Hayo Baan
version 6.10.1 18/01/2016
1. Introduction
2. Highlights
3. Installation
3.1 BootAble files
3.2 Other files and applications
4. Syntax
5. Using bootAble
6. Debugging
6.1 Test runs
6.2 Errors generated by the script
6.3 Check config.sys file
7. Contact information
8. Thanks
Known Problems/Limitations
Version History
BootAble is an OS/2/eCS script to create a maintenance partition or a bootable CD/DVD. This partition/CD/DVD supports enough facilities to fully manage and recover your system.
Personally I use it on the CD-RWs I burn my system backups to. Recovering/reinstalling my system just takes booting-off this CD, optionally managing and formatting volumes and unzipping the backup-zip files that are also on the CD.
A few highlights of the script:
Default settings for file system and driver support are mostly retrieved from the current system (in case of SCSI, you will need to tell bootAble the drivers to use). Adapting these defaults is done by creating a configuration file with the necessary settings.
The simplest way to install bootAble is is to copy all files from
the bootAble archive to directory on the PATH or a
specific directory (if you use a specific directory, just make sure
you run bootAble from that location).
To locate files, bootAble first looks at the specified location (or
current directory if no path is given), if the specified file is not
found, bootAble searches the paths as specified in the
SEARCHPATH setting. By default the
SEARCHPATH is made up of \os2\boot on the
boot drive, followed by the LIBPATH, PATH,
DPATH, HELP, BOOKSHELF,
\psfonts, and \psfonts\pfm on the boot
drive.
Note: When specifying files with wildcards, the
SEARCHPATH is not searched.
| 3.2.1 Required files | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| OS/2 Warp or eCS | The base OS and files. | Installed | IBM/eComStation |
| 3.2.2 Required files when creating bootAble CDs/DVDs | |||
| CD Recorder Software | Either cdrecord/dvddao+mkisofs or RSJ can be used. | Installed | Hobbes/RSJ |
| 3.2.3 Required file when creating bootAble CDs using the “no floppy emulation” method | |||
| Veit Kannegieser's no floppy emulation boot |
When creating a no floppy emulation boot method, you'll need to
have the base memdisk files. Note: This version of bootAble has been tested with the 01/11/2005 release of the memdisk tool, currently to be found in the packages directory on Veit Kannegieser's homepage (arj archives) or on my website (zip files). Note: Make sure all relevant subdirectories with the memdisk files are included on your searchpath. For instance: ADDTOSEARCHPATH='P:\UTILS\MemDisk\exe;P:\UTILS\MemDisk\boot;','P:\UTILS\MemDisk\bin;P:\UTILS\MemDisk\bin\en;'(assuming english messages). |
SEARCHPATH |
Veit Kannegieser/ zip-file |
tar, loaddll, and untar |
In case you enable unicode or hpfs386 support, or decide to add files to the boot image instead of the CD/DVD, you'll furthermore need the tar command and Veit Kannegieser's loaddll and untar. | SEARCHPATH |
Veit Kannegieser/ zip-files Hobbes |
| 3.2.4 Required files when creating bootAble CDs using the “floppy emulation” method | |||
| Virtual floppy | Either vfdisk or super virtual disk can be used. A virtual floppy disk of 2.88MB should be inserted. | Installed | Hobbes/BMT-Micro |
daniboot.flt |
Required file for enabling CD-Boot. | SEARCHPATH |
Hobbes |
savedskf.exe |
Command to create a floppy-disk image file. | SEARCHPATH |
Hobbes |
| 3.2.5 Optional Files (device drivers) | |||
daniatap.flt or daniatapi.flt |
Enhanced ATAPI driver developed by Daniela Engert. | SEARCHPATH |
Hobbes |
danin512.flt or n512dasd.flt |
Non-512 bytes/sector removable media support driver. Either Daniela Engert's or Alexander Terekhov's driver can be used. When both drivers are present, Daniela's is used. | SEARCHPATH |
Hobbes |
danis506.add |
Enhanced IDE driver developed by Daniela Engert. | SEARCHPATH |
Hobbes |
ibmrscsi.flt |
Removable SCSI devices geometry filter driver. | SEARCHPATH |
eComStation |
jjscdrom.dmd |
Enhanced CDROM driver developed by Takayuki “January June” Suwa. | SEARCHPATH |
Hobbes |
| 3.2.6 Optional Files (file systems) | |||
| FAT32 | Fat32 files system driver developed by Henk Kelder (now further developed by OS/2 Netl@bs). | SEARCHPATH |
Hobbes/Netl@bs |
| HPFS386 | HPFS386 file system driver (Warp server). | SEARCHPATH |
IBM |
| NTFS | NTFS file system driver (eCS 1.1) | SEARCHPATH
|
eComStation |
| Ramdisk |
Ramdisk support files ramdisk.exe and
ramdisk.ifs(Required for a WPS enabled CD when not
using the MEMDISK option).
|
SEARCHPATH |
Hobbes |
| 3.2.7 Optional Files (programs and other files) | |||
| LXLITE | Compresses files (.exe, .dll, .fon, etc.) before writing, thus saving extra space. |
SEARCHPATH |
Hobbes |
| Roman Stangl's CDBoot menu |
Adds a boot menu to a bootable CD. Note: When using RSJ, make sure to specify explicitly where the cdboot command can be found with the CDBOOTMENUFILE option!
|
SEARCHPATH |
Hobbes |
| 3.2.8 Optional Files (other files) | |||
bos2rexx.exe |
Required file when adding REXX support to a command-line boot. This file can be found in the bootOS2 package. | SEARCHPATH |
Hobbes |
keyboard.dcp/viotbl.dcp |
Smaller keyboard.dcp and viotbl.dcp files
to save extra space on the boot image, can be found on disk 2 of the
WARP 4 installation disks.If you want to use these, simply copy them
to a directory on the SEARCHPATH before the
original (e.g., the current directory). You'll need to rename
vtbl850.dcp to viotbl.dcp as well.
