China DOS Union

Searching for Chinese web pages of vfloppy on Google yields many results, hundreds of them, but surprisingly, the development website of vfloppy cannot be found. Found a web page at http://vfloppy.51.net/web/default.htm, and learned that Lin Chao is the author of the GUI of vfloppy, however, the vfloppy.exe program was not written by Lin Chao. I want to know whether the command-line program of vfloppy is still under development? Or is there only a final version?

I want to know what the license agreement of vfloppy is? If it is open source, I want to use it to do something.

The advantages of this program are:

1. Can boot a floppy disk image file under the NTFS file system.

2. The physical sectors of the image file can be discontinuous.

I want to use it to boot a Linux on a floppy disk, execute the installation program on the floppy disk, and install a LINUX on a machine without Linux. Using vfloppy can best take care of those Windows users who only have NTFS.

A beautiful software, preferably under the GPL license, otherwise I won't feel very comfortable using it.

Nice software, nice idea,

Today, after searching fiercely online, it wasn't in vain. I found a memdisk. Strictly speaking, it's that I rediscovered it because I knew about it before. memdisk is a functional component in the famous syslinux.

I discovered that this memdisk can be transformed and integrated into grub for dos. memdisk is more powerful than the emulation ability of vfloppy. It can support any size of floppy disk and hard disk specifications (of course, not exceeding the memory limit).

I am the author of vfloppy, msn: lyh728@msn.com

The source code is not organized and is very messy

Brother lyh728, it's best to take some time to organize the source code. Also, I want to know whether system failures will occur when entering Win98 after simulating a floppy disk with vfloppy? (Just like the situation encountered with the simulation program of grub for dos).

Also, vfloppy uses memory to store the floppy disk image. If we want to boot a LINUX from this floppy disk image and LINUX also has an initrd memory image disk, will the two conflict? This problem is not an issue under the simulation of grub for dos because grub for dos doesn't use memory but uses the hard disk to simulate the floppy disk.

Q1: Once tried, can run win98, but I haven't used win98 for a long time. Even if win98 wants to cause damage, since vfloppy is read-only and doesn't write to the hard disk, it's very safe, at least it won't damage the system. I emphasized the issue of not writing data to the hard disk very much.

Q2: I have booted knoppix with vfloppy, no problem. In fact, a big motivation for me to write vfloppy is to directly run the compressed image of knoppix from the hard disk without needing to burn a CD. I haven't tested much else, I can't say much. grub also has a memdisk to load the floppy image into memory, so I think normally there shouldn't be a conflict.

Thanks. Then I might have to prepare to test it. Also, there's another problem, which is the license. You haven't given any explanation. I hope there's source code, but it's not impossible without it. The current problem is, can others use your program randomly? Without any restrictions? For software without license instructions, others may have two attitudes: 1. Think it can be used randomly, even for commercial purposes, which is legal. That is, treat the software as in the public domain. 2. Don't dare to use it, even if using it in an open - source project, because they are afraid of violating some regulations. Also, it's not clear whether vfloppy contains others' proprietary products. So I think that if the copyright is not clear, it's very chaotic. I'm afraid vfloppy can't go far. Maybe it can only be used privately, and there are great obstacles to using it in other products.

Actually, vfloppy includes two parts. One is the part running under win32, which is used to set the parameters of vfloopy. The other part is that I disassembled part of the code of pgmagic and then made some modifications to make it suitable for loading from ntloader. If you downloaded my original release, there are my development process and ideas clearly written, including the part of pqmagic code. The first part can be released under the GPL. The second part may need to be rewritten. I have always wanted to rewrite it to enhance the functions. After rewriting, it can be truly released. At present, I don't know how to calculate the situation. Rewriting is not too troublesome. Similar code can be extracted from other places, but all need to be modified. The idea is already very clear. But later I have been too busy. So the code has not been sorted out. Regarding the licensing issue, there is no problem for personal use, but commercial application is恐怕 not okay because it includes the code of pqmagic.

In addition, it seems that I've heard that it can't be emulated under Win98 and DOS. Is that true? If so, can it be improved? Suppose I produce a software that can be used to automatically install Linux. If this software can only run under NT but not under DOS/win9x, that would be very frustrating (this might make me have to give up using it).

You just said that commercial applications don't work, actually non-commercial applications also don't work. For example, the Linux installation program I'm going to write is non-commercial, a GPL software. If your copyright isn't clear, I might also have to give up.

That is to say, under the current situation, it can only be used privately, and strictly speaking, any public release is not allowed.

