China DOS Union

Many hands make the fire burn higher. This is the world of DOS, and I’m also a DOS enthusiast; later I also learned LINUX.

My DOS foundation gave me assembly skills. System booting often involves dealing with assembly. I think looking for developers here who are willing to cooperate is the most suitable thing.

My health is not good. Back when I was in good health, I always finished the work I wanted to do by myself, but not anymore; now I need to avoid writing code as much as possible.

The difficulty with GRUB for LINUX lies in having an accurate understanding of changes in the kernel’s CPU state. I haven’t studied the kernel in detail. If anyone knows, you can help explain it in detail.

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GRUB for LINUX is a program that can enter GRUB after LINUX starts and boot other operating systems.【At present the GRUB shell under LINUX cannot be used for booting】。

GRUB for LINUX needs a kernel patch. After being patched, the kernel ought to be able, after the kernel has booted, to restart and boot another kernel. At present the Linux kernel cannot restart another kernel unless the computer itself is rebooted.

Ah, getting ready to develop GRUB for Linux? Has the official release of GRUB for DOS 0.20 come out yet?

Development of GRUB for DOS is extremely long-winded. Hasn’t development already shifted to windrv and you?
I’ve already done my best. Although I’m not withdrawing completely, I still need to reduce the attention I give it.

GRUB for Linux is a bit fresher, and not too difficult either. The development work is relatively simple, and there won’t be a lot of code to write.

My main task at the moment is treatment and recovery, but I want to do some lighter work. Right now I’m preparing to read books on the LINUX kernel, to understand the CPU and memory management, so that I can switch to real mode and let GRUB’s code execute.

"Understand the CPU and memory management, so that it can switch to real mode and let GRUB’s code execute."

This might make it possible for GRUB for DOS to run even under EMM386, or in environments such as DOS windows under Win3.x/9x...

Of course, health comes first; only with that as the major premise can these things be done.

Considering the level of difficulty, GRUB for LINUX is easier to do, while EMM386 and Windows are relatively harder.

LINUX is easier because Linux has source code.

EMM386 is hard because using ACPI to switch to real mode is very complicated. Even with the source code of LOADLIN, it still isn’t very easy. I still haven’t even understood LOADLIN’s source code.

Windows is also hard, because switching from Windows protected mode to real mode requires using the method used by the CIH virus. At present I haven’t really come into contact with knowledge in this area yet.

It can be said that solving the EMM386 and Windows problems, each one is like "pulling a nail"—very difficult, very laborious. I don’t dare think about these problems anymore right now.

The LINUX one ought not be very hard to do, but I can only do it slowly too, like a dragonfly skimming the water.

The following is quoted from 不点 at 2004-3-25 9:44:54:
Development of GRUB for DOS is extremely long-winded. Hasn’t development already shifted to windrv and you?
I’ve already done my best. Although I’m not withdrawing completely, I still need to reduce the attention I give it. 

GRUB for Linux is a bit fresher, and not too difficult either. The development work is relatively simple, and there won’t be a lot of code to write.

My main task at the moment is treatment and recovery, but I want to do some lighter work. Right now I’m preparing to read books on the LINUX kernel, to understand the CPU and memory management, so that I can switch to real mode, and let GRUB’s code execute.

Dear TinyBit,

Bean123 is beginning to work on WINGRUB for GRUB for DOS.

We have just released a gold release of WINDRV and is now fixing our website.

WINGRUB will be the next target of development and is expected to finish 1-2
weeks.

If you are interested, please go to download a copy of WINDRV for your evaluation
at:

windrv.net

WINDRV, briefly speaking, has the following features:
1. a Rdisk Manager, helping to put Win9x to run on ramdisk
2. a Vdisk Manager, a 32-bit Win9x Vdisk manager, helping to create image files;
including floppy images
3. a Partition Editor, able to partition hard disk in FAT16/32 under Win9x;
to convert partition from FAT16/32 to FAT32/16; to mark active partition
4. Image Copier for backing up partition images to image files and vice versa
5. Build List Manager, helping to select files for building up Windows image files;
good for preparing mini-Win9x in different sizes

By using WINGRUB and GRUB for DOS, one can copy Win9x image files onto
NTFS partition and configure it to run 2000/XP or ramdisk-based Win9x from
NTFS partition.

WINDRV & WINGRUB can run in Win9x/2000/XP.

After doing WINGRUB, a network version of WINDRV will be released within 2-3 months.

I uploaded some stuff related to GRUB for DOS, with only very small changes. It’s here:

http://ipdown.com/grub4dos/

From now on I’ll upload everything there as well.