Eric Auer schrieb: > Hi! Hi! :)
> I just checked, both Virtualbox and VMware need kernel > drivers to install, which is a pain to maintain and to > keep up to date... I can understand this... That's the reason why linux is only my very secondary operating system, most software I like is not available or the setup is complicated. Installing those software on linux is really a mess, but you are right, perhaps someone else installed it. > To be more exact, I remember that my > last attempts ended up by having half of Virtualbox and > half of VMware. In the end I installed VMware on some- > bodies Windows box which was messed up already anyways. Well, on Windows XP both installers work for me out of the box. These software packages are not optimal in my opinion (no portable version such as for Bochs or Qemu, but at least them work). > So... Bochs or Dosemu would be much easier for me... Dosemu is not possible in this case. Bochs is VERY slow for installing Windows but I used Qemu to do that (only medium slow) and now I have also a big Bochs image... > BUT I am sure that several others on the mailing list > do have Virtualbox or VMware and will be happy to use > your VMDK to reproduce the problem :-). That would be great. 13 MB uncompressed VMware image: http://www.badongo.com/file/12699341 - Password: 1 - choose grub4dos in bootmenu - boot either freedos or the virtual image, both will hang at initdisk in VMware and in VirtualBox > In the meantime, can you give a description of this > 14 MB VMDK / 3 MB RAR? > How big is the virtual disk, 8 GB. > which geometry does it have, The following is what VMware BIOS shows... Cylinders: 16383 Heads: 15 Sectors: 63 Maximum Capacity: 7927 MB LBA Format Total Sectors: 16777216 Maximum Capacity: 8590 MB Mutli-Sector Transfers: 16 Sectors LBA Mode Control: Enabled 32 Bit I/O: Disabled Transfer Mode: FPIO 4 / DMA 2 Ultra DMA Mode: Mode 2 > which partition scheme > and which partition types does it use? 1 primary partition, FAT 32, active. > Does it boot? Yes. > By the way, I did not CC freedos-kernel because I > had the impression that your original mail did not > reach freedos-kernel either (as you say you were > not on the list, which means you cannot post...). It was on devel list but nvm for me which list I shall use. > Now that you say that you did see your mail reach > freedos-kernel, you can forward my reply there: If > you think it is still "up to date" enough, that is. > >>> With which of the described debug flags active? > >> Well, all debug flags? > > That would be too much for one kernel if you ask me. > By the way, the 8086 question means "8086 necessary > or will 386 be okay, too?" 386 kernels are smaller. 386 is ok... >>> Is it possible to use smaller? > >> Not that I know of. > > The error only happens with harddisks of at least 6 GB? It happens if a non-standard MBR is used. The creation of the non-standard MBR needs Windows and Windows needs at least 6 GB (or so) to install. >> Nothing wrong with [IMG...] A disadvantage is, if you >> create a 8 GB big file which is mostly empty then you >> can not shrink that file if it was filled at some point. > > Dunno, modern OS usually support "sparse" files... > > According to the docs, Bochs supports the following image styles: Yes, growing, but not shrinking... > Sharvil Nanavati has added vmware3/4 disk image support into Bochs for Net > Integration Technologies, Inc. You should be able to use disk images created > by vmware version 3 and 4. > See above - I hope vmware 3 is an option here, and > if not, And the VMware format support is broken (confirmed bug) - I am waiting for fix and new release. >> If you look closer at VMware you see it's extremity good, >> them are the market leader. > > They are good in things like running VMs on multiple > servers, migrating them to another server if you have > to do hardware maintenance etc. And they are fast in > running "two" operating systems: The WinNT family and > the Linux family. They are not overly smooth for DOS. > I know people who run a bunch of NTish and Linuxish > servers in VMware on a small bunch of actual servers. Yes, and fancy gui features... You can mount virtual disks just with the gui. The DOS support is indeed limited when it comes to graphics and sound, but it's still useful. >> I don't know a way to create an .img (Bochs compatible) raw image You truncated my sentence to fast, it's possible but to big. :) > You could use "dd" to dump the image into a file outside > the image with dd running in a Linux or Windows in the VM > but you are probably right that all the sparse 7.9 GB are > a pain to copy then ;-) Maybe VMWARE 3 files are the answer > as Bochs seems to support those? :-) > I suggest you check that VMWARE 3 format first ;-) Like said above the VMware format support in Bochs is broken. >> Starting situation: I have a 8 GB big harddisk, only ~5 MB >> are used, rest is free. If you know how to convert the whole >> disk including MBR/bootloader into an .img with the size like >> ~5-20 MB then I will do it. > > By definition, you cannot: IMG is flat, so the file will be > 8 GB. But it would use only 5 MB of actual disk space when > made with the "right" tools. Next problem would be to zip > and unzip that without using 8 GB actual space afterwards. Yes, I did try to shred (zero out) all deleted space in order to get better compression results but it's still not much smaller. > Oh and > maybe you can tell me HOW to make a disk which triggers the > problem, then I could make one myself instead of downloading. Done that already. :) http://www.mail-archive.com/freedos-u...@lists.sourceforge.net/msg07186.html > Depending on which tools I would need, of course. I hope you have a virtualizer (free), XP (now nearly free), TrueCrypt (free), grub4dos (free). > But even > if I cannot make such a disk, it would still be interesting > to know what you are doing over there - maybe it can give > me some ideas what is going wrong with DOS already :-). Yeah. :) >> I tested with FAT32 and in this case it's the only >> useful filesystem. > > Why that? To install XP you need at least 6 GB (or so). NTFS is not compatible with DOS (as bootup) and FAT 16 with 2 GB is to small. So FAT 32 is the only choice. > Note that FAT32 must be at least ca 33 MB, > but maybe something else in your experiment requires > using a disk of 8 GB size. Yes. > Note that 8 GB is exactly > the limit of what CHS can reach, so maybe your DOS > problem is related to some CHS/LBA access mode bug? Hopefully not, but I doubt it anyway. Please see the old thread, there you see what I've done. >> Well, the original thread was '[Freedos-user] computer restarting >> without error message', in first post I described how to do so in >> detail. It stopped with no results and I think we will get the same >> result if we discuss it again. > > Hmmm which date (from / to) was that? I think I can > then find the thread in the www freedos-user archive. [Freedos-user] computer restarting without error message Michael Reichenbach Sun, 01 Jun 2008 11:56:44 -0700 >> Now I would like to try two things: > >> - posting some debug informations, hopefully just minor >> changes are needed to make it to work > > Indeed. Another useful thing to try is also to try > a number of different kernel versions, to check if > we introduced the bug recently or if it has been > around all the time. It's all the time and also happening when using MS-DOS. >> - providing an image where the error occurs > > I am sure some freedos-kernel readers have > virtualbox or vmware. If this does not help, I have > a problem as I have no 8 GB free for a Bochs IMG. Eh, really? Don't you have a 1 TB drive? :) > Thanks for keeping an eye on that kernel problem > in any case, keep the list and me updated :-). :) -mr ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Freedos-kernel mailing list Freedos-kernel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-kernel
