To get information about installing older versions
of FreeDOS, go to FdDocEn.FdInstallBeta9 :-)...

!!![=FreeDOS install How-to=]

#[[#what| What to Get]]
#[[#bugs | Known bugs]]
#[[#install| To Install]]
##[[#pc| Installing on a PC]]
##[[#dosemu| Installing on Linux DOSEmu]]
##[[#os2| Installing on OS/2]]
##[[#macbochs| Installing on MacBochs]]
#[[#after| After You Install]]
->[[#gnufdl |Gnu Free Documentation License]]

----

!![[#what]] What to Get

The FreeDOS distributions are available in several variants on:

http://www.freedos.org/freedos/files/

* fdbasecd lets you install FreeDOS on harddisk. The functionality is
similar to what you know from MS DOS.
* fdbasews contains everything from fdbasecd, plus all source code, plus
a pre-installed FreeDOS which you can run directly from CDROM. The whole
cdrom is still smaller than 50 MB.

* fdfullcd adds many extra programs like compilers and more utilities.
If you only want some of the extra programs, you can start with the
base distro and download packages separately from the download area.
* fdfullws also includes the source codes of all the extra programs.
It is better to download only the sources which you are interested in,
to avoid the big download of fdfullws. Even heavy DOS users should be
happy with the normal fdfullcd which is about 150 MB.

If your computer cannot boot from cdrom, or if the boot loader on
the FreeDOS cdrom does not support your BIOS, then you will have
to boot from an existing DOS or from diskette. We provide a special
boot diskette which will automatically detect the FreeDOS cdrom
and then change to that drive and start the installer. You can
download the diskette from the same place as the ISO images. To
create a diskette from the image, use FreeDOS DISKCOPY (which you
can also download separately, for example from
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.0/pkgs/dskcopyx.zip
...) or the RAWRITE tool or a suitable tool for any operating
system you already have. For example in Linux, you can use
dd if=theimagefile of=/dev/fd0 to copy a diskette image to a
formatted diskette in fd0 (DOS would call that the a: drive).

You can also boot the install cdrom on a computer which does
support booting from that cdrom, and select the "create boot
diskette" menu item in the install cdrom menu.

With the special boot diskette, you can even install on a PC
which does not have a cdrom drive: Just copy the ISO image
file (cdrom image) to a file called c:fdbootcd.iso and the
installer boot diskette will "mount" that file. In other words,
it will create a virtual cdrom in a virtual cdrom drive from it.

!![[#bugs]] Known Bugs

FreeDOS 1.0 has a few known bugs which are too small to
upload updated ISO images yet. However, those bugs can be
quite annoying if you do not know how to fix them yourself,
so here is a list of bugs and bug fixes.

Note that FreeDOS can use c:\fdconfig.sys and
c:\yourfreedosdirectory\fdauto.bat instead of
c:\config.sys and c:\autoexec.bat - this is meant
to make it easier to install FreeDOS and other DOS
versions on the same C:, letting each of the two
have a separate configuration. FreeDOS will look
for fdconfig.sys first and will only use config.sys
if fdconfig.sys is not present! The SHELL line in
your config file is where alternative batch files
instead of autoexec.bat can be linked.

* (fd)config.sys contains a [="SET lang=DE "=] line if you
install German FreeDOS. Note that there is a space after
the DE and before the end of the line. This space confuses
the translation library of many tools, so they will use
the English default messages instead. Use EDIT to edit your
config.sys and remove the space. Note that many tools simply
do not support translated messages yet. Let us know which
tools we should translate next.

* the HELP command only supports English language yet. If
you want to use HELP but also want to use translated tools,
write a MYHELP.BAT as follows and type MYHELP instead of HELP
to get English help while keeping the rest of the system in
your other language.

[=
set MAINLANG=%LANG%
set LANG=EN
HELP %1 %2 %3 %4 %5
set LANG=%MAINLANG%
set MAINLANG=
=]

* the "load without drivers" option 4 is not available because
no config.sys line uses it. However, autoexec.bat uses it. To
solve this, add the following line to config.sys:
[=4?ECHO No drivers loaded=]

* it is hard to load the DISPLAY driver into upper memory at
the moment. If you comment out the DISPLAY line (put "REM" in
front of the line) in autoexec.bat, you will no longer be able
to display country specific symbols like the EURO sign on the
screen, but FreeDOS will continue to work as usual in all other
aspects. MODE CON CODEPAGE commands will show error messages
because they only have an effect when DISPLAY is loaded. You
can make DISPLAY the first driver to be loaded but if you do
not have at least 64 kB of UMB space during init of DISPLAY,
it will load low and consume some of your 640 kB low RAM.

