Broken

• The kernel distributed with Beta3 ("Ventura") still contains the bug for large disks. If you have a hard disk over 512MB, then you should not try to SYS your hard disk with the boot floppy, and you should not install the KER2010X package. This is a kernel bug, so I can't do anything about this.
• The MEM program is broken. Users have reported that running it will lock up your PC, and you will have to reboot.
• The DELTREE program seems to have a bug when it needs to prompt the user for a yes/no reponse.
• On hard drives that have been partitioned by a utility other that of Free FDISK or MS-DOS's FDISK (for example a UNIX-based ``fdisk'') there is a potential for partitions to be overwritten. The most prevalent problem has been where a non-DOS partition resides as the fourth partition in the primary partition table. In this situation Free FDISK will, in many cases, create a partition in the first empty entry on the partition table that overlaps the UNIX partition. Upon formatting the Free FDISK created partititon the information in the other partition is destroyed. Will be fixed when version 0.97 of Free FDISK is released.

Seem Broken, But Aren't

• The kernel source package was updated after I had assembled the distribution. Looks like I updated the Base DAT file correctly, but forgot to update the Source DAT file. The 2009 sources were not distributed - look for the 2010 sources instead. I think the package name is KER2010S.ZIP.
• If you have problems downloading Beta3, and getting it to work for you (the most common problem seems to be that the IMG files are downloaded in Ascii format, not Binary) then you might want to try one of the mirror sites, such as gcfl.net. You may also want to compare your downloaded files with the MD5 Sum
• Some anti-virus software, including Norton's, will report that the install boot floppies contain a virus (usually reported as the "Bloodhound" virus.) This is a false positive, there is no virus. If your MD5 Sum matches the server, then you should be okay.
• Don't try to run RAWRITE from Windows NT. The hardware abstraction layer (HAL) doesn't let you make direct access to the hardware (in this case, the floppy device.) Windows NT will hang or crash your system. Boot directly to DOS to run RAWRITE, or do it from within Windows 95/98, or use 'dd' if you have Linux.

Changes and Updates

• Version 1.02b of DELTREE provides a workaround for a yes/no prompt bug. The update is available from: http://www.highfiber.com/~raster/freeware.htm
• Chksum 1.04 has been made available, and will probably be included in the next release: http://www.highfiber.com/~raster/freeware.htm
• COMMAND.COM was updated to 0.77, and is available from gcfl.net. The version distributed with Beta3 had some buggy commands, such as a broken COPY (as a workaround, use the external COPY command.)
• The FreeDOS Kernel was updated to build 2011, and is available from gcfl.net.
• The FreeDOS COPY program has been updated: http://home.epix.net/~k3pbu/freedos/.
• Free FDISK 0.96 is now available at http://www.23cc.com/programs.

In the next Beta

• CMOS 1.00 will be included in the next Beta. This is a tool for your CMOS. It was not included in Beta3.
• FDPOWER has been finished, and may be included in the next Beta.
• Beta3 didn't have a file viewer on the boot floppy so that users could read the distribution notes. I'll include a copy of MORE in the next release.
• DISKCOPY now has a new maintainer, and version 0.2 was recently released.
• LOCATE has been updated.
• RAWRITE has been updated. This supports a variety of conditions and is slightly easier to use.
• A copy of TESTMEM has been made available, and may be included in the next release.