Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.2 Preview 11

[Jerome Shidel]

Hello Don,

> On Feb 3, 2016, at 6:50 PM, Don Flowers  wrote:
> 
> It's the installed system - what was happening  was 
> I would type: "COPY *.ZIP  C:\DOWNLOAD\ZIP"
> One file would copy to c:\download\zip, then the a: drive would  click and I 
> got the ever annoying "error copying to a: drive abort retry ignore?"; I 
> could ignore and it would stop but the copy processed stopped as well. If I 
> repeat the process I get a clean copy of all files. 
> I solved the problem by rearranging the autoexec paths (FDAUTO for me :^) and 
> setting an absolute path for C:\;C:\FDOS;C:\FDOS\BIN
> 
> 
> 

Interesting, if changing the chaning them path variable order fixed the issue. 
It would not be a bug or other issue in the installer.

Thanks for the update.

Jerome

> 
> 
>> On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 5:21 PM, Jerome Shidel  wrote:
>> Hello Don,
>> 
>> > On Feb 3, 2016, at 1:47 PM, Don Flowers  wrote:
>> >
>> > Day after observation: I am getting an A: drive redirect when I try to 
>> > copy files by "COPY" command. One file will copy to the desired directory 
>> > and then it  searches for the A: drive. Would this be a glitch from the 
>> > installer?
>> >
>> 
>> I'm not sure exactly what you mean.
>> 
>> Is this the installed system, or when booted from floppy or USB image?
>> 
>> Also, is this what you mean?
>> 
>> cd c:
>> copy myfile.txt fdos\myfile.txt
>> copy myfile2.txt fdos\myfile2.txt
>> INSERT DISK IN DRIVE A:
>> 
>> Or do you mean something else entirely?
>> 
>> Jerome
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone, ignore bad sentence structures, grammatical errors and 
>> incorrect spell-corrected words.
>> 
>> 
>> --
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.2 Preview 11

[Don Flowers]

It's the installed system - what was happening  was
I would type: "COPY *.ZIP  C:\DOWNLOAD\ZIP"
One file would copy to c:\download\zip, then the a: drive would  click and
I got the ever annoying "error copying to a: drive abort retry ignore?"; I
could ignore and it would stop but the copy processed stopped as well. If I
repeat the process I get a clean copy of all files.
I solved the problem by rearranging the autoexec paths (FDAUTO for me :^)
and setting an absolute path for C:\;C:\FDOS;C:\FDOS\BIN





On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 5:21 PM, Jerome Shidel  wrote:

> Hello Don,
>
> > On Feb 3, 2016, at 1:47 PM, Don Flowers  wrote:
> >
> > Day after observation: I am getting an A: drive redirect when I try to
> copy files by "COPY" command. One file will copy to the desired directory
> and then it  searches for the A: drive. Would this be a glitch from the
> installer?
> >
>
> I'm not sure exactly what you mean.
>
> Is this the installed system, or when booted from floppy or USB image?
>
> Also, is this what you mean?
>
> cd c:
> copy myfile.txt fdos\myfile.txt
> copy myfile2.txt fdos\myfile2.txt
> INSERT DISK IN DRIVE A:
>
> Or do you mean something else entirely?
>
> Jerome
>
> Sent from my iPhone, ignore bad sentence structures, grammatical errors
> and incorrect spell-corrected words.
>
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.2 Preview 11

[Jerome Shidel]

Hello Don,

> On Feb 3, 2016, at 1:47 PM, Don Flowers  wrote:
> 
> Day after observation: I am getting an A: drive redirect when I try to copy 
> files by "COPY" command. One file will copy to the desired directory and then 
> it  searches for the A: drive. Would this be a glitch from the installer?
> 

I'm not sure exactly what you mean.

Is this the installed system, or when booted from floppy or USB image?

Also, is this what you mean?

cd c:
copy myfile.txt fdos\myfile.txt
copy myfile2.txt fdos\myfile2.txt
INSERT DISK IN DRIVE A:

Or do you mean something else entirely?

Jerome

Sent from my iPhone, ignore bad sentence structures, grammatical errors and 
incorrect spell-corrected words.


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.2 Preview 11

[Don Flowers]

Day after observation: I am getting an A: drive redirect when I try to copy
files by "COPY" command. One file will copy to the desired directory and
then it  searches for the A: drive. Would this be a glitch from the
installer?

