17 Dec
2011
17 Dec
'11
5:28 a.m.
Have you tried:
mtools
dosbox
or even (dare I suggest) - dosemu ?
and seriously this is like saying un*x is crap because it doesn't have the exact CLI
for:
Vax/VMS, Cyber/Prime, Cray, Commodore C64, Amiga, Atari, Sentry/70 or any other ancient
CLI we might have used.
or, even better, why can't windows have a full decent uni*x CLI? cygwin/etc is close
but not close enough.
As you say, typical windows users never touch the CLI or even know it exists, M$ tried to
kill the CLI with the "powershell"
and attempt to keep users away from it at all costs.
have you ever had a user spell "DIR" incorrectly?... (sadly, not a joke)
I've had users (recently!) who can't even enter a URL! (they didn't know what
"www" was - yet somehow use the web every day)
point is, your average user isn't going to touch the CLI, they're too busy having
the GUI tell them where to click
the rest will use the CLI that was designed for it, because that's its purpose
Dan.
Joking aside, I have considered it. I honestly think a decent
Win9x/NT-style DOS shell for Linux would help its adoption by Windows
techies moving across. The main snag being that C21 Windows techies
barely use the CLI at all and are not really skilled in it, whereas
1990s or even 1980s MS techies probably know Unix already.
I did start, in the early 1990s, a COMMAND-COM compatible shell for
Acorn RISC OS. Its native CLI is deeply odd, as it dates back to the
late '70s/early '80s and owes nothing to anything - it was all
original.
(Examples: directories are called Catalogues and are listed with CAT;
their names are separated in paths with dots, rooted at
filesystemname::devicenumber:$.; there are no native file extensions
but when needed they are simulated with slashes, so an MS-DOS file
called C:\DOS\COUNTRY.SYS would be something like
dosfs::4:$.DOS.COUNTRY/SYS (allowing for ::0 to ::3 being 4 floppy
drives). It was... weird.)
I only got as far as DIR, COPY, DEL and TREE and got distracted and moved on.
But I'd love a DOS shell for Linux, yes. If I had the skills, I'd try to do it.
Partly for the convenience, partly for fun, partly for the sheer joy
of outraging traditional old-time Unix-heads. :?)
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508