China DOS Union

If only the boot files are added to the boot sector of the boot CD.
and everything else is put on the CD, with no compression at all, then.
the boot speed should be very fast, and you could also make a nice boot interface.
Moderators, please think about it, changing the boot disk from booting from the floppy drive.
That would solve the floppy capacity problem, and some useful tools could be added, with a total size.
180MB would be enough, and a 3-inch CD would be more convenient to carry..

You can do it that way, putting all the programs on the CD, which reduces the decompression process and really saves quite a bit of time. Because boot speed is mainly determined by how many programs are loaded or run at startup and how much time each one takes, you have to reduce some unnecessary startup programs to speed it up. Also, it's best to load the disk cache program in advance to speed up read/write performance.

But if you switch CDs, then what?

I posted a dedicated thread about this before, let's discuss it.

But I think compression still has to be used!
For example, compressing with UPX,
that way boot speed will actually be a bit faster,
because it reduces disc reading time!
Also, in the end Tianhui's Chinese-localization files should still be compressed together with Tianhui,
and decompressed into virtual memory at boot time!
Because I've already tried it,
and every time it Chinese-localizes something it keeps reading the CD nonstop,
and the speed drops noticeably!
And it's also very hard on the laser head,
a new CD-ROM drive is okay, but an old one crawls like an ant!

After loading the disk cache and the CD-ROM, use virtual memory to COPY the commonly used necessary programs from
the CD into virtual memory, so it won't keep reading the CD nonstop. When running other programs on the CD, you can first use
a batch file to COPY the program into virtual memory and then run it. Besides, programs that aren't commonly used
only get used that many times anyway! What do you think of my idea?

What you're talking about is too profound, I, a little newbie, don't understand!!!

I'm just showing off my slight skill before the experts.

My view is,
if it can be compressed with a program like UPX, then compress it!
Try not to stuff too many things into the ebd.cab file,
and if it doesn't compress well, don't put it all in there!
Software that's only used once, like KV3000, should just be put on the CD!
That way the speed will be much faster,
and the cache has to be loaded after the CD-ROM drive is loaded,
otherwise the CD-ROM drive still won't have been loaded, right!

From compression to decompression
there are many steps during creation
many programs at boot time
floppies are small, CDs are large
CD-RW discs can be used
but you need a burner

CDs have drawbacks too!
For example, they can't store temporary files!
For example, DISKMAN creates a temporary file when it starts,
so in the end I still had to copy it into the virtual RAM disk before it could run!

Use batch files to handle running these programs
store temporary files on the virtual RAM disk
every DOS should have a virtual RAM disk
including CD booting and so on
it can all be done with batch files

So in the end there's still no escaping the virtual RAM disk!

You can swap installation CDs at any time
for installing the system, etc.