Also, what if the user has a partition which is utilized by another OS but isn't crucial? (Linux swap comes to mind.) Yes, they can easily set it back up again if they trash it with their FreeDOS installing, but in a perfect world the installer would check the partition signatures to see if they match up to anything important, even if there's no actual files or filesystem.
On 9/18/2015 9:42 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote: >> On Sep 18, 2015, at 4:08 AM, Eric Auer <e.a...@jpberlin.de> wrote: >> >> >> Hi Mateusz and Michael, >> >> the installer should NOT try to be more clever or automatic >> than we can SAFELY make that. I disagree with Mateusz about >> the "simply give me a button to destroy my harddisk contents >> and put DOS on it" because that is too destructive. Default >> should be to ADD DOS to an existing FAT partition, if any. >> >> Without checking or modifying whether that is the partition >> which is flagged as boot partition, or alternatively adding >> it to some existing boot manager which has config files on >> some other partition anyway. >> >> If no FAT partition is present, then you have two situations: >> >> 1. There is NOTHING at all, apart from maybe some MBR with an >> empty partition table, on the main harddisk or SSD yet. Note >> that we also have to check for GPT partitioning schemes here. > I was coing t go that way with a special utility CheckHDD. But, realized > it just wasn’t necessary. (See Below) > >> 2. There is SOMETHING else on the disk already, but no FAT. > Actually, we don’t need to do any of that. I super simplified the process > in the installer already. Basically, this is what already happens in the > current installer. > > You boot the install disk. > > The installer launches. > > If FreeDOS 1.2 is already installed, > Installer stops and returns the user to a prompt with a welcome message. > > If FreeDOS 1.2 was not found, or you manually launch the installer > (SETUP.BAT), > You are greeted by the installer, and asked if you wish to continue. > > The installer then check if FreeDOS can find a drive C: (regardless of it is > formatted) > > If it cannot find C:, then > The drive(s) are not partitioned, or > The drive(s) have no partitions that can be used for FreeDOS, or > The drive(s) are bad, or > The drive(s) are not installed. > > We can only deal with the first two. > So, we offer to launch a partitioner or exit. > > Next, test if C: can be read by DOS. > > If C: was found but is unreadable, then > It is not formatted for DOS, or > It is corrupt, or > some other problem. > > We offer to format the drive or quit. > > Next, it tests if any OS is already installed on C: by looking for specific > files. > > If it finds an OS, it offers to back it up or not. > > If the user wants to backup existing OS files, they are zipped up and stored > in a sub-directory. > > ————— > Waiting to hear from Jim on how he wants the installer to handle previous > config and OS files. Keep and overwrite, or nuke em with clean stuff. > ————-- > > TO DO: > > Offer option for the install: Base, Full, w/ or w/out sources. > > Possibly purge old OS and config files. > > Transfer System files. > > Install requested packages. > > Maybe install new config files. > > Offer reboot. > > :-) > >> In case 1, it is okay for me - IF we can safely decide if the >> target disk matches the case - to have a button saying "there >> seems to be nothing on your disk yet, overwrite it with DOS?” > With the way things always keep changing, It is easy to > foresee a situation that DOS thinks the drive is blank, but it is not > empty and works fine if had been partitioned for dos elsewhere. > We cannot assume, that just because we don’t see anything, that there > is nothing there. (I’m not saying you would assume that) > >> In case 2, the, hopefully experienced, user should be dropped >> to a prompt. There, they can decide to reboot and use better >> tools to make a FAT partition first. I certainly would pick a >> tool like GPARTED in Linux or the built-in partition editor of >> a modern Windows version at this point. OR the user can decide >> to try their luck with DOS FDISK and FORMAT. By running those >> manually and deliberately. But those two are FAR too destructive >> to hit you over the head after you made a wrong choice in some >> dialog from the installer about "what you want to do next"... >> > Strongly agree with that. It is with installer offers to run a partitioner > and formatter, > but DOES NOT just do it. > >> As we see from the recent question by Josefh, people often just >> want to do something with DOS quickly. So a live CD mode, as far >> as I am concerned installing BASE + optionally more to some big >> RAMDISK, would be VERY nice to have for our installer CD. > Up to Jim. :-) > (But, it would be nice for power users.) > >> They certainly do NOT expect to burn a FreeDOS CD, try to get >> it to work by blindly pressing "OK" a few times and suddenly >> realize that this has completely deleted their Windows & data. >> > That won’t happen with the installer. If, you just keep hitting return, > you will end up back at the prompt. :-) > > But, there is nothing I can really do to prevent someone from trashing > their windows or linux install. > >> I also agree that it would be very nice to have downloads with >> pre-installed FreeDOS in some popular virtual machine container >> format, as VM will be a popular way of installing a DOS today. >> Mike gives a nice description of the reasoning behind this :-) >> > There should be a quick and easy VM download. No reason > why it can’t have one. > >> Regarding the package choice, I suggest a hierarchical menu: >> >> 1. One screen with one checkbox per category, with "BASE" as >> the only checked checkbox per default. The user can optionally >> check more boxes before hitting the "next" button. There can be > This is very cumbersome to accomplish using all batch file logic and > the desired restrictions placed on V8Power Tools. (Partially due to no forced > requirement of a TSR or device driver) > > However, that being said, I will at some point, add CheckBox support > to V8PT. I have already determined two different methods of implementation. > > The first method will, work similar to the Polling option in vchoice. Which > enables > which enables a the ability to do Choice Hints and such. (Prior to selecting > an option) > > The second will basically output the list of selected items. That would need > parsed > to determine their states using something that can test parts o f the output. > (vstr will > get functionality like this sooner or later). > >> 2. Buttons next to each category checkbox which say "select a >> custom subset of packages" which bring you to additional menu >> screens which do exactly that (although I doubt that lots of >> users would actually take the effort). > I haven’t gotten around to implementing Hotkey and button support yet for > V8PT. It’s > all in me head. But, I only have so much time for typing. :-( > >> Finally, the installer should make it very clear that for many >> use cases, BASE already is all that you need and that FDNPKG is >> a very convenient way to install and update those and other DOS >> packages at any later moment. > I think Jim wants the installer to use zip for better legacy hardware support. > > I have a very interesting way I plan on doing the package install. > > It will make it support sources from all floppies to CD to whatever DOS can > read. > (I say it will support, but who would want an all floppy version?) > >> Cheers, Eric >> >> > :-) > >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> _______________________________________________ >> Freedos-devel mailing list >> Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-devel mailing list > Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
