[GEM Development] new OpenGEM FAQ

[Shane M. Coughlan]

I have made a new OpenGEM FAQ

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 OpenGEM FAQ                               Release 1 -- 26th July 2005
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This is the FAQ for Shane Land OpenGEM.

It is currently maintained by Shane Coughlan <shane at shaneland.co.uk>
and any comments, suggestions or error reports are welcome.

This document can be found on the Internet at <http://gem.shaneland.co.uk/>

DISCLAIMER: Information presented here is believed to be accurate but no
liability for errors or damage caused by use or misuse of such information
will be accepted by the author(s) or any quoted contributor(s). Digital
Research products (including GEM and DR-DOS) are the copyright of Caldera
Systems, Inc. <http://www.caldera.com>. All other trademarks are the
property of their respective owners, etc.

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What is OpenGEM?
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OpenGEM is a graphical user interface for DOS.


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What is OpenGEM for?
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It's a simple single-tasking 16bit graphical user interface designed to
be easy to install and use.  It's intended to make computers running DOS
more user friendly.  It also features powerful file manipulation tools
like drag and drop.


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Which version of OpenGEM should I choose?
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There are three types of OpenGEM.  Core, Complete and Experimental.

OpenGEM Core is good if you want a small but powerful file manager.

OpenGEM Complete is good if you want a GUI with lots of pre-installed
applications.

OpenGEM Experimental is the same as OpenGEM Core in function, but
uses more of the experimental FreeGEM community code.  It looks better,
but may be less stable.

You can get all three types of OpenGEM from <http://gem.shaneland.co.uk/>


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Can I upgrade from an old version of OpenGEM?
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Yes, if you download a new version of OpenGEM just run the installation
program, and when prompted tell it to overwrite all existing files.

If you have OpenGEM Release 4 Update 1 or above you don't need to
download a complete OpenGEM distribution to update the system.
Simply download an update package from the Shane Land OpenGEM site.

You can download a new version of OpenGEM, or an update package, from
<http://gem.shaneland.co.uk/>.


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Does OpenGEM have skins?
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No, OpenGEM does not have skins.  Nor will it have skins.  It is intended
to be easy to use, not to provide eye candy.


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Will OpenGEM become multi-tasking/32bit/etc etc etc?
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No, if you have a powerful machine go get a more powerful GUI and OS.
GNOME is excellent and easy to use <http://www.gnome.org/> and KDE
provides lots of eye candy <http://www.kde.org/>.  They both run on
Linux, and you can get a great Linux distribution from Ubuntu
<http://www.ubuntu.org/>.


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How can I help develop OpenGEM?
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There is an OpenGEM SDK with all the GEM binaries, source code and
things like bindings.  You can download that from the Shane Land
OpenGEM website <http://gem.shaneland.co.uk/> and make something.

Alternatively, you can review the existing OpenGEM distributions and
make comments or suggested changes, and email them to the OpenGEM
support email address <gem at shaneland.co.uk>

You could also just download the OpenGEM SDK, and go make your own
GEM distribution.  Competition is a wonderful thing!


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Where can I find GEM-based alternatives to OpenGEM?
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There are alternatives to OpenGEM.  Owen Rudge's FreeGEM distribution
is one such alternative, and you can download it for free from his
website <http://www.owenrudge.net/GEM/>.


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Where can I find more information about OpenGEM?
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The Shane Land OpenGEM website <http://gem.shaneland.co.uk/>.


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Where can I get support for OpenGEM?
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The Shane Land OpenGEM website <http://gem.shaneland.co.uk/> and
the OpenGEM support email address <gem at shaneland.co.uk>.