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Bernd's Blog!!Welcome to my weblog, an initial attempt to
What's new (YYYY-MM-DD): 2005-12-08 - Installation issues There's so much hardware for sale, which means it's very difficult to support the hardware with needed drivers at installation time. Often you can supply your own drivers at that moment, which is exactly what I also like FreeDOS to do. As only drivers for mass storage controllers, disk devices on these controllers, and a device for connection to the internet are relevant for DOS installation, we aim to provide them. A problem with that is many drivers may only be downloaded from the original manufacturers website. This means we have no permission to distribute them. The only solution is to either write replacement drivers, or gain access to the internet and download the manufacturer's driver at bootup time. Why at bootup time? FreeDOS installs itself to harddisks. Harddisks are placed on controllers. Also the easiest way to install FreeDOS is from a CD-ROM. Now how to load drivers:
A simplified way, should one have enough system memory and the proper network device driver, is to download a basic CD-ROM imagefile from the internet. Unfortunately it only solves the lack of a CD-ROM drive that can write recordable CDs?, a CD-ROM disk or a missing driver to access the CD-ROM drive. Not solved are the requirements for mass controller drivers and drivers for the harddisks attached to them. Luckily, computer systems (and FreeDOS) support IDE controllers and harddisks out of the box. The only remaining problem is lack of a proper distributable opensource CD-ROM driver. This is being slowly worked on however, in the form of AtapiCDD, by Jeremy Davis, and XCDROM, by Jack R Ellis. 2005-12-07 - Bootsector testing A bootsector is a kind of bootstrap for loading a bigger file. Sometimes it's used for applications directly (Memtest86 for example, or Smart Boot Manager) but for already a few decennia bootsectors are used for loading either the bootloader of an operating system, or the kernel of the operating system. As the FreeDOS kernel is subject to changes, it's not reliable enough to test the bootsector with it. A replacement might be the MetaKern? bootloader we have, as it has a size of only 1.5 kilobytes and does not perform any complex functions. Another advantage of this MetaKern bootloader is that it works under any valid DOS filename, and has no specific load section. The kernel is stored in a specific amount of sectors: kernel_size (in bytes) / sectorsize (bytes). A compressed FreeDOS kernel is about 44KB, or 88 sectors. Sometimes a bootsector can only load a limited amount of sectors. Luckily, Metakern isn't limited by that due to it's very small size. FreeDOS SYS supports creating bootsectors for a various number of other operating systems, as you can read in one of my earliest blogs. Not all desired bootsectors are supported, and also for several operating systems not all filesystems are supported. Stuff like that, operating system bootsectors and handling of partition types, is interesting to test. Another interesting thing to test is if your system can boot from floppydrive and get assigned drive B: instead of A:. The advantage of that would be that drive A: is still available to the common user, who is used to having a drive A: around. Syslinux's Memdisk component supports booting a floppy image as drive B:. However, there are no known bootsectors nor working systems that support it. 2005-12-05 - What does FreeDOS run on actually? FreeDOS is an opensource implementation of DOS. DOS only ever ran on Intel compatible processors with the x86 instruction set, in 16bit real mode with sometimes 32bit extensions provided by DPMI for example. Another requirement is having a legacy BIOS and the (virtual) machine that boots FreeDOS must be in real mode as well (or be able to remove itself from memory entirely when booting DOS). FreeDOS will not run on the following platforms:
FreeDOS will run on the following platforms:
