Re: strings error #87

On Sat, 26 Oct 2002, Bernd Blaauw wrote:

> Maybe Bart or Tom can update both FreeCOM version and SYS version
> distributed with the kernel package(s).
> 2027rc maybe an excellent time to do this.

2027te already contains an updated FreeCOM, but not the very newest. SYS
is part of the kernel source.

> another note: how's UPX used?
> Both FreeCOM (not UPX'd by default) and the kernel (UPX'd by default ) are
> excellently compressable, buth both need to be able to run on 8086.

The reason I'm not UPXing FreeCOM is that
a) Steffen doesn't do it and
b) users can do it themselves and
c) there might be a speed penalty on slower machines if FreeCOM is sitting
on a hard disk and is called often as secondary shell.
-- the command.com included in kernel zips is simply courtesy. These are
simply binaries that Steffen compiled; I have made my own custom changes
to the command.com I usually use that Steffen hasn't accepted so I just
keep this one private.

The reason I'm UPXing the kernel is that
a) it saves space
b) users can't do it themselves (if they only have the binary that is :):
compressing occurs before "flattening" kernel.exe to kernel.sys.
c) it's only loaded once per reboot -- the speed penalty isn't a problem.

> But, UPX documentation talks about only decompressable (thus runnable?) on a
> 80286, unless the switch --8086 is being used, like:
>
> UPX --BEST --8086 filename.exe/filename.com

--8086 is used by default as per the FreeDOS spec (see config.b in the
source).

I haven't used --BEST so far. Will see if it (and the newest version
of UPX) make a difference.

groetjes
Bart