Hello,
:-)
> On Jul 10, 2018, at 3:06 PM, Jim Hall <jh...@freedos.org> wrote:
>
> Hi everyone
>
> I'd like to start work on FreeDOS 1.3!
>
> We talked before that the next release would be an iteration on FreeDOS 1.2.
> That means the next distribution will be FreeDOS 1.3 - and not 2.0. We wanted
> the next FreeDOS distro to remain like classic DOS. For example, we shouldn't
> "retire" any classic commands utilities from Base. But FreeDOS 1.3 is an
> opportunity to improve and update several things.
I think 2.0 should contain more. Things like automatic text menu system for
installed packages. Runlevel style boot process. But,that is a discussion for
another day.
> My initial thoughts:
>
> - The install CD should be a Live CD.
> The FreeDOS 1.2 install CD is sort of a Live CD. You can exit the install
> process and drop back to a DOS command line. I think the same, but include a
> full "Base" FreeDOS runtime.
I have some compatibility concerns with providing a LiveCD. During the
development of the 1.2 install media, several testers had some very bizarre
issues. Thanks to their provided feedback we were able to eliminate most of
the common problems. With testing, coming up with a workable “LiveCD” version
should not be a problem. After all, we could continue to provide a “LegacyCD”
version that does not boot to a Live version of FreeDOS.
Anyhow, there are several ways to get to a Live system. Here are he two main
ways.
1) Just boot a Hard disk image from the CD and pretend it is a Hard
Disk.
2) Boot a Floppy image, have it create and RAM drive and put Live
System on it.
Neither is a perfect answer.
> - Move Zip and Unzip packages into Base.
> The reason is that all FreeDOS packages are zip files "under the hood" so it
> makes sense to include tools in Base that can create and extract packages.
IDK. Maybe. They are kind-of core tools and should be installed with BASE. But…
They are archivers and should be left in the Archiver group. They do not
replicate any functionality from MS-DOS and don’t belong in BASE. Try to live
with out them being installed. IDK.
> - Change the games.
> We didn’t install any games with 1.2. We did provide some games as extras on
> the big USB and CD images. We've discussed previously that games are not
> really "core" to any FreeDOS distribution. So what games we include (or not
> include) can change from distro to distro.
More good games would nice. :-)
> - Add a "Unix" package group.
> We have a few Unix-workalike programs in the FreeDOS "Util" package group.
> Some devs have been writing Unix-alike programs for FreeDOS, or porting Unix
> tools to FreeDOS. These Unix-like programs should be moved into a package
> group of their own.
Good idea.
Also, Maybe do a simple package that adds some aliases at boot (when package is
installed)
simple things like ls, cp, mv for equivalent dos commands.
> Thoughts?
Oh, I got lots o those. :-)
Back to Package Meta-data. It would be really great to add multi-language
support to the LSM data files. Then when I get around to adding support for
them in
FDIMPLES and on the online software repository management utility, users could
browse packages in their preferred language. Basically, only the short
Description (should be less then 80 chars, this needs fixed on some packages),
the longer Summary (long winded description) and keywords would need
translated. They seldom (if ever) should or do change. If anyone is interested
in doing some translating, let us know here and head over to the repo and grab
the CSV file. Load it
into your favorite spread sheet, delete the other columns and go to town. Once
you’ve finished, just email it to me directly.
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.2/listing.csv
<http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.2/listing.csv>
> This is also an opportunity to fix bugs and add new features to FreeDOS
> programs. I've given a few examples on the FreeDOS Contribute page, but let's
> go through the bug tracker, too.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
> And it's an opportunity to add new FreeDOS programs, if we find them useful.
> The Contribute page has a few new ideas, too.
A new help system would be great. Something more dynamic that supports adding
and removing help based on installed packages. Something that also has
multi-language support.
> I know that DOS isn't exactly a "moving target" anymore, so we aren't in a
> rush to get out the next version. But I'd like to set a goal to shoot for. We
> released FreeDOS 1.0 in 2006, and 1.1 in 2012, and 1.3 in 2016. I propose a
> new release in December 2018 or January 2019. That gives some time to write
> code and fix bugs before we put together a release candidate, maybe in
> October or November 2018.
>
> To compare: we made FreeDOS 1.2 Release Candidates a month apart: 1.3 RC1 in
> October 2016, and 1.3 RC2 in November 2016, and 1.3 Final in December 2016. I
> think the same this time. Two release candidates, then a final release, each
> a month apart.
Has it really been two years? Wow.
There has been some big updates to a bunch of packages. So, I guess we could be
due for a new version.
You can view a list of packages that have been updated since the 1.2 release on
the official repo at
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.2/pkg-html/comparison.html
<http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.2/pkg-html/comparison.html>
some additional packages and previous versions are available on my personal
public repo at
https://fd.lod.bz/repos/current/ <https://fd.lod.bz/repos/current/>
Jerome
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