Message-ID:	<20000702182917.1438.qmail@nw178.netaddress.usa.net>
Date:	2 Jul 00 12:29:17 MDT
From:	Joseph Morris <b52g AT usa DOT net>
To:	opendos AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: [NOVELL DR-DOS]
X-Mailer:	USANET web-mailer (34FM1.5.01)
Mime-Version:	1.0
X-MIME-Autoconverted:	from quoted-printable to 8bit by delorie.com id OAA31533
Reply-To:	opendos AT delorie DOT com

> Bob Maloney <BobMaloney AT compuserve DOT com> wrote:
>
> I now run the last version of DR-DOS issued by NOVELL (version
> 7.0?). I believe I also have applied all the updates issued by Novell. 
> I am happy with DR-DOS.
>
> Is there any reason to consider upgrading to the Caldera version or
> to PTS-DOS or to OPENDOS or to any other DOS?
>
>                                                     bobm

OpenDOS is one step back from the version you're using, because Novell
mislaid the source for that version, until late 97/early 98 when 7.02
was released.  There is NO reason to go back to 7.01.

7.02 has improvements over the version you're using, mainly the addition
of HIFILES= HIBUFFERS= HILASTDRIVE and HIFCBS ..this will help cut back
the memeory requirements.

Also there are bugfixes in the kernel which allow it to work with the
Iomega ZIPtools.  In previous versions it hung the system when you ran
the GUI tools.  At least, I -think- it was 7.02.  It might have been 7.03..

If you run on a fast machine, >300Mhz, various utilities will break down
because of a bug in the Borland C libraries.  In 7.03 these have been
recompiled with a fixed version of the library and they will not crash on fast
machines anymore.

7.03 has the first version of EMM386 that will work properly with DPMI
programs such as DOOM and Quake.. before you had to dick around with
EMM386 PIC=ON before DOOM, and EMM386 PIC=OFF before Quake.  In 7.03
use the DPMI server provided and you can multitask modern DOS programs, which
are nearly all DPMI-based.

The DPMI server in 7.03 does not support VESA 2, it will reboot the machine
instead.  This was to be fixed in 7.04 or 7.10, but it never happened :-(

PTS-DOS is totally unrelated to DRDOS.  I'm not sure of it's origin, it might
have been cross-licenesed from MS in the distant past, or it might have been
written from scratch.  It supports the HIFILES extensions added in DR-DOS 7.02
(the idea was poached from PTS-DOS) and more recent versions have support for
FAT/32, but apparently not LBA (disks larger than 8.4 gigabytes), and they
have a bug which prevents you from being able to play music CDs, from what I
hear.  I found the DIR command to be lacking personally, but that's just my
opinion.
I'd recommend downloading the demo from PTS or Paragon.

____________________________________________________________________
Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1

- Raw text -