Op 22-7-2011 12:48, Uwe Hermann schreef:
DOS users have a problem with -V output already I assume, whatever they do to handle that can probably also be applied to the case without -V.
Redirection does the trick, followed by opening the output file in some editor. Other options are changing screen resolution temporarily (80x43 or 80x50), hitting some kind PAUSE (press a key to continue), or on error, offer to write a file (generated/kept in memory) to disk with full verbosity level on.
option (for me). i will try to factor in their line limit and inability to scroll (is that still correct for freedos?) in future patches though.
No idea if scrolling is possible or not. I think the best option would be to have a more finegrained control of the loglevel in flashrom, i.e. --log-level=0,1,2,3 etc. (instead of "no -V", "-V", and "-VV"), so the user can also choose 0 or 1 to get only the bare minumum output.
There should be scrolling applications, just not aware of them. Flashrom implementing scrolling abilities just for DOS seems a bit silly.
Redirection in general works, it's only when you're trying to provide too much info at default verbosity level that things get tricky as you can't scroll back then anymore.
Reason for me for liking Flashrom program on DOS is that it runs in a minimal and fast environment, compared to starting Linux LiveCD for example. Also requirements are a lot lower, I don't see any Linux LiveCDs on low-end Pentium-1 machines due to system memory requirements. Or I'm just plain bad at finding non-GUI Linux environments. Drawback is lack of internet environment etc for posting logs, downloading BIOS etc.
Best compromise so far seems Parted Magic using your software, it's a 180MB distribution, so seems doable.