DOS ain't dead

I boot Linux from DOS many years. As advantage I can easily swap kernels and modify kernel config. options. Get linld.com and make simple bat file:
linld image=VMLINUZ2.632 initrd=INITRD2.632 "cl=root=/dev/sda3 ro vga=4"
In this case I boot system from extra partition. But I belive if you compile your kernel with USMDOS FS you will be able to start it from the same partition as DOS. I don't have experiences with ext2 in image file on FAT but I saw something like that...

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> Two my machines are DOS only. However for certain tasks I would like to
> install also Linux to them. But not as a dual boot but Linux starting from
> DOS by typing LINUX.BAT
> I have NO experience with Linux si I am asking here for some help.
> I need a solution matching these points:
>
> 1) it must be in one partition with DOS (FAT32 partitinon) in directory
> like C:\LINUX
> 2) can be in UMSDOS form or inside some large file like LINUX.IMG
> 3) size preferred under 200MB
> 4) with X server
> 5) must be loadable by Linld or LoadLin. GRUB is not accetable.

I've done things like this for years on my win98 system, till I migrated to Win2000 in 2004.

Some things i can remember:
- My fav distro then was Slackware 8.1, partially also because it was the last distro that supported CD-boot based on floppy boot emulation. (instead of IDE emulation)
- My hardware was same era (PPro mostly), but funky (Proliant servers, think scsi arrays etc) (think dual P-I 166 or dual ppro 200, with 128 MB, 12 HDs, 8 CDROMS, EISA AND PCI etc)
- I gave up on umsdos as unworkable (very slow, many incompatibilities). I always used native filesystems, so can't help there.
- If you have SB compats instead of "real" SBs, (I had ALC cards in that day) using the initializor app in dos to put it in SB compat mode made them work in Linux. Later linux got native support for these cards.
- didn't have your size restraints, but should be doable. (IIRC base was about 40MB, a X with a minimal windowmanager a few tens of MB more)

> Hi!
> Two my machines are DOS only. However for certain tasks I would like to
> install also Linux to them. But not as a dual boot but Linux starting from
> DOS by typing LINUX.BAT


i boot several linux'es from DOS (fat32). here's how i did SLAX:

1. copy contents of slax iso to /SLAX, keep folder structure.
2. copy/edit SLAX.BAT, SLAX.CL, LINLD.COM to /SLAX


:: SLAX.BAT
@echo off
linld.com image=/slax/boot/vmlinuz initrd=/slax/boot/initrd.gz cl=@slax.cl %1 %2 %3 %4 %5



SLAX.CL

root=/dev/ram0
init=linuxrc
load_ramdisk=1
prompt_ramdisk=0
ramdisk_size=6666
rw
nopcmcia
vga=791
acpi=off
power_off=1


3. boot DOS, cd to /slax, run SLAX.BAT


i still have setups for tinycore, slitaz, geexbox, puppy and several other minimalist distro's. i can help re-configure using loadlin.exe, which is updated. i recommend using grub4dos and/or/with plop bootmanager for multibooting old pc's with usbdisks.

LINLD.COM
http://busybox.net/~vda/linld/

LOADLIN.EXE
http://youpibouh.thefreecat.org/loadlin/

let me know if you need more help.

> 1) it must be in one partition with DOS (FAT32 partitinon) in directory
> like C:\LINUX
> 2) can be in UMSDOS form or inside some large file like LINUX.IMG

Can GRUB4DOS work with Linux atop DOS? I thought I read that it can't (Linux doesn't use BIOS). Perhaps you can use a minimal Linux to boot an .ISO of another fuller Linux, but offhand I don't know how.

> 3) size preferred under 200MB

I'm sure you can fit Linux in under 200 MB, but most don't bother. Even my (semi-temporary) ZipSlack (Slackware 11) needs more than that now because I wanted to recompile some stuff. For some dumb reason, they always make it harder than I want to rebuild things. And it bloats the heck out of any installation. Stupid GCC. So it's an uphill climb for that. Perhaps UPX would help, but I doubt it. (Worse is that UPX is a C++ app, and the C++ ABI changed/broke at least twice since ZipSlack's 2.4 kernel, so that makes binaries harder to carry between Linuxes.)

> 4) with X server

Ugh, now I'm really skeptical. Even my ZipSlack doesn't have X, and it's already exceeded your size limit. Sure, oldy-moldy BasicLinux (2.2, libc5) has a (very very very minimal) X server, but I'm not sure how well that works, if at all. I'm not sure what you want the X server for, existing apps presumably, but it's just not realistic to find a "decent" < 200 MB Linux 2.4 w/ X11 distro these days, IMHO. Perhaps if you can find an old copy of DeLi Linux 0.8.0, but the official site is long gone, so it won't be easy.

> 5) must be loadable by Linld or LoadLin. GRUB is not accetable.

BOOTMGR? Gujin? If you hate (or can't use) GRUB, there are others. I know, it's a pain, who wants something that complex to babysit, but you may not have a choice for most modern Linux distros.

> Notes:
> c) I do not care about kernel version or release date.

Good, because you're stuck to 2.4 or older as 2.6 doesn't support UMSDOS. And all major Linuxes are 2.6-based now. Slackware 11 (2006) was the last Slackware to support 2.4 officially. In fact, 2.6 has existed in one form or another since (I think) 2003. So good luck, you'll need it. :-/

> d) it must run on Pentium 300Mhz with 192MB RAM

I assume you mean P2 here, but yeah, that should be plenty for various "light" Linuxes. (You need at least 128 MB of RAM for several I've seen. Yes, that's what they call low-end or light these days, heh.)

P.S. Sorry this isn't more help, but it's not an easy answer, sadly. Instead of 100s of Ubuntu derivatives, we really need a decent "ultra light" Linux that (surprise) works on ultra old hardware (a la DSL/Damn Small Linux) without relying on extremely ancient and old kernel, tools, libc5, etc.

Some years ago in my job i needed knoppix but i was too lazy to install it on my pc. But i had 1GB of free space on dos partition on my laptop so i looked around and found a way to run it on dos without instaling - just had to copy knoppix and isolinux folder to hdd and use loadlin to run it. Some time ago i found out that the same thing works for DSL (Damn Small Linux). Just have to get iso of DSL: http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/damnsmalllinux.org/current/dsl-4.4.10.iso and copy folder Knoppix from iso to hard disk. Next you have to copy files from /boot/isolinux also to knoppix folder on hard disk. Then create in that folder file boot.txt containing folowning lines:
linux24
root=/dev/ram
rw
initrd=minirt24.gz
vga=normal
init=/etc/init
lang=us
apm=power-off
nomce
BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix

then copy loadlin.exe to this folder and you are all set. And you can run it with loadlin @boot.txt
I run it on PIII 400 with 128 MB RAM and it was quite fast. I don't have anything lower than PIII so i cannot tell if will work 100% sure on your setup but DSL info says it needs max 486DX and 128 MB for running on ramdisk.

Thank you very much!
Now I was able to install Linux like I wanted.

My previous attempts were unsuccessful because the filename senzitivity.
In DOS without LFN driver were all files when copying renamed to uppercase: like knoppix into KNOPPIX and Linux kernel was not able to continue in booting.

Now I have installed Knoppix 3.4 with 2.4.26 kernel.
There are from some reason problems with 2.6.xx kernels - my soundcard (ISA SoundBlaster 16 Vibra PNP card) doesn't work under it.

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DOS-u-akbar!