[Freedos-user] I'm looking for a way to use a USB floppy drive - I can boot from a CDROM drive ok

[David Zabriskie]

I have a DOS application that creates DMF formated floppys, but it needs dos as a host OS.
I'm using laptop that has a bootable cd drive and winxp home in single a hd partition in NTFS.
There is only about 4gb free, but I could repartition to free 1gb and create a fat32 partition
in it to hold the freedos install. If I use a boot manager I should be able to choose which
partitition to boot from, freedos wont see the big ntfs so it should make the small
fat32 parition its c: drive. It guess windows xp would assign a drive letter to the fat32
partition. I wonder if the installer would run under winxp targeting the fat32 partition?
I downloaded the cd ISO and have mounted it via Virtual CloneDrive, so it looks like a cdrom
to windows xp.

To install, would I create the target fat32 partition, then boot the install cd (from the ISO)?
Or mount the cd ISO as a virtual cdrom and run the installer under a dos window?

Where can I get a driver set for a USB floppy drive for freedos 1.0?

Are Western Digital Passport external HD useable as USB mass storage devices?
Where would I get the driver/drivers needed to supoport it/them?


thanks in advance

[Eric Auer]

Hi David,

actually a few 100 MB FAT16 should be fine for DOS already :-)
Remember to use LBA partitions if you put them after the first
8 GB of your disk. Depending on your boot menu, you will only
be able to boot from primary partitions. You can NOT run our
installer from within Windows, but you can unzip the package
zips into a c:fdos directory to get the equivalent of a good
part of the install process. You will then have to write the
autoexec / config manually, though, and you will still have
to boot DOS from USB, cdrom or diskette to run SYS to install
the kernel, command.com and a boot sector on a FAT partition.
There is also a SYS-style tool which can be used from within
Linux, useful if you cannot boot any DOS from USB/CD/floppy.
Note that DMF format might be a problem for USB floppy drives.
You can actually copy the ISO to c:fdbootcd.iso and then boot
from our special installer diskette: It will then mount the
ISO and run the rest of the install process :-). Of course
c: is what DOS calls c: here - the first FAT partition.

Post by David Zabriskie
Where can I get a driver set for a USB floppy drive

If you have a good BIOS, the USB floppy will be visible to
DOS. With some BIOSes, this only works if you actually do
boot from the USB floppy. For generic USB storage such as
USB sticks (flash drives) and external harddisks, there
are a few DOS drivers available. I myself prefer USBASPI
(Panasonic, version 2.15) and ASPIDISK (Adaptec?) which
are both free but copyrighted and closed source. You load
the USBASPI driver first and then load ASPIDISK which is
a sort of "create drive letters for SCSI/ASPI drives"
driver. Note that you do not need ASPIDISK for real SCSI
harddisks because those already have a bootable BIOS so
DOS creates drive letters itself at boot time already.

Eric

PS: You should not expect hotplugging with most drivers,
but I guess some of the DOS USB drivers do support it
maybe DUSE does...

[David Zabriskie]

I finally got the USB floppy drive able to boot after a BIOS update :)

I'm progressing... I 'shrank' the NTFS partitition and defined a fat16(LBA) partititon in the freed space.
I booted the install disc and got it mostly done, but I'm having difficulty setting up TCP/IP.
The config script detects the laptops onboard ethernet port
(Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC) and attempts to connect to my router's
DHCP server and appears to hang there. The router is setup to provide IPs
in the range of 192.168.215.3-24 (.2 is a second router, .25 & .26 are TCP/IP printers,
.27 is a TCP/IP connected disc drive, 27-30 are unused) netmask 255.255.255.192
gateway 192.168.215.1 dns 192.168.215.1 (router forwards to where ever its DHCP
client got as DNS server(s)). This computer is supposed to get 192.168.215.5 according
to the routers pseudo-static MAC to IP mapping.

Is there a way specify the IP's and netmask to the TCP/IP client so it can set itself up?
something equivilent to ifconfig & route. I get stuck in the install process trying to
get a DHCP connection to the router. Since the DHCP client never finishes, the install script
can't go to the next thing to do. I was hoping I could specify the IPs and netmask manually
to avoid the DHCP client's hanging.

Can FreeDOS print to a TCP/IP connected LPR server?

