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Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:7735 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:35752 Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.hawaii.edu!ames!data.nas.nasa.gov!wilbur.nas.nasa.gov!tweten From: tweten@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Dave Tweten) Subject: Re: bsd386 & msdos in 1 micro References: <br.pct.26.721364010@RLG.Stanford.EDU> Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov (News Administrator) Organization: NAS Systems Division, NASA Ames Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 20:17:03 GMT Message-ID: <1992Nov10.201703.9929@nas.nasa.gov> Lines: 44 In article <br.pct.26.721364010@RLG.Stanford.EDU> br.pct@RLG.Stanford.EDU (Peter C Tam) writes: > I try to configure a 386/486 with IDE drive for: MSDOS, Window 3.1, OS/2, >BSD386. A key question here is what you mean by "BSD386". It is common to confuse BSD386 (a.k.a. BSDI, a.k.a. AT&T legal's practice target) with 386bsd (a.k.a. Jolitz Unix). The first (BSD386) costs $1K, is in beta release, and can't share a disk with any other operating system. If that's what you've got, you lose - at least until the first general release, which is supposed to be able to share a disk with DOS. The second system (386bsd) is free, is currently at release 0.1, and can share a disk with DOS. >The problem is 386/486 only boot off C disk. But looking at things, >BSD386 seems to have a different file system than MSDOS (true?) Very true, regardless of whether you really mean BSD386 or 386bsd. They both use a Berkeley Unix file system, which (mercifully) looks nothing like DOS on disk. There is a public domain package called something like "mtools" which will let you read, write and "dir" DOS file systems from Unix. That package works with both BSD386 and 386bsd. >Does that implies I have to at least have 2 disk partitions, one for >BSD386 & 1 for the rest (MSDOS, Windows3.1, OS/2), & FDISK to activate >whichever partition? If you have 386bsd, yes, that is (sort of) what it means. The real situation is a bit rosier than that. There are partition table boot code replacements available (on simtel20, I think) which permit you to choose active partition at boot time. That should be more convenient than fdisk gymnastics. If you have BSD386, no, the situation is worse for the time being. It is supposed to be better, later. For now, you don't need two partitions, you need two disks. To switch from one system to the other you have to switch disks, so the boot system becomes physical disk 0. You can also switch by using whole-volume backup and restore, but that just trades ugly for money. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Tweten tweten@nas.nasa.gov NASA Ames Research Center, M/S 258-5 (415) 604-4416 Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000 FAX: (415) 604-4377