For me, FreeDOS is not some antique to play with. My first PC was an AT
clone running DOS 3.3. One day later the AT got Norton Commander and
after another two days it got WordPerfect. I was in an engineering
office, both programs were "borrowed", and I later bought both. And I
have been doing serious file management and work in DOS ever since.
The market forced me to add Windows. My PCs for well over a decade have
had DOS and a boot manager on a 2G at volume one as the only primary.
Two versions each of OS/2 and Windows, and Apps, Data, "Stuff",,, are
all on logicals. When Windows was installed on a logical, there was
already an active, primary partition at volume one, so it did not create
a System partition but used the existing active partition.
My boot manager is a DOS program. It has picked up every OS/2 and Win
version since at least W2K including W7. W7 is the last version I have
added to that scheme. I have not attempted to see if it would boot
Linux. And I know nothing about Grub.
In the early days of Linux I attended an event and left with a stuffed
penguin and a credit card with a picture of a penguin on it. I still
have both. But at that time I decided I did not have a problem for
which Linux was the solution. But Win has made me the frog in a pot of
water on the stove. Win has become so unbearable that I am going to
jump out. I have had a LAN since DOS was the only thing. This year I
have watched my LAN die as each client PC was "updated".
I assume everyone on this list is also using something besides FreeDOS.
My preference is to continue the scheme I have had - DOS up front, DOS
boot manager, one or more Linux versions, probably a W7 partition.
For a long time we assumed that the BIOS was the personal property of
the PC owner - no piece of software could mess with it. I was recently
informed that Win8 gained access to the BIOS.
Well, it seems it is more than just access, it owns it. When I added a
second W11 partition Win created a boot manager that apparently resides
in the BIOS. And Win will fight to retain control of the PC. With
grub2win I was able to add a Linux partition to the boot manager. It
did not boot, and a bold "Auto repair" message appeared on the screen,
and the download grub2win Zip and the extracted file disappeared.
Suggestions?
TY
Ray
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