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MiNiDOS 2025 Release 0.02 - a live, installable and minimalistic MS-DOS 6.22 distribution.

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minidos622

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MiNiDOS 2025 Release 0.02
=========================

MiNiDOS is an MS-DOS distribution with the following three aims:

1) Maintains backwards compatibility so that you can run all former DOS
software without issues. Components have been carefully chosen to
follow this route.

2) Keeps its business in an incredibly small and portable shape. Tiny
programs are much more convenient for deployment on vintage storage
media which is more often than not, restricted by space limitations.
So for this particular purpose a 1.44 MB (IBM DOS formatted high density
floppy disk size) has been selected as a boundary.

3) Attempts to become the ultimate MS-DOS 6.22 Swiss Army knife. A great
deal of effort has been put in order to pack the relevant stuff
to carry out the most common user operations, modernizing whenever
the possibility arises, without of course compromising the above two
stated objectives of this MiNiDOS distribution.

MiNiDOS Main Features
---------------------

1 Multiple boot menu options for improved backwards compatibility
2 Command-line auto completion
3 Command-line scroll-back buffer
4 Full clipboard support in DOS
5 Long file name support
6 FAT 12, FAT 16, FAT 32, exFAT, NTFS and HPFS file systems
7 Drivers for FireWire, USB, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, PCMCIA and CardBus devices
8 Universal sound card driver that offers an all-in-one solution
9 Generic mouse driver with wheel support
10 RAM support beyond 64 MB (up to 4 GB)
11 Big resizable RAM drives up to 2 GB in size
12 Conventional RAM available to run most demanding MS-DOS memory games
13 Powerful diagnostic, repair and maintenance capabilities
14 Minimalistic text editor for regular use
15 Graphic User Interface for compressing files in RAR format
16 RAR, ZIP, ARJ and LZH archive decompression has been integrated
17 DOS Structural behavior management and report tools
18 Disk image creation and file extraction
19 Intuitive file manager that follows the popular two panel paradigm
20 Serial and parallel port communication program
21 VirtualBox shared folders are mountable on-demand
22 Easy to use hard drive preparation and system installation tools
23 Power management including CPU slowdown and several associated commands
24 Numerous utilities which add more power and flexibility to your system
25 Many commonly used external MS-DOS commands
26 Plenty of executable conversion programs to tinker with
27 A robust and stable system
28 Unparalleled compatibility
29 A working system for PCs with even an 8088 CPU and little memory
30 Extensive built-in MiNiDOS manual
31 Available for general consumption, for everyday use
32 There is much more to MiNiDOS than meets the eye
 

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Excelent! (y) do you have any Twitter/X MiniDOS profile? That way, we can follow up your updates.
 
Hi, just to update on current progress towards version 0.03:

Release 0,02 was our internal build #117. We are currently sitting at build #129.
The changes so far have been towards polishing and refining the distribution:
- The SETUP installer program is now more relaxed about the requirements for a full installation which widens the hardware possibilities.
- Added ZIP and JAZ drives support.
- An easier to use, and more trustworthy NTFS (read-only), FAT32(read & write) driver mount implementation
- Linux EXT2/3 read-only driver mount support.
- The CD-ROM driver has been replaced by a more generically compatible one.
- Several updates and bugfixes to already existing components
- Reworked HELP system
- And a lot of subtle changes that improve the MiNiDOS experience.
 
Great bootdisk regarding the set of tools provide.

For each tools, could you give the URL you use in other to retrieve the original package ?

May I access to dev build please?

Thanks
 
Some of tools were developed exclusively for MiNiDOS by a very small team of developers/coders that constantly contribute, so they are not found elsewhere. And the rest can be found using a Google search.

To give you an example, the SETUP (installer program), LFNCHECH, CPUDET, MORE, VIDEODET, VIDPAGE, SEL, and many others have been created by Ignacio Gully (igully), who is also the one who created all the documentation. and one of the most active contributors. I believe he is active at Vogons.

The dev build is only shared amongst devs, because it is unfinished work-in-progress, lacking tests, and not suitable for public consumption as it is unpolished. We are still pushing forward, now at build #131.

Thank you for your interest, stay tuned, we expect the next release will be ready anytime during October-December this year (fingers crossed).
 
I ask because even searching I have trouble to track some of them.
Now that I know some are proprietary it explain some of my trouble finding them... The complete list of tools internally made could help.
But for others the URL could be provided (example: PCMI80CL.SYS or ASPI1394.SYS)

As some of your tools could find a good place in my own tools kit

As example, here is the 'work in progress' NFO file for my own bootdisk
 

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This project is not aimed at providing any list of software, more even when there about 180 files. You can certainly post your remaining list and I will be happy to help you narrow down the ones that are not proprietary and not available using a simple google search. BTW, the examples you gave, PCMI80CL.SYS or ASPI1394.SYS, are what I was exactly referring to: in the first google page of results you can find links to download both of them. So please build the list you want, do the corresponding google search and if nothing comes up, I will provide you a link if it is not proprietary.

