Baslinux mailing list

[keesan AT cyberspace.org]

>     _________________________________________________________________
>
>[11]keesan2 at cyberspace.org wrote:
>>
>> He is trying to find more information on dosemu and says less does not
>> work on HOWTO files.  This is probably because we have not installed
>> howto.tgz.  He wants to get his DOS text editor to work under
>> linux rather than rewrite it in C instead of assembly language.

>Waitaminit. If BL boots from dos, then why not use dos to edit, and not
>worry about a dosemu? But the other thing is- can we download the
>man/info/howto Linux docs in a form you could access with a DOS text
>editor?

Jim was hoping to be able to use a DOS text editor that he wrote while
also accessing files in the linux partition.  He discovered (after
downloading dosemu and the associated freedos binary, and installing
shadow.tgz so that he could add himself as a user because dosemu cannot be
run as root) that dosemu only lets you see files in the freedos directory
that you create for use with dosemu.  So you need to copy over whatever
file you want to work on, go into dosemu, then back to linux.  This saves
a couple of minutes rebooting but otherwise is not helpful.  Also he could
not get it to save files and it told him that his terminal was not
acceptible (but seemed to run anyway).  

>I routinely cut & paste from the dos README.DOC files what I need to run
>an app, and discard the rest, so that when I have to RTFM, I dont have
>nearly so much manual to wade thru. The text mode text editors that I've
>seen for linux, dont even have color pulldown scrollbar menus.

Jim and I both prefer text editors without pulldown menus or color or a
mouse.  He wrote his own editor in DOS assembly language.  It does an
incredible number of things and is only 4K. I find it more efficient than
Pico but it takes a while to learn and some day one of us will have to
write up some instructions.    He says there is a page-bottom menu (rather
cryptic as he had to count every byte to make 4K) and a one-page help
screen.  He would like to share this editor with basiclinux somehow.

His next approach is to read about Linux assembly language, and maybe
rewrite the program.  Or perhaps there is some easy way to convert from
DOS to Linux assembly language?  He says rewriting it in C would make it
larger and slower, and besides he does not yet know C.  But he could then
compile the C program for different platforms, at least.  How much larger
would it be in C than assembly language, after compiling?

I discovered that I can choose between 1024 and 800 resolution by running
startx with 24 bit color for the latter.  My card won't do 1024 resolution
in 24 color, so reverts to 800 resolution.  24-bit photos display much
faster in 24 bit color.  In 8-bit the program has to remap them and it
takes a while and then they look terrible, like 4-bit color.

Sindi Keesan