Re: [Freedos-user] Updates to the FreeDOS website?

[Bryan Kilgallin]

G'day Jim:

It seems most people use the website to download FreeDOS, check the 
latest news, find links, and get general information.


All I use that home page for, is getting the BlueJeans meeting info just 
before monthly meetings.


--
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Re: [Freedos-user] Full nroff-troff-TeX for FreeDOS

[Aitor Santamaría]

On Mon, 25 Jan 2021 at 00:34, Jim Hall  wrote:

>
>
> *On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 5:17 PM Robert Keys  > wrote:*
>
>> *Hi all:*
>>
>> *FreeDOS newbie here (hopefully not needing the ancient internet flak
>> jacket).*
>>
>> *I used to run CPM/DOS/*nix in the ancient days of punch cards, paper
>> tape, 9-track reelsm, and floppies of the 8-inch and 5.25 inch sorts.
>> Alas, when I retired first, many years ago, I was corrupted with that
>> Winblows thingie that seems to run rampant these days.  I have seen and
>> tried the FreeDOS 1.2 suite and would like to try the 1.3 when it is
>> finally out.  The FreeDOS 1.3 RC3 was pretty good when I loaded it up.  My
>> goal is to*
>> *recreate my old dos vi/nroff/troff/TeX suite on FreeDOS.  We had roff
>> and nro-ish things even on CP/M.  Vi did not come along well until Calvin
>> on dos.  We also had Elan's mostly complete nroff/troff.  TeX compiled
>> somewhat out of the box on dos but took forever to build.  It was a bit
>> primitive.  But, with a set of *nixy tools, it was a qood writing box, for
>> years.  My heart yearns for that simplicity, once again.  I have an XP 586
>> box that is ready for the recyclers.  But, it would be fun to slap a big
>> drive in it and try FreeDOS.  When I tried the writing tool set, it mostly
>> came up and ran, but troff crashed it.  I don't think it was out of
>> memory.  But, something was just enough off to stop it.  I would consider
>> groff and friends, if they are known to work.  I think the early versions
>> will.*
>>
>> *So, are there any good working sets of vi/nroff/troff/TeX that are known
>> to run well on FreeDOS 1.3?*
>>
>> *ManyThanks!*
>>
>> *Bob*
>>
>
>
> Hi Robert
>
> FreeDOS has lots of editors, including some "vi" clones. You may have to
> install these using *FDIMPLES* (the package installer) to get them, but
> you can try *Elvis* or *Vim*.
>
> We don't have a TeX/LaTeX system on FreeDOS, but I remember using *emTeX*
> on DOS long ago. You should be able to run this on FreeDOS.
>
>
And it is a pitty, would be most appreciated! In the past I used to have
lots of problems trying to have PostScript output viewers. If there were a
TeX distribution that would port for PDF and a PDF viewer for DOS, would be
very good news indeed (yeah I remember the old ACROREAD for DOS, but I
assume it is nowhere close to be opensource nor free software).

Best wishes with the port,
Aitor
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Re: [Freedos-user] Full nroff-troff-TeX for FreeDOS

[Jim Hall]

*On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 5:17 PM Robert Keys > wrote:*

> *Hi all:*
>
> *FreeDOS newbie here (hopefully not needing the ancient internet flak
> jacket).*
>
> *I used to run CPM/DOS/*nix in the ancient days of punch cards, paper
> tape, 9-track reelsm, and floppies of the 8-inch and 5.25 inch sorts.
> Alas, when I retired first, many years ago, I was corrupted with that
> Winblows thingie that seems to run rampant these days.  I have seen and
> tried the FreeDOS 1.2 suite and would like to try the 1.3 when it is
> finally out.  The FreeDOS 1.3 RC3 was pretty good when I loaded it up.  My
> goal is to*
> *recreate my old dos vi/nroff/troff/TeX suite on FreeDOS.  We had roff and
> nro-ish things even on CP/M.  Vi did not come along well until Calvin on
> dos.  We also had Elan's mostly complete nroff/troff.  TeX compiled
> somewhat out of the box on dos but took forever to build.  It was a bit
> primitive.  But, with a set of *nixy tools, it was a qood writing box, for
> years.  My heart yearns for that simplicity, once again.  I have an XP 586
> box that is ready for the recyclers.  But, it would be fun to slap a big
> drive in it and try FreeDOS.  When I tried the writing tool set, it mostly
> came up and ran, but troff crashed it.  I don't think it was out of
> memory.  But, something was just enough off to stop it.  I would consider
> groff and friends, if they are known to work.  I think the early versions
> will.*
>
> *So, are there any good working sets of vi/nroff/troff/TeX that are known
> to run well on FreeDOS 1.3?*
>
> *ManyThanks!*
>
> *Bob*
>


Hi Robert

FreeDOS has lots of editors, including some "vi" clones. You may have to
install these using *FDIMPLES* (the package installer) to get them, but you
can try *Elvis* or *Vim*.

