"The commandline is dead, long live the commandline!"


FreeDOS 1.0 Final Distribution
2004-11-30

prepared and distributed by Jeremy Davis.

FreeDOS is a trademark of Jim Hall

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INTRODUCTION:

This is the feature-list for the freedos 1.0 final cdrom release

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Featurelist:

*(CD/DVD)ROM
  +can be burned on CD and DVD media
  +can be easily integrated on distribution cdroms, 
   like magazines which want to promote FreeDOS.
  +bootable on modern computers if computer supports it
   (Intel P133 or compatible, or newer computers)
  +can be used on all computers with a cdrom-drive.
   a 1440KB diskette-images is available.
  +easily recreated in case you want to update the cdrom.
  +bootdisk builder allows you to create freely distributable
   general-purpose (troubleshooting/installation) bootdisk,
   something that is quite difficult in NT family OS's
   (even XP, given the limits of the WinME kernel used on bootdisk)

*FreeDOS 1.0 final distribution 
  +updated lots of programs to latest version
  +installs a default config.sys and autoexec.bat configuration files.
  +does not overwrite any MSDOS (tm) or Windows(tm) files.
  +multiboot capabilities with MSDOS 5.0 - 6.22 and Windows 95 - ME
   using MetaKern bootloader.
  +multiboot capabilities with Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003 series,
   using the boot.ini system file to add a FreeDOS menu entry. 
  +supports installation on FAT16 partitions beyond 8GB (large disks),
   for example create a 100MB Freedos partition at end of 60GB harddisk.
  +multimenu automatically created as demonstration for bootup options
  +includes several language files to aid installation and use.
  +DOS kernel supports FAT32 and allows you to install Windows
  +includes UDMA driver for harddisk read and write acceleration.
  +FORMAT program allows convert-to-NTFS optimization, but not on by default.
   (the /O option)

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When booting from the CD or via a bootdisk based on the
generic floppy images provided, the batch file
\SETUP.BAT is ran.

If you are having problems accessing your CD using the
supplied xcdrom.sys driver, create a floppy by running
\SETUP.BAT and choosing the bootdisk menu option and add
your CD drive's OEM provided DOS CD-ROM device driver.  The
batch file will install to a pre-formatted floppy disk in
your first floppy drive using the image in \ISOLINUX\DATA.
Reboot and hopefully all is well!

If you are unable to boot from the CD directly, i.e. you
have an older Pentium or 486 class computer that entirely
lacks or has broken El-Torito CD-ROM boot support, you
may wish to create a floppy disk that contains SBM
(Smart Boot Manager).  Boot this floppy then select boot
CD from its menu.  For some CD drives you may have to
tell SBM which I/O ports to use [common ones are 1f0, 170,
1e8, and 168].  http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/

For those who wish to see an alternate method, it is also possible
to save the iso to C:\FDBOOTCD.ISO, and boot from the floppy which
will be able to access this file as a drive.  The contents of the
ISO could also be saved to C:\; then boot to DOS and run
C:\SETUP.BAT.

Bugs about included programs should be reported using bugzilla
(http://www.freedos.org/freedos/bugs/), for general FreeDOS issues refer
to the main FreeDOS site (www.freedos.org).

When reporting bugs about an included program, please indicate the
program's version number or indicate FreeDOS 1.0 Final Bootable CD.  
General FreeDOS questions should be sent to the FreeDOS mailing list
so other developers that may have a better idea can help you.

Thank you,
Jeremy Davis (August   21, 2003)
Bernd Blaauw (November 30, 2004)
Blair Campbell (August 11, 2006)
