Phillip J Rhoades wrote: I've been working on the much improved freedos bas floppy install. (This one is a big step toward setting up an entire full install via floppy too). This uses a multi-volume tar split across three of the four diskettes which is extracted to c:\incache and then installed from there. Then c:\incache is flushed from the system. This is still on the larger format 1722 diskette images, which write out to floppies fine under linux using dd ( I don't usually write images in dos so I don't know if rawrite handles larger diskette images or not). This only installs the executable packages, I'll be working on a separate set of diskettes for the source packages. With this method I should be able to construct a floppy set for each package set. Here's roughly how I made them: I took the freedos boot diskette (this becomes the install diskette) Modified so that it has no cdrom drivers loading modified so that the path includes c:\incache\bin wrote install.bat instal2.bat and put those on floppy added tar.exe from the tar package Copied the "base" folder from the pacakges directory of the Full Freedos ISO removed lsm files removed source packages used a bash script to create a muli-volume tar archive key command in that script "tar --create --tape-length=1500 --file=base1.tar *.zip" used another script to copy a blank 1722 floppy image to desired floppy image names loop back device mounted the floppy images copied the tar files to /mnt/floppy/base.tar wrote instal3.bat put that on the last (volume 3 diskette) image. Tested in qemu and tested on toshiba t1910cs used these commands to write the images to physical diskettes to test on toshiba superformat /dev/fd0u1722 dd if=floppy_image_name.img of=/dev/fd0u1722 The install works roughly like this: Install floppy boots and sets path and other variables correctly run the install.bat script from a: formats the C: creates c:\fdos, c:\fdos\bin, c:\incache, c:\incache\bin copies files from a: to c:\incache\bin and to c:\incache exits install.bat while calling c:\incache\instal.bat (It does this so that the install is not looking for c:\install.bat which is gone after floppy change) the instal2.bat asks for the base volume 1 begins extracting the tar to c:\incache (asks for the volumes in turn) (Do not remove volume 3!) installs infozipx.zip first for requirements of later pacakges installs other packages exits instal2.bat while calling a:\instal3.bat the instal3.bat does cleanup by executing deltree on c:\incache Reboot and you have a nice clean freedos base install. ******************************************************************************* Phillip J Rhoades wrote: had insomnia so I have nice floppy installs for all of the package sets (even source) now too. Let me know if you'd like to see these. :) Same basic process as the base install except you don't boot these. First install base floppies on the system. Figure out which package floppy sets you want to install (I have notes of things to consider while installing from floppies, see below) Write the floppy images to physical floppies via dd Put the first one in a: on the machine to install to a:\install (the multi-volume tar file is extracted from all the floppies into c:\incache) choice to install each package (Y/N) (fdpkg installs) c:\incache is removed FreeDOS install via floppy: Up to 88 Diskettes ------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTES/README ------------------------------------------------------------------- * = tested on qemu # = tested on t1910cs laptop ----------------------------------------------------------------------- #*BASE 4 Diskettes #---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Require only Base and themselves #---------------------------------------------------------------------- *COMPRESS 2 Diskettes *GUI 2 Diskettes *GAMES 16 Diskettes *LANG 23 Diskettes *SOURCE 8 DIskettes *EDIT 6 Diskettes vimrtx.zip needs to be installed before vim16x.zip or vim32x.zip vim16x.zip excludes vim32x.zip vim32x.zip excludes vim16.zip *MEDIA 13 Diskettes MPXP486X requires dos32a MPXPLAYX requires dos32a (dos32ax.zip is on UTIL & MEDIA in the floppy distro to resolve a requirement tangle) #---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Depend on other packages sets #---------------------------------------------------------------------- *NET 8 Diskettes BSFLITEX requires wattcpx FDSTPOPX requires wattcpx LNXSMALX requires lynx LYNXEXX requires lynx openxpx requires tar (tarx.zip is located in COMPRESS) gzip (gzipx.zip is located in COMPRESS) wgetx requires wattcpx *DRIVER 2 Diskettes ASPIX requires wget (wgetx.zip located in NET) SCSIX requires wget (wgetx.zip located in NET) USBDOSX requires wget (wgetx.zip located in NET) VIAX requires wget (wgetx.zip located in NET) *UTIL 4 Diskettes BSPLASHX requires blckout (blkoutx.zip is located in DRIVER) DFLX requires cdrtool (cdrtoolx.zip is located in MEDIA) FPROTX requires wattcp (wattcpx.zip is located in NET) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------