Re: [Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS in a Qemu box.
On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Tiago O. de Almeida toacyanide...@yahoo.com.br wrote: Are there any hints to install FreeDOS inside a Qemu box? I'm trying this right now, but the installation process is damn slow. This is the Qemu command line: qemu -cdrom ~/.qemu/fdbasecd.iso -hda ~/.qemu/freedos.img -boot order=c,once=d -m 31M -k pt-br -soundhw sb16 -M pc -smp 1 -cpu pentium -name FreeDOS -sdl I've tried several values to -cpu, including qemu32/64, pentium, 486, core2duo; and also raise the -m value up to default (128M). QEMU is a full emulator, but sometimes emulators can run quite slow. I'd just let the install process take as long as it needs to; you'll only need to do that once. It should be fine after that. If you have the option, you can also do a manual install of FreeDOS by unzipping each of the install packages (which are just specially-crafted zip files) into the C:\FDOS directory. This won't install the kernel in a bootable way, but I think you can run SYS from the installation CDROM. This should be faster, albeit a more manual process. -jh -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Dictionnary program not working
On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 10:44 AM, Shérab sebastien.hinde...@ens-lyon.org wrote: Dear all, I'm trying to use with Linux + dosemu + freedos a french dictionnary which was published about 20 years ago with a search program running under MS DOS. For the moment, I'm not able to make this program work. No matter how I try torn it, nothing happens till I press Enter, which brings me back to the DOS prompt. It is worth mentionning that I tried qemu+MS-DOS 6.22 which lead to the same result. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Also, should you need any additional information, I'm willing to provide them. Hi. I've never used a dictionary program on DOS before, so I can't offer any particular help on this problem. However, others might be able to help if you mentioned the name and version of the program you are trying to use. You don't get any output from the program, so this may be difficult to track down. -jh -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Dictionnary program not working
Dear James, thank you so much for having taken the time to respond to my e-mail. Hi. I've never used a dictionary program on DOS before, so I can't offer any particular help on this problem. I've actually seen a report of this dictionnary not working, but I don't think any serious attempt to understand and perhaps fix the problem had been undertaken so far. However, others might be able to help if you mentioned the name and version of the program you are trying to use. It's Le grand Robert 1992, an excellent french dictionnary. You don't get any output from the program, so this may be difficult to track down. I was wondering whether dosemu wouldn't offer some debugging facilities that could be useful here... Thanks again, Sébastien. -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] final preview for FreeDOS 1.1 release
merci. eufdp...@yahoo.com eufdp...@yahoo.com eufdp...@yahoo.com eufdp...@yahoo.com eufdp...@yahoo.com From: Bernd Blaauw bbla...@home.nl To: freedos-de...@lists.sourceforge.net Cc: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Sent: Monday, December 26, 2011 12:35 PM Subject: [Freedos-user] final preview for FreeDOS 1.1 release I've uploaded a preview of my work on the FreeDOS 1.1 distribution at: [ http://www.speedyshare.com/file/f5hDP/FD11.ISO ] (click above the star symbols to download). You're welcome to test it if interested, for now an emulator might be best. Source files not added yet, will be done. This FreeDOS 1.1 is but a mere shadow of all the work Jeremy Davis and Blair Campbell put into previous distributions over the years, but we'll get there :) with best regards, Bernd Blaauw -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] FreeDOS Memory
Hi 1. Would like to ask how much memory does FreeDOS support, e.g. 4 GiB? 2. Does it faces 640 KiB limitation as MS-DOS, e.g. Do I have to load high drivers to save on conventional memory? 3. Does it support usage of a swap file/partition? -- Regards Koh Choon Lin -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS Memory
