> On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 11:02 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. <jer...@shidel.net> > wrote: >> >> Ok, I’m going to need some feedback on this. >> >> Especially things like: >> >> What I should strip out of the FDCONFIG.SYS and >> AUTOEXEC.BAT? >> >> What should be included in the FDI Boot Floppy? >> >> How does the Installer LOGIC.txt look? >> >> Just about everything. >> >> Project URL: >> http://github.com/shidel/FDI >> >> Current Demo Video on Facebook: >> >> https://www.facebook.com/jshidel/videos/o.5985782886/10207791496094518/?type=2&theater >>
On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 1:46 PM, JAYDEN CHARBONNEAU <jcharbonnea...@cpsge.org> wrote: > First things first,we should try remaking the installer.We are trying to > better the installer,right?Why not create a new UI for the installer and > make it more efficient?Perhaps better package handling routines?Just some > ideas I am tossing around. > I wrote the original FreeDOS installer. It was a good program for what it needed to do. We didn't have a nice installer at the time. In the FreeDOS Alpha release (say, 1997) you basically just unzipped a big zip file, then manually ran SYS to make the C: drive bootable. The FreeDOS installer made installing FreeDOS a lot easier, and it is what brought us to the FreeDOS Beta1 release in March 1998. Using an installer also introduced the concept of "packages" where each FreeDOS program could stand on its own. That made updating specific things easier for whoever made the distribution (originally me). http://freedos.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Installer http://freedos.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/FreeDOS_Road_Map Over time, we modified the FreeDOS installer to do different things. We added some extra UI elements. But it was kind of a hack. Things got a bit ugly. When you take a step back and look at the FreeDOS install process, it's actually quite simple: 1. make sure there's a hard drive to install to 2. is there a C: partition? if not, run FDISK 3. is the C: drive formatted? if not, run FORMAT 4. call UNZIP for every package in the distribution 5. run SYS to make the C: drive bootable 6. done! That's it. In May this year, I decided to update the FreeDOS install program. But when I took that step back, I realized a compiled C program was overkill for what it needed to do. The install process could easily be replicated by a smart BAT file. To make it look nice for the user, we could use some "Visual" scripting tools. For example, a "Visual CHOICE" to make a nice-looking prompt where you select something. etc. http://www.freedos.org/jhall/ But by then, I realized I didn't have time to write such a thing. I started some tools, but it didn't get far before I got swamped on other work. That's where Jerome came in. He had the drive and energy to write these tools. He created the V8 Power Tools, pretty much on spec from what I wrote in my blog. So to answer your question, "Why not create a new UI for the installer and make it more efficient?" That's what we are *doing* with the V8 Power Tools. The package handling routines at install-time can remain a simple UNZIP. A package manager really only becomes important after you have a running system. At install-time, every install should be the same (in terms of packages installed). My two cents. Jim ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