Other systems that may run (but not boot) FreeDOS: 2005-12-05 - Beta9SR2 released It's more obvious that you've read that a new Beta9 distribution has been released, in order to provide interested people with updated programs. Also some tweaking was performed on the installation process. In fact so much tweaking, that it broke diskette installation and the use of our in-development CD-ROM driver. A further consequence is that installation from the internet isn't working yet. I'm aiming for a Christmas release to fix this behaviour so you'll have more flexibility in installing FreeDOS. On a related note, Blair Campbell has created the Enhanced Release, and added updates to the old Beta8 programs to Beta9SR2. This means a full Beta9SR2 distribution is available from http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/old/beta9sr2/fdfullcd.iso (size: 102 MB). Blair's own Enhanced Release based on Beta9SR2 or the upcoming FreeDOS 1.0-preview-1 will be released at an unknown time. 2005-10-30 - Minimal x86 systems The LinuxBIOS project has been working quite a few years on creating an opensource system firmware to replace your proprietary firmware on the system motherboard. No more Phoenix, AMI or Award thus, with their limitations. Interesting things is that they have a compiler which creates lowlevel binary programs that can run on systems lacking system memory. In addition, if a low amount of writable system memory is needed, the processor's cache can be used. This would mean you now only need a power supply, a mainboard (with LinuxBIOS stored in flash) and a coprocessor. A truely embedded FreeDOS running on a 1MB Opteron system? :) 2005-10-23 - Booting FreeLoader from DOS FreeLoader is the bootloader from the ReactOS project. Normally it installs by writing a bootsector. With help of GRUB, we can now act like LOADLIN or the "WIN" command in DOS. Unfortunately there's no "Shutdown ReactOS to DOS-mode." like Win3.1 & Win9x had.
I want to be able to setup ReactOS from the internet using a single FreeDOS bootdisk.
Desired functionality:
2005-10-22 - Missing additional utilities FreeDOS is still missing several utilities that could be useful. I'll try to give a few ideas here.
2005-10-21 - Bootsectors for various FSs and OSs The purpose of the SYS program is to transfer system files and make a drive (diskette or primary harddisk partition) bootable, so you can startup from this drive. Often it's inconvenient to copy these system files, and your only goal is to work with bootsectors. Therefore we have the /BOOTONLY option: Each operating system comes with its own set of bootsectors. However, unlike other SYS programs, a development version (v3.7) of the FreeDOS SYS program supports many more bootsectors, for various operating systems. A few commands are available for working with bootsectors: RESTORBS writes a saved bootsector to drive, I don't know if BPB (Boot Parameter Block, contains partition layout/geometry) is updated/patched when restoring. Note that usually for 32bit operating systems booting from FAT32 filesystem, there's not only a primary bootsector, but also a secondary bootsector.
2005-10-19 - Driver requirement checking Authors of programs that require XMS haven't guaranteed the driver works correct on pre-386 platform. This means driver may crash not only on 8086 (no XMS possible) but also on 80286 platform due to using 80386+ specific code. Unfortunately 8086 and 80286 with cdrom are pretty rare. Drivers that need to be tested:
Ramdisks will probably work anyway. For above mentioned drivers, it's annoying that in scripts you not only have to check for XMS (and if there's enough still free) but also the CPU that we currently run on. 2005-10-16 - FreeDOS uninstallation Should you decide to remove FreeDOS, then this is possible. Either from FreeDOS itself, or with help of another operating system or bootable medium. The simple part is removing *only* most of the files that make up your FreeDOS distribution. The difficult part is getting rid of bootup configuration, as your previous operating system has to be enabled again. Finally, the uninstallation script and any programs and files used by it need to be removed from disk, so FreeDOS will not leave a trace.