|
SEARCHPATH |
IBM |
| SIO2K Patch | Patch file for the problem where on reboot you get a trap in the UART or SIO driver when using the SIO2K driver. This patch simply prevents the trapping function to be called at reboot. This patch is provided with eCS 1.1. The author, Veit Kannegieser (thank you), has however made it available for everyone interested. A zip-file can be downloaded from my website (you only need the unbhsio.sys file from the archive). | SEARCHPATH |
eComStation/zip-file |
snapse491.exe
|
Latest SNAP SE distribution. | SEARCHPATH |
eComStation |
snapse-ecs-3.1.8.zip
|
Latest SNAP SE distribution, special eCS-only licensed version. | SEARCHPATH |
eComStation |
The command syntax is as follows:
bootAble [/v <verbose>] [<configuration file>|/@<configuration-list-file>…]
The optional arguments are the verbosity level and one or more
configuration files. These configuration files are used to override
the defaults as specified in the file bootAble.cfg. The
special form /@configuration-list-file causes the content of the
configuration list file to be used to list additional configuration
files (a semicolon comment-out a line). E.g. if the file
myCfg.lst contains the lines
bootAble.4os2
bootAble.firefox
;bootAble.notIncluded
The command
bootAble /v 67 bootAble.myCfg /@myCfg.lst bootAble.wps
would have exactly the same result as
bootAble /v 67 bootAble.myCfg bootAble.4os2 bootAble.firefox bootAble.wps
SEARCHPATH (by default
os2\boot on the boot drive followed by
LIBPATH, PATH, DPATH,
HELP, and BOOKSHELF,
\psfonts, and \psfonts\pfm on the boot
drive);bootAble.myCfg as first configuration file on the
command-line. This to make sure your settings will be used instead
of the (global) defaults in the following configuration files;After installing bootAble and its required files (see section 3, Installation), you are ready to use it. Using bootAble is simple and basically comprises of only two steps:
This is basically all there is to it, and depending on your
configuration specifics, you should now have a working bootAble CD or
maintenance partition! If you want to learn more about the various
configuration options, please look through the various supplied
configuration files, especially the default settings file
bootAble.cfg. If things don't work out and the script
generates errors, please have a look at section
6: Debugging for some debugging info and tips.
bootAble without
any parameters. You will be asked to supply the answer to various
questions (e.g., if you want to create a bootAble CD or maintenance
partitition, add WPS support, etc.). Although the provided default
answers should work in most cases, please read carefully before
answering. The answers to the question can optionally be saved to a
configuration file for later use. All other settings are derived
from your system (e.g., your config.sys) by
default;RSJATTACHCD in your bootAble.myCfg);-b option to mkisofs). For normal floppy
emulation booting, this is the OSBOOT.IMG in the root
of the CD/DVD, for MEMDISK bootAble CDs, this is the
CDLOADER.BIN in the BOOTIMGS directory
(don't forget the -no-emul-boot option in this
case!). Remember that mkisofs is case sensitive so use
the correct case when specifying filenames. bootAble can also create
a script which does all this for you (just answer yes when asked, or
specify CDRECORDBURNCMD in your bootAble.myCfg). Though
the default values for the mkisofs and cdrecord executables and
options should work in most cases, you may need to tweak them
(CDRECORDMKISOFSEXE,
CDRECORDMKISOFSOPTIONS, CDRECORDEXE, and
CDRECORDEXEOPTIONS);As creating a bootAble CD (or maintenance partition) usually
involves some trial and error, it is best you try things out before
ruining your next CD-R with a useless installation. Of course, using a
CD-RW already stops this waste, but I suggest to even go further and
first make a few test runs on your harddisk. To do this, simply
include (a modified version of) bootAble.testCD on the
command-line. E.g., bootAble /v 67 bootAble.wps bootAble.myCfg
bootAble.testCD.
Allthough I have tried to make the script run perfectly in all
situations, it is likely your first try of the script will fail with
some error. To help find the cause, the script knows various debug
levels (VERBOSE setting or /v command-line
option). The following debug levels are currently supported:
| Bit Value | Generated Output |
|---|---|
| 1 | Progress messages |
| 2 | Files copied & Files parsed |
| 4 | Config file parsing |
| 8 | INI rc file parsing |
| 64 | Error output of external commands |
| 128 | All external command output |
The debug level is specified as a bitmask, this means you have to add the various bitvalues to get the script to output a combination of debug information. A few examples:
VERBOSE=65 (64+1), this is the default;VERBOSE=1;VERBOSE=3 (2+1);VERBOSE=67 (64+2+1);VERBOSE
setting;VERBOSE=207
(or 255 to be on the safe side for when I add verbose levels ☺).For your first runs I suggest to set your debug level to 67 as this usually gives a good indication of the cause in case of error.
The bootAble script uses the REXX interpreter to
process the various lines in the configuration files. This means that
whenever there is a (syntax) error in a configuration file, bootAble
will fail with a REXX error. Locating the source of this error,
however, is not always a straight forward matter as relevant
information is usually missing. To help debug these errors, specify
debug level 4; this shows you all processed configuration file lines
and this should give you the exact location of the error. As this
generates lots of output, I suggest you do not
specify this by default.
Note: the VERBOSE setting in a configuration file
only becomes active after the corresponding configuration file has
been read. Especially if you are having configuration file problems,
it may be advisable to specify the verbosity level with the
/v command-line option (e.g., bootAble /V 71
bootAble.wps bootAble.myCfg bootAble.testCD).
config.sys fileIf all goes well and the script finished without any error
messages, check the created config.sys file. The
config,sys can be found on the boot image, which is created on your
virtual drive. If, however, you are using the TWODISKBOOT
option, the virtual drive will contain a the second boot image and
does not contain your config.sys anymore. To still check
the created file you can do two things: either use the
COPYCONFIGSYS to place a copy of config.sys in the root
of the CD (or in the directory where the CD is created), or use
PAUSEBEFOREBOOTIMAGE to interrupt the creation process
and make a manual copy of the file.
If you are not happy with the resulting config.sys,
add/remove options in your bootAble.myCfg. Once you have
verified the correctness of the config.sys you are ready
to create a real bootAble CDs (or maintenance partition) and test its
working.
Hayo Baan: mailto:hayo.baan@xs4all.nl,
http://hrbaan.home.xs4all.nl
IBM: http://www.ibm.com
eComStation: http://www.ecomstation.com
RSJ: http://www.rsj.de
Hobbes: http://hobbes.nmsu.edu
BMT-Micro: http://www.bmtmicro.com
CD_BOOT.FLT and the first insight into creating
bootable CDs;Finally big thanks also go to all you people testing and commenting the script; because of you I kept working on it ☺
Some people have reported that bootAble has problems copying
4OS/2's descript.ion files.