On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 8:35 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
wrote:

>
> > On Feb 2, 2016, at 7:54 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hi!
> >
> >>> Well that is still serious. Even if you do something as harmless as
> >>>
> >>> copy STUFF SOMEWHERE | more
> >>>
> >>> you would still end up 1. not seeing the output of "copy" and
> >>> possibly even 2. block the "copy" process by stalling the pipe.
> >>>
> >>> In short, please use a ramdisk for all your pipe and temp work :-)
> >>
> >> Yeah, probably not going to do that. It adds to much complication
> >> to the installer startup. It would need to be very small and that
> >> may risk package installation failure later on with fdinst.
> >
> > That is exactly why I recommend using a ramdisk: Without ramdisk,
> > everything sent through pipes goes to a digital black hole when
> > the install disk is not writeable, risking plenty of side effects.
> >
> > For piping stuff, a tiny ramdisk will be enough. If you assume that
> > a computer which can boot from CD / DVD / USB has, say, at least 16
> > MB RAM (yes youngsters, not 16 GB ;-)) then you could use 4 for the
> > cache and 1 for the ramdisk and have 10 left for installer / unzip
> > 32 bit activities still. So a bit of a ramdisk is totally harmless!
>
> It really isn’t needed.
>
> >
> > By the way, how about creating a 600 MB RAMDISK (no joke) whenever
> > the installer detects 1 GB or more RAM? That would allow users to
> > do a full install to the ramdisk, effectively using your installer
> > stick as a "LIVE CD" without install and without rebooting :-)
>
> No reason, someone can not create an simple batch called something
> like GOLIVE.BAT that could be included with the CD ISO. It could handle
> all of that post-boot. Also, with how the installer is designed. A drop in
> could even be included to do it when the user exits the installer without
> performing an install.
>
> >
> >> if a user did not boot the install media and just runs it from
> >> the command line, a pre-existing ramdisk may cause issues or be
> >> forcefully unloaded. It is also an additional driver to load.
> >
> > Ramdisks are pretty compatible and I see no reason why loading more
> > than one of them would cause any troubles. Also, my suggestion was
> > to load a ramdisk in CONFIG & AUTOEXEC. Everybody who manually wants
> > to start the installer from the command line of their existing DOS
> > or Windows can be expected to know what they do, so I agree to not
> > bother those by loading DRIVERS as side effect of installer start.
> >
> > Maybe this is a good topic for review! As the moment, which steps
> > do you take in CONFIG / AUTOEXEC and which steps, apart from the
> > scripted invocation of (after optional fdisk and format) the DOS
> > package manager and the creation of a target config and autoexec,
> > are taken by the installer itself? Thanks for giving an overview!
>
> The entire installer is modular, customizable and extensible.
> Other than at startup with language selection and initial target
> verification, the installer performs no further actions until the
> user makes the final “install now” selection. This with drop
> in package lists, advanced mode, error handling screens and
> all of the other steps it takes during execution. All logic is handled
> inside the batch files that make up the installer. There is a rough
> draft developer manual on the github source page that goes into
> basic detail on what most of the different parts of the installer handle.
>
> >
> >> There is an easy way around the issue. I will probably just have the
> >> installer test if C: is the USB stick prior to activating the TEMP
> >> directory.
> >
> > That will not work with PLOP, nor will it work with "booting from
> > a harddisk image on CD or DVD", as those are all write-protected
> > simulations of a C: harddisk as far as my intuition tells me that.
>
> Actually, the installer already does this in automatic target drive
> detection. That is how it knows to install to D: automatically. But,
> on some systems the USB drive is not C:, the installer automatically
> targets C:. It shouldn’t be difficult to include some of this logic
> into the initial (for settings import) TEMP directory setup.
>
> >
> >> The batch file based FDI installer would not be very good without any
> >> pipes. It would have almost no flexibility at all. Would only have
> >> hard coded package lists and would not be able to dynamically
> >> create customized system configuration files.
> >
> > You can do a lot with errorlevels and you can select packages AFTER
> > selecting the target drive: By definition, as soon as the user has
> > selected (and maybe formatted) a target drive, you can write it :-)
>
> Absolutely, but this is some of what you would

Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.2 Preview 11

[Jerome E. Shidel Jr.]

