Hello Folks...
I recently decided to do the linux thing. I am enjoying it very much. I
decided to go the UMSDOS route and have been very happy. I thing there
are a lot of advantages to this or the loop method and that most of the
fat16 issues can be solved.....I'll explain as I make comments below.
On Thu, 2 Mar 2000 00:00:02 +0000, different folks wrote:
>> I am impressed with how unbelieably easy this one is to install, for a
>> Linux, and how many features and programs it includes. However, I dont
>> see much of a real advantage in these kinds of programs that try to
>> coexist with Microsoft: We all know the problems of installing another
>> pseudo-OS or shell ``on top of'' dos from your years with win 3x.
I believe it was pointed out by someone before me that neither the loop
nor UMSDOS 'flavors' of linux ride on top of DOS. The key point is
whether the 'guest OS' (in this case linux) ever calls the DOS BIOS. It
does not. Therefore DOS, as stated, is merely a loader for linux. Of
course w95 and w98 DO run 'on top' of DOS in the same way as win 3.1.
Caldera went to great lengths to prove that well.
>> if you really have 500 megs of free space on a disk partition, it is
>> not big deal to use one of the freeware disk resizers and make that
>> space into an independently format-able partition. My guess is that
>> the ``real'' Linux filesystems will work better and more trouble free.
Clearly the native linux ext2 file system is far superior to FAT16 but I
personally have never found FAT16 to be fragile. I know others seem to,
but my experience with it has been nearly flawless for almost 20
years.....maybe I'm just lucky but I don't feel my data is at any
significant risk by being on a FAT16 FS......So much so that I got out
of the habit of doing regular backups and a few years ago I got 'bit' by
a normally benign boot virus that must have had a bug and it trashed the
drive......stupid me!
> I guess the real advantage is if you just want to experiment with Linux.
> A person could look around, play with it some and then if they decide
> Linux/Unix is way too much for them <grin> they could easily remove it.
Certainly removing a UMSDOS linux is as simple as deleting the linux
directory.
> Definitely right about a ``real'' Linux filesystem being better.
> My current[1] Linux usage started out with DOSLinux 4.x a few years ago.
> It was UMSDOS so the Linux setup would suffer right along with any
> disk problems I might have had (fairly common when using the AOL software
> it seemed). At times this would cause loss of Linux files because
> special hidden files used by the UMSDOS system were gone or trashed
> after doing a scandisk or NDD fix-up.
I find this interesting....I have never seen any hidden files in any
UMSDOS linux distribution....I may have simply missed them but I don't
think so. If anyone could point me to one I'd be grateful. I've
defragged my drive and moved parts of the linux directory to other
partitions (more on that in a moment) and never had a problem.
> After getting fed up with that as well as performance problems linked
> to running on FAT16 I went about creating a separate partition for
> Linux with its own filesystem (this required installing Dragon Linux
> since DOSLinux didn't include utilities for disk management).
I believe the UMSDOS FAQ or HOW-TO states that many file operations are
faster with UMSDOS rather than with ext2 due to the simpler structure of
the FAT16 file system. Personally, I've had both native linux and UMSDOS
linux on my machine and have never noticed a difference in the
performance.
> Of course the loop system doesn't have that problem since its one big
> file as far as DOS/Windows is concerned, I think.
> I believe all the Linux-on-DOS distros do the loop thing now.
No I think there are still several UMSDOS distributions available. I use
Pygmy linux. It is the best UMSDOS linux I've found to date. I've tried
HAL91, mulinux, dragon, xdenu, monkey and abunch others.
The biggest advantage that I can see to using UMSDOS is that it provides
a wonderful safety net in that when I screw things up by experimenting
with some configuration file and linux doesn't boot, I can reboot to DOS
and fix the offending configuration file from there. Voila....linux runs
again. Naturally this is a boon for a newbie bent on figuring and
playing like me ;-)
I have a computer with more than enough hard drive space (2 gig) to
install the largest of distributions but that's not what I wanted to do.
I wanted a small linux that I could add to. Build it up with the apps I
want. Pygmy is based on a small slackware linux. But when it comes to
adding software, Debian is the site to visit. All of the Debian packages
list the dependencies that the package requires to run. That is, if I
want to download an application as a debian package....like an editor
for example, The DEBIAN site tells me that this editor will require
libraries 'X', 'Y', and 'Z' so I can check my current system to see if I
need them or not. If I do then there are links on the Debian page to
download those as well......very nice.
OK, so someone reading this has said: "AH HA!! This Varnum guy is an
Idiot!! He has a 2 gig drive with FAT16 on it.....That's forcing a
cluster size of 32 Kbytes....Man...What a loser! Well I must admit that
the resolution (or lack of) of running a 16bit cluster-addressable file
system on such a large drive almost prevented me from doing the UMSDOS
thing. Then I discovered how beautifully transparent the linux file
system is.....including the UMSDOS file system. If I put my /home
directory on a computer in Los Angeles (connected by a network of
course) and for some reason decided to copy a file from my /root
directory (on my computer here in Seattle) to it, then that file goes to
california...assuming I've mounted things well.
My Fat16 cluster size solution wasn't quite that dramatic. I simply
repartitioned my hard drive into 5 'drives'. I then put the contents of my
/usr/bin on one of the drives and /usr/lib on another and so on. The
sizes of the partitions varied depending on their expected growth with
added applications. I then added the new partitions to 'fstab' to mount
them at boot up. Now when I go to /usr/bin it looks like I just 'chdir' to
it....and in fact that's all there is to it. That /usr/bin happens to
be located on a different partition is irrelevent to linux....so cool.
The point is that I've been able to achieve an 800% increase in
efficiency while still using UMSDOS.
I'm certain that I'll eventually move to an ext2 linux in the future but
I'm in no hurry whatsoever. I feel that using a DOS linux is much more
useful than simply sniffing around for a few days or weeks until one
decides to graduate to ext2. I have so much more to learn and try. I see
no disadvantage in using a UMSDOS to that end. I've just installed the
gnu compiler...now things are going to get real fun....
I hope this post wasn't too drawn out but thought I'd share my thoughts.
Thanks all ...
Jim
PS I'm sure I didn't write anything that the linux experts didn't
already know....I thought it might be useful for newbies like me.
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