Version 4.2 and up provide a work-around for this (i.e., bootAble
will ask you what to do upon copy failure). Another work-around
exists: use the setdos command to (temporarily) disable the
description processing (i.e., setdos /d0).
When using bootAble on a system with the AMouse driver installed,
your USB mouse may not work properly on a bootAble created
system. This is caused by the usbmouse.sys driver that is
part of the AMouse distribution. As of version 4.5.4 of bootAble,
extra code is added to circumvent this (i.e., in case the AMouse
driver has been used, the usbmouse.sys driver found in
OS2\BOOT will be used). If, however, you have installed
AMouse in a non-default way, this may not work. In this case simply
force bootAble into using the original IBM usb mouse driver by
pointing USBMOUSEFILE to the correct file in your
bootAble.myCfg file. E.g.,
USBMOUSEFILE='P:\MyPath\usbmouse.sys'
Note: As of version 6.5, bootAble also allows you
to add full aMouse support on your bootAble CD/partition. To this end,
simply add bootAble.amouse to the list of configuration
files used.
Recreating the catalog file with the GUI version of BackAgain/2000
(e.g., when restoring a backup) may give problems. To circumvent this,
either have (a copy of) the original BA/2000 directory available, or
make use of the BAIICR.EXE command-line utility
(recommended method anyway).
GENMAC support is completely automatic. The source location of the
GENMAC specific files is normally determined automatically, but can be
overridden by setting the GENMACSOURCE variable. The
destination of the GENMAC specific files is determined by
GENMACDESTINATION and defaults to the CD.
Important: bootAble only supports a GENMAC driven network card if it is currently installed and in use. This also means you can not build a GENMAC bootAble system for a system using a different type of card, even though this card may be supported by GENMAC.Furthermore, only GENMAC driver version 2.1 is supported, older versions are not.
The Mozilla applications will probably not run in a system with
less than 256MB internal memory unless you enable swapping to a
harddisk (see MEMMAN and SWAPPATH
settings).
Not all pages/mail will load correctly, and of course plugins etc. are missing as well. Even worse, some pages/mail seem to crash the applications completely, most notably, the google start page that is the default homepage for firefox. To partially fix these crashes, bootAble now includes an empty profile with the homepage set to bootAble as well as some other settings (e.g., cache sizes) for each of the Mozilla applications. Feel free to amend these profiles and/or to include (a copy of) your working profile.
Note: One of the things that seems to influence the stability of the Mozilla applications under bootAble seems to be the amount of available (shared) memory. With the XWorkplace enabled, for instance, firefox crashes on a lot more websites than without XWorkplace. The GRADD video drivers seem to give better results as well.
Important: The TAR version that is included in eCS
2.0 RC4 (version 1.18) is incompatible with the tar version that is
required for memdisk (in fact it seems to be broken). Please make
sure that you are using the proper version with bootAble. The version
that can be downloaded from Hobbes and the one included with eCS 1.1
work fine (version 1.10 - AK 2.58). You can specify the tar executable
with the MEMDISKTAREXE setting in your
bootAble.myCfg.
XWLAN will fail to populate the list of installed NICs. This is a cosmetic failure, and will not affect the way that it works in thebootAble environment.
XCenter integration causes a longer startup time of the xcenter, this is normal.
Version 4.2.x or later of VirtualBox is highly
recommended. Previous versions may hang at shutdown when the
VBoxService.exe daemon is running.
Sadly enough shared folders (still) don't work in Virtual Box ☹. So you will need to find another means of sharing data between the host and the virtual machine.
When started from the command-line Initor might give an “Error” and refuse to close, killing the process still works though. When started from the Initor program object, this issue does not occur…
QSINIT isn't fully compatible with booting from a bootAble CD and will always show the green QSINIT apps menu. Simply select the third item (“Boot OS/2”) and then from the second menu, select “Default boot” to continue booting from CD. When cloning the bootAble CD to a (maintenance) partition, and booting normally, QSINIT behaves as expected again.
bootAble.Urc.bootAble.aMouse.os2ldr.ini
(QSINIT).bz2.dll.QSINIT);HD4DISK);AIRBOOT);airboot2.cmd command is
created that will allow you to start the air-boot installer
(airboot2.exe) without having to first go to the
directory where the airboot.bin file is located.MINILVM);VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT, default taken from the user's
config.sys file).TCPIPLEAN to
No as the lean versions of the TCPIP code do not work
with all software (most notably not with the mozilla software);bz2.dll that is part of the newer unzip
versions. Note too that the newer zip and unzip require
GCCRT which is NOT enabled by default;getFromIniWithDefault to return the
text portion of an ini entry (stripping off the trailing 0
delimiter), returning a default value when the ini entry does not
exist;bootAble.initor);bootAble.firefox,
bootAble.thunderbird, and
bootAble.seamonkey to support the latest & known to
be working versions (31.8.0b5, 31.8.0, and 2.28b5r2
respectively).bootAble.dfsee to the latest dfsee
distribution (13.x) and change of the location of the os/2-only
files to bin instead of os2
(APP_DFSEE_EXEDIR);bootAble.pmview, it now prefers version 3
over version 2. It will furthermore ask for the source directory if
PMView isn't installed (or a version different from 2 or 3 is
installed);bootAble.amouse to include all found
language versions and made sure that it doesn't override the system
version of the USB Mouse driver with aMouse's version if this should
not be done (controlled by
APP_AMOUSE_REPLACE_USBMOUSE);\OS2Additions directory (just
as with the normal installation). GCCRT.gcc and
libc dlls when GCCRT is enabled (the
source is set using GCCRTSOURCE);defaultIfNotSet() even if a default value is given
(previously it would only ask if the variable was not previously set
and the provided default value was empty. To do this, use
'ASKIFNOTSET' as the third parameter to
defaultIfNotSet().CDRECORDCREATEISOONLY), this should prevent
unnecessary errors from e.g., the scanbus command.VBoxService.exe
should be run at startup (VBOXSTARTDMN, Lothar Soens
for contributing this);VBoxService.exe can
cause a hang at shutdown.gcc library files (Doug Bissett);PSFonts now go to the correct location based on
WPSFONTSDESTINATION (Lothar Soens);bootAble.firefox for version >4 (Doug
Bissett for the fix);gcc library files (Doug Bissett
for the fix); MEDISKVOLUMELABEL option to specify the name
of the MEMDISK image, defaults to bootAbleMD (Steven
Levine for the tip);pnp.sys as a SNOOPFILE
(Steven Levine for the investigating this).*.snp) to include now determined from
the snoop.lst file. Previously all known snoop files
would be included (Thank you Steven Levine for the tip);Thanks go, again, to Doug Bissett for doing all the hard work of implementing and testing these addtions/fixes.
