Hi, > On Jun 15, 2021, at 11:38 AM, Eric Auer <e.a...@jpberlin.de> wrote: > > > Hi! > >> Basically, If a version for a specific platform doesn’t exist. The Default >> version is used. >> >> Extensions are >> 086-686: for CPU specific. >> DBX: for DOSBox >> VBX: for VirtualBox >> VMW: for VMware >> (a couple others not used a present) > > Quite complex system! Maybe you could make a > table about the differences between those. > >> Partly to show they are for FreeDOS and FreeDOS is different from >> MS/PC/Open/etc-DOS. >> >> Partly because installers love to break MY config files. > > Difficult. Some people may prefer similarities > instead of differences being made explicit. > > Thanks for clarifying that backing up the old > system includes boot files, config and the DOS > directory. I guess you could even add a backup > of the old boot sector to your backup zip :-)
It does. I forget where it goes though. I’m pretty sure it puts a copy in the DOSDIR. Forget if it puts one in the backup dir as well. > After all, our SYS has a backup and a restore. > >> The “Welcome” screen says “Welcome to the advanced installer” > > Yes, but I was referring to the title text. > >>> Which brings me to the next question, why >>> not put that choice in the interactive >>> installer menu? As far as I understood >>> the video, people have to abort install >>> to get to a prompt, then manually start >>> advanced install, that is less intuitive. >> >> Not up to me. > > Then I hope somebody else would support my > suggestion that the advanced installer mode > can be reached from the initial "how do you > want to install? full or base, with or without > sources?" menu as a fifth option to make it > easier to find :-) Having to first abort the > installer to find the advanced mode is evil. > >> At present, I’m not aware of any tool that >> does a test for “Is Drive ? Empty”. > > You mean as in "are there no partitions yet”? No. I mean there is a partition. There is a Drive C:. Drive C: is formatted. Drive C: contains no files. > That should be feasible to do with the help > of FDISK /INFO and a writeable temp directory > to let you "grep" for the word "FAT" and for > the "%" character. If % is found, then there > are some partitions. If "FAT" is found, they > even include FAT ones. So you get four cases: > > - no partitions are existing at all yet > > - partitions exist, but none are FAT > > - FAT partition exists, but not formatted > > - a working FAT partition exists Installer does all that already. And manages to do it without the guarantee of a writable temporary file system. Prior to RC4, the boot media was unable to generate a RAM drive under QEMU. With RC4, it is able to do that now. > > To distinguish the last 2 cases, simply use > my tiny WHICHFAT utility :-) > > Note that FDISK returns a non-zero errorlevel > if you try to "FDISK /INFO 1" while no BIOS > drive 0x80 exists at all. In that case, it > would of course be futile to install to the > drive which does not even exist ;-) > > As mentioned before, I think you should NOT > assume that VM users by definition want to > overwrite all data, or that hardware users > by definition do not. Better check whether > there already is something on the disk, no > matter whether it is a real or virtual one. > > Regards, Eric > > > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
