Bernd, Thank you very much for posting this, it will be a big help to me in learning isolinux. I want to learn both this method and Eric's, where one boots FreeDOS directly without isolinux.
I will try making the changes you suggest over the weekend and trying again to boot FreeDOS with help from isolinux. One question. You seem to be saying that if I load eltorito.sys, it will run both my CD/DVD drive and my USB keyboard for me and I do not need to load other drivers? Thank you! Bob On 1/19/12 4:12 PM, Bernd Blaauw wrote: > Op 19-1-2012 21:46, Alain Mouette schreef: >> The MKISOFS is the one that brings it all toghether. The freeDOS image >> is passed as an argument to be loaded in memory and then executed. > If creating a direct (floppy/harddisk) emulation CD then you'll indeed > need to pass the name of the floppy/hdd image file. > > The isolinux situation from FreeDOS 1.1 is slightly easier in some way: > Rename your harddisk image to FDBOOT.IMG and replace the already > existing 360KB FDBOOT.IMG file by it. Next recreate the CD. > > Boot sequence for most Isolinux based CDs is: > 1) BIOS > 2) CDROM bootsector (boot.catalog) > 3) Isolinux.bin > 4) Isolinux.cfg > 5) Optionally, some menu interface module (menu.c32 , vesamenu.c32) > 6) User's input (if in menu mode or interactive mode) > 7) The kernel/program belonging to whichever choice the user made > > For Linux distributions step 7 consists of the Linux kernel and some > initial ramdisk. > > DOS needs to boot from a FAT filesystem. As that's not present, > emulation is needed. For that, the MEMDISK module is loaded by Isolinux, > which then loads whichever floppy/harddisk imagefile you specified. For > FreeDOS 1.1, it's FDBOOT.IMG, and MEMDISK causes this floppy emulation > to be present in system memory rather than a 'read-only tiny part of the > CD'. > > Finally, the space on an emulated FAT disk is usually limited. For that > reason most content of the CD can't be directly accessed. That means the > emulated bootdisk (imagefile) needs to load CD-ROM drivers. > > Nowadays with USB and everything, we can't rely on CD-ROM being present > on an IDE/ATAPI controller thus standard drivers (UIDE) won't work in > all possible situations. Luckily the CD-ROM booted and started > ISOLINUX.BIN in "non-emulation" mode, and the ELTORITO.SYS driver works > quite universally then. > (Loading DOS USB drivers can ruin this again for example though). > > >> Anyway, this was a good feedback, I am planning a FreeDOS release withou >> my programs, and I will make that more clear and more specific, I gesse >> that the scrip that puts it all toghether may help. > I've not looked at your ISO yet, only that one of Georg Potthast > (DOS-USB demo) and a game CD by Fritz. > >>> I followed the instructions below from Alain, using my Fedora 14 (Linux) >>> box. I didn't have 100% success but I am much closer! I created an image >>> file in the manner described below. I wondered where to find command.com >>> and kernel.sys...so I downloaded the FreeDOS iso for 1.1 and found those >>> files in the "one disk" folder. I copied them to my image and then >>> copied over my BIOS update files which are packaged in a directory. > Ah yeah the Linux 'sys' script solves the bootsector issue :) > >>> However I ran into trouble at Step 8: specifically, I couldn't figure >>> out how to independently generate an "isolinux" folder or where to find >>> isolinux to start with. So I copied over the "ISOLINUX" folder I found >>> inside the FreeDOS 1.1 iso, and did some experimenting with the >>> arguments to mkisofs. This got me a nice small iso image which I burned >>> to CD. > Easiest experiment is to get 7Zip and FreeDOS 1.1, extract all files > from the ISO and try to recreate it again (be aware of write-protected / > read-only files as they're copied from CD..). > >>> I then booted from this cd and got...the FreeDOS 1.1 installation screen >>> in all its glory! > You can modify the isolinux.cfg text configuration file anyway you like. > >>> In Alain's recipe below, it is not obvious to me how the FreeDOS.img >>> file is connected to isolinux. I played with the tab key to see the boot >>> arguments for the CD I made, and I get the impression that FreeDOS.img >>> would be treated as the initrd= argument to isolinux. Am I right about >>> that? In other words, isolinux takes the FreeDOS.img file, loads it into >>> memory, and then passes control to it? > correct, isolinux -> memdisk -> fdboot.img -> DOS > >>> Clearly, I need to read up more about using isolinux. I am very grateful >>> to all of you for your help and advice. I'm making progress! > I intend to automate all of this a bit in the future. Making progress > already :) > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Keep Your Developer Skills Current with LearnDevNow! > The most comprehensive online learning library for Microsoft developers > is just $99.99! Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL - plus HTML5, CSS3, MVC3, > Metro Style Apps, more. Free future releases when you subscribe now! > http://p.sf.net/sfu/learndevnow-d2d > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Keep Your Developer Skills Current with LearnDevNow! The most comprehensive online learning library for Microsoft developers is just $99.99! 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