> On Feb 2, 2016, at 7:54 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi!
> 
>>> Well that is still serious. Even if you do something as harmless as
>>> 
>>> copy STUFF SOMEWHERE | more
>>> 
>>> you would still end up 1. not seeing the output of "copy" and
>>> possibly even 2. block the "copy" process by stalling the pipe.
>>> 
>>> In short, please use a ramdisk for all your pipe and temp work :-)
>> 
>> Yeah, probably not going to do that. It adds to much complication 
>> to the installer startup. It would need to be very small and that
>> may risk package installation failure later on with fdinst.
> 
> That is exactly why I recommend using a ramdisk: Without ramdisk,
> everything sent through pipes goes to a digital black hole when
> the install disk is not writeable, risking plenty of side effects.
> 
> For piping stuff, a tiny ramdisk will be enough. If you assume that
> a computer which can boot from CD / DVD / USB has, say, at least 16
> MB RAM (yes youngsters, not 16 GB ;-)) then you could use 4 for the
> cache and 1 for the ramdisk and have 10 left for installer / unzip
> 32 bit activities still. So a bit of a ramdisk is totally harmless!

It really isn’t needed. 

> 
> By the way, how about creating a 600 MB RAMDISK (no joke) whenever
> the installer detects 1 GB or more RAM? That would allow users to
> do a full install to the ramdisk, effectively using your installer
> stick as a "LIVE CD" without install and without rebooting :-)

No reason, someone can not create an simple batch called something
like GOLIVE.BAT that could be included with the CD ISO. It could handle 
all of that post-boot. Also, with how the installer is designed. A drop in
could even be included to do it when the user exits the installer without
performing an install.

> 
>> if a user did not boot the install media and just runs it from
>> the command line, a pre-existing ramdisk may cause issues or be 
>> forcefully unloaded. It is also an additional driver to load.
> 
> Ramdisks are pretty compatible and I see no reason why loading more
> than one of them would cause any troubles. Also, my suggestion was
> to load a ramdisk in CONFIG & AUTOEXEC. Everybody who manually wants
> to start the installer from the command line of their existing DOS
> or Windows can be expected to know what they do, so I agree to not
> bother those by loading DRIVERS as side effect of installer start.
> 
> Maybe this is a good topic for review! As the moment, which steps
> do you take in CONFIG / AUTOEXEC and which steps, apart from the
> scripted invocation of (after optional fdisk and format) the DOS
> package manager and the creation of a target config and autoexec,
> are taken by the installer itself? Thanks for giving an overview!

The entire installer is modular, customizable and extensible. 
Other than at startup with language selection and initial target
verification, the installer performs no further actions until the
user makes the final “install now” selection. This with drop
in package lists, advanced mode, error handling screens and
all of the other steps it takes during execution. All logic is handled
inside the batch files that make up the installer. There is a rough
draft developer manual on the github source page that goes into
basic detail on what most of the different parts of the installer handle.

> 
>> There is an easy way around the issue. I will probably just have the 
>> installer test if C: is the USB stick prior to activating the TEMP 
>> directory. 
> 
> That will not work with PLOP, nor will it work with "booting from
> a harddisk image on CD or DVD", as those are all write-protected
> simulations of a C: harddisk as far as my intuition tells me that.

Actually, the installer already does this in automatic target drive
detection. That is how it knows to install to D: automatically. But, 
on some systems the USB drive is not C:, the installer automatically
targets C:. It shouldn’t be difficult to include some of this logic
into the initial (for settings import) TEMP directory setup.

> 
>> The batch file based FDI installer would not be very good without any 
>> pipes. It would have almost no flexibility at all. Would only have
>> hard coded package lists and would not be able to dynamically 
>> create customized system configuration files. 
> 
> You can do a lot with errorlevels and you can select packages AFTER
> selecting the target drive: By definition, as soon as the user has
> selected (and maybe formatted) a target drive, you can write it :-)

Absolutely, but this is some of what you would loos from the current 
installer. Modularity with simple drop in extendibility. Text file lists of
packages would be hard coded. Progress percentage could be 
done but all values would have to be calculated and hard coded for
every single package removal and install. No backup progress possible.
Import settings like DOSDIR and LANG from previous installation
would have to go. There are many things that would make the 
install process less pl

Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.2 Preview 11

[Eric Auer]

Hi!

>> Well that is still serious. Even if you do something as harmless as
>>
>> copy STUFF SOMEWHERE | more
>>
>> you would still end up 1. not seeing the output of "copy" and
>> possibly even 2. block the "copy" process by stalling the pipe.
>>
>> In short, please use a ramdisk for all your pipe and temp work :-)
> 
> Yeah, probably not going to do that. It adds to much complication 
> to the installer startup. It would need to be very small and that
> may risk package installation failure later on with fdinst.

That is exactly why I recommend using a ramdisk: Without ramdisk,
everything sent through pipes goes to a digital black hole when
the install disk is not writeable, risking plenty of side effects.

