Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

I'm going to try using RMPrepUSB to put the FreeDOS USB install image onto a 
USB stick. Why? Because it's supposed to be able to be selected to emulate an 
A: floppy drive (or as C: or D:) instead of presenting itself as C: like the 
FreeDOS image does. Recall that the FreeDOS installer initially says there's no 
fixed disk, then shows D: as unpartitioned, but cannot make any writes to it - 
yet *does not return an error* when attempting to partition the already 
partitioned DOM in a WYSE Sx0 thin client.

I'd think that selectable boot drive/device emulation should be part of the 
FreeDOS setup, for systems that expect their hard drive (or other fixed 
storage) to be the only fixed storage, aside from perhaps a CD-ROM.
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Re: [Freedos-user] External Commands?

[dmccunney]

On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 6:45 PM, Curtis Collins
 wrote:
> I installed full FreeDos to USB and it boots and works fine. Only problem is
> there are none of the usual external commands like "chkdsk". There are
> descriptions of various packages on the project web site, but no correlating
> images to download.
>
> How do I get all the usual external commands?

When you say "I installed full FreeDos to USB", what do you mean?  A
full installation should get you the external commands as well as the
DOS kernel and the command processor.

If you issue a SET command, what do you get?  SET, issued by itself,
with list currently defined environment variables.

DOS is like every other OS.  It looks for programs in the directory
you are in at the moment*, and in other directories defined in the
%PATH% variable. When you boot DOS, you'll be looking at the root
directory of the drive where you installed it.

If the programs aren't in those places, they won't be seen, and you'll
get a command not found error.  I suspect the sub-directory where the
external commands live is not in the DOS %PATH%, so the OS won't see
and run them. You'll need to edit the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to add the
directories where the external commands live to the PATH.

* Well, DOS and Windows do that.  Unix, Linux, and OS/X *only* look in
directories defined in the PATH.  They don't look in the current
directory unless you explicitly specify it by ./ on the
command line, or if  "." is added to the PATH.

> Curtis
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Dennis

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Re: [Freedos-user] Running FreeDOS floppy from a BIOS chip

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

If a way could be found to replace ThinOS on various models of WYSE thin 
clients, they'd be ideal platforms for an embedded DOS. ThinOS usually shares 
space in an extra large BIOS chip.
Installing it might involve a bit of hacking to make the OS installer creator 
utility setup a USB flash drive with the DOS image instead of a ThinOS one. 
Then there's the issue of OS 'locking' where only the thin clients that 
originally shipped with ThinOS are supposed to be eligible for updates to new 
ThinOS releases.
Versions of each model that shipped with Windows CE, Linux, or Windows embedded 
versions may not have the extra large BIOS chip.
Other brands of thin clients have also had such proprietary operating systems. 
I suspect they haven't been too popular because of the need to have apps 
written specifically for the OS, along with a server to run them from due to 
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[Freedos-user] External Commands?

[Curtis Collins]

I installed full FreeDos to USB and it boots and works fine. Only problem is 
there are none of the usual external commands like "chkdsk". There are 
descriptions of various packages on the project web site, but no correlating 
images to downaload.

How do I get all the usual external commands?



⁣Thanks,

Curtis


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Re: [Freedos-user] Running FreeDOS floppy from a BIOS chip

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 2:20 PM, Ivan Ivanov  wrote:
>
> Because I am taking coreboot+SeaBIOS in attention, these hobby OS
> suddenly become very useful for me : e.g. KolibriOS floppy is likely
> the only way
> to connect to the internet from a web browser (although a very simple one)
> that is stored inside a BIOS chip - also there is an IRC client,
> which means - even if my hard drive crashes and I don't have any live USBs,
> I will still be able to go to online chatroom and say something to friends

Just to state the obvious, FreeDOS can do all of that networking (if
you have a working packet driver).

Kolibri is obviously very good, nobody's disputing that. However, I
consider FreeDOS development tools to be much more robust and easier
to use overall. We have more HLLs supported. In fact, I think the
Menuet port of Quake used a heavily-modified version of DJGPP's libc!
(I guess nobody finished that port of TinyC or else it was incomplete?
Just having a C compiler would help a lot.)

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Re: [Freedos-user] FOSDEM Retrocomputing DevRoom CfP

[Bart Oldeman via Freedos-user]

My talk was accepted so I'll be presenting in 4 weeks:
https://fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/dosemu_and_freedos_past_present_future/

Bart

On 1 December 2017 at 08:56, Bart Oldeman
 wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> (still lurking but not a lot of time... over the past years)
>
> I'll be at FOSDEM for work related purposes (HPC devroom). Since I'll
> be there anyway I submitted a proposal for Retrocomputing to talk
> about DOSEMU and FreeDOS.
> One exciting development that somehow was missed is that there is
> finally a GCC port with support for far pointers
> (https://github.com/tkchia/gcc-ia16/). I have been able to compile the
> FD kernel with it and run the result, though it needs various changes.
> I would have never guessed in 2000 that this would be possible in 2017!
>
> I'll be in touch with you Jim if my proposal gets accepted; I am not
> sure if for retrocomputing the deadline was extended or not (for the
> HPC devroom it is today).
>
> Bart

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Re: [Freedos-user] Would you use a native 32/64-bit FreeDOS/BIOS system?

