On Tue, Mar 29, 2022 at 2:40 PM John Vella <john.ve...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So, I've got the 486 computer working and am ready to install freedos and > wordperfect. > > I'm thinking there are a couple of advantages to installing onto a virtualbox > machine, then formatting the physical hard drive and copying the contents > over. > > It would be a lot quicker to install and I'd have a clean image if I ever > need to reinstall. What machine will VirtualBox be running on? If your VirtualBox host machine can run it acceptably, you *may* have a plan. Getting FreeDOS working in VirtualBox can be non-trivial. Jim Hall and others here can provide pointers > Is there an obvious flaw to my plan? If your main intent is a quicker install, it's likely to be faster to just install FreeDOS and WP on the 486 on the bare metal instead of creating an image in VirtualBox. (It will take the same time to do it in VirtualBox, with the added overhead of getting it to run in VirtualBox in the first place.) In the old days, when you got a new machine, you booted DOS from floppy, formatted the HD from DOS with format /s (which copied the DOS system files to the HD,)then removed the floppy, rebooted from the HD, and carried on. That is likely still your best option. Personally, were I to install FreeDOS in VirtualBox or another virtual machine, I'd do it because I wanted a full working FreeDOS installation, and I didn't *have* an Old Skool machine to do a bare metal install on. > John. ______ Dennis _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