For piping stuff, a tiny ramdisk will be enough. If you assume that
a computer which can boot from CD / DVD / USB has, say, at least 16
MB RAM (yes youngsters, not 16 GB ;-)) then you could use 4 for the
cache and 1 for the ramdisk and have 10 left for installer / unzip
32 bit activities still. So a bit of a ramdisk is totally harmless!

By the way, how about creating a 600 MB RAMDISK (no joke) whenever
the installer detects 1 GB or more RAM? That would allow users to
do a full install to the ramdisk, effectively using your installer
stick as a "LIVE CD" without install and without rebooting :-)

> if a user did not boot the install media and just runs it from
> the command line, a pre-existing ramdisk may cause issues or be 
> forcefully unloaded. It is also an additional driver to load.

Ramdisks are pretty compatible and I see no reason why loading more
than one of them would cause any troubles. Also, my suggestion was
to load a ramdisk in CONFIG & AUTOEXEC. Everybody who manually wants
to start the installer from the command line of their existing DOS
or Windows can be expected to know what they do, so I agree to not
bother those by loading DRIVERS as side effect of installer start.

Maybe this is a good topic for review! As the moment, which steps
do you take in CONFIG / AUTOEXEC and which steps, apart from the
scripted invocation of (after optional fdisk and format) the DOS
package manager and the creation of a target config and autoexec,
are taken by the installer itself? Thanks for giving an overview!

> There is an easy way around the issue. I will probably just have the 
> installer test if C: is the USB stick prior to activating the TEMP 
> directory. 

That will not work with PLOP, nor will it work with "booting from
a harddisk image on CD or DVD", as those are all write-protected
simulations of a C: harddisk as far as my intuition tells me that.

> The batch file based FDI installer would not be very good without any 
> pipes. It would have almost no flexibility at all. Would only have
> hard coded package lists and would not be able to dynamically 
> create customized system configuration files. 

You can do a lot with errorlevels and you can select packages AFTER
selecting the target drive: By definition, as soon as the user has
selected (and maybe formatted) a target drive, you can write it :-)

> At startup, it only uses C: if C: exists and is formatted. If those conditions
> are met, It will check for system config files and import settings if they 
> exist.

As explained, that is not sufficient to know whether it is writeable.

>> Importing of settings?
> 
> Language settings, DOS Installation directory \FDOS \FREEDOS \OS
> or whatever.

How does it try to grab those? If there already is FreeDOS on the
target disk anyway, I suggest to NOT overwrite the autoexec nor
the config by default: Instead, give the user a fresh example for
those, in separate files. That way, the user can decide how they
want to combine old and new config. Pre-existing DOS installs do
almost ALWAYS have hand-made config changes and you would destroy
those by "importing" the old into a freshly auto-created new set.

Even if the pre-existing DOS install was created by some automated
install tool and has barely been modified by the user later, your
installer would still have to have knowledge about all installers
which could have been used for the previously existing version, to
know how and which information could be extracted from old configs.

Regards, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.2 Preview 11

[Jerome E. Shidel Jr.]

> On Feb 2, 2016, at 12:17 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi!
> 
>>> Wait, that is pretty serious! Only really important cache errors beep:
> 
> ...
> 
>> Hopefully, it is just from attempted writing of temp files to the locked USB 
>> stick.
> 
> Well that is still serious. Even if you do something as harmless as
> 
> copy STUFF SOMEWHERE | more
> 
> you would still end up 1. not seeing the output of "copy" and
> possibly even 2. block the "copy" process by stalling the pipe.
> 
> In short, please use a ramdisk for all your pipe and temp work :-)

Yeah, probably not going to do that. It adds to much complication 
to the installer startup. It would need to be very small and that
may risk package installation failure later on with fdinst. Also,
if a user did not boot the install media and just runs it from the 
command line, a pre-existing ramdisk may cause issues or be 
forcefully unloaded. It is also an additional driver to load. 
Compatible on all systems. etc.

There is an easy way around the issue. I will probably just have the 
installer test if C: is the USB stick prior to activating the TEMP 
directory. 

> 
> PS: More is a good example where pipes can be avoided, with help
> of my moresys driver ;-)

The batch file based FDI installer would not be very good without any 
pipes. It would have almost no flexibility at all. Would only have
hard coded package lists and would not be able to dynamically 
create customized system configuration files. 

> 
>> If the there is no beeping, when he boots the Floppy Install and
>> he only gets it when using the USB stick, It would probably be
>> due to the Read only USB stick. 
>> 
>> The floppy version, does not write to the floppy and at startup
>> checks to see if there is a writable drive C:. If so, it will try to 
>> configure a TEMP directory and see if it can import language
>> and DOSDIR settings...
> 
> It should probably not do that on C: but on the user-selected target
> drive, to avoid unwanted changes to C: ... In addition it should not
> use C: so early anyway: Maybe it needs to be formatted first.

