Re: [Freedos-devel] simple freedos 1.1 installer please / 1.0 overview

[<ait...@gm...>]

Hello,

2007/12/25, Eric Auer <er...@co...>:
>
> Hi Oleg,
>
> > IMHO i18n should be done by _POST_install_ scripts.
>
> On one hand, that would make the installer much easier. On
> the other hand, it is nice that the installer can do the
> keyboard and font config for you...

I am of this opinion too, perhaps not DISPLAY, but yes KEYB. It's
really annoying in many OS installers to find out where did the '\' go
(it happens that in some layouts, including Spanish, some basic
characters such as  :  or  \  are in a rather different position than
in the US counterparts).

> > About Open Watcom... Can we use it as main FreeDOS C compiler (like GCC
> > in Linux systems)? Now we have many packages that require OW, GCC, BCC,
> > TCC, Digital Mars C, etc. for compilation. Also porting all assembler
> > sources to NASM is a good idea. Any FreeDOS user (if he want) should
> > be able to recompile _any_ program.
>
> OpenWatcom is very big, so compiling with (free) Turbo C 2 should
> be acceptable. Digital Mars and Borland C/C++ are exceptions and

but cannot be automatically put in the distribution, as OW does.
True that not all current apps compile under OW, but please at least
make it available for those majority that will run FreeDOS in a 386+
machine that can afford it.

> > <offtopic> Can I include proprietary drivers (such as aspi or network
> > drivers) in *GPLed* FreeDOS distribution? Or I should made that
> > distribution free for any non-commercial use? </offtopic>
>
> We include only GPLed drivers, but there are several packages that
> run a WGET to download proprietary free drivers. See above. Well
> actually we also include a few REALLY free drivers with mixed other
> licenses I guess. But for example USBASPI and ASPIDISK are not on
> our ISO, only WGET commands for them are on the ISO.

That is good. And those you mentioned come to my mind.
It would be great if someone could put up a database of existing DOS
drivers, which fall in 3 possible categories:
(1) OpenSOurce (thus, distributed within the FD distribution)
(2) Non-OS, but still free or downloadable: maybe some kind soul can
put them somewhere that can be downloaded with WGET
(3) FUlly commercial: simply list them, and explain how to use, in
case the user can somehow get a copy.

I'd do that myself, but I don't have that much information about it. I
am even lost with the plenty of QCDROM/XCDROM/HCDROM or whatever
CD-ROM drivers. I don't know which is which.

Aitor