Rugxulo, you are right, I should do this in a more structured way. expected to throw the CD in, and thats it.
EDIT: current status is: - hardware ok, maybe the memory was faulty, i have to verify this. - freedos 1.1 successfully installed. - Debian installer is currently downloading addtional packages. next steps, as soon as debian is working: - install additional dos packages - make network work Details of what I have done yet: hardware - CPU and board should be rocking stable, had XP running for years without probs. - memory... Was 3x128 + 1x256 = 640, but recognized only 384 MB. This might indicate a problem. Removed all but 1x128 MB. Memtest runs fast now, 20 mins for 2 passes. Everything ok. I will reinsert and check some of the other memory modules later. (I did memtest before without error, but who knows...) - disk, ontrack is running, 2h. No error. I have my rescue floppies and CDRWs always at hand, but the labels aren't matching the content any more, for most of them :) - CPU clock rate too high for a lot of old dos software? Do you think clocking down to below 500 Mhz might help? Bart says so for his network boot floppy. - A20 stuff... especially the XMS/EMS driver loading seems to fail often. I have in mind that A20 has to do something with EMS oder XMS. (or UMB?) And, A20 is some hack using the keyboard controller. Since I attached an USB keyboard to a USB switch, for easily switching between computers... could this be a problem, eg in the BIOS USB Keyboard code? Now to the software. - This time I partitioned and formatted the drive before booting the installer. btw, the fdisk program contained on the floppy sucks. created a bad partition layout. have to move partitions now... what about xfdisk instead? - Install debian... for having less trouble with partitioning in the future, and to verify the hardware. - install Freedos 1.1T3 Ran through in almost no time, wow! I got the same error message from Jemm, but pressing ESC continued booting the installer. So where do you suggest to continue? Should I jump to the 1.0 installer? or should I install manually? Could you point me to a tutorial for manual install, or is it just "unpack anywhere", as we are used from old dos? - network its a 3c905b. It should work using the NDIS driver included with Barts Network Boot Disk. Does it work with freedos out of the box or do I have to do this manually using this wiki page? http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/freedos/index.php?title=Networking_FreeDOS_-_NDIS_driver_installation Which cards are known to be working? Got a few Realtek based somewhere... Regarding your other questions. > "Production" meaning what? Dunno, not sure it's been verified for > military use. ^_^ well, we are still using an old 486 with DOS 5 for some special hardware and software (which partly was ported from apple II a long time ago) since the 14" monitor broke down yesterday and the 200 MB harddrive broke down half a year ago... we have to go to slighly newer hardware that is able to run at least a linux, and has got some interfaces for backup. > It would also help to know what big apps you've tried (or primarily > want) to run, just to know what you expect to work. I need: - pascal compiler - maybe basic compiler or interpreter - maybe fortran compiler, if the old software has to be recompiled - network would be nice - some basic linux tools, eg vim, df, du, dd, wget... > EDIT: Oh yeah, you'd need working network, that's kinda arcane. But if > it works (by some miracle) .... ehm, so network won't work? :( Well, so far for now. I continue with debian install... Thanks for all that help! JPT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Got Input? Slashdot Needs You. Take our quick survey online. Come on, we don't ask for help often. Plus, you'll get a chance to win $100 to spend on ThinkGeek. http://p.sf.net/sfu/slashdot-survey _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
