Hi!
Let me get a bit more verbose in my installation thoughts.
If you want to hide FreeDOS and MS DOS from each other,
at least a bit, you could use filesystem choice for that:
Install Linux on a Linux filesystem.
Install XP on some NTFS filesystem.
Install FreeDOS on a FAT32 filesystem.
Install MS DOS on a FAT16 filesystem.
By putting them in an appropriate order, XP can be C: while
it sees the other 2 DOS versions as D: and E: and FreeDOS
can be C: while seeing MS DOS as D: and last but not least
MS DOS can be C: while not using any other partitions.
Be aware that MS DOS can only use CHS partitions within
the first 8 GB of the drive.
Regarding the boot menu question, you can manually edit
the GRUB menu.lst file after letting whatever automatic
menu.lst generation offered by your Linux distro create
entries for Linux, XP and MS DOS. This would let you
add a FreeDOS entry when MS DOS and FreeDOS share the
same partition. For that, you would manually run the
FreeDOS SYS, after booting MS DOS, in the special style
SYS C: freedos.bin bootonly
this will create a freedos.bin boot sector file. You
then copy the menu.lst section about MS DOS, but edit
the "chainloader +1" line and make that something like
"chainloader (hd0,1)/freedos.bin" if (hd0,1) would be
your MS DOS partition.
But given that you want 4 separate partitions for your
4 operating systems anyway, you can let the automatic
menu.lst generation of GRUB do EVERYTHING, without the
need for special SYS commands or manual menu.lst edits
if you make sure that the 4 partitions all use different
filesystem types :-)
I recommend that you start by installing XP, because it
is more likely to damage existing installs of other OS.
Next, install Linux. Depending on the distro, it will
provide a wizard to install a dual-boot which keeps XP
working and gives you a boot menu.
Add one FAT32 and one FAT16 primary partition either
during this step or later, using a graphical Linux
partitioning and formatting tool such as GPARTED.
Boot MS DOS from a floppy or similar and install it
manually to the FAT16 partition, without formatting
or partitioning anything. Maybe you just use a boot
disk and run SYS and copy some files, instead of
running some automated installer at that point.
Take similar steps for FreeDOS. I am not sure whether
it will automatically skip formatting and partitioning,
but do make sure to skip those. Also, make sure that
your FAT32 partition is before the FAT16 one. That way
the FAT32 partition will be C: and the MS DOS FAT16
partition will be D: for FreeDOS, while MS DOS will
only see the FAT16 partition and call it C: :-)
Boot Linux and let the GRUB menu.lst generator tool do
magic to add menu entries for the two DOS partitions.
I expect all DOS systems to require extra tricks if
their boot partition is not a primary partition, but
you can only have 4 primary partitions in total, or 3
if you also need additional non-primary partitions.
In the latter case, I think you can boot at least
Linux from non-primary partitions. Not sure about
XP. You may have to tell Linux to install GRUB in
the MBR, not in the boot sector of your Linux boot
partition, for this to work.
Regards, Eric
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