At 11:08 AM 12/27/2011, Koh Choon Lin wrote: Hi 1. Would like to ask how much memory does FreeDOS support, e.g. 4 GiB? 2. Does it faces 640 KiB limitation as MS-DOS, e.g. Do I have to load high drivers to save on conventional memory? 3. Does it support usage of a swap file/partition? FreeDOS is an MS-DOS 6.00 clone, a 16bit operating system, so it will by itself only support 1MB (or 640KB as you mentioned), just as MS-DOS. More than that can only be access by use of an XMS or EMS compatible memory manager. And due to all this, there simply is not a need for any swap file/partition (though some memory manager might create/use one)... Ralf -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS Memory
Op 27-12-2011 20:08, Koh Choon Lin schreef: Hi 1. Would like to ask how much memory does FreeDOS support, e.g. 4 GiB? Yes you'll be limited to a maximum of 4GB if you have 4GB or more. In practice this maximum could be anywhere between 2GB and 4GB (usually 3.3GB or 3.5GB) due to PCI chipset device mapping into the top of memory. 2. Does it faces 640 KiB limitation as MS-DOS, e.g. Do I have to load high drivers to save on conventional memory? yes. To access beyond 640KB load a driver (XMGR, HIMEMX, whatever) to access extended memory (XMS). 3. Does it support usage of a swap file/partition? Not by itself. DJGPP programs seem to support a swapfile if CWSDPMI is being used as extender. -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS Memory
Hi 2. Does it faces 640 KiB limitation as MS-DOS, e.g. Do I have to load high drivers to save on conventional memory? Thanks for all the fast replies. I think my question is misunderstood. Load high is a MS-DOS technique to load drivers in the upper memory to save conventional memory. I remembered 20 years ago there were many attempts to free up as much conventional memory as possible. Like to ask if FreeDOS comes with memmaker too? -- Regards Koh Choon Lin -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS Memory
1. Would like to ask how much memory does FreeDOS support, e.g. 4 GiB? Yes you'll be limited to a maximum of 4GB if you have 4GB or more. In practice this maximum could be anywhere between 2GB and 4GB (usually 3.3GB or 3.5GB) due to PCI chipset device mapping into the top of memory. On older or uncomplicated mainboards, PCI should not take that many addresses. And yes, no one ever vioced any serious interest about more than 4-GB of memory, so Japheth and I never pursued it in HIMEMX or XMGR. Can be done, but it requires strong agreement on all the conventions used for the two drivers to access over 4-GB of XMS. 2. Does it faces 640 KiB limitation as MS-DOS, e.g. Do I have to load high drivers to save on conventional memory? yes. To access beyond 640KB load a driver (XMGR, HIMEMX, whatever) to access extended memory (XMS). In fact, one needs an XMS driver (XMGR, HIMEMX, MS-DOS HIMEM, etc.) and an upper-memory provider driver (JEMM386, MS-DOS EMM386, etc.). The combined JEMMEX can also be used. If one uses only real mode, the UMBPCI driver can enable Shadow RAM (BIOS usage) as upper-memory, and XMGR can then provide that memory to DOS. No need for EMM drivers in that case, but note that UMBPCI may not run with all newer chipsets. The main point is that an XMS driver by-itself does NOT provide upper memory to the DOS system. This is done by the EMM driver, or by the specific UMBPCI/XMGR combination. [If XMGR does not find Shadow RAM enabled by UMBPCI, it works the same as HIMEMX/HIMEM and waits for an EMM driver to enable conventional upper-memory]. -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS Memory
At 11:49 AM 12/27/2011, Koh Choon Lin wrote: Hi 2. Does it faces 640 KiB limitation as MS-DOS, e.g. Do I have to load high drivers to save on conventional memory? Thanks for all the fast replies. I think my question is misunderstood. Load high is a MS-DOS technique to load drivers in the upper memory to save conventional memory. I remembered 20 years ago there were many attempts to free up as much conventional memory as possible. The same still applies for FreeDOS today. As I already mentioned, FreeDOS is an MS-DOS 6.00 clone. Like to ask if FreeDOS comes with memmaker too? No. Ralf -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS in a Qemu box.
