FreeDOS beta9 prerelease 2. Readme file Table of Contents: --------------------------------- I) bootdisk information II) CD layout III) installation IV) post-installation disk/RAM layout and configuration files V) updates --------------------------------- I) bootdisk information. thanks to a few people from the FD-kernel mailinglist the bootdisk now has a bootsector which enables a tool like WinImage to resize the diskette image. It also means harddisk resizing tools like Ghost will no longer make your FreeDOS installation unbootable after resizing your partition(s). The disk boots, and the configuration menu appears: option 0 enables you to test the integrity of the computer's main memory, by running Memtest86 version 3.0 options 1 and 2 provide you with access to the bootable cdrom, and thus the freedos installation. Option 1 is standard, and option 2 is useful if you want to run additional programs (because 605KB low RAM is available, versus 480KB for option 1) option 4 lets you specify additional (cdrom) drivers to be loaded, using the DEVLOAD commandline device driver loader program. useful for SCSI and/or non-ATAPI cdromdrives. following files are present: A:\COMMAND.COM A:\DRIVER\ATAPICDD.SYS A:\FDCONFIG.SYS A:\DRIVER\CTMOUSE.EXE A:\FDKERN1.SYS A:\DRIVER\DEVLOAD.EXE A:\KERNEL.SYS A:\DRIVER\ELTORITO.SYS A:\MKKERNEL.SYS A:\DRIVER\FDXMS.SYS A:\README.TXT A:\DRIVER\SHSUCDX.EXE A:\FREEDOS\ATTRIB.COM A:\FREEDOS\FORMAT.EXE A:\FREEDOS\CALLVER.COM A:\FREEDOS\GPL.COM A:\FREEDOS\CPUDET.COM A:\FREEDOS\MEMTESTE.EXE A:\FREEDOS\FDAUTO.BAT A:\FREEDOS\SAVEBS-A.COM A:\FREEDOS\FDISK.EXE A:\FREEDOS\SAVEBS-C.COM A:\FREEDOS\FDISK.INI A:\FREEDOS\SYS.COM A:\FREEDOS\FDISKPT.INI A:\FREEDOS\XCOPY.EXE A:\FREEDOS\FINDCD.BAT II) CD layout CD layout is quite simple. At the very least, a root directory is present. To make the cdrom bootable, the IsoLinux directory is required, with the boot- loading file isolinux.bin. Optional is the Freedos directory, an autorun.inf, autorun.bat, etc. You can create your own cdrom by changing the contents of \isolinux\autorun.bat and then running MAKEISO.BAT to create the ISO9660 imagefile (write it as/to cd using NERO, CDRECORD, or a similar application) thus we have this: \{root} - autorun.inf \FREEDOS \ INSTALL (installer, batch scripts, required extra programs) \ PACKAGES (programs:binary={appinfo;bin;doc;help}, source={source\name} \ 3RDPARTY (optional programs which are GPL/freeware/PublicDomain) \ISOLINUX \ BUILDCD (makeiso.bat builds you a new ISO file) ----------------------------- III) Installation Multiple forms of installation are theoretically possible. Among them installation replacing other DOS, a brand new installation, dualboot with Windows (95/98/ME or NT/2000/XP/2003) or Linux. for your old computer, we consider only a brand new installation. This assumes a fresh (can still be old though) unpartitioned harddisk. The FreeDOS kernel (core) needs to be installed on C:, the first activated and visible primary partition of your first harddisk. If you do not have a C: yet, as is the case with a new harddisk, you're offered the opportunity to run Fdisk, which creates the primary partition (fdisk option 1). Specify size and do not forget to activate the partition (fdisk option2). After a reboot you must install a filesystem called FAT (more specific: fat12/fat16/fat32), by issuing the command FORMAT C: (menu option 2 or 3, whichever you prefer). After that, installation can begin. Either the graphical installer starts (on modern systems), or the old one. please select the destionation directory (usually C:\DOS or C:\FREEDOS), and select the packages that you want to install. Once the installer finishes unpacking the desired software, post-installation begins. ----------------------------- IV) Post-installation the FreeDOS software has been installed, but no automatic startup has been created yet. Since beta8, the post-installer does this for you. The shell (the commandline environment where you enter your commands) is translated to your language (if present on the cd), the config.sys driverfile is created, and the autoexec.bat scriptfile is created. See below for contents of both files: ;for help on commands, please see C:\FDOS\config.sys MENU 1 - Load FreeDOS and XMS-memory driver MENU 2 - Load FreeDOS without drivers MENUDEFAULT=1,5 1?DEVICE=C:\FDOS\BIN\FDXMS.SYS 1?DOS=HIGH 1?SHELL=C:\FDOS\BIN\CMDXSWP.COM /P=c:\autoexec.bat 2?SHELL=c:\command.com /P=c:\autoexec.bat !LASTDRIVE=Z !BUFFERS=20 !FILES=40 ;1?DEVICE=C:\FDOS\bin\atapicdd.sys /D:FDCD0001 @echo off set dosdir=C:\FDOS set dircmd=/p/ogn set lang=EN set key= set path=C:\;C:\FDOS;C:\FDOS\bin IF EXIST C:\FDOS\bin\mouse.exe C:\FDOS\bin\mouse.exe IF EXIST FDCD0001 C:\FDOS\bin\Shsucdx /D:FDCD0001 echo BootFiles: c:\config.sys, c:\autoexec.bat, c:\command.com echo. echo Welcome to FreeDOS echo. mouse and cdrom driver support are optional :) also the kernel is installed, which is the actual FreeDOS core. it requires a loader (bootsector), which you need to install manually by issueing the BOOT command. This has not been automated because it's possible that an existing bootsector of an already installed Operating System will be overwritten. now you may reboot. after installation, you may type the command HELP to get some help on navigation and command support. Install your own programs and games. Since these all need to run in a limited memory environment [640KB maximum], we've made every effort to provide you with as much available conventional memory as possible. See below: Name Total Conventional Upper Memory -------- ---------------- ---------------- ---------------- MSDOS 17,968 (18K) 17,968 (18K) 0 (0K) FDXMS 1,984 (2K) 1,984 (2K) 0 (0K) CMDXSWP 3,184 (3K) 3,184 (3K) 0 (0K) MOUSE 3,328 (3K) 3,328 (3K) 0 (0K) Available 626,656 (612K) 626,656 (612K) 0 (0K) ---------------------------- V) Updates -A newer FreeDOS distribution may be found at www.freedos.org/freedos/files/ -Updated software is available from http://www.freedos.org/freedos/software/ -The FreeDOS kernel may be updated by replacing C:\KERNEL.SYS with a newer version, which can be obtained from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=5109 -Bugs may be reported at the FreeDOS bug database [ http://www.freedos.org/bugs/bugzilla/ ], or at the developer's mailinglist [ fd-dev@topica.com ; http://www.topica.com/lists/fd-dev ] regards, Bernd Blaauw, 2003-08-23