Mail Archives: opendos/1997/11/26/18:36:07
Hi,
I don t mind, but from time to time I wonder, if anyone actually reads my replies... ;-) Only days agos we d just broadly discussed multi boot
loader and LOADER in special.
>> If one wanted to run MS-DOS 6.2 AND OpenDOS, how would one have
>> themcoexisting? Do I have to have a multiple OS loader, or does
>> OpenDOS have one?
>I don't believe you can have them coexisting on the same partition, you
>would have to have two different partitions (one for Ms-dos and one for
>OpenDos) and then find a boot loader which will take care of it.
OpenDOS can coexist with *any* version of MS-DOS 2.0+ and Windows95
on the same partition, if you install a multi boot loader like for example
LOADER that ships with OpenDOS 7.02 since BETA 1+. For MS-DOS
prior 3.3 use the LOADER load type "3", for later versions use the
"Standard boot sector". Since the MS-DOS files need to be specially
arranged on the boot drive, you need to SYS your drive under the
MS operating system, and afterwards (re)install LOADER (very easy).
The system files of the DR DOS family can be stored anywhere on the
disk, as long as they are listed in the root directory. For the same purpose
you can also use the older DRI or Novell LOADER, or the CCI LOADER,
which uses a different configuration file format. There are alot of other
boot loaders out in the wild: As long as they support DR DOS 6.0+ you
can use them with OpenDOS.
My personal IBMBIO.COM ALPHA3+ and also OpenDOS 7.02 BETA2+
even support booting the system from any *physical* drive (not only A:
and C:), and as long as the corresponding boot sector and MBR reflect
the correct drive, OpenDOS will also search for its configuration files
on these other drives.
You can use DCONFIG.SYS (I have to correct my former mail, it s available
since DR DOS 3.31+), or ODCONFIG.SYS (since ALPHA3+ and BETA2+)
to override the usage of CONFIG.SYS, but often you can also use a
single CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT for OpenDOS and MS-DOS.
LOADER also supports any PC-DOS if you use SYS /DR:ext to install the
OpenDOS files under different file names, e.g. SYS /DR:702 for
IBMBIO.702. After SYSing the drive with PC-DOS, and (re)installing
LOADER, it will also be loaded via the "standard boot sector", whereas
OpenDOS will be booted via a BOOT.LST entry using LOADER s "S"
boot style. BOOT.LST also allows to give a default entry and a timeout
value.
OpenDOS, Novell DOS, PalmDOS, DR DOS, Multiuser DOS, Concurrrent
DOS, Concurrent CP/M, CP/M and OS/2 1.x are all directly supported by LOADER, and can be installed parallel (even multiple versions of the same
system, if you like). For this purpose DR DOS 6.0+ provides the SYS /DR:ext
option to change the extension of the kernel and configuration files, which
also can be combined with the [[O]D]CONFIG.ext method.
*Any* other OS is supported using either the "standard boot sector" or
a loader stub in a binary file. So LOADER can also spawn to other
boot loaders, like the dual boot managers of NT or Win95, and itself
can also be loaded from other managers like LILO, OS/2 boot manager,
etc.
More info can be found in the backlogs of these mailing lists, with
LOADER /?, and in the README.TXT file of my IBMBIOA3.ZIP archive
and NWDOSTIP.TXT (from my MPDOSTIP.ZIP), both freely available
from my web-pages (see below).
Matthias
------------------------------------------------------------
Matthias Paul
eMail: <Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
Web: http://www.rhrz.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html
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