Hi again, I looked into the issue, by installing a fresh FreeDOS 1.1 inside a vbox, and booting all_cd on top of it. Now:
FDNPKG freezing: debugging this really scares me. I wanted to check if there's some memory leak maybe, and typed "MEM" in the vbox shell where I launched FreeDOS... The answer I got was an immediate crash with messages like "Run chkdsk: Bad FAT I/O: 0x00000001" and "JemmEx: exception 06 occured at....". After, that, trying to run FDISK or FDNPKG was leading to "exception 06" crashes every time. This all looks quite unstable :/ I will try to see if I can locate the source of vbox freezing during next weekend, but can't promise any results, since I'm almost sure the problem doesn't come from FDNPKG (but you never know for sure, so better to triple check everything). About "unknown versions" of packages: this is actually normal (as in "expected"), and it's due to the fact that we switched the format of packages after 1.0. Yet FD 1.1 somehow installs packages containing LSM files named with the old scheme, like "PKGNAMEX.LSM" (for example: "CHOICEX.LSM"). FDNPKG expects them to be named exactly like the package name, which is a more consistent approach (esp. considering 8+3 troubles). Since FDNPKG doesn't find the LSM file, its unable to guess the software's version. My advice would be to use the all_cd.iso as the only installation source, and forget about the FD 1.1 install CD. all_cd comes with 'sane' packages, and provides minimalistic tools to partition/format your hard disk, and install a working FreeDOS environment from scratch. Alternatively, you could also remove packages from your FD 1.1 install one by one, and reinstall them with FDNPKG (this will replace them with correct versions). About FDISK incompatibility: I am getting an error message "Error Reading Hard Disk: Function number of drive not permitted". Is it what you end up with, too? If so, then it appears to be a problem only if you run FDISK from the emulated A: drive. Of course it is still a problem, because the all_cd is supposed to be booted on a clean (non partionned) hdd, and allow to create partitions... Seems to be some limitations of FDISK (or maybe some vbox quirk again). My suggestion would be to use xfdisk instead (it comes on the bootable CD already, and it's also available as an installable package). xfdisk seems to work fine with virtualbox in my limited testing experience. So, in short summary: - use all_cd.iso instead of the official 1.1 CD - if you really have to run vbox, then try using xfdisk instead of fdisk - about freezes/crashes, I'll see what I can do, but I wouldn't get my hopes high, as vbox tends to be buggy, esp. when it comes to switching protected mode on/off... but IF there's a problem with fdnpkg, I'll do my best to find/fix it cheers, Mateusz On 08/11/2014 03:57 AM, Mateusz Viste wrote: > Hi Ulrich, > > Thank you for your report. > This sounds unfortunate :) > > It seems you have three different problems. > > About fdisk: could you tell more about the problem? What version of fdisk > works correctly for you? > > About missing versions: could you please locate the *.lsm file of one of the > "unknown version" packages and send it to me? (it is in %FREEDOS%\APPINFO) > Are you testing using the latest available version of FDNPKG? > As a temporary workaround: does removing/reinstalling a package make its > version to be displayed fine by fdnpkg? > > About fdnpkg freezing: how could I reproduce this problem exactly? Should it > be enough to just install freedos 1.1 on virtualbox, without any special > configuration, and boot the latest version of all_cd.iso on top of it? What > network card model are you simulating? (and what packet driver handles it?) > > cheers, > Mateusz > > > > > On August 11, 2014 1:21:29 AM GMT+02:00, Ulrich <my.gr...@mailbox.org> wrote: >> I am a bit stuck with FDNPKG. >> >> If I use: >> >> fdnpkg listlocal >> >> on a fresh install of FreeDOS 1.1, I get a list of all installed >> packages with >> >> "(unknown version)" >> >> behind their names. >> >> If I do: >> >> fdnpkg update >> >> I get the message: "79 package(s) checked, 0 package(s) updated, 0 >> package(s) failed". >> >> Does this mean FDNPKG can't be used to update the 1.1 packages? >> >> I also took a look at >> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.1/repos/all_cd.iso >> >> The iso boots fine. But the version of fdisk doesn't work on >> VirtualBox. I got around that problem: I attached the iso to an already >> installed FreeDOS 1.1 guest and booted the all_cd.iso. Then I formatted >> the hdd. >> >> Unfortunately there's no installation routine that lets me install the >> necessary 79 packages (plus configuration files) conveniently. Also >> only the first fdnpkg command runs successfully. Afterwards the >> VirtualBox guest freezes. I didn't have the nerve to switch the guest >> off and on again 79 times and then create FDCONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT >> by hand. >> >> VirtualBox version is 4.3.14. >> >> Thanks! >> Best regards >> Ulrich >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
