On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 1:21 AM, Eric Auer <e.a...@jpberlin.de> wrote:
>
> Hi Robbie / Decheng,
>
> > don't know what's the standard (or recommended) development environment
> > to develop applications in FreeDOS. Would you please let me know?
>
> That depends on what sorts of applications you want to write.
> OpenWatcom is certainly a nice choice for C / C++, as ist NASM
> for Assembly language. You can also use JWASM which has more of
> the MASM look and feel. If you like GNU C (GCC / G++) then you
> should have a look at DJGPP which is GNU C / C++ for DOS with a
> complete C library which makes the whole DOS feel a lot like a
> "normal GNU / POSIX OS" such as Linux compared to classics like
> Borland C which have a lot of DOS in their DOS environment :-)
>
> I do know that DJGPP also has some common(?) IDEs and that some
> bigger editors also try to be universal IDEs, but I cannot say
> what the typical preferred IDE for OpenWatcom is at the moment.
>
> > I've checked out the subversion repository of FreeDOS...
>
> This only shows you the kernel and the command.com and some
> small tools like SYS and MEM. In a way, the SVN of FreeDOS
> is more like a kernel.org repository. You probably want to
> look at the gnu.org repository equivalent of all those user
> land tools which make FreeDOS a complete operating system.
>
> Because FreeDOS does not have such a central repository, a
> lot like in Linux land where most of the software also has
> individual pages instead of being bundled on gnu.org, you
> would not do this using SVN. Instead, you can check the DOS
> software list on www.freedos.org/software/ and visit those
> pages that are interesting for you. Also, FreeDOS maintains
> a big collection of zipped up tools and their sources on
> ibiblio. It is just that those are not the place where the
> tools are developed, FreeDOS just stores and mirrors them.
>
> > freecom - from the trunk directory it seems it contains the FreeCom
> shell,
> > kernel - from trunk directory it seems it contains the kernel source
> code,
> > mem - from the trunk directory it seems it contains mem.exe source code?
>
> Exactly.
>
> > BTW, my point of interest is in the kernel part and also utility
> > applications. As I've always been developing user-mode applications since
> > I've learned programming 15 years ago, to develop the kernel it would
> take
> > some time for me to start. To learn about the kernel, I'd also like to
> know
> > how to compile the kernel, e.g. which compiler is the standard or...
>
> The kernel is on one hand a bit like a C library - it provides a
> number of utility functions for DOS apps and those functions are
> written just in C as any other library would be... On the other
> hand, like all kernels, parts of the FreeDOS kernel have to deal
> with evil and obscure low level management of hardware, RAM etc.
> Lucklily the BIOS is called for some of this and even much of the
> low level stuff is written in easier to understand C. Still the
> kernel (as FreeCOM, for other reasons) has different memory layout
> and management than you might be used to from user applications.
>
> To compile the kernel, you use OpenWatcom C, NASM Assembler and
> FreeCOM and UPX as shell in DOS and for compression. Because all
> tools exist for Linux, cross-compiling is also supported. Then
> you do not need FreeCOM, of course.
>
> > do you have any suggestions on how to test/debug the kernel?
>
> Depends on how badly you want to break it ;-) You can test many
> things in DOSEMU which runs on your real CPU but simulates most
> other hardware in Linux. It also has a built-in debugger which
> runs in another window. More low level is using Bochs or other
> complete virtual PC systems. For example Bochs also has a nice
> built-in debugger. However, I would only go THAT virtual when I
> want to play with a very lowlevel kernel feature or driver such
> as a clone of EMM386. For all smaller kernel activities, you can
> even just boot the kernel on real hardware and add some debugger
> messages here and there or use good old DEBUG to inspect, maybe
> edit, memory contents. In the normal worst case, you just have
> to press reset to boot a fresh DOS in a few seconds. There is a
> number of boot menus (eg metaboot is a simple one) which let you
> pick one of multiple kernels at boot, so you can combine stable
> and experimental kernels on one drive. Of course the "extreme"
> worst case can, as with any kernel, mess up your disk contents,
> or in theory even damage hardware, but as said, there is Bochs.
