THE FREEDOS BETA5 ("LARA") DISTRIBUTION INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS Jim Hall August 10, 2000 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. WHAT TO GET: The Beta5 distribution is being made available in two "flavors": (1) The Mini distribution will contain all the software that you need to reproduce the functionality of MS-DOS. This will consist only of an install boot floppy and the Base1 install disk. Download the Mini distribution if you only want to install a very basic DOS system, and nothing else. (2) The Full distribution will contain everything from the Mini, but also will include GUIs, compilers, assemblers, utilities, etc. Download the Full distribution if you want to have it all! If you want to install the Mini distribution, you need to download these files: RAWRITE.EXE MINI.BIN BASE1.ZIP If you want to install the Full distribution, you will need to download these files: RAWRITE.EXE FULL.BIN BASE1.ZIP LANG1.ZIP EDIT1.ZIP UTIL1.ZIP (this list is incomplete, and will be updated) Note that the Beta5 will release the Full distribution as it becomes available. Just like last time! If you do not already have a copy of UNZIP, you will need to download that as well. Yes, you need UNZIP To extract the install disks. 2. BEFORE YOU INSTALL: 2.1 STEP 1 - THE INSTALL DISKS (* see the variation, at the end) Once you have downloaded all the files you need, you must do a little "prep" work before you can install FreeDOS. The install disks (BASE1.ZIP, etc.) are actually zipped up, so that you only need to download the one file, rather than a whole bunch. So before you can install from the BASE1.ZIP install disk, you first need to unzip it. Format a 1.44MB floppy, then unzip the BASE1.ZIP file to that floppy. Do this: UNZIP BASE1.ZIP -d A: Yes, the lowercase "-d" is important. Unzip is very case sensitive. Now everything that you need on the Base1 install floppy is on that floppy disk. If you look on the Base1 install floppy, you'll notice many smaller .zip files, each with a corresponding .lsm file. You'll also see a BASE.1 and BASE.END file. This is normal. You didn't do anything wrong. If you are installing the Mini distribution, then you are done with the install disks. If you are installing the Full distribution, then you need to repeat the above steps for the other install disks that you downloaded. 2.2 STEP 2 - THE INSTALL BOOT FLOPPY IMAGE The Beta5 distribution uses an install boot floppy that you use to (surprise!) boot your computer to install FreeDOS. The boot floppy needs to be written to a pre-formatted 1.44MB floppy disk. I'm sure other boot floppy images for 360k and 720k will soon be made available, but I have a 1.44MB disk drive, so that's what you get. We need to use a program called RAWRITE to write these images to a floppy. You downloaded this program, above. To create the boot floppy for the Mini distribution: (1) Run RAWRITE (2) Read the MINI.BIN image file (3) Write to the A: drive To create the boot floppy for the Full distribution: (1) Run RAWRITE (2) Read the FULL.BIN image file (3) Write to the A: drive Notice that the procedure to create the boot floppy is essentially the same for the MINI and FULL distributions. The only thing that changes is the name of the image file name. If you are using UNIX, you may instead use the "dd" program to write the disk images. Load a formatted 1.44MB floppy in your drive, then type the following while logged in as "root": dd if=MINI.BIN of=/dev/fd0 The inquisitive DOS user will notice that the contents of MINI.BIN and FULL.BIN are essentially the same. Yes, we planned it that way. 3. TO INSTALL FROM FLOPPY DISK: Now you are ready to install the FreeDOS distribution on your computer. If you have made all your floppies correctly, then you reboot your computer using the install boot floppy that you made from either MINI.BIN or FULL.BIN. When your computer boots up (may take a minute or two, depending on the speed of your PC) you will be at a DOS prompt. At this point, you have the opportunity to run FDISK to create a DOS partition IF YOU DON'T ALREADY HAVE ONE. To run FDISK, just type: FDISK Then follow the on-screen prompts to create a new partition and mark it as the active primary partition. After you run FDISK, you will need to reboot. Just boot off the install boot floppy again. IF YOU CREATED A NEW PARTITION for FreeDOS, you'll also need to format the partition before you can use it. To do that, just type: FORMAT C: /U You'll need to reboot again after the FORMAT command. Sorry. Don't forget to make the C: drive bootable with FreeDOS. Just type: SYS C: After that, run the install program: INSTALL When the install program asks where you will install from (where the install files are located) enter: A: The install program will then ask you where to install FreeDOS. Most people will use C:\DOS or C:\FDOS. (Note that there's a little but in the install program, where you can only select one directory deep. Don't install to something like C:\BETA5\FREEDOS, because that's two directories deep, and it won't work.) One final note: floppy disk access is still a little slow in this release. So, your install may take a lot longer than you might expect. Please budget for some additional time when installing your copy of FreeDOS. Everything runs fine from the hard disk after that, though. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Congratulations - you have now installed FreeDOS! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- OPTIONAL: TO INSTALL FROM THE HARD DISK I won't spend too much time on this, as I expect most people will opt to install from floppy disk. However, it is possible to install from your hard disk. If you are installing everything, and you already have a copy of DOS on your computer, then this is probably the option you want. Hard disk access under FreeDOS is a lot faster than floppy, anyway. The only difference between installing from floppy disk and installing from the hard disk is when you create the install floppies. When you installed from floppy disks, you needed to unzip each install floppy onto a separate 1.44MB floppy disk. But to install from the hard disk, you just unzip each install floppy INTO A SINGLE DIRECTORY ON YOUR HARD DISK. For example, you might do this: UNZIP BASE1.ZIP -d C:\FDBETA5 For the Mini distribution, that's all you need to do. If you want to install the Full distribution, you will also need to unzip all the other install disks like LANG1.ZIP, EDIT1.ZIP, and UTIL1.ZIP, etc. That's it. When the install program asks you where to install from, say C:\FDBETA5 (you can delete the C:\FDBETA5 directory after you are done installing FreeDOS.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------