AHCI,
AHCIBEFOREIDE);bootAble.firefox);For this release I especially like to thank Doug Bissett for doing all the hard work off implementing the fixes and adding the aMouse and USB Removable Device Monitor support.
bootAble.aMouse);bootAble.usbrdm);ivm.dll and
pmex.dll now added when found on the system;.snp files added
and snoop.lst moved to the correct place;ACPI question will default to
No for a bootAble CD;ACPI to No.ACPI, thank you Doug Bissett
for providing the required input and beta testing);
Note: ACPI support on a bootAble CD does not seem to work, at least on some systems, due to blocking-out INT13 support. If you find it works for you, or know a work-around for this, please let me know.
snoop.lst when including
testcfg.sys;"SET
DISPLAYTYPE=…" would get added twice to the
config.sys;MEMDISK bootAble CD) is now actively checked. If
version 1.18 is found, an error is displayed and the script
aborted. See also above, under Known
Issues/Limitations;UNICODE keyboard layouts should now be
automatically recognised (e.g., FR189);UNICODE support now includes ucv32.dll when it is
found (thank you, Doug Bissett);GCCRTDLLFILES, thank you Doug Bissett); burnCD.lst file to
burnCD.fsl to avoid association with PM123;TWODISKBOOT bootAble CD with
COPYCONFIGSYS enabled would fail when using
CDRECORD;OS2\DLL
directory;CDRECORDDVDDAOASPIDRIVER (had
a missing D), in the unlikely case you have manually set this
variable, be sure to correct the spelling of the variable.lt0.msg and lt2.msg
files when adding networking support (thank you, Michael Luek);A big thanks to Doug Bissett for his quick testing, input, and feedback!
This version of bootAble has removed a few configuration files,
please read the notes below to see if you need to adapt the way you
are currently using bootAble. To remove the old files altogether, run
the command bootAble.cleanupInstall.cmd. For the WPI
distribution of bootAble, this is done automatically.
GENMACSOURCE, GENMACDESTINATION,
GENMACDRIVER, thanks Doug Bissett);XWLAN, XWLANXWP,
XWLANSRCZIP, XWLANDESTINATION, thank you
Doug Bissett);FORMATMAINTENANCEJFS, thank you Doug Bissett);EXTRAZIPWPIS,
EXTRAZIPWPIDIRECTORY.n,
EXTRAZIPWPIFILE.n,
EXTRAZIPWPIOPTIONS.n,
EXTRAZIPWPIDESTINATION.n,
EXTRAZIPWPIADDTOPATHS.n);bootAble.myCfg and/or calling scripts to accommodate
the changes.
bootAble.thunderbird,
bootAble.seamonkey);APPSRCZIPWPI_FIREFOX,
APPSRCZIPWPI_MOZILLA,
APPSRCZIPWPI_SEAMONKEY,
APPSRCZIPWPI_THUNDERBIRD);APPSRCZIPWPI_FIREFOXPROFILE,
APPSRCZIPWPI_MOZILLAPROFILE,
APPSRCZIPWPI_SEAMONKEYPROFILE,
APPSRCZIPWPI_THUNDERBIRDPROFILE);MOZILLA_HOME, this setting is shared between all
Mozilla applications;.WPSXWPXCENTERWIDGETS in bootAble.myCfg;OS2EXTRA, WPSXWP,
EMXRT, GCCRT);bootAble.myCfg and/or calling scripts to accommodate
this change as bootAble.extra,
bootAble.xwp, bootAble.xwpRC and,
bootAble.emxrt do not exist anymore and as there is now
an integrated way to enable these packages.bootAble.dfsee to get the source files
from a distribution file (either the OS2/eCS only, WPI, or full
distribution), also removed bootAble.dfseeRC as this
file is no longer required.bootAble.myCfg and/or calling scripts to accommodate
this change.cachef32.exe loaded when enabling FAT32
(FAT32CACHEF);WPSREGEDIT2,
WPSREGEDIT2DESTINATION);DLLBASING=OFF to the
config.sys (DLLBASINGLINE);ENH_SUSPEND and SNAP_APM_REPAINT
(APM_ENH_SUSPEND,
APM_SNAP_APM_REPAINT);bootAble.Urc file instead of being hard coded in the
bootAble script;bootAble.f, configuration file for the F file
manager (contributed by Christian Hennecke);bootAble.dragtext to support drag text
versions 3.8, 3.9, and up(?) (thanks, Doug Bissett);ConfigMaker.cmd to the latest version
(contributed by Doug Bissett);TCPIPDHCPTIMEOUT to 0 by default. This prevents
unnecessary delays at startup, especially if you're using a wireless
LAN card, and seems to be the new default anyway;MEMDISKDASDFALLBACK setting as the
memdisk.i13 file does not exist anymore (thank you Doug
Bissett for pointing this out).SNAP SE support thanks to Klaus Joosz:
VIDEODRIVER=3
in your bootAble.myCfg,snapse491.exe)
on the SEARCHPATH
(or specify SNAPSEDISTRIBUTIONFILE
manually), andMEMDISK boot
method when creating a bootAble CD.Some modifications to the code thanks to Peter Brown:
OS2APSS and
TCPIP to read "The following applications will
be installed", this to clarify that these will only be installed if
you actually specify the setting;OS2APPS is now enforced in those cases where it is
required when you add TCPIP networking support to a
bootAble CD;USBMOUSEFILE);MEMDISKMENU
and MEMDISKEDIT respectively, thank you Steven Levine);
memdisk/loaddll/untar/unbhsio
.zip files all pointed to the wrong location (thanks
you Peter Brown for pointing this out).FORMATMAINTENANCERESPONSE).MSVMADDITIONS).VIDEODRIVER=2).CDRECORDCLEANDIRAFTER did not remove the directory
itself, now fixed;CDRECORDCLEANDIRAFTER incorrectly tried to remove a
CD writen to with RSJ;CDRECORDMKISOFSOPTIONS - thanks, Doug Bissett);mkisofs.exe (thanks, Doug Bissett);bootAble.emxrt: it now ignores
errors from non existing files in emxrt/doc and
emxrt/etc (thanks, Doug Bissett);configMaker.cmd, it now lets
bootAble choose it's own TEMP directory.CDRECORDCLEANDIR to
CDRECORDCLEANDIRBEFORE;CDRECORDCLEANDIRAFTER);WPSEPM,
used to be included with WPSAPPS);dirExists funtion, it now also
correctly recognizes drives/root directories as valid. As a result,
the SEARCHPATH can now contain root directories as
