DOS ain't dead

I used my port of the FLTK GUI toolkit to write a new desktop for DOS which
I called SLWM. This allows you to select applications by clicking on the
various icons on this desktop. SLWM runs in a loop of a small batch file. So
when an application is selected SLWM terminates and leaves all the memory
for the new application. SLWM restarts when the application terminates.

The package includes mostly my ported applications, FlWriter, Antipaint,
Dillo, Mupdf etc. plus my paket drivers collection to establish an internet
connection. You can add almost any DOS applications by adding a desktop
entry file for it as you would for KDE or Gnome.

You can either download the SLWM desktop program and the applications to
install them on your FreeDOS hard disk or download a bootable CD image with
a FreeDOS distribution that runs the SLWM desktop and applications.

Included is a readme file which provides a lot of information how to use and
install XFDOS. This readme file can also be viewed from the SLWM desktop by
clicking on an icon.

Here is a screenshot of XFDOS:


Archives of the ISO CD image and for the hard disk installation can be
downloaded here:
http://code.google.com/p/nanox-microwindows-nxlib-fltk-for-dos/downloads/list

Please download XFDOS and see how it works for you.

Georg Potthast

Nice!
As most of the GUI systems in DOS are not longer developed it is great that you released SLWM.
However I will not use it because in DOS I feel best in environment like Volkov commander or DOS Navigator.
But again - it is fine that DOS users have the choice to use modern GUI.

---
DOS-u-akbar!

On Linux a number of people are using Midnight commander but I think most use KDE or Gnome.

Georg

I don't know about native install, but under VirtualBox (Freedos 1.1, 512 mb ram) it works so slow. Ie: I had to wait 5-6 seconds for calculator to draw all buttons. On the other hand, Dillo mostly works ok, but it's much slower than DJGPP port of Links2 with graphics. It also often locks up on window resize. Luckily most of the times the 'x' button works nicely. Other than that, it sometimes locks up while parsing css (ie: vim.org). If I disable CSS, it works ok.

Sorry for mixing the Dillo info in the thread. :)

Thank you for your message. I have not tested SLWM in VirtualBox yet.

There is a known problem with window resize: if you increase the size the window will not be redrawn and thus shows blank. The redraw happens when you make this window a tiny bit smaller again.

> I don't know about native install, but under VirtualBox (Freedos 1.1, 512
> mb ram) it works so slow. Ie: I had to wait 5-6 seconds for calculator to
> draw all buttons. On the other hand, Dillo mostly works ok, but it's much
> slower than DJGPP port of Links2 with graphics. It also often locks up on
> window resize. Luckily most of the times the 'x' button works nicely. Other
> than that, it sometimes locks up while parsing css (ie: vim.org). If I
> disable CSS, it works ok.
>
> Sorry for mixing the Dillo info in the thread. :)

I was using VirtualBox on my laptop yesterday. Without VT-X enabled, it's both buggy and very slow! It's painful and sad. 16-bit real mode stuff is (naturally) much faster than 32-bit pmode like DJGPP stuff. Yes, I was using Dillo, and it was quite lethargic, but I remember (from this desktop) that it runs much much faster with VT-X enabled (or native DOS, natch). You may have better luck with VMware Player, it's supposedly decent speed, but I (still!) haven't bothered installing that yet.

So it's not really Dillo's fault, just VBox trying to emulate a very complex set of instructions. (And I still don't think they test DOS very well, if at all, preferring other more "modern" OSes, ugh.)

> I was using VirtualBox on my laptop yesterday. Without VT-X enabled, it's
> both buggy and very slow! It's painful and sad. 16-bit real mode
> stuff is (naturally) much faster than 32-bit pmode like DJGPP stuff. Yes, I
> was using Dillo, and it was quite lethargic, but I remember (from this
> desktop) that it runs much much faster with VT-X enabled (or native DOS,
> natch). You may have better luck with VMware Player, it's supposedly decent
> speed, but I (still!) haven't bothered installing that yet.
>
> So it's not really Dillo's fault, just VBox trying to emulate a very
> complex set of instructions. (And I still don't think they test DOS very
> well, if at all, preferring other more "modern" OSes, ugh.)

I'm not really fond of Vmware as a personal emulation solution. I don't doubt the quality, just the contrary. But it's a bit of PITA for ordinary user. You must register to download the free player.

Btw, I didn't know VBox has the issues with Freedos. :|

> I'm not really fond of Vmware as a personal emulation solution. I don't
> doubt the quality, just the contrary. But it's a bit of PITA for ordinary
> user. You must register to download the free player.

You can work around that: http://notepad.bttr-software.de/blog/rr/2012/07/11...player_und_workstation_ohne_umweg_herunterladen (Text is only available in German.)

---
Forum admin

> You can work around that:
> http://notepad.bttr-software.de/blog/rr/2012/07/11...player_und_workstation_ohne_umweg_herunterladen
> (Text is only available in German.)

Thanx. I managed to find Linux links with a small change in urls.

But I haven't had luck with installing it. Might be the fact I'm running the latest stable kernel. Linux kernel interfaces change often. VmWare is using them for virtualizing the network and virtual folders/files, so it might pose the problem. It compiles and loads its own drivers for that.