Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 04:14:18 -0500 (EST) From: "Mike A. Harris" Reply-To: "Mike A. Harris" To: Mark Habersack cc: opendos AT mail DOT tacoma DOT net Subject: Re: [opendos] Re: OpenDOS to be released next week! (fwd) In-Reply-To: <199701212352.AAA04113@math.amu.edu.pl> Message-ID: Organization: Your mom. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-opendos AT mail DOT tacoma DOT net Precedence: bulk On Wed, 22 Jan 1997, Mark Habersack wrote: > > > Hehe. That's not even including the tools directory with the stuff needed > > > to build it in its current form. That's another 2700 files. *grin* > > > > How much disk space does the entire subdirectory tree consume? I mean > > including all sources and things needed to compile them. > And including slack on a FAT disk with 32KB clusters, please! ;-) 32k clusters!! Ouch!! I wrote a program to analyze disk wastage on a "cluster size" basis. With 32k clusters, and the disk being FULL of files, you'll find that you have 30% disk wastage. Yes, thats right, I said *THIRTY* percent. This means a 1 gig disk that is full is wasting 300 megs. Scary eh? My program consistently shows that: If you have a cluster size that is larger than 4k, you are wasting too much disk space. 4k clusters waste no more than 3% on average. I've done extensive testing on a great many computers to get these results too. But don't take my word for it, do the following: If you have 4DOS, go to your root directory and type: CD \ DIR /SUK At the end of the listing you will see: [C: 128M 2k clusters] Total for: c:\*.* 71,087,882 bytes in 1,440 files and 73 dirs 72,704,000 bytes allocated 60,882,944 bytes free Only 1.7 megs wasted. Close to 2%. [F: 157M 4k clusters] Total for: f:\*.* 130,201,261 bytes in 343 files and 30 dirs 131,125,248 bytes allocated 26,464,256 bytes free Only 1 meg wasted. Less than 1%!! For different cluster sizes on FAT drives, you will find that you are wasting approximately the amount of space listed below. 2k < 3% 4k < 5% 8k < 12% 16k < 24% 32k < 35% Seems like Microsoft has stock in hard drive manufacturing! FAT SUCKS!!!!!!!! A happy medium is 250Meg FAT partitions. Don't make them 256 though cause FDISK rounds off to the next highest cylinder which could push you from 4k to 8k clusters. [Back on topic mode on] > > > blaster drivers, cd rom driver, mouse driver and LAN workplace drivers > > > loaded high, I still have 629k TPA as reported by mem. If I forgo the use > > > of VGA graphics, I can crank it up to 719k. Let's see QEMM and MS-DOG do > > > THAT! *Evil Grin* > > really use DV anymore, but MSCDEX REFUSES to load HIGH!!!!!!!! I've got 64k > > of contiguous UMB memory and MSCDEX is only using 12k! It WONT load into > > UMB's! However if I unload a few other drivers, then MSCDEX will load HIGH. > Try to use NWCDEX. It's a free Novell MSCDEX work-alike. If you can't find > it, I can email you the executable (20577 bytes packed with RAR). Please email it to me. I want to TOTALLY rid myself of MS software! MSCDEX is about the only thing I probably would have missed! I want to get it to the point where the only thing left is Win 3.1. And even then only because I need it for WP6.1. Maybe Caldera will lower the price of WP6.1 for Linux down to $100 or so. :o) Then I'll buy it for sure and DESTROY 3.11 forever! > > I guess it needs like a meg of startup memory or something before it shrinks > > to 12k. Also QEMM has the VIDRAM program which lets you get up to 730k of > > memory for apps if you don't use graphics. You can enable/disable this on > > the fly without rebooting. I don't have much use for it though. > And who doesn't use graphics? Besides Vidram makes some programs go nuts > (itself goes nuts). Yes. Any real mode program that I've ever ran NEVER needed more than 640k. I think VIDRAM is only useful for BBS's multitasking under DESQview with 4 nodes on one machine. No need for graphics there! Even if you only ran text based apps, I hardly think you'd ever need more than 640k in real mode. If you do, then get a 32bit DOS program that does the job. Make sense? Cool to have it just in case though. :o) > > Regardless, it sounds like OpenDOS does ALL of this PLUS much much more! And > > it sounds like it does it better too! I can't wait to see my progs all > > loaded above 1M! Hey, I got 20Megs of RAM! I don't want to suffer anymore > > with 589k in DOS! > And you have the sources! And you can change whatever you like! And you can > be sure that new features will be constantly added! And you don't have to > call some rude M$ Hot-Line employee who doesn't know what is 'expansion > slot'! And it's free! And you have the sources! - err... that was before... > ;-)) That is GREAT!!!! It will be cool to add code to the DOS kernel! For my own devices and such. Also to REMOVE unneeded things. I don't know what yet, but I'm sure I'll find something! And it's FREE! And I'll have the sources! But when?!?!?! This is worse than waiting for DOOM to come out a couple of years ago! Hey! That just made me think of something! We could add DOS *CHEAT* codes into OpenDOS!!!! Oh, that would be so cool! Just hold down CTRL-SHIFT-ALT and type "ODMICROSOFTFREE" and it could scan your hard disk for files containing the word "MicroSoft" (case insensitive), present you with a menu of all files, and offer you the chance to delete them! Here's another cool one: ODMAILBILL - Mails Billy G the contents of your DOS C:\TEMP directory if you are currently connected to the net. It encrypts the stuff first though so he can't get anything useful out of it. Anyone care to add to the list? > > > > Besides LFN support will be here before long. I don't use '95, but I > > > > would like to have LFN's in DOS because I'm a Linux nut now. > > > Isn't that the truth.... > > They said, "All good things will come to those who wait." Well, we've > > been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and now we will reap the rewards of > > not supporting Microsloth. > And, eventually, take over part of M$ OS market! ;-) *PART*? Lets CRUSH THEM!!!!!!! > > > > True. Perhaps someday WINE will be complete. :o) > > > Or perhaps WINE will become part of GEM....*smile* > > > > There you go again with those acronyms that I've never heard of. Ok, I'll > > bite... What does GEM stand for? What does it do? Where can I get more > > info? Should I sit down and foam at the mouth over it too? > AFAIR, GEM was/is a graphical user environment by Digital Research on which > Micro$oft based it's first versions of Losedows (AFAIR the case was in > court). And, AFAIR, GEM was also an operating system on some 8-bit computer > (was it Atari) - but I'm not sure of that. Gene, am I right about anything of > the above? Hmm. Will it run Doze apps, or just custom apps? It'd be nice if it was like X. > > Can you tell me where I can get a GIF or JPEG of the Caldera OpenDOS logo? I > > want to plaster it on my webpage. I'd like various sizes to choose from if > > possible. Also, I want to do whatever else I can to inform others of > > alternatives to M$. > So far, I managed to get only Caldera logos (it was hard - I had to point my > webbrowser to their homepage... ;-))) I've got those in my NS cache. I'm looking for OpenDOS logos though. I'm going to put up the Caldera ones if I can't find the OD ones though. Mike A. Harris - Computer Consultant http://www3.sympatico.ca/mharris My dynamic address: http://www3.sympatico.ca/mharris/ip-address.html mailto:mharris AT sympatico DOT ca mailto:mharris AT blackwidow DOT saultc DOT on DOT ca URL of the day: http://www.digital.com