"Steven C. Darnold" wrote: > > Looking up a doc file on a 486 in dos was duck soup; > > by the time the 486 could find the same info or man > > segment on the drive in Linux, you could make duch soup. > > How come? In DOS you type 'help fdisk' and in Linux you type > 'man fdisk'. What's the difference? DOSBOOK comes up gonzo faster. it is organized better, with a more complete internal menu system. I dont type 'help fdisk' in dos. I might : fdisk /? but screw that. download PART.EXE from Garbo. it's way ahead of any fdisk of any os I seen yet. and the .doc file, like with all dos doc files, is in the archive and unzips into the directory where the app resides. On a 486 I could use dc.com to change to that directory and scroll down to the doc file and be reading the second page before the same 486 could even find the appropriate man file. There are a lotta man files and it takes a long time on a slow hard drive.
> > I downloaded DESQUVIEW and QEMM; fooled around with them > > a little, but saw that it would take more to get it running. > > Doesn't this rather contradict the "DOS simple - Linux hard" > refrain. My recollection is that several of my DOS applications > were hard to get running. Lots a tinkering and frustration. > Just like Linux. I aint an ideologue. I dont seemta need QEMM & DQV, but I'd like to get it up and running to see what diff it makes, and make some comparisons based on experience between that form of multi-tasking and the NXX forms. Obviously, dos can be simple. the question is, whether the complexity of these tools is worth it. I dunno. > > No dos app I ever tried was so complex to try to install. > > Not even DESQVIEW? Like I said, I aint tried to do that yet Steven. I dunno yet. > > > I didnt need to worry about which distro of dos I had. > > I have DOS 3 running on my XT. There are several applications > that happily work in DOS 6 that refuse to run in DOS 3. I dont run, and havnt seen an xt in a long time. I dont know anyone who does, nor do I see any need to run dos 3. why bother when you can download drdos 7.03 for free? > > If the newbie can get by on whatever comes on the distro cd, > > then linux is simple. > > Keep in mind that some distros come with five CDs. That's a > lot to "get by on". Later, when you are no longer a newbie, > you'll be able to compile anything you want from source. "compile from source" sounds like assembly language links, and gives me great pause for thought. If you have great power, and by all accounts by compiling you do, then you have great risk. > > I have always used dos batch to create mnemonics to launch apps. > > I was informed that you can do this with linux, > > Yes, indeed. For simple things, you can use aliases. For example, > if you want to lauch 'newprog' which is in /home/day/apps, you can > do: > -------------------------------- > alias n='/home/day/apps/newprog' > -------------------------------- > Then whenever you execute 'n' you will get it. Execute 'alias' > all by itself to set a full list of current aliases. Execute > 'unalias n' to remove that alias. To have your aliases come > up automatically from system start, add them to your ~/.profile > file. Can I put this 'n' on the gui desktop? > > and looked into ncurses. > > Not needed. A bash script (equivalent to a DOS .bat file) should > be able to do everything you need. If you give us an example of > what you are trying to do, we should be able to help. > > > Ncurses is not for a newbie, > > I agree. I never use it myself. > > > but simple dos batch is reasonably useful. > > Bash scripts are pretty similar to DOS batch files. > > DOS batch Bash script > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > %VAR% $VAR environmental variable > REM # comment > NOT ! negate following test > NUL /dev/null "black hole" for burying output > ECHO echo echo (more options in Bash) > ECHO OFF set +v do not echo > FOR %%VAR IN for var in "for" loop > PAUSE sleep pause or wait an interval > CHOICE select menu choice > IF if if-test > IF EXIST xxx if [ -e xxx ] test if file exists > SET export set an environmental variable > SHIFT shift left shift command-line arguments > SGN -lt or -gt sign (of integer) > ERRORLEVEL $? exit status > CON stdin "console" (stdin) > PRN /dev/lp0 (generic) printer device > COM1 /dev/ttyS0 first serial port > / - command option flag > \ / directory path separator > == = equal-to string comparison > !==! != not-equal-to string comparison > | | pipe > @ set +v do not echo > * * filename "wild card" > > > file redirection (overwrite) > >> >> file redirection (append) > < < redirect output > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > > There's lots of other stuff available for bash scripts, including > 'read' (which acts like 'input' in BASIC) and a whole bunch of > different DO loops. > > I suggest you start simple, using similar structures to your DOS > batch files. I (and probably others) would be happy to help you. > Perhaps you'd like to start by posting a DOS batch file here that > you would like to run in Linux. We can discuss how to convert it. > > Cheers, > Steven > > To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with > unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. > Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. > More info can be found at; > http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
