Hi Jim and VCF, thank you for sharing the stream on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_peIYEAM9pk
Of course, I have some thoughts about it: Earlier in the video, when you present some spreadsheets and word processors, there is a point where you show the Windows 3 about screen and it mentions 386enh mode? When going through the install process, I do not see how you can do interactive partitioning of the disk, or to install non-destructively. I guess you have to exit to DOS for that and somehow trigger the remaining steps of the install manually, bypassing the destructive steps? Unfortunately, the rolling monthly release apparently uses very OLD FreeDOS core components: A 2021 kernel with a copyright message saying 1995-2012 and a 2021 shell version 0.85a :-( Later on, you give a verbose description of how FreeDOS alas "does not" run Win3 in 386enh mode, but proceed to say that an experimental kernel which DOES support 386enh EXISTS, but still needs more testing. What would be a better way to GET that testing than to include exactly that new kernel in the rolling release? Also, it seems a bit tedious to download roughly 1 GIGABYTE of installers (livecd and bonuscd) and walk through the entire install process only to create a 50 or 120 MEGABYTE image for qemu. We should offer a pre-installed disk image. Note that there is no obvious link from https://freedos.org/download/ to the used subdirectory https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/official/ and even less so the subdirectory presented in the video, https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unofficial/ so visitors will have a hard time to see which files are from when and, importantly, which sizes they have: "official 1.3" LiteUSB 16MB, FloppyEdition 21MB, LegacyCD 227MB, FullUSB 356MB, LiveCD 375MB, BonusCD 621MB, all 2022-02-20 "test" in the current version LiteUSB 17MB, FloppyEdition 25MB, LegacyCD 272MB, FullUSB 400MB, LiveCD 422MB, BonusCD 629MB, all 2024-06-01 Remember that Jeremy first posted in 2021-07-26 about his proof of concept demo of a Windows 386enh install on FreeDOS kernel. Kernel version 2044 exists since 2023-12-02. Since then, we basically have been waiting for people to TEST the improved kernel, while Jeremy, Tom and ECM and others have worked on yet more news. For up to date kernel versions, go to: https://github.com/FDOS/kernel (alas, the link to precompiled kernel.fdos.org needs updating) Improvements include SYS 3.6f and kernel supporting 128 kB cluster size (boot: FAT16 only), some GPT partition support, improved partition handling at boot, multiple fixes, such as cherry-picked ones from dosemu2 fdpp, improved A20/HMA code, some COUNTRY and FCB fixes, more SHARE flexibility, improved DMA boundary (non-)handling when the BIOS already handles it, generally improved compatibility, incl. Windows 3 386enh mode compatibility, improved config sys handling and boot logging including COM output option, NEC V20/V30 "186" CPU detection, better handling of uninitialized partitions, simplified intr flag handling and STI before INTnn, improved UPX build style, a DPB / memory fix https://github.com/FDOS/kernel/issues/148 and a truename fix from https://github.com/dosemu2/fdpp/issues/212 and more: https://github.com/FDOS/kernel/blob/master/docs/history.txt Interesting that MS Word for DOS looks a bit like EDIT, but with char style highlighting and a graphical preview :-D Does the distro include error 200 patchers and slowdown tools? UEFI related question, how are projects to provide a BIOS as loadable EFI module doing these days? Any hot ones to name? Of course I still recommend dosemu2 as alternative for VM image mounting ;-) Good that we have vmware vmsmount, too. Thanks for the verbose video! Regards, Eric PS: There is only a TEXT file about metados left here? https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unofficial/ PPS: https://www.lemonde.fr/resultats-elections/ seems very brown :-( _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