We don't have a TeX/LaTeX system on FreeDOS, but I remember using *emTeX*
on DOS long ago. You should be able to run this on FreeDOS.

For nroff/troff, try the *Nro* package. You can install this using FDIMPLES
if it's not part of your Full install.

Jim
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Re: [Freedos-user] any mouse configuration app recommendations?

[Jim Hall]

On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 7:12 AM Bryan Kilgallin 
wrote:

> Bret:
>
> > You're wanting a utility that will configure the mouse sensitivity,
> > resolution, etc.
>
> In OpenGEM, the mouse sensitivity is too high.
>
>

For anyone who's following this topic, we helped Bryan with this during the
virtual get-together. You can give a resolution to CuteMouse to adjust the
mouse speed. You give the horizontal and vertical resolutions separately,
in the range 1-9. To slow down the mouse on my system, I use:

ctmouse */R11*


The */R* option sets the resolution. You can let CuteMouse set a default
resolution by using */R0*

This seemed to fix the problem for Bryan.

Use ctmouse */?* to get command line help.

Jim
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Re: [Freedos-user] Which C compiler for targeting DOS?

[Jim Hall]

On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 1:56 AM Adam Nielsen via Freedos-user <
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Can anyone recommend a good C compiler for DOS?
>
> I thought there was only DJGPP and had issues with it when I last tried
> years ago (CWSDPMI), but looking at the FreeDOS build process it seems
> there are quite a number of workable C compilers for DOS now - so much
> so I am not sure which one to use!
> [...]



For what it's worth, I boot FreeDOS using QEMU on FreeDOS. I use OpenWatcom
C or the IA-16 GCC to compile my programs.

It's not as easy as DOSEMU, which actually creates a virtual C: drive from
a folder on your Linux $HOME. Instead, QEMU uses a virtual disk image. To
copy files, I just mount the QEMU image *qemu.img* from Linux, and mount it
someplace like */tmp/freedos*

guestmount -a *qemu.img* -m /dev/sda1 */tmp/freedos*


(the */dev/sda1* in this case tells guestmount to mount the first hard
drive partition)

Jim
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[Freedos-user] Full nroff-troff-TeX for FreeDOS

[Robert Keys]

Hi all:

FreeDOS newbie here (hopefully not needing the ancient internet flak jacket).

I used to run CPM/DOS/*nix in the ancient days of punch cards, paper tape, 
9-track reelsm, and floppies of the 8-inch and 5.25 inch sorts.  Alas, when I 
retired first, many years ago, I was corrupted with that Winblows thingie that 
seems to run rampant these days.  I have seen and tried the FreeDOS 1.2 suite 
and would like to try the 1.3 when it is finally out.  The FreeDOS 1.3 RC3 was 
pretty good when I loaded it up.  My goal is to
recreate my old dos vi/nroff/troff/TeX suite on FreeDOS.  We had roff and 
nro-ish things even on CP/M.  Vi did not come along well until Calvin on dos.  
We also had Elan's mostly complete nroff/troff.  TeX compiled somewhat out of 
the box on dos but took forever to build.  It was a bit primitive.  But, with a 
set of *nixy tools, it was a qood writing box, for years.  My heart yearns for 
that simplicity, once again.  I have an XP 586 box that is ready for the 
recyclers.  But, it would be fun to slap a big drive in it and try FreeDOS.  
When I tried the writing tool set, it mostly came up and ran, but troff crashed 
it.  I don't think it was out of memory.  But, something was just enough off to 
stop it.  I would consider groff and friends, if they are known to work.  I 
think the early versions will.

So, are there any good working sets of vi/nroff/troff/TeX that are known to run 
well on FreeDOS 1.3?

ManyThanks!

Bob
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[Freedos-user] Updates to the FreeDOS website?

[Jim Hall]

Hi everyone

I'm thinking about making a few changes to the FreeDOS website. But I don't
want this to be "just another makeover" that makes things pretty. Instead,
I'm looking for what you will find useful.

