[ros-dev] DOS/GRUB based FreeLDR floppy image available.

[Bernd Blaauw]

Using LOADLIN with FreeLDR didn't work to load ReactOS from DOS, so I 
remembered the GRUB4DOS program.

Please download but don't distribute in any way the following file (this 
is just a demo, I don't feel like listing sites for sourcefiles)

http://odin.fdos.org/odin2005/freeldr.img

bootsequence:
1) bootfloppy
2) FreeDOS bootsector (see kernel ; GPL )
3) FreeDOS kernel (kernel 2035A, www.freedos.org ; GPL )
4) FreeDOS command.com (FreeCOM, see www.fdos.org/kernel ; GPL )
5) Batchfile (autoexec.bat, see below ; just a script, public domain thus)
6) GRUB (compresses nicely with UPX ; GPL)
7) FreeLDR (compresses nice with zip, but not bootable then. Can't be 
compressed by UPX unfortunately)

Same configuration can be done on harddisk, I think (fat32 also???), 
which means you can now boot FreeLDR from harddisk even without a 
FreeLDR realmode install program or associated bootsector.

configuration might be even more lightweight if I omitted FreeCOM 
(command.com) and used
"SHELL=A:\GRUB.EXE --config-file="kernel (fd0)/freeldr.sys" instead.

Some small misc. bugs on ReactOS:
FreeLDR: Title part has issues when it's too long, overwrites Brian 
Palmer's name, and at right side it's cut-off
CMD: why does "EXIT /?" (give helpscreen for EXIT command) close the 
cmd-window?


@echo off
cdd a:\
echo.
echo Welcome to FreeDOS (http://www.freedos.org)
echo Booting FreeLDR 2.0.0 through GRUB4DOS. Press CTRL-C to abort or
pause
grub --config-file="kernel (fd0)/freeldr.sys