Hi, On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 10:12 AM, Eric Auer e.a...@jpberlin.de wrote: Are there any hints to install FreeDOS inside a Qemu box? I'm trying this right now, but the installation process is damn slow. This is the Qemu command line: Well Qemu emulates everything, including the CPU, as far as I remember - you could try Dosemu (if you use Linux or BSD) as that only emulates the I/O hardware such as the graphics card. I don't think DOSEMU runs on *BSD anymore. But yes, it's faster as it uses V86 mode, but it's Linux only (though i686 or AMD64). QEMU 1.0 is latest version from a month ago, are you using that? Or older? What host OS? What cpu? It's going to be slower as they long ago dropped support for kqemu (kernel acceleration). You could probably try one of the various forks, e.g. Xen, KVM, VirtualBox (as, IIRC, they all are based upon it somewhat). If your cpu supports any kind of VT-X (2006 on up, esp. AMD machines), that would greatly help too. qemu -cdrom ~/.qemu/fdbasecd.iso -hda ~/.qemu/freedos.img -boot order=c,once=d -m 31M -k pt-br -soundhw sb16 -M pc -smp 1 -cpu pentium -name FreeDOS -sdl I've tried several values to -cpu, including qemu32/64, pentium, 486, core2duo; and also raise the -m value up to default (128M). Having a lot of RAM will not hurt, but 128 MB is really enough... Heh. Depends on what you want to run. But I don't think any of that will affect the speed much. Also, you can try to NOT use emm386 and to NOT install USB and/or network drivers: With the FreeDOS 1.0 ISO, I remember that those two were very slow in detecting hardware etc. Another thing that you can try is using Bernd's preview of FreeDOS 1.1 which is much more up to date, including much newer drivers - thanks Bernd! :-) I wouldn't try a FULL install if you're too impatient. Honestly, damn slow sounds like an exaggeration, how long is it taking? 30 minutes? More than an hour? Just be patient. I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's either that or try something else (VMware Player? Bernd and Eduardo prefer that). -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS Memory
Hi, You've already got some good replies, but I'll try to add my (incomplete) knowledge for completeness (corrections welcome). On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 1:08 PM, Koh Choon Lin 2choon...@gmail.com wrote: 1. Would like to ask how much memory does FreeDOS support, e.g. 4 GiB? FreeDOS can run on any x86 machine with a BIOS. Hence, 8088 can only access 1 MB (typically 640 kb minus DOS system itself) not counting EMS, 286 only goes up to 16 MB, 386 only to 2 / 3 / 4 GB (in theory), not counting PAE (PPro / i686). KERNEL.SYS doesn't handle anything outside 1 MB (I think?), so you have to use HIMEMX (or similar, e.g. XMGR, FDXMS286) and/or JEMM386 to access more (or enable unreal mode on 386+). Your apps themselves must be aware of such things, e.g. XMS, EMS, etc. to access it, so they won't all magically work. DPMI typically piggybacks atop raw, XMS, VCPI, or (another) DPMI host if found. Different ones have different limits. In particular, I've seen different effects in CWSDPMI r5, HDPMI32, CWSDPMI r7. CWSDPMI r5 is older and doesn't use 4 MB [586+] pages, hence it's slower and slightly more outdated (barely), so I'd suggest r7. This machine here has 6 GB, but r5 reports 1.8 GB, HDPMI32 reports 2.6 GB, and r7 reports 4 GB. But with r7, GCC 4.6.2 chokes somewhere when trying to allocate 400+ MB of RAM for -O2 optimizations (silly compiler), so that may be a rare bug (hopefully to be looked into eventually, but CWS is a busy genius, heheh). I have almost never allocated anywhere near 1 GB of RAM by myself. I think paq8o8z -8 will use approx. 1.5 GB (slowly), but beyond that, I don't know. I think CWS told me that you should use sbrk() directly if accessing more than 2 GB of RAM. I'm not sure how to do it as presumably most people never bothered and a lot of things (malloc?) just assumed 2 GB limits. There is an experimental PAE version of DOS/32A 9.1.2 (OpenWatcom extender), but I've never tried it. Again, I have no idea what the libc will do if you try allocating too much, and esp. PAE is beyond me (only access 4 GB at a time out of total 64 GB??). 