Re: [Freedos-user] My first crack at FreeDOS
Hi Chris, where is PA? I have several years of formal schooling in programming but nothing on the level of operating system coding. I wish I could help but haven't coded in a decade or more. You could always do other things, like test and report bugs, or update docs or whatever else you want to help with... a critical commercial application and will need to support it for at least five more years. It is open source so you can always keep fixing it yourself even if aliens take away freedos.org in their ufo... grief when trying to install it to brand new computers with clean as in no partitioned hard drives. At least the install tried and di so better than some Linux distributions that I've tried. I guess completely empty disks are pretty exceptional these days. Basically you will have to partition the disk yourself in such a case, and probably run fdisk /mbr to add a bootable master boot record. I think you get the same with old MS DOS. Maybe disks had a pre-installed empty MBR more often 10 years ago? The pro: FreeDOS runs my application fine. Even EMM386 behaves Did you try jemm386 from japheth.de or the experimental jemmex which combines himem and emm386 in one app? I think jemm386 is even more well-behaved, but make sure to read the docs because it has quite a few command line options. Tell us what you think. I simply don't have the time to fudge, compile, download files from various places to make it all work. That is not supposed to be necessary. If you download a small distro like FreeDOS Balder (1 diskette) or the upcoming Rugxulo few diskettes distro, you should be able to install very fast. Basically you would do just: fdisk-if-needed, reboot, format-if- needed, reboot, xcopy the disk contents, sys c:, reboot. I can load my licensed copies of MS-DOS 6.0 and the application software in 20 minutes. Slow compared to what a base FreeDOS cdrom install should be. The caveat with FreeDOS is that a full install will try to download quite a bit of extra stuff (unless you read the Wiki and unselect the packages which trigger downloads) which can be slow. Another slow thing in full is when it tries to mount USB disks during install, for no good reason. hours trying to figure out how to make the FreeDOS install work on both FAT32 and FAT16 file systems after experimenting and reading FAQ Well what exactly went wrong? and HOWTO's and saw weird problems with some of the external commands like chkdsk under FAT16 which kept insisting that certain application files were more than one hundred times their actual size. Edit won't Try to remind imre.leber THATSIGN telenet.be about the chkdsk problem. In the meantime, simply use DOSFSCK instead of CHKDSK, they are both included in the distro and dosfsck even does FAT32, although FAT32 can need a lot of RAM for the check. You should get the updated version instead of the version in the 1.0 distro! Version 2.11b is here: www.coli.uni-saarland.de/~eric/stuff/soft/by-others/ Note that you can find the download locations of all packages by checking the list: www.freedos.org/freedos/software/ Several people are working on a big update for the list, so we can collect updated packages for a new ISO. allow you to choose out of saving a text file that you've accidentally altered while reading it and you're forced to save the oopses. The Hmmm I cannot reproduce that problem. Both edit 0.7d and edit 0.81 (European and original American branch) let me select No when I select either exit or close and get a dialog which asks me whether I want to save changes, either by mouse or by keyboard. installer wouldn't let me stop loading packages in a graceful manner, I had to force my way out. Where did you want to stop and in what way? It does indeed unzip everything you selected for install after you select packages, but that should not cause problems, so there should be no need to change your mind later and make the installer skip packages. Unfortunately, it was just too dangerous and quirky to trust Which parts are quirky and dangerous? We should probably fix those parts first... too technically oriented will have much trouble with release 1.0. Depends depends... Users today will have XP already on their PC and will think that DOS is just a C: prompt in Windows. They will need some easy to use tool to even squeeze in a FAT partition in such a situation. Luckily, such tools exist: For example a gparted bootable cdrom is at least as easy to use as partition magic. Note that the gparted cdrom is Linux based, so we cannot just add that to the FreeDOS install cdrom. No real problem, if you ask me. include a utility that will make easy writes to CD-RW drives... CDRoast is way too far out of date [CDRecord' same] I recommend using k3b ;-). Really, for all the nifty graphical user interfaces, you need just that - a system with nifty GUI. For example Ubuntu ;-). The good things about DOS are at other places, and a GUI like OpenGEM or
Re: [Freedos-user] My first crack at FreeDOS
