Re: [Freedos-user] Installing GRUB
Louis,
Sure. The output is:
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 * 2048 1023999 1021952 499M e W95 FAT16 (LBA)
Regards,
Tony
On Wed, Jun 29, 2022 at 1:07 AM Louis Santillan wrote:
> Tony,
>
> In your Linux VM, could you give the output to `fdisk -l /dev/sda`?
>
> Thanks
>
> On Sat, Jun 4, 2022 at 7:54 AM Tony Richardson
> wrote:
>
>> I wanted to use GRUB to boot FreeDOS. (I wanted to use it so that I
>> could dual-boot FreeDOS and RTEMS, but others may have different reasons.)
>> It is a relatively short procedure so I thought I would contribute it to
>> the mailing list in case others might be interested. I installed FreeDOS in
>> a VirtualBox virtual machine, but the procedure should work on other
>> virtual or physical machines. The FreeDOS fdisk does not leave enough space
>> before the first partition to install GRUB, so I used a Linux SystemRescue
>> CD (system-rescue.org) to partition the (virtual) disk. This CD has all
>> of the tools necessary to partition the drive, format the disk and install
>> GRUB.
>>
>> 1) In VirtualBox create a new 64-bit Linux machine with a 500 MB vdi-type
>> drive (FreeDOS.vdi). Configure the machine to boot off of the SystemRescue
>> CD image. (I had to give the machine 2 GB of memory to boot the CD. The
>> default 512 MB would not allow the machine to boot.)
>>
>> 2) Boot the new machine and create a new maximum size primary partition
>> on the virtual drive (/dev/sda). Change the partition type to 0x0E (a
>> Win95 LBA mapped partition).I use Linux fdisk (enter "fdisk /dev/sda") to
>> do this, but you can use any of the other disk partitioning tools on the CD
>> (gparted is a graphical partitioning tool).
>>
>> 3) Format the new partition by entering "mkfs.msdos /dev/sda1" (You
>> can alternately format the partition as part of the FreeDOS installation.)
>>
>> 4) Halt the Linux machine. (Choose the "Power off the machine" option.)
>>
>> 5) Create a new FreeDOS virtual machine. Choose to use an existing
>> virtual hard disk and attach the FreeDOS.vdi disk. Boot the machine from
>> the FreeDOS live image. Choose the "Install to Harddisk" option from the
>> boot menu. Install FreeDOS. You should be able to boot off the harddisk
>> into FreeDOS at this point.
>>
>> 6) Halt the FreeDOS virtual machine.
>>
>> 7) As part of the installation the FreeDOS master boot loader is
>> installed. We need to rewrite this with GRUB, so restart the Linux machine.
>>
>> 8) Mount the new partition using "mount /dev/sda1 /mnt"
>>
>> 9) Install Grub by entering "grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/boot
>> /dev/sda"
>>
>> 10) Create a file named "grub.cfg" in the /mnt/boot/grub directory with
>> the following contents:
>> menuentry "FreeDOS" {
>> insmod chain
>> set root=(hd0,1)
>> chainloader +1
>> }
>>
>> 11) Halt the Linux machine.
>>
>> You should now be able to boot the FreeDOS machine off of the hard disk.
>> You should see the GRUB boot menu first now. You can modify the GRUB menu
>> by editting the grub.cfg file in the C:\boot\grub directory. You can
>> delete the Linx machine, but do not delete the files associated with the
>> machine or you will lose your FreeDOS drive. You can move the FreeDOS.vdi
>> file if you want but you will need to play around with the VirtualBox Media
>> Manager to make it available to FreeDOS after the move.
