Hi, On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 2:04 AM, John R. Sowden <jsow...@americansentry.net> wrote: > On 11/03/2013 11:38 PM, Rugxulo wrote: >> >> On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 1:13 AM, John R. Sowden >> <jsow...@americansentry.net> wrote: >>> got a 'distribution disk' of freedos >> Where? Which version? What files? > I think I got it at the FD site. Its the fat32 version. file is > "ke386f32.zip"
But (of course) that's not a full install. That's only the kernel (and sys.com to install boot sector). You still need a shell (and presumably a lot more than that!). >>> , ran the sys command. >> To / from what? Floppy? Hard drive? > read the batch. ran sys on the floppy with no arg (defaults to a:) It > didnot like installing onto itself. > The ran sys c:. This was after playing a bit, as I have hot data on the > drive. I see INSTALL.BAT, so I guess that's what you mean. Not very exhaustive, but I guess it's better than nothing. The main problem is that FreeDOS uses KERNEL.SYS instead of MSDOS.SYS + IO.SYS or IBMBIOS.COM + IBMDOS.COM (etc. etc.), hence the boot sector has to be completely different. It might even load at a different place in RAM (60h:0? 70h:0?), can't remember. That's the main point of SYS.COM, e.g. "sys a: c:". You can always manually copy files, but a boot sector isn't something that most people will construct manually. But even all of this assumes a pre-existing FAT partition via FDISK or similar. >>> copied it from the net to a floppy using ubuntu 13.10 >> Assuming the floppy is intact, I guess that would work with dd (or >> similar) if the media size is the same. > 1.4mb floppy. I have never used any of the other formats to get more stuff > on the fd. Not sure how well other formats would work. It just depends on the circumstances. I know that 1.44 MB is fairly common, or at least used to be. (Yeah, floppies ain't popular anymore.) It works, but I don't think even USB floppy drives work in all OSes, and also not necessarily with any non-standard sizes. I mean, DOS can use it via the BIOS, but other OSes avoid that. Well, I've never tried any sizes beyond 1.44 MB on my Sony USB floppy drive, and I'm not optimistic either. I personally think it's wise to avoid such things (e.g. tomsrtbt), but I guess it just depends. >>> put it in a 486 24MB windows 98 computer with the windows programs >>> removed and the MSDOS 7.10 and 4dos in place, with a network. >> I assume here that you mean you're replacing MS-DOS with FreeDOS. Was >> there a particular reason for this, some specific program that >> wouldn't run or some other restriction? > That is correct. Reason: get away from MS, use fat32, use 4dos, hopefully my > usb drivers on another > computer will work on this one. IIRC, MS-DOS 7.10 (OSR2?) supported FAT32. I still have it on (non-standard, DMF??) floppies. And 4DOS can run there too. USB drivers? Dunno, try Bret Johnson's drivers (if you only need UHCI). >>> A few issues: >>> >>> Freedos did not like 'sys'ing to the floppy that it resides on, so I >>> could boot into freedos, > Error copying command.com to itself. "SYS A: C: /BOOTONLY" should work okay if you want to (later) manually copy the shell and kernel files. (See docs/sys.txt .) >>> running the ver command shows MD DOS version 7.10. I don't know if >>> MSDOS is still there or if this is a compatibility issue. I'd sure like >>> it to say freedos, if it is. >> The shell may misunderstand, who knows. But "normally" (although I >> haven't used MS-DOS / Win9x in a few years) I wouldn't expect it to >> say "MS-DOS" unless it was in fact MS-DOS. Though indeed the FAT32 >> version of FreeDOS by default always claims to be version 7.10. > This is the fat32 version. Too bad fd does not promote itself in the > ver command. "VER" is a built-in of the shell. 4DOS should correctly identify the DOS flavor for you (since you hinted that you prefer that). FAT32 isn't enough to identify, many DOSes support that these days. I can't remember what all the different shells say (even if I had used them all at one time), but "ver /r" should say something useful. There are other ways, but outside of writing a specific util (int 21h, 33FFh? int 21h, 4452h?), I can't remember any totally obvious way besides just checking the boot sector or root drive for kernel files (and even that isn't always unique, e.g. PC-DOS vs. DR-DOS). >> Well, the obvious answer is to check (or clean) your root directory. >> If there's only KERNEL.SYS and maybe COMMAND.COM, it's definitely >> FreeDOS. >> I run lean and mean. no io.sys, no msdos.sys. Well, you don't have to store them on all media, only on the bootable ones. So you can boot from floppy and work atop a FAT partition that isn't bootable, which can lack them. But at bootup, they have to be found somewhere and loaded, obviously. > The only reason command.com is there is because > (a) freedos diagnostics, and come programs look for it. Unfortunately > foxpro 2.6 looks for the ms version of command.com in order to use the > run command (run a dos prog from inside fpd). I agree that some programs badly assume C:\COMMAND.COM, but most well-behaved respect %COMSPEC%. BTW, I doubt Foxpro is looking inside COMMAND.COM specifically for some kind of MS magic, but stranger things have happened (e.g. Logitech Mouse driver, according to DOS386 dude). FreeCOM should be a drop-in replacement, same as 4DOS, but of course all these shells aren't widely standardized, so they all have extensions, bugs, quirks, etc. >>> Running the defrag program (freedos version) only allowed me to do a >>> 'quickie'. the real options were grayed out. I have a little dos stuff >>> (about 130mb) in the middle of this huge 4.3 gb drive. I releived the >>> drive of its win98 burden. I want the dos at the beginning, and the >>> unused 'wiped', as the program suggests. >> only 1 partition. remember I got rid of the win98 stuff, so the dos stuff >> is sittin in the middle >> per the defrag program. I re-ran it, and got the same results (insanity?) >> FAT32. >> the only partition is active :) I'm not clear on what you're seeing or what you're wanting here. If FD Defrag doesn't work, I don't know what to tell you. You may just have to live without it. :-/ Or carry the drive (physically) to a different machine (e.g. modern Windows) to defrag. >>> Freedos complains that my last drive is not high enough. >> Where? At bootup? When running a specific program? > Yea, during boot. I just added lastrivehigh=j (the 10th drive) now it > doesn't complain. IIRC, default is LASTDRIVE=E , which is too low for you here. >> "Just use Li..." ... Sorry, got carried away there. ;-) > > Pssssst; I've been using Linux since the mid nineties. Been with ubuntu > 13.10 now for about 5 years. Typo (impossible)! :-) Yeah, I use PuppyLinux (based upon Lucid), but a lot of stuff just doesn't work very well. It's almost funny (or sad) how even things from 2010 aren't "new" enough. Everything seems to gradually migrate towards "newest / latest only", which feels sloppy to me. > I'm waiting for a "foxpro for linux". There are lots of db back ends, > but the front end is lacking. If I ever get the time and patience, I trying > gambas. You mean Gambas BASIC? For the GUI front end, I presume? Okay, good luck. Never messed with it. FreeBASIC seems pretty well-supported too, but I'm not a GUI dude, so I have no idea. But I'd prefer that, barring any good reason otherwise. :-) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. 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