Hi Carlos, DOS IS NOT A NETWORKING OS... I would like to say.
> I think that the new distro idea about a collection of batch files is really > good. It looks similar to portage/gentoo and freebsd/ports way of installing > packages and maybe a it can be a revival for the fdpm project. > - Make the distribution easy to update. > - Maybe less releases/ISOs per year. We already are at about ONE :-(. > - Get comercial software inside the distro, not the software but an install > script/method. That would be okay IF there is real use for it. So far, everybody has been able to install their commercial software using the INTENDED way of install, i.e. buy the software or download it from the homepage of the vendor, then follow the install instructions. I do not see why we should take big efforts to make something MORE automatic which is ALMOST automatic anyway. AND people should read the homepage from where they download stuff BEFORE they use it. > - Comercial software site's bandwith can be used . But what commercial site do you mean? Things like downloading ALL DJGPP ports of GNU software in an automatic way? DJ Delorie will be NOT amused if you bypass his useful ZIP PICKER. > - To have a binary install for users. Blair's current ISOs already DO come as a BINARY 100 MB and a with-sources 200 MB version. > - Or from source install for developers. Sorry to say that, but install from sources is plain nonsense. Gentoo users do it because they have a twisted belief in optimizing their Linux to 5% more performance by compiling their very own binary of everything in night-long compile runs. For FreeBSD, there is at least SOME use in the system because FreeBSD can run on different types of processors (i.e. non-x86 ones). Plus FreeDOS has some packages which can NOT be compiled with freely available compilers. > - Bandwith from everybody could be used. > (just live the package in a place the install program can fetch) You mean: Every package maintainer has to provide his own bandwidth for his own packages? The system of worldwide mirrors for things like the ISOs, SourceForge, Ibiblio is much more suitable in the general case. > - Bandwith usage would be distributed. Again, a nearby mirror can SAVE bandwidth because you do not have to collect a worldwide soup of mixed origin packages to install every single system. > - Also bandwith usage would be distributed in time since everybody will not > update their packages at the same time. Then you MUST assume that people START with installing a full ISO and only do OCCASIONAL updates. If you ask me, a much BETTER solution for this would be a system which shows you the LSMs of all packages which got updated since [User Can Enter Date Here] and do the rest manually. Only 5 - 10 of the many FreeDOS components are under active development at the moment AT ALL :-|. > - Make install scripts easier for virtual machines (vmware, bochs, qemu...) > and emulators (dosemu) since they all have the same network cards, at the > same address, perhaps. This is a nonsense argument: MY Bochs does NOT have a network card. If I would want to install something on it, it would be MUCH easier to get an ISO file. Actually you reach MANY people with a SINGLE ElTorito CD-ROM driver and only a FRACTION of the people with a collection of the top 3 network card drivers. > - Easy to test and get food for bugzilla faster, while developers still got > their hands dirty. Sorry to spoil your illusions: When you announce an update here with PLEASE TEST, I MUST KNOW IF IT WORKS in big red letters on it, you will not have heard anything a week later anyway in many cases. Just by having a tool which says "press here to update your DOS" you will get a zero increase in user feedback. Remember the WindowsUpdate problem. They say "you must use this to be safe", and a virus coming out months after a security fix still knocks out tens of percent of all Windows machines :-(. > - Get software tested faster and in different machines by far more people. ... > - Get more people installing (hey new stuff) and updating their FreeDOS > distro. For that, I recommend having ISOs TWICE a year instead of ONCE, for a start. Plus having a site with a single "ALL UPDATES SINCE THE LAST ISO IN ONE ZIP" file for easy update. This will be really easy for users. All the networking stuff is really a big pain in DOS. I did get my DOS online, but I am really against any illusions that NETWORKING would be easier than CDROM. Sorry for having to be so harsh about that "Make FreeDOS a new Gentoo" idea. Eric ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by: Discover Easy Linux Migration Strategies from IBM. Find simple to follow Roadmaps, straightforward articles, informative Webcasts and more! Get everything you need to get up to speed, fast. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7477&alloc_id=16492&op=click _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