>
> > A short introduction of myself: I graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong
> > University computer science as a bachelor in 2004, and got a master of
> > engineering degree from SJTU in 2009 (in computer technology). I've
> worked
> > on C/C++ programming on the Windows platform, C#/ASP.NET/Windows Forms,
> also
> > some C++/CLI; I've self-studied MS-DOS, QBASIC, JavaScript/CSS/HTML. I've
>
> You have a lot of MS experience then... Honestly, I never found MSVC
> very debugging-friendly... As for QBASIC, the Freebasic compiler has
> a command line option to be more friendly to QBASIC style syntax :-)
>
> As with Java, I do not expect very interesting DOS ports of C# for
> DOS to exist. On the other hand, there are decent Perls for DOS...
>
> A lot of your experience also revolves around web and server tools
> and languages. Web servers are not a typical application in DOS, as
> it is not multitasked. Also, DOS web servers rarely support common
> scripting languages such as Perl, Python or ASP. Of course you can
> use JavaScript or CSS in your HTML with a DOS server, but BROWSERS
> for DOS will often ignore them and just look at the plain HTML. You
> might be interested to play with projects which work to change that.
>
> > played with Linux for half a year so got basic knowledge of it. Among the
> > computer science knowledge, I did well at data structure/common
> algorithms,
> > assembly programming in 8086/80386 (user mode). I want to advance my
> skills
> > in operating systems so I'd like to learn about FreeDOS first, while also
> do
> > some contribution as long as I can.
>
> I think you will enjoy DOS then. It gives you flexibility to write
> user mode apps (with some limitations compared to bigger OS) while
> giving you the chance to create small software which has a direct
> feeling with the hardware because the OS layer is less heavy there
> which in turn makes it interesting to look at and work with the DOS
> kernel itself: The kernel has manageable complexity and mortals can
> actually understand the whole kernel while in Linux it will be hard
> to find an expert who even understands the whole disk subsystem ;-)
>
> > Thanks and best regards,
> >
> > Robbie (Decheng) Fan (aka R.Mosaic)
>
> Thanks! Regards, Eric
>
>
>
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Hello Eric,
I've successfully compiled the kernel from Windows, using newest releases of
the tools: Open Watcom C/C++ 1.9 for Windows NT (The DR-DOS Club Wiki page
provided by dos386 told me that 1.7 is enough), Nasm 2.09 for Windows (Web
page told me that 2.0 is enough), UPX 3.07 for Windows. I understand that
all the tools support DOS as a target, so I can use them to cross-build. I
then used sys.com to transfer the system to a floppy disk (I'm using Virtual
PC so it's a virtual floppy disk), and booted from it with FreeCOM, and it
works.
I've also compiled FreeCOM, but there seems to be some warning messages,
although I still get the final COMMAND.COM <http://command.com/> file. The
warning messages read like following:
C:\WATCOM\BINNT\wcc -zq kswap.c -bt=dos @watcomc.cfg
kswap.c(160): Warning! W102: Type mismatch (warning)
kswap.c(160): Note! N2003: source conversion type is 'struct __iobuf *'
kswap.c(160): Note! N2004: target conversion type is 'unsigned int '
...
C:\Nasm209\nasm.exe -f bin -o vspawn.com vspawn.asm
vspawn.asm:342: warning: label alone on a line without a colon might be in
error
vspawn.asm:388: warning: label alone on a line without a colon might be in
error
After compiling the kernel, I got KWC8616.sys as the kernel.sys file. Does
this file name mean a kernel that runs on 8086, which supports FAT12/FAT16
(and because 80286/80386 is backwards compatible with 8086, so this kernel
also runs on them?)
If I want to debug the kernel, say, the boot process, I guess I need to use
bochs for that purpose?
And for device drivers is DOSEMU better for that purpose?
My next step would be to understand the boot process as a whole.
Thanks and best regards,
Robbie (Decheng) Fan
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