Changeset 46 for trunk/1README.TXT

Timestamp:

Apr 12, 2014, 8:23:32 AM (11 years ago)

Author:

Ben Rietbroek

Message:

Various Changes [2012-04-14]

WARNING!!

All commits upto and including the commit of [2012-05-13] contain
a severe bug!! Building from these sources and then disabling
the 'force LBA' feature while also using the drive-letter feature or
editing the label can DESTROY THE MBR on ALL ATTACHED DISKS!!
DO NOT DISABLE 'FORCE LBA USAGE' WHEN BUILT FROM THE THESE COMMITS!!

Changes

o Added BLDLEVEL support
o Enhanced Master Make
o Sanitized sources
o Support for Wasm and Masm6 (experimental)
o Renamed MBR_PROT.ASM to MBR-PROT.ASM
o Merged bitfield code Into Installer
o First steps for cross platform Installer
o More...

File:

• trunk/1README.TXT (modified) (2 diffs)

trunk/1README.TXT

@@ +1 @@
+===============================================================================
+ 1README.TXT -- General Information about AiR-BOOT v1.0.8
+===============================================================================
+
  AiR-BOOT (c) Copyright 1998-2009 M. Kiewitz
 
@@ -18 +22 @@
 
 
-Note:
------
+Preface:
+--------
+When you are reading this file you are either browsing the AiR-BOOT sources
+or you have 'checked-them-out' from the Netlabs repository.
+Either way, this is what you should be aware of:
+- AiR-BOOT was originally invented and designed by Martin Kiewitz.
+- Martin seems to not develop it anymore and his last version (v1.06)
+  can be found on sourceforge.
+- *This* version is a 'fork' and although the name is the same,
+  it's sources reside on Netlabs and an other developer maintains it.
+  So, please do not bother Martin with bugs in this 'fork'.
+- This AiR-BOOT fork has been enhanced to cope with issues like 'huge disks'
+  and it's goal is to be a replacement for the ancient IBM Boot Manager
+  (formerly) used by eComStation.
+- With the release of eComStation v2.1, in may 2011, this AiR-BOOT 'fork'
+  is distributed with it and positioned as the 'preferred bootmanager'
+  for eComStation.
+- While AiR-BOOT is 'operating-system agnostinc', meaning that it is not tied
+  to any particular OS, the main effort of this 'fork' is to replace IBM-BM
+  and be highly compatible with eComStation.
+- The secondary goal of this 'fork' is to support even more operating-systems,
+  new 'boot-technologies' like UEFI, new partitioning schemes like GPT
+  and more.
+
+
+Note 1:
+-------
 This is the "eComStation fork" of AiR-BOOT and it is maintained by a
 different developer. The file you are currently reading, 1README.TXT,
 replaces the original README.TXT as created by Martin Kiewitz.
-The latter can be found in README.MKW but note that the information
+The latter can be found in README.MKW, but note that the information
 in there about building AiR-BOOT is completely outdated.
+Please refer to BUILD.NFO for more information about building AiR-BOOT.
+
+
+Note 2:
+-------
+Martin, at the time (1998+), found that it was important that AiR-BOOT could
+be completely built on a DOS-system. In that 'era' this was a reasonable
+requirement. With AiR-BOOT replacing IBM Boot Manager for eComStation
+as of 2011, and upcoming stuff like EFI and GPT, AiR-BOOT itself and
+it's 'build-environment' need to break out of the 'DOS-box'.
+
+This means that the 8.3 filename format cannot be retained in some situations
+and that building AiR-BOOT cannot use DOS .BAT files anymore.
+
+Therefore, the 'build environment' has been 'revamped' to use Makefiles
+and the Open Watcom tool-chain in combination with the JWasm Assembler.
+This tool-chain can operate under DOS,Win32,OS/2 and Linux.
+
+While care has been taken that the major components of AiR-BOOT can still be
+built on DOS (or DOS-emulation environments),
+the preferred build-environment is now eComStation -or- Linux.
+
+If you really need to build on DOS, beware that:
+- The DOS build-environment has limitations regarding memory and filenames.
+- An eCS DOS-Session needs to have DPMI set from 'auto' to 'enabled'
+  and the XMS mem-limit needs to be set to 0, to be able the use of JWasmD.
+- It has not been tested as thoroughly as the eCS and Linux environments.
+- It will be dropped in the future.
+
+
+Note 3:
+-------
+An other 'operating-system' from a company that thinks it owns all computers,
+all the disks in them, all it's users, their pets, and whatnot,
+is also supported. AiR-BOOT can boot Windows and there is also a Win32 version
+of the installer. (AIRBOOTW.EXE)
+
+However, the AiR-BOOT Installer code for Win32 is much less tested than 
+the eComStation version. This however, does not apply to the AiR-BOOT loader, 
+which will do it's very best to boot any Windows it finds.
+
+
+Note 4:
+-------
+AiR-BOOT can also boot Linux, or more accurately, chainload GRUB.
+For this to work, GRUB needs to be installed on the partition Linux resides
+on, since the MBR is taken by AiR-BOOT. If GRUB is installed in the MBR it
+needs to be moved to the PBR. The procedure for such an action depends
+on the GRUB and Linux versions used.
+
+ 
 
 Building AiR-BOOT
 -----------------
 - Checkout the sources from http://svn.netlabs.org/air-boot.
-- Setup your Open Watcom build-environment for your OS.
+- Setup the Open Watcom build-environment for your OS.
 - Download JWasm for your OS.
-- Run wmake help to see a list of build options -or-
 - Run wmake without paramaters to build AiR-BOOT for all languages.
 
 See BUILD.NFO for more information.
 
+
 Rousseau.