Thanks

Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 03:28:27 +0100
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] I'm looking for a way to use a USB floppy drive - I can boot from a CDROM drive ok
Hi David,
actually a few 100 MB FAT16 should be fine for DOS already :-)
Remember to use LBA partitions if you put them after the first
8 GB of your disk. Depending on your boot menu, you will only
be able to boot from primary partitions. You can NOT run our
installer from within Windows, but you can unzip the package
zips into a c:fdos directory to get the equivalent of a good
part of the install process. You will then have to write the
autoexec / config manually, though, and you will still have
to boot DOS from USB, cdrom or diskette to run SYS to install
the kernel, command.com and a boot sector on a FAT partition.
There is also a SYS-style tool which can be used from within
Linux, useful if you cannot boot any DOS from USB/CD/floppy.
Note that DMF format might be a problem for USB floppy drives.
You can actually copy the ISO to c:fdbootcd.iso and then boot
from our special installer diskette: It will then mount the
ISO and run the rest of the install process :-). Of course
c: is what DOS calls c: here - the first FAT partition.

Where can I get a driver set for a USB foppy drive

If you have a good BIOS, the USB floppy will be visible to
DOS. With some BIOSes, this only works if you actually do
boot from the USB floppy. For generic USB storage such as
USB sticks (flash drives) and external harddisks, there
are a few DOS drivers available. I myself prefer USBASPI
(Panasonic, version 2.15) and ASPIDISK (Adaptec?) which
are both free but copyrighted and closed source. You load
the USBASPI driver first and then load ASPIDISK which is
a sort of "create drive letters for SCSI/ASPI drives"
driver. Note that you do not need ASPIDISK for real SCSI
harddisks because those already have a bootable BIOS so
DOS creates drive letters itself at boot time already.
Eric
PS: You should not expect hotplugging with most drivers,
but I guess some of the DOS USB drivers do support it
maybe DUSE does...
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[Mateusz Viste]

Post by David Zabriskie
Is there a way specify the IP's and netmask to the TCP/IP client so it can
set itself up? something equivilent to ifconfig & route. I get stuck in the
install process trying to get a DHCP connection to the router. Since the
DHCP client never finishes, the install script can't go to the next thing
to do. I was hoping I could specify the IPs and netmask manually to avoid
the DHCP client's hanging.

I think you shouldn't try to install the network at FreeDOS install.
Let FreeDOS install itself offline, and once you have clean and bootable
FreeDOS install on your disk, go into the network configuration.
No, there isn't any ifconfig/route counterparts "out of the box", you have to
install them further.
FreeDOS (and the most of FreeDOS applications) is using the WatTCP library to
access the network. To change your network settings you have to edit the
WATTCP.CFG file, in which you can freely set your own IP, without relying on
DHCP/BOOTP.

Post by David Zabriskie
Can FreeDOS print to a TCP/IP connected LPR server?

Yes and no.
FreeDOS doesn't have any support for network printers. Personally, I can use
my network printer in FreeDOS, but it requires some dirty hacks ;-)
I uses the JetDirect protocol (port 9100), which is supported by most (if not
all) LPR servers.

A paste from a previous post of mine:
To begin, there must be some software installed in the PATH:
1. WatTCP (http://www.bgnett.no/~giva/)
2. LPT2FILE (http://sac-ftp.externet.hu/utiltext15.html)
3. JD.EXE from PPRD 2.0 (http://www.smashco.com/wattcp/pprd200.zip)
4. A packet driver for your network card

I made a simple batch file, which calls the application I want to print with,
catch all the LPT stuff to a file, and finally send the LPT file to the
network printer:
------ [netprint.bat] ------
LPT2FILE
%1
LPT2FILE %TEMP%\PRINTME.PRN
JD %TEMP%\PRINTME.PRN
DEL %TEMP%\PRINTME.PRN
-------------------------

Now, I have just to invoke the program I want with "netprint program.exe", and
all printing stuff will be done at the program's end. Of course, wattcp.cfg
have to be configured according to the given LAN, and those lines have to be
added:
PRINTERHOST = 192.168.xxx.xxx
PORTBASE = 9100
PRINTERNUM = 0

It's maybe not the most "elegant" way, but it works :-)
I tested that solution with the following printing software: WordPerfect 6.0,
MS EDIT 2.0.026, PrintPartner 3.5, BannerMania 1.00, EnVision Pro 2.04, and I
hadn't any troubles.
<<<

Post by David Zabriskie
Thanks

You're welcome ;-)
Mateusz Viste

[Eric Auer]

Hi David,

Post by David Zabriskie
I booted the install disc and got it mostly done, but I'm having
difficulty setting up TCP/IP. The config script detects the laptops
onboard ethernet port (Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC)
and attempts to connect to my router's DHCP server and appears to hang
there...

