At 12:41 PM 7/17/2006 -0700, Blair Campbell wrote:
>The only two timeouts are the first timeout which defaults to boot
>from the hard drive rather than the CD-ROM (nothing wrong with that
>IMHO), and the second just boots defaultly into installation mode,
>which is what most people will be after.

I, too, see little reason for timeout-driven installs.  They make good 
sense on a standard boot, but not an install.  The pressure to make an 
appropriate selection problem is exacerbated by the timeouts not always 
working properly.  If install timeouts are kept active, the timeout code 
should be modified prior to FreeDOS 1.0 release to work under a wider range 
of environments, such as virtual and possibly other problematic 
targets.  Although, I'm not sure that's possible in a virtual environment 
without the user changing external settings.

To demonstrate the issue on a less theoretical level, I had recent bad 
experience with an install ISO using VPC 2004 where I was trying to get a 
basic FD boot rather than a full-blown install.  The selections whipped by 
at warp speed when I didn't want the default install choice.  Cursing and 
multiple reboots immediately followed.

Much as we might wish it to be otherwise, I expect that many new FreeDOS 
users will no longer use a plain vanilla hard disk or CDROM boot.


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