I think you haven't regarded the copyright issue as a matter all the time, you might think it's a small matter. In my opinion, the importance of copyright, in some cases, even exceeds the software itself. I hope this software can be made as perfect as possible both in terms of copyright and software performance and quality.

The following is a quote from Budian on May 13, 2004, 09:59:41 AM:
In addition, it seems that it is said that it cannot be emulated under win98 and DOS. Is that the case? If so, can it be improved? If I produce a software that can be used to automatically install linux, and if this software can only operate under NT but not under dos/win9x, then it will be very unpleasant (this may make me have to give up using it).

You just said that commercial applications are not okay, in fact, non-commercial applications are also not okay. For example, the linux installation program I am going to write is non-commercial, a GPL software. If your copyright is not clear, I may have to give up.

That is to say, in the current situation, it can only be used privately, and any public release is strictly not okay.

I think you have never regarded the copyright issue as a matter, you may think it is a small matter. In my opinion, the importance of copyright, in some cases, even exceeds the software itself. I hope that this software, both in terms of copyright and in terms of software performance and quality, should try to be perfect.

I agree with Budian's view. I hope lyh728 will first solve the running problem under Win98/DOS. Among them

One is the part running under win32, set the parameters of vfloopy

.
This part should not be difficult. For one thing, you are the author and know what needs to be done. For another, setting parameters itself should not be difficult.

Secondly, after these are done, achieving arbitrary cylinder installation of Linux (no longer requiring the boot sector within 1024 cylinders), and then making brand-new hard disk maintenance software, "All-China Heart" OS system (supporting large hard disks above 80G), etc. will be easy. Strongly support the improvement of the Vfloppy software!

I am relatively familiar with 86 assembly. If needed, I can do some modules...

For Budian:

I don't know what you mean by "Win9x and DOS cannot be emulated"? If it refers to the fact that the setup program cannot run under Win9x and DOS, it's because my original purpose was mainly to support booting an image file on NTFS under the NT system, because at this time, writing to the NTFS system can be directly completed through the Win32 API without risk.

While under DOS and Win9x, other means are needed, which carry a great risk, so I didn't consider running under DOS and Win9x at that time.

Later, I wrote a streamlined version that only supports FAT and can run under DOS and Win9x, which requires DPMI support. At that time, I tried to integrate the two versions into one PE file, but it seemed that MinGW didn't support replaceable DOS stubs and it didn't succeed, so I didn't release the version for DOS.

Regarding the issue of non-commercial applications, I didn't consider formally releasing the GPL software at the beginning. Due to the current composition of the code, it's impossible to release it as GPL. It's not that I don't want to, but because part of the code is disassembled by me and there are no essential modifications.

If someone can help me rewrite this part of the code, and if they just release the original disassembled code in their own name, it's not necessary. It's best to have new functional enhancements, such as supporting hard disks larger than 128GB (requiring BIOS support), supporting large image files, supporting ISO files, supporting disk switching, supporting memory writing to disk, and supporting saving modifications to the memory disk. I can provide the original code (also disassembled, including relatively detailed comments, but it's not necessary, and similar source codes can be found). In fact, it's not difficult to implement on the current idea, because the virtual disk part only processes at the sector level and doesn't involve the file system. It's just a matter of time and energy. Of course, at this time, it's a brand new Vfloppy.

Regarding that GUI version, to be honest, I'm very dissatisfied. At the end of its help file, it copied my original description, but deleted my ID. However, I admit that the GUI version is easier to operate than my original one. The original console program is suitable for testing and batch processing.

The current copyright issue can be solved like this: let users download Vfloppy or the GUI version themselves. Your release program doesn't include this thing, so as to avoid the copyright issue. If you find it unacceptable, then currently I have to slightly modify the previous PQMagic code and recompile it, and release the DOS version by the way, but this doesn't seem very good.

To o2y:
Thank you for your support, very grateful

The following is the speech of o2y on May 14, 2004, 05:23:46 AM:
I am relatively familiar with 86 assembly. If needed, I can make some modules...

Can I contact you via email or MSN?
What do you think of the enhancements I mentioned earlier?

Don't rush, I can wait. I'll use it after you've taken care of everything. I'm going to integrate vfloppy into another new software to do some initial automation work. It would be troublesome if I just ask others to download from another website.

There's no need to do things you don't want to do against your will for a little thing. I can do other things first and use it whenever you're ready. Anyway, I don't have a deadline, and it's all for making GPL small programs. No one interferes with whether it can be done or when it will be done.

I think it's quite difficult to complete all those improvements you mentioned. So I suggest you start with part of the work first.

Please have lyh728 receive the email. Other brothers who are willing to expand and develop Vfloppy can post here.

The email has been received. No reply has been received?