You can set up the networking manually, but I do really recommend
to do a plain offline install - which is also a lot faster. You
can configure your network manually later, it is not strictly
needed for installation. After all, DOS is no Ubuntu ;-). Just
make sure you unselect the network related packages:

"I would recommend to install without network, see:
http://fd-doc.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php?n=FdDocEn.FdInstall
You can find a list of internet-using packages here:
http://fd-doc.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php?n=FdDocEn.FdDependencies
..."

For manual setup, you edit the wattcp.cfg file on the
installed system later :-). There is an interactive
setup thing in the installer, but there you cannot
enter a DNS server IP, so it is kind of pointless?

I hope Blair Campbell will provide a howto for fixing
the interactive setup and for manual edit of wattcp.cfg,
although the latter is semi self explaining ;-).

Post by David Zabriskie
Since the DHCP client never finishes, the install script can't
go to the next thing to do. I was hoping I could specify the IPs
and netmask manually to avoid the DHCP client's hanging.
Can FreeDOS print to a TCP/IP connected LPR server?

Dunno, many Linux packages were ported to DOS with the DJGPP
GNU C compiler and C libraries for DOS. For example there is
a DOS version of the command line tool smbclient for Samba.
I think it was on mik.mkw.ru/dos-stuff/ :-).

Eric

[David Zabriskie]

both those links fail :(

anywhere else to look for the instructs and list of packages?

Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 11:34:22 +0100
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] I'm looking for a way to use a USB floppy drive - I can boot from a CDROM drive o
Hi David,

Post by David Zabriskie
I booted the install disc and got it mostly done, but I'm having
difficulty setting up TCP/IP. The config script detects the laptops
onboard ethernet port (Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC)
and attempts to connect to my router's DHCP server and appears to hang
there...

You can set up the networking manually, but I do really recommend
to do a plain offline install - which is also a lot faster. You
can configure your network manually later, it is not strictly
needed for installation. After all, DOS is no Ubuntu ;-). Just
http://fd-doc.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php?n=FdDocEn.FdInstall
http://fd-doc.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php?n=FdDocEn.FdDependencies
..."
For manual setup, you edit the wattcp.cfg file on the
installed system later :-). There is an interactive
setup thing in the installer, but there you cannot
enter a DNS server IP, so it is kind of pointless?
I hope Blair Campbell will provide a howto for fixing
the interactive setup and for manual edit of wattcp.cfg,
although the latter is semi self explaining ;-).

Post by David Zabriskie
Since the DHCP client never finishes, the install script can't
go to the next thing to do. I was hoping I could specify the IPs
and netmask manually to avoid the DHCP client's hanging.
Can FreeDOS print to a TCP/IP connected LPR server?

Dunno, many Linux packages were ported to DOS with the DJGPP
GNU C compiler and C libraries for DOS. For example there is
a DOS version of the command line tool smbclient for Samba.
I think it was on mik.mkw.ru/dos-stuff/ :-).
Eric
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SF.Net email is sponsored by: The Future of Linux Business White Paper
from Novell.

[Ulrich Hansen]

Post by David Zabriskie
Can FreeDOS print to a TCP/IP connected LPR server?

I don't know if this helps, but lpr (lpq, lprm) is part of several DOS
TCP/IP networking suites including:

- NCSA Telnet (public domain)
ftp://ftp.uu.net/.vol/1/applic/NCSA_Telnet/PC/tel2308b.zip

- CUTCP (public domain)
ftp://ftp.cc.umanitoba.ca/software/pc_network/cutcp-b.zip

- WatTCP (GNU LGPL)
http://frontier.eas.asu.edu/linux/software/dos/wat1104.zip
Use the link above as Erick Engelke's download link on
http://www.erickengelke.com/wattcp/index.shtml seems to be broken. The
compiled verisons are in the folder /apps/apps.zip

Good luck!
Ulrich Hansen