[Eric Auer]

Hi!

> I was thinking that it could become necessary to start implementing a
> FreeDOS version that included natively its own BIOS, and that this
> combination of FreeDOS/BIOS is implemented entirely native as 32 or
> 64-bit code...

In my opinion: 1. is a very good idea. Something which boots
via UEFI and supports GPT and loads Coreboot / Seabios / other
BEFORE DOS, so DOS can enjoy a BIOS! I think support for common
motherboards is somewhat limited yet, but you could check the
current status. Maybe there is generic support for a wider range
of boards, given that DOS only needs a limited set of devices?

I mean if Coreboot does not support hibernate or bluetooth on
some fancy computer, it might still support all the pieces of
the computer which are really necessary to run DOS :-)

However, 2. does not sound cool. You have to consider how much
software would actually support 32- or 64-bit code: Almost none.

And if you have a tool which uses 64-bit code, it would almost
always run a lot faster on a complex high end operating system
which can provide a fancy infrastructure of drivers, filesystems
and multitasking. There already is FD32 which puts FreeDOS and
a 32-bit DOS extender into the same file, but the improvements
compared to using a separate DOS extender (or just CWSDPMI) on
a normal 16-bit FreeDOS kernel seem to be limited enough that
FD32 is still not nearly as popular as old FreeDOS afaik...

I do appreciate having more 32-bit DOS extended DOS software,
but for 64-bit and multi core / multi CPU / > 3 GB RAM, you
would first have to suggest some really cool DOS use cases :-)

Cheers, Eric


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Re: [Freedos-user] Running FreeDOS floppy from a BIOS chip

[Ralf Quint]

On 1/7/2018 10:29 AM, Ivan Ivanov wrote:

  doubt that any of those have any real purpose

at least some of these hobby OS could be useful in real life (for
not-hobby purposes) ,
e.g. KolibriOS - many kinds of personal computing including web browsing,
Visopsys - disk partitioning, 9front - modern Plan 9 fork with all its
utilities, etc...
Sorry, but that is all but hobby purposes. There is no way that you can 
use it for any other purposes beside that, as any real application for 
it don't exist. Try word processing or spreadsheets that you need to 
share with others.
And no, web browsing doesn't count either, as I would not, in these 
times, trust a hobby attempt at a web browser, not to mention at the 
ability to properly access the majority of web pages these days. Even 
older mainstream browser choke on a lot of pages these days...


Even for DOS, the use case are dwindling, though there are still a lot 
of them, as DOS is a mature, well understood and documented environment.
I was disappointed when Intel dropped those Quark X1000 based x86 
embedded boards like the Galileo, Edison and a couple of others, and now 
only the vastly more expensive and complicated Intel Atom boards for IoT 
development. An embedded version of FreeDOS would have been nice, 
providing a simple, but well understood file system for more complex 
embedded applications running on those boards...


Ralf


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Re: [Freedos-user] Would you use a native 32/64-bit FreeDOS/BIOS system?

[Ivan Ivanov]

Maybe you can use the open source coreboot/SeaBIOS projects?
It would be stupid to write your own BIOS from scratch, much better to
just take these successful implementations and use them

By the way, if you have coreboot-supported motherboard, it is already
possible with 1 simple command to include the FreeDOS floppy
to your coreboot+SeaBIOS build

Best regards,
Ivan Ivanov


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2018-01-07 21:41 GMT+03:00 Z. B. :
> On Sat, Jan 06, 2018 at 04:15:08PM +, Samuel V. via Freedos-user wrote:
>
>> I was thinking that it could become necessary to start implementing a 
>> FreeDOS version that included natively its own BIOS, and that this 
>> combination of FreeDOS/BIOS is implemented entirely native as 32 or 64-bit 
>> code, to keep using the known DOS environment, the same DOS/BIOS INT calls 
>> programming style (now also with other ways to call services), but extending 
>> everything to more modern CPU modes.
>> The intention is to update FreeDOS and the BIOS to 32 and 64-bit modes, 
>> without forgetting the original 16-bit version, but now giving native access 
>> to features that DOS would benefit from, but that aren't available in Real 
>> Mode, like many Gigabytes of RAM, large IDE/SATA hard disks, more capable 
>> drivers, more file systems.
>> Would you use a FreeDOS version that was entirely native to 32 or 64 bits?
>> I've thought that it would be a great additional project and that it would 
>> definitely make FreeDOS and DOS in general, along with an integrated BIOS, 
>> live as a valid OS choice for any user as long as there are PCs, at least 
>> x86 ones.
>
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/freedos-32/
> http://menuetos.net/
> https://kolibrios.org/ (site seems to be down at the moment)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TempleOS
>
> --
> regards,
> Zbigniew
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] Would you use a native 32/64-bit FreeDOS/BIOS system?