On the other hand, you seem to be using a weird methodology to achieve your test results, and it seems to me, and a couple others, you are making some big mistakes: you are not using a stable release of the emulator, which is essential for stability tests.

And the same goes with going with the dynamic recompilation option, which you should not enable as it is not 100% accurate and will most likely throw out some errors every now and then due to self-modifying code which cannot be easily predicted.

If I were you I would re-test everything again with these two things in mind.

And then there is another thing: you are using a substandard config.sys configurations, which may lead to trouble:
STACKS=0,0 -> This is waiting for a stack overflow to happen in order to preserve memory. Look for a safer value, like 9,128
FCBS=1,0 -> May trigger some issues with some old programs. A safer value should be 10,4
DEVICEHIGH=JEMMEX.EXE X=TEST I=TEST -> You shouldn´t mess up with X=TEST I=TEST, which is a risk without rewards in your test system. Remove them.

And then there are other issues that are present in particular kernel configs, which you have mistakenly interpreted them. They may pose some risk, and surely mean a either an eventual crash or loss of free conventional memory which you seem keen on counting.

As an example, using your same system (without dynamic recompilation and using a stable release of the emulator), we tested out your 4DOS with your 4DOS.INI file with EDR-DOS and JEMMEX, and we got 650,416 free conventional memory.

From what I read, you seem to be running out of space on your single floppy disk distro. We took a quick glance and quickly noticed two ways in which you could explore acquiring more space for other kernels in that same disk:

1- You are using 7Zip as a compressor which has a huge overhead (7ZDEC.EXE 45KB + CWSDPMI.EXE 21KB = 66KB). There are variants of unzip. which is a tiny bit less efficient than 7Zip, at less than 20 KB in size.

2- You are insisting on 4DOS as a common shell, which is quite large in size, even as compressed as you have it. It is about 153 KB in size. An open source still developed and maintained shell is SvarCOM, which only takes up 26 KB. You could potentially save more than 100KB with that only change.

I hope you take this criticism constructively, which is the way it is intended. By the way, these opinions are not only mine, but came out when we were discussing several DOS matters with one of our few developers. Seems you have not taken into account features, and speed when evaluating kernels and memory managers, which makes for a huge difference when choosing an OS.

I will be happy to help you with your list of tools once you have it narrowed down.

I have attached both SvarCOM latest and a tiny UNZIP I found. I hope you find them useful for your purposes.
 

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Thanks for all your good advices, I will take some of them.

Regarding the links, it's not only for me but also for the credits of the people who write them, for their memories, etc... I know it's really boring to do and to maintain... you see my NFO...
I'm sorting the tools since yesterday I manage to trace a dozen of them to their original package, I will came to you once done for the remaining.

My goal is only to order OS by memory and to pack all in the smallest possible package, the memory is the most common thing that can really be compare between them, the rest depend of the needs of the people (look at the car industry, speed it always one of the first and main comparison item before the real features of the cars).

Regarding the emulator and the example you give, dynamic recompilation is mandatory for Pentium (my latest true x86 CPU that why I pick it). To have valid comparison values, I must stick to the same configuration and Pentium is the one I choice.

Regarding the 7z compression, using ZIP format (at maximum level) give me a file twice the size of the 7Z...

Regarding SvarCOM and 4DOS, 4DOS give a full set of features that will need a lot of small tools for SvarCOM or other shells, I decide that the benefits were enough.
Even if I change the shell I will have to make some sacrifice if I want to stick to a single floppy (removing nano tools pack and some memory managers).
For the moments, the solution I have please me enough (the second disk only contain the kernel and is use only when switching between them).
With the space on disk 1, I will be able to add some memory managers to add to the comparison sheet.

To gain some space on your bootdisk, you may replace EMM386 by the one from FreeDOS (https://fd.lod.bz/repository/latest/html/en/obsolete/emm386/20170419.2/index.html)

And I'm interested in your remark: 'And then there are other issues that are present in particular kernel configs, which you have mistakenly interpreted them. They may pose some risk, and surely mean a either an eventual crash or loss of free conventional memory which you seem keen on counting.'
Working on something alone didn't help to see all the angles of a thing.
 
Thank you for your answer. I respect your choices.

But then I can only insist that dynamic recompilation should never be used to run any stability tests at all.

