On 22/11/2024 14:46, Eric Auer via Freedos-user wrote:
The main system (or installer?) fits on a single floppy, other packages can be added via network. So people still have ISA network cards already with RJ45 LAN connectors, I assume :-)
It is expected that people nowadays have their DOS PC connected online. If not, then they will not be able to use the SvarDOS network package repository and will have to copy packages another way. Same as with FreeDOS and FDNPKG.
BTW for "offline people" there is a SvarDOS CD that includes all existing packages (SV-REPO.ISO) <http://svardos.org/?p=repo>.
About network cards: it does not have to be ISA. There are PCI network cards that work very well in DOS. It does not even have to be a network card. For example I connect my 8088 Toshiba laptop to the internet using its parallel port (the other end being connected to another DOS PC that acts as a PLIP-to-ETHERNET bridge). It's a setup that works very well. I have described it here:
https://gopherproxy.meulie.net/gopher.viste.fr/1/notes/%3Fa429d810b
The distro uses FreeDOS or, new recommendation, EDR-DOS kernel
SvarDOS used to be based on the FreeDOS kernel, but it's no longer true since last summer, thanks to the outstanding efforts of Bernd and ECM. Now we use the Enhanced DR-DOS kernel. The FreeDOS kernel is still available as an option, though, and it is easy to switch to the FreeDOS kernel post installation if one really wants or needs to. Same goes for FreeCOM. The SvarDOS package manager has explicit support for alternative kernels and shells.
and provides faster release cycles and less restricted license, where only core packages have to be open source.
Yes, the policy is that anything that is useful, gratis and can be legally distributed as a package may be included in the repository. Only "CORE" packages must be open-source (preferably MIT).
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