[syslinux] keeppxe+memdisk+FreeDOS example?

[H. Peter Anvin]

Wagner Ferenc wrote:
> "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa at zytor.com> writes:
> 
>> Wagner Ferenc wrote:
>>> Wagner Ferenc <wferi at niif.hu> writes:
>>>
>>>> Wagner Ferenc <wferi at niif.hu> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> Does anybody have a working setup I could look at?
>>>> Ahem, I've just noticed the latest commits.  They definitely have
>>>> something to say about this.  I'm checking it...
>>> Well, Duane's example loads, but doesn't seem to exploit the keeppxe
>>> option.  At least I can't see the point, the TCP* utility doesn't find
>>> the packet driver.  Or is it just the broken Intel PXE implementation?
>> If you're not using keeppxe, pxelinux will unload the PXE stack
>> completely, so it definitely won't work.
> 
> Probably I didn't express myself clearly.  The keeppxe option is
> present in Duane's example, but I can't see any trace of its usage.
> The booted system doesn't seem to have a TCP stack.
> 
> By the way, if you boot DOS, the keeppxe option eats quite a lot of
> conventional memory.  There's no way around it, I guess.  Or is there?
> 

No, there isn't really.

> Concerning my struggles, the 3Com UNDI driver has better diagnostics
> and documentation, so now I at least know that I miss PROTMAN.DOS.
> The docs says: "When using NDIS Protocol Manager, SYSTEM.INI file is
> required."  Still, I can see no way around the protocol manager,
> whatever it is.  Everybody seems to use it, everybody seems to have
> it, except FreeDOS, which I'd like to use.  How should I get it, it
> it's really needed?  How could I avoid it, if not?

No, it's not that simple.

MS-DOS never included a network stack, and quite a few were developed.
There was at least three different network driver standards that
developed: NDIS, used by IBM and Microsoft; ODI, used by Novell; and the
Packet Driver specification, used mostly by open projects.  You need to
have the proper driver for your stack.

The .DOS extension was used by IBM-Microsoft stacks.

	-hpa