Hi TK Chia, > Apparently the review was from Laaca --- the author of Blocek.
Yes, I mean that post. However, I have only quoted part of the post and not mentioned the name because my impression was that just publicly shouting how horrible and disgusting FreeDOS is cannot be the start of a productive discussion: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/board_entry.php?id=17794 I do not think that FreeDOS 1.3 aims to be a competitor to Hiren or any of the Linux based "boot this and get a toolkit full of easy to use apps to repair your system" Live CDs. However, FDISK obviously does look as ugly as the MS DOS 1990s version which makes it look horrible compared to GPARTED and very unfriendly to use compared to the average modern Linux installer which says "I see you have Windows 10 here, should I shrink the partition and install Linux next to it? Or is it okay to delete everything and use the whole drive for Linux?" with only a small footnote saying "if neither of those two choices are what you like, you can partition manually here". I do NOT think that DOS can achieve that and I do NOT think that we should port GPARTED and all the tools which it calls in the background to DOS. Whoever wants to resize partitions for dual-booting DOS with Windows 10 can simply boot a Linux tool Live CD once. No worries, they are easy to use. And even then, DOS has no tools which would be able to automatically create a foolproof dual boot menu. Bernd et al HAVE tried that in older versions of the distro, for Windows 95/98 on FAT partitions, but it was far from being foolproof so I am quite okay with forcing the user to manually mess with such things instead of having an install wizard which tries to do it but then fails and fries your other partitions. Of course this topic is open for discussion :-) I had not been paying attention that Laaca advertised a system information screen in his own BLOCEK app here, but given that he has added that, he could also make a stand-alone sysinfo tool to include in the distro, for those who do not know that they have to look for that information inside a text editor. Alternatively, which system information tools with suitable open source license could be included? As RayeR already wrote on BTTR, HWINFO (which? note the Linux open source one, I assume), NSSI (Navrátil Software System Information, mirrored on BTTR actually: http://www.bttr-software.de/freesoft/system.htm ), VC (NC style file manager, last update 2001?) etc. are not open source. BTTR also lists AIDA (benchmarks and sysinfo), PC Diagnostics, etc. I remember that MS DOS came with MSD (and MEMMAKER, a wizard to optimize your config/autoexec for TSR/driver order in UMB etc.) but I also remember that MSD was not particularily useful when you compared it to classics such as Quarterdeck Manifest MFT. As you can guess, FreeDOS is missing cool apps here. How about https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/system/compinfo/ Would COMPINFO be sufficient? How about file managers? NDN (Necromancer's DOS Navigator at ndn.muxe.com) apparently has closed sources, but even supports 64-bit DPMI in DOS now? A free version of DOS NAVIGATOR, with sources: https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/dn/ The https://sourceforge.net/projects/doszip/ Doszip Commander is yet another Norton Commander clone, as is the open source CONNECT shell from http://www.dorlov.no-ip.com/Connect/ Some of the file managers already are packaged for FreeDOS distros on ibiblio: https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/dn151/ https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/dn2/ https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/file/doszip/ Which of those are or should be included / installed by default? Three alternatives to FDISK which are in our ibiblio collection are: https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/xfdisk/ https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/ranish/ (Ranish Partition Manager, only version 2.37 comes with sources) https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/spfdisk/ Which of those are how good or bad in your experience? I guess the installer uses FDISK because that can be scripted to some degree? So... Suggestions please :-) Which 1. SYSINFO TOOL, 2. FILE MANAGER and 3. PARTITION EDITOR should be installed by default, used during installation, be made available on the Live CD, etc.? Cheers, Eric PS: Interesting that util/user contains LPTLINK, which might be a 2005 laplink clone? Is vc.zip really VISICALC? License?? PPS: Buy my pathetic little TUI menu tool! (it is free, of course) :-D https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/user/mausmenu.zip _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
