> On Sep 16, 2015, at 6:44 PM, Eric Auer <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hi! > >>> * for the same reason, there could be an option to just RENAME the >>> old DOS directory instead of moving the contents into a zip file, >>> as suggested by Mercury. >> >> And if there is already an FDOS.OLD? :-) > > As with your ZIP solution: In that case, rename to another name, > such as FDOS0042.OLD ;-)
That is way too easy. :-) Actually, the zip filename generator in the batch would not have in issue finding an unused FDOS????.OLD directory. It already does this to insure that it doesn’t clobber a pre-existing zip file. > >> Actually, I choose to wrap the old stuff up in a zip for a couple of reasons. > > Now we enter the realm of speculation and taste. In this case, mine… :-) > >> 1st, nobody will roll back to the previous version. > > Apart from those who are upset by the install completely replacing > their old system directory. You cannot predict what users will like. If you have to pick 1 of 3 choices, you’ll make 75% of people upset. (1/4 are never happy) :-) > >> 2nd, the zip will use much less space until the user gets around to deleting >> it. > > Not true IF you use the proper package management to UPGRADE the > old directory. Because then you do not need to backup that, as > only files belonging to known older FreeDOS tool versions would > be replaced by newer versions :-) > > Also, it is important to know that FreeDOS binaries etc. often > are pre-compressed so they do not compress that much in a ZIP. > >> 3rd, its much easier to remove 1 zip file than a bunch of directories and >> files. > > Your assumption is "nobody would like to see any of their older > files back again after upgrading" ;-) As experience with Windows > Vista, 7 and 8 shows, people do like XP nevertheless. Plus with > DOS, it is possible to combine old and new things... So do not > try to deprive users of their old files just because you are so > sure that "newer is better”. (Joking:) Could just say “You better have made your own backup, because we are going to NUKE and PAVE!” (Super user friendly) :-) > > Comparing to the Linux situation: I do not normally make a copy, > zipped or not, of the complete old operating system to upgrade. For me, it’s basically start a new VM. > Instead, I trust the installer of the upgrade to replace all my > old versions of X by newer versions of X *and* giving me a way > to keep my old versions of Y in case no new Y is in the distro. This is one of the reasons why I even brought this subject up. If the user really needs “Y” that is in their FDOS dir and it is not part of the new version of FDOS, it will still be there. This is actually one of the main reasons I went with the ZIP backup. Make a backup, then over-write the old FDOS files. > >> 4th, having a zip file looks nicer. >> (I am just making these up. Basically, I just like the idea.) :-/ > > Hehe :-) In cases where upgrade is not possible (most common is > probably "you cannot upgrade because the old version is too old > to have proper bookkeeping of which files belong to which version > of which old FreeDOS tool" here) then I think renaming the FDOS > directory is a bit better than making a ZIP, but you could simply > offer both methods :-) In the "rename" case, the user can try to > move all old versions of Y to the new FDOS directory and may then > delete the renamed old version, or zip the remainder for a later > rollback backup. In the "zip" case, the user first has to unzip > the file before doing such things and may possibly re-zip later. >>> * Actually I think the whole idea of FDNPKG and similar is that you >>> can smoothly install tools, including automatic processing of the >>> case where you replace an old tool by a newer version of the same, >>> see the abovementioned "extra complex" suggestion. >> >> Yeah, but FDNPKG requires 32-bit. I fairly sure Jim does not want >> that restriction placed on his DOS distribution. > > I disagree here: Basically installing from CD / DVD / USB already > requires that anyway. For older computers, installing by XCOPY of > some pre-installed-on-floppy distro is far more appropriate :-) Actually, with the way I am doing the installer, the source media will not be an issue. It should be easily usable to install from Floppy, CD, DVD, FlashDrive ….. Multi-disc, or even boot floppy and install from CD. I might throw in support to install from a hard disk directory. > Also, there are lots of things that you want to do differently on > really ancient computers and I suggest to not bother making your > CD / USB based distro overly complicated by pretending that users > would be able to manage from USB stick on their PC-XT ;-) > > Cheers, Eric > > PS: Having a medium number of choices while installing is great for > me, as long as 1. the defaults are sane and 2. the install does not > pause too often to ask me stuff again. Better ask in a bundled way. (BTW, great message as always) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Monitor Your Dynamic Infrastructure at Any Scale With Datadog! > Get real-time metrics from all of your servers, apps and tools > in one place. > SourceForge users - Click here to start your Free Trial of Datadog now! > http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=241902991&iu=/4140 > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-devel mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor Your Dynamic Infrastructure at Any Scale With Datadog! Get real-time metrics from all of your servers, apps and tools in one place. 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