well;CLONECD);cdRecorderDevice function) when only an ISO
will be created (CDRECORDCREATEISOONLY='Yes');cloneCD.cmd will not automatically add asked
questions to the previously used file anymore as this could fail if
the path does not exist on the booted system, and could be
undesirable anyway (WRITEASKEDTOFILE and
WRITEASKEDTOFILENAME);SIOSERIALPORTOPTIONS,
SIO2KSERIALPORTOPTIONS,
SIO2KUARTOPTIONS).cmd.exe returns an error when trying to copy
zero length files. As I normally use 4os2, which doesn't suffer from
this problem, I wasn't able to reproduce (and hence fix) this
previously. CREATECLONECD.PAUSEBEFOREFINALIZING).CDRECORDMEDIA);bootAble.cfg.CDRECORDERDEVICE, defaults to device as specified with
CDRECORDDEVICENR);CDRECORDERDEVICENR or specify
CDRECORDDEVICE manually as not all manufacturers follow
the correct (?) naming convention and your recorder might not be
recognized properly;CDRECORDALLOWCD650PLUS,
CDRECORDALLOWCD700PLUS,
CDRECORDALLOWDVD47PLUS,
CDRECORDALLOWDVD85PLUS);VOLUMELABEL)TESTCFG.SYS. You can use the option
TESTCFGSYS to exclude it (TESTCFGSYS,
default determined from config.sys);CDRECORDMKISOFSADDITIONALISOFSFILES option you can
specify additional files to be added to the bootAble generated
path-list (CDRECORDMKISOFSADDITIONALISOFSFILES, only
works for the cdrecord method!);bootAble.norman);zip.exe and unzip.exe to
bootAble.extra;descript.ion files (see known problems/limitations
section);THREADS setting is now also determined from the
config.sys (thanks, Doug Bissett);bootAble.arcview (thanks, Doug Bissett);varValue and defaultIfNotSet).
variables can now be set to the same value as their name (thank you
Steven Levine).bootAble.myCfg. For instance:
ADDTOSEARCHPATH='P:\UTILS\MemDisk\exe;P:\UTILS\MemDisk\boot;P:\UTILS\MemDisk\bin;P:\UTILS\MemDisk\bin\en;'
(assuming english messages)ADDTOSEARCHPATH='P:\UTILS\MemDisk_loaddll;P:\UTILS\MemDisk_untar;'
(location of untar and loaddll files, optional)bootAble.norman,
bootAble.normanRC);bootAble.arcview).bootAble.arcview: The typo that was corrected in
version 4.2 could have caused some of the archiving utilities (e.g.,
tar.exe) to become bzipped or gzipped. Simply replace
these files with a correct version.bootAble.arcview;bootAble.java131, contributed by Doug Bissett);SEARCHPATH
(bootAble.pmdll, thank you Doug Bissett);bootAble.norman by Doug
Bissett);bootAble.arcview, thanks for the tip Keith
Marjerison);MUGLIB directory did not
get copied when creating a PEER MEMDISK bootAble CD with
NETWORKINGDESTINATION='IMG';bootAble.firefox and
bootAble.mozilla where specifying the image as
destination for the files
(APPDESTINATION_<FIREFOX|MOZILLA>='IMG') did not
work;bootAble.firefox where
APPSRC_MOZILLA was referenced instead of
APPSRC_FIREFOX;APM setting from
bootAble.wps as the default value is already determined
appropriately from the config.sys;RSJCDBOOTEXE and CDBOOTMENUFILE
pointed to the same file, even though CDBOOTMENUFILE is
not even used in this case. This has been corrected.PEER, thank you very much
Hermann Ulrichskoetter for pointing me in the right direction);TCPIPHOSTADDRESS, TCPIPHOSTNAME,
TCPIPGATEWAYADDRESS, TCPIPDOMAINNAME,
TCPIPDNSADDRESS);NETWORKCARDFILE);IBMCOMDESTINATION);IBMCOMDESTINATION='IMG'
or a maintenance partition);EXTRATCPIPFILES variable to
EXTRATCPIPMPTNPROTOCOLFILES for clarity;_ADDBEFORE_<variable> and
_ADDAFTER_<variable>. Previously you
had to use the fairly complex
varValue('<variable>') construction,
now this can be done much simpler in (almost) all cases (just make
sure to include the correct delimiter).WPSFULLWINDOWDRAG);newview.dll to the list of dlls to include
(thank you Doug Bissett);bootAble.firewall);REXXEXIT_CLEANUP);PAUSEBEFOREEXIT, default is not
to pause);EXTRADIRECTORY settings to
ignore file not found errors
(EXTRADIRECTORYIGNORENOTFOUND.n);bootAble.pmview to ignore files not found
in the dragdrop directory (thank you Hanno Sedlmayr for
pointing this out);bootAble.ba2k;bootAble.ba2kws
and bootAble.ba2kwsRC if you still have
them.bootAble.ba2k to now also copy the
registration info for version 4 (only works on a maintenance
partition or a MEMDISK bootAble CD, thank you Doug
Bissett);WPSWCAUTOSTART, WPSWCSTARTUP);EXTRADIRECTORYDESTINATION.n was set to
'IMG';/etc directory would
not always end-up pointing to the correct location (thank you
Hermann Ulrichskoetter).bootAble.unimaint and
bootAble.spf;bootAble.ba2wks; additional directories
copied and it now automatically adds the required (IDE) tape drive
drivers (thanks Mario Guzman);tmscsiw.add to the list of valid SCSI
drivers;TCPIP431);default.bmp not part of standard eCS
1.2 distribution anymore and is made optional (thanks Chris
Brendes);pmvdrop.dll file is not part of the later
PMView versions and is made optional (thanks Doug Bissett);bootAble.mozilla (you would receive a
file not found error if you had already specified
EXTRADLLFILES);bootAble.firefox, the gcc and
libc libraries are now also placed in the default
directory;bootAble.cfg the
file destinations are set ("DESTINATION configuration
options");xcopy
command;EXTRACONFIGSYS).NO, no further networking questions are asked
(NETWORKING);TCPIP, NETBIOS, and
NETBIOSTCPIP are now determined automatically based on
contents of the config.sys file;pmwsock.dll is now included by default when TCP/IP
support is enabled;bootAble.injoy; it now
supports both v2.3 and v3 (bootAble.injoy)bootAble.injoy3 if
you still have it.bootAble.norman; the automatic