At startup, it only uses C: if C: exists and is formatted. If those conditions
are met, It will check for system config files and import settings if they 
exist.

If C: is not formatted or does not exist. Then there would be nothing to 
import and no TEMP directory is setup at that time.

> 
>> If it cannot find C: or C: is not writable,
>> it will bypass the importing of settings.
> 
> Importing of settings?

Language settings, DOS Installation directory \FDOS \FREEDOS \OS
or whatever.

> 
>> the floppy will postpone setting up a TEMP directory ...
> 
> No need to postpone with a ramdisk ;-)
> 
>>  Sees C:
>> 
>>  Tries to configure the TEMP dir on C: (succeeds as 
>>  C:\FDSETUP\TEMP exists on image)
> 
> Hehe bad test ;-)

More or less, it is there on his system. It just isn’t writable. Not 
so much a bad test as more testing is required.

> 
>>  Attempts to import settings from C: (fails)
>> 
>>  Keeps C: as target drive and temp dir on C:
>> 
>>  Serious and repeated failures beyond this point. (fails, and 
>>  probable set /p system crash)
>> 
>> I have some ideas on how to resolve this issue. So, when
>> I get the time. I will take care of this compatibility issue.
> 
> Thanks! Cheers, Eric
> 
> 

Jerome

> 
> 
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> 


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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.2 Preview 11

[Eric Auer]

Hi!

>> Wait, that is pretty serious! Only really important cache errors beep:

...

> Hopefully, it is just from attempted writing of temp files to the locked USB 
> stick.

Well that is still serious. Even if you do something as harmless as

copy STUFF SOMEWHERE | more

you would still end up 1. not seeing the output of "copy" and
possibly even 2. block the "copy" process by stalling the pipe.

In short, please use a ramdisk for all your pipe and temp work :-)

PS: More is a good example where pipes can be avoided, with help
of my moresys driver ;-)

> If the there is no beeping, when he boots the Floppy Install and
> he only gets it when using the USB stick, It would probably be
> due to the Read only USB stick. 
> 
> The floppy version, does not write to the floppy and at startup
> checks to see if there is a writable drive C:. If so, it will try to 
> configure a TEMP directory and see if it can import language
> and DOSDIR settings...

It should probably not do that on C: but on the user-selected target
drive, to avoid unwanted changes to C: ... In addition it should not
use C: so early anyway: Maybe it needs to be formatted first.

> If it cannot find C: or C: is not writable,
> it will bypass the importing of settings.

Importing of settings?

> the floppy will postpone setting up a TEMP directory ...

No need to postpone with a ramdisk ;-)

>   Sees C:
> 
>   Tries to configure the TEMP dir on C: (succeeds as 
>   C:\FDSETUP\TEMP exists on image)

Hehe bad test ;-)

>   Attempts to import settings from C: (fails)
> 
>   Keeps C: as target drive and temp dir on C:
> 
>   Serious and repeated failures beyond this point. (fails, and 
>   probable set /p system crash)
> 
> I have some ideas on how to resolve this issue. So, when
> I get the time. I will take care of this compatibility issue.

Thanks! Cheers, Eric




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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.2 Preview 11

[Jerome E. Shidel Jr.]

Hello again Don and Eric,

> On Feb 2, 2016, at 10:50 AM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Don et al,
> 
>> USB installer is a different matter.
>> First, please disable BELL on lbacache - it wreaks havoc on my wifes's
>> hearing aid.
> 
> Wait, that is pretty serious! Only really important cache errors beep:
> 
> - impossible CHS geometry or cylinder in CHS access
> - unsupported and rather exotic INT13 disk BIOS calls
> - disk write errors and disk read errors

Hopefully, it is just from attempted writing of temp files to the locked USB 
stick.

> - XMS driver errors (for example HIMEM A20 errors)
> - disk calls recursively doing other disk calls
> 
> Please let me know which errors happen on your system.
> 
>> Second on my Compaq Armada 1750 USB is only bootable by PLOP boot manager
>> and thus it a C: drive- this causes write protection on the USB (as it
>> should) with installer "confused" about how to handle the "ABORT, RETRY,
>> IGNORE error. Installation failed.
> 
> That might mean that PLOP itself is more or less a "bootable read
> only USB stick driver", which is quite unusual. Maybe the USB DOS
> installer tries to write to the stick! That would be unnecessary,
> if you ask me: It is much faster to write to a small ramdisk - the
> installer should only need small amounts of writing apart from the
> writes to the target disk. It should have minimal usage of pipelines
> because in DOS, those work with temp files: dir | more basically is
> "dir > tempfile" followed by "more < tempfile". Luckily, command.com
> respects the TEMP or TMP variable setting for selecting temp dirs :-)
> 
> If the beeps are due to write failure, then the installer will fail
> as well, because it probably relies on being able to put temp files
> in the stick. As said, it SHOULD not rely on that anyway, IMHO...
> 
> Regards, Eric

If the there is no beeping, when he boots the Floppy Install and
he only gets it when using the USB stick, It would probably be
due to the Read only USB stick. 

