> On Sep 18, 2015, at 9:47 AM, Mercury Thirteen <[email protected]> wrote: > > Also, what if the user has a partition which is utilized by another OS > but isn't crucial? (Linux swap comes to mind.) Yes, they can easily set > it back up again if they trash it with their FreeDOS installing, but in > a perfect world the installer would check the partition signatures to > see if they match up to anything important, even if there's no actual > files or filesystem.
Thats why we offer, but leave it up to the user. After all, if they have EXT4, BtrFS, NTFS, HPFS+ and Xenix partitions scattered all over the place, they probably have already setup a drive C: for FD to just install. Or, at least, they should know better than to run fdisk, :-) > > On 9/18/2015 9:42 AM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. wrote: >>> On Sep 18, 2015, at 4:08 AM, Eric Auer <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> >>> Hi Mateusz and Michael, >>> >>> the installer should NOT try to be more clever or automatic >>> than we can SAFELY make that. I disagree with Mateusz about >>> the "simply give me a button to destroy my harddisk contents >>> and put DOS on it" because that is too destructive. Default >>> should be to ADD DOS to an existing FAT partition, if any. >>> >>> Without checking or modifying whether that is the partition >>> which is flagged as boot partition, or alternatively adding >>> it to some existing boot manager which has config files on >>> some other partition anyway. >>> >>> If no FAT partition is present, then you have two situations: >>> >>> 1. There is NOTHING at all, apart from maybe some MBR with an >>> empty partition table, on the main harddisk or SSD yet. Note >>> that we also have to check for GPT partitioning schemes here. >> I was coing t go that way with a special utility CheckHDD. But, realized >> it just wasn’t necessary. (See Below) >> >>> 2. There is SOMETHING else on the disk already, but no FAT. >> Actually, we don’t need to do any of that. I super simplified the process >> in the installer already. Basically, this is what already happens in the >> current installer. >> >> You boot the install disk. >> >> The installer launches. >> >> If FreeDOS 1.2 is already installed, >> Installer stops and returns the user to a prompt with a welcome message. >> >> If FreeDOS 1.2 was not found, or you manually launch the installer >> (SETUP.BAT), >> You are greeted by the installer, and asked if you wish to continue. >> >> The installer then check if FreeDOS can find a drive C: (regardless of it is >> formatted) >> >> If it cannot find C:, then >> The drive(s) are not partitioned, or >> The drive(s) have no partitions that can be used for FreeDOS, or >> The drive(s) are bad, or >> The drive(s) are not installed. >> >> We can only deal with the first two. >> So, we offer to launch a partitioner or exit. >> >> Next, test if C: can be read by DOS. >> >> If C: was found but is unreadable, then >> It is not formatted for DOS, or >> It is corrupt, or >> some other problem. >> >> We offer to format the drive or quit. >> >> Next, it tests if any OS is already installed on C: by looking for specific >> files. >> >> If it finds an OS, it offers to back it up or not. >> >> If the user wants to backup existing OS files, they are zipped up and stored >> in a sub-directory. >> >> ————— >> Waiting to hear from Jim on how he wants the installer to handle previous >> config and OS files. Keep and overwrite, or nuke em with clean stuff. >> ————-- >> >> TO DO: >> >> Offer option for the install: Base, Full, w/ or w/out sources. >> >> Possibly purge old OS and config files. >> >> Transfer System files. >> >> Install requested packages. >> >> Maybe install new config files. >> >> Offer reboot. >> >> :-) >> >>> In case 1, it is okay for me - IF we can safely decide if the >>> target disk matches the case - to have a button saying "there >>> seems to be nothing on your disk yet, overwrite it with DOS?” >> With the way things always keep changing, It is easy to >> foresee a situation that DOS thinks the drive is blank, but it is not >> empty and works fine if had been partitioned for dos elsewhere. >> We cannot assume, that just because we don’t see anything, that there >> is nothing there. (I’m not saying you would assume that) >> >>> In case 2, the, hopefully experienced, user should be dropped >>> to a prompt. There, they can decide to reboot and use better >>> tools to make a FAT partition first. I certainly would pick a >>> tool like GPARTED in Linux or the built-in partition editor of >>> a modern Windows version at this point. OR the user can decide >>> to try their luck with DOS FDISK and FORMAT. By running those >>> manually and deliberately. But those two are FAR too destructive >>> to hit you over the head after you made a wrong choice in some >>> dialog from the installer about "what you want to do next"... >>> >> Strongly agree with that. It is with installer offers to run a partitioner >> and formatter, >> but DOES NOT just do it. >> >>> As we see from the recent question by Josefh, people often just >>> want to do something with DOS quickly. So a live CD mode, as far >>> as I am concerned installing BASE + optionally more to some big >>> RAMDISK, would be VERY nice to have for our installer CD. >> Up to Jim. :-) >> (But, it would be nice for power users.) >> >>> They certainly do NOT expect to burn a FreeDOS CD, try to get >>> it to work by blindly pressing "OK" a few times and suddenly >>> realize that this has completely deleted their Windows & data. >>> >> That won’t happen with the installer. If, you just keep hitting return, >> you will end up back at the prompt. :-) >> >> But, there is nothing I can really do to prevent someone from trashing >> their windows or linux install. >> >>> I also agree that it would be very nice to have downloads with >>> pre-installed FreeDOS in some popular virtual machine container >>> format, as VM will be a popular way of installing a DOS today. >>> Mike gives a nice description of the reasoning behind this :-) >>> >> There should be a quick and easy VM download. No reason >> why it can’t have one. >> >>> Regarding the package choice, I suggest a hierarchical menu: >>> >>> 1. One screen with one checkbox per category, with "BASE" as >>> the only checked checkbox per default. The user can optionally >>> check more boxes before hitting the "next" button. There can be >> This is very cumbersome to accomplish using all batch file logic and >> the desired restrictions placed on V8Power Tools. (Partially due to no forced >> requirement of a TSR or device driver) >> >> However, that being said, I will at some point, add CheckBox support >> to V8PT. I have already determined two different methods of implementation. >> >> The first method will, work similar to the Polling option in vchoice. Which >> enables >> which enables a the ability to do Choice Hints and such. (Prior to selecting >> an option) >> >> The second will basically output the list of selected items. That would need >> parsed >> to determine their states using something that can test parts o f the >> output. (vstr will >> get functionality like this sooner or later). >> >>> 2. Buttons next to each category checkbox which say "select a >>> custom subset of packages" which bring you to additional menu >>> screens which do exactly that (although I doubt that lots of >>> users would actually take the effort). >> I haven’t gotten around to implementing Hotkey and button support yet for >> V8PT. It’s >> all in me head. But, I only have so much time for typing. :-( >> >>> Finally, the installer should make it very clear that for many >>> use cases, BASE already is all that you need and that FDNPKG is >>> a very convenient way to install and update those and other DOS >>> packages at any later moment. >> I think Jim wants the installer to use zip for better legacy hardware >> support. >> >> I have a very interesting way I plan on doing the package install. >> >> It will make it support sources from all floppies to CD to whatever DOS can >> read. >> (I say it will support, but who would want an all floppy version?) >> >>> Cheers, Eric >>> >>> >> :-) >> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Freedos-devel mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel >>> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> _______________________________________________ >> Freedos-devel mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-devel mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
