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[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

Having read through the developer's request, we made a FreeDOS 0.82 boot 
disk with himem.sys only and booted to linux and Xvesa lodas without any 
crashes, error messages, or black screens.  (Which to me is very good news 
because now I can put it on the Pentium that won't work with any other 
DOS, and still use linux with Xvesa).


Then we added the emm386.exe line in config.sys, with noems, and it would 
not boot linux and we got a long error message about not booting because 
of not enough free memory (load buffer size).  Load buffer size is 
0x00000000 (nothing).

CPU is in V86-mode (may be WINDOWS, EMM386, QEMM, 386MAX, ...)
You need pure 386/486 real mode or a VCPI server to boot LInux
VCPI is supported by most EMS drivers (if EMS is enabled),
but never under WINDOWS-3.1 or WINDOWS'95.
If locaing via VCPI you also MUST have:
        1.  An interceptable setup-code (see MANUAL.TXT)
	2.  Identical Physical-to-Virtual mapping for the first 640 
Kbytes.

......
load buffer size:  0x00000000, setu7p buffer size:  0x3E00
total memory:  0x00100000
CPU is in V86 mode
SetupIntercept:  NO    [I think this is where it went wrong]
stat2:  cpu_V86, but no VCPI available (check aborted) ........

So our first problem was the NOEMS but removing to enable EMS (and VCPI 
driver) that still leaves the need for the setup-code and the mapping, and 
we cannot find the CD with the manual.txt.

I have no great need for emm386 except for one DOS browser which needs the 
most possible low memory and since I am no longer using it emm386 can be 
omitted.  It tended to crash frequently even with maximal low memory.

In case it matters, this is a DFI 586 with Cyrix cpu running at 133MHz
with MS DOS 6.22 on the hard drive but booted from FreeDOS 0.82.

James, what exactly happens when FreeDOS does not work with Xvesa for you?
I simply typed Xvesa, not startx or xinit, and got the grey screen with X.


> On Tue, 2 Nov 2004, James Miller wrote:
>
> > I wrote to one of the FreeDOS developers with my "bug report" regarding
> > memory mgmt programs in FreeDOS interfering with Xvesa once one boots to
> > Linux using loadlin.  He, in turn, submitted it to the right people (those
> > maintaining/developing memory mgmt progs, I assume) and, as I was afraid
> > he might, asked for further testing.  Don't know when/if I'll have time
> > for such testing--he wanted to know which of the two, or whether both,
>
> > Eric Auer <eric AT CoLi.Uni-SB.DE> wrote:
> >
> > Hi James, forwarding to Tom and Michael, maybe they have a comment...
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > Please distinguish HIMEM+EMM386 from only HIMEM. The former involves
> > mapping, and it might happen that the memory area for the VESA framebuffer
> > is not explicitly mapped by EMM386 by default. Instead, it might expect
> > DOS programs (e.g. games) to request such mapping manually. LOADLIN does
> > not ask for special mapping by itself. If you only load HIMEM and still
> > have problems, the background could be either A20 handling (low 
> > probability,
> > as the rest of Linux works okay for you) or some hooked interrupts. With
> > MEMTEST86+ (www.memtest.org) I fount that it is a problem that HIMEM hooks
> > int 15 (and so does EMM386 and even MKEYB)...: MEMTEST asks int 15 for the
> > installed memory size and memory map, and uses int 15 for APM power mgmt
> > control. HIMEM changes the reported memory map, and more importantly it
> > might get overwritten by MEMTEST before getting called, so int 15 would 
> > hang.
>
> I hope my partner can follow this.  We have memtest86 now.  I will sic him on 
> this problem.  He enjoyed figuring out why BL2 floppy installation would not 
> work for us with certain DOSes.
>
> > There is no well-defined interface to uninstall HIMEM or EMM386 completely,
> > but LOADLIN seems to do its best, otherwise it would not be able to load
> > Linux while DOS memory management is loaded.
> >
> > Please give some more details, like contents of your config / autoexec and
> > the exact error message from Xvesa (plus later, on demand, some contents of
> > /proc status information and other log files as needed...).
> > _______________________________________________
>
> Sindi
> >
>
> keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
> SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
> _______________________________________________
> BasLinux mailing list
> BasLinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org