The floppy version, does not write to the floppy and at startup
checks to see if there is a writable drive C:. If so, it will try to 
configure a TEMP directory and see if it can import language
and DOSDIR settings. If it cannot find C: or C: is not writable,
it will bypass the importing of settings. It requires some temp
files to do the import. But if there is no drive C:, there are no 
settings. So, the floppy will postpone setting up a TEMP directory
until later in the install process when a writeable C: is present.
TEMP files are required  later on in the install process. This 
is no problem for the floppy install.

The USB version, mostly works the same, except there is what 
appears tp be a drive C: (on his system, some say the USB stick 
boots as D: or higher on their systems). What happens goes 
something like this:

Sees C:

Tries to configure the TEMP dir on C: (succeeds as 
C:\FDSETUP\TEMP exists on image)

Attempts to import settings from C: (fails)

Keeps C: as target drive and temp dir on C:

Serious and repeated failures beyond this point. (fails, and 
probable set /p system crash)

I have some ideas on how to resolve this issue. So, when
I get the time. I will take care of this compatibility issue.

Jerome.


> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.2 Preview 11

[Eric Auer]

Hi Don et al,

> USB installer is a different matter.
> First, please disable BELL on lbacache - it wreaks havoc on my wifes's
> hearing aid.

Wait, that is pretty serious! Only really important cache errors beep:

- impossible CHS geometry or cylinder in CHS access
- unsupported and rather exotic INT13 disk BIOS calls
- disk write errors and disk read errors
- XMS driver errors (for example HIMEM A20 errors)
- disk calls recursively doing other disk calls

Please let me know which errors happen on your system.

> Second on my Compaq Armada 1750 USB is only bootable by PLOP boot manager
> and thus it a C: drive- this causes write protection on the USB (as it
> should) with installer "confused" about how to handle the "ABORT, RETRY,
> IGNORE error. Installation failed.

That might mean that PLOP itself is more or less a "bootable read
only USB stick driver", which is quite unusual. Maybe the USB DOS
installer tries to write to the stick! That would be unnecessary,
if you ask me: It is much faster to write to a small ramdisk - the
installer should only need small amounts of writing apart from the
writes to the target disk. It should have minimal usage of pipelines
because in DOS, those work with temp files: dir | more basically is
"dir > tempfile" followed by "more < tempfile". Luckily, command.com
respects the TEMP or TMP variable setting for selecting temp dirs :-)

If the beeps are due to write failure, then the installer will fail
as well, because it probably relies on being able to put temp files
in the stick. As said, it SHOULD not rely on that anyway, IMHO...

Regards, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.2 Preview 11

[Jerome E. Shidel Jr.]

Hi Don,

> On Feb 2, 2016, at 8:45 AM, Don Flowers  wrote:
> 
> USB installer is a different matter.
> First, please disable BELL on lbacache - it wreaks havoc on my wifes's 
> hearing aid. On 2nd boot I had to step through Config/autoexec.bat and ESC 
> out of LBACACHE.

I’ll see what I can do about the noise. Since it is probably not needed on the 
USB version, I may end up just removing LBACACHE from that version.

> Second on my Compaq Armada 1750 USB is only bootable by PLOP boot manager and 
> thus it a C: drive- this causes write protection on the USB (as it should) 
> with installer "confused" about how to handle the "ABORT, RETRY, IGNORE 
> error. Installation failed.

I know why this occurred. Basically, the installer see’s it is drive C: and 
startup trying to use it for it’s temporary files. When this occurs,
DOS starts throwing those error messages. The floppy version handles things a 
little bit differently.  This would not happen with the Floppy based version 
even if the floppy is write-protected and no hard drive existed. When, I get 
some more free time I will look into handling a write protected USB stick. 
Thanks for the heads-up.

> 
> On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 7:57 AM, Don Flowers  > wrote:
> Very impressive "beta?"  installer.

Thank you. I called it Preview (alpha) version. Almost, beta.

