               FreeDOS Alpha 5 release (August 10th, 1996)

                          INSTALLATION NOTES

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                               CONTENTS

                           1. INTRODUCTION
                           2. INSTALLATION
                        3. SYSTEM REQUIRMENTS
                  4. FREEDOS SUPPORTED SUPPLEMENTS
                        5. NOTES TO NEW USERS
                      6. NOTES TO ADVANCED USERS

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                          1. INTRODUCTION
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    You have in your possetion, the product of the combined work of
over 50 programmers and software developers from around the world, as
well as the end result of literally thousands of hours of work designing,
developing, coding, and testing of this software.  It is now released
to you free of charge, in the hope that it will, in some way assist you,
no matter where your journeys will take you.  With that said, on behalf
of everyone who has contributed to the FreeDOS project, I would like
to welcome you to the FreeDOS Alpha-5 release.

    Although FreeDOS is still deing developed as Alpha software, we
are already working hard to make FreeDOS as user-freindly, and
document rich operating system as possible.  Since FreeDOS is still
in alpha development, you should not expect this software to be bug
free.  Instead, you will probably find a number of bugs and glitches
as you work with the software, which brings us to the following,
neccisary leagle disclaimer for all of the lawyers out there;

    FREEDOS IS RELEASED "AS-IS" AND IS STILL UNDER ALPHA DEVELOPMENT.
USER ACCEPTS AND UNDERSTANDS THIS, AS WELL AS UNDERSTANDING AND ACCEPTING
THE FACT THAT THERE IS A STRONG PROBABILITY THAT BUGS, GLITCHES, AND
OTHER UNDESIRABLE EFFECTS MAY BE ENCOUNTERED.  THE FREEDOS DEVELOPMENT
COORDINATORS, NOR ANY DEVELOPER OR OTHER INDIVIDUAL ASSOCIATED WITH THE
FREEDOS PROJECT TAKES ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSIBILITY IN ANY WAY FOR ANY
DIRECT OR INDIRECT DAMAGES WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT OCCURE AS A RESULT OF
THE DIRECT OR INDIRECT USE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
    FURTHER, USER ALSO AGREES AND ACCEPTS THAT FREEDOS IS RELEASED AS
FREE SOFTWARE UNDER THE LICENSING TERMS DESCRIBED IN THE GNU GENERAL
PUBLIC LICENSE (GPL).  USER AFFIRMS THAT HE/SHE HAS EITHER PREVIOUSLY
READ OR WILL READ, AND HAS OR WILL ACCEPT THOSE LICENSING TERMS BEFORE
THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE.  IF USER DOES NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS, USER
WILL IMMEDIATELY STOP USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, AND DELETE ALL FILES OFF
USERS HARD DRIVE PARTAINING TO THEM.

    A complete copy of the Free Software Foundation's GNU GPL license,
as well as additional information about alpha testing, and FreeDOS in
general can be found in the \DOC directory after FreeDOS is installed.


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                          2. INSTALLATION
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    Unlike previous versions of FreeDOS, the Alpha-5 release has begun to
add a degree of uniformality to all of the various FreeDOS components.
Installing FreeDOS is as simple as following the 4 easy steps listed below;

    1.  Unzip each FreeDOS alpha 5 archive file that you wish to install
    into a temperary directory.  Below is a list of the FreeDOS archive
    files, and what they contain :
        - FDA5_A.ZIP - Basic setup and installation of free-dos, the
                       command shell, the kernel, and neccisary system
                       files to run FreeDOS in a stand-alone configuration.
        - FDA5_B.ZIP - Contains all of the FreeDOS utilities that are not
                       included with the base installation, as well as
                       all the documentation for those utilities.
        - FDA5_C.ZIP - Contains all of the source code, and support library
                       files needed to build and compile all FreeDOS
                       utilities

*************************************************************************

*NOTE* - The batch files are not included with this version of Free-DOS
Alpha 5 release, the ZIP's already have all the needed directory
structures, and no further installation is required

***************************************************************************

    2. Run the FreeDOS install batch file which is located in each FreeDOS
    distribution archive.  The install batch file's name is based on what
    is being installed :
        - FDINST_B.BAT - This is in the A archive.  B is for Basic file
                         Installation.  It will also set up your DOC
                         directory, which will contain lots of useful
                         information about FreeDOS, including the
                         license, FAQ, project status, and more.
        - FDINST_U.BAT - This is in the B archive.  U is for Utilities
                         and Document installation.
        - FDINST_S.BAT - This is in the C archive.  S is for Source code
                         installation.

    3. Make A system disk.  Especially if you plan to work with the
    DOS-C Kernel, it is always best to work with it from a floppy disk.
    Therefore, one of the first things you will wish to do is make a
    system disk.  If you run the FDINST_B.BAT, it will automatically
    be run you.  To manually make a system disk, you will need to.
        - Place a formatted, blank disk into the floppy drive.
        - type SYS A: from the FreeDOS command prompt

    4. Delete the files in your temperary directory.

    Here are some additional notes to keep in mind when installation
FreeDOS :
      * You can unzip any combination of distribution archives into
        a single directory, since they all have unequie filenames.


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                       3. SYSTEM REQUIRMENTS
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    FreeDOS has been designed to work in vertually any hardware
environment inwhich an IBM based x86 processor is present.  However,
there are a few very basic requirments your system must meet :
        - Be an 8088 processor or higher
        - have 640k total memory or more
        - have atleast a 360k floppy drive
        - a hard drive is not required, but recogmended for optimum use


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                   4. FREEDOS SUPPORTED SUPPLEMENTS
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    FreeDOS supported supplements are additional software archives that
FreeDOS has been tested to work optimumly with, but for one reason or
another, they have not been included with the actual FreeDOS
distribution archive.  Among other FreeDOS supported supplements, there
is a free C compiler (MICRO-C), that alot of FreeDOS source code has
been set up to directly support, as well as supplemental FreeDOS
development libraries and such.  More information about currently
avalible supported supplements are avalible in the DOC's menu once
FreeDOS is installed.


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                          5. NOTE TO NEW USERS
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    If your new to FreeDOS, may we suggest an opening course of action
to get you used to FreeDOS as quickly as possible?  Please note, you are
not required to follow this, but is has been designed to help out the
most.
      1. - Start out one step at a time - Begin by only installing the
    first archive file (FDA5_A.ZIP).  After it is installed, spend some
    time working with the command shell, as well as reading all of the
    docs that are in the doc directory.  You may especially be
    interested in the INTRO.DOC file.
      2. - Once you have become more familar with FreeDOS, then you
    should move on to the 2nd file (FDA5_B.ZIP), which contains the
    rest of the FreeDOS utilties, as well as supporting documentation
    for all of them.  Work with these over the course of several days
    to get a better 'feel' for them.
      3. - Save the source for later (FDA5_C.ZIP), becouse the source
    is made avalible, it does not mean that you have to get confused
    with FreeDOS.  As a beginner, you may wish to think about not even
    installing the source code, atleast until you are ready to start
    programming.

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                        6. NOTE TO ADVANCED USERS
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    The seasoned user has not been forgotten.  Advanced users may find
it useful to view the INDEX.DOC file, which contains a very good
resource of all of the files and compoents that are contained in
FreeDOS, as well as there purpose.


FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT ANY ASPECT OF FREEDOS, PLEASE REFER
TO THE DOCUMENTS INCLUDED IN THE \DOC DIRECTORY, ESPECIALLY THE
INTRO.DOC FILE.

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                         END OF FILE - README.1ST
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