[IMPORTANT] Boot loader for next release.

[82issa]

Even if they don't implement. I will implement for my personal homebrew porteus.

[brokenman]

I thought it would be a nice extra to also integrate a FreeDOS boot option.
What would the advantage be for justifying this extra 1.4Mb?

[fanthom]

@att
Porteus (as a live cd) provides linux OS and not FREE DOS.
i dont think many people uses DOS nowadays so i would drop this feature request.
Anyway it would be nice to have it in our HOWTO's section: Porteus integrated with FREE DOS boot option.

please post instruction how to create porteus live cd + Free Dos over there.

[att]

fanthom: I thought my instructions were understandable and clear?
So, let me rephrase it again, how I did it:
a) get GRML ISO from http://www.grml.org, any version will do, for example: grml64_2010.04.iso
b) from the /boot/addons directory of the ISO, get the following files:
allinone.img 1.474.560 bytes
balder10.imz 911.929 bytes
memdisk 20.304 bytes

c) copy the files to your SLAX, sorry, PORTEUS distribution, anywhere you want but preferably in the /boot directory,
better yet, make a directory called DOS2 there, so you have /boot/DOS2 on your Porteus drive

Optional: decompress the balder10.imz -> you get a "balder10.img" -> add any DOS programs there that you need for your DOS boot disk. (I use Windows, sorry, I mean WINE, and TotalCommander for this task)

d) change the boot loader of Porteus by adding another section in /boot/slax.cfg:

Code: Select all

LABEL FREEDOS
MENU LABEL Run Free DOS
KERNEL /boot/dos2/memdisk
APPEND initrd=/boot/dos2/balder10.img

TEXT HELP
                                          More about currently selected:

                                          Boot a FREEDOS with USB and Ramdisk A:
                                          
ENDTEXT 

Having FreeDOS is very useful when it comes to running (maintenance) programs that only work with DOS, for example:
* old Norton Ghost 11.5,
* Firmware updates for your Harddisk, CDRom, VGA-Card, etc.

Sometimes, booting DOS over PXE is very convenient, for example, when you have to do 100 Firmware DOS updates on 100 computers and you do not want to run to every computer with a floppy disk and boot from that disk.
In this case, you can modify the PXE default section in Porteus or Slax:

Change /boot/pxelinux.cfg in your Porteus installation so it looks like this: (This is just an EXAMPLE:)

Code: Select all

PROMPT 1

LABEL linux
MENU LABEL Run linux over PXE
KERNEL /vmlinuz
IPAPPEND 1
APPEND vga=769 initrd=/initrd.gz ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw autoexec=xconf;startx

LABEL memtest86
MENU LABEL Run Memtest utility
KERNEL /mt86p

LABEL dos
MENU LABEL Run FreeDOS
KERNEL /dos2/memdisk
APPEND initrd=/dos2/balder10.imz

LABEL dos2
MENU LABEL Run FreeDOS modded
KERNEL /dos2/memdisk
APPEND initrd=/dos2/balder10.img
 

Explanation: "Prompt 1" means you can actually type something in on the PXE-booted machine, and thus select what you want to load over PXE. In this example "dos", "dos2", "memtest86" and "linux" are your options. "plop" over PXE might be another useful option - your mileage may vary.
In this example, if you type in "dos2" and press return, a FreeDOS bootdisk will be loaded over PXE. Very useful for doing lots of firmware updates on lots of machines.

[Ahau]

@att - thanks for putting these isntructions together! When I have time, I'll prep this for posting to the main site. I'll post a draft to the HOWTO section of the forum for your review and approval, and credit you as the author, if this works for you.

[att]

Sorry, I mistyped something :

Change /boot/pxelinux.cfg in your Porteus installation so it looks like this: (This is just an EXAMPLE:)

I meant to say: Change /boot/pxelinux.cfg/default (!!) ; that is the actual filename which contains all the PXE boot options.

Yours
ATT