I'm thinking of a few things already:

*1. Update the wiki*
The wiki is arguably part of the FreeDOS website, and people go there if
they can't find the information they are looking for on the rest of the
site. It seems most people use the website to download FreeDOS, check the
latest news, find links, and get general information. But if they are
looking for a "how-to" or other documentation, they look to the wiki for
that.

As I mentioned in the get-together today, the wiki is out of date. The wiki
started as docs we kept in the SourceForge site-wide wiki. When SF stopped
running a site-wide wiki, they gave all projects an export of their data
and instructions for how to set up their own MediaWiki. I don't know
MediaWiki, but I was able to follow the instructions to set up the wiki we
have now.

The setup works, but it's really hard for me to do basic "admin" things
like add new editors. So I need to update that.

An updated wiki will make it easier to provide up-to-date documentation and
"how-to" instructions.

*2. Make it easy to share stuff*
Sometimes it would be nice to share a news item with Twitter or other
social media. I'm working on an update to the News system that will provide
"share" buttons to share a news item on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
I'd also like to include Reddit.

As a bonus, this update also makes this easier to manage on the back-end.

*3. Make the front page more welcoming*
The front page is a quick "landing page" for people to learn about FreeDOS.
It's not bad, but could be better. I'm planning to embed the latest FreeDOS
video on the front, since the videos are about *things you can do with
FreeDOS* or *showing off neat features in FreeDOS*, so I think the video
will help. I'll also make the screenshots smaller so they don't take up so
much of the screen.

I also want to make it easier to start downloading FreeDOS right from the
front page. I'm not sure yet how I'll do that, but I'm thinking about
borrowing from the https://getfedora.org/ front page, where they have a
small info box about each "spin" of the Fedora distro, and a "Download Now"
button that brings you to a separate page where you actually download
Fedora. What do you think?

BTW, you can already access the front page as https://www.freedos.org/ or
http://www.freedos.org/ or https://freedos.org/ or http://freedos.org/


Let me know what you think will make the website easier to use. I'll plan
to tackle this in February or March, with plans to deploy in March or April.


Jim
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Re: [Freedos-user] Which C compiler for targeting DOS?

[tom ehlert]

>  * I would like to be able to automate the build process as much as
>possible, avoiding complex install requirements as are often the
>case with cross compilers.  This means automatically downloading the
>compiler would be great, so it knocks out something like Borland
>Turbo C which although free, doesn't allow redistribution.  So a
>compiler with a more open licence would be better.

that' s easy, and has been around xxDOS for about 35 years.

distribute the binary PROGRAM.EXE

almost no xxDOS user expects to have to build executables by
themselves. that's a linux concept (which is ok) but for many years
amounted to something like

to build this,
  point the path to xxx
  set environment to yy=xxx\bin
  ...
  ...
  ...
  now
  configure
  build

  might actually build a binary.

in addition, net connectivity of a new DOS machine is much less then
guaranteed. so downloading a compiler (franework) is not guaranteed,
and probably not a good idea about software distribution.

Tom



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Re: [Freedos-user] Reminder: virtual get-together on Sunday

[Jim Hall]

Yes, I sent another email:


*The FreeDOS virtual get-together is happening now! Join us for the next
hour to talk about all things FreeDOS. You can connect with the BlueJeans
Meetings client or join right from your browser.*

*The meeting URL is https://bluejeans.com/814003161
*

On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 11:00 AM Aitor Santamaría 
wrote:

> If Goole didn't lie (or conspire), it is now (on a few minutes), right? :)
>
> On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 at 17:25, Jim Hall  wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone!
>>
>> A quick reminder that our next FreeDOS virtual get-together is Sunday, 24
>> January, 2021 at 11am US/Central. Use your favorite timezone converter to
>> find your local time.
>>
>> Just like last time, we'll hold the meeting via BlueJeans. (You can
>> download the meeting client, or you can join from your browser without the
>> client.)
>>
>> I'll share a link here (and on the website, and on Twitter, and on
>> Facebook) when the meeting starts.
>> ___
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[Freedos-user] FreeDOS virtual get-together is now

[Jim Hall]

The FreeDOS virtual get-together is happening now! Join us for the next
hour to talk about all things FreeDOS. You can connect with the BlueJeans
Meetings client or join right from your browser.