I am currently fine with the space left on MiNiDOS floppy. I would never trade Microsoft EMM386 with the one of FreeDOS for compatibility reasons, as backwards compatibility is a main goal for this distro. Subtle differences in implementations make for huge compromises for being able to run vintage programs/games/demos.

I am attaching you the mentioned EDR-DOS boot disk with JEMMEX, everything in it is freeware and can be freely shared. It uses a "fixed" version of your config.sys along with your own 4DOS and .INI file (650,416 free conventional memory = 635 KB). It is an example of what you mention in the last paragraph. Credits goes to Ignacio Gully for building and providing it, along with the notes and comments on the config.sys "fixes".
 

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This one may have interest for your bootdisk:

EMU386

Description : Software-only upgrade emulator, 286 to real-mode 386
Software type : Executable device driver
Platform : PC, 286 (specific), MS-DOS
Revision date : 08 Feb 1998

EMU386 - Win3x.Org

EMU386 is a TSR that makes a 286 based PC capable of emulating a 386 in real mode. Thus, softwares requiring at least a 386 - that remain in real mode and don't…
www.win3x.org

Some of DOS software still run in real-mode, most of them available as
shareware and freeware. Several software developer around the world
still produce good and useful real-mode DOS software, some of them is
highly optimized and runable even on an old 8088 XT, but usually 386
is minimum. With EMU386 installed, you will be able to run some of
these programs, see RUNABLE 386 SOFTWARE section for details.

Another purpose of EMU386, is to give you a chance to use new plug and
play devices on your old 286 PCs.
 
Very interesting tool, @nico7550. I wasn't aware that anything like EMU386 existed for DOS, or was even reasonable to implement.

I'll have to give it a shot and see how well it works for real-mode drivers that contain 386 code.

And thank you @minidos622 for your and your teams' efforts in creating such a useful one-disk DOS build!

- Alex
 
minidos622 said:
Thanks, I will take a look at it.
Click to expand...
Hi,

I manage to find a lot of the source for the tools (for those I have interest), it take time mostly due to compression that change the checksum.

But I didn't find the followings, can you me give some clues, please?

APPEND.COM
ASCII.COM
DIMMER.COM
EMU287.EXE
EXE2COM.COM
FAKEDISK.COM
FAKEDR.EXE
FAKEVER.COM
FCBS.COM
FILES.COM
HAND386.COM
INFODR.EXE
JOIN.COM
KEYTEST.EXE
LASTDRIV.COM
MOUSEM.COM
PROTECT.COM
STACKS.EXE
VESADEG.COM
WHERE.COM
WHICHFAT.COM
WIPE.COM


SHARE.EXE
I find a R2.01 version in DR Multiuser DOS 7 GOLD Version 7.22 Release 04 and a a version r2.05 in Caldera DR-DOS 7.03 (01-07-1999)

Which version of MS-DOS did they came from?
DISKCOMP.COM
DISKCOPY.COM

Thanks
 
APPEND.COM - Modified sources from Source DOS (S/DOS)
ASCII.COM - Custom made, sent to me by its coder
DIMMER.COM - Modified by I. Gully. He told me he added better online help. He resourced the executable he was sent and worked on it.
EMU287.EXE - Sent to me by a contributor
EXE2COM.COM - Sent to me by a contributor
FAKEDISK.COM - Original archive was in in China DOS Union website (archive which I don't have anymore)
FAKEDR.EXE - See attachment
FAKEVER.COM - Sent to me by a contributor
FCBS.COM - From QEMM97
FILES.COM - From QEMM97
HAND386.COM - From the Chips & Technologies video driver (which I don't have anymore)
INFODR.EXE - See attachment
JOIN.COM - Modified sources from Source DOS (S/DOS)
KEYTEST.EXE - Sent to me by a contributor
LASTDRIV.COM - From QEMM97
MOUSEM.COM - http://old-dos.ru/dl.php?id=28131
PROTECT.COM - August 1990 by Martin Hirt (I don't have its original archive)
STACKS.EXE - From QEMM97
VESADEG.COM - Sent to me by a contributor
WHERE.COM - See attachment
WHICHFAT.COM - See attachment
WIPE.COM - See attachment
DISKCOMP.COM - See attachment
DISKCOPY.COM - Modified sources from Source DOS (S/DOS)

Regarding SHARE: I am now rectifying this, but I. Gully told me to better
keep the SHARE implementation that was designed for the specific kernel one is
using, since their implementations are not the same, and may fail to work on
other kernels.
 

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Hi Nico,

October-December this year (fingers crossed), still seems a valid timeframe.
We have ironed out the annoying little things remaining in the distro and I am evaluating a last minute addition or two.

And how is your boot disk set progressing? I am looking forward to it.
 
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