> I tested it several ways;
> the test machine is a Compaq Armada 1750 Laptop,  PII MMX with 320MB
> ram a 60gb hard drive and a CDROM drive. 
> 1) Installed over existing FreeDOS 1.1.1
> 2) Installed with a blank formatted C: drive
> 3) Installed with a non-formatted drive.
> 
> The installer performed as expected with no hiccups whatever.

I’m glad to hear you had no issues with the Floppy based install. :-)

> Can't wait for the rest of the packages to be included!

This is something I'm are still trying to hash out with the FreeDOS
developers group. 

> 
> 
> On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 2:40 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr.  > wrote:
> I just released the FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Preview 11. 
> 
> If you wish to participate in the general pre-beta testing
> of the hopefully soon to arrive FreeDOS 1.2 release, 
> you can find it’s floppy image and a link to the required 
> package repository CD image at:
> 
> http://up.load.bz/FDI/latest 
> 
> Also, there is a USB Stick Installer image available 
> that includes the packages. There is a link to it on the
> FDI Installer Prototype download page. Or, just use the 
> direct link  http://dnld.lod.bz/FDI-USB.zip 
> 
> What’s in Preview 11.
> 
>   Improved BOOT from any USB stick at any drive letter (A, B, C, D, E….)
> 
>   Improved Installation Target Detection. (C or D)
> 
>   Extra (not BASE or ALL), uninstalled packages on USB image. (about 50 
> extra)
> 
>   Welcome to FreeDOS message, converted to a installed package with NLS.
>   (removed language specific messages from autoexec.bat)
> 
>   V8Power Tools, converted to package like any other that gets installed 
> with ALL.
> 
>   Additional, BOOT menu item installed (DOS low - SAFE MODE)
> 
>   Moved CD driver from Installed FDCONFIG.SYS to AUTOEXEC.BAT
> 
>   Other minor improvements.
> 
> What is NOT in Preview 11. (Maybe 12, beta or not at all)
> 
>   Boot sector is not overwritten with boot code if it happens to be 
> missing.
>   ( If you boot sector needs replaced, see 
> https://sites.google.com/site/lpsantil/fdi12-msi-wind 
>  )
> 
>   Sufficient free space is not verified prior to installation.
> 
>   Language specific COMMAND.COM  is installed. But, 
> it is not configured as default.
> 
>   Language specific FDCONFIG.SYS menu items.
> 
> Thanks, Jerome
> 
> 
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> 
> 
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.2 Preview 11

[Don Flowers]

USB installer is a different matter.
First, please disable BELL on lbacache - it wreaks havoc on my wifes's
hearing aid. On 2nd boot I had to step through Config/autoexec.bat and ESC
out of LBACACHE.
Second on my Compaq Armada 1750 USB is only bootable by PLOP boot manager
and thus it a C: drive- this causes write protection on the USB (as it
should) with installer "confused" about how to handle the "ABORT, RETRY,
IGNORE error. Installation failed.

On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 7:57 AM, Don Flowers  wrote:

> Very impressive "beta?"  installer. I tested it several ways;
> the test machine is a Compaq Armada 1750 Laptop,  PII MMX with 320MB
> ram a 60gb hard drive and a CDROM drive.
> 1) Installed over existing FreeDOS 1.1.1
> 2) Installed with a blank formatted C: drive
> 3) Installed with a non-formatted drive.
>
> The installer performed as expected with no hiccups whatever.
> Can't wait for the rest of the packages to be included!
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 2:40 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
> wrote:
>
>> I just released the FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Preview 11.
>>
>> If you wish to participate in the general pre-beta testing
>> of the hopefully soon to arrive FreeDOS 1.2 release,
>> you can find it’s floppy image and a link to the required
>> package repository CD image at:
>>
>> http://up.load.bz/FDI/latest
>>
>> Also, there is a USB Stick Installer image available
>> that includes the packages. There is a link to it on the
>> FDI Installer Prototype download page. Or, just use the
>> direct link  http://dnld.lod.bz/FDI-USB.zip
>>
>> What’s in Preview 11.
>>
>> Improved BOOT from any USB stick at any drive letter (A, B, C, D, E….)
>>
>> Improved Installation Target Detection. (C or D)
>>
>> Extra (not BASE or ALL), uninstalled packages on USB image. (about 50
>> extra)
>>
>> Welcome to FreeDOS message, converted to a installed package with NLS.
>> (removed language specific messages from autoexec.bat)
>>
>> V8Power Tools, converted to package like any other that gets installed
>> with ALL.
>>
>> Additional, BOOT menu item installed (DOS low - SAFE MODE)
>>
>> Moved CD driver from Installed FDCONFIG.SYS to AUTOEXEC.BAT
>>
>> Other minor improvements.
>>
>> What is NOT in Preview 11. (Maybe 12, beta or not at all)
>>
>> Boot sector is not overwritten with boot code if it happens to be missing.
>> ( If you boot sector needs replaced, see
>> https://sites.google.com/site/lpsantil/fdi12-msi-wind )
>>
>> Sufficient free space is not verified prior to installation.
>>
>> Language specific COMMAND.COM is installed. But, it is not configured as
>> default.
>>
>> Language specific FDCONFIG.SYS menu items.
>>
>> Thanks, Jerome
>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
>>
>>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.2 Preview 11