The meeting URL is https://bluejeans.com/814003161
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Re: [Freedos-user] Reminder: virtual get-together on Sunday

[Aitor Santamaría]

If Goole didn't lie (or conspire), it is now (on a few minutes), right? :)

On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 at 17:25, Jim Hall  wrote:

> Hi everyone!
>
> A quick reminder that our next FreeDOS virtual get-together is Sunday, 24
> January, 2021 at 11am US/Central. Use your favorite timezone converter to
> find your local time.
>
> Just like last time, we'll hold the meeting via BlueJeans. (You can
> download the meeting client, or you can join from your browser without the
> client.)
>
> I'll share a link here (and on the website, and on Twitter, and on
> Facebook) when the meeting starts.
> ___
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> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
>
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[Freedos-user] FreeDOS Virtual Get-together

[Bryan Kilgallin]

I'll use a Chromium browser window. I'll need the meeting ID and passcode.
--
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Re: [Freedos-user] Xcopy

[Joao Silva]

Hi!
Good. ;)

On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 11:14 AM Bryan Kilgallin 
wrote:

> Yes, Joao:
>
> > Try  XCOPY  C:\GAMES\*.* D:\GAMES /E /S
>
> That worked fine.
>
> >   */E*
> >Copy subdirectories, even if empty.
> >
> >*/S*
> >Copy subdirectories, except empty ones.
>
> I hadn't realised the need for those options.
> --
> members.iinet.net.au/~kilgallin/
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] any mouse configuration app recommendations?

[Bryan Kilgallin]

Bret:

You're wanting a utility that will configure the mouse sensitivity, 
resolution, etc.


In OpenGEM, the mouse sensitivity is too high.

But, my USBMOUSE driver does have a limited capability to do it from the 
command-line.


I entered "usbmouse". Receiving this error.
"There must be a compatible USB Host Driver installed in memory 
(something like USBUHCI.COM)"


I found that in C:\FDOS\BIN.

From that directory, I entered "usbuhci". The consequent text said that 
the USB Host Controller had Legacy Support enabled. So it continued that 
a USB keyboard/mouse were installed and enabled in the BIOS. Next was a 
warning that keyboard and mouse drivers were required, or the computer 
wouldn't function! So I replied `n' to the query as to whether I was sure.


This is described in the USB 
program documentation (USBINTRO.DOC) starting on page 117.


Where is that file?
--
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Re: [Freedos-user] Which C compiler for targeting DOS?

[TK Chia]

Hello Adam,


  * I would like to be able to produce a native DOS real-mode .exe file
that will run in an emulator like DOSBox and on a real 8086 PC
running DOS (i.e. without protected mode or extended memory).  It
looks like there is an "ia16" port of GCC but this seems to produce
ELF files rather than .exe?


gcc-ia16 (which I had been working on) does indeed produce 16-bit .exe
(and .com) programs which can run on MS-DOS.  It uses ELF mainly as an
intermediate object file format.

In terms of support for DOS programming idioms --- e.g. huge pointers
--- I would say Open Watcom is superior to gcc-ia16.  But you might
still find gcc-ia16 useful, depending on your needs.

Both gcc-ia16 and OW allow for "native" compilation (the toolchains run
on MS-DOS + 32-bit DPMI, and will produce 16-bit DOS programs), and for
cross-compiling from Linux to MS-DOS.  You can find pre-compiled binary
packages for gcc-ia16 and OW, for both these use cases.

Thank you!

--
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Re: [Freedos-user] Xcopy

[Bryan Kilgallin]

Yes, Joao:


Try  XCOPY  C:\GAMES\*.* D:\GAMES /E /S


That worked fine.


  */E*
   Copy subdirectories, even if empty.

   */S*
   Copy subdirectories, except empty ones.


I hadn't realised the need for those options.
--
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Re: [Freedos-user] Which C compiler for targeting DOS?

[Mateusz Viste]

On 24/01/2021 08:54, Adam Nielsen via Freedos-user wrote:

Hi all,

Can anyone recommend a good C compiler for DOS?


Turbo C 2.01 (gratis, very good software) and OpenWatcom (open-source, 
tend to produce heavier binaries than OW, but comes with a more complete 
libc).



  * I would like to be able to cross-compile from a Linux machine, but
without having to install a complex cross-compilation environment -
meaning the two options I can think of are running a Linux platform
cross-compiler from within a Docker container, or running a native
DOS compiler from within a virtual environment like QEMU.


Use DOSEMU. You get a little "DOS in a window" that sees your native 
Linux files. No need to copy source files back and forth - write them 
with your usual Linux IDE/notepad, compile and test in the DOSEMU window.



Do they all target protected mode architectures
now or do they still support 8086-compatible real mode?


Both TC and OW produce 8086 code (OW needs the extra -0 argument for that).

Mateusz


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