SYS looks at kernel filenames in root of the drive, in a certain order. For removing FreeDOS files, the DELTREE program can be used: DELTREE /Y C:\FDOS A remaining issue now is how to remove the deltree program, and the uninstall script, and the command interpreter (command.com). Two possible ways:
2005-10-16 - Multi boot considerations Unlike the classic DOS and Windows 9x releases, the FreeDOS project cannot afford to force itself as the main operating for a computer system if other operating systems are already present on disk. Requirements for booting FreeDOS thus are:
Making a disk or partition bootable is done by installing a 512bytes bootstrap program called a bootsector. As with all DOS flavours, this is done by SYS, a program co-developed with the FreeDOS kernel. The command for transferring system files and makeing the disk bootable is SYS C:. If you don't want to copy system files but only want to fill the bootsector area of your disk with a FreeDOS bootsector, use SYS C: C: /BOOTONLY instead. Adding FreeDOS to the NT/2000/XP/2003 bootloader is done by referring to the FreeDOS bootsector. The multibootloader requires to store the bootloader as a 512byte file with any random name, as long as it confirms to 8.3 name giving syntaxis. The distribution does this for you, and stores the bootsector as C:\freedos.bss. The additional line for the bootloader is (syntax: drive:\path\filename.ext=description): For operating systems without multiboot loader, FreeDOS will have to add its own bootloader. A normal DOS bootsector can load the bootloader file, which in turn loads the bootsector of the operating system you want to start. Only one bootsector can be present in the disk's bootsector area, which means the chainloaded bootsectors need to be stored on disk. For our multiboot loader, called MetaKern, the bootsectors (maximum 4) need to be appended after the initial loader. In total, this forms a single bootloader kernel on disk, usually named C:\METAKERN.SYS. To append a bootsector, first store it as a file on disk. This can be done in two ways (demonstrated for MS DOS v6.22):
Now you have the bootsector for your other operating system. As you also want to boot FreeDOS, create a bootsectorfile for it (SYS C: C: C:\FREEDOS.BSS /BOOTONLY).
Append (copy in binary mode) both bootsectorfiles to the kernel loader and name it metakern.sys: Note 1: disk layout information is hardcoded inside bootsector files. If you resize disks or partitions (change disk geometry), the information will be outdated and invalid, which means your chainloaded operating system(s) will not startup. Note 2: if using a FreeDOS bootsector to load MetaKern, and if MetaKern is named METAKERN.SYS, only then a special bootsector called Metaboot can be chainloaded for starting FreeDOS. This bootsector remedies the problem mentioned in note 1. 2005-10-15 - Preparing for next FreeDOS release The WIKI allows me to work on documentation without requiring me to upload files all the time. Docs can be found here: Beta9SR2readme 2005-10-15 - Memtest+ blues Memtest+ is a standalone program for computers with an IA32 processor (32 bit, so 80386 or newer). Its purpose is to verify the correct working of your random access memory (RAM). As it serves as a tool that can help reduce troubleshooting (if mt86 shows no errors, we can exclude memory errors being the cause of a problem) I've decided to incorporate it into the cdrom and 1.44MB bootdiskette. You may get version 1.65 or newer from http://www.memtest.org(approve sites) . As the diskette has limited disk space, I've used a few tricks to store the program in compressed form on disk. If you want a commandline Memtest86 (warning: boot clean, program cannot handle the presence of XMS drivers), get the 'usb-flavour' exe-file and compress it using UPX(approve sites). If you want the program to be loaded from Syslinux or Isolinux, just store the program as a kernel into a diskette image. Then let the initial bootloader execute this disk image as a ramdisk that emulates a bootable diskette. Syslinux's MEMDISK program will do fine. Note that it can load compressed (zip, gzip) disk images. That's our advantage. Steps:
That should do it. You now have a 40KB memtest file instead of a 95KB. I don't know if imagefile decompression works on a 386 system with just 1024KB of RAM. 2005-10-14 - Testing 1.. 2.. 3.. !
