DOS LivePC
Submitted by Mark Winzenburg on December 20, 2006 - 5:37pm.
I've looked (briefly) through the help and manual, but still am uncertain how to create a DOS LivePC.
I'm using an XP computer, and running Moka5 off a 4GB USB stick.
In my first attempt, I got to the point where it was reading my DOS floppy disks, and then proposed to create a DOS partition and format it. At this point I stopped, now knowing what this would do to my existing disks.
Where does his partition get created? I don't have any unpartitioned space on my hard drive. Anyway, I really want the vitual C: drive to be on the USB stick, not on the hard drive.
Are there other settings that matter? DOS 5 could not deal with more than 32 MB per partition, so do I need to define that somewhere?
Mark
done! now on to software...?
Submitted by Mark Winzenburg on December 21, 2006 - 11:57am.
I built a clean PC last night and this morning did pretty much what you suggested, using real MS-DOS 5.2, from an old Dell 486 I bought years ago. Because this version of DOS only supports 32 MB partitions, I defined IDE0:0 and IDEO:1 at 32 MB. When I started the LivePC, I was prompted to install DOS, partition the virtual disk, and format it. It all worked and I now have a C:\ drive of ~32 MB. I just fired up fdisk, and see the 2nd unformatted partition, so I can create myself a D:\ drive as well. Cool!
Unlike the Fearless Browser LivePC, I don't appear to have a drive on the USB stick that is shared between my host PC and the LivePC.
How do i get the CD-ROM working. Do I need to install DOS CD-ROM drivers?
I do have a working A:\ drive, so I guess that I could use that to install software.
Mark
Yes, you will need DOS CDROM
Submitted by John Whaley on December 21, 2006 - 12:12pm.
Yes, you will need DOS CDROM drivers to access your CDROM drive. Floppies are still the easiest way to get software into your DOS LivePC.
Once you get things working, you should also install DOSIDLE.EXE. This will make it so your DOS LivePC will not take 100% CPU while idling. You can also install Soundblaster 16 drivers to get sound. Here are some instructions I ran across (haven't tried them myself yet).
-John
I have created a FreeDOS
Submitted by Kelvin on December 21, 2006 - 6:53pm.
working well, but sound?
Submitted by Mark Winzenburg on December 21, 2006 - 8:04pm.
John,
Thanks for that link. I installed DOSIDLE and the DOS CD-ROM drivers, all working fine now.
I did look a the instructions for implementing the Sound Blaster, but the author states
Find the line that says Sound.VirtualDev = " " and replace it with Sound.VirtualDev = "sb16"
In my case, I have a file called vm.vmx in the directory labelled DOS2123a... (real long string). It has an entry
sound.virtualdev = "es1371"
Any idea what es1371 means?
Mark
thanks...
Submitted by Mark Winzenburg on December 21, 2006 - 8:14pm.
for the detailed directions. I was not aware of FreeDOS. Something to look into!
Mark
es1371 is an Ensoniq sound
Submitted by John Whaley on December 22, 2006 - 4:45pm.
es1371 is an Ensoniq sound card. You can change it to "sb16" to emulate a Soundblaster sound card.
-John
Once you have created and
Once you have created and started the LivePC, the operations make in the LivePC are all virtual. The virtual partitions will reside on the USB device.
The default values when creating a LivePC will allow 2 disks: 20G on virtual IDE0:0 and 2G on virtual IDE 0:1. You can alway change this during the creation process by selecting the Advanced Settings or if the LivePC already exists, by selecting the Configure option.
Some of the options allows you to changing the number of virtual IDE disks or change the size of the virtual disk.
Here is a LivePC that is based on OpenDOS if you want to play as well. It also has some games.
Nostaglia
The fdisk utility for this LivePC are in the OPENDOS folder.
To exit the Nostalgia LivePC, use Ctrl-Alt to move the Mouse back to the host. At the top of the window. select Player, troubleshoot and select "Power Off and Exit"
After downloading the LivePC, select the Advanced Options (chevron icon pointing downward) and check the "Let me make changes" so your changes will persists and you can experiment in this LivePC safely.
Kevin