[Don Flowers]

Very impressive "beta?"  installer. I tested it several ways;
the test machine is a Compaq Armada 1750 Laptop,  PII MMX with 320MB
ram a 60gb hard drive and a CDROM drive.
1) Installed over existing FreeDOS 1.1.1
2) Installed with a blank formatted C: drive
3) Installed with a non-formatted drive.

The installer performed as expected with no hiccups whatever.
Can't wait for the rest of the packages to be included!


On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 2:40 PM, Jerome E. Shidel Jr. 
wrote:

> I just released the FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Preview 11.
>
> If you wish to participate in the general pre-beta testing
> of the hopefully soon to arrive FreeDOS 1.2 release,
> you can find it’s floppy image and a link to the required
> package repository CD image at:
>
> http://up.load.bz/FDI/latest
>
> Also, there is a USB Stick Installer image available
> that includes the packages. There is a link to it on the
> FDI Installer Prototype download page. Or, just use the
> direct link  http://dnld.lod.bz/FDI-USB.zip
>
> What’s in Preview 11.
>
> Improved BOOT from any USB stick at any drive letter (A, B, C, D, E….)
>
> Improved Installation Target Detection. (C or D)
>
> Extra (not BASE or ALL), uninstalled packages on USB image. (about 50
> extra)
>
> Welcome to FreeDOS message, converted to a installed package with NLS.
> (removed language specific messages from autoexec.bat)
>
> V8Power Tools, converted to package like any other that gets installed
> with ALL.
>
> Additional, BOOT menu item installed (DOS low - SAFE MODE)
>
> Moved CD driver from Installed FDCONFIG.SYS to AUTOEXEC.BAT
>
> Other minor improvements.
>
> What is NOT in Preview 11. (Maybe 12, beta or not at all)
>
> Boot sector is not overwritten with boot code if it happens to be missing.
> ( If you boot sector needs replaced, see
> https://sites.google.com/site/lpsantil/fdi12-msi-wind )
>
> Sufficient free space is not verified prior to installation.
>
> Language specific COMMAND.COM is installed. But, it is not configured as
> default.
>
> Language specific FDCONFIG.SYS menu items.
>
> Thanks, Jerome
>
>
>
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[Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.2 Preview 11

[Jerome E. Shidel Jr.]

I just released the FreeDOS 1.2 Installer Preview 11. 

If you wish to participate in the general pre-beta testing
of the hopefully soon to arrive FreeDOS 1.2 release, 
you can find it’s floppy image and a link to the required 
package repository CD image at:

http://up.load.bz/FDI/latest 

Also, there is a USB Stick Installer image available 
that includes the packages. There is a link to it on the
FDI Installer Prototype download page. Or, just use the 
direct link  http://dnld.lod.bz/FDI-USB.zip 

What’s in Preview 11.

Improved BOOT from any USB stick at any drive letter (A, B, C, D, E….)

Improved Installation Target Detection. (C or D)

Extra (not BASE or ALL), uninstalled packages on USB image. (about 50 
extra)

Welcome to FreeDOS message, converted to a installed package with NLS.
(removed language specific messages from autoexec.bat)

V8Power Tools, converted to package like any other that gets installed 
with ALL.

Additional, BOOT menu item installed (DOS low - SAFE MODE)

Moved CD driver from Installed FDCONFIG.SYS to AUTOEXEC.BAT

Other minor improvements.

What is NOT in Preview 11. (Maybe 12, beta or not at all)

Boot sector is not overwritten with boot code if it happens to be 
missing.
( If you boot sector needs replaced, see 
https://sites.google.com/site/lpsantil/fdi12-msi-wind 
 )

Sufficient free space is not verified prior to installation.

Language specific COMMAND.COM  is installed. But, 
it is not configured as default.

Language specific FDCONFIG.SYS menu items.

Thanks, Jerome

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