2005-10-09 - Batchfile spaghetti code Blair suggested to post the FDAUTO.BAT file to this Wiki in annotated form. See BootBatchnotes 2005-10-09 - The heart of any recent FreeDOS distribution As mentioned a few days ago, I'm working on completing the 360KB FDBOOT.IMG diskette image file. Althoug 1.44MB diskette size is normal now, for both diskette emulation and physical diskettes, we still have to consider systems that might be limited in which floppydrives they can control, and systems with a tight amount of memory. As the disk image can be loaded in RAM by either the SHRDRV86? or MEMDISK programs, and (5.25") diskettes have a minimum capacity of 360KB, I've decided to use this minimal size for the imagefile. For cdrom, all that's needed for the imagefile part is to load a cdromdriver and the cdrom extensions (SHSUCDX) before being able to access the large part of the cdrom which contains the actual distribution data: the packages required for installing FreeDOS to a partition with the FAT filesystem on it. For non-cdrom, all diskettes except the first one should be data diskettes containing packages. For 360KB distribution this means about 20 diskettes. This requirement implies that the first disk is the system startup diskette ("bootdisk"). It also means that this first diskette should contain all programs and logic for creating a layout on harddisk (partitioning) and preparing the harddisk to contain FreeDOS (Format). Not strictly material for the primary disk, but nice to have, is the ability to make the harddisk bootable and to allow FreeDOS to be an operating system choice in a bootloader if multiple operating systems are present after installing the FreeDOS distribution. For maintenance and efficiency reasons, I want to unite these 2 different bootdisks (1 for cdrom, 1 for diskette) into a single imagefile. For these same maintanance reasons, files are removed as much as possible from the special 1.44MB disk, as all needed files can be accessed once the imagefile has been mounted by the installation process. Luckily this is almost done, after which testing will start. Remember me to perform diskette installations, I hate doing those! in short, I've done the same thing to cdrom as yesterday to diskette: access contents in an image. You can now store a FREEDOS.ISO or FDBOOTCD.ISO file on cdrom, in specific directories (root, \DATA , \DATA\FREEDOS) and the installer batchfile will find it. Putting an ISO file on cdrom should make installing FreeDOS more friendly to new users, as the difference between burning an ISO image and putting the image on a blank cdrom is no longer important. Additionally, it will allow you to keep a clean Multiboot cdrom. Only problematic thing is your bootdisk will now need SHSUCDX and SHSUCDHD (or SHSUCDRD) to mount the imagefile. 2005-10-05 - Installation bootdisk plans I'm using a generic 360KB imagefile as the core for installing FreeDOS. On cdrom, the imagefile is loaded into RAM before accessing it. Compared to diskette emulation, this has the advantage of smaller sizes possible (El Torito diskette emulation is 720KB up to 2880KB), reading from RAM instead of from cdrom, and not being limited to a read-only diskette (as direct diskette emulation has, for example the Win98 bootdisk) On non-1.44MB diskettes, the contents of the imagefile is extracted to disk. On 1.44MB diskette, there's enough diskspace to also add a copy of the FDBOOT.IMG, and let a FAT12 (and FAT16) bootloader called SYSLINUX load the imagefile into RAM. After booting the image, you're able to access the remaining contents. I'm planing on removing as many duplicate programs from the 1.44MB diskette. Currently everything is not only inside the imagefile, but also extracted on disk. Jason Hood's diskette mounting commandline driver should eliminate the need for extracted contents, except for config.sys drivers ofcourse
2005-10-03 - FreeDOS as a replacement? FreeDOS is a collection of programs which aims to replace the no longer supported nor sold MS-DOS, which is hardly in use anymore now the world has turned to 32bit graphical operating system distributions. Unlike most other DOS flavours, FreeDOS has no closed source programs. Not everything is released under GPL though, some programs use a different license. There's no software with the "Free for non-commercial use" limitation. Question remains, what the term "replace" actually means. Does that include a default graphical user interface? Many desktop environments exist nowadays. More problems we face when comparing with MS-DOS programs:
Should the program be able to act as a drop-in replacement on MSDOS? If that's done right, components can be exchanged one by one without any troubles. Additional recommended requirements for FreeDOS:
