Mail Archives: djgpp/2011/02/16/17:00:20
Hi,
On Feb 8, 8:45=A0am, "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_h DOT DOT DOT AT notreplytome DOT cmm>
wrote:
>
> DJGPP is not being used to code DOS, e.g., FreeDOS or DR-DOS. =A0
It can't compile the kernels because they are 16-bit (e.g. compact
model for FreeDOS, they use OpenWatcom). GNU never cared for 16-bit
and none of the other efforts ever amounted to anything. (BCC/Dev86
for ELKS only supports tiny and small. Not sure what ACK 16-bit can
target, probably similar.)
> It was being used to code FreeDOS-32, but that's been stalled for 6 years=
now.
Not dead, just very slow. A developer left, license issues, leanfs*
file release a year ago, but no new OS release since 2005. Nice hack,
fairly incomplete, has its own DPMI server, didn't run a lot of stuff,
0.0.6 only mentioned (and unreleased) on mailing list. It's a cool
hack but not a solution.
> AFAIK, it's not being used to code new OSes, or any major applications. =
=A0
Several projects still use (or at least target) it with official
binary builds: NASM, YASM, UPX, RAINE, Hammer of Thyrion, Regina,
Agena, dos2unix, 4tH, Atari800, FreeBASIC (libc, tools), FreePascal
(tools), Mined, BEYE, VILE, VIM, etc.
And that's only official stuff, there's plenty more you can build
yourself. But yeah, not many people intentionally target it anymore.
> DJGPP hasn't progressed in the 6 or 7 years that I've been reading here.
CVS had some updates, just no releases. As Charles mentioned, nobody
in charge wanted it badly enough. The last CVS snapshot on Martin's
page is from last June (though I never tried rebuilding it).
BTW, Charles was extremely nice enough to release CWSDPMI r7. And Eli
did work on Emacs and GDB. And DJ still hosts everything and updates
the mini-FAQ. Juan has ported a lot of stuff. And Andris keeps
bringing us newer and newer GCCs. So it's not like nothing gets done.
> The handful of serious users of DJGPP stopped posting 3 to 4 years ago. =
=A0I'd
> guess that most moved on. =A0For all practical purposes, DJGPP is dead.
More like "good enough for most people" with no huge amount of
volunteers to update further. Face it, without decent support via
NTVDM, a lot of people aren't going to use it (sad but true).
> That's still in Beta. =A07 years of Beta... =A0No demand? =A0It has yet t=
o find
> another OS to give it purpose, or something to give it life, like a DOS
> shell for Windows 7.
There have been several hacks that deal with hybrid targets, e.g. dual
DOS / Win32 or even DOS / ELF. I'm sure you're aware of most of them.
The problem is that most are abandoned, buggy, or incomplete.
- Raw text -