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From: vixie@gw.home.vix.com (Paul A Vixie)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: DOS emulation
Date: 11 Sep 93 14:11:22
Organization: Vixie Enterprises
Lines: 24
Message-ID: <VIXIE.93Sep11141122@gw.home.vix.com>
References: <newmanCD7FsC.Gq2@netcom.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: gw.home.vix.com
In-reply-to: newman@netcom.com's message of Sat, 11 Sep 1993 19:36:11 GMT

>         In BSD UNIX 386, is there any way to emulate DOS, or exchange files
>between DOS and UNIX partitions. Also, how much disk space do I need to run
>BSD386.

If you mean BSD/386 (a product of BSD, Inc.), then it comes with a PC emulator
but you have to supply your own copy of DOS.  You can dedicate as much space
as you want to DOS, which can live inside the BSD file system or outside it in
a separate "fdisk" partition.  BSD/386 also comes with "mtools", which allows
you to read or write DOS filesystems on floppies or other "fdisk" partitions.
"Mtools" was released through the comp.sources.unix newsgroup and is freely
redistributable.  I believe that the various "free" BSD efforts (NetBSD,
FreeBSD, 386BSD) also include "mtools".  At least one of those others also
includes the ability to mount DOS floppies or "fdisk" partitions directly into
the BSD file system hierarchy, obviating the need for "mtools".  Naturally when
you do this you don't get full POSIX file semantics; file locking and so on is
not supported, and you won't be able to make or use symbolic links or long file
names on the DOS-format file systems.  But even with those limitations it is
still nicer to mount things through the kernel than to use user-mode utilities
such as "mtools".
--
Paul Vixie
Redwood City, CA
<paul@vix.com>
decwrl!vixie!paul