 64bit long mode. > I was wondering what would it take to upgrade FreeDOS to 32bit, > whether it would be worth and whether we would have the human That is the question which also inspired FD32. Basically because you want to run DOS software after all, that is a DOS where the kernel already runs in a 32 bit address space in protected mode and directly offers DOS extender services. This gives you SLIGHTLY better performance in comparison to normal DOS where both a separate DOS ext. and your 32 bit address space software have to run in a protected mode task separate to a 16 bit "virtual 8086" task for the kernel. The latter is a misleading name as 8086 only refers to address space and the normal FreeDOS kernel still uses 32 bit registers without problems :-) > would be the pros, cons, in actual terms *for FreeDOS users*? Basically it is a lot of work compared to using classic DOS kernels (e.g. FreeDOS) and a separate DOS extender (e.g. CWSDPMI, DOS32A, DPMIONE, or less-open DOS4GW...) while it only has a small effect on your app performance. > Having said this, could we have tangible benefits from a 32bit Note that you could also understand the question in a slightly different way - what if somebody took DOS and made a 32 bit OS which has no ability to run DOS apps. It would just "feel" DOS-ish to program for that 32 bit OS due to the origins of the OS. Also, it would be some extra work to have a compiler / C library in the new OS (e.g. port or write one) and again it would give better performance, slightly. In difference to FD32, you could do things not possible at all with a DOS extender, e.g. transfer larger parts of files in a single OS call... > By the way, there once was a FreeDOS-32 project being developed. Yes. But only very few people seem to work on it and, in my opinion, the gain compared to a classic DOS is too small to be much motivation to tweak on FD32. So it might be more a fascinating idea rather than some breakthough that DOS users were waiting for all those years without knowing it :-) But then, people of all times write software based on fascinating ideas... For example libraries for raw I/O based filesystem access, not even using DOS, sometimes even for filesystems they invented, with no other user anywhere in the world. Programming can be just fun :) Eric -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
2012/4/7, Bernd Blaauw :
>> I was wondering what would it take to upgrade FreeDOS to 32bit,
>> whether it would be worth and whether we would have the human
>> resources.
>
> 32bit user programs tend to be available already in the form of
> protected mode software, using one of the various DOS Extenders.
I've got no idea - but many of you can answer precisely: it is really
the same having 4 GB of "linear" address space, and, from the other
side, just 640 KB, and "the rest" (if 3,5 GB can be called "the
rest"...) available by using some kind of "extenders"?
> I'm not seeing much of a benefit, especially in the case of a 16bit
> subsystem being omitted like in ReactOS or 64bit Windows.
> Without some clever tricks 32bit DOS would still be stuck with FAT
> filesystems (thus 4GB filesize limit)
Well, this could be done later.
> and 4GB of memory, while high-end consumer platforms allow up to 64GB right
> now (Intel
> X79 socket 2011 platform with 8 memory slots).
But is "high-end consumer platform" FreeDOS' "target audience"?
Besides: 4GB compared to 64 GB is 16x less. But 640 KB compared to 4
GB is more than 6000x times less...
>> Having said this, could we have tangible benefits from a 32bit
>> version? What are the prospects of a 32bit FreeDOS in the future? And,
>> again, would it be worth?
>
> Doubt it very strong. [..]
Why not, actually? DOS - or something as simple, as DOS - on desktops
has advantages over contemporary OS-es, even Linux/BSD's:
- simplicity
- "light weight"
- direct access to hardware (yes, it's an advantage to me)
At the time of cheap computers, do we really need "multiuser" OS? It
was reasonable 20 years ago, when fast machine was really expensive -
but is it still today, when every average user can have his own
computer (and - in fact - has several without even realizing it, e.g.
his handy, iPhone, watch etc)?
No idea however, how much overhead/complexity could be disposed of, if
Linux were single-user - but indeed after establishing my own user
account ("root" is always present immediately after installation) I
don't need to create the third one on the same machine.
I remember, that it has been advertised as serious advantage of Win
3.x, that the drivers from now on shall be created "for Windows", and
not for every single program separately, like it was before - but
never found information, why the drivers weren't made "for DOS"
earlier. Not "for AutoCAD", "for WordPerfect" and so on - but "for
DOS" in general (then available for every program/application).
Anyway, if there really were pure technical reasons - it can be taken
into consideration during development of such DOS/32 (or DOS/64).
Anyway: having a choice between using a shipped driver, or accessing
the hardware directly, would be an advantage to me.
--
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Re: [Freedos-user] 32 bit FreeDOS?
Op 7-4-2012 12:15, Alex schreef: > I was wondering what would it take to upgrade FreeDOS to 32bit, > whether it would be worth and whether we would have the human > resources. 32bit user programs tend to be available already in the form of protected mode software, using one of the various DOS Extenders. > What would be the pros, cons, in actual terms *for FreeDOS users*? The > underlying assumption is that FreeDOS is, as stated by others, a > "niche OS", and we have no problem with that. Nor do we need to run > after all the modern computer standards just for the sake of being > abreast with the times. I'm not seeing much of a benefit, especially in the case of a 16bit subsystem being omitted like in ReactOS or 64bit Windows. Without some clever tricks 32bit DOS would still be stuck with FAT filesystems (thus 4GB filesize limit) and 4GB of memory, while high-end consumer platforms allow up to 64GB right now (Intel X79 socket 2011 platform with 8 memory slots). > Having said this, could we have tangible benefits from a 32bit > version? What are the prospects of a 32bit FreeDOS in the future? And, > again, would it be worth? Doubt it very strong. I see more future in running DOS in dedicated and/or virtualised/emulated environment. The $35 Raspberry Pi (700MHz ARM-processor) could run Linux with QEMU being used to emulate x86 for DOS. The speed would be tolerable :) > By the way, there once was a FreeDOS-32 project being developed. Does > anyone know if it is ever likely to see the light of the day? What are > the prospects? No idea, seems to be closed development at the moment. -- For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
