Hi Eric,
On Aug 8, 2024, at 4:29 PM, Eric Auer via Freedos-user
<freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:
Hi Jerome, Trevor, Mateusz etc. :-)
Thanks for explaining how to turn 386 installs into 8086 ones!
I hope the CPU detection is now working, so the installer
will create an 8086 install when used on 8086 systems?
Yes. I mentioned in the previous message. That was resolved. I also posted
about it a few months back on the devel mailing list. But at present, that is
only available with the Interim Builds.
Does the installer have an option to manually select an
8086 compatible install result, for people who plan to
later copy the installed system to some 8086 based PC?
Yes. As Trevor noticed. There is an option to override the machine detection on
the Floppy Edition. However, with the workarounds that were present in 1.3. It
is possible that the option was ignored when the kernel got installed. As I
mentioned in the previous message, those workarounds have been removed. But,
testing of the overrides still needs to be performed. I will get to that. But,
I’ve only got so much free time.
AT or 286 systems are an interesting case: They support
XMS and some kernel optimizations, but no 386 specific
apps, drivers or kernels. Which style of install will
people get on 286 based computers?
They get a 286 install with the floppy edition. Need not worry about the CD
versions because the CD driver chain requires a 386 anyway.
I notice you recommended to backup config and autoexec,
then reduce the config, but not create a lightweight
version of autoexec? Or is there a trick and I just
overlooked how the lighter autoexec is created?
The floppy edition has lighter versions of config files for 286, 186 and 8086.
Plus, different versions for various VMs.
Regarding the shell, I do recommend the KSSF version
of FreeCOM. While the normal version will need XMS to
swap itself out of DOS memory and have a lot of RAM
free for DOS apps, it will use a lot of RAM on systems
where no XMS is available. In particular: 8086 PC :-p
The KSSF version of FreeCOM uses a different trick
to just re-load most of FreeCOM from disk when apps
return to the prompt, to have more RAM free for apps
without needing XMS to get there.
Mateusz also has the lightweight SvarCOM shell as an
alternative. Several other shells exist for DOS, in
various sizes. ROMOS uses a minimal one. For example
http://www.rayer.g6.cz/romos/romose.htm
comes with a 10 kB small RJDOS command.com shell,
which helps making a minimal FreeDOS installation
which fits into your BIOS, together with the MM
MicroManager file manager (midnight commander or
norton commander style, you know the concept) :-)
Regards, Eric
Jerome
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