2. Does it faces 640 KiB limitation as MS-DOS, e.g. Do I have to load high drivers to save on conventional memory? The only limitations are DOS and your DOS apps, so it depends on what each one wants. Yes, traditionally, it still has to (partially) run in low RAM, so you'll want to save space. Without XMS (286+) loaded, you'll only get approx. 400 kb free (and should use vspawn + FreeCOM), otherwise (using XMS_Swap FreeCOM) you should get about 600 kb. That should be enough for almost anything (not counting extended RAM, as even most DOS apps assume it nowadays). 3. Does it support usage of a swap file/partition? Not exactly. There is no dedicated swap partition, and there is no central memory manager. However, some DOS extenders support virtual memory. DOS/4GW 1.97 supports like 32 MB, I think??, and Causeway can support similar too. CWSDPMI will swap (in theory) and is probably the best (most common too), but it doesn't always work on every machine (e.g. 4 GB free, 0 kb swap free, which is weird, as even r5 shows some swap space available). So it depends on how much HD you have free on your pre-existing FAT drive (usually C:\ and often hardcoded but sometimes can be configured, e.g. CWSPARAM or cwsdpmi -sd:\). -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Dictionnary program not working
Hi, On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 9:22 AM, Sébastien Hinderer sebastien.hinde...@ens-lyon.org wrote: I've actually seen a report of this dictionnary not working, but I don't think any serious attempt to understand and perhaps fix the problem had been undertaken so far. It will be hard to fix when the software isn't freely available. Most of us aren't willing to download random (still copyrighted) abandonware.:-/ However, others might be able to help if you mentioned the name and version of the program you are trying to use. It's Le grand Robert 1992, an excellent french dictionnary. At least that narrows it down. You don't get any output from the program, so this may be difficult to track down. I was wondering whether dosemu wouldn't offer some debugging facilities that could be useful here... It does, but I don't know what or how to use it, sadly. You'll have to wait for (or nag) Eric Auer or Bart Oldeman or similar to chime in. Or just read the online manuals: http://www.dosemu.org/docs/ But here's two horribly wimpy suggestions to isolate the problem. 1). Download File 5.09: http://sites.google.com/site/rugxulo/file509.zip?attredirects=0 Put file.exe in your %PATH% and set MAGIC=/dev/c/fdos/magic.mgc (or similar, /dev/c/ means C:\). Now try file dictionary.exe (or whatever, etc.) to see if it uses any special .EXE format or DOS extender. 2). Download KGB 1.04: http://archives.scovetta.com/pub/simtelnet/msdos/sysutl/kgb104.zip kgb.exe (start the TSR) dictionary.exe (run the program) kgb /u (unload TSR) edit c:\history.dat (see what files it tried to open) Who knows, maybe one of those two things will help somehow. :-/ -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS Memory
On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 2:08 PM, Koh Choon Lin 2choon...@gmail.com wrote: 1. Would like to ask how much memory does FreeDOS support, e.g. 4 GiB? It's an open source clone of MS-DOS, which is a 16 bit real mode OS. It can see up to one megabyte of RAM as usable memory. Beyond that, you must load HIMEM.SYS and possible EMM386.EXE to get access to XMS or EMS. I have FreeDOS on an old notebook with 256MB RAM, and use XMS memory to support a ramdisk and a cache. 2. Does it faces 640 KiB limitation as MS-DOS, e.g. Do I have to load high drivers to save on conventional memory? Yes. 3. Does it support usage of a swap file/partition? No, and doesn't really need one. It's not a virtual memory OS. Regards Koh Choon Lin __ Dennis -- Write once. Port to many. Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
