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> On the other hand, I would like to add I very much like the KERNEL.SYS concept of unifying IO.SYS and DOS.SYS counterparts. It would even be better if they could even be compressed (I really don't know whether that would be feasible at all).My builds of the kernel (lDOS flavour) at https://pushbx.org/ecm/download/edrdos.zip contain 4 different variants of the kernel file: * edrdos.com - iniload, uncompressed * edrpack.com - iniload, compressed * edrdos.sys - drload, uncompressed * edrpack.sys - drload, compressed Any single file of these can be used as kernel.sys The default edrpack files in the bin directory use LZMA-lzip compression, so they're the smallest choice but very slow to depack (could take several minutes). Other compression method choices can be obtained from the tmp subdirectories, eg tmp/sa2/edrpack.sys for LZSA2 which is much faster. The iniload files (.com) can be used as many different kernel files, or as a DOS application. The drload files (.sys) can only be used as FreeDOS or EDR-DOS kernel files. The advantage of drload is that it takes less than 500 bytes whereas iniload takes more than 4000 bytes. Using the patchpro utility from https://pushbx.org/ecm/download/patchini.zip you can configure what depack progress indicator to use. The default is dots, and the following choices are supported: (This list is displayed upon running patchpro without parameters.) Supported progress types: 0: None 1: Dots 2: Percentage 3: Bar 4: Bar with percentage
> And a last thing: what does the COLOUR internal CONFIG.SYS command do? I couldn't find documentation on it on the former Caldera online docs, but I see it inside KERNEL.SYS, so it must be up for something.I think this command was an addition of the DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project. I don't know exactly how to use it but it probably changes the default colour of the CON device driver's output.
> My latest misadventure with SvarCOM Shell was the unimplemented CTTY command. But that is only the latest one I can remember.Please give it a try from time to time. Compatibility should get better with every version. Implementing CTTY is on the list: https://github.com/SvarDOS/bugz/issues/101 If something does not work as expected, please report it here or on the Github bug tracker. In the kernel package on Github there is also the EDR command.com included: https://github.com/SvarDOS/edrdos/releases/tag/v20240914 Maybe that's worth a try.
> 1) Perhaps a QUIET/SILENT/MUTE mode where the entire boot text is not displayed, not even the version/build strings and int 13h messages , that until the Shell interpreter gets loaded.I assume you want to hide output of all device drivers as well? That'd need some detection for user input queries though, lest a prompt remains invisible and seemingly "hangs" the system.
> 2) Much like the DR Web Spider boot floppy, implement a customizable splash logo display for a configurable duration, followed by an optional fade effect. Of course, this would probably only make sense on EGA/VGA displays.That's a feature of MS-DOS v7 and v8 too. I think FreeDOS 1.0 came with its own boot splash, maybe you could look into that? There was a project called DOSLOGO that was to recreate the MS-DOS splash but I cannot honestly recommend it.
> I assume you want to hide output of all device drivers as well? That'd need some detection for user input queries though, lest a prompt remains invisible and seemingly "hangs" the system.Not really, something more simple. It would be fine just to hide the progress loading, the complete build version string with dates and what not, and also the int 13h message. After that, the system should start again yelling back at you normally. I already tested DOSLOGO when it was fresh from the oven, and it was buggy, like many other similar projects. The one that was included in the DR Web Spider boot floppy demo was great, but it only worked on DR-DOS. It failed on every other DOS. Now that I think of it, maybe I should retest it to see whether it works with your KERNEL.SYS, given its origin. I remember I had customized the logo to suit my taste. I will report back if it works, since this boot floppy was a freely distributable demo. To be honest, I am personally not a fan of FreeDOS. I only hand pick a few stuff from it that I find valuable, but my overall view is that it is an untidy over bloated distribution. Although I recognize its value for keeping the DOS torch still going.