I recommend using k3b ;-). Really, for all the nifty graphical user interfaces, you need just that - a system with nifty GUI. For example Ubuntu ;-). The good things about DOS are at other places, and a GUI like OpenGEM or Windows 3 plus calmira.de is still raw technology compared to the eye candy of Mac OS X. Please don't say, that someone should use an operating system. FreeDOS needs a vision, that ALL can be done, else it is dead.. ;-) Bye -- Club Dr-DOS Wiki http://www.drdos.org private page http://www.flox.at.tf - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now http://get.splunk.com/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] My first crack at FreeDOS
Hello, Japheth wrote: Hmmm I cannot reproduce that problem. Both edit 0.7d and edit 0.81 (European and original American branch) let me select No when I select either exit or close and get a dialog which asks me whether I want to save changes, either by mouse or by keyboard. On my PC I cannot switch to No with TAB or the cursor keys if edit asks to save the file. The mouse works, though. I have the same problem :-( But keys `y' and `n' works. -- Oleg O. Chukaev - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now http://get.splunk.com/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] My first crack at FreeDOS
Hello! I'm beginning to wonder if some of my problems stem from using an SATA hard drive ... many problems go away when I try an IDE drive. I inadvertently started a new thread on that... - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now http://get.splunk.com/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] My first crack at FreeDOS
Hi Chris, I use FreeDOS in read world applications and it runs well and stable. If you have enough knowledge in DOS, I recomend that you just ignore the install CD and pick each program that you need and place it where you believe it belongs. That way it works great! The install CD is over complicated and dos not repepresent FreeDOS as a whole: FreeDOS is *much* better than the instalation may let you believe... Sorry guys, that is what I think... I am a use of DOS since PC-DOS 1.1 and I was not able to use that install CD... Alain Chris Ruhl escreveu: Hello everyone and greetings from Southeastern PA! I discovered your project when looking for newer alternatives to MS-DOS. I have a process control program written in DOS that is used for a critical commercial application and will need to support it for at least five more years. My personal experiences go back to MS-DOS 2.11 and the IBM-XT. I have several years of formal schooling in programming but nothing on the level of operating system coding. I wish I could help but haven't coded in a decade or more. I hope this project succeeds and grows. The latest version did give me some grief when trying to install it to brand new computers with clean as in no partitioned hard drives. At least the install tried and did so better than some Linux distributions that I've tried. The pro: FreeDOS runs my application fine. Even EMM386.EXE behaves itself! I like the little added touches from old MS-DOS, like the ability to easily skip or line-load configuration files at boot without pressing F5 or F8 and hoping that you didn't press too late! That's a big help for me! The con: I simply don't have the time to fudge, compile, download files from various places to make it all work. I can load my licensed copies of MS-DOS 6.0 and the application software in 20 minutes. I spent two hours trying to figure out how to make the FreeDOS install work right on both FAT32 and FAT16 file systems after experimenting and reading FAQ's and HOWTO's and saw weird problems with some of the external commands like chkdsk under FAT16 which kept insisting that certain application files were more than one hundred times their actual size. Edit won't allow you to choose out of saving a text file that you've accidentally altered while reading it and you're forced to save the oopses. The installer wouldn't let me stop loading packages in a graceful manner, I had to force my way out. Otherwise, great job!!! Polish up the rough edges and this is a high flier! I can imagine how hard it can be when many are working on different parts of the same project and I'm sure many are doing this out of a labor of love and the cost of their free time. Unfortunately, it was just too dangerous and quirky to trust to what I need it to do so I'm going to patiently wait for a while and try back later. I can understand that those having an interest in DOS but not too technically oriented will have much trouble with release 1.0. This is a work in progress and requires some reading and understanding. For really good kudos, include a utility that will make easy writes to CD-RW drives... CDRoast is way too far out of date and CDRecord' pretty much the same with newer CD-RW drives like the LG drives in my new systems. - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now http://get.splunk.com/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
