Hi Bernd, >> it seems even on modern hardware unpacking FreeCOM >> during install may take VERY long, so we need a fix: > > This seems to be specific to the old installer (v3.7.8 by Jeremy) I > think, as that unpacks entire packages. Sourcecode modification would be > required to add a "-x source/*". Alternatively, or additionally, if > someone modified the new installer (v4.01 by Jim) to switch to > destination directory after unpacking files, that would also work.
That sounds as if a very small problem keeps you from upgrading to a newer and probably better installer... >> - it is good to have source and binary in one zip If size is critical, you can automatically make zips without sources by doing zip -d somefile.zip source/* >> - but you can use info-zip's command line options >> (-x source/*) to exclude sources from unzip :-) > > New installer already does this, reason why... That is sth. to discuss with the installer maintainer :-) >> - a default install does not need sources, as the >> user can always fetch those from the zip later > > I've never liked programs with many options/switches Exactly. So do not ASK users whether and which sources they want to install, just TELL them that all sources can be found in the zips when needed. Users will rarely need sources and most of the time only of single apps. >> - users should be warned that install without XMS >> drivers will be horribly slow due to lack of RAM Regarding the compatibility trouble discussion: Users BELIEVE that not loading drivers is a safe option but in fact it is a very problematic one because the install performance totally chokes on lack of memory then. You could better offer multiple XMS drivers to chose from. For not loading anything, there is always the F5 key... > I intend to offer loading of XMS driver at runtime as an option. Please avoid that - it complicates things and does not give FreeCOM or kernel enough extra RAM to matter. So I strongly prefer loading XMS drivers in config.sys... > request to have a tiny init shell that spawns, in a loop FreeCOM That is easy but makes things complicated compared to just loading XMS drivers when XMS drivers SHOULD load. I think I once made some "CMD" for that when FreeCOM had a bug that made it exit from time to time :-p As said, XMS drivers should be loaded in config.sys, there can be several XMS drivers to pick from to get extra compatibility, and avoiding XMS drivers should be hard, so only expert or masochist users do it... >> Excluding sources from unzipping instead of unzipping >> and then deleting them also saves CPU time and disk >> activity time and temporarily disk storage space :-) > > Deleting files can take ages indeed. By the way, I'm considering > 7-zipping sourcecode of programs that can't be compiled in DOS. We hopefully do not have many such programs anyway...? Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Better than sec? Nothing is better than sec when it comes to monitoring Big Data applications. Try Boundary one-second resolution app monitoring today. Free. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
