Hi Jim,
> But I can't run the GUI - I get a "resolution not supported" error
> under DOSEMU, regardless of what resolution I try to set in regedit.
It would be good if Windos displays which resolution it WANTS. Or if
it automatically selects something. Default is 640x480x16, but I found
that my dosemu only offers 32 bit per pixel modes. When I select the
obvious 640x480x32, windos crashes. When I select 800x600x32, it does
start and show an empty desktop with a pic of a mouse as background.
With 1024x768x32, it does start up first but then exits at once.
It says "VBE 3.0 not available". I think VBE 2.0 should be enough!
And I think it actually MEANS that there is not enough framebuffer
RAM available for 1024x768x32 VBE 2.0 mode ;-).
VBE 3.0 adds a protected mode interface and refresh rate control,
but I have written DJGPP programs which use VBE 2.0 without problem.
I just enter the mode, get a handle for the framebuffer memory, and
do not need the BIOS after that anyway. When I edit my .dosemurc to
say $_X_vgaemu_memsize = (8192) then windos does start up at first
but then crashes, traceback EIP: 0x000603db 0x0011f8f2.
With 800x600, Windos also crashes often, and I cannot get to a menu
even if it does not crash. When I try to use a depth 8 mode (256
color mode) I get a crash with traceback EIP 0x000d15d2 only.
Modes with depth 15 also crash after WinDos shows the start screen.
No idea why DOSEMU 1.4 only gives DOS 15 and 32 bit depth modes but
no 16 and 24 bit depth modes.
Translation of Regedit: Enter open F4 Edit F7 New F8 Delete? F9 File?
Basically you use the cursor keys and Enter until the right key is
highlighted and then type F4. Then type a value and hit enter. When
all keys are set, hit esc to exit and save the new settings.
Problem with Regedit: It is NOT available in the installed system.
It is only in the directory with the "installer files". This should
be changed, such files should be put into some tool directory. The
source code is installed too - it should be put in a separate
directory and you should have the option to not install it. The
full install with source code is 5000 files and 160 MB, plus the
145 plus 28 MB that you need during install! The few exe files
which are left in the install dir instead of in the windos dir
are mostly apps for running inside windos. Exception is regedit
and of course install. I believe that the files are MEANT to be
in the WinDos directory after install, but that they end up in
the wrong directory because I selected another directory, not
c:/windos, as install target directory...?
When you run install, you have to type tab and then enter to
accept the GPL. Actually the GPL is not meant to be as a "you
have to accept before you install this" license! Of course it
is nice to show the GPL but you do not have to "accept" it.
Next, you hit enter to open a menu for "principal" (main) and
select "windos". Hit enter. Use the cursor to select extras,
hit enter, and see that there are no choices apart from nada
(nothing) ;-). Hit tab and enter to go to the next page. Edit
the target path (just type, use backspace to remove the path
which is suggested as default). Use tab to go to the next field,
edit that, use tab twice to go to the "siguiente pagina", hit
enter, and enjoy how piles of files are extracted from a big
uncompressed .bar archive file. I think the installer will be
more happy if you enable your long file name drivers first
before you install Windos, but it seems to work with short
file names, too.
I think environ bat is not adjusted to match the actual install
directory if you select something else than c:/windos ...
The registry.wd file contains the registry as editable text
but windos.reg is binary. Interestingly, system32 does not
contain a bin directory, but djgpp.env looks as if it should.
As far as I can tell, WinDos opens the following files before it
crashes: debug.txt djgpp.env (as pointed to by %DJGPP% env var),
WinDos.reg and the soundblaster. It seems to be impossible to
run WinDos without sound output...??
Most of what you get when you install WinDos is the source code
of everything and many DJGPP compile tools. The actual WinDos
seems to be pretty small:
- tmp, extra (empty)
- a few files (ca 2 mb)
- desktop/desktop.dat (4 kb) drivers.dos/mouse/ctmouse... (5 kb)
- scrsaver (8+12 kb) cursors (14 files of 766 bytes each)
- bitmaps (ca 1/2 mb, could be 200k less if using PCX for WinDos.bmp)
- bmp (ca 1 mb, almost the only place which contains long file names,
some of which are broken down to name~1.png style while some other
names are correctly installed as long. Note that windos uses some
library which can render PNGs :-))
[more LFN: info/allegro.info LIB/GCC-LIB/DJGPP/3.04/INCLUDE/syslimits.h
LIB/GCC-LIB/DJGPP/3.04/libstdcxx.a LIB/libstdcxx.a
system32/doc/rhide/rhide.html I think WinDos can easily be all SFN...]
- bmps (ca 1 mb, includes a picture of the author, why not as JPG? :-))
Things which are probably not needed to run WinDos:
- share (2.5 mb, contains some i18n and latex files)
- lib (12 mb, but I believe that WinDos is statically linked??)
- bin (15 mb, all sorts of GNU compile tools but no windos parts?)
[addr2lin ar as bfdsymif bin2h bison chgrp chmod chown coff cp cpp cxxfilt
d dd df dir dircolor djasm djecho djmerge djsplit djtar djtart djtarx
doslfn.com dsmcheck dtou du dxegen edebug32 emu387.dxe exe2coff flex
flexpp flexx fsdb gasp gcc gcov gdb ginstall gmkdir go32-v2 gpp gprof
grmdir gxx info infokey install- install kgcc ld ln ls make makeinfo mkdir
mkfifo mknod mv nm objcopy objdump protoize ranlib readelf redir rem.com
rm rmdir setdjgpp.bat size strings strip stubedit stubify symify sync
texi2dvi texi2ps texindex touch unprotoi update upx utod v vdir zippo
gpr2mak gprexp rhgdb rhide, to give the complete list :-)]
Things which are almost certainly not needed to run WinDos:
1.1M include, 1.1M man, 2.2M gnudocs, 5.2M source, 11M info,
21M allegro, 85M system32 ... I know, one of the main goals
of WinDos is to have a GUI for which it is easy to write
apps, but I still think a basic install of WinDos should
NOT include all compilers and source codes ;-).
To summarize: You download 28 MB of 7zip, need more of 300 MB
temporarily, get 160 MB of files installed, but as a USER, you
only need ca 5 MB of the installed files... I do again suggest
to offer a "binaries only" installation and download for those
who only want to use WinDos but do not want to write programs.
I hope this quick "review" is useful for improving WinDos :-).
Maybe Aitor or another expert could translate it for Oscar?
Thanks :-).
Eric
> Anyway, I posted his archive on ibiblio at
> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/gui/windos/
> It would be great if others here could try it out and see if it
> works for them.
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