* if you do not need long file names, comment out the DOSLFN
line. This will also save DOS memory.

* you (more or less) only need SHARE when you run Windows 3,
so you can save again some DOS memory by omitting SHARE. It
should be possible to get 620 kB DOS memory free now :-).

* Windows 3.0 and 3.1 must be run in STANDARD mode (type
[=WIN /S=], and SHARE must be loaded. Otherwise Windows will
crash as soon as you open a DOS box or DOS program in it.

* If you have more than 256 MB RAM, you have to add a line
[=PageOverCommit=1=] to your [=[386Enh]=] section in the system.ini
of your Windows. If you have even more than 1 GB RAM, you
will have to use the HIMEM "MAX" option to limit the amount
of RAM visible to DOS to something which Windows can handle.

* For the 386 Enhanced Mode of Windows 3.x, including the
special Windows for Workgroups 3.11 version, you will have
to use the special experimental "2037 unstable" kernel and
you must not load EMM386.

* If you are experiencing frequent crashes, try to boot
without EMM386. It can easily happen that EMM386 tries to
give you UMB space at a location which is already in use
by something like SCSI, SATA, USB, PCMCIA or a network card.
Those are often not detectable with the standard "X=TEST"
option to exclude invalid UMB space. In this case, you have
to disable EMM386, find out which areas can be used for UMB,
and add suitable X=from-to or I=from-to range options to the
EMM386 lines in your config.sys; Note that the NOEMS option
gives you 64 kB extra UMB space but disables EMS 3.2 support,
so only EMS 4.0 compatible programs will be able to use EMS.
See the "EMM386 /?" output for more information.


!![[#install]] To Install

!![[#pc]] Installing on a PC

Boot from an existing DOS, from one of the cdroms, or from
the special boot diskette. In the latter two cases, simply
follow the menus to install DOS. In the former case, you
will first have to make sure that the cdrom can be accessed.
You can also use the ISO images directly instead of using a
real cdrom. See above for details.

If your computer has no partitions with FAT filesystem yet,
you will have to create one before you can install DOS. For
example GPARTED which is included with many Linux distros
and many Linux versions which can be run directly from CD or
DVD (no installation of Linux on harddisk needed) can resize
your existing NTFS Windows partitions to make space for DOS
without having to reinstall Windows. FreeDOS will need one
FAT type partition: This can be FAT12, FAT16 or FAT32, but
FAT16 is clearly the recommended choice: FAT12 is too small
and FAT32 is hard to boot from. You can use Windows or Linux
to create and/or format the partition, if needed. Of course
you can also use the FreeDOS install cdrom for that, but as
this cdrom does not allow you to resize existing partitions,
you should better use other tools. If you already do have a
FAT partition, you can skip all the partition / format steps.

Most of the install process is guided by a menu system and
should be self explanatory. The default source and target
directories should be used. Note that DOS calls the first
DOS compatible partition C: - this may not be the same as
the first Windows partition, in particular with Windows XP
or NT or 2000. When you booted from the install cdrom, the
DOS A: drive will be a virtual boot diskette, and your
actual diskette drive will be called B:. As soon as you
boot from harddisk or diskette again, the virtual boot
diskette will not be there any more, and your real diskette
drive will be called A: again. If you install to a C: drive
which already has another DOS or Windows 95/98 on it, the
installer will often be able to automatically install a boot
menu and keep FreeDOS configuration separate from the config
and autoexec of the other DOS or Windows.