Also, we cannot show the same behaviour as classic commercial Disk Operating System distributions had: neglect all other installed operating systems. This means a FreeDOS distribution will have to be able to:
2005-10-02 - Random noise..ehm..notes This blog was intentionally created to store some information for myself here goes nothing, at your own risk: BBnotes 2005-10-02 - Distributions Currently there are quite some distributions, each with their own purpose. The ones that I work on are:
2005-10-02 - Missing programs What use is an operating system without useful (in whichever way) programs for the user? Dave's site(approve sites) contains a lot of usefull programs. However, some system applications are still missing. These missing programs may have platform requirements (80386+ for example, or 8MB of memory, or 20MB harddisk space) but should safely abort if something does not meet one or more requirements. Now what's missing:
If you are able to compile these, especially latest WGET (DOS port is ancient by now), please let me know the downloadlink. 2005-10-02 - Announcing ODIN 0.7 Work-In-Progress series Geraldo Netto has updated ODIN, a collection of essential FreeDOS programs that fits on a single diskette (that's why it's the acronym of One Disk INstaller?). I've added a few configuration files, batch scripts etc. Get ODIN in different diskette sizes from: http://odin.fdos.org/odin2005/
* Note #1: outdated already (EMM386? v2.06 missing as well as UDMA2 2.6) 2005-10-02 - Who's putting this chitchat on this page? My name is Bernd Blaauw. Enter my name in Google or Google Groups, and find many things that I don't want to remember :) I'm currently 24 years old, almost 25, and live in the Netherlands, in a city called Eindhoven. movies, browsing the internet, abusing FreeDOS programs and my study Business Administration (first year currently) keep me busy during the week. The weekend is occupied by visiting my parents and professionally washing the dishes in a semi-government institution for people who are not 100% mentally OK. Then again, show me a person who is 100% sane and I will cure him for you.. :) My parents purchased a 386SX-25 with the huge amount of 1MB RAM back in 1993. Windows 3.1 changed that to 4MB, games caused the purchase of a SB16? Value and a Wearnes 2speed cdromdrive with some strange nonstandard interface card. Messing with UMBs? and DOS 5 kept me busy, as well as a nice game called Scorched Earth. Currently I'm stuck with a nice dual Opteron system with barely enough expensive RAM (1024MB) to run VMware and World of Warcraft, on Windows2000. FreeDOS.org and Dutch computersite Tweakers.Net keep me occupied, as well as reading the LinuxBIOS mailinglists. Opensource x86 system firmware has many possibilities for specific tweaking, just as an opensource operating system, which brings us back to FreeDOS and a Win32 environment called ReactOS, as well as a general purpose bootloader family called SYSLINUX. You probably noticed by now that like so many other people I spend a lot of time near my computer. Blame my mother in law for not being able to have any children! :) My music taste is rather conservative as I listen to pop/rock music and only collect the works of Queen, Enigma and Supertramp, as well as specific impressive albums like Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and Jeff Wayne's musical version of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds". Strangely enough, my favourite piece of music isn't a Queen song (I like The Show Must Go On best from them) but a powerful Nazareth cover of a classing song: "Love Hurts". Besides these two powerful songs, I like Europe's "The Final Countdown" very much. For getting me in a good mood any time of the day, put on Roxette's song "Joyride" or Madonna's "La Isla Bonita"! Somewhere in 2001 (kernel 2024h was just released at that moment) or so I read about FreeDOS. I noticed how it lacked any installation scripts and wrote a few simple ones. Over the years, these scripts have become quite complex, so much that hardly any people undertake any effort to understand it. When Jeremy Davis no longer had the spare time to be distribution maintainer, I offered my help. However, Jeremy is an excellent documentation writer, and a professional programmer. I'm neither. What do I contribute to FreeDOS?
If anyone wants to attempt to write me, you can contact me at my (Google) Gmail.com address (bblaauw @ gmail) or the FreeDOS mailinglists. I have never ever used IRC, I neglected newsgroups and always forget to login my instant messenger. My HTML skills are way too low to even attempt to create a homepage. This blog will have to do. 2005-10-02 - How does a weblog work anyway? I've created a weblog section, as all the scattered local documentation I have on 2 computers is a mess, often never looked at anymore. |
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