tasks are not included anymore (bootAble.norman);HPFSAUTOCHECK) in combination with a memdisk
boot;WPSWCKILLFEATURE).AUTOSTART feature
(WPSWCAUTOSTART, uses the AUTOSTART
feature by default);WPSWCKILLFEATURE, enabled by default);bootAble.injoy3 for adding injoy 3.0 support,
contibuted by Doug Bisset;bootAble.usbres to acommodate for eCS 1.2
changed location of files (thanks, Doug Bisset);bootAble.mozilla to place gcc and libc
libraries into the OS2\DLL directory.OBJECTREXX);WRITEASKEDTOFILEALREADYEXISTS);IBMCDROM.DMD instead of OS2CDROM.DMD,
thank you Doug Bissett);UK166 keyboard layout, thank you Mark Ellen);lsimpt.add to list of recognised scsi drivers
(thank you Mark Ellen);bootAble.mozilla to cater for versions
using libc05.dll instead of libc04.dll,
enabling later versions of mozilla (e.g., 1.7);libuni.dll now gets added to non-wps systems als
well when installing unicode support (required for FAT32 for
instance);bootAble.cmd and added short
descriptive comments for all (internal) functions.bootAble.myCfg);SCSI=-1 (the default);bootAble.dragtext for adding
dragtext v3.8 support;bootAble.injoy for adding injoy support;bootAble.doip for adding
DOIP support;bootAble.mozilla, thank you
Rich Walsh for providing the essential detail);bootAble.firefox for adding
firefox;VIRTUALDRIVE setting
(should point to a 2.88MB FAT drive);SYSDLLS
LOADONETIME and LOADPERPROCESS
(SYSDLLS_LOADONETIME,
SYSDLLS_LOADPERPROCESS, see
bootAble.dragtext for an example);EXTRACREATEFILES), you
can now create binary ini files as well (EXTRAINIFILES
settings), see bootAble.dragtext for an example;APPROOT_<app> renamed to
APPSRC_<app> in application
configuration files;defaultIfNotSet function to enable
asking the user for the value if an empty or no default value was
provided. This is used for example in the
bootAble.4os2, bootAble.acrobat, and
bootAble.dfsee configuration files to ask the user for
the location of the executables if they couldn't be found on the
default locations;\PROGRAMS
directory on the destination media instead of \OS2\APPS
(e.g., acrobat reader now goes to \PROGRAMS\ACROBAT by
default instead of \OS2\APPS\ACROBAT). This default
destanation root can be altered by setting
APPDEST_ROOTDEFAULT (globally initialised to
\PROGRAMS);EXTRACONFIGSYS setting now empty by default (i.e.,
not changing the display to 80x50 anymore);ADDTOSEARCHPATH to simply add entries
to the (beginning of) SEARCHPATH;SEARCHPATH is now verified; illegal and double
entries are removed;WPSHELPDESTINATION,
WPSFONTSDESTINATION);TCPIPLAN, contributed by Rich Walsh);TCPIPLEAN, contributed by Rich Walsh);TCPIPKEE, contributed by Rich Walsh);EXTRATCPIPFILES, contributed by Rich Walsh);WPSSHELLFONTSIZE);WPSTTFSUPPORT and
WPSUNIFONTSUPPORT);WPSEXTRAFONTFILES and
WPSEXTRAPFMFONTFILES);PSFONTS are now copied to the
PSFONTS directory instead of OS2\DLL. The
PFM files are now included as well;bootAble.font configuration file from
distribution;UNICP to UNICODEPAGE and this
should now only be the codepage number;UNIEXTRACODEPAGES);CDRECORDCREATEISOONLY);-quiet to mkisofs and -silent -n
to cdrecord command line options by default to suppress (most of)
their normal output;CREATECLONECDDRIVE to
CREATECLONECDMAINTENANCEDRIVE for clarity;CDRECORDEXEOPTIONS,
CDRECORDDEVICENR);locale.dll when WPS support is enabled
(thanks, Rich Walsh);config.sys lines now always stripped, this
solves the rare problem where the environment did not contain all
settings (thanks, Rich Walsh);TCPIPDHCP and
TCPIPDHCPUPDATEHOST;bootAble.norman,
bootAble.ba2kws);%% constructs was
not always done correctly;apm.sys on some
systems;bootAble tried to create a
tar-file of a non-existing directory when setting a destination to
'IMG' without adding the option (e.g.,
REXXDESTINATION='IMG' with REXX='NO' and
all the other destinations set to 'CD');LIBPATH, PATH, and
DPATH settings; removed duplicate entries of
S:\OS2[\dll];EXTRACREATEFILES got
created.EARLYMEMINIT);WPSDESTINATION,
WPSAPPSDESTINATION);EARLYMEMINIT='YES' (done
automatically).lvmrefresh.cmd and
lvmrefresh.ico to lvmrfrsh.* to comply to
8.3 naming convention;bootAble.ba2kws and
bootAble.ba2kwsRC);bootAble.ttf to bootAble.font
to prevent interpretation of the file as a true type font by the
OS/2/eCS GUI;VERBOSE is now 65 by default (i.e., progress
messages and error output of external commands);AUTOBURNCD, RSJATTACHCD,
ERASECD, CDRECORDERASEOPTION);CDROMDRIVE and WRITERDRIVE (see
bootAble.cfg for the new defaults);EXTRACONFIGSYS,
STARTUPCMD and EXTRACREATEFILECONTENT.n
are parsed for $$ and %% constructs before
they are written to file. This means that variables/functions are
determined at the moment their final value is known (i.e., after
processing all configuration files), see
bootAble.norman for example usage;USBCDROM and
USBSTORAGE;daniatap.flt and
daniatapi.flt files on the system, bootAble could fail
to pick up the options);cdloader.bin in
burnCD.cmd;burnCD.cmd now burns the CD without having to
create an iso image file first;mkisofs and
cdrecord commands;bootAble.wps so that it does not override
previous settings for display resolution etc.;SWAPPATH line is not aded to the
config.sys file anymore when swapping is not enabled
(e.g., on a boot CD using the floppy emulation boot method);bootAble.norman (sorry
Doug…);\OS2 directory on the MEMDISK/RAMDISK
now only gets created when necessary;KEYB setting
(UNIKEYB);GR)
keyboard layout, now de.kbl file is used (thank you
