THE FREEDOS BETA 8 ("Nikita") DISTRIBUTION DETAILED INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS Updated by Jeremy Davis 07 April 2002 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is assumed if you are reading this then you have already read the generic install guide (INSTALL.TXT) and done necessary preparation work. I. BOOT DISK OPTIONS When you first boot with the floppy you are asked to choose the installation mode. MINI installs will only prompt you for the BASE installation set, whereas FULL install will also provide an opportunity to install the rest of the installation sets. If your computer monitor supports color, then select the options with COLOR, otherwise choose the MONOCHROME choices. Note: the MONOCHROME modes simply activate monochrome support in included programs (if available). If you wish to perform the installation steps manually, select option 4, Clean Boot from the menu. This will skip all installation steps, but still provides access to necessary utilites (FDISK, FORMAT, SYS, ...). Primarily for testing purposes, you may also have the option to use the Fat32 enabled kernel. The Fat32 enabled kernel may be compiled with 80386 specific instructions, so its use is only suggested for newer computers (where Fat32 support is more likely to be desired anyway). Options 5 & 6 replace the file KERNEL.SYS on the floppy with the indicated kernel. This requires the ability to write to the floppy, so please be sure the write protect notch is set to allow writing before attempting. II. LANGUAGE SELECTION Note: The steps below may differ slightly depending on which boot disk you use and which options you select. After selecting MINI/FULL and COLOR/MONOCHROME mode, you will be prompted for a language to use during installation. Not all text has been translated and very few languages are supported. English is the original language, so all untranslated text will still be in English. Press the key corresponding to the language desired, or press '0' for default English text. This option simply sets the LANG environment variable, which is used throughout the installation floppy in an attempt to display localized messages. III. VARIOUS MESSAGES At this point, the installation will display some general messages about FreeDOS or this particular installation. Press the ESC key to continue after reading the various messages. (Longer documents are displayed using pg, you will see PG filename on the top line. This allows you to scroll using the arrow keys.) Please read, or at least glance at them. IV. KEYBOARD LAYOUT Because not everyone will be using a US keyboard, if you are using an AT class 286 or higher computer then you will be provided a chance to run XKEYB with one of the supported keyboard layouts. If you are using a US keyboard, or do not wish to install XKEYB, then you may press '0' to skip loading XKEYB, otherwise press the key corresponding to the desired layout. V. PARTITION PREPARATION Currently when running in monochrome mode, you will be prompted to run the various programs in a manner similar to described below in the 'MANUAL INSTALL FROM FLOPPY DISK' section. Otherwise the Partition Management tool will be run, which allows you more flexibility as to which drive a particular program uses and which program to execute. In general you will will want to: 1. Create the partition, use either FDISK, Ranish Partition Manager, or you can split an existing parition using FIPS. Do this step only if you need to create a new partition, you may of course use an existing partition if it is supported by DOS. WARNING!!! Be careful and make sure you have backed up all important data before proceeding. We are not responsible for loss of data or other problems resulting from use of these programs. Don't forget, if you are using the Fat32 enabled kernel, and decide to create a Fat32 partition, FORMAT does not yet support Fat32, so you will need another method to format (initialize) it. Reboot and proceed to step 2. 2. Initialize the partition using Format. Before a partition may be used by DOS, various bits of information must be written to it. The format program will do this for you. Some programs such as PowerQuest's Partition Magic will do this when creating the partition, so when using such programs you may skip this step. Do this step only if you just created a partition (step 1) or you wish to wipe clean an existing partition. WARNING!!! All data on the formated drive will be lost! Make sure the highlighted partition (drive) is the one you wish to format. 3. Install System files ( run SYS ). This is an important step if you wish to have FreeDOS boot from your hard drive. However, you are not forced to do this as you may not want to overwrite an existing operating system (i.e. just boot from floppy disk) or you may need to do this to a drive that is not displayed. WARNING!!! This will overwrite any existing operating system's boot record and thus make that OS no longer bootable. This does not overwrite the MBR (Master Boot Record), so multiboot loaders should be ok. Make sure the highlighted partition (drive) is the one you wish to install system files to. Once your partitions are successfully initialized, press the Enter key to continue or you may abort the installation by pressing the ESC key. Remember, the FreeDOS system files are not installed to your hard drive ( e.g. SYS C: ) unless you explicitly choose the Install SYStem files option. VI. THE INSTALL PROGRAM When the install program asks where you will install from (where the install files are located) enter: A:\ Or if you have extracted all the installation sets to a single directory on your hard drive, specify the full path and drive to it. The install program will then ask you where to install FreeDOS. Most people will use C:\DOS or C:\FDOS. Install will also prompt you to determine which optional components to install. Once install has finished you should edit the sample configuration files (config.sys & autoexec.bat) to correct the paths (only necessary if you did not install to C:\FDOS) and copy them to the root directory. Replace FDOS in the steps below with the actual location you specified in the step above. To copy the files to the root directory type: COPY C:\FDOS\CONFIG.SYS C:\ COPY C:\FDOS\AUTOEXEC.BAT C:\ To edit the files, put the boot disk back into the drive and type: TE When the editor starts, go to File menu, select Open, and in the filename entry field type C:\CONFIG.SYS, followed by pressing Enter. Then repeat, but use C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT instead. Don't forget to save your changes when done (File --> Save). VII. POST INSTALL STEPS At this point all the basic FreeDOS installation steps should be done. If you wish to use English and a US keyboard then go ahead and reboot now. If everything goes alright then FreeDOS is installed. If you wish to continue using your specified keyboard layout or a desired language (when supported by individual programs), edit C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT (the one you just copied to C:\). If it dos not exist, then create it. The first line should be @ECHO OFF otherwise all commands will be displayed. Somewhere in the file make sure the following two lines appear (they need not be together) SET LANG=EN XKEYB US but replace EN with appropriate 2 letter language id (e.g. ES for Spanish) and US with appropriate keyboard layout name. Reboot and if all goes well then FreeDOS will be using your desired keyboard layout and if possible, to some extent desired language. VIII. MANUAL INSTALL FROM FLOPPY DISK Note: For many cases the boot disk will prompt you for all necessary information and perform the required steps, however, some may need to manually do the steps as outlined below. Choose option 4, clean boot if you are using the installation boot disk. Now you are ready to install the FreeDOS distribution on your computer. If you have made all your floppies correctly, then you reboot your computer using the install boot floppy. When your computer boots up (may take a minute or two, depending on the speed of your PC) you will be taken through the setup process. At this point, you have the opportunity to run FDISK to create a DOS partition IF YOU DON'T ALREADY HAVE ONE. To run FDISK, just type: FDISK Then follow the on-screen prompts to create a new partition and mark it as the active primary partition. After you run FDISK, you will need to reboot. Just boot off the install boot floppy again. IF YOU CREATED A NEW PARTITION for FreeDOS, you'll also need to format the partition before you can use it. To do that, just type: FORMAT C: Don't forget to make the C: drive bootable with FreeDOS. Just type: SYS C: After that, run the install program: INSTALL See above section 'THE INSTALL PROGRAM' for more information. When returned to the command prompt, do any other steps desired and when done, reboot! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Congratulations - you have now installed FreeDOS! --------------------------------------------------------------------------