[Z. B.]

On Sat, Jan 06, 2018 at 04:15:08PM +, Samuel V. via Freedos-user wrote:

> I was thinking that it could become necessary to start implementing a FreeDOS 
> version that included natively its own BIOS, and that this combination of 
> FreeDOS/BIOS is implemented entirely native as 32 or 64-bit code, to keep 
> using the known DOS environment, the same DOS/BIOS INT calls programming 
> style (now also with other ways to call services), but extending everything 
> to more modern CPU modes.
> The intention is to update FreeDOS and the BIOS to 32 and 64-bit modes, 
> without forgetting the original 16-bit version, but now giving native access 
> to features that DOS would benefit from, but that aren't available in Real 
> Mode, like many Gigabytes of RAM, large IDE/SATA hard disks, more capable 
> drivers, more file systems.
> Would you use a FreeDOS version that was entirely native to 32 or 64 bits?
> I've thought that it would be a great additional project and that it would 
> definitely make FreeDOS and DOS in general, along with an integrated BIOS, 
> live as a valid OS choice for any user as long as there are PCs, at least x86 
> ones.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/freedos-32/
http://menuetos.net/
https://kolibrios.org/ (site seems to be down at the moment)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TempleOS

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Zbigniew

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Re: [Freedos-user] Running FreeDOS floppy from a BIOS chip

[Ivan Ivanov]

>  doubt that any of those have any real purpose
at least some of these hobby OS could be useful in real life (for
not-hobby purposes) ,
e.g. KolibriOS - many kinds of personal computing including web browsing,
Visopsys - disk partitioning, 9front - modern Plan 9 fork with all its
utilities, etc...


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2018-01-07 21:17 GMT+03:00 Ralf Quint :
> On 1/7/2018 3:33 AM, Jerome Shidel wrote:
>>
>>
>> OSDev wiki has FreeDOS at #1!
>>
>> Ok, technically, Kolibri out ranks it at #0.
>>
>> But, we can say it is #1.
>>
>> http://wiki.osdev.org/Notable_Projects
>
> Well, great. Kind of...
> Haven't even heard of any of the others on that list and doubt that any of
> those have any real purpose, beside being training tools...
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] Running FreeDOS floppy from a BIOS chip

[Ralf Quint]

On 1/7/2018 3:33 AM, Jerome Shidel wrote:


OSDev wiki has FreeDOS at #1!

Ok, technically, Kolibri out ranks it at #0.

But, we can say it is #1.

http://wiki.osdev.org/Notable_Projects

Well, great. Kind of...
Haven't even heard of any of the others on that list and doubt that any 
of those have any real purpose, beside being training tools...


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Re: [Freedos-user] Running FreeDOS floppy from a BIOS chip

[Jerome Shidel]

Hi,

> On Jan 7, 2018, at 5:39 AM, Ivan Ivanov  wrote:
> […]
> I wish you good luck in your project, FreeDOS is awesome
> Also it has been listed amoung Top 10 Notable projects at OSDev wiki
> Would be happy to see its' story continued

OSDev wiki has FreeDOS at #1! 

Ok, technically, Kolibri out ranks it at #0.

But, we can say it is #1.

http://wiki.osdev.org/Notable_Projects 

:-)

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[Freedos-user] Running FreeDOS floppy from a BIOS chip

[Ivan Ivanov]

I tested your OS with Virtual Box: FreeDOS is amazing ; and - most
importantly - it has a live floppy! Even today the floppies are
still being used, for example - as virtual floppies inside the
coreboot open source BIOS. Just imagine: your wonderful OS could be a
part of someone's BIOS build! (for coreboot supported motherboard,
maybe you have or could get one - see " Supported_Motherboards " page
at coreboot wiki)

If you already have a coreboot-supported motherboard, or a real chance
to get one, - wouldn't it be cool to be able to launch your own OS
straight from the BIOS chip? ;) With one simple command its possible
to add any floppy to coreboot BIOS build - and then you see it as a
boot entry! Multiple floppies could be added this way (as long as you
have enough space left inside the BIOS flash chip, luckily LZMA
compression could be used for the stored floppies to reduce their
occupied size)

I wish you good luck in your project, FreeDOS is awesome
Also it has been listed amoung Top 10 Notable projects at OSDev wiki
Would be happy to see its' story continued

Best regards,
Ivan Ivanov

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