At 03:16 PM 1/10/2012, Jim Hall wrote: >On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 12:17 PM, Koh Choon Lin <2choon...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi > > > > If someone is willing to start a free as in freedom graphical > > interface for FreeDOS, I am ready to contribute resources and money to > > the project. > > > > > >I'd love to have you contribute to a GUI project. There have been >several. The one with the longest history is OpenGEM, but the web site >is now idle (http://gem.shaneland.co.uk/). The OpenGEM6 pre-release is >the last we heard of this project, in 2006 >(http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/gui/opengem/6/).
That's IMHO the best option, specially as it is "from the ground up" DOS based. And the later/last version(s) weren't that bad at all. It's really a shame about Shane, what ever caused him to go into hibernation... There are a few others that have been working on GEM under different labels since it was released as Open Source, including some enhanced video drivers. Would be nice to see if those and possibly some new folks, who can still at least think in the ways old software works, could get something going again... >Another promising GUI was SEAL, which seems to have also gone idle >long before GEM. I don't think that SEAL (regardless under which name and incarnation, there were several IIRC) ever got to the point that it was in any form "usable". Can't call this promising at all. All they got was some nice desktop picture, nothing more... >As a result, I kind of pulled back from any particular GUI, and >focused on the command line experience. But I would really like to see >a nice GUI for FreeDOS. An X Windows implementation would be very >interesting, for example. The problem with X Windows is that it is not DOS, it is Unix based from the very core, with quite some "appetite" for resources. So while it is a nice niche usage to be able to use a DOS based PC as an X terminal, I don't think that there is much point (beside proof of concept) to put much energy in an X server for (Free)DOS. Missing multi-tasking and somewhat limited IP networking capabilities put IMHO a fairly early limit to these efforts... >I encourage you to look around for what's there, and see if you can >move any of them forward. OpenGEM shows a lot of promise, but the >graphics are dated and could use a refresh. Since it's GNU GPL, I >imagine you could borrow from another GPL'd desktop environment, such >as GNOME. I don't think neither that this is feasible nor that this would make too much sense. GNOME (or KDE, Xfce, <insert your favorite Linux window manager of the day here> for that matter) are all just like X Windows from their structure Unix/Linux based. Trying to force that on a single tasking DOS, with limited resources probably requires more resources/work than trying to somewhat modernize GEM. Ralf ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ridiculously easy VDI. With Citrix VDI-in-a-Box, you don't need a complex infrastructure or vast IT resources to deliver seamless, secure access to virtual desktops. With this all-in-one solution, easily deploy virtual desktops for less than the cost of PCs and save 60% on VDI infrastructure costs. Try it free! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Citrix-VDIinabox _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