Veit Kannegieser);ADDITIONALCFG
to EXTRACONFIGSYS for consistency, check your own
configuration files for the use of ADDITIONALCFG
settings and change these to EXTRACONFIGSYS;config.sys file, meaning your
bootAble.myCfg can now almost be empty except where
your bootAble CD (or maintenance partition) should differ from the
running system, or where you need to specify your SCSI card(s) (see
bootAble.cfg and bootAble.myCfg for
details);OS2APPSDESTINATION, REXXDESTINATION,
NETWORKINGDESTINATION,
EXTRAFILESDESTINATION,
EXTRADLLFILESDESTINATION,
EXTRADEVICEDESTINATION,
EXTRADIRECTORYDESTINATION.x,
EXTRACREATEFILEDESTINATION.x);CREATECLONDECD and
CREATECLONECDDRIVE, CREATECLONECDVERBOSE,
CREATECLONECDRAMDISK,
CREATECLONECDREMOVEROFLAG,
CREATECLONECDDIRECTORY);CDRECORDBURNCMD
and other options, see section Using cdrecord+mkisofs
instead of RSJ of this document for more info);MEMDISKDRIVE);MEMDISKSIZE string with a + sign.The default is now to
leave approximately 2MB of free space (5MB in case of a
WPS system without RAMDISK);PSFONTS directory on the boot drive to the
SEARCHPATH by default;tar files), the freed-up space is taken into
account when determining the MEMDISKSIZE;bootAble.norman, the log file
is now automatically erased after viewing to save space;bootAble.dfsee to add
dfsee to your maintenance partition/bootAble CD;FORMATMAINTENANCE not set, the user is now asked to
format the partition;TCPIPDHCPTIMEOUT);EXTRADIRECTORYADDTOPATHS setting,
directories are now only added once to the specified path(s);$$@<rexx-code>$$, see
bootAble.pmdll and bootAblefor.usbres for
examples);destinationDrive, see bootAble.pmdll and
bootAblefor.usbres for examples);config.sys information retrieval
functions (configSysContains,
configSysCount, configSysOptions);REMOVEROFLAG);savedskf.exe command does not need to be in the
path anymore, you can now specify its location via the
SAVEDSKFEXE setting;bootAble.emxrt and
bootAble.acrobat, by default they should now be able to
correctly find the application root in almost all cases;bootAble.4os2 (4os2.ini got
created in the wrong directory);unicode.sys before all IFS
drivers (where it should be…).bootAble.norman, thank you Doug
Bissett! (bootAble.norman and
bootAble.normanRC);keyboard.dcp,
added note on smaller viotbl.dcp;sCopyFile function
anymore, saves a little processing time.bootAble.pmdll and bootAble.usbres);bootAble.ttf);EXTRAxxxxINIRCFILEUPDATE.x to
'YES'). Furthermore. the EXTRAUSERINI and
EXTRASYSINI settings are processed last and can be used
to override any entry (see bootAble.myCfg for
examples);"<application>"
"<key>" <value> triplet,
see bootAble.Urc etc. for details);OS2SCSI.DMD
driver (SCSIDMD, enabled by default if you're adding
SCSI support);config.sys of the boot image to the root of the CD
(COPYCONFIGSYS, disabled by default);config.sys file (getFromConfigSys);config.sys file to use in getFromConfigSys, globally
initialised to the config.sys in the root of your boot
drive (CONFIGSYSFILE);RESERVEDRIVELETTER,
CDROMDRIVE, VIRTUALDRIVE,
SHELLPROMPT, COUNTRY,
CODEPAGE, KEYBOARD, UNICODE,
UNILANG, UNICP, LVM);SEARCHPATH variable is now globally initialised
to the value of os2\boot on the boot drive,
LIBPATH, PATH, DPATH,
HELP, and BOOKSHELF, greatly reducing the
need for specifying full file paths in the configuration files (just
make sure the correct files are first on the
SEARCHPATH!);SMALLKEYBOARDDCP option.If you now want
to use a different keyboard.dcp (or
viotbl.dcp for that matter) file, simply make sure it
is located somewhere on the SEARCHPATH before the
original;USBxxx);%%!<optionname>%%)\OS2\APPS
instead of root directory (bootAble.acrobat,
etc.);WPS setting (icon and inf file always copied),
furthermore allowed for a destination directory to be set
(bootAble.4os2);/v command-line argument to
specify the value of VERBOSE from the command-line
(usage: bootAble [/v <verbose>] [<config
file>…]);pmvddrop support
(bootAble.pmview);RESERVEDRIVELETTER option is now allowed to be
empty;MEMDISK enabled boot;cdrecord or testing;newview.exe is required);bootAble.PMVrc and
bootAble.Xrc to bootAble.pmviewRC and
bootAble.xwpRC;bootAble.pmview and bootAble.PMVrc);bootAble.myCfg without having to change the application
configuration file itself (see the files
bootAble.myCfg, bootAble.4os2,
bootAble.acrobat, etc., for examples);defaultIfNotSet to set a variable to
a default value if not already set;getFromIni to return the text
portion of an ini entry (stripping off the trailing 0
delimiter);VERBOSE);VERBOSE setting, it is now
a binary mask so you have more control over the output;OSBOOTDRIVE with
sysBootDrive();EXTRADEVICE,
EXTRABASEDEV, etc. settings, no need to default these
anymore in your own configuration files;PROTECTONLY setting (default is
'YES');DANIDASD), Note:
only to be used on non-lvm systems!;bootAble.pmview);osboot.img) in
the cdrecord section of this document.bootAble.xwp and
bootAble.Xrc files).bootAble.xwp_DE and bootAble.xwp_ES for
details);0x);EXTRAUSERINIRCFILES and
EXTRASYSINIRCFILES);AUTOSTART
directive;EXIT statement to created
startup.cmd file (STARTUPCMDEXIT, on by
default);TCPIPDHCPUPDATEHOST, off by default);bootAble.4os2);DOS.SYS now added (actually a
required file).bootable.norman configuration
file by Doug Bissett.ntfschk.exe
and changed file locations);ibmhmgr.dll and
newview.inf added if found);bootable.norman configuration file made by
Doug Bissett;EXTRADIRECTORIES, EXTRAFILES, etc.)