To be able to boot the installed FreeDOS from harddisk later,
your DOS partition must either be the active / bootable one
among your primary partitions or you will have to add a DOS
menu item to your boot menu. For example Windows NT/2000/XP
already includes a boot menu, as does Linux. In Windows, you
have to edit boot.ini to create menu items. In Linux, you
edit /etc/lilo.conf if you use LiLo or the menu.lst if you
use GRUB. In the latter case, you will add something like:

[=
title DOS
# 0,3 is the GRUB way of saying /dev/hda4
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
# optionally do: makeactive (flag partition as bootable)
# select the boot sector of that partition
chainloader +1
# this is implicit in non-interactive mode:
boot
=]


!![[#dosemu]] Installing on Linux DOSEmu

This section needs your input... The general idea:

DOSEmu can boot from any real or virtual (diskimage)
diskette drive when you do "xdosemu -A". It can boot
from a virtual harddisk with "xdosemu -C". The latter
can be either a special diskimage or simply a Linux
directory. Put the ISO file into the Linux directory
which simulates C: in your DOSEmu configuration, and
boot DOSEmu with our special boot diskette, possibly
just the diskimage of it. Then you can follow the
normal install process to install FreeDOS on the
simulated C: drive of DOSEmu. No partitioning nor
formatting will be required, but you will have to
convince the installer that the non-FAT C: drive is
actually a working install target in some way. You
can alternatively create a DOSEmu diskimage drive
D: and install to that drive. Then you can swap the
drive letters in the DOSEmu configuration at the
appropriate time.

!![[#os2]] Installing on OS/2

This section might be outdated, but the
general outline is still the same: You can
install to anywhere by simply unzipping all
zip files of the distro into a directory and
using ZIP. Some parts are already up to date
for FreeDOS 1.0, while others might not be.

Marty Peritsky (k3pbu @ arrl.net) writes:

OS/2 has the ability to run FreeDOS in a Virtual DOS Machine (VDM), which
can be started from either a diskette or a diskette-image file. Before
beginning the FreeDOS installation, you may want to review the OS/2 VDM
documentation by doing the following: Double-click on the Information icon
on your desktop; double-click on the Application Considerations icon; click
on the + to expand the Application Compatibility topic; click on the + to
expand the DOS Application Compatibility topic; read the sections entitled
Running a Specific Version of DOS and Creating a DOS Image from a Startup
Diskette.

To begin the installation process, start an OS/2 Command Prompt session.
Create a directory called FDXFER, and move your .ZIP, files to it. Use your
UNZIP program on those files. You can use the DISKCOPY program which is in
one of
the ZIP files to copy the special boot diskette image to a real diskette:
DISKCOPY filename A: will do that, even in OS/2.

When the DISKCOPY operation is complete, enter the following commands:

 COPY C:/OS2/MDOS/FSFILTER.SYS A:
 COPY C:/OS2/MDOS/FSACCESS.EXE A:

Next, start the OS/2 System Editor, and add the following line to the top of
the A:CONFIG.SYS file:

 DEVICE=FSFILTER.SYS

Save the file, and exit the editor. On your desktop, double-click on the
OS/2 System icon; double-click on the Command Prompts icon; double-click on
the DOS from Drive A icon. A full-screen DOS session will start, booting
from the A: FreeDOS diskette.

The following steps are optional, and will allow you to start FreeDOS from a
diskette image.

To make the diskette image, open an OS/2 Command Prompt session, insert the
FreeDOS boot diskette in drive A: and enter:

 VMDISK A: C:FREEDOS.IMG

The VMDISK program will display a message, warning that the diskette may not
be bootable. Ignore the message and proceed. Next, copy the DOS Full Screen
object in your OS/2 Command Prompts folder to the desktop. In the desktop
object you just created, open the DOS_Settings on the Session page, and type
the full name and path of your boot image file (C:FREEDOS.IMG) under the
Startup_Drive option. When you click on this icon, it will boot a FreeDOS
session from the image file, which emulates the floppy drive.

If you need to access your physical A: drive after the image session has
been started, run the FSACCESS.EXE program which exists on your image file
and in the C:/OS2/MDOS directory. The command syntax is:

 FSACCESS A:

Congratulations again! The optional part of the installation procedure is
now complete.

!![[#macbochs]] Installing on MacBochs

This section might be outdated. Please let us know if it has to be updated.

David Batterham (drbatter @ socs.uts.edu.au) wrote the MacBochs Easy Install
document, at http://members.xoom.com/macbochs/easy-install.html)

This simple install procedure will give you the MacBochs x86 PC emulator
plus a pre-installed copy of FreeDOS, a completely free DOS-like operating
system.

----
[[#gnufdl]]GNU Free Documentation License

Copyright (c) 2001-2006 Jim Hall, Eric Auer

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify  
this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation 
License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the 
Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with 
no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy 
of the license is included in the section entitled GNU 
Free Documentation License.

