Re: tlug: A Question on Creating Linux Partitions

[jwb@example.com (Jim Breen)]

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tlug note from jwb@example.com (Jim Breen)
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On May 12,  3:42pm, "Stephen J. Turnbull" wrote:
} Subject: Re: tlug: A Question on Creating Linux Partitions
>> >>>>> "Jim" == Jim Breen <jwb@example.com> writes:
>>     Jim> I second that. I used to use LILO, but when I got a bigger
>>     Jim> disk that needed those extra overlays to get around the
>>     Jim> limited support from the BIOS, the MBR could no longer
>>     Jim> accommodate LILO. (It took a long painful night, and two
>>     Jim> reformats of the disk to determine this.)
>> 
>> Hm?  How big is that disk?  

1.6G. Don't worry. The problem is with my BIOS, which is a few years old
(my 486 is a 40MHz AMD). The BIOS I/O can't get past cylinder 1024. This
doesn't worry either Linux or Win95, but for DOS/Win3.1 to work, I need
the extension routines that came with the disk. They are grafted onto the
MBR and load at (DOS) boot time.

Later BIOSes can handle bigger disks without this fiddle.

>>     Jim> Since we run a triple system (DOS,Win95,Linux), booting up in
>>     Jim> DOS and hitting LOADLIN is simple.
>> 
>> How do you do this?  Or when you say "triple system," do you mean the
>> "DOS mode" that comes with Win95?  When I loaded Win95, I lost the
>> ability to use DESQview/X.  DV/X depends on QEMM386, which does not
>> cooperate well with Win95's version of DOS.  I miss that mainly
>> because it had a solid FTP, which Win95 doesn't; keeps crashing when
>> downloading over a PPP link.

To load DOS, I do the F8/7 trick to come up in my "Former Version of
MS-DOS". This is the only environment in which some old legacy dBASE IV
systems I look after will run. (Don't be fooled for a moment that Win95's
DOS-prompt actually gives you DOS. What you get is a Win95 shell which
emulates some DOS functions. You can run 32-bit programs quite happily
(e.g. jdxgen32.exe, which is the Win95 port of my (Unix) xjdxgen), but the
moment you try and do something tricky, such as chaining onto "DOS"'s
file-handle table, Win95 terminates you immediately.)

Once *real* DOS has booted, it is "loadlin" and I'm away.

Mind you, I wish Linux's DOSEMU, which I have never even come close to
getting to work, was as good as Win95's "DOS" prompt.

Now if there was a way of getting from Win95 to Linux without shutting
down & rebooting.....


-- 
Jim Breen          [$@%8%`!&%V%j!<%s(J@$@%b%J%7%eBg3X(J]
Department of Digital Systems.                  Monash University, 
Clayton VIC 3168 Australia (p) +61 3 9905 3298 (f) +61 3 9905 3574  
j.breen@example.com   [http://www.dgs.monash.edu.au/~jwb/]
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