Hi Chris, >> I'll link to the 1.0 boot floppy image, under the "FreeDOS 1.0" section. >> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.0/fdboot.img
That is a bit old so I am still preferring Ruffidea ;-) Also because it is easier to delete than to add stuff, for the latter you have to download things first. On the other hand, I think Jeremy once had some sort of automated builds with always fresh kernels online? For people like Georg who need just a minimal bootable DOS this would be a good source of boot floppy images. > Kernel on that image uses 386+ instructions... and it seems as if it > does that without (properly) checking for the presence of a 386. That is correct, as a kernel cannot be both optimized for 386 and compatible with 8086 at the same time. We had some specifically PC-XT compatible boot floppies mentioned on the list in the past, e.g. by somebody who made a virtual PC-XT in Java if I remember right? > That it's a 386+ kernel is just an oversight (or should be documented for > the image), but if 386+ kernels really do not abort with an appropriate > message on non-386 CPUs, that's a bug. I disagree here. Without a kernel, you cannot do any useful DOS stuff. However, I once made some tools for Bernd to have a boot disk which automatically picks boot files depending on your available CPU, as far as I remember also related to MEMDISK detection? You CAN make a NON minimal boot disk which automatically can fall back to 8086 that way. However it is VERY rare to find pre-386 hardware today, so I would really say that it is better to have separate downloads: Normal boot floppy for 386+ and special 8086 compatible boot floppy for people with really ancient hardware (or a virtual ancient computer, as the one mentioned above). Of course it is a different story for EMM386, HIMEM, USB drivers and similar: THOSE can automatically say that they cannot load on incompatible hardware, then return to DOS. Users can still use DOS then and sure it is nice to not crash on old hardware but show some message. But a kernel? It cannot skip itself and jump to a command prompt with only the 8086 part loaded ;-) > The file kernel.asm (SVN r1705) is this one: > http://freedos.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/freedos/kernel/trunk/kernel/kernel.asm?revision=1705&view=markup > > Note lines 194 to 196, where precisely in this latest r1705, Kenneth added > the comment "TODO display error if built for 386 running on 8086 etc". Well if it really makes you happy... Note that also a number of boot loaders only work with 386 anyway now. Regards, Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Everyone hates slow websites. So do we. Make your web apps faster with AppDynamics Download AppDynamics Lite for free today: http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;258768047;13503038;j? http://info.appdynamics.com/FreeJavaPerformanceDownload.html _______________________________________________ Freedos-kernel mailing list Freedos-kernel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-kernel
