Hi Michael, > Well, ReactOS is an NT clone. Freewin95 was the > original project that later became ReactOS when...
Hmmm. > Why? The facts are not encouraging as far as the time it took > for ReactOS 0.3.5 to be released and 0.3.5 is an alpha. Things count in different ways in open source, projects are often very humble about version numbers. I mean nobody used Win 1 or 2 for anything, let alone Windows beta 0.x ;-) > I guess one route is to encourage the developer of mpxplay to port > it to freedos32, if that is reaching beta stage yet... Any reason why it would be better than mpxplay for normal DOS? > route is to implement a 32 bit version of opengem that will run on > top of freedos 1.1. It sounds like the developer is concerned that > it is easier to write a Windows program than it is to write for any > of the dos based extenders. Well, a better gui might change... Maybe he wants to try SDL, or maybe (hint hint) make the Windows version simple enough to let it work in DOS with HXRT ;-). > mind. Freedos 1.1 needs a 32 bit gui that people are willing to > write graphical programs for which need more than 640k. If the > gui supports Windows 9x software, that'd be a great bonus. Then it would be FreeWindows98, not FreeDOS. Totally different. And every GUI can only be popular if there are lots of apps. I mean even if you write FreeWindows3 today, people would say that there is not enough software for it. OS2 and GEM are in even worse position. > I've heard that there are various attempts to develop gui's other > than opengem for dos and I've even run into claims that freedos > will eventually compete with Linux and Windows. Well, I think > freedos has a place on older computers that are powerful enough > to be useful if the OS is light enough. Windows 9x is a mess, > this is partially why dos went away. I have yet to see an NT > style system be as light as dos. ReactOS is promising, but it's > potential is a year or two down the road still. ReactOS will get > better, but it will be an NT clone instead of a Win 9x replacement. Okay so you want a Windows NT clone which runs on hardware which is too old for Windows 98...? And you hope DOS is that system... I am sorry - but things do not work that way. If you write NT for DOS then it will have almost all the disadvantages of NT combined with many limitations of DOS. It will not have the advantages of NT combined with the lightness of DOS... > One advantage of a strong 32 bit gui that runs on top of dos, > it becomes possible to port firefox 3 to freedos. Firefox runs totally great on Linux... Given that the Firefox instance which is on my screen right now uses 300 MB of RAM (half of which swappable) running in X.org which uses another 150 MB of RAM (...) I would say it makes little sense to run either of the two (you need X to run Firefox) on DOS for the sake of "DOS only uses 1 MB" ;-)) Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