now show the use of varValue in
bootAble.cfg to ease adaptation in home made
configuration files;FORMATMAINTENANCE);SIOSERIALPORT, SIO2KSERIALPORT, disabled
by default);EXTRACREATEFILES,
EXTRACREATEFILEDIRECTORY.n,
EXTRACREATEFILENAME.n,
EXTRACREATEFILECONTENT.n), see
bootAble.4os2 for an example;NTFS, disabled by
default);bootAble.4os2);fdisk.exe into fdisk.com
when creating a non LVM system;print01.sys) and aspi
driver (os2aspi.dmd) are basedevs, not
devices;actions.lst is no longer a required
file when adding WPS applications;BOOTFLTFILE was included
even when creating a maintenance partition. startup.cmd file
(STARTUPCMD);bootAble.norman, contributed by Doug
Bissett);*.*” into
“*” (which is more correct);EXTRADEVICE settings
(were incorrectly referring to basedevs).EXTRADIRECTORYRECURSE.n), see
bootAble.acrobat for an example;NETBIOS and NETBIOSTCPIP, disabled by
default);WRITERDRIVE) prior to adding bootable files and
directories (CDRECORDCLEANDIR, disabled by
default);IBMIDECD.FLT anymore (LATESTATAPI,
disabled by default);ARP.EXE by default,INETWAIT.EXE to the TCP/IP
initialisation,AFLEAN.SYS and SOCKETS.SYS
instead of AFINETK.SYS and
SOCKETSK.SYS,AFOS2.SYS has been removed (was not required for
basic TCP/IP),RAMDISK support on a
bootAble CD),TCPIP431, default).EXTRADEVICE,
EXTRADEVICEFILE.n,EXTRADEVICEOPTIONS.n).EXTRADIRECTORY.n), you can now also specify
the BOOKSHELF as path
(EXTRADIRECTORYADDTOPATH.n);;” as well;bootAble.emxrt, contributed by Christoph Brendes)$$”
as variable and “%%” as option delimeters, furthermore
all configuration variables and options can now be used;TCPIPDHCP);,1” was added to the directory name.SEARCHPATH)
where files will be searched for in addition to the location
specified (by default this is set to the DPATH). This
allows for adding components to a bootable CD/maintenance partition
which have not (yet) been installed on your system (or reside in a
completely different location from the deafult); just add the files
to a directory on the specified path!;HPFS386);PPZIP);lxlite when copying files,
freeing extra space! (LXLITE);keyboard.dcp file
from the Warp 4 boot disks, saving yet again quite some space!
(SMALLKEYBOARDDCP);keyboard.dcp most likely
only supports a very limited set of keyboard layouts…makeini command (EXTRAUSERINI,
EXTRASYSINI);SHELLPROMPT);BOOTIMAGENAME.1 and
BOOTIMAGENAME.2);OSBOOT.IMG (now default).THREADS, now 1024 by default),
FAT cache options (advanced, FATCACHEOPTIONS, now 1MB
by default), swapping parameters (advanced, MEMMAN and
SWAPPATH);*DLLS option variables to
*DLLFILES for consistency;EXTRADIRECTORY.n,
EXTRADIRECTORYFILES.n,
EXTRADIRECTORYADDTOPATHS.n);rxqueue.exe is now added by default when REXX
support is enabled;wpstkmri.dll is now an optional file as well (only
for scroll mouse?);rxsock.infor the file
rxsocket.inf is added (seems the file got renamed with
later Warp installations);maxtransmits directive has been removed from
the protocol.ini file (network support), it is not
supported on all network cards (and not required either);bootAble.testCD for
testing the creation of a bootAble CD. Instead of writing the
results to a CD-R(W), the results are written to a temp
directory;bootAble.acrobat
for adding acrobat reader to your system, also shows the use of the
new EXTRADIRECTORY and EXTRA*INI
configuration variables.CDBOOTMENU);cdboot command is not located on the
PATH!bootAble.cfg!);UNICODELANGDIR not required anymore (some
installations did not even have one!);searchPath to be used in configuration files instead of
the standard sysSearchPath.TCPIP).REXX);bos2rexx.exe (from the BootOS2
package) located somewhere on your DPATH.NON512DASD);REMOVABLESCSI);fdisk.exe is now included if LVM support is
disabled;harderr.exe to support error handling,
autofail=yes is now specified as well;bootAble.extra sample configuration file for
adding some extra applications;label.com and tedit.hlp by
default;chkdsk.sys is now included;EXTRAHELPFILES);ibmidecd.flt is now added as well);cachef32.exe and f32stat.exe
when FAT32 support is enabled;HPFSAUTOCHECK,
JFSAUTOCHECK);pstat.exe is now only added with WPS support
(doesn't work when not running WPS). bootAble (pronounce boot able) as
bootIT happened to be a trademark of TeraByte Unlimited;cmd.exe (it worked
under 4OS/2);sysBootDrive by
default (somehow this function is missing from the rexx
documentation…);FAT
to FAT32.bootIT as it is now able to
create a maintenance partition as well;WPS);APM);UDF);bootIT.cfg;SCSIBEFOREIDE);SCSI option has been
changed into a number to support this!;DANIIDE,
DANIATAPI);daniatapi.flt and
daniatap.flt versions of the DANI ATAPI driver.JJSCDROM)EXTRABASEDEV);LPTn instead of
$USBPRT;PROTSHELL and OS2_SHELL
independently (advanced options); VERBOSE, you can now specify the message
level;SHELLFILE variable not being
respected;IDECD to ATAPI (more
correct);HDDFALLBACK to
DASDFALLBACK (more correct); IFS and
BASEDEV lines (advanced options);"Y" or
"yes" works now);VERBOSE option, with this set to
"YES" all command output is shown; CONFIG.SYS is now created automatically by the
script and respects set options;daniboot.flt instead of
cdboot.flt.