>>
>> Tony Richardson
>>
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Re: [Freedos-user] 28 years of FreeDOS
On Wed, Jun 29, 2022 at 5:25 PM Jim Hall wrote: > > Today, we mark 28 years of FreeDOS (June 29, 1994). I just want to > take a minute to recognize all the hard work folks have put in over > the years: > [..] I also wanted to share that I wrote an article about 26 FreeDOS commands: "ABCs of FreeDOS: 26 commands I use all the time." It's an A-B-C list of common FreeDOS commands: A is for ATTRIB, B is for BEEP, C is for CD, and so on. https://opensource.com/article/22/6/26-freedos-commands You can also download two free ebooks about FreeDOS: "A Guide to Using FreeDOS" and "An Advanced Guide to FreeDOS Internals" with more advanced usage of how to use FreeDOS. https://opensource.com/downloads/guide-using-freedos https://opensource.com/downloads/advanced-freedos If you're new to FreeDOS, you might also watch our recent YouTube video about How to install FreeDOS on VirtualBox. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXkmOwLPpcg If you're on Facebook, check out the cake photo I posted. (Even if you're not on Facebook, you should still be able to see the posts there.) https://www.facebook.com/groups/freedosproject/ Jim ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] 28 years of FreeDOS
Today, we mark 28 years of FreeDOS (June 29, 1994). I just want to take a minute to recognize all the hard work folks have put in over the years: Pat Villani wrote our first kernel, and others kept it going, including Bart Oldeman, John Price, Tom Ehlert, Charles Dye, Eric Auer, Jim Tabor, Arkady, Bernd, Jeremy David, and a list of other contributors. Tim Norman wrote the first version of FreeCOM, and has been maintained by a long list of folks including John Price, Tom Ehlert, Ken Davis, Bart Oldeman, and others. I know I'll miss a bunch of contributions, so just a short list of some other cool developers: Aitor contributed KEYB, and Tom contributed MKEYB. Both support keyboards with different languages. Joe Cosentino wrote FreeDOS Edit, which makes editing easy. Gregory Pietsch wrote FreeDOS Edlin, for those who want the classic editor experience. Ralf Quint has been part of FreeDOS since the very early days and has contributed patches and improvements all over FreeDOS. Eric Auer has contributed a bunch of FreeDOS components, including FDAPM to control power. Tom Ehlert has written utilities and made improvements to FreeDOS. You can find Tom's improvements in a bunch of changelogs. Steffen Kaiser wrote several utilities and useful libraries for FreeDOS, including SUBST and JOIN. ..and more! There are too many of you to mention by name. But I just want to say THANK YOU to everyone for continuing to work on FreeDOS. Open source takes a community, including developers, translators, testers, documenters, users, and more. Whether you write code, test programs, write documentation, translate messages, write about FreeDOS .. you are part of the FreeDOS community. Jim ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FD13 floppy installation attempts
Hi Pierre, Jim and everybody, On my FreeDOS PC, I tried to use PKUNZIP to unpack the floppy boot ZIP to a 1.44 floppy. That's when PKUNZIP told me that the destination had insufficient space. That is not surprising. You must use a tool which can write disk IMAGES to the floppy. Just copying FILES to it will not make it bootable. One such tool is our DISKCOPY, if you want to do it in DOS. For that, you unzip the IMG file, then simply say DISKCOPY your.img A: to copy the your.img diskimage to the floppy in A: - of course you have to replace your.img by the name of the file you want to copy. You can download diskcopy 0.95 by downloading the cryptically named "dskcp095.zip" file from https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/diskcopy/0.9/ and I really think the FD13-FloppyEdition.zip should contain a copy of DISKCOPY, a README with instructions for DOS, Linux, Apple and Windows and, Jim, please add a link to DISKCOPY to http://freedos.org/download/ because it really needs a lot of insider knowledge at the moment to upgrade from another DOS to FreeDOS if our diskcopy tool is so many clicks away from the diskimage download page. Thank you! Regards, Eric PS: Alternatively, you could use the tools here: https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/tools/ PPS: The readme linked from the download page does not mention diskcopy, so I assume none of our distro downloads contains a copy of diskcopy in well-visible and advertised place yet? https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/official/readme.txt ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FD13 floppy installation attempts
On Tue, 28 Jun 2022 at 00:49, Pierre LaMontagne wrote: > I haven't tried it, but I'm pretty sure this oldest PC of mine won't > boot from a CD. OK, this is the first thing. Why not try? If you have any bootable CD of any kind around, why not just give it a go? This would seem to be a lot easier than faffing around trying to make boot diskettes, which is clearly giving you problems or you would not be asking. Boot from CD was _extremely_ rare in the 80486 era, but by the 2nd-generation Pentium era was getting more common as ATAPI CD drives became common. I would expect a Pentium II machine to do it, yes. Especially if it is on current firmware. If it isn't update it. Secondly, in case of problems, Plop will probably help you. https://www.plop.at/en/pbm6/full.html I used to use Plop extensively 10-15 years ago, to get then-old PCs to boot Linux. Plop is tiny: a few tens of kilobytes. Put it on a floppy, boot the PC from the floppy, and then Plop will boot a CD for you. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
